More on “Obsession” [Updated]

Chase: Iraq refugees desperate for help. What if tomorrow’s headlines screamed out the news that the Santa Ana winds have blown so fiercely that every single American in California and Oregon was forced to flee his or her home and that the environmental damage unleashed was so severe that they could not return — ever.

The Deepest Dangers Facing the United States – Newsweek. America’s social harmony has depended at least to some degree on economic growth. It is easier to get along when everyone, more or less, is getting ahead. But when the pie is shrinking, social groups are more likely to turn on each other. America has always been a remarkably classless society—obsessed by status and money, perhaps, but fluid enough so there was never an identifiable social class that was able to keep the rest out.