[blam]

The FBI reports that a record number of Americans (1.5 Million) applied to buy guns in December.

[stars & stripes forever]

For a while, large numbers of Americans still believed that the right politician would bring them "hope" and "change", but now crushing despair is giving way to absolute desperation for millions of people.

Jesus doesn't extinguish hope. He keeps His promises. He says, "If My People Who are called by My name will humble themselves and pray and seek My face and change their wicked ways, then will I hear from heaven and will forgive them and heal their land." 2 Chronicles 7:14

[TrueKnightGalahad]

There's nothing in this article that wasn't foreshadowed in Atlas Shrugged. O'Dumbo and his thugs may be using AS as an instruction manual for destroying our country.

[roadcat]

Even in some of our most "prosperous cities" there are areas that closely resemble third world conditions. For example, in San Francisco there is an area known as "Hunter's Point" that is a complete and utter nightmare.

The author is exaggerating somewhat. Hunters Point (a part of the Bayview District) may be the worst neighborhood in SF, but neighborhoods in Philadelphia and elsewhere back east make Hunters Point look like Disneyland in comparison. It's not that bad here. I've ridden patrol cars with SFPD, and watched punks brazenly deal drugs and smile at us while we sat parked nearby. But the homes are not that messed up. I didn't know what bad was until I got lost in the wrong neighborhood in Philadelphia, mile after mile of rotted burned blocks. Scared to death until I found my way out of there.

[Jeff Chandler]

bus... one of my drivers was beat up by some teenagers down in the middle of Rosa Parks

Ironic.

[monocle]

How many of the worst cities are characterized by being run by corrupt Democrat machines?

[Iron Munro]

The destruction of America’s cities is the legacy of President LBJ and all of the democrats and RINO appeasers who have followed in his footsteps.

[OldNewYork]

Hubris. You can see this outside America too, where municipalities convinced themselves it was a sign of their greatness and largesse to support the most of those least likely to support themselves, never mind even if they hated those who kept them fed. Margaret Thatcher said something about the morality and the economic sense involved in this, as did others.

[mitch5501]

"...but now crushing despair is giving way to absolute desperation for millions of people. Desperate people do desperate things, and as our major cities continue to decay they are going to become very dangerous places to be."

No doubt many Jihadis around the world will be salivating at a sentence like that.

Just sayin'

[trebb]

Mr. Imawantin jihad in Iran is trying to bring about the conditions for the 12th Imam. Democrats are also trying to hasten the return of Him they fear and hate by accellerating the cesspool effect. It must/will get very bad before He returns and under their control, it will be sooner rather than later. As a Christian, it causes me conflict - follow Jesus' edict and "resist not evil" which will allow Satan to speed up the day of reckoning, or try to oppose evil and possibly draw it out.

Either way, His Justice will be done and Evil will be defeated by Him (not by us).

[ronnie raygun]

Look at who is running the cities for the past 40 years and you will find your answer and you will not be surprised. In 08 the cancer came to Washington and 1600 pennsylvania avenue

[Diogenesis]

[Venturer]

I kind of scanned this, but I didn’t find anywhere in this article where the festering sores in these cities were blamed on those who moved in after the original owners were forced out.

It’s pretty easy to read between the lines though.

[danielmryan]

Abernathy and I cut through the complex, tromping over an expanse of dirt and concrete toward the northeast end of the development, where a row of apartments looked down from a grassy hill. We paused next to a vacant, boarded-over unit to take in the scene: A stream of ****, piss, tampons, and toilet paper spewed from a dark hole in the sidewalk, poured down the hill, and formed a sort of **** lagoon next to the street. Weeds, about six inches tall, were growing in the little lagoon.

Raw ****, obviously, is not cool. Beyond the fact that it smells and looks nasty, fecal matter provides a haven for dangerous bacteria, most notably E. coli, a virulent pathogen that can sicken and even kill humans, especially infants. In the so-called developing world, according to the World Health Organization, water tainted by feces is a major killer, a prime cause of severe diarrhea, which takes the lives of an estimated 1.8 million people annually.

Jeez. When you consider that the largest gains in life expectancy came from sanitation, that's pretty scary.

[Straight Vermonter]

Beyond the fact that it smells and looks nasty, fecal matter provides a haven for dangerous bacteria, most notably E. coli

People won't be worrying about e. coli when there are cholera and typhoid outbreaks.

[bert]

-----our formerly great cities are turning into open, festering sores.-----

The tense is wrong

our formerly great cities have turned into open, festering sores.

The cities as they formerly existed are obsolete and out of style.

Change happens.

[traditional1]

The Plantation is the mecca that keeps "Progressives" in power, and their dupes (basically, black inner city parasites) vote (D) every Election to keep whitey's money comin'.

Politically-incorrect as it is to say it, that's the FACT.

NO ONE in the State-Run-Media can admit, recognize, or report on what cesspools Democrat-infested inner-cities are, and how FRAUD is rampant and used to offset the votes of those who actually PAY taxes, but live outside the cities. Your vote is neutered many times by illegal votes of parasites (including non-Citizens) and 2012 may very well see The Messiah re-elected, as the voterbase of the Democrats/Socialists/Progressives is made up of the dregs of society, most of whom pay NO TAXES but vote to get their handouts.

[traditional1]

The Plantation is the mecca that keeps "Progressives" in power, and their dupes (basically, black inner city parasites) vote (D) every Election to keep whitey's money comin'.

Politically-incorrect as it is to say it, that's the FACT.

NO ONE in the State-Run-Media can admit, recognize, or report on what cesspools Democrat-infested inner-cities are, and how FRAUD is rampant and used to offset the votes of those who actually PAY taxes, but live outside the cities. Your vote is neutered many times by illegal votes of parasites (including non-Citizens) and 2012 may very well see The Messiah re-elected, as the voterbase of the Democrats/Socialists/Progressives is made up of the dregs of society, most of whom pay NO TAXES but vote to get their handouts.

[Springman]

Bump for later.

[aruanan]

Formerly Great Cities All Over America Are Turning Into Open, Festering Sores

Geez, they were always festering sores, but just with a lot more jobs and decent people. Pittsburgh used to be, as recently as 1965, a giant cloud of dark smoke. New York City, until Giuliani turned Times Square and surrounding areas into Disney New York, was pretty seedy (and over that same time vast tracts of Brooklyn between Prospect Park down to the waterfront that were not safe to very unsafe got re-gentrified into something pretty nice). Chicago, until Obama dug us into what appears to be a permanent recession, was reclaiming a lot of the property south of the city. South of the loop has had great growth extending toward the south and Hyde Park/Kenwood on the south side have had renewal (and not the high rise crime slum type) spreading both north and south.

This area seems much less dangerous than when I came in 1994 (watch me get robbed and killed today, ha ha) and, according to one Freeper, who was here in the 1970s when students had to cross the Midway in groups and carrying baseball bats for protection, it had improved a lot since then.

[aruanan]

Formerly Great Cities All Over America Are Turning Into Open, Festering Sores

When I lived in NYC in the mid 1970s, there were huge numbers of very beautiful old buildings, brownstones, apartment buildings, along major thoroughfares standing abandoned. This was traveling between the Ridgewood neighborhood near Bushwick through which ran what used to be called the LL line, past the big cemeteries near Cypress Hills, and along the street that went between Bedford-Stuyvesant and Crown Heights until you got over by the Brooklyn Zoo and the Brooklyn Public Library near Prospect Park, where things got nicer. I read that the reason was rent-control. The city had made it too expensive for landlords to keep up their buildings and, so, they ended up abandoning them.