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Spot on dude. Every word! These fuzzy headed ivory tower types, Christian propagandists and popular writers in America always dreaming up some perfect golden past of the United States where every one got along and believed in Jesus and understood each others' views. It's pure fantasy. No such period ever existed in this nation's history. This has always been a backwards, uncivilized, redneck, partisan, sectarian, violent nation, and an ungrateful one to boot toward those who do their best to bring the good news of civilization. For most of our history, the process put in place by the founders to prevent one of the bubble headed morons from rising to the highest offices in the land worked pretty well most of the time, and when it didn't there was always Congress to dilute the impact. What they didn't count on was one of them coming from their own patrician class at the same time the jesus freaks (who have always been with us) traded in their white sheets for suits, learned how to talk, got a university degree from some backwater, holy hell-fire, swamp water religious school and then got a bunch of themselves elected to Congress.
The culture of the United States has always been bi-polar and sczhoid. The uses Americans make of the internet merely amplify that. If Mr. Sustein's thesis holds water then the same thing ought to be happening in other countries. The world is not fragmenting because of the internet. The world is fragmenting because of the ever increasing world population, the downward spiral of natural resources, the ever present and increasing competition and squabble over energy sources and the rise of religious fundamentalism of every stripe throughout the world.
