16th Street Forum

There's a line in Primo Levi's Moments of Reprieve: A Memoir of Auschwitz that I came across. Reflecting on Italy, he says:

It often happens these days that you hear people say they’re ashamed of being Italian. In fact we have good reasons to be ashamed: first and foremost, of not having been able to produce a political class that represents us and, on the contrary, tolerating for thirty years one that does not.

Now there's a fine statement of the American situation as well!