(Community Matters) In Vanity Fair: The private papers of the late George F. Kennan, Cold War architect and diplomat extraordinaire
Almost no one alive today has a mature, firsthand memory of a country that used to be very different-that was not a superpower; that did not shroud the workings of its government in secrecy; that did not use ends-justify-the-means logic to erode rights and liberties; that did not undertake protracted wars on the president’s say-so; that had not forgotten how to invest in urgent needs at home; that did not trumpet its greatness even as its shortcomings became more obvious. An American today who is 25 or 50 or even 75-such a person has lived entirely in the America we have become.
Community Matters 
Thanks for posting this. The whole article is worth reading, and Kennan’s pessimism and melancholy over what the U.S. has become–a grotesque distortion of its pre-superpower self–resonate powerfully with my own feelings.