Are We Living in Apocalyptic Economic and Foreign Policy Times? And Where There Are HAPPY FACES Is This Disjuncture Part of the Horror?

David Sirota of Salon.com thinks so:

It’s not just the economic turbulence or the corruption that evokes this new darkness — both have been around for a while. It’s the “I feel fine” obliviousness of R.E.M.’s cataclysmic ballad — the aggressively defiant, adamantly proud ignorance that marks history’s end times.