Allan Bloom sees the problem in the USA as the result of a contradiction in Enlightenment though

 Allan Bloom in The Closing of the American Mind points to the source of the problem in universities. and hints to a solution. Bible, the Great Books [that is the classics of ancient Greece and Rome] and Kant. [Not that he says as much openly, but you can see these three bits of advice if you read between the lines]

I would like to add that even though I agree with Allan Bloom, I have a slightly different set of great books i.e., Chiduhei Harambam by Rav Chaim of Brisk, the Avi Ezri of Rav Shach, Physics and Mathematics [but  I not to diminish from the point of Allan Bloom]

[Allan Bloom sees the problem in the USA as the result of a contradiction in Enlightenment thought that existed from the very beginning of the Enlightenment. Thus by implication, if one could find a solution to that contradiction, then automatically the problem would be fixed. It seems to Bloom that Kant and Hegel came closet to a solution. 

20th century philosophy was an attempt to get out of Kant and Hegel with no success. These were brilliant attempt in British American analytic philosophy but in the long run were futile and false a Robert Hanna ha pointed out in several books.

The issue is never the issue. What people hold in philosophy is which philosopher holds like their already established opinion in politics, If they are for Hegel, it is because they think he was for socialism. [Not that they understand his approach. 

However I prefer Kant and the new Friesian approach of Kelley Ross which takes Kant as a basis but modifies that approach with immediate non intuitive knowledge -which was used by Fries to repair the transcendental deduction of Kant and indirectly opens the door to faith, To my mind this is a continuation of the medieval approach to combine faith with reason

    The major point of the Gra was learning Torah, but the general path of the religions world to use Torah to make money was thought to be in violation of the command in Pirkei Avot to not make Torah into shovel to dig with. Using Torah  to make money is an old  practice, but no older than murder .

[Torah here means the old testament, two Tamuds and midrash ]

 Rav Nahman says [Le.M I;129] to honor the festivals and/or to be close to a true tzadik helps to rid oneself of pride. The question that I have here is that there is no indication of any method to be able to discern who is a true tadik- as opposed to who is a phony. But I do have a suggestion. In the Le.M  vol II Rav Nahman says to be in a Litvak yeshiva is the same essence as being with a tzadik. 

 There were plenty of books of mysticism during the middle ages and the zohar brings a lot of them. that i why and how Rav Yaakov Emden [the Yaavatz] explains the Zohar. He says some parts of it are from authentic writings of ancient mystics before the time of Moshe Deleon. So while I am not in favor of learning the Zohar, I am in favor of learning the Ari [Isaac Luria].who concentrates on the parts of the Zohar that were ancient teachings. But that is only in connection with Gemara and Tosphot

 Dough prepared to be fed to the dogs that guard the sheep is not kosher for the night of Passover, but if the shepherds eat from it, it is okay to fulfill one's obligation for the first night of Passover since it is kept from water. Thus regular flour is ok to make maza from it on the first night of Passover. [Rambam. Laws of Hametz and Maza 6 law 5]

my point is the dough is  meant for dogs.so even if the shepards eat from it, it was only guarded to not let water fall on it so that it could be given to dogs to eat. That is--so that it should not get moldy. But even regular flour falls into that category--that they owners are careful that water should not fall on it and let fungus grow in it.

My point here is that idea of Rav Nahman of Breslov that one should not search for extra restrictions-.The sources for this are the Le.M of Rav Nahman in vol ii chapter 4 and I think around chapter 86 and the famous hashmata [left out paragraph printed between vol i and vol ii] about the fact that if one wants to serve God, he must  think of himself as being alone in the world and not look at what other are doing.  

 The C.I.A. concentrates on regime  change since the 1990's. A prime example is Kosovo, where there was already tension. The C.I.A. hired  reckless hot heads to throw rocks at the police in Sarajevo thus got an over reaction from the police --which then caused an international outrage. Then  USA forces came in and got regime change. Same in Ukraine in 2014. And now they are doing the same thing in Israel.