I've spent the morning reading...I don't even know if I should share the articles with you since I've found them so depressing, but the bottom line is, we're deluding ourselves into believing we can continue going down this same path thinking everything is going to be okay, and I'm wondering how long we can continue to keep the blinders on.

I'm reminded of a couple of stories that are the basis for my reputation of being the one in the family that will optimistically keep going until I run out of road. Settle down with a nice cup of coffee (or a beer) and bear with me here, I'll get into the politics part down the road a bit...

In the first, I'm heading for a party at a home I've never been to, in an area I'm unfamiliar with. Part of the instructions (now mind you, this is way before GPS, cell phones and Goolemaps) are that "it's a long way, but just keep going" and I did. Until I ran out of road...but I was going exactly the opposite direction I was supposed to be going. So I just turned around and went all the way to the other end of the road and arrived to the party as some were leaving.

In the second, years later but still in the dark ages, I was delivering a batch of girl scouts home after a trip rollerskating (some 75 miles away.) The last one lived out in the country off the paved roads.  I was in my station wagon with this last girl, and my daughter and son, then ages 6 and 7. It was a dark and stormy night (really! LOL!)  Getting to her house was no problem, because she was there to guide me. But once left to my own devices, I pulled out from  the dirt driveway and immediately took a wrong turn onto the dirt (now mud) road and set off. As the minutes ticked by, it was obvious I was lost, but what could I do besides keep moving? There were no landmarks, everything looked the same, no right angles...

The kids were getting nervous, but I assured them we would be fine. We just needed to find the road. Then, an hour or so later, I hit a particularly muddy spot and was stuck. The more I revved the engine, the stucker I got. We weren't going anywhere. Living in the mountains, we always carried a couple of blankets in the back of the car. I put the back seat down and made a little pallet for the kids so they could sleep. As my precious little son drifted off he said, "Don't worry Mommy. Dad will call the FBI and they will rescue us." I spent the night sitting in the front seat keeping vigil, and starting the engine every 1/2 hour or so to run the heater so the kids wouldn't get too cold.

Meantime, my Highway Patrol husband was beside himself. He had surmised that I must be stuck down on I-5 between our town and the bigger city we had gone to, and drove down and back expecting to find us broken down on the road. When that didn't pan out, he began calling the families of the girls I had with me and determined they had all returned home,  that the one out in the boonies had been the last to get home, and realized where we must be. The Highway Patrol was dispatched to search for us, but the helicopter couldn't be deployed because of the weather.

When the sun came up, we discovered we were out in the middle of a pasture, and could see a house off in the distance. I left a note in the car (for the rescue team that must certainly be looking for us) saying where we were headed, and off the 3 of us went, sloshing through the mud and cow pies. The family had no phone, but they took us home, and I called my husband's office and they radioed him and the search team that we were back safely, just as they discovered our abandoned car. Everyone laughed that if I had been in a four wheel drive we would have ended up over the mountains in the next county...keep going until you run outta road.

Well folks, if we keep going until we run out of road, we're going to be a long way in a direction we don't want to go by the time we are forced to turn around. I am finding myself hoping this health care debacle is the mud puddle that will keep us from going any further on this road to ruin we seem to be bound and determined to go down.

In case you haven't noticed, this country is SERIOUSLY screwed up. We are so screwed up, in so many ways, it is hard just to determine where to start to address the problem. One thing seems obvious to me (as one who is known to keep going till she runs out of road) we need to stop and check the map before we go any further.

Since health care is at the forefront of everyone's thoughts, let's start there.

It is no secret that even if we could agree, as a nation, which direction is the right one to go (which is a HUGE "if") we would not agree on how to get there. I'm not sure there is even consensus that we need to do something, but for the sake of this discussion, let's say there is. The health care delivery system is broken and we need to fix it. Now what?

Well, we're going to have a bill make it to the floor of the Senate, but what did it take to get there?  Mary Landrieu  couldn't just do the right thing...She held the rest of the Senate hostage until she got huge concessions for Louisiana, without a care in the world for whether or not it was right for the country as a whole. Then she had the unmitigated gall to infer that it would take even more than that to get her to vote for the final bill. Now, one Senator being a complete ass is not that big of a deal. But how many others were there, and what did they get? And say you are a Senator that voted yes on principle and didn't get the goodies Landrieu and the others got. How big of a fool were you? 

And let's say that somehow we are able to whore our way into some kind a bill that will pass both houses (we pretty much know the prez will sign whatever he gets - he needs this "victory", you know.) It is NOT going to be a good bill. Whatever it is will cost a king's ransom, fatten the coffers of the insurance industry, and will take us years and years and years to fix, if ever. An argument can be made that at least it will be start, and will help some people...it's better than nothing. BUT there is no doubt in my mind we could have done better. If only politics could have been left out of it, and the people that we have given the privilege of representing us could have seen past their own self interests, we could have done better.

There was a Frontline documentary just a few days ago called "Sick Around The World" showing how five other capitalist countries have dealt with their health care issues, and believe me, they are doing a hell of a lot better than we are. We should be seriously ashamed of ourselves.

And then there is the economy, and story after story of the hardships. A whole generation is at risk at the moment, primarily because of greed, and again, those people who we elected to look out for us not doing their jobs. We all know by now that the greed of a few industries was enabled by our elected officials in both parties in the form of deregulation. The consequences are felt by all, but the hope of  the young people just entering adulthood  being dashed is particularly concerning.  Melissa's story is not unusual.  She did everything right...good grades, 1st class education, networking, ambition. And her reward? Living at home with mom and dad, no prospects...just like the no-load kids. What will that do to them? Our own son is about to finish up his degree with no "career" options on the horizon, but at least he is under-employed, rather than unemployed.

Yet I can see little that indicates we are close to figuring out what to do about it. We can't continue to print money. It feels like we are sorta doing something, but the piper WILL be paid in the form of astronomical inflation. I mean, it's not like this was inevitable. People DID this. And most of them are not the ones paying for the mistakes. Those in the government still have their cushy jobs. The CEOs have theirs...it's the little guys that are getting hosed. Again. And again.

And then there are our buddies in the credit card industry...You'll love this one. Just when you think you've been screwed every which way but loose, they find a new way. Greed, greed, greed

There are so many more areas I could address...education, the drug war disaster, the two shooting wars, the zealots on both side of the left/right equation, bigotry. I just can't point to any area of our country right now where I stop and say, yeah that's it...that's going well. We just need a wholesale change in the way we are doing things, or we are going to lose this country. Seriously. We are going to lose our country.

And the word ETHICS just keeps pounding in my ears. It all seems to boil down to ethics.

The last thing I read before heading here to vent was this "opinion piece" from Thomas Friedman, who I often disagree with, but who seems to have hit the nail on the head this time.

He talks about the mistakes we are making as a nation:

At least six things have come together to fracture our public space and paralyze our ability to forge optimal solutions:

1) Money in politics has become so pervasive that lawmakers have to spend most of their time raising it, selling their souls to those who have it or defending themselves from the smallest interest groups with deep pockets that can trump the national interest.

2) The gerrymandering of political districts means politicians of each party can now choose their own voters and never have to appeal to the center.

3) The cable TV culture encourages shouting and segregating people into their own political echo chambers.

4) A permanent presidential campaign leaves little time for governing.

5) The Internet, which, at its best, provides a check on elites and establishments and opens the way for new voices and, which, at its worst provides a home for every extreme view and spawns digital lynch mobs from across the political spectrum that attack anyone who departs from their specific orthodoxy.

6) A U.S. business community that has become so globalized that it only comes to Washington to lobby for its own narrow interests; it rarely speaks out anymore in defense of national issues like health care, education and open markets.

These six factors are pushing our system, which was designed to have divided powers and to force compromises, into the realm of paralysis. To get anything big done now, we have to generate so many compromises -- couched in 1,000-plus-page bills -- with so many different interest groups that the solutions are totally suboptimal. We just get the sum of all interest groups. 

He goes on to make some suggestions:

So what do we do?

The standard answer is that we need better leaders. The real answer is that we need better citizens. We need citizens who will convey to their leaders that they are ready to sacrifice, even pay, yes, higher taxes, and will not punish politicians who ask them to do the hard things. Otherwise, folks, we're in trouble. A great power that can only produce suboptimal responses to its biggest challenges will, in time, fade from being a great power -- no matter how much imagination it generates.

Anyway, it got me thinking about the road we are on and how far we have to go down it before we hit the mud puddle that forces us to stop and reassess the direction we are heading. I hope it gets you thinking, too, and I'd like to hear those thoughts...