Why Are We Numb? Why We Are Numb.

It's never easy for me to write something thoughtful. Glib I can do. Humorous I can do sometimes. But this is serious.

For approximately 8 years, we as a nation have sunk lower and lower.

I have written often of my concern, dislike, repulsion of policies that have led us to invade without provocation (yes, I've heard the opposing thoughts on that) and occupy another nation, repudiate the Geneva War Conventions, implement torture while claiming we have done no such thing, imprison individuals without pretense of habeas corpus, and sustain horrific injuries and death to so many of the young who volunteered to protect our so-called national interest in a hideous war.

While they have been on the front, we haven't provided them with enough, or quality equipment. We haven't questioned the stoploss repetitive deployments that mean they go back and back and back. And then when they finally get home, we have been stingy in caring for their broken bodies and providing for their needy families.

We have chosen not to ask how we could afford this war. How it was really being paid for.

The answer -- and many financial fouls -- are coming home to roost.

Certainly the greed of the subprime mortgage debacle has much to do with banks on the edge of failure -- to the extent that this time is being compared with the precipice of 1929 depression.

But think about it. That's not the only reason our economy is in big trouble. That China owns a big chunk of our deficit, and therefore our future. That's not the only reason the dollar has tanked and, per MSNBC, "even" South Americans prefer euros to the once gold-standard American dollar.

Think about how much that war in Iraq has cost us. And think how it may actually end up costing us our way of life, our standard of living, no matter what a hopeful young Democratic candidate may tell us.

And yet we remain silent. We continue to not ask those hard questions. We continue to sleepwalk through -- what? The fifth year of this war? The sixth?

Why are we numb? Guilt and determined ignorance, I think. This is why we are numb.