American Sepsis

We are in "deep doo-doo." I think of all things in terms living organisms, thus this great republic has moved from localized infection to sepsis. We have an abscess; it's called the Federal Debt. For twenty years this localized pocket of pus has simmered where we didn't have to notice it. Whenever it would flare we would just add some homeopathic goo to it to make us feel like we were doing something. This boil on the nation's butt is getting so big we can't as a nation collectively sit on our ass anymore. Then along comes our Socialist President whose prescription is to bleed the patient.

The conservatives want to bring out the "big guns." They want to use antibiotics. They want to get serious about this: they're even talking about cutting Planned Parenthood and NPR. They're talking PIC Lines and Vancomycin. However, that boil is walled off and all that medicine is going to do is piss it off. There is only one cure for the peri-rectal abscess we're sitting on; it has to be drained. The alternative is a septic nation.The toxins have already damaged our defenses, broken down our cell wall integrity and caused a general malaise. Until someone comes along with the courage to lance that boil and let the pus flow this patient is going to limp along on life support until each organ system shuts down.

The nation is like a child who refuses to have his tonsils out, or the sexually promiscuous teenager who is doubled over with the pain of pelvic inflammatory disease (aka pus-in-dare) who is afraid of the knife. Sooner or later that pus is going to come out, whether by war or revolution. The pus always wins, especially when the patient is too stupid to go under the knife.