{"id":31,"date":"2011-03-30T10:06:00","date_gmt":"2011-03-30T10:06:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/muslimahinprogress\/2011\/03\/30\/the-war-at-home\/"},"modified":"2011-03-30T10:06:00","modified_gmt":"2011-03-30T10:06:00","slug":"the-war-at-home","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/muslimahinprogress\/2011\/03\/the-war-at-home.html","title":{"rendered":"The War at Home"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

Bismillahi Rahmani Rahim<\/p>\n

Salaam Alaikum wa Rahmatullah<\/p>\n

Weary and bleary-eyed from lack of sleep (thanks to a teething baby who likes to wake up at night and serenade me), I went through my usual morning routine. \u00a0I turn on CNN. \u00a0One of the first stories was about an Alabama hospital where patients had been infected by contaminated IV bags. \u00a0Imagine you go in for some surgery, and it is successful, only to succumb to a bacteria in your glucose. \u00a0At least nine patients have died and others are critically ill. \u00a0This comes on the heels of an earlier story about a much wider contamination of antiseptic wipes that are widely used in hospitals around the country. \u00a0Seems the largest manufacturer of these wipes has a bit of a sanitation problem. \u00a0So Grandpa goes in to have his hand stitched where he gashed it opening a tin can and ends up with a raging infection. \u00a0Then, just to hammer the point home, Johnson &\u00a0Johnson\u00a0\u00a0has recalled yet another <\/i>batch of their medicine due to a funky smell. \u00a0Are you beginning to see a pattern here?<\/p>\n

Let\u2019s step outside the field of medicine. \u00a0Let\u2019s talk about, oh, I don\u2019t know, infrastructure. \u00a0You know, the stuff that makes the country run. \u00a0Lights, water, sewer, phone lines \u2013 we do still have those, you know. \u00a0First of all, we\u2019re way behind the Koreans in bringing high speed internet to every home. \u00a0I don\u2019t have a huge problem with that because we\u2019re way bigger than Korea so the logistics are completely different. \u00a0But I do have a problem with the fact that our electricity infrastructure is old and on the way to obsolescence. \u00a0Bridges are failing, roads are pitted and marred, we haven\u2019t built a refinery in twenty years, we treat clean renewable energy like some dumb quaint idea our five year old came up with. \u00a0I could go on and on. \u00a0As a matter of fact, I think I will\u2026.<\/p>\n

We have a prison system that is mostly run for profit nowadays. \u00a0The incarceration business is there to make money; they would rather have your uncle Bob back to stay again and again because they get money for his upkeep, rather than trying to help him, oh, you know, rehabilitate himself and become a productive member of society. \u00a0If he has a drug problem, too bad. \u00a0They\u2019re gutting programs and cutting funds for drug treatment. \u00a0And if he gets out, \u00a0there\u2019s probably not a job for him. <\/p>\n

If he gets sick while he\u2019s in prison, well, cool, he has health care. \u00a0Might not be great, but it\u2019s free and it\u2019s quite possibly better than what his non-felonious counterparts in the outside world can get for free. \u00a0Despite the recent watered-down health care \u201creform\u201d that was recently past and now is constantly fought over, most of the poor in this country are still terrified of getting sick because they can\u2019t afford it. \u00a0A drug available to women that could help prevent miscarriage was about $10 a shot a few weeks ago; now it is over $1500. \u00a0No, that\u2019s not a typo. \u00a0So poor women have fewer options for treatment, and if they do get Medicaid, that Medicaid program might go bankrupt trying to offer them the ongoing treatment necessary to save their babies. \u00a0You know, babies? <\/p>\n

Education. \u00a0Hmm, what can I say about education? \u00a0Broken schools, demoralized teachers, disinterested parents, crumbling buildings, drug gangs, cheating on standardized tests.<\/p>\n

Immigration. \u00a0Pfft.<\/p>\n

Drugs. \u00a0Our southern border is porous, allowing the mayhem from Mexico to spill over. \u00a0Our busy ports bring in cocaine and heroin and other poisons in containers that are too numerous to inspect. \u00a0We have a thriving domestic methamphetamine culture with lots and lots of people willing to risk blowing themselves to kingdom come in order to cook up a batch.<\/p>\n

I could go on and on but the kids want their breakfast and the baby is teething so I have to stop. \u00a0The sad thing is that I could <\/i>\u00a0go on. \u00a0Pages and pages, talking about the environment, Wall Street banks, home foreclosures \u2013 you get the idea.<\/p>\n

What I want to know, given that we have about a gajillion serious issues here at home to deal with, is why we are involved in three wars overseas. \u00a0We certainly don\u2019t have the moral high ground to lead the rest of the world. \u00a0We don\u2019t have the financial power to bribe it into submission. \u00a0Why are we letting our country fall into complete disrepair and dysfunction while we spend billions of dollars overseas? \u00a0Why? \u00a0Tell me. \u00a0Tell the poor women who have miscarriages. \u00a0Tell the unemployed. \u00a0Tell the homeless. \u00a0Tell the people. \u00a0Because we want to know.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/div>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Bismillahi Rahmani Rahim Salaam Alaikum wa Rahmatullah Weary and bleary-eyed from lack of sleep (thanks to a teething baby who likes to wake up at night and serenade me), I went through my usual morning routine. \u00a0I turn on CNN. \u00a0One of the first stories was about an Alabama hospital where patients had been infected […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":81,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-31","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\nThe War at Home<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Bismillahi Rahmani RahimSalaam Alaikum wa RahmatullahWeary and bleary-eyed from lack of sleep (thanks to a teething baby who likes to wake up at night and\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/muslimahinprogress\/2011\/03\/the-war-at-home.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The War at Home\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Bismillahi Rahmani RahimSalaam Alaikum wa RahmatullahWeary and bleary-eyed from lack of sleep (thanks to a teething baby who likes to wake up at night and\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/muslimahinprogress\/2011\/03\/the-war-at-home.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Muslimah in Progress\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2011-03-30T10:06:00+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/blogger.googleusercontent.com\/tracker\/8276196425188955527-5210612619265323756?l=muslimahinprogress.blogspot.com\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Nancy Qualls-Shehata\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Nancy Qualls-Shehata\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"4 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/muslimahinprogress\/2011\/03\/the-war-at-home.html\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/muslimahinprogress\/2011\/03\/the-war-at-home.html\",\"name\":\"The War at Home\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/muslimahinprogress\/#website\"},\"datePublished\":\"2011-03-30T10:06:00+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2011-03-30T10:06:00+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/muslimahinprogress\/#\/schema\/person\/6218cbef696f8f6c933831dfcc2096b9\"},\"description\":\"Bismillahi Rahmani RahimSalaam Alaikum wa RahmatullahWeary and bleary-eyed from lack of sleep (thanks to a teething baby who likes to wake up at night and\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/muslimahinprogress\/2011\/03\/the-war-at-home.html#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/muslimahinprogress\/2011\/03\/the-war-at-home.html\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/muslimahinprogress\/2011\/03\/the-war-at-home.html#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/muslimahinprogress\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"The War at Home\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/muslimahinprogress\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/muslimahinprogress\/\",\"name\":\"Muslimah in Progress\",\"description\":\"I'm an American Muslimah of a certain age with some pretty strong opinions. 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