It's not ...

Some post-apocalyptic science fiction; it's what's happening to real people in this country today and tomorrow, and for many tomorrows until the people we sent to Washington decide to govern:

...

Ruby does not know what to do about her son, Raymond, either. Ray was doing well, with a good job and a lovely wife and two kids, when his army reserve company was sent to Iraq. It was supposed to be a short mission. Take down Sadaam, in retaliation for his bombing of the World Trade Center, and then back home to the states for a hero’s welcome. Instead, Ray spent four years overseas protecting Iraqi oilfields for Chevron. His wife divorced him and is remarried. He messed up his right knee, and the VA keeps putting off the surgery that might fix his problem. When he sees his VA psychiatrist about his mood swings and nightmares, he is given huge handfuls of pills to take. All the pills do is make him fat and sleepy. He used to play football in high school. Now, he can barely get out of the chair to go to the bathroom. Sometimes, when he watches the television news and hears about how there never were any WMDs, it was all a lie, he gets so mad he is afraid that his heart might stop. And he thinks to himself that might not be such a bad thing. And then he rolls himself a joint, because he has discovered that marijuana helps a lot more than the pills he gets at the VA.

Ray used to get his weed from a neighbor, Michael who grew his own, because it helped with the pain from his MS---multiple sclerosis. Mike is now living at the local (private, for profit) prison. Like Sarah, he is a menace to society, and so a company with ties to the governor is paid a lot of money to keep him off the streets. The DEA agent who grilled Michael is the same one who allowed huge shipments of cocaine to enter this country, in exchange for testimony about other cocaine distributors. It was a sweet deal for everyone. The DEA and the prosecutors got convictions. The cocaine lord got rid of his business rivals. Michael’s only son, Justice, died at the age of 34 from a heart attack brought on by cocaine.

...

We, somehow, have to find our way out of this Bizarro World. We can't continue the way we're going and still call ourselves "America".