By Brian Greenspun

Sun, Mar 23, 2008 (2 a.m.)

Is the sky really falling?

I have yet to fall for the Chicken Little story, even though there have been times and events over the past few decades when one could reasonably conclude that the Earth had fallen off its axis and would have difficulty righting itself.

History and life have proven that even in our darkest and most confusing days, we — that would be those of us who live in and are proud to call ourselves citizens of the United States of America — have managed to work our way through that dark night into the light of better days. Based on that experience, it is highly likely that we will see our way through this latest challenge to global and countrywide sanity.

But will we? Really?

Pick a subject. How about the economy? The U.S. dollar is at its lowest point in forever. Americans, the people the rest of the world used to count on for their tourist curiosity and their dollars, can no longer afford to go to Europe, Asia — Canada!

With our dollar barely able to keep up with the currencies of Third World countries, the price of travel has become unreasonable and the cost of buying large pieces of the American economy — our stocks, our buildings, our businesses — has become compelling. For Las Vegans, this could be good news because when our countrymen can’t afford to travel beyond our shores, they usually find places like Las Vegas a more than suitable substitute.

Except that last weekend’s impossible-to-comprehend meltdown of Bear Stearns, in which its value dropped almost 100 percent in 48 hours, has sent a wave of confusion through the financial markets that has compounded the already challenging credit crisis and its palpable effect on Las Vegas.

Major tourism projects on their way into bankruptcy? More on the way? Others never getting off the already publicized drawing boards? What gives? Plus, so many people feeling the pinch of the mortgage meltdown that they have decided not only not to visit Las Vegas, but also not to visit their corner shopping centers.

And what about the people who live in Las Vegas? We have become the center of gravity of the subprime mortgage debacle, which means that people who have come to our community to put down their roots are seeing them ripped up through very little fault of their own. They were sold — and they bought — a sounds-too-good-to-be-true financing package, which has come back to bite them and, in many cases, haunt them right out of their homes and the American dream.

And if the economy doesn’t grab you, and how could it not, let’s look at the current political landscape. We have a candidate in Sen. Barack Obama, who was riding a crest of hopefulness and a deep-felt desire by so many to bridge the racial divide in our country, moving slowly and maybe inexorably toward the Democratic nomination for the presidency.

In the middle of that trip, his bridge may have collapsed under the heavy weight of the rhetoric of others who have called into question the one issue on which Sen. Obama has gotten consistently high marks: his sincerity. He gave a great speech last week, but what remains in many people’s minds and hearts is whether or not he is believable, whether he really is something other than an opportunistic politician, or whether he is just like all the others — and so he must be scrutinized as such. That jury is still out.

But, at the same time Sen. Obama was orating on the high road in Pennsylvania, a man who through the most incredible of circumstances has been elevated to the governorship of New York, was taking political discourse to its basest level. After taking the oath of office, Gov. David Paterson — the man who became governor when Eliot Spitzer called the wrong girl — admitted that not only he but also his wife have had affairs during their marriage. But, everything is all right.

That’s great to hear, but did we really have to hear it? Have we reached that low in the affairs of men and women that full confessions are a prerequisite to holding public office? And we thought Watergate was going to create a dearth of enlightened leadership!

We were right, of course, about Watergate because the best and brightest have been rare sightings in post-Watergate politics. Can you imagine who shows up at the registrar’s office if a condition of that filing is a tell-all session for both husband and wife? Most people say they don’t want to go there, but most people are only too eager to go there.

So, let’s get off sex for a while and talk about our health. Talk! How about scream as loudly as we can about what has happened in Las Vegas. Scream, because that is one way to drown out the fear so many people are experiencing after learning that Medicine 101 was violated, as was the people’s faith in their doctors and their government, and which may result in fatal diseases that no one ever signed up for.

How can doctors, nurses and assistants allow this to happen, be complicit in it and fail to sound the alarm? How does our government, charged with promoting the general welfare and protecting the health and safety of its citizens, fail so miserably to investigate and provide oversight of health care, one of the most solemn promises that government makes to the citizens? And how does our political leadership continue to appear so far out of touch with what Nevadans are most concerned about — their lives and the health of their families — choosing, instead, to cover political backsides when it is the people’s backsides most at risk?

How did we get to this place? And how did we get here so fast?

There are many answers, but most of them lie at the feet of we the people. It is our government, it is our economy and our lives and dreams.

If we were more vigilant — which requires a modicum of knowledge and information — about the way we are governed and the way we prioritize our needs, much of this latest sky falling could have been avoided. But, we have failed to inform ourselves, choosing instead to cocoon ourselves in our own beliefs regardless of whether they are well-founded.

We allow ourselves to fall prey to negative campaigning rather than positive, results-oriented political discourse. We learn all we want in 30-second sound bites and avoid all we should know by choosing to follow Paris Hilton’s career instead of our own children’s educational careers. We read less and know less and act accordingly.

The good news about all of this mess in which we find ourselves is that we got ourselves into this fix and we, the people, can get ourselves out. But, it takes some work. Some hard work.

The question is simple: Will we accept that the sky is falling and seek shelter in all the wrong places, or will we do what other generations have done when their chips were down? We don’t have to be the greatest generation — we just have to be an adequate one. So far we have failed to be even that much.

Is the sky falling? President George W. Bush doesn’t think so. Gov. Jim Gibbons doesn’t think so. The multimillionaires and billionaires don’t think so.

What do you think?

Brian Greenspun is editor of the Las Vegas Sun.