What is Wrong With USA?

Here we are in the dog days of summer, and does anyone else feel like we need to get off this ride? The shootings in Aurora, as Roger Ebert said, seem to be closing the loop of madness. What is going on here when every goofball loner seems to think only of picking up a gun and going on a rampage? In the good old days, the dispirited tended to jump off bridges. Now they want to cause as much suffering as they can. Who are they punishing? We are all in this together, so we need to all take a moment and reflect on the solution to the gun violence and alienation, especially among the young, the promising in our country. Someone should be proposing a day, a national holiday when we march in honor of the fallen, the innocent victims of slaughter, from Columbine to Aurora. This would be a day to reach out and join together and acknowledge how far we have fallen from the ideals of our Pledge of Allegiance.
I am not one to fall back on the nostrums of mainstream religion, but until we have built a perfect secular society where a spirit of community prevails, not a spirit of greed and short-term pleasure seeking, then I think the best bet lies in at least accepting that our religious traditions all warned us of today. We have met the enemy, as Pogo said, and he dwells in all hearts that remain silent in the face of evil.