… NOT MY OX, YOU DON'T …

There are fixes … and there are cures. 

The wretched excesses of our source of wealth being a growth industry became an undeniable blight on the American dream when the cheap litter of the disposable economy settled like leaves in suburban trees and lawns and awoke comfy family’s sense of outrage enough to become a national disgrace. There was enough momentum; had we wanted to cure the problem by clamping down on products and packages to either be biodegradable or recycled through the manufacturers, we might have done so. Here fifty years later it has become apparent we should have done more than plant a tree, a shrub and a bush and don “Don’t Mess with Texas” bumper stickers.

What did happen? Eeewww, get it out of sight. The dumpster and bulldozer industry flourished and the ugly truth of our disregard for Gaia was swept under patches grafted over her skin or injected into her circulation system at sea ——anything to get and keep it out of sight. That was the fix.

I have been aware of most such faux fixes intended to keep down awareness of inherent skullduggery ever since, from the purpose of the NSA, the Warren and  the 9/11 Commissions to the excuses of the oil industry swallowed whole cloth by petroholic nations.

What prompted this post was an interview Rachel Maddow had with Paul Rieckhoff about the New GI bill and the influence his veteran’s group IAVA has had in its passage. In speaking of plans for next year, he mentioned addressing the alarming suicide rate of veterans. Wham, it hit me again.

Suicidal or otherwise mentally incapacitated war trauma victims are the canaries in a mine who are being treated as aberrations rather than the tip of an iceberg just so the mining industry can go on. Why would veterans want to cure the cause of the suicides’ problem, when they and so many that have gone before them have all been so thoroughly, obediently invested in its perpetuation. Our wars, food industry and gluttonous litter are to be kept out of the sight of polite society lest we glimpse the Ugly American.

I thank “God” for requiring the kind of faith that believes such cosmetics are both a necessary and an adequate cover — “He” makes them so obvious to we of little or none.

Often, what must be cured must have a fix on to survive.


The fix for Wikileaks' heroic exposure of national disgrace is to band together to criminalize the people's hero and perpetuate what he sought to cure.