Garbage Strike

Why am I suddenly drawn back to a time when I took my fourth grade class to the Alameda County landfill? I looked out on that sea of garbage, all the things that could not be reused or recycled. I could hear my students squawking about the stink, since apparently there were a great many things in that sea of waste that was rotting somewhere outside a compost bin. We all watched as bulldozers moved around the edges of the mass, made to look quite small in comparison to the pile they were attempting to massage into something resembling order. 

But it was, after all, just a pile of garbage. Maintaining and manicuring all that garbage did not change the fact that it was eventually going to be trucked off to a hole in the ground and buried. 

Which is essentially the feeling I have about the current administration. A shifting pile of smelly refuse without any distinct form or function, but you can see bits of what was once recognizable. Now rendered useless by contamination with the pile. 

All the tariffs. All the threats against our allies. All the promises to billionaires of even more riches to come. All the deplorable treatment of the citizens of this great land of ours. 

Garbage. Each time a bulldozer moves to corral one side, the mass shifts to the opposite direction. Here comes the tariffs. Crash goes the stock market. Just kidding. Boom goes the stock market. You have to be very careful about where you stand because you could end up buried in a moment of wildly shifting whims. 

If you thought that you were safe because they were only deporting vicious criminals, you better check your student visa because apparently studying here in the United States is now on a par with human trafficking. S

If you thought making trucks that fall apart all on their own would exclude you from being part of a made-up department overseeing government efficiency, think again. 

Garbage in, garbage out.

Look over there: I see a twisted chunk of metal that might once have been a tricycle. On the other side I see a former Space Force commander callously tossed aside. The physical and human wreckage that continues to pile up is almost impossible to track. 

Because it's all garbage. Indistinguishable from the garbage surrounding it. 

He's counting on that.