Crime Scene Cleanup

America's loss of Critical Thinking

"I think it's part of this sort of blame-game society in the sense that it's always got to be somebody's fault instead of the fact that maybe sometimes accidents happen."
   —Rand Paul, on Good Morning America

Gulf of Oil -- A Weapon of Mass Destruction

Before I jump into this rant, I need to make clear how we gave away billions of dollars to British Patrol before they bagged to drill in the Gulf. Unlike many other countries, oil companies like BP pay United States tax payers half as much as other countries receive for drilling rights. This means Sir lanka and Vietnam get twice as much as we get for BP to destroy the Gulf of Mexico.

Hubris explains British Petroleum's Gulf of Mexico oil spill. This catastrophic release of oil has an inevitability about it equal to the inevitability of a catastrophic release of radioactive waste. Either by "accident" or design, hubris destroys our planet's living conditions, its habitat, for many millions to come, human and nonhuman alike. Many species must now diminish, even disappear.

There's a technological imperative at work in our hubris, and it means, "What can be done will be done." If we can build it we build it. If we can deploy it, we deploy it. Rethinking the consequences of technologies seldom enters the technological imperative's attitude toward habitat.

So what can be done will be done without much consideration for the future of humanity or other species. Tragically, we know beforehand the destiny of a technology exists in its design. Hammers drive nails. Nuclear reactors produce nuclear waste, oil releases goo in air, land, and water. Our hubris dismisses despoiling the earth as "inconsequential in the long-term." Religions, political ideologies, and poorly considered philosophies rationalize our short-term thinking.

For the recent catastrophic release of crude oil in our Gulf of Mexico, I waited for 60 Minute's to report on this biohazardous catastrophe in the Gulf of Mexico before writing. I'd heard the story on KPFK in Los Angeles the previous Thursday. Ian Master's scooped 60 Minutes, but hearing and seeing are two different things. British Petroleum created a day of infamy. I wanted to see for myself.

What I heard on 60 Minutes sounded like felony terrorism by corporations. This time their weapon of choice oozed instead of radiate. Our government gave its nod of approval for our gamble with nature.

Meanwhile, British Petroleum (BP) struck a blow for King George in the Gulf of Mexico. This white collar crime scored a major hit against the unborn, unborn humans as well as thousands of other unborn species in our Gulf of Mexico and its coasts.

Besides its crimes against humanity and nature in general, there's crime in its approach to United States labor

Millions of animals cross the Gulf in their annual migration are now homeless. From the Gulf they migrate to North America. The Blue Finn Tuna breeds in the Gulf. This is their breeding season. Their eggs and larvae are drifting around in a sea of oil and dispersants.

These dispersants cannot be dispersed in British waters because it's too toxic. That is, British Petroleum cannot use this dispersant in other countries, including England. It adds an incredible toxicity to water. It is not mother's milk by any measure.

Few weapons of mass destruction destroy life on land while destroying the conditions for life on our sea's bottom. Bottom dwelling critters in the Gulf of Oil have no defenses against crude oil or the toxic's released by BP. Had Bin Ladin done the same, we'd sent the US Navy in guns blazing.

For a few dollars more this "accident" could have been avoided. At least, for short-term survival, these consequences of greed, capitalism, and our lust for consumer goods could have been avoided. In long-term survival terms, we're destined to despoil earth's habitat for ourselves as well as other species. Our weapons of mass destruction against Mother Earth have a long half-life.

For our short-term, thousands of people will lose their jobs. Food's cost must increase. Fuel's cost must increase. Education's ill health must increase. We'll learn a little more about biohazard cleanup. Perhaps, "biohazard cleanup" will become synonymous with oil.

Oil by any other name equals "biohazard." Have no doubt about it. Oil kills life forms, and it does so before and after it's refined. Forget about biohazard cleanup for bloodborne pathogens. What happened in the Gulf of Oil equals a release of weapons of mass destruction with collateral damage of monumental proportions.

Before it's refined, once unleashed from its tomb, oil smothers life forms as well as destroying habitat. After it's refined, it releases deadly levels of CO2 into the atmosphere. Global Warming then follows along with smog and lung-cancer.

Biohazard cleanup of oil IS crime scene cleanup. Any mature mind will connect these dots. Call white-collar crime in oil whatever you want. Oil cleanup equals biohazard cleanup equals crime scene cleanup.

Let me rant!

For seven generations on this continent, biohazard cleanup cannot do enough for our Gulf of Oil. Even then, there's no calling back the many known and unknown species lost to this holocaust.

Here's what get me. We have the largest navy in the world, not to mention the largest coast guard in the world. Meanwhile, our United States' government sits back and allows BP to dump thousands of pounds of "dispersants" into our Mexican Gulf's ocean. This stuff happens to create 4 times the toxicity of oil. Why dump more poison into an already poisoned sea of oil?

Why does our government allow this terrorism against life forms and our unborn to occur? Why doesn't President Obama order our US Navy to shoot down eco-terrorist corporate planes attacking the Gulf of Oil's ecology? Surely poisoning the Gulf amounts to any firestorm other terrorist would craft, given the opportunity.

Must biohazard cleanup from terrorism always involve foreigners? Speaking of which, BP is a foreign corporation.

BP must stand for biohazardous practices.

Here's an answer to why we allow terrorism against nature. Our population lives in an indoctrinated state of consciousness. We believe corporations will do us no harm. We believe "environmentalism" is a "liberal" word and therefore not OK. We've been lead to the edge of chaos by capitalism's pied piper. Ben Laden could have done little worse, and surely he applauds our own stupidity. Meanwhile, Fox "News" and the others continue their drumbeat against ecological sanity, polluting rational human dialogue.

Will we learn from any of this? Our hubris shows otherwise.

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Word came through my peer group that Bill A's father shot himself in the head New Year's eve. He worked for the Vernon Police Department. I had seen him, but never talked with him. I was glad that I hadn't. I had never come so close to a suicide victim, never wanted to. The whole idea gave me the spooks until I reached Vietnam. That's another story, though.

I had actually started a page on police suicides and then a bogus Internet company lost it. I had written a short piece on the suicide of Robert Smith. At age 25 this New York police officer committed suicide, I read somewhere. A little more reading about police suicide and I learned that police have a high suicide rate.

If police officers are unhappy because of their work, we all need to think about what we can do to help police officers. I do have one simple answer to remove a great deal of their stress and discomfort, legalize drugs and thereby end the drug war.

We might imagine the amount of stress in a police officer's life. The last multiple homicide I cleaned after had 3 dead and 2 wounded by an AK-47. The AK-47, if you did not know, fires a 7.62 mm slug of lead. It happens to share the same nomenclature as the US Army's M60 machine gun.

Both AK-47s and the M60 machine gun were favorites during the US in incursion into Vietnam. Today, police officers now do combat shooting against the world's most highly chosen weapon, the AK-47 assault rifle. If you were unaware, most "combat shooting" on our streets takes place at a distance of 3 to 10 feet.

Terrorists, drug cartels, and both the Chinese and Russian Army's use AK-47s as their standard weapon. Let's not forget the Taliban.

Now, at last count, Mexican drug lords had solid footholds in 250 United State's cities. Would it matter if I said the Taliban have "solid footholds in 250 United State's cities"? How much would it matter? It matters not to the cop (Constable on Patrol) facing down the barrel of an AK-47.

We don't know what possesses a healthy, young, competent police officer to commit suicide, besides so many undue stresses. In 1994 Smith was the 11th police officer in New York City to commit suicide. So something's going on because things have only gone downhill for our nation's police officers. A suicide epidemic reached the "thin blue line." We can imagine many police officers give suicide a thought because there's something terrible among their ranks.

In 1994 the number of police suicides in New York City doubled from the year before.

Currently, we know that police officers face emotional and external environments with many ups and downs. Their hours alone create great stress. Every public contact carries some risk. There's no getting rid of bad thoughts and feelings because "complacency kills." Police officers don't go on patrol thinking, "I'm OK - You're OK." They think more like, "I'm OK - You're not OK." Anything less becomes suicidal, ironically.

If you don't believe me, spend some time between Pico Union and 3rd Street in Los Angeles. Spend some time in Detroit with a warm, fuzzy feeling inside. As a police officer you won't last long.

Soon after becoming a police officer, many lose their peer group. Then they become close to other officers as a means of socializing. A "them against us" mentality develops as it must. After all, wearing a uniform signifies something different about a person. As a result, public contacts remain on an objective, professional level, at best. One does not gain emotionally through such interactions.

I will grant that the majority of police officers become police officers because they do care about helping others.

Whatever reinforcement they receive by stopping bully's' violence against the weak and defenseless, they lose stopping motorists. As authoritarian role models in our society, every police officer receives less-than-mutual respect throughout their day. Traffic control alone results in negative feedback from self-centered drivers. Live with this type of interaction every day and it's bound to leave emotional bruises.

Then there's the hierarchy, which isn't always user friendly. Some police officers built body armor (emotionally speaking) early in life. They may be proficient and expert marksmen, but poor emotional leaders. This person alone causes stress for their subordinates. Subordinates do not think of their sergeant or lieutenant as someone to confide in. In fact, those of us familiar with government and corporate hierarchy's know something special. We know someone in the hierarch must take a hit for another to move up the ladder. Damage a career to advance a career. Career jousting goes way back.

Suicidal behaviors may be triggered by a situation or event that a police officer views as overwhelming, and they need good feedback from peers and superiors. It doesn't come when they keep to themselves. Perhaps they become ostracized for poor judgment. Or perhaps they're perceived as being "too soft" or perhaps as "thumpers." Either way, they become "too" something and over compensate at times. They too reflect human frailties.

When we look to a police officer we see someone "in charge," judgmental, and a flack catcher when something goes wrong. Usually we find someone ready to help, ready to take charge, and ready to write down what went wrong.

As I've written before about suicide cleanup and white males, they carry extra social and cultural baggage we're not finding in other demographic groups. What ever leads this demographic group to commit 73% of suicides in the United States, add the stresses of police work. Then stand back and take a serious, objective look.

When we add policing stresses, we can find suicide occurring in inordinate numbers from within their ranks. Robert Smitch cannot tell us why. Neither can the thousands of other police officer suicide victims.

Today sociologists tell the drug war does not work. They tell us that our drug war created self-serving institutions in our city, county, and federal governments. These organizations became self-perpetuating. Their mission became survival first. A successful drug war would mean an end to their existence. So we're not likely to see any success in our drug war any time soon.

If I must guess what the future of drug prohibition looks like, it looks like Mexico's drug gangs and cartels will continue to spread. Eventually police officers will dies as a result. Other police officers, like in Mexico and elsewhere, will go along to get along. We see the same thing on coroner and medical examiner cronyism: go along to get along.

Crime scene cleanup's future as suicide cleanup increases among our police officers must grow too.

Police officer suicides rank near the bottom of my suicide cleanup job satisfaction inventory. I don't know how many I've cleaned after, more than 2, less than 5. That's a lot in 8 years, going on 9.

Now, with our economy in shambles, and no one in particular to blame, suicide behavior has increased. At least, my calls for suicide cleanup have increased. Policing becomes more difficult in these economic times.

Policing not Easier

We should expect more suicide across the United States as our economy plummets. More police officers must come in contact with suicide victims. More police officers also respond to domestic violence calls more often as jobs go down the drain. Domestic calls rank as the top call for police officer deaths.

Forget Obama. Capital's crash started long ago, as anticipated. It simply did what it does best, defer the inevitable and pass on the suffering to labor, citizens. Now its reaches worldwide in a single step.

If we were to look for a president or two as expediters for today's growing economic crisis, Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton would fill these shoes. Be that as it may, capitalism's ups and downs go way beyond presidential powers. Presidents set capital's tone when they have congressional help. Otherwise, capital does what it likes, grow and consolidate. Capital's police forces exist. Police forces to protect us from capital do not exist.

Our Economic Crisis in a Nutshell

The crisis this time around looks like the crisis in 1970. The form of this one was structured by the last one. Off-shoring, Reagan, Thatcher, neo-liberalism in general, led to capital's success worldwide. By 1985, capital's access to the world's labor settled the issue. We should not forget Bill Clinton's role in NAFTA and capital's jump across the Rio Grande, then to Korea, Vietnam, and finally China. With the gloves off and deregulation, capital proved it rules as an empire on its own terms, and off-shore.

Remember, had George Bush captured our inadequate social security system for private capital accumulation, what did exist for labor would no longer exist for labor.Since the 1970s wages have fallen, including China's real wages. Chinese capital grew in American holdings as the United States funded the Iraq war. Bush kept war's price tag unseen, unfelt, and un-criticized; not a fair way to treat our next generation.

Chinese finance capital solved many problems for capital consumption in the United States. Since the American working and middle-class lost real wages, credit fulfilled consumption needs and wishes.

Over the next 40 years fiance problems arose with diminished wages, while credit soothed lumpy roads in capitals movement from continent to continent, often remaining off-shore. So capitalism never solved its problems. It simply moved them around.

We know at least two fundamental truths about capita. It has limits to its growth. It also circumvents, transcends, barriers to its accumulation. Nothing works so well today than ephemeral movement of capital over the Internet, hundreds of millions of dollars secured and exposed over milliseconds.

However much capital transcends its barriers through gifted derivative tools and the like, capital still relies on buying labor power. Production of commodities and selling commodities for a profit remains the name of the truth of capitalism.

Barrier problems arise because finding financial innovations, like derivatives, and getting the right stuff to the right place sometimes exceeds finance engineers' brilliance. We know that from the 1980s on, American industry got screwed to benefit finance capital's labor cost barriers.

So instead of white collar crime scene cleanup we bailout the rich financier responsible for capitals wild meanderings across our planet.

It now appears capital's brilliant field goals between continents reached its limits. But do we have crime scene cleanup technicians outfitted to cleanup these worldwide, white collar criminals' deeds?

It's not all ugly. Leading hedge fund owners got 3 billion in 1 year. Too much went to the top. Too little reached the bottom where buyers need goods, commodities. No one has a solution to our growing economic problems, but we do have ideas about what's going on.

Orange County suicide cleanup will soon host more on these topics.

So we don't have solutions, but we have an idea of the problem. We know the current media discussions feed us crap, absolute crap. Is it any wonder people have the least idea about our economic crisis?

For now, I must run off. I'm behind on my public education work against cronyism, speaking of cartel threats to our cities, and such.

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recklessness cloaked in righteousness - life after shopping