Cleaning Up Messes

On the edge of common sense

Baxter Black
Posted 6/9/17

Ask yourself “Do you make messes, or clean them up?”

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Cleaning Up Messes

On the edge of common sense

Posted

Ask yourself “Do you make messes, or clean them up?”
Missy is 53, would rather be at home with her two grandchildren, works for the city and was ordered to work late. Her back hurts as she leans on her push cart and broom. Missy watches a CNN reporter interview an activist who symbolically throws a protest sign at the reporter’s feet.
“It’s a good sign of solidarity,” the activist boasts.
When you sit at home watching the continuing protest, marching, window-smashing, burning buildings, dissing school faculties and political mud-slinging all being done in the name of a cause – do you ever think, “Who is going to clean this mess up?”
It appears that it’s not the ones who made the mess. They must be exhausted after shouting, marching and carrying those heavy signs. Afterwards, the celebrity speakers are probably swept away in their limos, then flown back to their gated communities in time to see themselves on CNN spouting more Hate Speech than Hitler’s scriptwriter could keep up with.
I suspect part of the protesters and marchers are shamed by the personally degrading behavior they get associated with. They depart as quickly as they can, leaving their “enthusiastic cohorts” to break windows, set cars on fire and loot the neighborhood – leaving who to clean up? There are examples of protesters who made an effort to clean up their mess. The Native Americans and ‘environmentalists’ protesting against the Dakota Access Pipeline tried, but the quagmire of abandoned garbage, teepees, vehicles and human waste made it impossible. The Army spent $1.1 million to make it safe again.

The 470,000 marchers in The Women’s March in Washington, D.C., were encouraged to leave their signs with sticks or cardboard on the street as a “slap in the face” to their nemesis. How easy is it to bend over and pick up a flat piece of cardboard from the sidewalk? How about picking up 200,000 of them?
New York City, Chicago, Austin, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Portland, Seattle, Philadelphia equate to mountainous, immense, huge, gigantic, megalithic piles of detritus left by – what’s a good word to describe the protesters and marchers? Changers? Supporters? Good Intentioneers? Sincere Obstructers? Meaning Wellers?
How about “Protesters Offended by Other Protesters?”
Well, what do they all have in common?  Imagine a circus parade with both elephants and Protesters Offended by Other Protesters – POOPsters. It would be fair to say neither POOPsters nor elephants give a poop about the mess they make. Which brings us to the question, WHO cleans up
the mess?
The answer is: The city garbage crews, the EMTs, nurses, tow truck drivers, firemen, city police, food service workers, hospital emergency lifesavers and all those people whose store, business, office, church or home has been vandalized
or demolished.
That’s who.
If you are part of this poop parade, regardless of the cause, think of the mess as your legacy. Think of them as having to change your diaper after you’ve done your business. Even if 25% of the POOPsters had the character or self-respect of Missy, who does clean up your mess, maybe people would take
you seriously.