Toughsledding

POCATELLO — As Americans we live in a deftly created illusion of certainty.
Even the atheists among us believe in magic grocery stores that refill automatically like the little porridge pot in a childhood faery tale. We believe in bottomless gas pumps that never run dry like the miraculous oil lamp in that Old Testament Bible story.
The only problem is, on the national scale, we aren’t entertaining weary prophets unaware or doing other selfless works deserving of divinely inspired miracles.
So, what happens when the sorcerer’s magic has run its course, when the cauldron ceases to boil and bubble, when there are no more newts and frogs to plunder for their magical appendages?
These are questions Americans are quite willing to put off and ignore as long as comfort levels aren’t breached.
We’ve been encouraged to “believe” that “they” will take care of “it” and cheap food and fuel will always be available, like magic, because this is America, and by definition: the land of plenty.
Isn’t that why “everybody” wants to come here, why our president believes we must arm our borders so others can’t interfere with the magic?
I could make myself crazy thinking about these issues (and some think I’ve already accomplished this). I might even think up a solution, but I know in this “democratic” nation that no one in power would be interested in a solution, because the greedy few would rather risk creating a pressure cooker of discontent over and above a legitimate humanitarian move simply because there’s more money to be made in chaos than in peace.
These frustrating issues are obviously way beyond my control, so, I garden. I play in the dirt, plant seeds, cruise greenhouses for flowers and herbs, and sink my soul into greenery, edible and ornamental, but it doesn’t keep me entirely from thinking.
For instance, what percentage of our food comes from Mexico and beyond? If those countries exploited that percentage, would the political tables turn?
Could all this fuss at the border be really about keeping a steady stream of strawberries, asparagus and other produce moving northward during off seasons because United Statesian fields are no longer in production?
It’s obvious that foreign laborers in their own fields work for even fewer dollars than in ours keeping U.S. imported food costs low.
Recently, I read that an agricultural “expert” at one of California’s universities thinks the U. S. should stop growing food altogether because it’s more economical to import it.
Such a move would certainly quell much of the immigration “problem” down south, but wouldn’t such a reduction in home food production make our way of life more vulnerable to disintegration? All that would be required to create severe disruption is halt truck, train and air travel.
In other words, cut supply lines, a simple military tactical maneuver.
I remember our president saying that the American lifestyle is not negotiable. What are the ramifications of such a statement?
And what happened to the prevailing mythology that this great agricultural paradise feeds the world?
If that isn’t the case, then what is the function of those vast weedless fields ploughed, disked, seeded, fertilized, treated for pests several times a year by gigantic, petroleum-run, four-wheel-drive tractors?
If these “modern” methods are so wonderful, why are human laborers still a commodity, especially since we’ve developed tomatoes that can be harvested by machine, and our poisons keep weeds at bay so they don’t have to be plucked by hand . . . or do they?
Oh, dear, I’ve done it again. In late afternoon, I fix myself a green salad from my garden, slather it with imported Italian olive oil and red wine vinegar, pour a glass of French Côte du Rhone, and my mind takes off.
As Shakespeare said in “Hamlet,” “Something is rotten in the state of Denmark” only whatever is bugging me, it’s not specifically in Denmark, and I can’t shake the idea that food ignorance and manipulation is destined to be the downfall of Rome.