Why is it that we struggle, fumble and flail, throwing tons of money at multiple efforts to treat symptoms of problems, yet never attacking directly or, worse, not even recognizing, considering or acknowledging the cause? There’s another huge problem to solve yet again, and so we pontificate, bloviate, prevaricate and obfuscate while battling to solve that problem, when we know deep down that the problem will really not be solved – it will come back to bite us again and again, because we have not really solved it – we’ve just attacked the symptoms. 

A good example is all the Trump “news”. This dreadful person still dominates the headlines every day even though he’s been out of office now for three years. The latest series of legal indictments seem to indicate that he might finally be held accountable for his crimes, will be declared guilty  and will then actually have to don that orange suit and disappear into a prison. Then we will all heave a sigh of relief – he’s finally out of our sight and out of our minds; he’s not the headline in the news any longer; we will have put Trump into the past and we can relax. The nightmare is over. Politics is returning to normal. Back slapping and hight-fives all around. We’ve fixed our country, we’ve preserved “American democracy”. 

Yeah, right. Not so fast. Will finally holding Trump accountable for his crimes be the “fix” we’re looking for? Will it “turn the page”? I don’t think so. We have to examine the cause of the Trump problem. It wasn’t Trump himself – he was a symptom. We have to ask how did someone like Trump get elected? Why does he still have such a hold on the disaffected? No, unfortunately, the real problem – our weak and corrupt political system and all its attendant supports – is still intact. The corporate and billionaire money is still flowing to the PAC’s. The armies of lobbyists in DC and their corporate masters are still calling the shots in Congress. Inequality is still growing by the day. Wages are still down while corporate profits are up. The wealthy and the corporations are still not paying their fair share of taxes. The monstrous Federal debt continues to grow to unimaginable proportions. Millions of families still struggle to pay rent and put food on the table. Deindustrialization – moving factories overseas – continues unabated. Unions continue to be attacked. The number of homeless is still growing. Medical bankruptcies continue to rise. People are still being gunned down in the streets. Our Department of “Defense” continues to suck up the bulk of our discretionary budget to support the American empire’s 800 military bases worldwide, counter the “threat” of China or Iran and fund the foolish and dangerous proxy war with Russia in Ukraine. Our Supreme Court continues to betray our citizenry with nonsensical “originalist” interpretation of the moribund US Constitution, badly in need of substantial amendment. And our corporate media, instead of discussing and debating these problems, taking a stand and helping to solve them, is still pouring out useless garbage 24-7 for our consumption. 

These conditions created Trump and allowed him to be elected. And unless we correct them there will be another Trump and we will very rapidly be pushed over the brink to fascism, where we have been teetering for at least a decade now. This is the real problem. It is not Trump himself but our country itself and its ever shakier foundation and condition.

Another example of concerning ourselves with symptoms rather than real problems and beating around the edges is the changing climate which is causing disaster after disaster in the US and around the world and threatens ever more untold, unimaginable disaster and death, unless met head-on and successfully dealt with. 

In early July of this year, here in Vermont we were dealt a tremendous climactic blow – the heaviest rain in the shortest time in the history of the state. Here in Dorset, we received well over nine inches of rain in 36 hours – almost an entire summer’s worth of moisture in that short time. At our home we escaped more or less unscathed, but other parts of the state sustained severe flooding and significant destruction of property. So with the help of the Federal government state officials are scurrying about rebuilding washed out roads and bridges, repairing and restoring flooded buildings, rebuilding violated riverbanks, strengthening dams and building levees. There now, we are investing millions of dollars in all of these repairs and preventative measures, so we’re ready for the next inundation. Not so fast – the real problem – global warming from climate change caused by burning fossil fuels – is still out there. That nine plus inches of rain may be doubled the next time or the dear state of Vermont may not receive any rain at all next summer, turning the Green Mountain state into the “brown” mountain state, who knows?

And the country and the world have been horrified at the death and destruction wrought by the worst wildfire disaster in the history of the US in Lahaina, Maui, Hawaii. City and state authorities are now discovering that fire hydrants didn’t work, that the warning system was faulty and the sirens didn’t go off, that the phone system didn’t function, and that the proliferation of dry non-native grasses provided the tinder that spread the fire. Also they have discovered that the fire likely started because of poorly maintained electrical transmission lines from the good old investor owned, profit based Hawaiian Electric stinting on necessary maintenance in order to increase payouts for its stockholders and big salaries for its executives. 

But the real problem is global warming. Let’s not “peripherize “ (new word I just invented – means “beating around the bush”) the problem. Let’s direct our energies and funding to eliminating the use of fossil fuels and reducing greenhouse gases in order to save the rich and welcoming climate of this world of ours. Yes, of course, we have to repair and replace what’s been destroyed but let’s not lose sight of what really needs to be done. Let’s not put the billions of dollars into merely treating the symptoms but into correcting the cause. And a NYTimes headline this morning “Finding Climate Havens” – how typical of our mainstream media – masking and papering over problems with avoidance strategies. And from the Washington Post- “Extreme Heat is Punishing the Country: Here’s How to Prepare for More”. Really – this is their answer to the climate catastrophe we’re facing? Nothing about the rapacious lying oil and gas corporations, nothing about the US still being the world’s number two biggest polluter and the world’s largest producer of fossil fuels. Nothing about the absolute necessity of nations coming together to cooperate on attacking climate change instead of fighting or reducing the influence of our “adversaries”. No, on this subject all we get is beating the drum for our proxy war with Russia in Ukraine or acquiescence as we encircle China with military bases.

Now let’s take a look at another problem that we’ve “peripherized” – student debt. Yes, Biden’s yet unfulfilled promise of cancelling student debt continues to create controversy. Indeed, there is the issue of “fairness”. People who have borrowed heavily and successfully repaid their loans may be upset that this possible expected benefit will arrive too late to benefit them. Or, the thousands of students who have borrowed to attend worthless schools or that were unable to finish and receive a diploma are upset that they continue to pay back loans that did not help them. And then there are the people who resent the fact that students from wealthy families who have chosen to finance much of their education through borrowing even though they did not have to, may receive this unneeded and undeserved windfall benefit. And finally, there are those who are upset that students who have borrowed huge sums for diplomas leading to potentially high return careers like medicine or law, are less deserving to have their loans forgiven than those who have borrowed to earn just a basic bachelor’s degree. 

But dear reader(s), who has borrowed when and for what and how much and whether that loan should be forgiven is not the real problem here. The real problem is that higher education costs in our beloved country have ballooned and spiraled upward for decades and are now out of control. Higher education costs far too much at any level and at any location in the US to be adequately borne except by the wealthy or by borrowing. Other advanced countries have recognized the value of an educated populace and have successfully made most higher education completely free. We have gone in the opposite direction, steadily reducing state and Federal support of our higher education institutions, even “corporatizing” them in many instances. Yes, the distinguished “college president” who used to preside over the operation of a venerable institution of higher learning, even teaching a few courses himself or herself, has given way to “university CEO’s” – manager types, driven by hordes of expensive “consultants”, whose main function is to increase endowments and donor contributions, increase the number of highly paid administrators, build showy expensive capital project monuments to collegiate sports, and paying for it all by increasing tuition, cutting programs, limiting the number of highly paid professors and replacing them with poorly paid teaching graduate assistants. A perfect example of this kind of destruction of higher education at a public university is what has happened recently at the University of West Virginia. 

Senator Bernie Sanders is right – we need to reduce the cost of higher education – to make it like it was in the ’50’s, 60’s and 70’s. where the cost of tuition and room and board at an institution of higher learning could just about be paid for through modest savings and part time jobs. Or it should be free, as it was in many state universities several decades ago, the best example of which was the University of California system – absolutely free until Ronald Reagan became governor, not wishing to “subsidize intellectual curiosity”. He continued this practice as president, slashing government support for higher education over his two terms as did one of his successors, George W. Bush. This is the real problem – steadily rising costs at all of our institutions of higher learning, including land grant state universities, created to serve the higher education needs of any state resident qualified to attend. So this is the real problem lurking in the controversy surrounding the student debt issue and I have not seen anything from President Biden or his Education Secretary Cardona or their state level counterparts about serious efforts to reduce the cost of higher education at state universities. 

And finally, I have to mention yet again the sorry state of medical care in the US. It is well known that we spend far more on healthcare than any other advanced nation in the world, and yet get the worst results. Longevity measures are shamefully far behind other developed nations, as are maternal and infant mortality rates. Medical bankruptcies are rife in the US yet are unknown in other advanced countries. US performance in handling the recent covid pandemic was shameful, resulting in thousands of unneeded deaths.

Yet our politicians, virtually all receiving campaign contributions from pharmaceutical and health insurance corporations, continue braying about “reducing the cost of drugs” or “increasing access to medical care” or “building on Obamacare”. Virtually every single effort we have made in the last several decades to extend or improve medical care has consisted merely of variations to the same tired old theme embodied in the ACA, Obama’s supposedly “signature program” – which consists basically of giving more government money to health insurance corporations or giving individuals more government money to help buy their shoddy products. 

And our useless mainstream media, both newspapers and TV networks, continue to ignore the problem. Even the few occasionally perceptive columnists writing for major papers continue to miss the mark. An example was the very disappointing recent Nick Kristof New York Times column titled “How do we fix the scandal that is American health care?”, in which among solutions proposed were cliches like “expand access to care” and “rethinking health behaviors”. Come now, Kristof barely touched on the biggest problem, the real problem in American healthcare – that it is privatized and profit driven. Poor and rural areas of the country will continue to be neglected because there is little or no profit to be made. The health needs of patients will continue to be served based on the quantity of profit to be made. Copays and premiums will continue to rise, doctor recommended procedures will continue to be denied, all for benefit of the bottom line and Congress will continue to allow public programs like Medicaid and Medicare to be privatized and become additional profit centers for healthcare corporations.

To improve our shameful outcomes, corporations and profit simply must be removed from the equation and this can only be accomplished by moving to a single payer system funded by the government, like Medicare for All. Healthcare behemoths like United Healthcare, Cigna and Humana, make their billions in profit to send to wealthy shareholders and to pay obscene salaries to their executive by increasing receipts from patients and government entities and reducing care for patients. Profit is their main concern – not health. And until this is corrected we will never cover 100 percent of our population or increase positive health outcomes as other wealthy countries routinely do. This corporate system of healthcare is the real problem.

Before I conclude this article, I have to mention one more area where we beat around the bush, peripherizing and rarely if ever defining or attacking the real problem. This relates to the growing ranks of poor along with a shrinking middle class, increasing homelessness, malnutrition, food insecurity, and a sense of hopelessness and anger – all symptoms of a much deeper problem centered around what we conveniently call “low wage jobs”. In the US where minimum wage laws are woefully inadequate and unions have been systematically weakened, we have allowed employers to pay as little as possible to employees in order to maximize profits. We need a massive effort to do away with “low wage jobs”. Every single person who works in this “wealthiest country in the world” should receive a living wage at the very least, no matter the nature of the work. There should be no category like “low wage job”. This is the real problem which has caused a host of other symptoms. All employers who pay workers must be required to pay a living wage and if they cannot afford to do so, let them raise prices for what they produce or the service they provide or go out of business. If MacDonald’s can pay a living wage in Denmark, they can pay a living wage in the US. If we can achieve this goal – providing a middle class living wage to all workers – enough to afford housing and other necessities, we could do away with the plethora of inefficient, bureaucratic programs like SNAP, CHIP, TANF and all the rest, which merely treat symptoms and are at best maintenance programs, not the necessary means to truly liberate and extricate people from the ranks of the poor. I do not believe as has oft been quoted that “the poor will always be with us”.

There are many other instances of devoting massive resources for symptoms while missing the problem itself. For example the main cause of the housing crisis and homelessness is the corporatization of the housing market, the purchase of millions of homes and apartment houses by “investors” and private equity which has driven home ownership and rentals steadily higher and out of reach for many. Another is the constellation of symptoms around the abortion issue like “right to life”, “killing babies”, “fetal rights” and adoption, have caused us to lose sight of the real basic issue, which is simply the right of women to control their own bodies. And yet another certainly is disguising the Ukraine war as a fight for democracy and freedom rather than a way for the US to fight and “weaken” Russia through killing Ukrainians rather than Americans – in Mitt Romney’s selfish words  And one of the biggest problems we face in our country today, that of gun deaths and mass shootings, remains unsolved and is actually getting worse. And we beat around the bush, blathering about mental illness, poor law enforcement or lack of training and a plethora of other non-solutions, while we know that the problem is simply that there are too many guns on the street and there are insufficient laws regulating their manufacture, sale and ownership.

So whether it’s mere willful blindness, denial or a simple unwillingness to attack the problems themselves because of their size and seriousness, we nevertheless continue to waste billions of dollars and millions of words describing and treating symptoms instead of attacking the real problems. Clearly we must instead extend and sharpen our vision to distinguish between symptoms and problems, define what the real problems are and then summon the courage and the will to assemble and mobilize resources sufficient to attack them directly and finally solve them.