Cancer! Let's Celebrate!

October is here! To celebrate, the streets are littered with toxic pink plastic to make us aware it is National Breast Cancer Awareness Month. The Awareness Month organizers who are responsible for the decorations are so totally UNAWARE of the toxicity and health risks of polluting the environment with plastics. What a contradiction, but appropriately symbolic of this month-long fundraising event.

Since the 1940s the American government has been supporting cancer research in an effort to find a cure for the disease. What have they accomplished? Not much. It would be inconvenient to find a cure for something that supports so many special interest groups. Capitalism would fail without cancer.

We know what the cure is for cancer because we are constantly being informed what causes cancer. Read the newspaper, listen to the radio, watch television. Being informed isn't hard. Let's see. What have I read, listened to, and watched in the last ten years? Cell phones cause brain cancer. Deodorants cause breast cancer. Feminine hygiene products cause ovarian cancer. Teeth whitening products cause mouth cancer. Black hair dye causes prostate cancer. Shampoo ingredients cause any kind of cancer. Fresh produce laced with pesticides and chemical fertilizers causes all kinds of cancer. Birth control pills cause lots of cancer. Toluene causes cancer. Toluene? You know that ingredient found in explosives, auto supplies, fragrances and perfumes? Heck, smoking causes cancer. Is anyone not aware of that?  Do we care? Are shampoos and cigarettes still on the shelf at our grocery stores? Has sales gone down even a tiny bit for cell phones?

And what about the cancer-causing toxins in our environment that we take for granted: car exhaust, factory pollution, chemically-treated water supplies.

The government goes out of its way to assure the public that everything is safe. The FDA does all kinds of studies, tests, and trials and claims everything is safe. It's all fine. No worries. Spend your money freely.  Which special interest group is paying for the studies? How do they sway the results so their partnerships benefit by making more money? Even with all the promotion and advertising used to cover up the warnings, the truth leaks out. People really don't know what causes cancer? Is everyone blind, deaf, and dumb? And I mean dumb in the most humbling way. But no one seems to care.
 

It's not hard to find out what causes cancer. What is hard is for people to get off their asses and do something to help themselves and those around them live healthier lives. But it's too inconvenient. It's too hard. It's much easier to give money and keep their heads buried in the sand.

I've asked a few of the donation-begging sponsors of this month-long cancer guilt trip where does the money they collect go?  Those who even have an answer say with unfounded excitement, "Oh, research for a cancer cure!" But where does the money go? No one knows. I would assume someone might say the American Cancer Society, but even if this was the script they read and memorized, they would be hard pressed to know WHERE THE MONEY GOES. Who really benefits from this money? Where is this cure that was promised more than seventy years ago? That's a lot of money that's done very little.

BUT, BUT, it's to find a CURE! This has to be the most preposterous idea I could ever imagine, and people really buy into this through guilt, fear and manipulation. They haven't found a CURE in sixty years. People are dying, we know what causes cancer, and yet people only whine. It's very American to do nothing except wait for that miracle cure, that quick fix, the easy out. Maybe a pill one can take that will make everything better? Instead of making an effort by adjusting lifestyles and bad habits to save themselves and the people around them, they want it easy and giving money to a blind cause helps lessen the guilt of apathy and laziness. Let someone else find a CURE while they smoke their cigarettes, use their cell phones, and dye their hair. Then when they do get the dreaded death sentence, they and their loved ones can plead how unfair life is. Too bad there isn't a CURE. Let's have a few more spaghetti feeds to earn more money to find that CURE. Only make sure that spaghetti is freeze dried with a whole lot of unpronounceable chemical preservatives, artificial flavors, dyes and colors listed on the label.

I'm so sick of the hypocrisy. Instead of getting volunteers to run around asking for money for a worthless cause, why not challenge each other not to smoke? Why not put all that money back into the development of an electric car? Why not demand only organic food be sold in stores? Why not boycott chemically-scented products? Why not stop patronizing McDonalds and Starbucks and eat real food? Why don't people challenge themselves and others to be the healthiest they can be? Why not stop supporting cancer with their bad habits?

Nothing doing. We're capitalists. It's all about the almighty dollar. It's so much easier to lay back and give money to find a "cure" than to take responsibility. And of course, it's so much easier to hang toxic pink plastic all over the town so everyone thinks we are doing something productive when in fact,after the celebration is over, no one even bothers to take it down. It floats through the streets for months as a reminder of the wasted energy.

Happy National Breast Cancer Awareness Month! Let's Celebrate!

It's so hypocritical.