photo

photo
photo by Sheri Dixon

Sunday, May 17, 2020

Welp, America Had a Good Run...

I last posted here on March 20th, 58 days ago.

The death toll in the US from Covid-19 was 259. Two hundred fifty nine.

Right now? 58 days later?

Death toll in the US from Covid-19 is 90,330. Ninety thousand three hundred thirty.

Fucking hell. 


I'm done with the You Tube videos "proving" that the virus is a hoax, or if it's not a hoax it's a liberal plot to install commie socialism in this country and make us all slaves by chipping us with a fake vaccine and turn on the 5G towers and make us all zombies.

I'm done with complete mouth-breathing knuckle-draggers hollering that no one is dying; that it's all a Deep State Illuminati exercise to see how far they can get us to go. There are no bodies, no exhausted medical workers, this is all to see how acquiescent we will be. Today we are supposed to stay home and wear masks. Tomorrow maybe bunny ears. The next day? Load up on the rail cars to the showers, ya'll.

I'm done with whiny little crybabies refusing to wear masks and stay home because it's 'infringing on their freedoms' who have spent a decade calling those of us who want people to have health care and education "snowflakes".

I'm done with a "president" who stands up and says, "With or without a vaccine, America is BACK!" as Americans continue to die every single day. We're not "back", you insipid dolt, we are DYING. You can't "order" meat packing plants to stay open without making sure the workers are safe. Those cows and chickens won't gut themselves, Brainiac. You can't spitball bullshit "ideas" for dealing with a pandemic when you don't have a minute of medical training, especially on camera talking to a scared populous who is *depending on you for direction*. 

And I'm totally done with hearing, "Well...America needs to get back to WORK. This stay at home thing will ruin the economy!" and have real adult humans speculating on an *acceptable* death rate.

I get it. I get that people are out of work and out of money and losing their businesses that they've spent a lifetime building. I get it and *I understand it*. 

Because here's the thing.

That shit is completely by design. It's end stage capitalism BY DESIGN.

Back to the whole "liberal agenda" thing.

Once upon a time, America went thru a Great Depression. The president who got us out of that mess was Franklin Delano Roosevelt. After it was over, with the horrors of that time fresh in his mind, FDR penned a "Second Bill of Rights", directing that unless America instilled those particular things, we would be wide open for another Great Depression. Those things were-
-the Right to a safe workplace that pays a living wage
-the Right to have access to health care, even if you can't afford it
-the Right to shelter. Homelessness is a neverending cycle.
-the Right to be free from business monopolies and unfair competition; things that kill small business
-the Right to a free and quality education
-the Right to social security, so if you get sick or are out of work, you will be OK financially

These things are what he felt were NEEDED if we were going to survive another huge upheaval in our nation...like a worldwide pandemic, for instance.

If we had done those things, we would be in a *much* better place than we are now; financially, physically, mentally. Individuals would have been protected from employment disruption and small businesses would have been strong and thriving, and have government (taxpayer) support in times of need. 

Liberals have been pushing for those things now for 76 years, and for 76 years Americans have been brainwashed by "conservatives" to believe those things are unaffordable, impractical, and downright unAmerican. 

Now, here we are.

We don't have any of those things we needed to have to weather this storm.

And the conservative base is giving the hairy eyeball to anything that smacks of "the liberal agenda", even a small thing like wearing masks in public to slow the spread of the virus (remember...259 dead 58 days ago and over 90,000 today) is sneered at and rejected as "government overreach". Holy hell, ya'll. The virus doesn't give two shits about your exaggerated belief in knowledge of our Constitution. 

It's not a "liberal plot to take advantage of the pandemic to make us all slaves".

Look around, for fuck's sake.

Our government is owned by corporations and special interests- these are the 1% conservatives. The people who are not "doctor or lawyer rich", but people who each hold more wealth than the rest of your entire state's population combined. That's why the majority of the last big tax law bill's benefits went to them and their corporations and not the rest of us or small businesses. Thank the 1% conservatives for that.

Our unions have been stripped of most of their powers and the EPA has been gutted, making workplaces more dangerous than ever. Thank the 1% conservatives for that.

Our minimum wage has not gone up since 2009. That's 11 years, ya'll. Meanwhile the cost of *everything* has doubled or tripled. Americans work longer hours for less pay than anyone else in the first world nations. Thank the 1% conservatives for that.

Americans are not lazy.
Amerians would not just sit at home on their asses without the fear of starvation and homelessness making them go to work.
Americans would not "run to the doctor every day" if health care was free.
1% conservatives want you to think that.

Look. Around.

What's happening in this global pandemic?

What will happen when (not if) our economy crashes, because it will, whether we stay home trying not to die or if we brave death and go back to work. Our economy is toast.

Because we don't have what FDR TOLD US WE NEEDED to avoid what is happening now, the other side of this looks like this:

-massive unemployment and tens of millions without the means to feed or house themselves and their families
-every single small business gone, dead and gone from the tanking of the economy

In the ruins of this nation, those of us who are left, will be forced to work for the places still standing- Walmart, Target, Exxon, etc. 

The end game of capitalism is for all the marbles to be in the hands of a very few, with the rest of us working for them for just enough to keep us from starving to death, but not enough to challenge them.

And we'll be able to thank the 1% conservatives for that.








I'd like to say it's not too late, that we could still change the ending. 

But I'm looking at a nation that cried together, no matter their individual politics, after 9/11 killed 3,000 Americans. As of today, we have lost 90,000 Americans (forty six 9/11s) in under two months, and fully a third of us are literally taking up arms and threatening the rest of us for trying to staunch the flow of death and denying it's even happening.

If we make it through this and come out the other side into anything remotely resembling a hopeful future for 99% of us, it will have to be with an entirely different economic model; one we should have had three quarters of a century ago.

Our window of opportunity is closing fast. Do we have the stomach to stand up to ignorance and greed? The pandemic pushed the capitalism end game to a more abrupt and stark finish than was probably expected, but it also thrust us into a unique position of freedom.

Our economy is fucked, our employment is disappearing, and we're facing literal death unless we do something immense and immediate to help ourselves, our families, our neighbors, and our local businesses. What else could we possibly lose?

1% conservatives have spent several decades grooming their base into a squirrely, suspicious, armed mass who hold that they alone are the only patriots, and the rest of us are commie pinkos who Hate America. Will we *allow* them to endanger the rest of us? Because that's what it's come to.

Do we have the balls to do what FDR directed us to do 76 years ago?





 










No comments:

Post a Comment