Week of 09/28/2020

 

America, Let’s Just Cancel 2020
– by David Matthews 2

Okay, America: I’m just going to say it.

Let’s just cancel 2020.

I mean, pretty much everything since April has been ruined or otherwise diminished thanks to the COVID-19 global pandemic.

Think for a moment about all of the things that we’ve lost.  We’ve had schools closed early and re-start late.  We’ve had concerts and conventions and big public events cancelled.  We’ve lost millions and millions of jobs.  Businesses have been shut down.  Restaurants and movie theaters have been closed, some of them forever.  The Gross Domestic Product lost more this year than in American history!  That includes the Great Recession and the Great Depression!

Every month since April, we’ve been looking at the calendar, and we’ve been asking ourselves what calamity we will be hit with next.  Unprecedented numbers of hurricanes, earthquakes in places not normally known for them, tornadoes, wildfires that could be seen from the International Space Station and whose smoke literally crosses the continent!  We’re watching for possible asteroid strikes, volcano eruptions, and folks in Texas just were warned about a brain-eating ameboma in their drinking water!

Even the entertainment we could watch from home has been affected!  This past TV season had to end early for a lot of shows since they couldn’t finish their planned season because of the pandemic.  Those that could had to employ weird uses of computer animation and teleconferencing.  And then the new season of shows won’t even be ready until at least January.  We’re watching repeats from last season and acting like they’re new.

As of this column’s post, it is the last few days of September, and people are already talking about cancelling Halloween and Black Friday.  Or, at the very least, minimizing them.

And this is all on us, America.  All of it.

Yes, the virus came to us from China by way of Europe.  But they didn’t give us the ignorance, the politicized denial of science, the outright sabotage of our medical institutions to properly deal with and report on those infected and those dead, the out-and-out hostile resistance to testing and to taking even measured steps to stop the spread of the virus, such as wearing masks and practicing social distancing.  We can’t blame China or Russia or even Mexico for any of that.  That is all 100% “Made in the U.S. of A”!

And it is because of that fatal mix of ignorance, incompetence, sabotage, and genocide, that America is still in the “first wave” of the pandemic.  We’re not even trying to stop it.  Other nations have barred us from going there because of it.  We are a plague-ridden embarrassment to the rest of the civilized world.  That is not hysteria.  That is a fact.

Why?  Because those other countries took the steps to identify, trace, control, and contain the infection during their first wave.  They didn’t kvetch like a certain orange-skinned narcissist did about “not causing a panic” or lie about available protective gear and testing or whine about profits.  They didn’t call it a “hoax” or claim that it would one day magically go away.  They shut down their businesses and stores and sent their people home and kept them home until it was safe enough for them to venture back out.  And because they did that, they’re just starting things back up.  That’s why the TV shows filmed in Vancouver are just starting up again and why the new season will start in January.

But, no, that’s not how we roll here in ‘Murica.  Not with said orange-skinned narcissist in the White House and his legion of hostile extremists all across the country.  No, we put profits ahead of people.  We put Wall Street ahead of Main Street and our street.  We whine about not getting our hair colored and our nails done and not being allowed to get a drink or eat a meal or get together like we used to.  We flip the bird when it comes to mask mandates and restrictions to how we gather.  We show up at political rallies and holiday events, not giving one care about whether or not any of us get infected, get sick, or even die.

Over seven million Americans have been infected as of this article.  Over two-hundred thousand have died as of this column posting.  A lot of them didn’t have to die.  The rest are getting hospital bills that range from $90,000 to over a million, and there is no guarantee that their insurance will cover any of it.  And those that survive will forever be diminished because of it.  They will have a pre-existing condition for future injuries and illnesses.

We give lip service to masks and social distancing, and we are putting all our hopes on a vaccine that may or may not be ready in the next few months, and may or may not work, and, even if it does, will not be distributed to enough people to make a serious dent to the infection rate for at least another year.  And all so said orange-stained narcissist can win an election.

Well, let’s just go ahead and cancel the rest of 2020’s events with the lone exception of the general election.  Cancel Halloween, cancel Thanksgiving, cancel Christmas, and cancel New Year’s Eve and even New Year’s Day.  Make the holiday shopping spree a cyber-season and teleconference your family reunions.  Got a nice tree?  Put it up on Instagram and crack open some pine-scented air fresheners.  YouTube the caroling, and stream some old football games from ESPN.  The only real travelling for the rest of the year should be done by delivery trucks, and from electronic communication.

But, of course, we won’t do that.  Because let’s get brutally honest here… we’re ‘Muricans.  We expect Jesus to protect us, even as more of us fall victim to the pandemic.

I used to laugh when I hear ministers proclaim “Our Gawd is stronger than your virus” and then suddenly end up in the hospital with the virus.  But I don’t laugh about that anymore.  I get pissed.  I get pissed because their arrogance is part of the reason why are a plague-ridden embarrassment to the rest of the civilized world.

It is our collective ignorance and pious self-righteous arrogance, not to mention gross executive incompetence and genocidal negligence, that has prolonged the pandemic in this country.  We could have been spending the end of 2020 like we’ve wanted to.  But that would have depended on widespread testing and tracing and by everyone actually wearing masks and practicing social distancing back in April instead of throwing temper tantrums.  Yeah, let’s wait in line for two hours at the airport while we take off our shoes and have our bodies randomly searched, and let’s have our kids carry backpacks half their size and weight and go through metal detectors and have random shooter drills, but how dare we be told to wear a mask at the Wal-Mart for thirty minutes!

So let’s cancel the rest of the year, but not the election.  We need to keep that; because that is the only way we can vote out the people responsible for us being the global embarrassment that we are.  We need to vote out the ones that tell us this is a “hoax” that will “soon go away”.  The ones that admit to hindering testing and demand we put profits over people.  It’s the only way that we can hold them accountable for this. 

Because they’re really not paying the price for us having to cancel much of 2020.  We are the ones that are paying for it.  That’s on us.