The Isolation Diaries No. 4

“Nothing is more punitive than to give a disease a meaning -- that meaning being invariably a moralistic one.” Susan Sontag

It rained here overnight, steady. I listened to the sound of water running in the rain gutter above our bedroom window as I read 2666 by Roberto Bolano. My young daughter, 18-years-old, has difficulty understanding the significance of the coronavirus and the social distancing measures necessary to slow the spread of infection. She misses her friends, wants to hang out with her boyfriend. I remind myself, over and over, that I was once her age, and just as heedless of commonsense, caution, and advice. 

I fear that pandemics and other large scale disruptions due to climate change will be normal for my daughter’s generation. Unless we change direction now, politically, economically, and socially, calamity on calamity will be the future. 

Our son is in Los Angeles, staying with a friend, but may soon come home to Santa Barbara. When he arrives our small apartment will become tiny, nerves will become frayed, and tempers short. But Gabriel will be home. On this morning when I can see blue sky out the window, and the deck is still wet from last night’s rain, there’s no end in sight for this enforced isolation. But it will end at some point, the crisis will pass, and we will collect the pieces and begin anew. Epidemics and pandemics are part of the human story. The question will be: do we learn from this experience and start making fundamental change, or simply attempt to pick up where we left off? The rulers and their political servants will want the latter and will exert all their power to make it so; they will never willingly let go of a system that has rewarded them so lavishly. 

Mehdi Hasan of The Intercept called on Vice President Pence to invoke the 25th Amendment to remove Donald J. Trump from office. Here’s part of what Hasan wrote:

“This is a president who rambles, rants, and raves; who spent weeks downplaying the spread of the novel coronavirus and ignoring warnings from his own intelligence agencies; who claimed to be unaware that Americans who need tests are unable to get them; who uses press briefings not to inform the public but to regularly attack the press; who went golfing while health professionals begged for resources and equipment; who has repeatedly contradicted his own top scientists by pushing unproven drugs as a treatment for Covid-19; who tried to buy a vaccine from Germany but only for “exclusive” use in the United States; who took a break from crisis management to go on Twitter and complain about Hillary Clinton’s emails and Benghazi.”

Cometh the hour, cometh the imbecile. Trump is a clear and present danger to this country. Watch any of his press briefings and tell me the man is not mentally unfit. For political advantage Trump will gladly trade the health of American citizens. We’re in the early stages of a health crisis and Trump somehow, apropo of nothing, takes the opportunity to babble about how much money the presidency has cost him. Money and power is all Trump cares about, which is likely the reason he will fight like a wolverine to keep his tax returns secret. (The returns will probably show that Trump isn’t as wealthy as he has longed boasted.) It has never been more clear and obvious that Trump is utterly incompetent. Why can’t his cult followers see this? Why can’t the GOP see it? How many Americans must die before the blinders come off?  

The Senate stimulus bill or whatever they’re calling it, reportedly includes a $500 billion (think of this number and what it could supply for the American working-class) corporate slush fund to be controlled by Steve Mnuchin at Treasury...that alone should be a disqualification. Mnuchin is a vulture. What’s really mind-blowing about this is to consider how wealthy have-it-alls, unlike the poor, are never required to account for the government largesse they receive. No work requirements, surly case managers, time limits, amount limits, home inspections, or other intrusive scrutiny. The wealthy give themselves billions, even trillions of dollars, with no strings or questions attached, while the poor must prove, and prove again, their need for a few thousand dollars. The arrogance and hypocrisy stun the mind. 

I hope, as Patti Smith sings, we have the power to redeem the work of fools. 

The gum trees in the backyard are dripping, the ground is soaked. The sound of the wind chimes is mournful.