“Rum will be absolutely necessary to get through this night -- to polish these notes, this shameful diary…” Hunter S. Thompson, Fear & Loathing in Las Vegas
Health care workers, doctors, nurses, orderlies, technicians, all of them, must be protected at all costs, no matter the inconvenience to the Trump Junta. They are the critical first line of defense against a pandemic. Let’s pray that the all-knowing free market provides enough protective equipment, gowns, ventilators, masks, and gloves to protect our health care workers. Because if they go down, we go down.
But what if the private sector can’t do it, or won’t do it unless the price is divine, the contract guaranteed, no matter how many might die from shoddy manufacturing, lax quality, and late deliveries? Do you trust Corporate America? Exxon-Mobil? Facebook? Goldman Sachs? General Motors? Do you really want to outsource the response to this pandemic, or any other crisis, to Corporate America? Do you really want to roll those dice?
Public and private must find some kind of equilibrium for long-term stability. Our 40-year-trek to the dark Heart of Capitalism is nearing its inevitable end. The fabled gates where every human person has an equal shot at fortune and comfort are within sight, but for those who cannot, or will not, keep up, well, they will get what they earned. And if a few worthy souls claim all the gold and silver, silks and spices, concubines and slaves, musicians and mystics, palaces and private islands, it is simply the natural order asserting its dominance. It has always been the same, the weak do not survive. The Law of the Jungle. Fuck the Enlightenment. Fuck Humanism! Ayn Rand forever!
Unless you land at the top, you will be exploited in some way. Sometimes the higher you climb the less you are exploited, but the less exploited you are the more power you have to exploit others. Life is paradox, right?
Trump deployed the National Guard to California and New York, if I’m not mistaken. What’s the Guard doing? What’s their mission? Who do they answer to? Will hospitals be cordoned off before too long?
I had trouble figuring out it was Tuesday. Only Tuesday. In her bedroom my daughter wails that she cannot take anymore. Why can’t my boyfriend come over? The 6’ rule is BS, it’s stupid. I’m losing my mind and nobody cares! At 8:30 a.m. we are in line at Trader Joe’s on Milpas, with maybe 10 people before us. I was glad to see a separate line for senior citizens. The store opens at 9:00. We got in at 9:30. Everyone in line was orderly, compliant, patient, but in the faces of many I saw fatigue, drawn expressions, stooped shoulders, an inwardness which made total sense. I watch my breathing, in and out. We’ll find everything we need, I tell myself, with the exception of TP. One must get in line very early to score TP.
The store is orderly and well-stocked. Almond milk is back in good supply. Half/half. Butter. Two dozen eggs! Yogurt. Corn Flakes. Two cans of tuna! Two cans of vegetarian chili! Six bottles of wine. One sick pack of beer. French Roast Coffee. Cheese. Wheat bread. Tortillas. Potato chips. We load up. We’re rolling. At first I noticed I was feeling anxious, like I had to grab what we needed immediately lest we go without, that I had to move fast, as if on a timed scavenger hunt. The days of pushing the cart leisurely up and the aisles are gone. When it felt vaguely competitive I caught myself, turned around and took a panoramic look. With the exception of Coronavirus Gold (toilet paper), there was plenty of everything to go around. There was no clock above the entrance ticking the minutes away. Breathe, man, think, keep your cool, take it slow.
The NYSE closed up 2,113 points today. Trump will misinterpret this momentary surge as a sure sign that his brilliant leadership is saving the stock market from ruin. Almost single-handedly, Trump brings the stock market back from the dead. That will be the story, repeated and repeated and repeated; like a drum in the night, and a chainsaw at dawn, you will not be able to ignore it. “I alone can fix it.”
God help us all.
To fight a pandemic like the coronavirus, a nation needs a robust public health response. Now the bad news: the US doesn’t have a robust public health system. Ours was gutted and allowed to bleed to death. Far too costly, and not the proper role of government. The glorious free market is the best way to deliver care when it is needed, justified, cost-benefit analyzed, and paid for in advance.
American capitalism is a virus, do you understand? It attacks society’s equilibrium. We’ve let it go untreated for decades, a failure of political will, courage, and values. Money won the day. Idealism is for suckers and fools, comfort and justice for the rich.
It’s the Hunger Games in the USA, at least in the great State of Texas, where the Lt. Governor recently suggested the elderly should sacrifice (by dying off?) to save the economy for the younger generation. Don’t tell me this statement surprises you? You’ve been paying attention, haven’t you? It’s just business, man, just business. In late stage capitalism, human life loses value.
Trump must think America is like one of his hotels, where the gilded front doors are thrown open after an elaborately staged ribbon cutting ceremony. “I’m happy to say that we updated the plumbing, at great expense to me personally, but we did a great job and in record time, the greatest plumbing job in history, with no collusion or quid pro quo, and it’s just fantastic that we’re open for business again. And here’s the thing I’m most proud of -- we’re opening on Easter Sunday, a glorious day, a magnificent day, it’s an all-American ressurection. God’s very happy today, I can tell you that.”
Oh, Donald, you ignorant fuck, do you think we’ve been out rennovating, checking on the contractors, polishing the railings? Re-open? Are you serious? Do you think America is like the neighborhood barber shop, it opens, it closes, the proprietor shuts it down for a few days vacation in Miami, turns it back on by flipping a sign in the window when he returns? Donald, this is a nation. It’s very big. It’s complicated. There’s no on/off switch.
Our salvation lies in the Market. We have to feed it what it needs, what it wants, what it desires. The hours and days of our lives? Our very souls? No, your cotton tops, graybeards, codgers, old biddies, the broken and infirm, grandparents. Perhaps this will be enough, but I must warn you, the market is insatiable. It’s a beast of unimaginable cunning, cruelty, and viciousness, whose hunger and thirst can never be slaked! It has three inch claws, laser vision, armor plating, razor-wire teeth, and an acute sense of smell. The elderly will go first, but more will be needed, always more will be needed. More sacrifice, more blood.
Donald J. Trump: “After my great and unprecedented response to the evil and deadly Chinese coronavirus, I must be re-elected with the biggest margin of victory ever recorded. I, and only I, no one else, just me, saw this pandemic coming. I am king, sultan, supreme leader, generalisimo, president, Top Gun, Sage on the Stage, Grand Wizard, Pope. I am the sun and the moon. I am Midas. I am TRUMP!”
Here’s Trump’s plan in a nutshell: “Let’s just see what happens.”
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