Saturday, March 14, 2020

Everybody Is An Exile

Like many of you, I am seesawing between mild concern to barely suppressed panic during the COVID-19 pandemic. As an over-60 person with a few chronic health issues, including intermittent asthma, I am among the millions at increased risk of death if I get sick. So I am self-isolating, and hoping for the best. 

My son and daughter-in-law both have careers that bring them in intimate daily contact with distressed and/or sick people. I especially fear for their safety, because it is just about inevitable that they will be exposed to the virus. Then, best case scenario, they'll have to self-quarantine.

 What is truly scary is that those whose careers are in health and public safety will be out of commission in ever increasing numbers. People increasingly will be completely on their own.

The response at the highest levels of government itself has been nothing short of sickening. The Federal Reserve was lighting-quick to pump a trillion and a half dollars into Wall Street without so much as a "but how you gonna pay for it?" The US Senate, for its part, left town without voting on Nancy Pelosi's dismal House bill offering such a pittance to regular people that it amounts to a slap in the face. Most workers will not in fact qualify for paid sick leave. 

The richest oligarchs and the biggest corporations (read: the political donor class) have been carefully exempted from having to compensate their sick workers and family caregivers. Jeff Bezos will not have to spend one dime of his vast obscene fortune to do right by his Amazon employees.

Just as the banks were deemed too big to fail when the financial system crashed in 2008, corporations are being deemed too big to be humane while enjoying their own human rights under the Citizens United ruling and their socialism-for- the rich handouts.

Meanwhile, the corporate media are covering the government's free virus testing concession as a major victory. But something so radical as actual free medical treatment for sick people?? Not so much. 

But cheer up, proles, because some Internet cable companies have magnanimously pledged not to cut people off from service for 60 days when they lose their income and can't pay the bill .Oh, and Walmart and other retailers have generously offered their parking lots as testing venues. Transportation is on you. Sickness is no excuse not to have skin in the game and abandon your personal responsibility.

So here's the existential dilemma. How are normal people supposed to join together in solidarity and protest when we must isolate ourselves in order to barely keep on existing? As it stands, the Internet is a lifeline absolutely necessary for children to learn and friends and families to communicate. Forget about 60 days of guaranteed service and late fee waivers. The Internet should be permanently declared a public utility, owned and controlled by the public. It shouldn't cost anything.

Predatory capitalism dies so, so hard. 

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If you watched Donald Trump's grotesque press conference in the Rose Garden yesterday, and you were already feeling queasy, his performance amid a supporting cast of loathsome disaster profiteers from the retail and drug companies was enough to make you reach for the barf bowl. As proof that late stage capitalism is at its very core profoundly stupid as well as banally evil, the way that the assembled tycoons and sycophants glad-handed each other shows they truly believe that their wealth makes them impervious to what strikes terror into the hearts of mere mortals.

The way that Creepy Veepy Mike Pence paid homage to Trump  and licked his shoes made me fear that he'll come down with hoof and mouth disease along with the Coronavirus that Trump has been exposed to on more than one occasion.

Here's the New York Times comment I wrote on Maureen Dowd's column, "Plagued By the President":
Trump might brag about being untested, but the fact remains that he has been tested and found pitifully and severely wanting - no more so than during this past week.
 If Trump could carry a tune as well as he carries polluted water for his oligarchic cronies, he would have burst into song at the press con which conned nobody, not even the sycophants and Trump rat packers with the dollar signs glittering in their eyes. The aging obese Sinatra wannabe effectively wheezed out "call me irresponsible, call me unreliable, throw in undependable too."
Do his foolish alibis bore us? Uh-huh.
 Do we think he's not too clever, but still adores us? Yes to the first, hell no to the second. He bores us and scares us to death at the same time.
It's undeniably true that he's irresponsibly mad. Not about you, though. He is just plain mad. Not the criminally insane kind, because then we'd have to forgive him for he knows not what he does. It would take until the end of time for all the millions of people he has harmed and continues to harm with his vile words and cruel policies to read out their victim impact statements.
 The bejeweled prosperity gospel charlatans and their GOP cohort peddle their snake oil and lay their hands on Trump and tell us to pray away the plague the same way they told the LGBT community to pray away the gay, But judging from his ever deeper bronzed facial hue, Trump seems to have been self-isolating in the White House tanning bed. Maybe he's trying to burn away the germ.


7 comments:

  1. The Pelosi bill is a disgrace in that it has a carve-out on paid sick leave (just paid sick leave, mind you!) for companies with more than 500 or less than 50 employees. Basically it would only cover 20% of the workforce.
    The bill is useless and amounts to negotiating from nowhere.
    Apparently Ro Khanna and Tim Ryan have a proposal to extend to everyone who made under $65k last year anywhere from $1k to $6k immediately and continue on a monthly basis. A good Keynesian approach to help with the inevitable quarantines.
    Not sure where the Khanna/Ryan bill is at, but it beats Pelosi’s move.

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  2. This was sent to me by relatives, and you can double-check it with Snopes. What it tells me basically is that if I have a sore throat for more than a day, I should self-isolate until I've been tested for coronavirus; if I don't test positive, end the self-isolation until the next sore throat.

    If anybody thinks this unsound, let me know.

    IMPORTANT ANNOUNCEMENT - CORONAVIRUS:
     
    1. If you have a runny nose and sputum, you have a common cold.
    2. Coronavirus pneumonia is a dry cough with no runny nose. 
    3. This new virus is not heat-resistant and will be killed by a temperature of just 26/27 degrees C.  (About 77 degrees F.)  It hates the Sun. 
    4. If someone sneezes with it, it goes about 10 feet before it drops to the ground and is no longer airborne. 
    5. If it drops on a metal surface it will live for at least 12 hours - so if you come into contact with any metal surface, wash your hands as soon as you can with a bacterial soap. 
    6. On fabric it can survive for 6-12 hours. normal laundry detergent will kill it. 
    7. Drinking warm water is effective for all viruses. Try not to drink liquids with ice. 
    8. Wash your hands frequently as the virus can only live on your hands for 5-10 minutes, but - a lot can happen during that time - you can rub your eyes, pick your nose unwittingly and so on. 
    9. You should also gargle as a prevention. A simple solution 
    of salt in warm water will suffice. 
    10. Can't emphasis enough - drink plenty of water! 

    THE SYMPTOMS:
    1. It will first infect the throat, so you'll have a sore throat lasting 3/4 days 
    2. The virus then blends into a nasal fluid that enters the trachea and then the lungs,
    causing pneumonia. This takes about 5/6 days further. 
    3. With the pneumonia comes high fever and difficulty in breathing. 
    4. The nasal congestion is not like the normal kind. You feel like you're drowning. It's imperative you then seek immediate attention.

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  3. The internet can be a critical tool, especially in a pandemic, but in the end it has to connect you to actual people in your area whom you can help, or who can provide support to others.

    One of the most important things is to organize locally. I just got off the phone with one of the local activists for a phenomenal neighborhood group. She’s overwhelmed not by requests for help, but from emails from every direction in the neighborhood, one of our city’s poorer neighborhoods, offering volunteer time and help coordinating response within the community.

    Contact your local neighborhood groups, and if you don’t have one, this is a good enough time to start building one with some phone calls to your neighbors.

    Even if your neighborhood group only turns out to be very small, it can make a difference.

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  4. Poor old Joe recently tweeted "If you are feeling healthy, not showing symptoms, and not at risk of being exposed to COVID-19: please vote on Tuesday." Apparently he and his staff haven't heard of asymptomatic carriers!

    He should be showing leadership and demanding national mail-in-voting for the rest of the primaries and for the general election. The public needs someone to step up and show more common sense than Trump. Too bad Bernie has all but conceded the race.

    During tonight's 'debate' I'm expecting to see Bernie gently coaching Joe in preparation for his sessions with Trump. That sounds like something Bernie would work out with the DNC to stave off their demands to quit and endorse old Joe, plus it gives him the chance to keep talking up his policies, and he gets to stay in the picture should something happen. He needs to vigorously contrast himself with Joe, but I'm not holding my breath.

    Bernie already tossed some slow-pitch softball questions to Joe in advance (Donna Brazile must have been busy), so I don't know if I have the stomach to watch the Love and Unity fest tonight, but I'll try.

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  5. "they'll have to self-quarantine"

    There are many among us with near to no savings. They can't pay for a sudden car repair. They live paycheck to paycheck.

    They CAN'T self quarantine. They wouldn't have the rent money, they couldn't buy food. They just can't do it.

    So they won't.

    How do we "plan" for that? The well off have been so unrealistic in pushing burdens on others that now it is come back at them.

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  6. I thought it was just my phone that wasn’t letting me access the debate on the cnn app or cnn website.

    Turns out lots of working class people like myself who don’t have TV’s or cable were not able to access the debate, period, because of cnn’s technical “glitches.”

    Meanwhile, every conversation with former ER colleagues is alarming. Word is that the cases down the Peninsula are much worse than is being reported.

    The one tidbit I did hear about from the debate was Biden trying to make the point that universal healthcare in Italy didn’t prevent COVID-19 from overwhelming Italian hospitals.

    At which point I just nearly screamed.

    The chances that we’re going to fare far worse than Northern Italy are high, and no Democrat should use an obvious GOP talking “point” like that.

    Anyway, I will just have to remain in the dark about the debate along with a good part of the rest of the country, and I’m sure that’s no accident.

    (Pls. excuse typos as I’m limited to cell phone.)

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