Fueled by money from right wing groups, spin from ultra right media, Russian trolls, and inflammatory tweets to his rabid base from the current resident of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue , right wing protesters, unmasked, heavily armed, and angered, took to the streets the other day to protest the "shutdown" that has been slowing the spread of the Covid 19 virus. Their protests, typically, carried with them the threat of violence, of revolt, and of "liberation" of labor to continue making money for the corporate rich. That is, of course, my take. They blocked traffic, including ambulances. They screamed at the closed doors and windows of state offices. They marched up and down with their assault rifles and their fake military gear. In general, they did what they've always done: a parade of machismo and hatred of the "gubment".
And in so doing, they are laying the groundwork for a new Passover, a new legend for human history.
The protesters, firm in their conviction that the viral plague that currently is killing an American every 90 seconds, is a "hoax" and that "re-opening the economy" is fully worth a few percent of the population dying, will scream and chant with one another cheek by jowl, showing their machismo and contempt for faggoty "liberal" things like masks and gloves during a plague. They are the new flagellants, coming from far and wide to show their devotion and piety to their glorious leader and their ideology, and then returning home, reinvigorated and recharged in their fight for righteousness, racial purity. . .
. . .and, I suspect for many of them, now carrying the Covid 19 virus. They will carry the disease to their homes, to their spouses, to their parents and grandparents, to their children and neighbors and friends.
Some of whom will die.
Those of use who view the rational policies of shutdown and social distancing as our duty to our neighbors, our nation, and to the human race, will likely be spared. The grim reaper will pass over our homes where we have sheltered sensibly with our families. He will pass over most of our parents, our children, our neighbors--though, sadly, many innocents will be swept up in the contagion brought by these arrogant and selfish children back to their communities. They will not understand that their amiable MAGA hat wearing fishing buddy has now returned home with a plague that can sicken and occasionally destroy the ones that they love. They will pay the ultimate price for human neighborliness shown to the uncaring and immature. They will suffer and weep, and I will weep with them, for every sick child, every passed Grandmother, every absent family member that didn't need to suffer. Not for this.
This new Passover, driven by arrogance, ignorance, ego, and greed, will, I suspect, fall into legend; will become more symbolic and more mythic with each telling of it, more so than even the Jingoistic display of Patriotism in 1918 that returned the Spanish flu to stalk this country. It will become, in its time, an object lesson, a fable, as much respected as it is doubted, as much accepted as hygiene and vaccines, and as much a litmus of logical competence.
I really hope I'm wrong. I really hope that my native streak toward hyperbole and drama has gotten the best of me with this one, but something grim and certain in the back of my mind whispers that I may have even underestimated what I've just seen. If I am right, however, then those who survive will have the tools and the metaphors to build a better world, one built on respect for nature and humanity and not on greed, arrogance, and privilege.
And in that kinder, free-er new world, the wise parent will tell their children of the new Passover, and of the people who put their own convenience, egos, and privilege ahead of the lives of their neighbors and of the survival of the rest of the whole of the world, and of the awful price, in the end, that they paid for it.
If this happens, so mote that be.
And in so doing, they are laying the groundwork for a new Passover, a new legend for human history.
The protesters, firm in their conviction that the viral plague that currently is killing an American every 90 seconds, is a "hoax" and that "re-opening the economy" is fully worth a few percent of the population dying, will scream and chant with one another cheek by jowl, showing their machismo and contempt for faggoty "liberal" things like masks and gloves during a plague. They are the new flagellants, coming from far and wide to show their devotion and piety to their glorious leader and their ideology, and then returning home, reinvigorated and recharged in their fight for righteousness, racial purity. . .
. . .and, I suspect for many of them, now carrying the Covid 19 virus. They will carry the disease to their homes, to their spouses, to their parents and grandparents, to their children and neighbors and friends.
Some of whom will die.
Those of use who view the rational policies of shutdown and social distancing as our duty to our neighbors, our nation, and to the human race, will likely be spared. The grim reaper will pass over our homes where we have sheltered sensibly with our families. He will pass over most of our parents, our children, our neighbors--though, sadly, many innocents will be swept up in the contagion brought by these arrogant and selfish children back to their communities. They will not understand that their amiable MAGA hat wearing fishing buddy has now returned home with a plague that can sicken and occasionally destroy the ones that they love. They will pay the ultimate price for human neighborliness shown to the uncaring and immature. They will suffer and weep, and I will weep with them, for every sick child, every passed Grandmother, every absent family member that didn't need to suffer. Not for this.
This new Passover, driven by arrogance, ignorance, ego, and greed, will, I suspect, fall into legend; will become more symbolic and more mythic with each telling of it, more so than even the Jingoistic display of Patriotism in 1918 that returned the Spanish flu to stalk this country. It will become, in its time, an object lesson, a fable, as much respected as it is doubted, as much accepted as hygiene and vaccines, and as much a litmus of logical competence.
I really hope I'm wrong. I really hope that my native streak toward hyperbole and drama has gotten the best of me with this one, but something grim and certain in the back of my mind whispers that I may have even underestimated what I've just seen. If I am right, however, then those who survive will have the tools and the metaphors to build a better world, one built on respect for nature and humanity and not on greed, arrogance, and privilege.
And in that kinder, free-er new world, the wise parent will tell their children of the new Passover, and of the people who put their own convenience, egos, and privilege ahead of the lives of their neighbors and of the survival of the rest of the whole of the world, and of the awful price, in the end, that they paid for it.
If this happens, so mote that be.
