It is We the People being tested.
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| Rick Milward |
Guest Post writer Rick Millward woke up sick. He thought he caught the Virus after venturing out to the local Home Depot. It brought home to him the reality that you catch the virus from other people, his fellow Americans, a great many of whom think the virus is a hoax and all the mask wearing and social distancing is a waste. After all, nobody you know gets it, it's already somebody else. Until it isn't,
Rick Millward is a musician, who retired to southern Oregon after careers both in Silicon Valley and Nashville.
Guest Post by Rick Millward
The parking lot at Home Depot was packed. It was Tuesday morning, a time I had picked hoping for a lull in shoppers, but the store was as busy as it ever is. I put on my mask. An man employed at the door counted shoppers as they entered and left. There are plexiglass screens at the counters.
About 25% of the patrons were wearing masks, employees were not; and people were decidedly not practicing distancing. My visit became a “stop and go” exercise as I dodged other customers. A couple of times I had to detour to avoid someone. I was in and out in 15 minutes, did my hand sanitizer routine and headed home.
Saturday morning I woke up at 4 AM with a sharp pain in my chest. It hurt to breathe. I immediately panicked. I spent the day with the thought that I had made a huge mistake in going to the store.
It wasn’t. After a few hours the pain subsided. With the relief of knowing I was OK came the realization that for one and a half million Americans the fear was real, and for nearly a hundred thousand it meant the end of their lives. It could have been me. The disease isn't statistics. My reaction was fear and uncertainty over how to respond to that reality.
One assesses risk by evaluating the environment and the collective experience. Here in the Great Casino of Life we calculate the odds roll the dice every day.That data set combines with our instincts and intuition. With incomplete information we have to decide whom to trust.
Too many of us are reacting as if they are in a Hollywood production, where the Superhero saves the World in the last reel, or the calvary comes over the hill in the nick of time. Now we see the problem. There is no Superhero. No Calvary. Our civilization is being tested for its ability to adapt to this crisis and the only institution that we have that can possibly help is not religion, not Hollywood, but the We the People. For better or worse it is our government that is supposed to unite us, and we are facing a 21st Century challenge with an administration that cowered as the epidemic spread to our shores, and did not act until it was unavoidable.
It isn't just Trump. It is We the People, or at least enough of us to control the levers of government. He is a symptom of Regressive politics whose main ideal is "every man for himself", which is catastrophic in a public health emergency of a communicable disease. This administration preferred to do nothing--and led a Party of people willing to agree--and has only reacted as a political calculation with one consistent feature; avoiding responsibility that would make them accountable at the next election.
It gets worse. It's working politically. The virus response has become a political litmus test, like abortion or climate change, with Regressives on the "side" of downplaying the risk. This behavior fits neatly into the derisive "snowflake" name calling that has become the refuge for the self described patriots who have become the constituency of the Republican party. Those who flaunt social distancing and forgo masks consider themselves political protestors, a minority whose behavior may keep the rest of us in quarantine for the foreseeable future.
There’s some hope. Although the Regressive minority considers expendable the very people we realize are indeed, "essential," the rest of us can work to protect their lives with work rules and protective gear, plus assure them, now and in the future, a living wage. The “test, isolate, trace” strategy makes sense to me, and it gets some piecemeal support from both red and blue Americans. It's a start.
Anyway, I'm going to hold off going to Home Depot again for the time being. The lawn may suffer, but it's a small price to pay for some relative peace of mind.
About 25% of the patrons were wearing masks, employees were not; and people were decidedly not practicing distancing. My visit became a “stop and go” exercise as I dodged other customers. A couple of times I had to detour to avoid someone. I was in and out in 15 minutes, did my hand sanitizer routine and headed home.
Saturday morning I woke up at 4 AM with a sharp pain in my chest. It hurt to breathe. I immediately panicked. I spent the day with the thought that I had made a huge mistake in going to the store.
It wasn’t. After a few hours the pain subsided. With the relief of knowing I was OK came the realization that for one and a half million Americans the fear was real, and for nearly a hundred thousand it meant the end of their lives. It could have been me. The disease isn't statistics. My reaction was fear and uncertainty over how to respond to that reality.
One assesses risk by evaluating the environment and the collective experience. Here in the Great Casino of Life we calculate the odds roll the dice every day.That data set combines with our instincts and intuition. With incomplete information we have to decide whom to trust.
Too many of us are reacting as if they are in a Hollywood production, where the Superhero saves the World in the last reel, or the calvary comes over the hill in the nick of time. Now we see the problem. There is no Superhero. No Calvary. Our civilization is being tested for its ability to adapt to this crisis and the only institution that we have that can possibly help is not religion, not Hollywood, but the We the People. For better or worse it is our government that is supposed to unite us, and we are facing a 21st Century challenge with an administration that cowered as the epidemic spread to our shores, and did not act until it was unavoidable.
It isn't just Trump. It is We the People, or at least enough of us to control the levers of government. He is a symptom of Regressive politics whose main ideal is "every man for himself", which is catastrophic in a public health emergency of a communicable disease. This administration preferred to do nothing--and led a Party of people willing to agree--and has only reacted as a political calculation with one consistent feature; avoiding responsibility that would make them accountable at the next election.
It gets worse. It's working politically. The virus response has become a political litmus test, like abortion or climate change, with Regressives on the "side" of downplaying the risk. This behavior fits neatly into the derisive "snowflake" name calling that has become the refuge for the self described patriots who have become the constituency of the Republican party. Those who flaunt social distancing and forgo masks consider themselves political protestors, a minority whose behavior may keep the rest of us in quarantine for the foreseeable future.
There’s some hope. Although the Regressive minority considers expendable the very people we realize are indeed, "essential," the rest of us can work to protect their lives with work rules and protective gear, plus assure them, now and in the future, a living wage. The “test, isolate, trace” strategy makes sense to me, and it gets some piecemeal support from both red and blue Americans. It's a start.
Anyway, I'm going to hold off going to Home Depot again for the time being. The lawn may suffer, but it's a small price to pay for some relative peace of mind.
5 comments:
Rick, you "little girly man,you." Only kidding. It's smart to take the precautions you describe. I plan on continuing with the protocol until "test and trace" and a vaccine are firmly in place. I,too, have noticed the lack of PPE among shoppers, even right here in liberal Ashland...so I would offer that it is not just a "regressive minority" that is being cavalier about the virus.
Congress's urgency in bailing out Big Business in the first two Covid packages and their reluctance now to embrace the third, which provides direct relief to working families, is telling. It's telling us that our representatives, as a whole, are not ready to give up on the Market as the supreme arbiter of the good. They know where their bread is buttered.
Embracing central planning and a more egalitarian economy threatens to upset their neoliberal applecart. There is an ideological foundation that is embraced by neoliberals and conservatives that is allowing for this premature "open for business" nonsense. The consumers, like you and me, may have another say.
Andy Seles
Widespread testing won't help when America refuses to provide paid sick leave and health insurance to the working poor. Of course they go to work when they are sick, cutting hair and preparing food and staffing the checkout at Home Depot, because they have no other way to pay the rent. America calls them 'essential' but treats them like they are expendable.
America's media won't even cover the 150+ strike actions taken by essential workers since the crisis began, at places like Amazon, WholeFoods, and Instacart.
Better watch out, or the "Boogie Bug" is going to get you. You you gonna call? Bug Busters!
Rick would be better-off quarantining himself in his closet for the next year.
As for the rest of you, the virus threat was vastly overstated, and it's time to get back to work.
Rick,
I meant to add that you may want to have that chest pain checked out.
Any pain radiating out an arm? It may be simply anxiety, indigestion or other, but it could be a warning of an underlying heart problem. Worth getting checked out.
I've had to go into Imaging at both Rogue Valley and Ashland Hospital and I was very impressed with the precautions they have taken. Also, both places had few patients when I went in early afternoon and early morning, respectively and they carefully stagger appointments for safety and cleaning anyway. If the virus bounces back as I suspect, this may be a window of opportunity to get checked out. Good luck.
Andy Seles
Rick,
I kept sending emails to Dollar General near my home, copying the rules from the Oregon Heath site saying masks and gloves are required at business establishments, Finally they called me and said the store will now follow the rules. Pound them Rick . My daughter who had cancer issues went to Lowe’s and experienced the same crowding and turned around and left. Hurt their business , shame them, the only way
to get action. Keep safe in the land of the “freedom fighters”walking dead.
Thanks Rick for your story.
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