It’s kind of crazy when you think about how both sides of the political spectrum have a complete distrust of government, but seem not to realize that if you don’t have that, you have to count on the good intentions of your neighbor and fellow human beings. Clearly humanity has not reached the point it has without some understanding of the value of cooperation, but we’ve grown accustomed to a world where we can exist in our own solitary universe, unable to see anyone outside it, not wanting to largely, and certainly not needing to given the conveniences the internet has allowed us. You can now exist as a permanent hermit in your home, never leaving but for the essentials, and sometimes not even that given you can get just about anything delivered anymore, apparently even as small as a pack of skittles. Some people only leave because of the animals they own, some leave just for work, some for the occasional shopping adventure and some just never leave at all. We have forgotten how to listen to each other, sometimes it’s because we have our own agenda, sometimes it’s because of our own assumptions, but certainly at this point, both sides are being brutally mean about it. See, I don’t want people to sit in the pre-existing condition, you’re a-lemon-who’s-going-to-probably-die-young like me person pool. You don’t want to be sick. You don’t want to do that to your future self your current self, any self including anyone else. If you do do that, you better believe you are going to want to advocate for helping everyone in the process, and you better believe you are going to want #healthcareforall. It’s going to be the only thing everyone is going to want regardless of which side you stand on, whether your own carelessness got you there or you were a victim of someone else’s misunderstanding of the risks, or even if you thought you did and it wasn’t a big deal, there is certainly going to be the spectrum of belief and tolerance we are going to have to have and develop for each other-spending our time fighting each other seems a really stupid use of time and resources when we would be better served to collaborate to ensure society is well set-up for those who got sick or might have other illnesses living in a world shaped by money over human health. I still keep thinking of even the initial reasonings behind a civil war: We hate socialism (while still gofunding which is a not so clear irony to those funding off the public’s good will) vs spending more of our own money on us because what, we all want to be free to be profit centers for the government or king ruling over us vs expecting any return on our own money contributions via taxes?
The absurdity of poor people setting off on other poor people because they don’t think about why everyone wants you to see the other side as the enemy without realizing there has been a 20% increase in the number of billionaires we have in the US between March of 2020 and now, from 614 to 745. Now save the instant billionaires that won the lottery during that time, anyone that used a workforce to get there that was able to maintain that billionaire status didn’t get there and reward their employees well along the way. The point is, your MAGA neighbor or Biden supporter friend isn’t your enemy–the rich have been buying law and favor for decades and decided to tell us all to fuck off along the way. They also happen to own every media source we see and a simple google search will reveal every owner of every media source we have is generally owned by an oligarch, family or person. I am not sure NPR or Reuters would be included in that mix but usually people aren’t interested in searching news on their own, they need someone to sift and digest it for them, find the boogeyman, and point us towards our rabid dog ends. What a better world we could have if we were focused on at least some of the good things, the stories that unite us instead of the constant panic we have been led to feel. I’m not saying the COVID warnings aren’t panicky-I get it-but really they just required cooperation and collaboration to pull ourselves out of without thinking of how oppressive it is to treat the world like you used to treat a room full of cancer patients you could kill with giving them a cold–I know what an absurd thing, those were such short periods of time and didn’t impede in my ability to think things were not changed in my world and I did not have to adapt because FREEDOM!! Such an absurd childish culture this is–unable to find the time to think hey, I don’t want to see all my neighbors or family and friends sick and dying, let alone myself, of course I’m going to do the bare necessity of things and wear a good mask and get vaccinated.
Now my husband has been using a fabric mask, a 6-Layer one which there’s enough of to wear a new one every day for 2 weeks to work-it’s comfortable for him and easy to handwash and I’ve just replaced the first batch which lasted a few dozen washes at least. He had a few colleagues die initially, sadly the guy even training him and the other guy ended up hightailing it out after that happened, so I have been sure to keep him safe with that as his building has been evacuated numerous times due to infections for cleaning. He got his vaccine well before I did, but we were both boosted mid November so have full protection now likely for another few months since 5-6 months seems to be the recommendation now. I’m good getting all the training my body needs to fight this, but there are some other common sense solutions we should also band together to demand vs fighting each other-heavy investment in air filtration. Anything happening in a warming planet has the ability to send stuff airborne and should be something we can solve with the technology available currently-and we should be demanding that, vs counting on a sometimes uncooperative public to always be doing the right thing, why not count on business to provide the solution that we have vs individual decisions about altruism running the show?
Now, I use medical grade filtration in here–I posted a little while ago how I thought having an extra set of lungs in this house has helped clean our air of everything, from fine traffic soot, to fires and COVID, we have been using this for some time. So I did have two tests here for any perceived infection–and those hours here alone were the only ones I thought I was possibly in trouble-but turning the filter on high and standing in the bathroom which has a fan in the window exhausting any of my infected air out while having the other two rooms constantly filtering the air. This filtration has turned into a 3rd set of lungs, and I took one with me in hotel rooms across the country moving East from Colorado and had one planned for my next open heart surgery to be in the room, too.
The point is, we need to band together in collaboration vs fighting each other to the death over who’s right who’s left who’s correct who isn’t-and honestly I think even the biggest MAGA you know would likely agree having an asshole to cheer along with is great–but having an asshole be your King might not be the be the best plan, especially given espousing that socialism sucks like you guys do just means to them let us get no community investment, we will pay for everything, we expect nothing we can’t pay for, definitely make us pay for everything according to the profit sought by any service provider we need, from schools, to ambulances, to mail service, to libraries to even city metro services-let private business take over, make their own rules, make their own prices and you be at the mercy of what they have done–which is take advantage of all of us. Everyone wants to talk about inflation, how about all these companies newly ripping us off with their package shrinking. Republicans are some body’s friends, sure, but not everyone’s, that’s for sure, and some Democrats fail there, too. Keep in mind all the money coming all the jobs and infrastructure is the result of only the left, not a single vote on the right but you know they’ll be cheering on because being a hypocrite is a value they love.
Nobody is helping us, and business is keen to rip us off and never take a hit for a minute-our cooperation and collaboration could put a stop to that, but don’t look for that anywhere anytime soon.