Coronavirus; Helpless and Hopeful

I don’t know about you but I’m restless, I’m scared, I feel helpless and I can’t buy toilet paper if my life depended on it. I’m learning

more about technology like Zoom, Face Time, and webex to stay in touch with the people I care about; the people in my support system. It’s been a couple of weeks of this and its starting to feel normal. We will never forget this moment in history.

My generation has the assassination of President Kennedy. We all remember that day, where we were and what we were doing. My daughter’s generation has 911. We spent that day together and will never forget what we were doing. This new generation now has the Coronavirus Pandemic. How long will it take to recovery as a society from this kind of a disaster and what will our society look like when it does recover; no one can predict any of this.

Watching the news to get the facts. But with years of lie after lie, and conflicting views of reality are making me question everything. Trust is not something we Americans have these days. Republicans yelling fake news, Democrats calling Republicans liars. Proof we still suffer from a great divide driving us against each other in our time of need.

As the divide has grown over the decades, the United States has become a place where the education and health care systems have been starved of funds. Recently we have moved into a state of isolation from the rest of the world to the point the US has nowhere to turn. If the current pandemic kills millions of Americans it is these long-driven policy standards and the political divide that are to be blamed.

All of this gutting of any kind of caring in government reflects the promotion and short-falls of capitalism that has taken over America. We have a society that is competing against its self. leading to public health officials having to out price and out compete with each other to buy ventilators, protective gear starting a russian roulette game in the emergency rooms. Promoting a lack of standards by our government to roll back sound policies to promote healthy competition has been replaced by policies that promote competition at any cost. A competition that has turned citizens on themselves. Killing us from the inside out as the coronavirus is allowed to be unleashed.

In this kind of climate, an out of control pandemic can only get worst because we show no caring for marginalized people in our society. When it’s everyone for themselves and we don’t reach out to help, and money is put into improving only some of us. We lose sight of “Human Rights.” Rights for adequate housing, for health care, for equal justice, for a good standard of living. Today we don’t have this kind of society. Relief measures are short sighted.

The sound bite in the news, “Relief for workers and corporations.” No mention of people who are homeless, poor, mentally ill and other marginalized groups. These people don’t file taxes, don’t qualify for unemployment and struggle for basic needs every day. People like the people I worked with at Real Change, a street newspaper. People who are homeless or on brink of homelessness now aren’t able to sell the paper to supplement other means that never met basic needs anyways. Little information is known about prisoners and people at immigration detentions centers that are at high risk. And don’t forget women who are now called to shelter in place with their abusers. These are the people I’m worried about; the people I fret about. Worried yet hope they all get through this no matter what.

I’m not too worried about the people who make up to $150,000 and who will be receiving relief from the government when millions of people who really need relief will receive nothing. I’m in a dilemma of choosing to protect myself from getting the virus instead going out and helping high risk people. I feel helpless.

In this helplessness I can only cling to a thread of hope. Of hope that we learn from this how vulnerable we all are. That we learn we need to take care of each other better. That Americans need to have compassion for all the people that live here. We need to contribute to everyone having a livable quality of life now and moving forward. I just don’t know how to tell you to do this. All I know is how to resist capitalism, and to promote democracy while being an ally of all those who are struggling. May we all get through this and come out the other side with more compassion and caring then when we came into this.