United We Stand…
By: Katherine Conaway
Tags: Coronavirus, United States, Public Health, Covid 19, Reflections

We said it long ago. It’s funny how we forgot the meaning of one of the words in our name, that most important adjective.

This virus was a once-in-a-lifetime world crisis — and an opportunity for us to stand in solidarity & collectively take personal responsibility for each other.

Instead, we shucked our sense of honor and public obligation, however much we had, anyway, and put false individual priorities over the collective need.

How foolish we have been. And how deadly.

Our breath became a weapon, and I suppose we shouldn’t be surprised how many gladly brandished it. We have taught that love is weakness, that power comes from cruelty.

What will the doctors & nurses feel about us after this? They have spent almost a year in the fire. Surely they have been burned. Surely there will be scars. Surely they will still flinch, years from now.

Some of us have become recluses. Like thousands of humans before us, we have hidden from the plague in our homes, forgone our social needs in lieu of survival. Who will we be when we emerge? Glowing screens have kept us informed of the outside world, and it does not seem interested in anything but denial.

Fuck your feelings.

I quote the flags flapping in the wind, messages of our dear leader. Stop the bullshit. Drain the swamp. Get on board the trump train.

Even for those of us who aren’t mortally wounded, we have doubled down so hard on our abuses of each other — where we will be at the end? Who will forget how many refused the simple shield of a mask, layers of paper and cloth on our faces to protect each other.

It’s only a few bad apples. Never mind they rot the whole barrel.

I used to think bureaucracy was bad simply because it was slow. Now, I understand the value of paperwork & patience as well as see the truth behind the tale that is America. We are a land of opportunity, for some. For many more, we are only a death sentence.

Not so long ago, I traveled through the Great Dismal Swamp. I looked it up. It is a refuge, a shelter, a critical habitat. We wanted faster profit and easier transport, so we drained the swamps. Nature died without the wetlands. What’s he doing with the swamp? The metaphor is lost on me now.

Politics isn’t always bad. Occasionally, policy has even saved us from ourselves. Some would argue that’s the point: a government for the people, by the people. We all need clean water, right?

The billionaires have done very well for themselves. They’ve done very poorly for everyone else.

We have a special kind of heroism here. It is brief and unflinching. Give us your car wrecks and war trenches, let us run into a burning building. 30 seconds of bravery. Don’t you dare ask us to wait.

The most important thing is the economy. What exactly does that mean? It’s the reason we vote, but we only know it like a game we win against the world. Our numbers are up. Our team is winning. We may be dying, we may be rioting, we may be burning, but the stocks are up for someone.

We see what is necessary, who is essential, and we have blown up our empty words so big they shine, full of hot air.

A stitch in time. We didn’t listen when they told us that a year of sacrifice would save millions (of lives). We’d rather die.

There’s a bottom line: it tells us if we had a good enough return on our investment. We put our resources into their bodies and this planet, and we damn well better make our money back.

I have been wondering: where is the honor? But that assumes we ever had it. That assumes we know what it is. That assumes we even care.

Hope is a funny concept. It’s the belief that things will get better. When is it necessary and when is it naïveté?

Who is even listening anymore? We’re all yelling into the void, only our own echoes repeating. God forbid we hear anything different.

God isn’t here, by the way. He’s not a puppeteer. If anything, he’s something inside of you. That nagging feeling otherwise known as your conscience. The impulse to love thy neighbor, even (especially?) if they’re different than you, or (worse) poor and in need of assistance.

Easier to pretend that god is playing chess with us, and that our selfish whims are strategic moves. Check mate.

Who will write the history books about this? I wonder how we will look on paper. So far, signs point to not good. We led our sacrificial lambs to slaughter. We took them up on the mountain and slit their throats. God didn’t stop us, after all.

Keep calm and carry on. It’s a slightly different approach than fuck your feelings, don’t you think? Then again, we all know feelings are the ultimate weakness. Never let them see you sweat. They might help you then, they might love you anyway.

We have chosen not to save each other, so we have chosen not to save ourselves.

United we stand. Divided we fall.

America is falling. America is failing. When will they call time of death?