COVID-19, a blog entry

The world is an absolute mess. 

My brain has been trying to piece it all together. I think it always comes back to... we as a society have allowed, even encouraged, some dreadful things to happen. To fix things, we have to dig through the mud and listen to each other.

I love being an American. I love the USA. I see many amazing things about my country, but I’m wise enough to see the glaring problems. Most of them are connected.

In fact, I believe most of our issues boil down to greed.

Poor people want more money. Rich people want more money. Middle class people want more money. The top 1% of the rich want more money. Who doesn’t?

But if it takes money to make money, then the top 1% of the rich (hereafter referred to as the 1%) have a startling advantage. The 1% can afford to create ad campaigns to convince the poor and middle classes that what they really want is to give the 1% more of their money (they don’t say it directly, of course, but use [fake] “common sense” to logic the public into the desired end result).

Pull out your cellphone. I remember a time when a family shared one phone that was wired to a house. Do you understand?

I’m not saying landlines are better (they are not), I’m saying we’re all paying $60-$120/month cellphone plans. We lease our phones these days, pay a monthly fee that will someday total $2,000, then we scheduled upgrades and repeat the cycle. Certain companies have even proven to be intentionally slowing down older cellphones so that customers are forced to purchase new ones out of frustration. And society gives them a pass... mostly because the 1% can afford to brainwash you with a bombardment of advertisements.

In my cellphone example, you might even think all that is reasonable. But, we have radio towers that deliver free radio into the airways. Why don’t we have WiFi towers? Why isn’t the entirety of the USA blanketed in free WiFi? It should be. Populated areas are already blanketed in WiFi anyway, but consumers lock their routers behind pre-issued WLAN passcodes.

But seriously, think about it. If we modified all radio towers to become free WiFi towers, then there would be no more monthly cellphone fees or monthly home Internet fees. Phones can make calls over WiFi, radios can play over WiFi, television is streamed over it... etc. But, that would benefit everyone except the top 1% of the rich, so we don’t do that. The top 1% enjoy that monthly tribute you pay to them.

That is one example. Almost everything these days is based on that model. To brainwash you that you NEED something, then make you pay forever to have it and have it again and again.

That’s not the tone I want to take in writing this, though, that’s more of the setting. We live in a world of consumerism.

So, COVID-19 is spiking again.

COVID-19 changed the world, man. I’ve barely been out-and-about since March. The entire world shut down.

Then America opened up early. Now, COVID-19 is spiking. As of this writing, 121,279 people in the USA have died of COVID-19. That font change was accidental, but I think I’ll keep it for emphasis. That’s like 40x 9/11. Freaking crazy. We’re so desensitized to this death, some people just don’t care. Or maybe they’re too shocked to believe it? It’s so painful to me. But, we’re opening up anyway.

The European Union is even set to ban US citizens from traveling to their countries. We’ve got it the worst. We can’t control the spread.

And people want to moan and cry about putting on masks. Why?

I wish I didn’t know, but I do. It’s because people have been brainwashed by politicians (funded by the 1%) into believing that COVID-19 is a hoax. Why? Because the 1% needs their workers to get back to work and make them money. Simple as that. It’s greed.

I empathize with regular folk who want to work. I really do. It’s not those who are greedy. It’s the 1%. But, we have not destroyed COVID-19. We have no cure. I want my family to live through this—all of them. I want my friends to survive. This is going to take implementing stages of when things open. Some of the states have this, and the numbers prove that it works. I know none of this will happen for many states. It’s sad that certain political leaders think we should slow down testing to increase his poll numbers.

I don’t have all the answers. I do think we need 400% more compassion in the USA.