Here's the problem when you run America like a corporation and a plague hits:
The CEO of the company blames everyone but himself. I don't want to dwell on Donald Trump, he's doing a shitty job, no doubt, and I've mentioned this fact in numerous articles. Today, though, let's look around at the rest of the corporation.
For the most part, during World War II, the citizens of this great nation pulled together and willed their way to victory, because it was about America. In 2020, you have America, Inc. The Regional Managers (Governors), have, for the most part, decided the shelter-at-home orders are really bad for business and are chomping at the bit to get the $$$ moving again. The employees (Citizens) are scared, but most want YOU, to get back to work. Those who can work away from the general public are still going to work away from the general public.
Somehow, despite unemployment spiking to nearly 20%, you can still walk into WalMart and get a job TODAY. Right this second. How can that be? No one wants to work on the front lines of the Coronavirus Wars. The Special Project Managers (The Rich) want to keep working as long as it's safe for them to keep working. The employees have no such luxury, so managers of all types are trying to convince the employees that masks and plexiglass will protect them.
Even some employees themselves want the economy moving. You know who's been dying? Mostly the infirmed and unhealthy, they believe. If I hear that "98% of us will live" one more time, I'm going to fight someone. If everyone gets coronavirus, that's still millions of dead Americans. How are people this bad at math? And don't forget the ramifications of millions of Americans in hospitals.
Because the mindset this week has evolved into the "every man for himself" model. Workers are suing their employers for making them work. Employers are firing their employees for not coming to work sick. Workers are suing the states for loss of opportunity. In a corporation, everyone sues everyone, in a country, everyone bands together in times of crisis. When your corporation starts to flounder, everyone wants their chunk of money before it goes belly up.
That's why entities as varied as Harvard University and the Fiesta Restaurant Group are being shamed for taking money meant for small businesses. Closed businesses are demanding to be re-opened without protective measures being implemented. Just threats that they cannot stay closed.
RIght-Wing news organization, The Blaze, reported on the plight of a poor small-business owner in Washington who took out a payroll loan in order to re-open. The Blaze's angle was that the ungrateful workers would rather stay on unemployment than to work. Just when you started to feel sorry for the owner of the business, you realized that her business was a spa.
We are fighting to keep SPAS open? Again, back to the World War II analogy: Hey, Harry Truman, the spas are angry that they're being closed down. What are your thoughts? Even if you disagree with me and think spas are necessary, even in legit spas, there are a lot of hands on contact from the employees. I don't think the Spa Owner is personally touching anyone in the building.
And, taking it a step further, Las Vegas is clamoring to open. Their mayor volunteered for the city to be a "petri-dish" in reference to re-opening with the coronavirus. Immediately workers pushed back on the petri-dish analogy. And, speaking of petri-dishes, I drove my wife to work this morning and heard this disturbing commercial, "did your loved one contract a disease in a nursing home that they didn't have when they went in? Contact XXX & XXX, you may be entitled to compensation." When I got home XXX & XXX actually had a COVID-19 page.
You could be shouting back at the screen, "listen Commie Fred Hunt, it's time to get back to work, people need to pay for things." Okay, did you see that Mitch McConnell wants states he doesn't like, like Illinois and California, to declare bankruptcy? "AND?"
The coronavirus mostly kills people who weren't doing well to begin with.
The coronavirus mostly kills businesses that weren't doing well to begin with.
And the coronavirus will mostly bankrupt cities and states that weren't doing well to begin with.
As long as you're okay living in a 'only the strong survive society,' I guess we're done here. We obviously don't see things the same way, but it's a moot point.
The re-opening of America, like it or not, will more or less take place on May 1. That second wave will be here on June 1. You (the general public) better hope that heat kills the coronavirus, or this summer is going to turn into a shitstorm of blame on all sides.
Media whores Bill and Melinda Gates are at it again. I just read at the Daily Mail that what Trump is doing to the W.H.O. is an abomination and that they are stepping to the plate to donate $150 Million to the organization.
Let's just say I was worth $100,000. (Just for easy math.) Between my job that I'm grateful to have and my assets, then, of course, subtract out debt and mortgage payments and such. What if I went to local affiliate Fox 8 and asked them for a segment promoting that I, benevolent benefactor Fred Hunt, was donating $15 to the W.H.O? Fox 8 would hang up the phone and tell me never to contact them again.
Percentage wise, the Gates' donation would be the same as my donation.
Thanks to the Magical Internet for the Bonus Cartoon.
Addendum: 1 Hour Later
An old acquaintance changed her profile picture on Facebook to read:
I Can't Stay Home - I'm an Essential Worker
Wait a minute, you're a Middle-Manager at Applebee's.
So Applebee's furloughed their service staff and most of their kitchen staff, now you're running a take-out skeleton crew for people who are still addicted to Baby Back Ribs. You're not essential, you are frantically scrambling to justify your Management Level Salary.