Reopening

Please remember, as you decide how to act in the coming days and weeks: We are not re-opening because we beat the virus.

There is not adequate testing. There is no vaccine. There is no demonstrated treatment or cure. From a medical perspective, we are -exactly- were we were in March.

My dad used to say that if you don’t use modern medicine, the disease has no way to tell that it’s not the dark ages. It’s still very easy to die of an infected wound – just fail to clean and treat it. Skip the antibiotic cream and the bandaid the next time you cut yourself if you want to see.

Instead, we are re-opening because we no longer have the will to fight using the limited tools of business closure and stay-at-home orders. The pressure of profit, business, and political appearances are too great.This will be spun as a victory. We will be told that we never needed to close at all. These are damnable lies.

And so we re-open.As always, the burden and most of the danger will fall disproportionately on the disempowered and the vulnerable. Service workers will be made to expose themselves to bored and potentially infectious shoppers for the same low wages that they made in February. Employees will be punished for “absenteeism” if they fail to show up under these conditions.

This is how our system worked before, and it continues unchanged.

Please be kind, be compassionate, and be sensitive. If you’re in a position to make a difference for someone less powerful than you, please do so.

Individual actions matter.

Indeed, given the failure of our so-called leaders – they’re all we have.