Coronavirus, sporting masks, evictions, quarantine, foodstuff handouts, corporations closing, poverty… I’ve had more than enough of it.
As this awful yr draws to a shut, I have experienced enough.
I have had plenty of of COVID-19 and of how I can not visit pals or try to eat in a restaurant without having the chance of spreading the virus. Plenty of of folks refusing to make compact sacrifices, these kinds of as carrying a mask or attending functions like church services just about, so that all of us together can preserve our neighbors’ lives. And I’ve run out of patience for men and women whose thought of “freedom” extends no further than their very own pores and skin, who imagine their right to go about shedding droplets for ideology’s sake trumps the appropriate of the relaxation of us to prevent receiving sick when we reluctantly hurry out of our houses to buy food stuff or go to perform. We could have managed this situation a lot quicker if people today cared about the popular great as a lot as they do about their individual vainness. Possibly we’d be totally free to hug all those pals and family members ideal now, but right here we are.
I have experienced plenty of of a society so brutal that the only imaginable way for people to aid themselves is to hazard their life through a pandemic at a position that might or might not exist any longer. Defenders of the capitalist standing quo tell me that no other process has lifted so many folks out of poverty, and that there is no improved way to distribute the products and products and services we all want than by offering them to the best bidder. If which is real, why are additional than a third of American older people in hazard of being evicted quickly? Why have eight million much more Individuals fallen into poverty considering that May? Why are they lining up in big numbers for foodstuff handouts or possessing to steal meals? Young children are inquiring Santa for dollars to pay out family payments. If the United States is the biggest region in the entire world, definitely we can do much better than this.
I’ve had ample of a process that chews up the pure earth and spits it out in the type of trash in our oceans, carcasses of migratory songbirds that starved to demise, and a increasing range of “natural” disasters. As persons slash down forests in the quest for at any time additional resources, they launch new pathogens that may well spawn the subsequent pandemic. It’s all linked. And the quicker we confront these interrelated circumstances, the improved our probabilities to lessen struggling for the duration of the difficult moments to come.
I’ve experienced enough of individuals who have much much more than sufficient, continuing to suck up the prosperity of these who really don’t. Though the pandemic has impoverished Individuals for months, America’s 651 billionaires have collectively received far more than a trillion pounds. Take into consideration Jeff Bezos, founder of Amazon and 1 of the world’s five centibillionaires. Even though nearly 20,000 entrance-line Amazon and Whole Food items staff members contracted COVID-19 this year (“thank you, heroes!”) and workers have had to queue up for foods donations, Bezos’s presently-huge individual fortune grew by virtually 80% to a amazing $203.1 billion.
I have experienced adequate, and so have a ton of other Us residents. Activists in Los Angeles are re-opening state-owned vacant homes with bolt cutters and drills for individuals who require shelter. Other communities are organizing hire strikes, outside encampments, authorized aid, and mutual aid collectives. Obscene prosperity and tax breaks for the elites have not “trickled down” as promised, but a thing else could possibly assistance. Keep in mind, panic of the immiserated functioning course turning to Communism is what influenced sturdy welfare programs in the submit-war United States, funded by progressive taxation. Holding wealth in circulation, alongside with potent unions, is what developed the center course of the final century. Countering the perceived resurgence of Communism with tales about bread strains and poverty will not scare anybody who’s going through these problems below and now, in Trump’s America.
I have had plenty of. Haven’t you?
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