800,000 And Counting...

Reminder as the U.S. bypasses 800,000 deaths from SARS-COVID-2:

We're nowhere near the largest, most populous or most crowded nation on the globe.  Neither are we considered a "developing" or 3rd world country with a lack of sanitation.  Yet we still have the highest number of coronavirus cases and deaths of ANY country on Earth heading into 2022 just as we did in late 2020 & throughout the pandemic.  Think about that for a second.  More than the slums of Haiti or India; more than the Taliban-lead regions of Afghanistan, more than the crowded shanty towns of Colombia, Rio or Mexico City.  More than the sprawling Gypsy camps in Romania & Serbia where people live 10 to a home in shacks with dirt floors.  

In case their motivation wasn't clear...

Meanwhile, multi-billionaires like Gates, Bezos & Musk got much richer during the pandemic, making enough excess money to fund trips to outer space--a feat which used to require funding by the entire U.S. government.  Amazon workers are being forced to pee in bottles & having their every move monitored by AI, dying on the factory floor while their company's founder steals their wages to go to the moon & fires them for trying to unionize.  And our "leaders" endorse all of this.  Their only purpose is to aid in the upwards transfer of wealth while performing political theatre to keep us all bickering amongst ourselves.  We plebs can't even get a $15 minimum wage, a floor vote on universal healthcare or a damn free mask in the mail from our own government during the biggest goddamn pandemic in modern recorded history!  

And our heroes in the Democratic party who claim to "follow the science" and care about the downtrodden?  Shoving a vaccine in our arms & sending us back to work without other protections in place is not the "the science," nor is it humane.  Not when small children still can't get the shot & nearly half the adult population still has chosen not to get it (and there are no federal mandates or consequences strong enough to force their hand).  Never mind the lack of mask mandates or ANY kind of uniform nationwide effort to stop this virus.  A virus that's constantly mutating to outsmart the thin veil of protection we have against it now & becoming ever-more infectious.  

But it's not even about the virus anymore:  it's about how we treat each other and how America values (or in this case, devalues) human life.  Our toxic brand of corporate libertarianism only rewards one thing:  greed.  The results have been nothing short of genocide on the poor & working class.  Other countries that are doing the right thing--paid lockdowns, masks, remote learning, distancing & bans on large gatherings--should be infuriated at us for continuing to breed new variants in our unvaccinated population while failing to get the shot to needy and willing countries around the world.  We're all connected in this pandemic; what happens in the jungles of the Cameroon directly affects people in Peoria, IL.  We're failing the world by every measure.

It didn't have to get this bad.  As an American I apologize for my corrupt government's actions.  I only hope there's something left of this country to salvage after this viral holocaust is over.  As Dr. Don Francis screamed at the CDC in the midst of the HIV-tainted blood scandal in 1983:

"How many people have to die?"