I hope that everybody is weathering this storm as best you can.  In my downtime, I’ve been doing what most of you have: reading a lot about the virus, wishing I were more productive, and thinking.  Watching this all unfold has been surreal, sad, scary, enlightening, and, call me crazy, uplifting. So here I am to write about my realizations, for those who care or are bored and looking for something to do.

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The front lines of the fight against the virus and its effects are your nurses, your grocers, your delivery guys and truck drivers.  Nothing glamorous. Just hard-working, average Americans. The vast hordes of Bezos-style wealth do nothing for anybody if you can’t get enough food to live.  How many times have we heard “bagging groceries” or “stocking shelves” as a pejorative? As if working hard for minimum wage (which nobody can actually live on) is somehow lesser.  

Now we know the truth: we need these people that society relegates to the bottom.  They are the backbone upon which all is built.

And yet we are discussing bailouts for airlines and hotels and cruise ships.  Why? If you aren’t getting customers, that’s on you, not me or us. These industries just got a massive tax cut and used it for stock buybacks and executive bonuses.  Let’s stop rewarding this short-sighted, greedy behavior. Consider the ‘08 bailout. People lost homes, but banks got money to shore up their bottom lines AND they got to keep the homes people had defaulted on.  Why didn’t we simply bail out the people? They would’ve stayed in their homes and paid the banks. Both groups saved! But no. Crisis for some is opportunity for the vultures. Chaos is a ladder, as Baelish said on Game of Thrones, but it is one that only the insulated wealthy and powerful can climb.  “Socialism for the rich, rugged individualism for the poor” (to paraphrase Dr. King) is being demonstrated right in front of our eyes.  While $1,000 is a step, it won’t be enough. Mortgages, rents, student loans, car payments, utilities, groceries. I suspect that the money is gone before it even arrives.

Bail out people.  Period. The Fed can magically find trillions.  Use it to help the people. None of this trickle-down “what’s good for the billionaire is good for everybody” bullshit.  Money has only been trickling upward in my lifetime. And that’s how it’s designed.

Consider this: we are at the point where states and hospital systems are competing for necessary medical supplies.  What? Highest bidders get to live? This is systemic, baked in moral bankruptcy. Reminder: all are equal and have human, non-monetary value.  We matter.

Our health system is fragmented and less equipped to deal with this than we’d like to admit.  America is the greatest! Yes, we are. At profiting. We built a juggernaut of a country that can accomplish a lot.  Our health system isn’t tied to the well-being of the people, but to profit and financial sustainability. We are discouraged from even interacting with health care (co-pays, deductibles, and on and on).  But now we need it, en masse, and it isn’t ready. We have to admit our failure. And I don’t mean the average Joe or Jane has failed, not we who work hard, provide, and survive. It’s our system which sees us as numbers and not people.  

This promotion of acquisition of wealth over all else is doomed because infinite growth doesn’t exist.  As we buckle under the weight of this philosophy, I see one important guiding light: kindness.

It’s strange to say, given the negativity behind my words and sentiment.  In the face of this crisis, social media immediately evolved into a volunteer ecosystem of direct aid and important information, rising above the usual cesspool.  People showed up to care for the vulnerable in a way our government did not. It is because people transcend the system and the labels that polarize and fracture us.  Conservatives started cheering the idea of a Universal Basic Income (UBI)– something I never thought I’d see. Why? Because people need help. No “rugged individualism” can save those who have no income and no resources to provide for themselves and their families, even when they want to get out and do so.  No amount of picking oneself up by the bootstraps will cure a virus. Nobody asked for this, nobody deserves this. It is here, though, and people are here for each other. Getting through requires collective will. People know this instinctively and are acting the way humanity acts best in crisis: with compassion.

So amid the chaos, the few at the top profit, the system is exposed for the rigged fraud it is (rigged for the little guy, I mean), and the people rise above in order to help each other.

It’s strange to feel so close to humanity while being so far.  I have hope that this will remake us into something better.