It’s easy to be pessimistic. In fact, it’s naïve and negligent to be optimistic in this day and age. One could argue that this was always the case, only now it can no longer be ignored. Living during a pandemic has opened many people’s eyes, as well as living through a president like Trump who displays the evil nature of the presidency in crystal clear transparency; whereas normally, most of the evil doing that the presidents/ U.S. Government/ military commit are either not reported on, or have the truth spun in a positive light. Always remember, there are no good presidents. I’m afraid with Biden on the way in, the populace will go back to complacency, that is once Covid-19 is under control.
As this blog is written, news cycles spin stories of Trump pardoning war criminals who massacred Iraqi civilians, Covid-19 relief funding being vetoed, death toll and infection rates rising, the climate imploding capped off with a year of massive wildfires, heat waves, hurricanes, and drought. Israel is set to receive more murder money from the U.S. to kill Palestinians, while landlords resume evictions despite people’s livelihoods impacted by Covid. Cops are still murderous pigs and shoot black people for sport. the homeless are freezing as winter approaches, either that or face super spreading events within cramped tent cities; the same issue that arises with refugees in European countries like Greece and Turkey. Speaking of refugees/immigrants, the entrance of Biden will not change anything related to immigration policy as is written from the Trump administration, so kids will still remain in cages at border facilities, and there still is no justice for immigrant women who underwent non-consensual sterilization while being held by I.C.E. and border control. Billionaires have gotten richer during the pandemic to the point, that a new terminology had to be created to classify the top tier, “centibillionaires”. While wealth inequality continues to rip the gap wide open, the rich hoard their money to the point of illogical amounts that is not possible to spend in multiple lifetimes, and the poverty line grows with the average person still one medical bill away from bankruptcy even amidst a pandemic. This is all just scratching the surface and admittedly more or less focusing from the American point of view, not even taking into account the troubles of the rest of the world.
There is no respite, and the future looks bleak. For the first time ever, water stocks are being traded on Wall Street as a valuable resource similar to Gold and Oil. These people are literally betting on water scarcity and who will profit in such an event. The sad thing is, that time will surely come. The climate is only worsening and globally we are not even doing the bare minimum to combat the effects of a changing climate. America is still warhawking with new targets in sight, amid constant tensions with Russia, North Korea, Iran, and Venezuela. Covid could very well be a sign of things to come. Our inability to contain the virus, only sparks debate of how we will fare against future viruses (yes there will always be more, and could be intensified by the climate). The polar ice caps are melting, permafrost literally dissolving into the sea, and the sea levels rising threating coastal lands and vulnerable seaside or islander populations. The issue of wealth inequality is only going to worsen under our current Capitalist system, and I’m waiting for the time when the ghost of the French revolution will rise from its grave and the guillotine comes back into style.
As I lay out our communal doom and gloom, I offer no guidance or suggestion as to how to prevent or fix any of this. This post is pure nihilism and I cannot comfort the reader in telling any of you all that we must come together, we must do better, we must, we must, we must…. I’m no leader of the revolution or perhaps I just don’t see revolution as a possibility in the near future in America. Unfortunately, Americans have tolerated exploitation for too long and they will have to suffer much more before they come to a point where they have had enough. Politicians hold the key to enacting new policy to combat climate change, but they keep the door shut because the real powers that be are the corporations that see regulations as a hindrance to profit. So I sit and attempt to remain distracted like the rest of the populace. That is when I am also not selling my body for labor 60 hours a week, putting my health at risk in the time of corona, to increase my employer’s bottom line.
I’m just tired, so damn tired. The fight in me is not gone, but it is certainly suppressed. So I fall in line like the rest. Work half the day, relax for a couple of hours, sleep the remainder, only to get up like a slave to the alarm clock, and do it all over again. Living life in the new pandemic era, feels eerily similar to every decade I have experienced thus far. That should be telling.
The Madness of Dionysus 