RISE! Will Ya?

Over a thousand Jacobite soldiers were killed
upon the Culloden Battlefield in Scotland,
fighting for what they believed was their
God-given right to rule the United Kingdom.
No cannons, swords or rifles can adequately win
the battle we now face.

Deke's Note: Gee Deke, where ya been? Alternating between fear of having COVID-19 and utter boredom in self-quarantine for the second time. Reading, thinking, healing and tending to my roses. Reading, because writing just hasn't been possible. Watching news reports and praying for my fellow transit workers throughout the tumultuous times we're living through. Thinking, always thinking, trying to sort it all out. We cannot find any collective truth to anything which matters. Once we think we have found a way through the muck, some tidbit of information filters in and muddies the waters once again. Still, we must ultimately find our way or be forever lost to the floodwaters of history. If we're lucky, we'll rise, thereby finding oxygen.

I don't care for either "party" right now. If either major political persuasion could still be called a "party", well it's certainly not fun. All I pray for is your safety. The rest of the world has found a way to deal with this pandemic while our country argues (as body counts rise) whether it's even real. 

A close friend of mine is dealing with the pandemic in very close terms. I have as well, but choose to concentrate on Jeff's reality. His eldest son's wife contracted the Coronavirus and has been battling it for months now. I'm not sure how she was infected with it; that's not my business. However, the residual effects of this virus are still being learned by the scientific community, and she will remain at risk until such time as a "cure" is found, if ever. Given the times and this "new" (hence the prefix "novel" COVID-19) threat to humanity, I tend to rely on science to figure it out rather than some political idealogy. 

Ever since the dawn of humanity's search for knowledge, science has been either embraced or denigrated. Those who fear what they do not know are wont to assail the educated opinion. Now opinions are loosely-held beliefs, hypotheses are beliefs under study, but facts are proven. We do not have enough of the latter to adequately rely on the former. How long did it take scientists to prove the Earth is a sphere rather than flat? A few thousand years, give or take. Not until astronauts left our orbit did photographic evidence appear, yet there are those who still believe that science and mathematics are all but a farce, a "scam" upon all humanity. Sorry folks, but I watched Neil Armstrong set foot upon the Moon, and it could never be that thousands of people successfully perpetuated a myth that our world is anything but a wondrous blue marble shining within the magnificence of infinity.

Yes, we have been fooled before. Not by proven-science very often, and certainly not by mathematics. Math is a constant; zero is not an ultimate end to the numerical because you can travel either direction from it and still find a determined outcome. Scientific discovery takes more time and deliberation; a hypothesis must be proven before it is accepted, and even then it can evolve into something more definitive. 

"To know, is to know that you know nothing.
That is the meaning of true knowledge."
-- Socrates

Viruses have been around since life evolved. They are life. They can be death. Just because we wish them fallible doesn't mean they do not exist, nor that they are as deadly as advertised. COVID-19 is not the flu, folks. It attacks all the internal organs, and may be transported through our bodies via our blood. The virus is still under study. I get so pissed when I see someone claim this virus is equatable to the flu without any scientific studies as backup.

Yeah, I get it... it's "new" and largely misunderstood. But failing to see its' danger to humanity is no reason to stick one's head in the sand in hopes it will "just go away, disappear". Leave your head down there too long, and science has proven you will suffocate. Refusal to test, believing that will lead to fewer cases, is like signing up for something you could never afford, believing the money will magically appear when the payment comes due. It's folly, a farce humanity cannot afford, yet we're taking that risk with Coronavirus although we're not sure our species can survive its' possible devastation.

I trust science and modern medicine over political belief. It has helped me live through some times I could not have, without. There is nothing I have learned in life which supports a political opinion over a scientific one. So when politicians try to persuade me to believe them, that an economy is more important than my health, I tend to call bullshit. Without me, and you, and your family and friends, there can be no economy. If there is a threat to humanity, I'm automatically prone to turn to the scientific and medical community to give me answers. When politicians try to silence these voices, I will push them aside in order to better hear what millions of years of evolution has taught me. My will to live and protect my family and future generations is stronger than any political persuasion.

So, I wear a mask. The less my humidity-borne exhalations mingle with your air, the better for you. When you also wear a mask, it helps (even though it does not necessarily prevent) keep yours from assaulting me. Therefore, the risk of the virus infecting either of us, is less than one of us selfishly ignoring the others' health. 

Why is the United States of America, which won World War II alongside our allies, now the last in the world when it comes to health? Because we're selfish, that's why. We're spoiled little crybabies who mistakenly equate "freedom" with responsibility. During the last Great War, our parents and grandparents sacrificed a lot more than we're asked to today. Many went without food. Basic necessities of life, with which none of us today could imagine, were rationed. (If you think a shortage of toilet paper is bad, try going back into time and living in 1942.) Factories were re-purposed to provide the necessary tools of war, which ultimately saved us from the fascism of Nazi Germany. Our forebears realized the sacrifices necessary to save humanity from evil, and pulled together for victory.

Today? We could be overrun by some foreign power and save for a few gun-toting wannabes, we'd be ultimately helpless. We would lose the war. Why? Not because of our military, still the most awesome force in the world, but because of rampant selfishness, lack of strong leadership, and an unwillingness to pull together and do what's right for the common good. One side holds up a failure of a leader, the other assails him, and still another blasts both while similar groups advocate for pure anarchy. We're more split now than the country President Lincoln was inaugurated to lead. 

Get your collective heads out of your asses, fellow Americans. Trust not what your political ideals insist upon. Allow your humanity to lead instead. You know, instinctively, what's "right". Come together, work toward the common goal of forward movement. We cannot go backward, and even if that were possible, our past is not as good as the future must be. Discard forced-upon divisions and leave them to the dung heaps of the past. If we fail to do this, then just bow your heads and accept defeat. There is merciful strength in unity, but horrific weakness in division. 

I prefer not to have this window for eternity.

The working class has allowed itself to be driven into puppetry, and the richest of rich hold our strings. They delight in our fighting each other while they enjoy the spoils of our battles. They laugh at us, convinced we are too ignorant to fight back. For the past 70 years, the working class has been beaten down, encouraged to fight each other over political doctrines we should have seen clearly through. We're all the fools here. Our masters have succeeded in pushing us all into smaller groups which can be easily annihilated once the time is right. And now, that time has come.

I may disagree with you, but I love you just the same. If some foreign invader held a sword to your neck, I would shoot him and save you. We're Americans, and so we should stand as one.

Love one another. Seems to me the main point God asked of us. We have failed, but there is still time to prove otherwise.