Thoughts of Pandemic Proportions

Kudos to my Scotland fellows, as this brother
so graciously afforded me a few seconds
of time when I visited Inverness in 2019.

Deke's Note: Ask anyone about COVID, and you're sure to receive 100% responses doubling down on how we're all sick of being afraid of something none of us can see. My readers can attest it is something none of us want to tangle with. Some of you have, and thank God you're still here to read my fumbling, tumbling words. Many of us know someone who has suffered from it or been taken away kicking, coughing and suffering all the while. It has been a frightening, frustrating, sad year.

It's not a political argument: it's a virus. Something that has been infecting us since our species began. Whether it was intentionally created as a form of germ warfare or simply another freak of nature is beyond my comprehension. All I know is that I, along with thousands of my brothers and sisters have dealt with its consequences for nearly 1.5 years. We're sick of it, those of us not sick from it. What truly frightens me  is that it has become yet another political football. Some have resisted efforts to lessen the scope of this plague while others have chosen to actively safeguard themselves and others. Ignorance abounds from every direction, and we're left to guess what the truth actually is. This is the scariest part of it all: humankind's increasing ability to argue itself to death.

Bulletins and mis-information bombard us from all levels, and we're left to form our own opinions when most of us are ill-equipped to make a truly-informed decision. The powers that be want us confused. Any attempt to bring us all together to save one another is thwarted through political bullshit. A matter of life over death is now a battle over which "side" is credible. How utterly ridiculously we have so devolved. If we had been presented this scenario 40 years ago, it would have been laughable. Now, it is simply a sordid moment history a century forward will surely ridicule.

I wonder what would have happened 103 years ago when the Spanish Flu occurred, if the world populace was so childishly divided as it is now. Over half our planet's population would have perished. The world would likely have been overtaken by another type of government. Luckily, patriotism then meant to gang together for the common good. Today, it's one party or the other, and damn the other guy if he disagrees with your side.

Fucking ridiculous, people. It is highly inconceivable that a worldwide pandemic is cause for any type of "mass conspiracy". Biology is something humans have yet to master. Common sense is dangerously overwhelmed by politics which only serve to divide. This ultimately spells doom for future generations. What good are advances in medicine if so much effort is spent arguing over "whose" science is correct? Remember, science is a series of hypotheses which are proven, or not. Human biology boils down to the arguments of the highest intelligence. Today's medical knowledge is so far advanced from a century ago there should be no credible argument over the course of action to fight today's pandemic threat. When we allow politics to overrule the brightest minds among us, we are doomed to the fool's paradox.

My education is pitiful in scope compared with those charged with safeguarding humanity from every little bug which threatens us. However, my political senses are highly-tuned to filter out ridiculous bullshit. And that stench, folks, is impossible to ignore today.

It is impossible to "implant" devices in such a tiny form that would pass through such a fine needle. Nor is it plausible to inject anything sinister in the world's collective arms that would render us zombies to follow one side or another. Ridiculousness tends to rule today. So much that the masses who are glued to "fake news" media outlets fail to maintain a rational sense of intellectual ability to discern possibility from reasonable and rational doubt. This failure of today's society is mind boggling. 

Rather than moving forward, humanity has devolved over the past two decades into a seething, hateful mass which would rather see the other half die than find common ground upon which we could all move forward. 

Part of Portland agrees with those who violently destroyed our beautiful, visitor-rich downtown, while the other vehemently argues against it. The reason for such destruction? The past several hundred years of one race ruthlessly dominating others. My whiteness overwhelmingly understands the fury, given the unchecked murder and sanctioned racism this race has employed to control anyone whose skin color differs from our own. While I have never sanctioned this, I am considered guilty by association. 

John Lennon, Ella Fitzgerald, John Denver, Satchmo, Frank Sinatra, the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr, Abraham Lincoln, Rosa Parks... wonderful voices who spoke out against racial aggression, are lost to the ages. They loved humanity above themselves, and we are still under their influence... if we would only listen.  Their voices cannot be silenced. The hatred and vitriol leveled against them for speaking out however, remains. So does the attitude that a historical minority remains more powerful than such  collective eloquence. And that, folks, is what endangers us most. Not this pandemic, or climate change, or political divide; only that some truly believe their lives reign over those whom they believe inferior.

There are numerous instances of humanity's collective grievances upon itself. If we could ever find a way to turn the power of that hatred 180 degrees, there would be no more racism, no reason to fear one another. It's actually easier than we make it to be. Stop watching the news, that's the first part. Reach out to your neighbor, block off your street and have a party. Get to know each other as people, rather than opposites. The majority of US work together under the oppressive arm of control. If we truly understood one another, the cloak of the separatists could be finally shed. All who collectively punch a time clock should come together as one. That, my friends, is what the powers who be truly fear, because solidarity is their biggest enemy.

So please, take a moment. Pause the vitriol, mute the forced hatred of decades-long prejudices. Big Money wants to keep us apart so they can continue dangling puppet strings meant to keep us fighting each another. Recognize their tactics, refuse to be puppets any longer. Only then will we find the power to rise above that which has ailed humanity for centuries: unbridled mass slavery.

I love each of you, even when we differ politically. Why? Because I have no friends above my working class. They only work to control US. All my life I have struggled just to keep a roof over my beloveds. Each advance I have made has been via my inner strength to keep this head above the waters steadily bubbling to prevent me from rising. As I age, the power required to do so dwindles. I cannot do it without your collective efforts to do the same. At some point, enough of us must remain to make a difference. Otherwise, I sink and pull others down with me in my last gasp of self survival.

We're not simply Democrats or Republicans in these United States of America, we were once the most powerful working class in the world. How and when did we lose that? Most likely during the Industrial Revolution of the early 20th century, when monopolies struggled against the most enduring advocate of the working class we had: President Theodore Roosevelt. They fought against his efforts to break the trusts of Standard Oil and its partnership with railroad moguls who used US to gain them billions. Ever since the first union strongmen began the struggle against those who HAVE vs. US, we have been fighting a downhill battle.

Instead of slashing and bashing each other, we should turn our energy toward defeating those whose only goal is to keep us down. OUR numbers are greater than theirs. It's about damn time we realize that.

My biggest hope not to retire into a casket. Too many of us already have.

RIP Jeff Ward, Mary Hanson, Stewart Lane, Mary Valentine, Jubal Fraser, Thomas Dunn and many others who died LONG before their time. I'm sure they would agree that it's time WE stuck together.

Roll safe, brothers and sisters. My love and respect rolls with you each inch of your workday. I'm right there with you every roll of the wheels.