politics — Journal — Teresa Tells Tales

My fiction isn’t flowing.

These days have the same feel as those following 9/11. My day *looks* the same, but I’m pushing through a dense fog masquerading as normalcy. Silence is heavy and actions are meaningless. The new way of life has not sunk in yet and is buried under the rubble.

There are victims, survivors, the untouched, and the out of touch. POTUS is trying to pacify the country with bedtime stories of efficiency and competence when we need a hefty dose of reality.

Getting through a crisis such as this requires painful truth. We do not need to be patted on the head and told everything will be all right. He needs to stand in his full authority as a leader and truly “tell it like it is”. We don’t have enough personal protective equipment. We do not have the testing capabilities. We do not have enough hospital beds. We do not know how many people are infected.

I’m bitter and I’m mad. I’ll admit my attitude would be the same regardless of his actions; I’m under no illusion I’m biased. I’m reading reports of warnings as early as January and nothing was done. Nothing that we can tangibly see. That’s beginning to change.

When a friend first mentioned the virus, I didn’t think much about it. I figured it was the typical doomsday hype we hear from the news every day. Ebola and H1N1 would wipe us out and it didn’t. This would be the same. What did not factor into my sense of calm were all the things that happened behind the scenes with previous epidemics. The previous administration tackled things head-on. The response wasn’t perfect—we still had too many deaths. What we did not have is the national panic.

We’re right to be panicked. Even with strong leadership, this will be a devastating time. My solution is to stop requiring payment for everything. Everyone. From manufacturing overhead to getting groceries. All monetary transactions should stop all over the world. Ration goods. Stop worrying about the stock market. No more talk over how much it costs to produce a drug, mask, hospital gown. All of it. But we’d all have to play along. It’s unrealistic. I know that. A person can dream that greed can be put aside. Darwin had it wrong. It’s survival of the richest.

The best of humanity needs to shine through. Post 9/11--- hours after the towers fell* people lined up in the streets to give blood. Today average people are trying to manufacture protective masks and gowns on their home sewing machines for the healthcare angels.

But the bells are ringing and the healthcare angels are dwindling, earning their eternal wings. What happens when the people who fix us need fixing? When those who feed us go hungry?

I have no answers. I barely have words. But I have a heart and will do what I can with it.

Kindness must overcome greed. Life before the bottom line. The economy can’t recover if its participants do not.

*I’m in New York and cannot comment on the experience of the Pentagon and Pennsylvania site responses.

On the Morning of November 3rd

The Only Thing I Can Write.