Atticus
Atticus's JournalFor the those of us who are "elders", there is no more personal decision than whether
or not we would choose to be put on a respirator in the event Covid seriously impairs our breathing. Several posts here have stated the poster's intent to refuse one as there is a shortage of respirators and younger people still responsible for children and grandchildren may need them. Others would want a respirator if one was available. I support both decisions.
If my choice is whether I or my wife of 50 years gets a respirator, that's an easy one: she gets it. If it's a choice between a respirator for me or one of my children or their spouses or my grandchildren, that's not even worth discussing: I will die as well as I can manage.
But, the same love that would motivate my sacrifice in those situations, means that I want very much to enjoy my loved ones for as long as possible. In any other set of facts than I stated above, I hope I can have the help of a respirator.
As I said above, this is a very personal decision and that is mine. It is, in part, influenced by my fervent belief that most American deaths would have been prevented if almost anyone other than Trump had been president.
To die is one thing. To die unnecessarily is quite another.
---sigh---watching TV---have a question:
If Trump said drinking your own urine---hell, someone else's urine!---would cure Corona virus, would the airheads on TV be "discussing" whether it would work?
If Trump said the Constitution permitted him to use the nation's military to mow down protesters, would "discussion" be warranted?
WHY IN HELL SHOULD "RE-OPENING OUR ECONOMY" EVEN BE DISCUSSED???
This is NUTS, people!!! You know it; I know it; everyone with an IQ above room temperature knows it!
Trump is mentally diseased and incompetent. Don't believe him. Don't obey him.
If a business owner re-opens his or her business and recalls employees into a
work environment that exposes them to coronavirus and some do get sick or die, does the owner have any legal liability for the intentional exposure and resulting loss?
Forcing employees to work in an "unsafe or unhealthful" workplace would seem to violate OSHA.
Our mothers taught us how to react if Trump says "Back to work!" next week.
"if everyone 'everyone else' jumps off a cliff, would you jump , too? Don't be stupid!"
Suggested inscription for Trump's tombstone: "We'll see what happens". Those are
his favorite "wiggle words" that he tosses in after he says something totally unrealistic and ridiculous.
The Republican-only bill McConnell is trying to cram down our throats right now is the first domino
in a line that stretches round the corner and out of sight. The bill itself provides for ZERO money to Social Security for the balance of the year. This, from the people who have argued to kill Social Security for decades. Trump has already publicly indicated he'd like to continue "zero funding" the program beyond the end of the year.
If it became law, the bill would provide $500,000,000,000 in "stimulus" to corporations selected entirely by Trumpuppet Mnuchin. "Friendly" companies would get billions, "unfriendly" companies would get zilch and, somehow, millions would find their way into the "Trump 2020" campaign coffers.
By design or simply by one of those "coincidences" that always seem to benefit Republicans or harm their opponents, most of those who get "the short end of the stick" with the Republican plan would consist of the most vulnerable among us---those more likely to vote for Democrats.
Next year, when most of our dead have been buried and the battered and numb survivors are beginning to restart their lives, we will hear Republicans screaming about how "our debt simply MUST be reduced". Thus will begin the fulfillment of the long-cherished wingnut wet dream: dismantling Social Security and Medicare and on down the list of social programs that benefit the less fortunate.
Of course, none of the above is carved in stone. If Democrats can overcome the crooks and the klansmen and the Russian trolls that now rule the GOP, we may retake our government and rededicate our democracy to the welfare of "We, the People".
"Do not go gentle---"
Ladies and gentlemen, what you are seeing in the Senate right now is McConnell
and Trump attempting the biggest outright theft of US funds ever attempted. The core issue causing Democrats to vote "no" on the pending bill is the provision that would hand total control of HALF A TRILLION DOLLARS earmarked for corporations to Trump. Does ANYONE doubt that he would use this mother of all slush funds to reward his friends, punish his opponents and insure his re-election?
Does anyone doubt that this regime will cite the "staggering debt" they are creating as a justification for gutting Social Security, Medicare and all social programs?
Please contact your Senators now and let them know you oppose this bill in it's current form.
How long before we start having "John Q" confrontations? How long before some father---
---or mother or child or spouse---DEMANDS a respirator for their loved one at the point of a gun?
The sheer utter desperation is just beginning and desperate people are capable of just about any excess you can imagine. The passion that could save us could also destroy us.
How do people live without music?
I have just spent a couple of hours with some very special---no, AMAZING---people: some of their names are Joplin and Cocker and Mitchell and Mercury and Young and---
At times I soared; at times I sobbed. From the wistful pain of Joni's "Both Sides Now" to feeling the hair stand up on the back of my neck with Janis's "Ball and Chain", the music pried my heart open after weeks of closing it to the hate and strife and sadness of our world.
Beauty still lives. Love is real and at least as tangible as pain.
Pick your genre, plug in those earbuds and open your mind and your heart. Listening can heal.
And, to those who may judge this a foolish or flippant post---i am smiling as I type---"pax vobiscum".
Trump is our "rough beast".
I know this has been quoted often, but there is just nothing more appropriate than Yeats:
"Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity."
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Member since: 2002Number of posts: 15,124
