08/06/2021
We are a couple of weeks away from embarking on a massive medical experiment on our most vulnerable citizens: our children. We are knowingly sending them into harm’s way when school starts, and sitting by watching and waiting to see which ones survive. A modern Hunger Games, played out in real time.
I guess I shouldn’t be shocked or surprised after children were gunned down at Sandy Hook and we couldn’t find the will to make any changes to prevent future tragedies. Even my fellow Democrats argue about enacting gun laws. In my Congressional race, about half of the Democratic candidates opposed assault weapons bans.
So it shouldn’t surprise me, I guess, that we are headed this direction.
It would be tempting to lay all the blame at the feet of Republican leaders. They absolutely do bear the vast majority of the responsibility. From Governor Abbott and the GOP led Texas legislature prohibiting masks in schools to right wing media spreading disinformation about COVID and feeding people’s science denial, to the last administration being asleep at the wheel when the pandemic hit, the GOP bears the lion’s share of responsibility for where we are now. I could list so many more examples.
But Democrats are not blameless.
The Biden administration, which took many immediate steps to improve our pandemic response and get vaccines into people’s arms, seems timid and sclerotic now. Persistently politely asking people to get vaccinated and wear masks is just not going to cut it. Biden has an underlying belief that people will do the right thing if spoken to nicely that is hindering him from taking the steps necessary during this crisis.
And that’s what we are in: a crisis.
I doubt that if more than 600,000 Americans had died in one year from a terrorist attack that we would be asking politely for people to do the right thing. But somehow war and terrorism spark our imaginations and our need to *do something* to a greater degree than any other thing.
So here we are, sending our defenseless kids into the fire to bear the consequences of our collective refusal to do the right thing. And children will die.
How many? We just don’t know.
I don’t have any answers to this. My mind continuously screams that *someone* needs to do *something*. And still we march relentlessly on to this uncertain future. Uncertain, other than the certainty that some number of children will die from something preventable.
If I had a magic wand or if I were the president, I would declare a national emergency and enact a three week nationwide lockdown. I’d fund the support systems that people would need to make that happen. That amount of time would break the transmission cycle enough to significantly reduce the circulating virus. And I would plan to do that every time cases started to rise.
If I had a magic wand or if I were governor, I would properly fund and install the measures in schools that would make them safe. I’m not going to list them here, but the guidelines are available for anyone who wants to institute them.
But I’m neither of those things and I don’t hold political power. All I can do is continue to beg and plead for people to do the right thing, because I can’t make them do anything.
Some of you are going to read this and comment to defend the president or make excuses using some version of “he’s doing what he can” or “the political reality is” and I’m just going to say right now that I have absolutely no patience for that. I especially don’t want to hear anything about calling out my own side or that the GOP is so much worse. First, I know these things. Second, people, children, are dying from something preventable and no one with power gets a pass from me. There’s always something that can be done.
I’m not a religious person so I won’t be praying. I’ll mostly be watching in horror as we sacrifice children to selfishness and greed. And I’ll hope that somehow I’ll reach people who are within my sphere of influence to make better choice.
