So, after following covid-mania for the better part of a year both in here, and out there through television, I’ve found that I have a dilemma. Starting at a national level, and then working our way down to the state and local levels, the citizens of this country are crying out to their elected officials and asking them to make changes. One of the issues at the national level people are passionate about, is calling on the federal government to pass another covid relief bill that includes more than one hundred billion dollars in funds to help stop people who have lost their incomes from being evicted from their homes. There are also calls for the federal courts to bring an end to the lock downs that state officials have put in place that are destroying small businesses, which some say is doing serious, irreversible harm to the nations working class economy.
Millionaires, and billionaires don’t care if America is locked down, because they have the resources to wait it out. Unfortunately, the federal government has not made any progress, so far, on another covid relief bill, and their position on ending lock downs imposed by state officials is very clear. They have taken the position that they will not interfere with how governors run their states. I’m not going to go any further down this road because I don’t want to distract myself from the dilemma that I mentioned at the beginning of this letter, so let’s move on.
On the state, and local levels there are calls for state governors, and other elected officals, to also rescind some of these draconian measures that they have implemented under the guise of stopping a virus that is relatively harmless to most people unless you’re over the age of sixty five, and or have a preexisting condition. (Just so everyone’s clear, those peoples lives matter, and they should definitely stay at home as much as possible, and take all the other recommended precautions until they can be vaccinated.)
Now I’d like you to really think about this for a second. Our government wants us to believe that staying home, and not going outside, is the best plan for STOPPING A MICROSCOPIC, AIRBORN, AEROSOL VIRUS that can cling to surfaces for hours? Really? So let me see if I’ve got this straight. They want us to stay home from work, keep our kids out of school, and just will this virus not to spread, by locking people in their houses and telling them to hide under their blankets so the boogie man doesn’t get them? Seriously? That’s our answer America? We hide and wait? Imagine if that was our reaction when the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbour. I think our grandparents and great grandparents might be pretty disappointed in us if they were to hear that. When did our nation get so soft?
Then of course there’s this massive online effort to get our federal and state governments to see the inhumane way that prisons are treating the people who are incarcerated during this pandemic. By the by, here’s a fun fact for you. The numbers have shown that the incarcerated population here in Michigan is affected by covid 19 nearly eighteen times greater than the state average of those who are not incarcerated. With approximately thirty five thousand prisoners in the MDOC, around eighteen thousand of them have been infected, and over one hundred have died. Compare that to the population of Chippawa County in the U.P. with a similar population of approximately thirty seven thousand people, but only a little over four hundred reported covid 19 cases and six deaths.
Governor Witless has said she has decreased the population of the MDOC. But if you remember a few months ago during one of her famous covid updates she’s so famous for, she said that because of Truth In Sentencing, (TIS) she cannot release ANY prisoners that have not reached their Earliest Release Date (ERD). So to help guide you through the smoke and mirrors, all the governor did was ask the parole board to recall prisoners that were on continuances and allow them to be reconsidered for parole. And not even all of those men were let out. I am in the same cube as a man who has reached his ERD, is not a management problem, has a preexisting condition, and is doing a twenty four month continuance from the parole board during this pandemic. (You can see some of these facts at 9&10 news or by going to upnorth live.com and watching the ticker at the bottom of their news feed, and by checking the MDOC website).
These are people WE’VE elected. They’re not gods. They’re not the final authority on your and my life. This is America, “the land of the FREE!” It seems abundantly clear to me that we’ve made a grave error in allowing our government to go so long unchecked. The people who we have elected to look out for OUR best interests as a nation, seem to only be interested in doing what’s best for their wallets. Elected officials are paid their salaries by the tax payers. I think they make right around a hundred grand a year give or take, so how is it that their net worth’s are in the millions? Does anyone care about all the backdoor deals these people make that net them millions of dollars, while you and your neighbors are one paycheck away from not being able to make your car, or house payments?
It’s unconscionable what these elected politicians are doing to the hard working men and women of this country. The thing is, talking doesn’t seem to be getting us anywhere. Talking isn’t FIXING anything, and that’s my dilemma. Are we really so blind that we cannot see that our government has made us enemies of each other so that we will be easier to conquer? I wonder what they’d do if the Blacks, Whites, Asians, Hispanics, the Indigenous people of this great land, and all the other immigrants that live in this country, were to come together as one voice, and as ONE UNITED PEOPLE to demand the CHANGES that so far we have only been talking about.