It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen…
It’s a cool April morning and we have yet to awaken from this common nightmare, set to put the cat amidst the pigeons.
And if things weren’t bad enough, mere moments ago, a notification declared non-essential errands must come to an end.
Each day, a new rule that could end in death or disappearing into the void of state-managed panic.
The confusion is oppressive, the paranoia, catching. Now would be a good time to get under that rock, disappear for a few choice years, channel your inner Rumplestiltzkin. But it’s as if we’ve frozen in time, stopped in our tracks, left odd man out in a cosmic play of duck, duck, goose.
Not sure if it’s a good or bad thing, this waiting to be divided into numbers on a page, remembered en masse during state-sponsored moments of silence humming like a swarm of bees worldwide. Holding our breath, scanning for that pain in your chest. Praying, expectorating, intubating, mitigating.
The response has been dizzying, human nature fulfilling all those scenarios you’d hoped would stay in their genre.
Yet, here we are in the alarming state of affairs that allows this to progress unabated, a surreal plane where the ACLU argues for prisoners to be released onto streets while people afraid of everything, who can’t trust the government (why would they?) to have their best interests in mind, get arrested for misunderstanding the daily changing rules.
If you’re healthy, fuck off.
Lose your job, your business, we’ll arrest you if you try to save it.
If you’re sick, good luck with that. You probably lost your health insurance right before this became a global pre-existing condition. And it’s most likely your fault anyway.
We’re okay though, your political leaders, having been tested when there were no tests for you.
How dare you question our response? We seize your masks, your gloves, your breath, your future – it belongs to us. After all we must collect reimbursement for that $ 1500 a piece – hush money, oh please.
We have new ways to lock you up if you defy our unspecified terms of societal lockdown.
Today is April 7, 2020. This is already old news.
I checked out a 2019 list of California crimes and their bails. Under Villanueva’s edict, a criminal could even kill someone in an involuntary manslaughter incident and (possibly) not be arrested. Here are some other crimes under $50,000 bail for which criminals could be given a ticket or a pass:
Battery on a Cop
Indecent Exposure
Involuntary Manslaughter
Grand Theft
Stalking
Assault With a Deadly Weapon With Intent to Cause Great Bodily Injury
Prostitution
Child Stealing
Sexual Battery
Pimping Children
Driving Car Without Consent
This kind of edict is going on all over the country in light of COVID-19.
. This is the decision of our omnipotent leaders in a land where your life can be destroyed by a false arrest.
The land of the free to exploit
The home of the hypocritic race
where justice can be bought
or distributed freely to those who would harm just because they have the power and opportunity
How is it that Assault With a Deadly Weapon With Intent to Cause Great Bodily Injury and Involuntary Manslaughter (“crimes under $50,000 bail for which criminals could be given a ticket or a pass” under the directive of Los Angeles Sheriff Alex Villanueva who announced that local cops will not arrest people who commit a crime for which there’s a $50,000 bail or less) are not cause for reproach yet
officials of the city of Menlo Park, an affluent suburb of some 30,000 people, ordered police enforcement of this insanity to “protect” us!
Who decided what California businesses are essential and non-essential, and then authorized police to arrest shop owners for remaining open, joggers on public trails and lone surfers?
Because they sure didn’t make it clear before the police started cruising by slowly if you walked to the market to check if toilet paper was restocked…
Where were these same squad cars when the drunk guy who didn’t bother learning English for the past ten years circled back to see if I was fair prey for just getting some fresh air outside this tenement?
In case you missed it, apparently
“the State Public Health Officer designated the list of “Essential Critical Infrastructure Workers,” California Globe reported March 24.“
Okay, so when were those notices put on everyone’s door? (The Census “takers” sure figured it out.) Why wasn’t that scrolling in the banners of the weekly emergency broadcast instead of the “act like nothing’s changed” as usual message that declares THIS IS ONLY A TEST.
“Los Angeles prosecutors on Friday filed criminal charges against two smoke shops, a shoe store and a discount electronics retailer, accusing them of refusing to shut down despite orders imposed to fight the coronavirus,” the Los Angeles Times reported Friday.”
Anyone notice a problem with this math:
Public health officials are making decisions which are killing off businesses and tanking the economy, despite that in the U.S., a country of 329,227,746 million people, there are 239,279 total coronavirus cases and 5,443 total deaths, according to the CDC. The Worldometer coronavirus website says there have been 7,896 coronavirus deaths in the U.S. as of April 4, 2020.
According to the CDC there are an average 7,838 deaths in the U.S. every day.
Which is it? 7,896, 7838, or 5,443?
Just now on the official CDC website, here are the numbers:
- Total cases: 330,891
- Total deaths: 8,910
With the following disclaimer: confirmed and presumptive positive cases of COVID-19 reported to CDC or tested at CDC since January 21, 2020, with the exception of testing results for persons repatriated to the United States from Wuhan, China and Japan. State and local public health departments are now testing and publicly reporting their cases. In the event of a discrepancy between CDC cases and cases reported by state and local public health officials, data reported by states should be considered the most up to date.
Okay so the CDC takes no responsibility for accurate statistics, so in effect, the federal government is punting to the states. Not that this is surprising given the fact that our commander-in-chief, exasperated by any questioning of his COVID19 task force’s efficacy, snapped, “We’re not in the shipping business you know!” With regards to yet another snivelling request for the feds to open up their measly stockpile like a Black Friday at Walmart.
[Beware: satire ahead. Please don’t call the police.]
Clearly a dig at Amazon (as reported on the back pages by the Washington Post), the reference to why shipping masks and whistleblowers to NY was beyond protocol.
But apparently once the states do fend for themselves, as was the case in that patriot loving state of Massachusetts, the feds clearly established that it was their responsibility to seize the PPE ordered by said self-sufficient state because the bidding process had somehow been better played to Uncle Sam.
However, the Garden State, home to bridge closures just because they can and everyone’s favorite mob boss Tony Soprano, found that getting to the cargo baggage claim first was the new game being played.
Another case happened just yesterday when the top county official in Somerset County, New Jersey, Freeholder Director Shanel Robinson, announced that a shipment of 35,000 masks had been confiscated by federal officials. According to this report in the Franklin Reporter and Advocate, “As of early in the afternoon of April 3, Robinson said that the county was told the surgical face masks would be delivered that day, but that the federal government had taken the N-95 masks.”
We all heard it. The better- ratings-than The Bachelor briefings where “the stockpile” was revealed. You can’t just start sending ventilators to every Tom, Dick and Harry who says they need 30,000 of the damn things. I mean who needs that many whistleblowers? There are some very bad people, you know, out there just asking for masks and gloves and very high end ventilation. I mean, they’re supposed to be trained medical doctors, they should be able to perform surgery with a pocket knife. I saw that one time on M*A*S*H.
It appeared that “our” nation’s stockpile wouldn’t even cover the military branches (which one could presume might require first dibs should any invading body decide now was a good time to attack, using the tried and true kick ’em when they’re down model found in chapter four of The Art of War for Dummies, revised 1991
The speculation has been somehow that FEMA is the property room in the chain of custody for seized pandemic contraband probably because the Pentagon is the world’s largest low-rise office building and FEMA has those Political Realignment Facilities.
And if that isn’t enough, there is always the guy who robs from a church, harms the “innocent” and desires destruction over all.
If you want to keep a secret, you must also hide it from yourself.
The "Me" Decade 