ACHTUNG: This is not a “fair and balanced” article. It is an editorial by the editor.
One scene in the classic Disney movie “Bambi” might best explain the dilemma many Americans face with getting back to work during the most extraordinary health crisis in at least a century.
When men invade the forest and begin to close in on the creatures within, one frightened female bird tells her comrades she thinks they must fly. Though her friends advise her not to, she takes flight, a shot rings out and the poor bird drops dead to the forest basement.
So while I am suspicious that too many of the “patriots” protesting the state’s stay at home orders during the COVID-19 crisis are being misled by nefarious actors, I sympathize with their plight. Too many working Michiganders and Americans have been thrown under the bus for a long time by Democrats and Republicans who have responded to the economic crisis by first taking care of those who don’t really need the help.
That stimulus package, a one-time handout of $1,200, won’t solve most everyday working stiffs’ problems for more than a month. And this crisis now has lasted longer than that.
I understand the difficulty in choosing between staying home and starving or being evicted and going back into the world of work, risking their lives.
They were put in that awful position by politicians who do not solve problems, but instead dedicate their supposed service to “creating a healthy bidness climate.” I stress that it is both parties at fault for being part of a terrible deteriorating condition of our political and economic system, long on phony public relations and advertising and short on telling the truth.
Yes, it’s more than disgusting that we hear that perhaps some of us will have to sacrifice our lives at the altar of a capitalist and supposedly democratic system that has failed us, the people. The stimulus debacle showed us all too plainly that we are expendable and politicians really care only about serving the wealthy who fund their campaigns. The money goes into phony advertising and public relations.
The French Philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau centuries ago posited that democracy will fail if it becomes, as Plato described, “mob rule.” It also eventually fails when its elected leaders no longer serve the people, but instead wealthy business interests. Follow the money.
We were told not long ago that our economy was going gangbusters and the stock market seemed to bear that out by climbing higher than a record 29,000. Furthermore, we were told the unemployment rate was at historic lows, less than 3.5 percent.
What we weren’t told, except by a few voices in the wilderness, was that most of those who were working were living paycheck to paycheck, sometimes working more than one job. We weren’t told that the stock market really affects only those who can afford to play that gambling game, about 20% of the population.
Most important, too many mucky-mucks willfully ignored the fact that too many Americans no longer can afford to buy the goods and services the wealthy want us to purchase. The perfect storm was approaching, and the rich and famous were too busy partying down to notice. We’re too much like the crowd who followed Moses and while he was gone they constructed a god of gold.
The symbolism and lessons should not be lost on us.
While many will blame this crisis on a creepy and unusual virus, I insist COVID-19 has merely exposed the problem to us. Now we have a choice about how to deal with it. If we just try to restore what we used to have, we’ll be in deep doo-doo. Serious structural reform is essential.
Chicken Little was right. The sky is falling.
