The Biggest Lie
Only a few more days. Wed Jan 20, 2021. The Big Day. Inauguration for the incoming Biden/Harris regime. Red flushed by Blue. As hours tick forward, beneath the bated breath of a nation are bubbling raw resentments, uncertain partnerships and dark rumours of insurrection. The old guard will not go quietly into the night to build a new library. We have been invited to a red and blue costume party and are being served a heady cocktail of fake news blended with fuzzy facts. The hangover will be epic.
Sunday, the NSA (National Security Agency) confirmed it would be installing Michael Ellis (former Trump NSC staffer) as General Counsel. (A close buddy of California Congressman Devin Nunes.) In 2020 he served as Senior Director of Intelligence on the NSC and was/is, a staunch Trump camp cohort. A burrowing move for the Reds. The role is a civil service position, not a political one. It will be difficult for the new administration to remove Ellis. This thorn has the potential to draw blood in the coming months.
If this is not enough to add to political shenanigans shaking the yet-to-be-laid foundation of the new administration, of course there is more. A Guatemalan caravan of over 9000 migrants is hot-footing it to the US border to seek asylum. Swelling their numbers along the way, are several hundred Hondurans. Furious clashes between the migrants and border soldiers hasn’t slowed the determined marchers. This is merely the first of a wave viewing the new administration as access to the “Promised Land”. Agreements between Guatemala, Mexico and Honduras to stop migrant flows are about to be crushed under the pounding feet of thousands of new hopefuls. Border towns on both sides will be suffering from a combination of the continuing pandemic and an immigration system still unable to cope. Biden’s sweet words of “a fair and humane immigration system” sent out a shining beacon of hope that bears no relationship to current reality.
This, in the middle of rising American death tolls, overrun hospitals and health workers quitting from exhaustion and un- relenting stress. The liquor stores are open and busy. Essential. A lethal combination of the new strain of Covid-19 (B-117) social isolation, food insecurity, climate-related disasters and unemployment is fuelling the dark underbelly of paranoid politics. 90 days of executive orders will not slow the 2020 pandemic fallout. The Blues lack the united strength needed to turn the tide of a bleak economy and sullen, divided population. It’s the thought that counts, they say.
The pandemic vaccine roll-out fiasco stumbles on. Los Angeles county is now the first in the US racking up 1 million COVID -19 cases. Alabama is on an “around the clock” crematorium schedule. A modern holocaust. Our burning dead adding another layer of slow death due to harmful air pollutants; particulate matter (PM), sulphur dioxide (SO2), nitrogen oxides (NOx), volatile organic compounds (VOCs), and heavy metals. Pollutants that have severe effects on both the environment and, human health. It begs the question, is there any plan at all or just promises laced with lies?
The incoming CDC director, Dr. Rochelle Walensky is expecting more “dark days” and predicts an additional death rate of 500,000 people by mid-February. Men, women and, young people. Family, friends. Dead and burning. We have already lost over 400,000 to date.
In exhausted denial of it all, people crowd the shopping malls, crush into “outdoor” restaurants and embrace a death dance of festivity brought by the promise of vaccinations. Blissful ignorance of the writing on the wall. There are not enough to go around. In an ass backwards roll-out, those that should be front in line, workers who interface with the public every day, so-called “essential” workers, will be the last in line. A year later and nobody is clapping or singing for them in the streets anymore. Their “hero” status has been terminated by a pandemic desensitised population.
Pfizer recently announced, its Belgium shipments would be temporarily reduced as they desperately try to scale up production. In the US, shipments are being lost, sabotaged or wasted and logistics remain snarled and inefficient. Another facet of the Biggest Lie. “We have the vaccine. It’s all ok, now”.
Internal and external travel collapses again as borders shut down, tighter and longer than last spring.Those not drunk on party politics are scrambling for the exit. The rich still can’t buy their way out of the US, though not for lack of trying. The external exodus is on hold, even as frantic refugees push to come in. The irony is that the Biggest Lie is equally Red and, Blue.
The heart of a consumerist society continues to beat even as businesses close and bankruptcies rise. Money still talks and struts. The elite find new ways to bribe or buy their lives ahead of the line. A new breed of “essential” workers that have never served a coffee or bagged groceries are pushing forward with shiny badges of privilege. A boutique medical practice in Los Angeles recently acknowledged one of its patients offered to “donate” $25000 to the hospital in exchange for a shot. This particular clinic may have said no, but how many others are saying, “yes”. In God We Trust, as long as it is backed by green. This time, the colour of money is –red. Call it pandemic red with smoky undertones.
The Biggest Lie is that our government, Red or Blue, will save us. Praying at the foot of any politician just leaves the reverent sinking in shifting sands. This nation needs to get off its knees and stand together. Neighbour by neighbour. City by city. State by State. People are the heart and spirit of this democratic experiment. A pledge was made. To red, white And blue. Words can bring us down or, raise us up. Truth or lies. A question of belief. The Biggest Lie is the one we tell ourselves.
“I pledge allegiance to the Flag of the United States of America, and to the Republic for which it stands: one Nation under God, indivisible, with Liberty and Justice for all.”
