I realized I hadn’t written in a week or so. I need to witness for myself and I’m not really sure why I paused. Maybe the stories start feeling all the same? Trump catastrophe after Trump catastrophe? Maybe we’ve settled in and a pandemic is boredom? That’s wrong: the weekly offenses are unique and my experiences are unique.
Catastrophes mount, this is Sat 11 Apr 2020:
- More than a week ago, Thu 2 Apr 2020 – The govt is buying PPEs from other countries and selling them at a profit to states. You Need To Look At This, 2 Apr 2020, Talking Points Memo. Our country is being stripped and sold for parts to the highest bidder, our profiteering govt pt 1.
- Mon 6 Apr 2020 – We hit as many cases as the three next highest countries, Spain, Italy, and France.
- Tue 7 Apr 2020 – Supreme Court forces Wisconsinites to vote in person, even though they will not meet together because of the pandemic. They are killing people.
- Wed 8 Apr 2020 – “Everything was forever, until it was no more.” Rick Wilson on the destruction of America – Everything Was Forever, Until It Was No More: The Last Soviet Generation, Alexei Yurchak. An evocative phrase.
- Wed 8 Apr 2020 – Hospitals say feds are seizing masks and other coronavirus supplies without a word, our profiteering govt pt 2.
- Wed 8 Apr 2020 – More facts about Trump ignoring warnings. I mean really bad warnings and really actively ignoring them. Intelligence report warned of coronavirus crisis as early as November: Sources. #70Days trends on Twitter based on a deep investigation by The Washington Post documenting those days that Trump ignored the warnings. The U.S. was beset by denial and dysfunction as the coronavirus raged
- Fri – OSHA restricts companies from reporting on virus deaths, in order to prop up Trump’s desire to boost the economy. (@drdavidmichaels 10 Apr 2020, head of OSHA from 2009 to 2017)
- Fri – Tom Nichols writes a soul-crushing With Each Briefing, Trump Is Making Us Worse People. Nichols has been watching every day’s presidential briefing–as both a citizen and a witness to history–where Trump has become more callous to human life and more unhinged. It’s maybe one reason why I find it hard to write. There are so many horrific quotes from his briefings which include insults to journalists (natch), to Obama and Hillary (yup), and unhinged ramblings on the virus (I. Can’t. Even). History itself will witness.
The USPS is collapsing, and being allowed to collapse, likely because of the need for mail-in voting for the November election. (My tweet: “The Trump administration is going to push for mail-in voting as soon as the postal service collapses.”)
The rewriting of history continues with so many assertions I can’t keep track of. # of deaths is not that bad. They were already sick. China’s fault. Tests are not needed because… there are too many needed? That from a fuck-ass co-worker. We had a company Slack channel created to discuss the pandemic (we’re a healthcare company by-the-way) and he dominated with ca-razy conspiracies. I and many others just left it to his rantings. Tin foil is best ignored.
Bernie dropped out, gracefully. That gives me hope of solidarity. Russian bots are trying to vilify Biden under the guise of Bernie voters.
I feel that I am drinking more (I am), I am reading trash lit for its simplicity (I am), and choosing distractions for their low demand for any attention span (The Regular Show, MST3K obsessively). But… I do all of those things normally. I’m also reading Rilke poems and doing a feeble translation from the original German, re-reading The Wasteland (for obvious reasons), and writing an atonal orchestral suite about these times. The latter is going very well. I think maybe the concern of a cheapening of mind is more present because of these cheapened times.
Today I made a protective mask from the t-shirt that I got from the 2012 Crescent City Classic 10k. I’d forgotten that it was the time that I commissioned poems about the robot apocalypse from two street poets. Those are a couple of my proudest possessions and memories.
Updated Sat 24 Apr 2020
Profiteering
Gathering the links above and adding new ones:
We’ve heard different governors complaining that it’s like bidding on eBay, with the different governors have to bid against each other to get access to these live saving products that are in desperately short supply. That only doesn’t distribute them according to need. It also makes the price for everyone higher.
…
[I]t opens the door to massive profiteering.
from You Need To Look At This from Talking Points Memo, 2 Apr 2020
Hospitals say feds are seizing masks and other coronavirus supplies without a word from The Los Angeles Times, 8 Apr 2020
From Gov. Jared Polis of Colorado:
FEMA “swept up” an order for 500 ventilators made by the state of Colorado last week, Gov. Jared Polis told CNN on April 4.
“We’re competing against any other state, every other country,” he said. “Now we’re even competing against the federal government.”
“We’ve been asking what we’re going to get from FEMA, we’d love a timeline, and numbers,” he added.
…
Similar accusations have come from officials on the local and state levels in Massachusetts, New Jersey, Kentucky, Texas, and Florida.
from Officials in at least 6 states are accusing the federal government of quietly diverting their orders for coronavirus medical equipment from Business Insider, 8 Apr 2020
Today, Trump thanked “the people of Colorado” for appreciating the ventilators the govt sent them (via @JoyceWhiteVance).
Another story from a hospital:
Before we could send the funds by wire transfer, two Federal Bureau of Investigation agents arrived, showed their badges, and started questioning me. No, this shipment was not headed for resale or the black market. The agents checked my credentials, and I tried to convince them that the shipment of PPE was bound for hospitals. After receiving my assurances and hearing about our health system’s urgent needs, the agents let the boxes of equipment be released and loaded into the trucks. But I was soon shocked to learn that the Department of Homeland Security was still considering redirecting our PPE. Only some quick calls leading to intervention by our congressional representative prevented its seizure.
from In Pursuit of PPE from NEJM, 17 Apr 2020
From Gov. J.B. Pritzker of Illinois and hospitals:
Last month, 3 million masks ordered by the state of Massachusetts were seized by the federal government. Last week, the Chicago Sun-Times reported that the governor of Illinois, J.B. Pritzker, was arranging secret chartered flights of supplies as a way of outmaneuvering federal interference.
…
[I]t is hard to come to any conclusion other than that this is simply mafia government, exerting control for the sake of control, not in spite of but because of the crisis-led demand, and squeezing the American people, as they die in hospital beds
from The White House Has Erected a Blockade Stopping States and Hospitals From Getting Coronavirus PPE from Intelligencer, 19 Apr 2020