If the public is to blame for the current surge in [COVID-19] infections, then our leadership is no longer responsible. [Blaming the public] is an evasion technique that avoids asking hard questions, making hard choices, and more than anything, it avoids accountability. Blaming the public allows for inaction on contributing factors to the spread of infection. These include limited access to health care for certain groups and for those that have lost their jobs, the lack of sick leave for many, insufficient wages to match the astronomical cost of living, and overcrowded housing that disproportionately affects our highest risk groups.
Governor: “OK, Advisory Council, I need advice. We’ve got this germ here. It kills people. The only way we’ve got to stop it is to isolate people from each other. Which means they don’t work, don’t get paid, don’t eat. Which kills people. What do we do here?”
Chamber of Commerce: “Let it rip. We …”
Medical team: “What kind of beast …?!?“
Governor: “Let him have his say. You’ll get your turn.”
Medical team: “We don’t want a ‘turn’. We want you to save lives!”
Governor: “Did you hear what I just said? What part of ‘kills people’ did you not understand? This is not a TV show, and rigging the Kobayashi Maru software is not an available solution. Neither is automatically doing your bidding, or anyone else’s, until I hear what all the issues are.”
Medical team: “But …!!”
Governor: “Shut. Up. (to Chamber of Commerce) My apologies for interrupting you.”
Chamber of Commerce: “Thank you, Madame Governor. As I was saying, we think it best to let the virus rip. We have just gotten these islands back on their economic feet after the last economic disaster. We have done so via tourism, which absolutely depends on unfettered contact among people to be profitable: travel, show audiences, dining out. Shut tourism down, and we go from 3% unemployment to 30% unemployment overnight. And demolish the income we’d need to keep these people fed and housed while we wait for somebody to figure out how to make the virus go away.
“Even you medicos acknowledge that, if we stop the world, the virus won’t get off it. If we let it go, it will take, like, six months to burn itself out. If we don’t, it’ll take like two years, with no guarantee, short of development of an effective vaccine …”
Anti-vaccination activist: “An effective what?!?”
Governor: “And how did we get so dependent on tourism?”
Retirement community representative: “Because any noisy, smelly, disgusting industrial activity that you try to bring in here to destroy our views and ambiance is going to get firebombed! And remember, we vote!”
Farmers: “Along with any damned GMO crops you try to bring in. And we vote too!”
Chamber of Commerce: “But no other crops are even going to be close to profitable on these islands!”
Farmers: “We don’t care. We don’t want them here. We get by with our specialty crops. You’re not going to wipe us out only to find that you still can’t grow enough stuff to feed our people.”
Chamber of Commerce: “And when we can no longer pay to fly in the crops from California and Mexico that we rely on now?”
Farmers: “Not our problem.”
Aloha ‘aina: “And don’t even think of bringing tech companies in here. We’ll wipe them off the islands like we’re wiping the telescopes off Mauna Kea!”
Governor: “I see …”
Medical team: “You see nothing! We’re going to hook you up to nonstop videos of people dying with hoses stuck down their throats! On cots in hallways! Then you’ll see something! And you’ll do the only right thing!!”
Chamber of Commerce: “Do we need to hook you up to nonstop videos of living skeletons in breadlines?!?”
Medical team: “Yeah go ahead. You post yours on social media, we’ll post ours on social media. We’ll see which way the hate mail goes. We’re betting it won’t be pretty for you when the votes are counted.”
Governor: “Do I wish to know how come we don’t have enough hospital resources to cope with the virus case load if we don’t choose to shut down?”
Medical team: “You don’t see that either? It’s because those corporate criminals that you love so much won’t corral their insurance profiteers, won’t pay taxes to ensure that citizens …”
Chamber of Commerce: “Businesses on these cursed rocks pay nothing but taxes!! And for what?!? Useless railway publicity stunts? Be grateful that we have a tourist industry. You’re not attracting any other class of revenue-earning commercial activity to these islands for the bluehairs to firebomb. Not with the current tax extortion in place. And without that tourist industry, you physicians might be doing all your procedures in grass shacks!”
Aloha ‘aina: “Works for us! Maybe we can get rid of all you haoles while there’s still fish on the reefs for us to live on, like we used to.”
Governor: “And so …”
Chamber of Commerce: “Make a decision, dammit!”
Medical team: “And make the right one, or else!”
Everyone else in the room: “Yeah!”
Governor: “What do you want from me?”
Everyone else: “We want the world and we want it NOW!!!”
Retirement community representative: “I sure as hell won’t want to be you after you make your announcement on this and your approval ratings are published.”
Governor: “OK, well, thank you all. Dismissed.”
Farmers: “Where are you going?”
Governor: “To church.”
Aloha ‘aina: “For why?”
Governor: “To beg for an act of God. He doesn’t have to stand for election.”
Feminists: “He?!?”
A multitude is as wise as its wisest member if it obey [dem]; if not, it is no wiser than its most foolish. – Ambrose Bierce, The Devil’s Dictionary
good one
And this is exactly why everyone remains at odds. No compromise, no looking for the greater good, only securing our own agenda at the expense of all others.
Yep. Good one. But what is the greater good?