Pat Bagley | The Salt Lake Tribune
“As a senior citizen, are you willing to take a chance on your survival in exchange for keeping the America that all America loves for your children and grandchildren?”
Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick.
I lamented that baby boomers had become irrelevant in my “When I’m 64” blog. Now Grandma is expendable. Cue the firing squad.
Round up Granny, lead me out in chains and line me up to be sacrificed for the economy. Some of the executioners’ bullets are real. Some are blanks. Will I get the bullet or the blank? Viva the la démocratie!
It’s strange to wake up one day in a dystopian coronavirus world where man’s inhumanity to man is laid bare. Fights over toilet paper are erupting while the rich hunker down in big homes and minimum-wage workers are sent to battle on the front lines. Doctors and nurses, dedicated to saving lives, can’t get PPEs to save themselves in order to save us.
This is the way the world ends.
What’s a little virus that could leave 40 million dead if left unchecked? In Ohio, with strict stay-at-home orders in place, experts estimate when it peaks in mid-May there could be 10,000 new cases of coronavirus each day. Even with the shut-downs, those over 60 are at greater risk, particularly those with underlying health issues, which at our age is most of us.
Every disaster movie begins with politicians not believing the scientists. Death numbers? Scientific models? It’s bullshit, one of my friends said. But this isn’t a movie. It’s not a drill. We don’t get a do-over. If the numbers peak too high too fast, our hospitals will be hopelessly overrun with patients. When hospitals are overrun, people will die who didn’t have to.
This is the way the world ends.
It’s not just grandparents who will be sacrificed when the healthcare system is maxed. Care for mothers giving birth, heart attacks, even broken arms will be jeopardized. A simple appendectomy could be fatal if you can’t get care because there are no beds or protective equipment to keep you safe. Doctors will be forced to practice medieval medicine, stitching together equipment and methods to try to maintain some standard of care. Play the scary music.
Not to worry. It’s the economy stupid. The economy takes precedence over human life and human decency. It’s always about the money. Healthcare workers are expendable. Grocery store clerks making minimum-wage, who cares? Old folks, veterans …. line them up, we don’t need their sorry old asses anyway. Bring them genocide blankets. Yes, Grandma must be sacrificed for the greatest of all gods.
We are the hollow men
We are the stuffed men
Leaning together
Headpiece filled with straw. Alas!
It’s not surprising a hollow old Texas man would place Grandma’s head on a platter to save his stock futures and his re-election. Opening businesses in the height of the pandemic won’t help the common man. Workers will still be unemployed and suffering, CEO will take bailouts and vacation on their islands, and Grandma and millions of others will be dead. Hollow men in all levels of politics want us to blindly follow them on their journey into the heart of darkness.
Mistah Kurtz-he dead
A penny for the Old Guy
Well, this Grandma has never been a follower, so Lt. Governor Patrick, you’re on your heartless journey alone. I’d sacrifice my life for my grandson, but not for greed and definitely not for your stock portfolio. Yes, the shutdown is impacting our economy, but letting the virus run rampant to kill even more hardworking citizens is simply moral depravity. The rose of death’s kingdom is the hope only of empty men.
This is the way the world ends, not with a bang but a whimper.
Grandson, if this is the way the world ends with grandma forced to face that firing squad, it will be up to your generation set the world right. Coronavirus may be the re-set button, the plague, the slap across the head that re-adjusts our priorities and our lives. The world will survive. The post-apocalyptic pain may still be there, but the sun will rise again. It will be up to all of us who survive to come out of this better people, the people we hoped to be, the people we dreamed of being. Kinder, gentler, more compassionate.
So grandson, here’s to a brave new world made brighter by a new generation that I hope will be dedicated to righting the wrongs, silencing the greed, and working together for a new future.
Granny Unfiltered 