Freedom In The Time of Corona

It's hard not to think about freedom at a time when so many of us are sequestered in our homes.  Americans love freedom, and to an extent, it's understandable; it's in the very marrow of our country's bones.  But sometimes that freedom makes me feel a bit uneasy, and the current Coronavirus pandemic is one of those times. 

Freedom is only valid insofar as everyone is treated equally, and only if everyone has the same amount of freedom.  For example, I've long felt that the freedom to own firearms is less valid than the freedom to enjoy a life without mass shootings, gunfights in the street, and guns in the home.  The freedom to exploit natural resources is less valid  than the freedom to breathe clean air, protect water and wildlife, and ensure a viable planet for future generations. 

In this week's new and changing world, the freedom to conduct business as usual is less valid than the need to protect our communities from being overwhelmed by COVID-19.  I can only hope that Americans keeps this in mind once the virus starts to recede into our memories.  Sometimes, giving up a little "freedom" is well worth it.  Anyone who has lived through country-wide wartime involvement will know that.  During WWII, it was actually patriotic to give up freedoms to help in the greater war effort.  I hope that's the collective thought that has been spreading in America over the past week or so.  Now we just need to keep that mindset for the long haul.  Freedom is only valuable when everyone's included. 

The New World

I had all these posts I was going to put up last week about the primaries and polls and telling people to vote blue, no matter who. With the coronavirus pandemic though, the world is changing at such mindboggling speed that much of that feels irrelevant. Don’t get me wrong, it matters more than ever, I get that. But maybe right now we are all trying to just figure out today, this moment. It's as if we walked through a veil and woke up in another dimension. The world has shifted and nothing that came before prepared us for this. No previous time seems like a relevant reference. This is the unknown. What we’ve experienced before – HIV, 9-11, SARS, Vietnam, none of those seem as disorienting and unknowable as this time. Coronavirus pandemic of 2020 feels like the precursor to Climate Catastrophe or whatever fascist state Trump is taking us to. 

On Tuesday of last week several universities, including Cornell, announced they were closing after spring break and having students finish the semester online, in order to slow down the spread of the virus. Then on Friday at 2 pm, Cornell administration announced the classes were ending at 5 that day, students had a week to leave, staff had a week to figure out how to work from home. After that only "essential" staff would be allowed on campus. I picked up Bruce from work without him having any idea if he would be classified essential staff or just placed on furlough for a month - maybe longer. 

We stopped to pick up groceries at Aldi's on the way home and found row after row of bare shelves. Only mushrooms and cabbage were left in the produce aisle. There was no bread anywhere. A lone package of chicken thighs and a few steaks were all that was left in the meat counter. Toilet paper was just a distant memory. Oddly enough, there was plenty of brownie mixes - people really have odd priorities when planning for the apocalypse. 

I walked out of the store fully expecting to see a meteor streaking overhead, or zombies shambling toward us. Is this the apocalypse? Are the zombies Trump's supporters? Does the world end by our falling down a rabbit hole and not recognizing any of the things we thought we'd always known? Is everything familiar and yet not at all the same? Where's the Red Queen yelling "off with their heads?" 

I went to work this Monday, thinking I might still have a way to keep the library open and provide people with some reduced form of services. By the evening we were closed, having the library system in conjunction with state mandates make it clear that any services would be detrimental to “flattening the curve.” I’m a worrier, who thinks I can, through worrying, prepare myself for any eventuality and I never imagined this one.

I wonder if this is what the Flu pandemic of 1918 felt like - the end? But still I think this may be different. Then they wouldn't have known it was happening until they were in the midst of it. This we can almost see coming, but we don't fully know what's coming. It's like seeing the water recede from the beach and walking out to where the sea used to be, wondering what is happening. Not realizing that the tsunami is coming. Not knowing that the time to run is almost gone and the wall of water will be upon us before we can reach safety. 

Zombies you can see and zombies you can fight - but a virus is both too small and the pandemic it causes too large to be able to fully comprehend. When my father died, I had cried myself into exhaustion by the day of the funeral. As people gathered in our house after the service, I fell asleep on the couch. When I awoke, the kitchen was still crowded with neighbors and family, holding plates of food as the spoke in hushed tones. I walked out into the living room, weaving my way through of forest of adult bodies. No one noticed me, as I made my way through the crowded floor. I was a beetle scurrying beneath leaf litter, invisible to the towering trees overhead. I worked me way through the house, finally arriving at an empty space by the back door and the world was different, everything had shifted, nothing I’d ever known or experienced before would help navigate this unknown and changed world.

This pandemic feels like that. All my life experiences haven’t prepared me to understand and comprehend this world we now live in. The unknown, the uncertainty is more scary sometimes than something frightening that is right in front of you. And not to scare people even more, but I can’t help feeling that this is just a precursor to what climate catastrophe is going to be.

There’s a line from Neil Gaiman’s book Coraline that says “Be wise. Be brave. Be Tricky.” I recognize that being tricky can go both ways – Loki after all was tricky. But it also implies being creative and innovative. We need trickiness governed by wisdom and courage. And most of all we need to be kind. We need a government that believes in science and most of all cares for people.

Music (and Mixed Messages)

Last weekend, I went to see the local high school musical,  "The Sound of Music."  The songs are fun and well-known, but the story itself (even embellished -- as it is in the musical) is a lovely example of standing up for good in the face of a cruel and nationalistic government.  We all know (or at least, we're supposed to know) that the Nazis brought a horrible scourge upon Europe.  And it's hard not to cheer when a family who refuses to support such a system flees the country in the dead of night.

So I exited the musical, feeling happy for the students' efforts and talents, and went to get into my car.  Parked next to me was a large, shiny SUV.  And it was plastered with Trump stickers -- "Trump 2020," "I support Trump," and the most unnerving of all, "Pro-gun, pro-life, pro-Trump."  Not a sight I'd ever be thrilled to see, but then it struck me -- whoever was the owner of this car, had also just been watching "The Sound of Music," the same anti-Nazi musical I had.

Now I know there are people who don't like to compare Trump's ensemble to the Nazis, and I understand, as the party under Hitler committed absolutely atrocious acts against human dignity and life.  However, it is true that the neo-Nazi enthusiasts who live in the U.S. have been openly supportive of Trump -- and he of them.  Remember the Charlottesville, VA rallies?  When Trump refused to condemn the racist and white nationalist people and actions, he forever solidified a place of disgust in my mind.  In no dimension, in no world, in no just society, should those types of people ever be supported by a president.  For Trump not to have stood up against such beliefs (as any president in the past 70 years would have done, Democrat or Republican) was unforgiveable. 

And the irony of seeing a proud "Pro-Trump" sticker boldy staring at me from a car, parked in the lot so its inhabitants could go in and see "The Sound of Music," is also unforgiveable.  Despite whatever else is swirling around us, there are still some undeniable truths in this world.  The Nazis were wrong.  They will always be wrong.  And any person or president who refuses to condemn their actions is utterly, horribly, forever wrong.   

Elizabeth Warren and The Myth of Electability

Elizabeth Warren is finally getting noticed in the press - for dropping out of the race. Suddenly, everyone is willing to sing her accolades. The press is even willing to join women in our mourning. Because mourning is what it is. We haven't just lost our preferred candidate, a smart, articulate, courageous, caring woman. We've lost our hope, too. 

When I was nine, my father died. I lost Albert Berggren. At the age of seventeen, standing in my high school reception line after graduation, as the valedictorian of my class, I lost him all over again. I stood there, watching my classmates' father come through the line beaming at their children, hugging them with pride, and I realized I'd never know that feeling. I lost the experience of seeing my father in the proud father role that day. That's what Elizabeth Warren's ending her campaign is - we've lost Elizabeth as our candidate, but for many of us we've lost the dream of seeing a woman in the White House in our lifetime, too. 

Elizabeth's campaign ended because of sexism, but it also ended because of sexism's tool, the fallacy of electability. Pundits, reporters, pollsters speak of electability as if it were a measurable quantity. Like we could place a measuring stick next to a candidate and measure their electability in inches. Or take a DNA swab and see how closely their DNA comes to the electability profile. Or have them pee in a cup to see if they have a component for electability in their urine.

The reality is that electability is a concept that says more about the person stating who is electable than it does about the person we are talking about. Because we believe that people who look like us are the most electable. So, men will always think that men are the most electable. Older people will always think that older candidates are the most electable. The rich will always think the rich are the most the electable. White people will always think white people are the most electable. And those of us that are neither male, wealthy, white, or old - will find that the candidates that look like us will fall by the wayside, leaving no one to speak for us.

Yes, it's true that there are women who didn't support Elizabeth Warren because they thought she wasn't electable. But please don't use that as an excuse to say electability isn't a sexist fallacy. We all know that women as well as men absorb the attitudes of patriarchy, just like people of color may absorb attitudes of racism. The fact of the matter is that we all have been raised to see the white male as the norm, whether we are talking about creating treatment protocols for cardiac disease or what a politician looks like. Please stop talking about who's electable and who isn't, because the more you say it, the more ingrained the belief becomes, until you've made it reality. 

Here's another thing I don't need to hear from will meaning Democrats - "Vote Blue, No Matter Who." Please, I'm not an idiot. As a woman and a feminist, I know better than most how critical getting Democrats in the Senate and White House is. But that's just the thing, I'm a progressive, feminist woman, so no matter who the Democratic candidate is, I have to keep fighting for the things I believe in, which include compassion, the common good, smashing the patriarchy, dismantling racism, and saving the planet. So, I get to mourn Elizabeth Warren ending her race to be the Democratic nominee. I get to fight for what I believe is right. And I get to expect whoever the Democratic nominee is that they will to reach out to all Democrats and acknowledge the issues we care about. Because that’s what a truly unifying candidate does.

Considering the Whole

     Thinking about the 2020 election makes me feel pretty pessimistic.  After all, many people in this country have shown us that they often vote for themselves -- and themselves alone.  For example, I've heard people say that they'll reelect Trump because their "401K looks good."  Or because "the economy is really growing." 

     But according to US history, economic booms don't always last long.  And sometimes they come crashing down.  Not to mention there will eventually come a point where the economy cannot grow anymore.  Unbridled economic growth leads to serious environmental destruction and the gross inequality between the rich and the poor in this country.  This booming economy of Trump's has its dark side, too. 

     As November approaches, I keep thinking of good citizen and everyman George Bailey, from the iconic movie "It's a Wonderful Life."  There's a scene when George is trying to calm people's fears after a bank closure in town.  "We've got to stick together, though," he implores. 

     I think it's imperative in a civilized society (although that's a topic for another day!) such as ours to look out for our fellow humans.  Let's vote on and work towards things we can ALL benefit from.  Like a stable economy, an economy that takes into account its lowest-paid workers and its environmental foot print.  

     We all benefit from clean air and water.  We all benefit from protected forests, wetlands, and oceans, which -- if healthy -- can help to balance the human impact and carbon output.

     Life is better for all with good medical care, and without fear of falling into debt for medical emergencies or treatments.

     If you feel that it's important to take care of your neighbors, and to make sure they have a safety net in case of hard times -- vote Democrat.  If you know we absolutely have to take measures to protect our environment -- vote Democrat.  If you believe that the economy might not be able to grow and grow, but can be made more equal -- vote Democrat.  If you think all people should have access to the type of health care that US Senators and Representatives have -- vote Democrat. 

     We've got to stick together.