This piece was originally written February 8, 2021.
Speaking before the Super Bowl, President Joe Biden asked Americans watching in the Tampa Stadium and on television all over the country to observe a moment of silence for the more than 400,000 Americans left dead from the COVID-19 pandemic, a pandemic that was allowed to spread unchecked across the country by the previous administration, aided by the thousands of companies searching for profit and the millions of Americans who depend on those companies for their livelihoods. CBS couldn’t be bothered to mute the broadcast or show people observing this moment of silence, instead opting to let the microphones capture the absolute apathy that both the NFL and a majority of the country feel toward their thousands of dead neighbors. The murmuring crowd of half-masked revelers gathering at the Superspreader Bowl care nothing for the human toll that the virus has racked up and neither does the NFL or any of the sponsors supporting this sorry spectacle of human ignorance.
As the U.K. variant of the virus continues its rampaging spread throughout the country, life at the top has returned to normal, while millions of Americans still await relief which is late in coming and in amounts half of what they need to be to provide real security to the neediest. Way back in April 2020, Senator Lindsey Graham had a call-in town hall meeting to answer questions about the government response to the pandemic. He was a staunch backer of the amendment to the first relief bill which prevented handouts going to people who would “game” the system by taking money to remain unemployed. I told him that it was no time for the government to be stingy with money. Yet stingy they were with the American people’s money, unless it was to be devoted to corporate interests or President Trump’s golf outings. Trump golfed while America burned (metaphorically) .
It is high time that the American public took a hard look at where their money is going and why it is such a struggle for them to get it back in the form of aid when they desperately need it. Why do we have to beg and claw our tax dollars back from the government which is supposed to be working for us, not the corporate vampires who monopolize the teat fattened on our blood and sweat? It is not a partisan issue, it is a people versus politics issue. In such cases, the people must win.