The corona virus is a looking glass through which every human will pass in the next one or two years. Some, for reasons not yet understood, will pass without symptoms. Others will experience mild to severe illness but survive on their own. Some will survive with the aid of critical care. Some will dodge the bullet until a vaccine is created. Many will die.
The virus reveals the timeless truth that there are limits to our control of the world; that we, like every other organism, breed and consume until something stops us. It has forced us to reckon with our personal mortality and revealed that we have an economic system that devalues those doing the most important jobs and absurdly overcompensates the least productive among us. Those who feed us go hungry while parasitic speculators feast.
Already more costly in human lives than the Vietnam War, we face this disease with a leader no more qualified than a made-for-TV doctor is to perform brain surgery or, for that matter, a made-for-TV president is to be president. He ignores the advice of experts, prioritizes his personal political survival, fantasizes solutions, makes contradictory recommendations and leads by bad example. His mere presence in the office indicts our political system.
We have an opportunity to learn while we try to survive. We are paying and will continue to pay a great price for our ticket to this lecture. The real tragedy would be that we learn nothing from it.
Ken Dammand
Tulalip
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