These protests are about other people's labor, and other people's exposure to a disease that can be deadly. Being International Workers' Day, it's a good time to point out that loosening restrictions doesn't make many workers free: it gives them the choice of working and being exposed to a disease that can kill, or not working and being unable to collect any kind of benefits--giving them the likelihood of sickness on one end, food insecurity and the threat of homelessness on the other. "Opening the state" sounds like freedom, but it means businesses are forced to open, make arrangements for social distancing at their place of business (which might mean costly alterations) and trying to smartly schedule staffing--and may still not translate into adequate custom to justify the overhead--because most people are still scared to do commerce as usual (and rightly so!).
The paradigm is one in which retail service workers or public transit workers can become ill because of other people's personal decisions. These people are just trying to put food on the table and live their lives, and the freedom to serve other people so that they can pay their bills shouldn't equal death for them.
Implicit in this attitude about who must work for the freedom of others is that some people's lives matter more, which is disgraceful in that many front-line essential workers are woman and/or minorities. Perhaps these workers are deemed more expendable because they are not being seen. They are being viewed as workers alone, for the value of what they do--not as complete people.
There is no excuse for demanding a blood sacrifice for the benefit of one's pockets--one works to live, one does not live to work. The idea that some people should die so that the economy can thrive is one I've already addressed, as well as the notion that choices are not without responsibility. But when I see the people pushing a lifting of quarantine without any apparent twinge of consciousness that they are using Nazi language (from the actual death camps) to accomplish Nazi ends (the gradual elimination of persons at the end of their utility to the state) I can't help but stand back in distress.
"May Day" is a holiday around the world. "Mayday" is a distress call.
We should show respect to the workers who put food on our tables and work in stores, as well as those who keep us moving, and out first responders and medical personnel. It does not show respect to anyone at all to flash slogans from fascism. But here we are, with a sign like this (along with guns etc.) so carelessly brandished, as if daring us to insist that we live in a society, and not some anything goes free-for-all.
Well, fuck. I insist on a society, and one in which workers lives matter. Where we take care of our sick. Where we take care of one another. And I offer no apologies if my society impinges on anyone's thoughts about who is expendable to keep the status quo.
2 comments:
Vixen,
At this point, there is a large political element in Governor's orders for people to return to work.
Most Governors doing that, are from Red Stated.
Being that a lot of white-collar workers can telecommute in, a good chunk of those being forced, coerced, or blackmailed to return via a variety of threats - like loss of unemployment, among others - are members of minorities.
These are people who do face-to-face work, and can't do their jobs from a distance.
Most white-collar workers are white.
So, who are these Red State Governor's willing to sacrifice?
Minority workers.
So, the political element I mentioned, is race.
Death, or severe illness, is just another form of voter suppression!
Mostly true--and I'm one of those that "can" telecommute in, but have preferred not to, as there are things in my particular office that, for me, are best handled on-site. My husband and my brother, white as me, work in grocery. My sister-in-law works in a hospital and got it--but is luckily young and despite a common co-morbidity, is fine. But anyone of us is vulnerable too--there is no closed-system where white folks are 100% free of risk. The red state governors are playing the odds in a racist game in which everyone will lose, because the health care system that will be overwhelmed is used by everyone, black and white alike. Their old white voters are also vulnerable, not just because of covid-19. but all the things they might need the health care system for.
Looking at FEMA's confiscation of various materials purchased by state gov'ts, I think they also participating because Trumpism truly is a quid pro quo set up, and by opening, they are counting on being in line to be "rewarded" with the ability to somewhat handle the damage when the ventilators, masks, etc are parceled out when the worst-case scenario is one them--but that's a suckers game. I've obviously never been in the mood for assuming goobers like DeSantis and Kemp and Abbott and them aren't pretty big sitting open-faced gluten-free shit sandwiches as governors, but I'll also go ahead and say they are going to be amazingly surprised by what Trump can't do for them in the end. Because he stiffs everyone. It's his MO.
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