In memoriam
Half a million dead.
The US has surpassed the 500,000 mark of people who have died due to COVID over the year that the pandemic has been raging.
We defeated fascism at the cost of 400,000 lives over four years.
We defeated sedition at the cost of 650,000 lives over four years.
In one year we've lost half a million souls. That would be enough to nearly wipe out Atlanta.
In one year we've lost half a million souls. That's the entirety of the population of Long Beach, California, and then some.
In one year we've lost half a million souls. Wyoming would be denuded of people.
Half a million gaping holes where light used to shine. Half a million seats at dinner no longer filled. Half a million coworkers who always made you laugh.
Half a million. The enormity of it is almost too much to comprehend. And in one year. Enough death to lower American life expectancy by exactly one year; that's what happens during war.
The blood and sputum of half a million human beings are laid at the feet of the previous so-called "government", which originally saw this as merely a problem for "Democrat-infested" cities. And even when the plague began to hit their political breadbasket even harder, the response was the same: deflect, delay, denigrate. To admit the scale of the crisis would be to admit the failure of the response which began the crisis. There was no government action. The federal government left it to the states and localities to deal with it. Even to the point where cities were competing against each other for the PPE and other gear needed to combat the virus. Even to the point where the federal government would undercut states and localities for those same supplies.
The Filth who occupied the White House will probably get sent to prison for tax fraud. A truly just outcome would be to compound that with a conviction for worsening the crisis. A truly just outcome would be to add "murderer" to his list of epithets.
The reaction of the previous government would make uncaring despots blush. Even Vladimir Putin knows he needs to keep the populace placated. (That he's no longer able to do that is all the indication I need to know that his time is nigh.) It was manslaughter, a depraved indifference to life. And it permeates the sycophants of the previous regime. Death is called "success", because the malls didn't close.
The world's most powerful government machinery was made not to work. The resources were available. But it was a government formed for the express purpose of showing how government is useless. It was a government staffed by people looking to make the quick buck, from bottom to rotten top. It didn't care about its duty to provide for the general welfare; it didn't recognize any such thing existing.
It was a government which came into being because of centuries of racism and bigotry and misogyny and hatred of reason and science. It was a government of the vile for the vile. And we will be living with the ramifications for decades.
Half a million dead. Let them not be forgotten.