Largely, people are rising to the task during these extraordinary times. Our friends and family have been heroes to us.
But.
There’s a Lincoln automobile commercial that shows a woman in a luxurious remote house looking out at her luxurious driveway. One Lincoln car is parked in the drive. Another pulls up. She’s traded in one obscenely expensive car for another. Somehow surviving this crisis! The driver hands the woman some documents, gets in the other Lincoln and drives it away. The young woman looks in at her kids. Everything is copasetic! People are dying and she got a new car without having to deal with the unwashed masses!
Dear Lincoln Motors, Toyota, Chase, Fifth Third Bank, Pizza Hut, Apple, Google, and every fricking corporate piece of shit, STFU! You don’t care about me anymore than you did a couple months ago. You got a ginormous tax cut awhile back and you hoarded it.
One thing this thing has done is lay bare what’s wrong with everyday America. The most glaring thing? The plight of lots and lots of black people and moreover, people without the means to live in a luxurious remote home and drive a goddamn Lincoln. Many people, owed to our illustrious history, don’t have access to the stuff that people like me take for granted. Like health insurance. Like doctors. Like healthy food and grocery stores. Like clean air.
Lots of us at certain levels get severance packages when we’re let go from our jobs. It sucks getting canned, but getting severance is a shit ton better than going through the demeaning process of applying for unemployment. I had to apply for it once, decades ago. It IS demeaning, and we make it that way on purpose.
The gap between the haves and have nots is insane, and it’s not based on merit. Just look at the parasitic monkey family in the White House.
We can do better. We have to do better or we’ll go down the drain.
By the way. I’m back.
I’m with you, Mike. Welcome back!
That’s the Mike we know and love!
I was getting soft.
AMEN! And thank you. Going back to the old normal is an unconscionable goal. Finding ways to bring equity back into the national discourse is the only way to find a “normal” that fits.
Wonderful to hear from you. And amen back.
Fing Amen and welcome back!
Parasitic monkey family. Thanks, it’ll carry me through the day…
You have never danced around a subject but wow! I love it! It needs to be said.
And I have the best mask in the city.
Here Here – and while we’re at it, I’m working at a safety net community hospital in MA and we just had to take in 45 residents of our local veterans’ skilled nursing facility (just google Soldiers’ Home and Holyoke) who were terribly mistreated with this virus (and most likely during their day to day care). And – I’ve done a significant amount of work in healthcare in both Navajo and Apache territories and Native Americans are literally shoved aside – most of them live without addresses, plumbing, electricity and adequate food. The way we treat any non-white, wealthy population is horrendous. Thanks for writing!
Glad you and Beth are safe and healthy and under the same roof! XXOO Jenny
Wow. Thanks for your work.
You ROCK Mike!!! Glad you are recovered…
Thanks Deb, great surprise to hear from you!
Great article. Horrible people.
I dont need the “NBC Family of Gazillionaires” from their fancy kitchens to tell me that we’re all in it together!!
Parasitic monkey family. LOVE IT, Thanks Mike.
Thanks Jamie. Lying in a hospital bed on the day–on the day they suspended out-patient testing because they ran out of reagent–the day after Chief Monkey said he hadn’t heard about problems with tests for weeks left an anger that ain’t going away.
Thank you Mike — you are back baby!
Thanks for letting me rant.
finally! I am so tired of all the TV celebrities saying we are all in this together. YOU are not a single (laid off) parent i na trailer with 4 kids and no internet to do schoolwork
It doesn’t occur to people that some people don’t have internet–sometimes it’s cost but rural broadband is also a big issue.
👍. Welcome back!
Thanks Hank!
I share these sentiments. Let your FU Flag fly, Mike!
Mike, I’ve never thought of you as inhibited, but you really let it rip on this one – AND for good reason. So glad to hear your voice again. Don’t hold back. Someone has to say these things.
Thanks Mel.
Yes,Yes,Yes…”when the tide goes out,you see who’s swimming without their shorts on.” Continue in good health and keep writing, you have been missed.
Sandy & Brian Perryman
Ha, never heard that but will now file it away.
Agreed Mike and thanks for saying it. So glad you are back and recovering (or perhaps recovered?). Best to you and Beth.
Good to hear from you, hope all is well with y’all.
Interesting as to what this pandemic (and the handling of such) is revealing. Appreciate your efforts to inform. WELCOME BACK MIKE!
Careful what you wish for!
Glad you’re back! Like your thought process here…
Tell us how you REALLY feel!!
And, BTW, thanks for saying
I think it was too much TV at the hospital.
Welcome back Mike. So glad you are both ok.
OMG!! Jenny and I got in a major (for us) fight last week. I said “ I’m kind of getting sick of all this #inthistogether shit. We AREN’T in this together. It happened to be the day the stats first came out about black COVID deaths vs. percent of the population. Jenny, looking for a ray of hope in this current shitshow, decided to defend the #inthistogether commercials. We have since come to an understanding and appreciate each other’s emotional needs. But I agree with you – “blow me”! Glad you’re back!
You’re both right, of course. I mean, the kindness we’ve experienced has been humbling and inspiring. But this has really laid bare the disparities that we number ourselves to. Hope to see you both this summer, and I won’t bring this one up:)
Thanks so much for being angry, Mike.
If we as a nation come out of this thinking that our health care system is great, we truly are dumber than I’d hoped. How many people have ever had to say “Do you take my insurance?” or “I don’t have insurance. No regular doctor.” Have they ever had to do this math:If I buy this medicine, have this doc visit, my kids won’t get the food they need? I’m glad someone mentioned the disgrace of the Indian Health Care Service and the indignities of life on reservations, but we also need to keep looking at Chicago, our city. And to look at the humiliations we place on people with chronic diseases.
Don’t mince words Mike, tell us how you really feel 🙂
Glad to see you’re back, hope you and B are doing well. To the point of your writing though it is both frustrating and heartening that this catastrophe has shined a spotlight on all the failings in our American, capitalist experiment. Not failings so much, I’m trying not to be fatalistic. More… letdowns.
And FYI, I hate car commercials in general. Food, toys, hand tools and accessories, fine; these are things many people can go out and buy. A Lincoln or a Lexus? Your target demographic already knows they want one and have the means, and the rest of us aren’t going to be able to run out and pick one up with the groceries!
This is awesome. Glad you’re feeling better Mike. It’s been a long time but say hi to Beth. Tell her we just had Honey, our 9th puppy matched! 5 matched, 4 career changed! We’re ahead of the 40%.
Fondly, Puppy raiser Cindy from Barrington
Right on!!
Shit. I love swearing.
As Bernice King noted – Yes we are all in this together, “some in yachts, others in dinghys”.
Nancy Faust
Make that “dinghies” – you get the drift.
We are told that gratitude boosts our immune system and I am grateful for your words, Mike.
Thank you for saying it like it is and maybe we get a chance to make changes after November….
Leave a Response