The Boogey Man Virus and The Pestilence of Americans

It's Tuesday 7:53 in Berkeley. I wake up with a stuffy nose and a headache. For the past two weeks, I've endured the effects of stress, lack of sleep and a dull constant fear. Outside Trader Joe's yesterday, the faces of strangers were mask-like, their downward glances as afraid of me as I of them. We didn't smile and say hello. We didn't make eye contact. We are not the same place we have been for decades. We are in the midst of a pandemic. And there is no place to hide.

Schools are beginning to shut down. The University of California just announced all classes will be taught at a distance - electronically.  Except, of course, for the performing arts. Those classes will meet.  The arts are as insignificant as ever here in 2020 America. The welfare of a few theatre students apparently doesn't matter much. Or perhaps there's not as much of a threat to the health and safety as the media sources would have us believe. It's hard to say.   

Self expression, the radical, resistance to the current aesthetic of Apocalyptic streaming shows has become even more of a clear and present danger to the regimentation of the masses now that we have a Boogey Man virus. End times. It's everywhere. The desire for the end of the way things have been. To begin anew.

It's in our human natures when we have ruined any relationship to want a second chance. A third chance. A last chance. If a virus infestation starting with the Chinese can get us there, all the better. The Chinese are often the Boogeymen in the American consciousness. Like the Japanese once were until they became more like us. Like those damnable Russians. Or Iranians. All dirty rotten scoundrels according to American made movies and shows.

It is critical we know the enemy. The real enemy. But who is that in the days of pestilence and Corona? It can not possibly be us. We are the innocents.

There will be cuts in public education once again until eventually any radical ideas of multiculturalism are erased forever. There will be cuts in Medicare and Social Security. There will be further degradation of our environment. We will cut down too many trees and build too many high rises. We will have more detention camps.

Our local and national government is ineffective at dealing with a pandemic. We will find a new use for the military besides invasion of other countries. We will invade our own country. 

We already have.

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