Muh Muh Muh My Corona (virus)

Spot. On.

 

Interesting point in a story I read today about restaurants ... many servers/bartenders/etc. don't want them to reopen. They're making far more money from unemployment, and those restaurants won't be able to match that $800 a week. Also, the approval of the whole PPP thing was a backwards clusterfuck. It needed be done before restaurants started laying people off.

 

Good post, and yes, to your point, you live in a place that's been hit far harder than us, for sure.

I think people here are equating "re-opening" to full, business as usual, which couldn't be farther from the truth. We're still going to be socially distanced. We're not going to baseball games. We're not loading up nightclubs and bars. And that's where some of the panic is coming from, this fear that everything is going to go back to where it was at the end of February. It isn't. We're months and months away from that, and that's only if everything goes well. There's a lot of wiggle room to go back after a phase one opening if things go awry.

 

They don’t want restaurants to reopen because they don’t want to get sick.

Restaurant owners are pretending it’s because they can’t match the unemployment and are screaming loudly that they can’t match the unemployment, which is a handy way for them to ignore the fact that they pay poverty wages.

You want people to work for you? Fine. Pay a living wage.
You unable to keep your business operating while paying a living wage? Too bad.
You don’t want to pay a living wage because you want to pocket the money and buy a Lexus instead of a Corolla? OK, you can fuck off.

 

We keep hearing "If you don't want to go out, stay home. But don't stop me from going out."

The problem is, those same people want to force servers and hair stylists and others to go out to fill their needs. So if a waitress is told to come back to work or lose her benefits even if she's would prefer to stay home, she is forced to go out.

 

We’ve reached the point in our story where #NoLivesMatter. We just shrug our shoulders when people get gunned down in large numbers on the weekly. Coronavirus is now that. Give our thoughts and prayers to the nursing home oldies and the guy I coughed on last week, but really, fuck ‘em.

 

No, the risk is not “getting sick for a couple of weeks.”

The risk is dying. This one will kill and does kill, and it does so in horrible terrible ways.

 

Translation: "I disagree with a qualified medical professional's opinion because, though I have next to no experience in analyzing medical data or experience with viruses, I do have a financial stake in minimizing that person's expertise and utilizing my platform to spread my admittedly uneducated disinformation for the benefit of my pocketbook."

 

I'm trying and failing to find it, but there was a piece done suggesting the push to reopen the economy is a new plantation system. There is no reason why some people are demanding to reopen the economy other than they want the poor, often minorities, to serve them again.

This whole "we can't give into fear" nonsense is just another dog whistle because conservatives really, really don't want to help the poor in any meaningful way. Their plan is demand the poor go back to work so the rich can continue to make money. If a few brown people drop dead, it's just the cost of doing business.

 

But all restaurant owners are not “rich,” right? It seems like for every restaurant that succeeds, five fail. They are probably richer than their employees, though.