From the Battleground, by Rich Paschall

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You may have heard a lot about returning to normal or getting back to business. Some politicians want things to return to the way they were, by that they mean pre-pandemic. But here is the reality of the situation. No matter how much they encourage, or cajole, or insist it is not going to happen.

The orange commander can demand we all go back to work and act like nothing happened, but that can’t work. Someone with an orange face and white rings under his eyes can not miraculously turn back the clock and make life the way it was.

Back is gone. There is only forward.

“It’s going to disappear. One day, it’s like a miracle—it will disappear.” – February 27, 2020

Coronavirus has not miraculously disappeared nor will it disappear. This past week, we hit the highest number of positive cases per day ever. The orange pretender will insist this is because we are doing more testing, and that is despite his earlier efforts to slow down testing.

“When you do testing to that extent, you’re going to find more people, you’re going to find more cases.
So I said to my people, ‘Slow the testing down, please.’ They test and they test.” – June 21, 2020

That’s a bury your head in the sand approach. It doesn’t work for ostriches and it doesn’t work for orange raccoons. Finding and dealing with the problem is of course the answer, but it is an answer the orange bandit does not want to face.

When the economy collapsed in 1929 and the Great Depression followed, people did not talk about going back. What was there to go back to? A failed system that did not protect Americans? The only way was forward. The administration had to be tossed aside for someone with a plan, a New Deal. Hoping and praying for something that did not work was not the answer then. It is not an answer now.

People who lived through those eras of the 1930s and the war years that followed in the 1940s were changed by the impact of those events. Their lives and their lifestyles were altered. Similarly, many people today will never go back to leading their lives as they did before.

It has become easier to understand the quirks and idiosyncrasies of my parents and grandparents in light of current events. There was a change of mindset that stayed with them until the end.  When they talked about eating everything on your plate because “kids were starving in India,” what they meant was they recalled living in hunger and fear through the Depression, and wasting food was an unforgivable sin to them.

People who are struggling today because of rich politicians who have yet to work out a stimulus package will remember what it was like to be without a job, without enough money, and without enough food. Their lives are altered and they will pass the lessons of wash your hands, save your money, be ready for a pandemic down to their children and grandchildren.

Does the orange-faced one think that people don’t want to go back to work, don’t want to earn money, don’t want to improve their lives? The man of many failed businesses apparently does not understand business.

“America will again, and soon, be open for business — very soon — a lot sooner than
three or four months that somebody was suggesting. A lot sooner.
We cannot let the cure be worse than the problem itself.” – March 23, 2020

States that have opened for business too soon are paying the price with COVID surges. The only way to really get America back to work is to suppress the virus, not to pretend it’s not a problem. Restaurants, theaters, sports arenas, concerts, are all on hold or working at severely reduced capacity because the virus is out of control. They can not invite everyone back in no matter what the governor of Florida thinks until the virus is suppressed, people feel comfortable returning to larger events, and business starts to return to normal.

A true businessman would see how the travel industry is harmed by the lack of flights. Why put planes in the air if people are afraid to go anywhere? Lack of travelers and restrictions by governments keep flights from other nations to a minimum. This also means that American goods take longer to get to market due to the industry slowing down. Demanding that it all change back to the way it was in January 2020 is a monumental disservice to many American businesses, many of which are permanently closed.

The road not taken

With many people hunkered down at home, there is less of a demand for goods and services. If the virus is not suppressed, people will not fill the stores and the malls. Some will continue to go out, regardless of its impact on the rest of their society. Those people who won’t wear masks are keeping this problem going strong.

If we would have had a real leader in this country, he would make a patriotic call for Americans to unite to fight the virus by doing whatever it takes to drive the virus down. If we had a real leader, he would remind everybody that wearing masks is the path to restoring jobs. If we had a true leader, he would use the power of the federal government to get medical supplies to every state that needs them. He would invoke The Defense Production Act to make sure all states, all hospitals, all doctors, and nurses have supplies to safely operate.  If we had a leader he would use those same powers to get supplies to schools and businesses so they can open safely. If we had a leader…

Since we could not take the same path we walked before, we are on a road never before taken. We have looked down our new path and developed new processes to communicate, visit, work from home rather than from an office. Industries are moving forward on their own to find rapid COVID testing procedures, better cleaning, and sanitizing procedures to make sure workers, customers, clients, and visitors are all safe.

We have to go down this new, untried road. Many of the jobs and lifestyle choices that lived on the old road we traveled are gone. Demanding we return to them are the statements of a fool. Believing the fool is worse. Not only is the big fool lying to you, but you are lying to yourself.

Categories: Coronavirus - Covid 19, corruption, Government, Rich Paschall

Tags: opening businesses, opinion, pandemic, Politics, responsibility, Rich Paschall, Trump, Vote