what *is* a government for?

[dragonlady7]

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galadhir https://galadhir.tumblr.com/ said:

             totally agree with you. You’ve only got to look at New

Zealand to see what happens when the government actually tackles the problem instead of leaving its people in chaos and poverty to try to negotiate all this alone

In the beginning of all this, they put out that stimulus package with the payroll protection thing which reimbursed businesses for paying employees in return for them keeping people on the payroll.

So I could in conscience not rush to my sister’s aid, as she tries to keep her small essential food-producing business afloat; they had money, and could pay local people to help them and could manage the unexpected expenses of These Unprecedented Times, and it was fine. They were fine, I stayed in isolation in my friend’s house keeping her children from going insane, it was cozy, it was scary but reassuring. Someone was looking out for us. We could do what was important.

That ran out in May.

There’s been nothing since.

In June, my doctor friend’s hospital laid a bunch of people off because they couldn’t afford to pay them because hospitals are for-profit and make their money on elective procedures people are too scared to do. He got a pay cut, so he put in his notice at one of his jobs; if he’s earning less anyway, he might as well be home sometimes to help take care of his children, since there’s no school for them anymore. It’s not like there’s a shortage of ICU-qualified doctors with 20 years’ experience at intubating people and managing people’s blood gases, or anything; he’s got some first grade social studies to teach at home, since nobody’s gonna help him do that, and his 6-yo is developing a wicked anxiety disorder from all this shit– he’s got to take care of his own, since nobody else is gonna. Guess y’all can intubate yourselves, since we don’t live in a society, or anything– fend for yourself. Take care of your own.

It’s fucking November and we’re just on our own, and so I’m traveling in the midst of this spike because they need help and nobody’s going to help them and, on an individual scale, all we can do is take care of our own the best we can. I am fundamentally unequipped to make large decisions for the greater good; I am a minimum-wage retail employee who pays bills. I’ve been paying taxes and voting since fucking 1998 and it’s not doing me a damned bit of good.

It is November and not only have the bonuses for unemployed people run out, the regular-ass unemployment has run out; even if I stay home, I can’t claim anything, not even the half-your-pay unemployment usually is, as if you can live on that.

All of the concrete things that could give me some other, safer choices to make are gone, so I have the choices I have, and I have to do what I have to do.