Laura Jedeed (Misanthrophile)

This metaphor of war for what's going on with COVID, all this talk about thanking essential personnel and supporting our troops: it feels like I'm back in the military, during the heyday of the Iraq and Afghanistan conflict

Then, as now, individuals who thank the troops mean well. It's good to appreciate the people who keep us safe But on a societal level, it's a sanitization of reality. It packages the horror of what's happening into a consumable good feeling that lulls us into complacency

Worse, it implicitly pretends the sacrifices are voluntary. As though the soldiers chose to die for their country, as though that choice wasn't made by the wealthiest and most powerful, people who reap massive financial rewards from that suffering

Same thing today. I'm not the first person to point out the huge overlap between "essential worker" and "minimum wage." This isn't a voluntary sacrifice: it's a sick society forcing human beings to choose between risking COVID-19 and becoming homeless

In the past, I've tried to avoid making things that are all about the problem and not about a solution. Fuck that. I'm mad as hell, and beneath that fury my heart is breaking The first step towards change is recognizing the nature of the problem