Aftermath

There is a certain pall in the air right now, pervasive, almost tangible. Here, in the late winter, early spring of 2020, schools are closed, millions of people are recently out of work and tens of thousands — likely to be hundreds of thousands — are infected with the virulent Wuhan novel coronavirus. As of an hour ago at the time of this writing, Governor Ducey of Arizona issued a stay at home order.

The list of changes and concerns moving forward could be endless. This is just a small sample. The US Congress has just approved a +$2T stimulus with talk of more to come. How, or from whence, exactly, nobody knows. Thousands of family and small businesses have already shuttered with untold numbers and dreams-shattered stories yet pending.

The death toll from the virus continues to escalate. Health care workers, even lacking effective protective gear and on the front lines in this war, selflessly move from one patient to the next. Despite their best efforts the Wuhan Coronavirus still wins too many battles against the elderly and at-risk health patients.

Local and state governments issue stay at home orders with many appearing to be overreach against Constitutionally protected freedoms. Much of the general public beseeches the federal government to “do more.” “Protect us.” “Save us!”

The national media is absolutely barbaric.

Our elites, politicians and self-serving globalist courtiers have foolishly spent the last 30 years outsourcing everything from manufacturing to medication and medical supplies to China. Now, China threatens to withhold those medications and supplies from us. In my view, that is a greater condemnation on those in the US responsible for such a fiasco than it is on the Communist Chinese government.

Rows of empty shelves at the grocery stores over a fortnight are a testament to the not-quite-panic coursing through the minds of the populace. Paper goods, sanitizers and toilet paper are in short supply or have been sold out for weeks. Gun sales are at all-time highs.

Admittedly, it may be too early to ask “What about after?” However, I have often been accused of being tone deaf, and not just as it relates to music. So, what about after? When the threat of the Wuhan flu has receded and life in America, and the world, efforts to return to normal, what might that look like? Make no mistake: the BEFORE is extinct. It is smashed, suffocated and burned to oblivion like the dinosaurs of 65 million years ago.

When the toilet paper shelves are restocked and the air-raid siren of social distancing has ceased to reverberate against the eardrums and the threat of this global pandemic has lessened enough to allow analysis and assessment of actions and reactions, projections and protections, responses and revisions, blame and praise, past and future — life and death — where will that necessary scrutiny lead us. Or, perhaps more importantly, where will it leave us?