I am a very impatient person when it comes to waiting in line. A few minutes at most, or I’m likely to walk out. The COVID-19 crisis is forcing me to reevaluate.
I think of famines that occurred in the last century, virtually incomprehensible to our ‘first-world’ thinking. In eastern Europe, people queued in lines, sometimes all night, for meager pickings. And even then, merchandise was often completely sold out after ten or more hours waiting. Leningrad epitomized the worst, where starving townsfolk stepped over their dead in slow processions that snaked across several blocks, often in temperatures dipping to 40 below.
I remember the gas lines of the ‘70s, waiting anxiously for that invaluable fuel, as if our lives depended on it.
Now coming off the strongest economy in recorded history, we again see car lines, some exceeding four miles, some surpassing 10,000 vehicles, all waiting patiently for a rationed hand-out of food- and this after less than two weeks of unemployment. The familiar refrain of living “paycheck-to-paycheck,” a catchphrase rarely taken literally, is now proving itself true in the world’s richest, most advanced country.
What stands out so dramatically in these car lines is that the majority of vehicles look almost new. People don’t queue in horse-drawn wagons, but in shiny SUVs, pick-ups and minivans.
If nothing else, the COVID-19 pandemic has exposed our vulnerabilities. Swimming pools, boats, snowmobiles and even Mercedes: none of it means much when crisis hits, especially with so many of us living “paycheck to paycheck.”
Jeff Leonards
Scarborough
Living paycheck to paycheck is a fairly common practice, no matter the profession with very few exceptions being made. The recent run on food banks, is just the mentality of the American dream and the continual reinforcement of how bulletproof our great country really is, when in fact it isn’t. More and more kids are being raised in such a manner as to shelter them from the harsh realities of this world. Kids in the 50’s were taught duck and cover drills, they weren’t told not to worry because things like that never happen in America. The scourge of a few schools in recent years have been mass shootings, rather than sitting the kids down and teaching them how to react to a school threat, they are are taught that guns are bad to shelter them from the fact that not all the people in this world are good. America has been called the land of plenty, people who lived through the depression and dust bowl would disagree. But that mentality is there, so when bad stuff does happen and it invariably does happen be it a storm or pandemic, people are caught completely by surprise and unprepared. The sad thing is, people nowadays have multiple tvs, computers, hand held devices, video game systems, and not many ever put aside some extra money and food to make through the lean times, it isn’t that they don’t have it, it’s that they don’t manage it wisely.
I have mentioned ‘duck and cover ‘ while the air raid siren sounds off to a few young buckaroos over the past few years.
They look at me as if I have a third eye!
I grew up surrounded by the rock hard reality of a generation that had seen war and hard times. An older friend of my generation once told me his father who had lived through a trip through northern Africa during WWII told him and meant it “If you want to know why you never point a gun at anything you dont intend to kill go lay down behind that big rock and I will show you.” He didnt but the lesson stuck. One of my uncles once walked four miles during the winter not to work but just to see if there was work and there was no welfare back then. Another time I set down to supper at an Aunt and Uncles and looked over the table and there was no meat. At that time I had never set down to a meal at suppertime without something for a meat but that night I ate beans and pancakes. Another lesson from another world. Most of my generation that was born in the fifties agree we were born in pretty good times and brought up by people with common sense that lived in the real world. Who knows something good may come out of the situation we are in now. Time will tell. Saying I totally agree with HRTLSS would be to big a shock to the system but I will say once in a while you look over and someone is walking at the same pace you are.
You’re going to be able to go back and experience those past hardships yourself, I believe, Jeff. Likely it’ll be worse than the First Depression. We have a totally incompetent and inept governor and administration with no plan, with no intention of rolling back spending to help us. They’re delaying unemployment for the self-employed at Maine DOL – many have had NOTHING for 2 mos now. We just had a legislature that increased spending enormously – we were a sinking ship BEFORE this. It’s almost as if they want this; destroy the economy and get people out of here, so their friends from NY, CT and MA can move in dirt-cheap and work from home on our broadband….at least some of us saw something like this coming and got ready for at, as best one can. Many don’t even understand just what happened; I think they’ll be very upset when they do! Maybe the adults will be voted in in November – IF we even have an election.
HRTLSS is right, 100% – the situation Maine is in is TOTALLY because of that choice to not live in reality, and thinking you can vote in *FREE STUFF* for yourself. Well, now you’ll need RESPONSIBILITY – people TOLD you this was coming, but many did not listen. The closed stores, waiting in line, shortages, being told how to live your life…you wanted Democrat Socialism – now you have it! Over Regulation. It would be wise to remove it JUST as soon as we are able. The authoritarian society is where the durn virus CAME from.
The People want a REAL PLAN on how we are opening, not some lukewarm hippie-dip “love each other” listening tour idea because they don’t know how to do their jobs! They’re in WAY over their heads here. The thought that we can just remain closed, or do this again, is deluded; this virus must be controlled, but this is not the way. If we don’t restart economically, shortly we are going to lose more from the cure than from the sickness. And the effect on your freedoms, going forward, may be worse than those lost after 9/11. This is a much more damaging event, by far, than that. I’m sorry that those who did nothing to be RESPONSIBLE are scared… But nope, just “love each other!” little moonbat platitudes, nothing of substance, ain’t gonna cut it. Then people become more and more upset. And upset, desperate people start to talk about wacky stuff, which leads to unrest. REAL leadership reassures with REAL solutions, guides and plans….clearly we don’t have much of that in OUR state. She should ask LePage to step in!!
One more thing readers might want to know is that the Mills Administration has NOT paid out unemployment to the self-employed in the state. You can’t even apply. They received over $3 million for this starting in early April, and then more last week, which they are sitting on. 6 weeks to do it so far. So, for TWO MONTHS, people have had NO income, but have been barred from working by the State. They pay for YOUR projects, you take from them, but won’t stand by them in a situation of dire need??
And you wonder why they’re starting to protest and demand re-opening. This was done intentionally, politics over people. Time to clean house in this state.
Over regulated is right. Mills has said that the Maine unemployment website wasn’t set up for self employed people. She has been working closely with neighboring New England states yet other New England states have their websites working. My wife was forced out of work mid March and doesn’t even get a “hearing” until mid May !! Yes pay will be retro active but it doesn’t do anything to help now. The Mills administration is also not paying hospitals money due just as Baldacci did long before “crona” showed up. How long do we let this incompetent hag run our state into the ground? It’s time to reopen our state and the country. The curve has been flattened and anyone that disagrees needs to look at what is happening. Franklin County has been on shut down since mid March yet just after people protested in Augusta we see a jump in illness around us ? Maybe the Edgewood employee was at the protest ? Not likely. With more testing they are going to lose their narrative of staying home stops the spread it obviously doesn’t it is going to show it’s ALL around us and we won’t stop it. Our stay at home “order” hasn’t done jack !!! It’s time the governor gets off the hysteria band wagon and starts listening to the people !
Every business in farmington and surrounding towns need to organize ,and RE-OPEN all together, on the same day! Be safe, social distance, etc, etc. They cant stop ,and arrest us all. Mills or Gideion has no plan, were broke ,they’ve spent every penny . The only way out for our political class is control of the minions.
RE-OPEN , GO BACK TO WORK , FOR ALL OUR SAKES . Our familys depend on it!
Academic theory is different than the actuality of basic immunology and virology with the presentation of the collected co-vid 19 virus data from around the world.
The lockdown, in the beginning, was brilliant, not so much now. Enough time has passed to realize, by CDC and WHO data, available to everyone on line, that the lockdown does not significantly change outcomes.
There have been millions of tests and small numbers of deaths, all around the world. The cognitive dissonance among the fearful indoctrinated is on full display in America today. Look it up yourself.
Immunology and virology 101 indicates that only the sick are quarrentined, never in the history of medicine have the healthy been quarrentined. Isolating shuts down the immune system. Healthy people maintain that herd immunity by being out and about mingling with the viruses and bacteria in our world to continually maintain that immunity.
The inconsistencies of the restrictions for the lockdown make no sense. Big business open and small business closed is not science. Something else is going down.
The lockdown is not about co-vid, it is not about science. That word, safe, is about controlling you. Do not entrench yourself in invincible ignorance.
‘ The welfare of society is always the alibi of tyrants.’