A year ago in the first weeks of seclusion, I was astonished at the rabbit like proliferation of artful black and white commercials with somber piano music that were not commercials but public service announcements -- messages from our sponsor to remind us that whereas everything had changed, nothing had changed. You might be rationing toilet paper but Charmin had your back in these unprecedented times. In the first weeks of the crisis when everyone but front line workers were sealed inside their homes, their travel restricted, every car maker wanted you to know that they knew that what you needed now more than ever in these unprecedented times was new transportation and that they were there to make it happen for you.
While most of us were trying to understand how a new disease on the other side of the world that had infected maybe a few thousand people was a threat, forces behind the scenes were at work on a plan to re-order society which in a matter of weeks they carried out. While government's response was haphazard, catch as catch can, contradictory, the upheaval to society was swift, coordinated and uniform. The thoroughness of the response from the owning class freed our elected officials to take whatever tack they fancied as events unfolded-- even unmerited credit for it. With the crisis handled, the president, in keeping with his brand, was free to clown, to posture and to gaslight about the seriousness of the threat. Congress meanwhile moved as rapidly as it ever does to ensure that trillions in aid was concocted out of thin air and distributed upward while banking that the crumbs cast to the masses would be met with gratitude. Were the contradictions ever more heightened? Your job and your healthcare may have disappeared; the doubtfulness of your future may have moved to the center of your consciousness. Your sponsor wished you to know that whether you survived this or not, they would still be there at the end of it. There was no channel you could change to that did not land on the same sad message that due to circumstances beyond anyone's control, we regret to inform you that any semblance of control of your own life is temporarily suspended. The hand on the remote was still theirs.
The neoliberal power structure that had ordered me into seclusion never let me forget who was in charge-- flooding the airwaves with propaganda, crushing any chance for universal healthcare to deal with the pandemic. Suspiciously they preferred to rapidly assume ownership of the Black Lives Matter protests that erupted with the police murders of Breonna Taylor and George Floyd. Closer to home, my firm provided free counseling, daily meditations, workshops on how to cope (i,e., remain productive) in the new environment. The managerials devised clever email challenges and games, opportunities for us to remain engaged, cohered, on the hook.
As vaccines continue to be made available and are administered to the arms of millions in this country, as Texas jumps the gun and re-opens completely, as my tasks at work in a more cautious part of the world become increasingly centered on the possibility of a return to the office-- not yet assigned a date or even spoken aloud but hinted at with activity requested by administrative departments-- as spirits everywhere around me begin to rise like the shining moon of the vernal equinox and a desire to shake off the confines of our year long winter of isolation begins to ripple through every corner of the continent, my heart sinks. A year ago while I was coping with the death of my ambitions for Bernie Sanders' candidacy, I was simultaneously struggling to comprehend how things had changed so quickly, and to wonder what future cataclysms were in store for the ordering of my days. Not long ago, anything seemed possible. The vacancy at the top of the executive branch has changed, thanks partly to the contrast the new president promised to be to the old president -- never mind what we have long known about him-- exhilarating contrasts that now that the office has been secured seem one by one to be getting pounded back down into the shape of the monotonous familiar. Now that we are nearing the denouement of this crisis, are we really just to return to how it was?
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