WE ARE THE LIVING DEAD

The issue of hunger finally arrived in Appalachia. People cannot feed their children. The suicide rate has exploded as have the covid cases.

No one is joyful to come back home. Home is often a trailer in the woods, and no one left for the Hamptons. For three million, you can buy the entire state. The life and death inequality between the rich and the poor. In this little town no one makes what these New Yorkers make. There are no private schools. Public school is a nightmare.

The people who killed themselves were our relatives and friends. We were all betrayed by the church. Where masks were not allowed and they packed them in for Christmas. Churches could not afford the loss of passing the plate. Especially when their congregations started dying and killing themselves. The specter of starvation looms long and lecherous.

Mental health units closed. No one ever went there anyway.

Religion did not save us. It killed us. Still, no one wears a mask there. Covid and masks have been rendered political. Our leaders do the vaccine dance of joy while we die. We hated before covid. That hate has turned into a zombie numbness. The institutions have failed. The New Yorkers you feature have homes and apartments to make pretty again. They are all white and their children are picture perfect.

This is what capitalism does. It is more of a problem than covid.

Capitalism does not need an ICU because nothing but nothing can throw a wrench at it. You sparkle. We are the living dead.