Dude was chill, growing and using cannabis in his 80s. A master gardener, he kept cacti alive for 40 years in Canada through nasty winters. He was kind, generous intelligent and thoughtful.
His son caught covid at his workplace, and passed it on to my FIL. FIL was hospitalized around December solstice due to complications of that covid, and other non lethal problems He passed on a couple of days ago.
He did not die, he was killed by capitalism.
Capitalism requires people to work or starve, so they have to be on the job spreading diseases when they should be at home fighting them.
Capitalism rewards the pharmaceutical companies that decided it was more profitable to treat Covid than to eliminate it, attenuate it rather than eradicate it.
The oligarchs that use capitalism to enrich themselves turned precautionary measures that would slow the spread of Covid into ammo for the culture wars that keep the working class fighting each other instead of slitting the throats of the oligarchs.
Yes, I am very angry.
The atrocities of imperialism and capitalism are truly unending. Silence is certainly complicity. If there is any "bright side" to any of this is the certainty that an unsustainable system is by definition unsustainable. The "dark side" is that the oligarchs have the means to destroy anything they cannot steal, and are doing it already.
My only hope is that any survivors remember who was responsible for the suffering.
I mean look at me, I partly became a communist because my Papap worked the mills for the steel industry and was a loyal union man immigrant, who I never got to meet because that job literally tore his lungs apart with metal from the inside. metal fibers coated the inside of his lungs. Despite my dad being conservative and my mom's parents being small business PMC, I eventually realize that I never even got the chance to meet my father's father because of profits even with a strong union. The man never even knew I existed and yet I survive him and remember who was responsible for his death, cause I know what they took from me
I think of this scene from a British mini-series about a socialist winning PM and getting couped, especially that final note https://youtu.be/Aj8qIRxQ5aU?t=245
"Don't forget, I have ancestors too"
Reality is radicalizing. Sorry for your loss, but congrats on your awareness. I will have to take a look at that series, looks interesting, thanks for the suggestion.