Survivors

As I sit here self-quarantined, along with the rest of you who have isolated yourselves during what’s now being billed as the peak of our current pandemic – which I hope means it will soon stop peaking and begin descending into the gutter, where it belongs – I reel at the unconscionable positions taken by numerous world leaders who are in denial as to the seriousness of the current situation and who continue to disbelieve what the world’s top scientists, epidemiologists and World health Organization tell us are the dire consequences of ignoring their advice, which is to stay indoors, to wear a face mask when you have to go out in public and to maintain social distance from one another.

“He broke his back to put food on the table in Columbus, Ohio, he said to his wife. I believe that the flag it was more than a rag, but the outlaws in office have shattered my life. Can you hear me Ohio? You are the country, you are nation, you will survive.” (“Survivors” – John Stewart – 1975)

John Stewart’s song is just as relevant today as was during the early 1970s Watergate Era.

And it’s not just this nation’s leader, who in February praised the “pretty good job we’ve done” when he predicted the number of Americans infected by the coronavirus would dwindle to “close to zero” in a couple days, and who earlier this month said he would not wear a face mask, when the medical community was recommending all Americans to do so. It was also world leaders in China, Brazil, North Korea, Turkmenistan and Belarus, to mention a few.

China’s concealing the existence of a “mysterious pneumonia-like illness” from late December to mid-January is likely responsible for tens of thousands of deaths in that country and hundreds of thousands more, worldwide. North Korea’s dictator insisted his country was not infected by the Coronavirus, despite receiving money from the World Health Organization to combat the deadly disease. Meanwhile, the president of Belarus called the Coronavirus a “psychosis that can be remedied with vodka and saunas.”

Frankly, all these so-called world leaders who have lied to us and covered up the seriousness of this pandemic have the blood of hundreds of thousands, and potentially millions, of the world’s citizens on their hands. What are we to tell our children?

“Children in Cheyenne are taught in their schools, believe in the country, don’t break any rules. But the TV is on and they know something’s wrong, someone must tell them to keep pushing on. Can you hear me Wyoming? You are the country, you are the nation, you will survive.”

Now what are supposed to do? Well, we of faith could pray and keep plugging along.

“Devils and angels belong in the church, you try for the best, but you deal with the worst. Just keep on plugging you old nine to five, for you are the heartbeat that keeps us alive. Can you hear me California? You are the country, you are the nation, you will survive.”

Listen to John Stewart’s “Survivors” here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZBnSULbNx-w

Keep it flyin’ Uncle Mott