How They Get Away With It

Perhaps you remember the bombshell news story from a few months ago that revealed the top 1% of America’s wealthy “got way richerduring the pandemic.” Yes, even as millions of citizens were begging for a few hundred bucks to alleviate the devastation of Covid-19, our billionaires raked in so much money that they were in danger of suffocating in their golden bathtubs as their servants shoveled piles of cash over them. 

Yes, wealthy people have some odd kinks.

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Rearview Mirror

Decades ago, my mother emigrated to America to attend college. She never moved back to El Salvador, but that had less to do with chasing the American Dream and more because, you know, life stuff happens. Oh, my mom also stayed because she discovered that she had been lied to her entire life.

You see, growing up in El Salvador, my mother was never educated about some of the more horrendous facts of her country’s history. These unfortunate episodes had been hidden from her. Once in America, however, she had access to this forbidden knowledge, and after finding out how atrociously her government had acted, she was not in a big hurry to move back. Understandably, she was angry that she had to move to another nation to learn her own country’s history.

However, this cultural behavior—the active covering up of disturbing historical facts—is not unique to El Salvador. Almost every society has a problem admitting its mess-ups, failures, and outright barbarism. 

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ID the Good Guys

In what can only be described as a failed gotcha moment, an anti-vaxxer recently emailed me a diatribe that contained the following question: “Name one time that the people forcing compliance on others were on the right side of history.”

It took approximately 1.9 seconds for me to think, “Brown vs. Board of Education,” but I didn’t bother to email him my answer because I don’t engage with trolls.

In any case, the anti-vaxxer’s sad attempt to stump me did have an unintended effect. It got me thinking about the reverse scenario: “Name one time that White conservatives fighting social progress were on the right side of history.”

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Farewell to the Madness

With luck, this will be the last time I write about Covid-19. 

You see, some experts believe that we may finally be nearing the end of this wretched, soul-crushing, nation-defiling pandemic. That means no more news stories about thousands of Americans dying daily, no more anti-maskers punching people out, and no more Facebook posts about robots in your bloodstream (ok, that last one will probably stick around).

Of course, this doesn’t mean that the virus will magically go away. Hey, it was supposed to do that 18 months ago.

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Humbled

There will be no apology, nor will you hear even the hint of a regret.

And if you want vindication, you will have to wait until history renders its judgement. Of course, history takes its damn time, and you will likely be waiting for decades or even centuries to hear, “Yes, you were right.”

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