Banana Republic

Surprising frustration at not being able to find the proper envelopes for mailing a book. I tried Bartell drugs; their shelves were empty. No envelopes whatever. Nobody bothers to restock the shelves. I tried Fed Ex. A few envelopes, but none the right size. The selection was sparse. I tried the CVS Pharmacy. They only had business envelopes. I tried the post office. It was crowded, this being a few days away from Christmas. A man, holding several packages, blocked the door. Inside, the line was long and people were jammed together. There was no social distancing, no monitoring of the number of people allowed into the lobby, no protocol whatever. And no envelopes on sale, as there used to be. Almost all the businesses and little restaurants on lower Queen Anne are boarded up and closed. It’s a scene of intense economic devastation. Very unsettling. And the tent cities keep growing, the mounds of garbage higher, the rats and vermin increasing. This is all the result of 40 years of neoliberal economics, beginning with Reagan. The government hardly counts for anything anymore, just a club for scoundrels and greedy mediocrities doing the bidding of their corporate donors. Disgusted, R and I drove to the business district on upper Queen Anne, which is doing a little better, but still struggling. There are far fewer people than usually crowd this district in December. I was able to get my two books sent at the Queen Anne Dispatch, a combination boutique and shipping service. They do a bang-up service. They’re efficient and courteous and they follow all the pandemic guidelines, marking the wooden floor with blue tape for social distancing and requiring customers and employees to wear masks. I walked away feeling a sense of relief that at least one small business is continuing to operate robustly and smoothly. I’ve never seen a society die before. Not this close. Not in a place where I actually lived. I never expected to see such a thing. It’s not unlike watching a human being or any other animal die. Limbs weaken and atrophy, sight dims, hearing goes, memory goes, cognition is disoriented, confused. Dying is a twilight of languishing abilities, an encroaching anemia, people going through motions with no real motivation, no elan, no resolve. But this analogy fails in light of the stupendous wealth that is being looted and funneled to the top tier of society, the obscenely wealthy, Bezos with a net worth of 182.2 billion, Zuckerberg with a net worth of 100.5 billion. Nancy Pelosi, who blocked the stimulus bill of 1.8 trillion, ostensibly so Trump would not be reelected, and which contained enhanced unemployment insurance and a second stimulus check, has an estimated net worth of 180 million. Income inequality is pharaonic. Unreal. I don’t recognize the country anymore. It has become a banana republic akin to Brazil. I remember a past not that distant in time when going out for dinner and a movie was a part of our routine. Streets and sidewalks were busy with commerce. The agora was thriving. Now it’s dead as the splintered plywood covering a store front.