Caught in His Ear

Bombs exploding, the cries of the wounded, the last gasp of the dying.
This desperate cacophony won't be dislodged by a Q-tip, or by anti-biotics, or
by a doctor's hand.

It is the soundtrack to his memories, to scenes he wishes he could delete
And to which he adds his own lament.

Doctor My Eyes

A week ago an intern where I worked came into the office and announced she has Pink Eye. She was instructed to return home and not return until she was free of this malady.

Yesterday, I was in the copy room when the Operations Manager asked me, “Does my eye look red?” Indeed it did.

Shortly thereafter my eye began to ache and itch, and I told myself I was being dramatic in imagining things. This morning, however, my eye feels as if a cruise ship has anchored in its blood-red waters. A visit to the doctor confirmed my suspicions.

So as I spend the day in quarantine, remaining contagious until the prescribed eye-drops eradicate the catchiness (24 hours), I read that Michigan’s Governor Snyder has at his disposal emergency powers with which to appoint corporations and CEO’s, should he see fit, to run communities. This can be imposed by his decree, this subversion of democracy. No elections need by called or held, and as I understand it, no appeal possible.

This planned action echoes the agenda made more famously obvious in Wisconsin by Governor Walker and reverberating through, I hear, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana, and Florida. These actions are trumpeted as necessary measures with which to restore the economy. They are really the continuation of a giant swindle in which wealth is transferred upward.

This nonsense gained traction under Reagan and has remained the wet dream of the wealthy ever since. Suppression of worker’s wages, decimation of unions and labor laws, rigging of the market to benefit the top 1 to 3 % of the population, disenfranchising of significant portions of the electorate, and now a naked power grab by Governor Snyder.

Optimistic observers of the political scene predict that student and worker outrage as occurred in Wisconsin will become the take away lesson eclipsing the audacity of Walker and his minions. I hope they are right. Recent calls for a general strike sound a pleasant echo in my ears.

Yet, as I squint out at the world such clarity eludes me. The boundary between government and corporation is fuzzier than ever, and the boundary between politician and businessperson even more blurred. Years ago it was said, “The business of America is business.”  Now, it appears that the poor and workers have been given the business. I grope about for a corrective, a remedy that, like the eye-drops my doctor prescribed, eradicates what he diagnosed as an invasive infection.