As you may or may not know, I am not young — 75 last November — and I am a disabled Vietnam War veteran. The most critical aspect of that right now is a lung impairment as a result of a cancer that was due to dioxin exposure. So it follows that I have a legitimate fear of the COVID-19 disease. I am also at least average in intelligence, so I know what to do. First, I listen to people who have knowledge of this thing and then follow their recommendations. In other words, for the very most part, I am staying at home. If you have a health issue or if you do not and you are not an “essential” person, do as I am doing. Stay home.

Now, the thing I want to talk to you about is the colossal failure of our entire government as regards preparing for this. Entire books have been written about a hypothetical pandemic. In 2005, President Bush’s administration had a plan for a hypothetical pandemic. In 2014, President Obama’s administration had a plan for a hypothetical pandemic. Now we have an ACTUAL pandemic, but our current government was caught unprepared because they threw those plans away sometime ago and fired the people who would have put them in action.

Now, I am in no way putting this whole fiasco on President Trump. Yes, it is true he knows nothing about pandemics. And yes, it is true he will not listen to those who do know. But President Trump is not the entire United States government. We have Congressional representatives and senators in Washington. We have state governments in places, like Madison and Lansing and 48 other state capitals. They have all dropped the ball in not knowing this could happen and not planning for the “what if,” in case it did.

I believe we need to think very carefully in future elections about who we are hiring to manage our affairs. You do know that all those senators, Congressional representatives, governors and various state governments are what I just said. They are hired, though elections, to manage the affairs of our government. Remember, we live in a country that is of, by and for the people. That would be us. When we see the response to the pandemic, we see a failure to manage. That really is unforgivable! Some of us are going to die due to their combined failure to manage properly.

There is no room here to mention more today about other ways they have absconded on and to their duties. I will be back to talk about that. So will many others.

Listen. Think. And then maybe, just maybe, hire some more competent managers of our governments affairs. They work for us. Remind them and any who run for office of that fact.

Stay home, stay safe and soon we will see one another again.