Socialism is the Best Medicine

Socialism is the Best Medicine

It’s capitalism, baby…

April 22, 2020

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© 2020. Raymond Nat Turner, The Town Crier. All Rights Reserved. Submitted by the author.

It’s capitalism, baby…

Gravediggers feed hungry Hart
Island trenches plain pine coffins;
stacked three-high, they rest side
by side in solidarity.
For now, they share island real
estate with AIDS and 1918 Flu fallen.
New York is not new to this.
Ask African Burial Ground
Ancestors—it’s capitalism, baby…

799 died today.
Tasered with temperatures of 103.5
and shortness of breath—
A bus driver, track-worker and a couple
of conductors I know on sight and speak
to, came down with chills. They’ve breathed
welding manganese, steel dust and diesel
fumes decades for New Yorkers—Yet, they
couldn’t be tested—it’s capitalism, baby…

What if they’d whispered Three Little Words?
Pleaded 12 times—instead of 11—like
Eric Garner as the long, white, tatted
arm of the law crushed his windpipe?
What if they’d pleaded, “I can’t Breathe…”
12—or even 13 times—would they’ve been
Tested, treated and alive today?
That’s not MTA’s concern. Bottom line,
liability, lawsuits are—it’s capitalism, baby…

Nurses slash garbage bags open—using them
as PPE/Personal Protection Equipment.
Docs reuse gloves and masks—multiple patients—
in the world’s ‘richest’ country—it’s capitalism, baby…

Hand sanitizer was $15 a bottle yesterday—
$50 today—if you can find it. Ventilators were
$25,000 yesterday—$45,000 today and climbing—
It’s capitalism, baby…

If water is life, hand-washing’s a lifesaver.
Unelected ‘emergency’ management cut
Detroit water off and poisoned pennywise
Flint’s—oh, please—it’s capitalism, baby…
San Francisco hotel rooms sit empty.
The unhoused “shelter in place” below
freeways; in overcrowded shelters and
on cold convention center floors; oh well—
it’s capitalism, baby…

Parasites “self-isolate” on swanky
Yachts, toasting tax-breaks looting
Labor’s fruits; sucking up shares,
senators, congress members and
Blood.
Leeches storm the Hamptons—hoarding—
greedily buying meat, frozen foods—filling
Extra McMansion freezers; While working-
class shoppers tussle over
Toilet tissue; or stand their ground in long
lines buying guns—it’s capitalism, baby…

Cars sob in food bank lines stamped ‘Insufficient
Funds’ a mile-long… While farmers plow perfect
cabbage heads and green beans back into black
soil. And ivory rivers swell from dairy farmers
dumping millions of gallons of milk in manure
pits. And chicken ‘processors’ smash 750,000
eggs a week—for Profit Omelet-obscene food fights—
it’s capitalism, baby…

“Return To Normal?” That Titanic sailed months ago—
it does seem, however, that it left ashore capitalism’s
grave-
diggers…

 

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