It has been weeks since I had the flu and I still suffer symptoms, some new and some old.

I got the virus back in May and figuring two weeks of suffering from my internet research carefully counting the days in a notebook. Once past the two weeks, I added another week of quarantine again according to my sources on the internet. And in a general sense, I am better but I still stay at home avoid all social interactions go out only for food.

However each day is a surprise. Some days are good and some days bad. And I get new symptoms and lots of old ones. My perception is that I’m taking liver and kidney damage. Since my chest aches a lot of the time, my heart is probably also involved and since I’ve had episodes of confusion I may have brain damage.

Before I explain any further, I want you to know that an intelligent and capable response to the virus like they did in many other countries would have saved me from this ghastly experience. Our national buffoon through his incompetence has severely injured me and may yet kill me.

The up side is my intelligence is slowly recovering. I know this because I could only read a paragraph or so before losing the thread. This was back in June. Now I can almost get a chapter down before I get to tired to continue and it seems every day that I can cover a little more ground. I believe that his mirrors my physical status and I am recovering but it may take months.

There was a time when I worried that this state of affairs would be permanent.

Writing about business ethics and the failures of companies and individuals has had a certain detachment. I wasn’t a victim and I didn’t know anyone involved nor was I in sight of the effects.

Now I am on the frontline of an epic failure of governance, an abdication of responsibility without equal in the history of the nation. We may lose as many as a hundred thousand more Americans before a new President in January can impose federal leadership over this nation and stop the spread of the pandemic.

But there was more to this disaster than the buffoon in the White House. I was astonished to discover politicians who proudly announced that the elderly as well as many others must be sacrificed on the alter of profit. As a bit of a historian and raised in the church, the fact that I was actually seeing human sacrifice to the golden calf of the Old Testament was difficult to absorb.

I knew as a writer of business ethics that American businessmen and corporate officials are not a very worthy bunch – and their bought political servants merited and still merit little more than contempt. But to actually allow people to die for profit, for commerce, demonstrated an absence of Christianity as well as basic human morality that was stunning in its scope.

That some politicians actually suggested that the elderly sacrifice themselves for a strong economy made the predictions of “Brave New World” and “1984” pale by comparison.

But that wasn’t and isn’t the bottom. Fueled by Fox News and the irresponsible policies of tech giants like Facebook, Americans have indulged themselves in denialism, conspiracy theories stupid beyond all human belief and crass willingness to sacrifice the lives of their fellow Americans so they can go maskless, drink alcohol and live their lives as if nothing is wrong.

The spirit of rationalism and the belief in science and expertise is under attack all over this nation. We are an object of pity across the planet as our uninformed and uneducated factually challenged class of bloviators tells us to disregard the evidence of our eyes and ears and embrace lives of meaningless aggrandizement.

As a victim of the disease, the idea that it is a fraud cooked up by the deep state must be pretty comforting but only if you haven’t got it yet or none of your loved ones has died or having the most passing of acquaintance with actual health care workers whose outrage at our national lack of action and their consequent suffering and casualties may have made them a little angry.

This is a turning point in the history of the United States. I may not get to see much of it, but some of you will. Treasure the new beginnings and changes that come of the deaths of so many who were so precious to so many others but valueless obstacles to a strong economy for some of our political class. Remember the names of these wicked people and their enablers. The blood of the dead cry from the earth for justice.

James Pilant