Michigan Has Become a Powder Keg; Is Society Beginning To Breakdown Amid COVID-19?

Protests across America began happening in mid-April. Tens of thousands of frustrated Americans swarmed state capitols in North Carolina, Ohio, Michigan, and many other states to voice their fears and panic over a crumbling economy.

Beginning today, Governor Abbott of Texas, Governor Reynolds of Iowa, Governor Lee of Tennessee and several other states have started reopening for business. While not totally lifting all COVID-19 restrictions, they are allowing restaurants to begin serving again if they meet specific criteria for social distancing as well as manufacturing businesses, barbershops, and many other types of establishments. 

While Iowa, Texas, Tennessee, and others are bowing to the pressures of the public, states such as California and Michigan seem to be clamping down tighter and extending their reopening dates. Governor Newsom of California just yesterday, closed all beaches in his state, while the Governor of Michigan continued her shuttering for another 28-days after having promised to reopen on May 1. 

Many Michiganders did not take the news so well and stormed the State Capitol in Lansing yesterday. 

The problem from the beginning for the United States versus the CoronaVirus has been for the Administration, and the 50-Governors is; “how do you balance public safety with Constitutional liberties?” As the infected number of victims continues to rise globally amid the COVID-19 pandemic, the United States now has some 1/3 of the recorded cases in the world. As of yesterday, the United States has recorded some 1,300,000 out of some 3.3 million documented infections across the rest of the world. This is no doubt due to two items. The first being that America is testing at a much higher rate than the rest of the world, and secondly because our society is so free and mobile that we are merely infecting more citizens than anyone else. 

Several significant factors play into “why” America is rapidly becoming a powder keg that could very well cause nationwide revolts if this is not handled correctly by our elected officials. 

• Our nation has not in over 240-years been “locked down,” and the American people are simply not used to be “told what they can or cannot do or go where they want to go.” 
• Our country is not used to showing up at the grocery store and not having everything they want on the shelves. IE: toilet paper
• Americans now realize just how very dependent our nation became on China for critical needs such as vaccines, medication, and many other items that kept our country running. 

The death toll on small businesses across our country has already become catastrophic. As of April, 30th, a staggering 30,000,000 million Americans have filed unemployment claims in the past 6-weeks.  In addition, there are an estimated 12,000,000 Americans who do not qualify for unemployment as they are small business owners who are self-employed. With some 42,000,000 American citizens now sitting idle in their homes, that is 1 out of 3 workers in our nation. Keep in mind that during the Great Depression, which began in 1929, at the peak of the economic collapse, we had a 25% unemployment rate. 

Combine the economic hardship with our nation’s food supply breaking, and our society could be facing some cataclysmic conditions in which we have never met as a country. In the letter that John Tyson, CEO of Tyson Foods, sent out to his 100,000 employees recently, the fear of what is happening to our food supply is very evident. 

In essence, what is happening with our food chain is this.

The cattle are ready to go to the packing houses, but the packing houses are shut down because of Corona. The feedlots cannot afford to keep feeding cattle that cannot be harvested, so the animals are being put down. The same holds true for chickens, pigs, and even produce. Many of the plants that package lettuce, tomatoes, oranges, and such are also shut down because of the pandemic.

What is going to happen after these states open back up (which they are currently doing), and we find ourselves in the same condition as Germany is now facing? Germany opened back up a couple of weeks ago, and a few days ago, the Chancellor had to lock it down again because of a significant resurgence of the virus.

Through social media and the CDC, officials are now saying that some 22 areas of the nation are now poised to explode with new cases of the COVID-19 virus and will become “hotspots” in the next week or so. Most of the 22 areas happen to be in places where the lockdowns were lifted, and the citizens were told they could go back to work. In other words, we have a resurgence of the virus. 

With some areas of the country already facing hunger, lines for food are stretching upwards of a mile long to receive groceries for their families. This is yet another ingredient that is creating social unrest.

Yesterday’s protest at the Capitol in Lansing, Michigan, may very well become the norm across our country.

It is rapidly becoming evident that our nation is frustrated, fearful, and quickly becoming panic-stricken with both our leadership and our inability to control the situation we are now finding ourselves in.

Now is the time when our country is looking at our leadership for both answers and solutions. The elected Governors in states like Michigan, Pennsylvania, North Carolina, and many more, need to stop playing political games with people’s lives and livelihood. The Speaker of the House needs to come off her thrown and work with the President, and the President needs to stop fighting with the media and give very clear directions as to how we are to get through this. 

Citizens are hurting and losing everything they have spent a lifetime working for. Many of these 12,000,000 families invested their life savings into their businesses, and they are heartbroken. We have seen a spike in suicides since this CoronaVirus began affecting all of us. Consequently, millions are now suffering from profound depression because of these extraordinary circumstances. 

America, no matter how bad this gets, we will prevail in the end.

Stay strong, reach out to friends, family, and a local church. There is not a pastor in this nation that will not visit with you if you need just to talk. Do not commit an ultimate act that there is no recovery from!

If you feel you’re giving up, please reach out to somebody. Feel free to email me, and I will visit with you. (kwrcrow@gmail.com) Just don’t do something that you can’t take back.  1-800-273-8255 Suicide Hotline

By Ken Crow

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