Workers must unite

By no means should we ever entertain the idea that exposing our most vulnerable demographics to the risks of a global pandemic is the only or even viable means of protecting the economy as an acceptable course of action. Especially not when that demand falls from the lips of the bourgeoisie, the greedy donor class that are more interested in preserving their vast amounts of entrenched wealth than they are the reasonable means of protecting the greatest number of people as possible via mitigating infection rates and subsequent fatalities by utilizing social distancing and imposing a limited moratorium on some functions of American capitalism.

Subsequent to this pandemic will be the true test of this nation. however, as it has become more and more incontrovertible the need for a workers revolution and general strike. The workers must coalesce around the idea that until we realign our national priorities so that the proletarian is compensated like the "essential" instruments of American capitalism they demonstrably are, they will no longer abide by the exploitative and life-threatening rules of the bourgeoisie - that has seen profits and power consolidate at the top and relative compensation dry proportionately from the bottom up.

The workers need livable wages, government-mandated paid sick leave, universal education, universal child care, universal health care, paid parental leave, attractive retirement options and vacation time and as a country, we absolutely need Universal Basic Income to some degree. This pandemic has more than vouchsafed the necessity and viability for such a platform as in this time of market panic and crumbling faith in American capitalism, rugged individualism - bootstraps and all - no time has been dissipated in rushing to collectivism to assuage our national apprehensions and uncertainty.

These terms are nonnegotiable and not one of them is beyond the realm of possibility.

Randy Longstreet

Arlington Heights