Friday, July 17, 2020

Some Of You May Die, But It's A Sacrifice I Am Willing To Make


Let's call it what it is.

Forcing Iowa schools open isn't about schools.

It's about Big Ag.

Agribusiness owns this state and has told its elected officials we're not closing. Their profits are literally more important than life and death. Big Ag wants everyone and everything to stay open and unmasked, and they're forcing their bought and paid for governor to deny local control, because they don't want any jurisdiction to set any precedent that could close a meat packing plant for a day.

Agribusiness doesn't really care what The People's Republic Of Johnson County does. But if we are allowed to issue closing orders and mask mandates, then Louisa and Muscatine counties are too, and they care a LOT about that.

See, if we shut down the stores because they're not safe, and we tele-commute to class because it's not safe, we're going to have to acknowledge that working jam-packed into a meat packing plant isn't safe, and we simply can't have that. Our bars and schools have to stay open so their meat packing plants can. I won't see my 85 year old parents in Wisconsin for a year because West Liberty Foods and Tyson in Columbus Junction can't close.



If we were able to issue mask mandates and closings, but had to make exemptions for agriculture and meat packing, that would be bad for those workers. But it would at least provide more protection for some of us. Instead, we are all lowered to the least common denominator of the slaughterhouse floor.

Iowa is literally the worst place in the world to be right now. America is handling COVID worse than any nation, and Iowa is handling it worse than any state.

We've long known agribusiness sees its workers as disposable.

Now it's clear they think the rest of us are expendable too.