Twenty years ago, as we had survived the IT Terror of Y2K, I was diagnosed with leukemia.

The word leukemia was enough to scare most people back then and still is a deadly disease today.

I was able to survive because I had an indolent variety that was not as aggressive as the disease often can be. I also survived because I had excellent health care and excellent health insurance.

Although America at the dawn of the twenty-first century was lagging behind other industrialized nations in various categories affecting the quality of life, including education and health care, both were accessible to you and your family if you had money.

Today, while I still receive daily and monthly leukemia treatments, a more significant threat confronts me and the rest of the world.

COVID 19 cares nothing about national rankings in any category. It holds no bias in favor of any degree you may possess or health insurance policy to which you may subscribe. However, the lesser-educated, uninsured, and economically disadvantaged of our population are incredibly susceptible to its ravages.

In the days when our nation was able to put a man on the moon seemingly at will, I would have written, “We can put a man on the moon, but we cannot effectively deal with a pandemic.”

The sad reality is that today we are no longer able to put a man on the moon, and we have failed miserably in dealing with COVID 19.

Along with this sad reality, we are bombarded every day with the absurdity and maniacal incompetence of our national government that has been unable to protect its citizens. Politicians cry out about preserving the Constitution! The hell with the Constitution, protect US!

An outdated piece of parchment that is incapable of protecting itself from daily violations surely isn’t doing We The People any good at all.

While the Republicans and Democrats toss spitballs at each other, Nero is fiddling with history and truth while the west coast burns, the southeast drowns, and the northeast hunkers down for a COVID 19 second wave.

It’s time we wake up and take our country back from the losers who would destroy it.

It’s just startling that a country that helped save civilization and helped to re-build Europe can fail so miserably in addressing its citizens’ needs. America First? Oh, no one believes that.

If America were first in our leaders’ minds and hearts, we wouldn’t have to ask Why 200K?