Midnight Mutterings | There was this thing

||| MIDNIGHT MUTTERINGS BY JACKIE BATES |||

As you, no doubt. recall, there was a ‘thing’ that happened at the US Capitol, on Jan. 6, 2021. It was called many names by different people. Sedition, breach, attack, domestic terrorism, insurrection, mobbing, coup, riot, race riot. Criminal attack. Anarchy comes in also, along with threat on Democracy, on tradition, on sacred space. Donald Trump, who was still president at the time, called it a march, a protest march, and even a Save America March, as well as some other milder words, rally being one of my favorites.

But I’m not here to talk about what happened on Jan. 6, 2021, as we are all too aware of the carnage, and it hardly matters what it is called and by whom. What happened, what was done, and by whom and why—well all of that matters at great deal. But again, that is not the purpose of my muttering tonight.

Just for now, I am thinking about money. Of course cost is the least important thing about the events of Jan. 6, but it remains interesting to me that the cost of the rally or insurrection, does not seem to be mentioned anywhere that I have seen or heard. I have not heard one senator, one representative, one member of the outgoing or the incoming administrations, or one judge talk about cost in dollars. Nor have I heard one reporter or one journalist question any official about monetary cost. I have online subscriptions to the New York Times and the Washington Post. Again, no mention. Very occasionally I will add a few minutes of Fox News to my nightly foray into YouTube. And I listen to radio news most of most days. Maybe there is talk on Facebook, on Twitter on Instagram. I wouldn’t know. I gave up my extremely lightly used Facebook account back in the time of the Cambridge Analytica scandal. (Oddly, for some months, Facebook invited me back periodically, with assurances that all my data had been saved in case I wanted to rejoin with everything intact, while publicly claiming that everything was protected, destroyed when we departed, never shared or sold.)

Plenty of discussion of what January 6 cost in lives, yes, cost in injury to people, yes, in loss of trust, of safely, of tradition, all yes. Lots of words spoken, written about and whispered about those costs, as it should be. But nothing about money. The cost of replacing broken glass, broken wood, the cleaning of blood, of feces, of removing of dangerous chemicals left over from the spraying of and by police, the cost of the new, decidedly unlovely, fence that has been erected around the Capitol. Personnel costs: no mention. Replacement of valuable art, carpets, broken doors, broken bodies and minds: still no mention.

So what can be the reason? Politicians love to talk about unnecessary and flagrant spending by the opposition. We Americans live and die by the dollar. We cannot afford a living wage for our workers who do the hardest, dirtiest, and least appreciated, not to mention some of the most valuable work. We cannot afford decent medical care for everyone. Or food, or shelter. But as for paying for repairing the wrecked Capitol building—no mention.

Just a guess here: Since we cannot agree on who is, was, responsible for the rally, the mob, the insurgency, the wreckage of an historic building that was being used for the business of the government at the time of the breach, then we cannot talk about the cost, in, what? Tens or hundreds of thousands, of millions of American dollars, and who must pay. Until we can agree on which group, which individuals, which officials to blame. Then and only then can we add up the charges and present the bill. Not expecting it will ever be paid, of course.