People always phrase this as an either buy in that our society's completely fucked, *or* the heartwarming story the media wants me to buy into. But I think it's an *and*.

The neighbors who band together to get a car for the dude who walks 30 miles to work daily; the kid who sells lemonade assiduously to fund their college; the old lady who passes up the ventilator because she's had a good life and she wants it to go to someone younger. These are exceptional people, amazing people, that's great, and as an anarchist of sorts I feel that yeah, it's the community that really counts when government isn't there to do the heavy lifting (forget business and church, because those dudes aren't ever going to be there for anyone other than their own wealthy elites).

But the whole reason we have a government is that exceptional implies an exception, not everyone wants to be or can be the exception, not even the exceptional people. We pay these people to be the normal solution in part so that more personal altruism can be that exception for unusually hard times and places that slip through the cracks, rather than a daily assumption. Rather than say all the things we are currently paying the Trump Administration to do.

It's that heartwarming human part of the story that drives home how mightily fucked this whole thing is. And the fucking media always expects us to buy into just the heartwarming human part without making the rest of the connection. I loathe the situation, but I despise their goddamn collaboration and then they have the fucking gall to present themselves as bringing truth to the people, like they're all Cronkheit having the spine to speak up about Vietnam or whatevs.