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Not long after 9/11, I was on St. Mark’s Place in Lower Manhattan when a bartender told me about a makeshift memorial and museum that had been set up nearby. That night, my wife and I walked into a strange, candle lit, abandoned school filled with newly made paintings, sculptures, and even debris. The whole thing was staggeringly beautiful and deeply human.
Watching the entire COVID narrative of 2020 blowing up with the disgrace of Dr. Anthony “Take the Fifth,” Fauci, this week, I could not help but think that the COVID lockdowns require their own museum, preferably in Washington, D.C., so that we can finally, truly understand what happened to us.
Despite the bluster of some Republican politicians, it seems clear that there will be little to no legal reckoning for the lies about everything from COVID’s origin, to the efficacy of masking or distancing, to the constant shifting stories about the vaccines. But that doesn’t mean we can’t have a physical reckoning.
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In my own vision of the Museum of the COVID Lockdowns, visitors will be given two masks to put on for safety upon entry, and cameras will monitor whether patrons touch their own faces during their visit, with loud sirens announcing violations.
Demonstrators take part in Operation Grid-Lock to Re-Open New York to protest against lockdown measures in the wake, during the outbreak of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19), at the New York State Capitol in Albany, New York, U.S., April 22, 2020. REUTERS/Bryan R Smith (REUTERS/Bryan R Smith)
I did a bit of crowdsourcing on social media to see what kinds of exhibits people think belong in this museum. There was no shortage of responses, ranging from hilarious to tragic.
Among the more light-hearted entry suggestions were interpretive dance TikTok videos from teachers and nurses, and photos of socially distant concert goers sitting in little isolated circles. My favorite suggestion, from a New York liquor distiller, was “A bottle of hand sanitizer my distillery made along with the news article about the FDA trying to fine distillers for making it.”
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As far as the darker side of the lockdowns go, people came up with a sea of sins, everything from images of grandparents dying alone in nursing homes, to charts showing how many cancer screenings never happened, to the frustration of students locked in pointless remote learning.
At this museum we will also see the stories of courage and freedom, brave church goers who broke the law to worship, speakeasy New York City bars defying lockdown, and even a crazy, freezingly cold, Canadian trucker protest against vaccine mandates.
Such a memorial is needed for the same reason it has been since the pyramids were erected, lest we forget the dead. It was 18th Century philosopher Giambastista Vico who argued that the very term “human,” comes from the root word “humando,” which means “to bury.” Vico says humans are the animals who bury their dead, but we are also the animals who remember them.
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The Museum of the COVID Lockdowns will not just serve as a memorial for those who succumbed to the Chinese virus, but also to those who needlessly perished as a result of hamfisted overclosures, which, according to former White House COVID Task Force member Dr. Deborah Birx, were overtly politically motivated in blue states.
Anthony Fauci declined to testify in a Senate committee hearing on his role in the US response to Covid-19, invoking his 5th Amendment rights. (Left (Alex WROBLEWSKI / AFP via Getty Images), Right (Al Drago/Bloomberg via Getty Images))
An advantage that a museum has over retribution is permanence. I can understand those who, after seeing Fauci squirm on the Senate hearing hot seat, or having read the lies he bragged about in his diary, want his last few years spent in jail, but such punishment would fade much faster than the stonework of an institution.
More than anything, a Museum of the COVID Lockdowns would serve as a warning, insurance that we never again are asked to rat out neighbors giving haircuts in backyards, or allow people to go weeks without so much as touching another human being.
What we remember will always be in the past, but the act of remembering will always be in the present, and future generations must know what we allowed to happen so that it never happens again.
A sign posted announcing closures due to COVID-19 is seen at Huntington Beach, California on April 30, 2020. – California Governor Gavin Newsom announced in his daily press conference that beaches in some parts of southern California will be shut down from May 1, to avoid a repeat of the huge crowds that flocked there the previous weekend. (Photo by Frederic J. BROWN / AFP) (Photo by FREDERIC J. BROWN/AFP via Getty Images) (Photo by FREDERIC J. BROWN/AFP via Getty Images)
In the 25 years since 9/11, I have looked online in vain for any evidence of the impromptu museum that sprang up in the East Village in the face of brutal tragedy. But I know it was real, I know it was organic and I know that it helped.
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One-hundred years from now, somewhere on the National Mall in Washington, D.C., our great-grandchildren should have a place to see and understand our folly, to learn what happens when a society trades freedom for the illusion of perfect safety.
The COVID lockdowns of 2020 were the most insane, wrongheaded and inexplicable events of our lifetimes, and it is time that we tell that story, in brick and mortar, so that our progeny do not ever make the same tragic mistakes.
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