It’s hard not to see this as a deliberate culling of the population, actually. Someone please tell me I’m wrong.

From the beginning, it was believed that elderly populations would be hit hardest. And what better way to free up Social Security payments, and better yet…Medicare expenditures? The other hard hit group will be the “essential workers,” who will be hit hardest in urban areas, and frankly, they are disproportionately minorities. So fuck them. And they penciled it out…estimates of 1 – 2 million killed…most of whom fall in one of the above two categories…and that works out as a win for sociopathic oligarchs. That’s not enough deaths to create a labor shortage and put upward pressure on wages, so…no downside to just letting the coronavirus rip right through those people we see as more of a liability than an asset.

Carry on, America.

wv wrote:

I was thinking about Cigarettes. Cigs kill what, half a million Americans. But the Gov can make laws about ‘where’ you can smoke.

I guess the mask-thing is a bit like that. You are free to not-wear-a-mask in your home, etc, but when it will affect others, its different.

Obviously, the folks that have a deep distrust of the system, are worried that this is a slippery slope, and the Gov is coming to get their guns and blah blah.
So much fear. If we’d actually ‘had’ a more honest Gov all these years, people might not be so distrustful nowadays. Ah well.

w
v

This needs some examination. I don’t know what else to conclude other than that the deliberate framing of masks as a civil rights issue is…you know…mass murder.

I fully understand that there is legitimate concern and debate about the economic consequences of a “duck and cover” policy, and I understand that finding a balance between the health concern and the economic concern is difficult.

But this administration isn’t just encouraging people to “go back to work” and keep the economy ticking. It is deliberately not promoting simple safety precautions, and refusing to do anything to limit the spread of the disease.

We have:

1. A president and vice-president who refuse to wear masks.
2. The framing of masks as a civil rights issue (which is ridiculous, imo)
3. A refusal to continue financing tests
4. No effort to do any contact tracing
5. Not only a neglect to gather data, but an active effort to distort data – and this one is pretty big because it would be pretty easy to require daily data input of positive/negative tests, demographic information, and severity/symptoms information that could be instantly pooled.
6. They suppressed the CDC guidelines for re-opening
7. They have muzzled Fauci and other health experts

So…not only are they remiss on encouraging basic precautions to slow the spread of the virus while telling people to go back to work…they are suppressing efforts to fight the disease.

wv wrote:

Cool.

I prettymuch disagree with most of that. And i submit, the evidence is not just Bernie vs Biden. Thats just one example among hundreds. For starters there’s Bernie vs 99 Senators. These radical-progressive-anarchist-antifa-lead uprisers voted over and over and over for Corporate-Dem-Senators and Corporate-Rep-Senators.
Over and over and over. Its not just about Trump or voting for people that might beat Trump, etc.

If this country really had a large segment of progressive, informed, critical thinkers there would be evidence in the Senate. There aint.

Wanna look at the House of Rep? Whats ‘that’ look like. A smattering of progressives here and there.

So, no, I aint buying it. I think the bewildered herd will be baffled and confused and entertained and self-absorbed again, in a few weeks. And the very small number of committed critical-thinkers will be bashing on, relentlessly, as per usual.

w
v

But this is kind of tricky because people don’t vote for candidates who represent their policy opinions. (And there aren’t many progressives to vote for, and where they do appear on the ballot, the big money machine backs their opponent).

There is a disconnect between the things people want the government to do, and the people for whom they vote. People, as you well know, vote on slogans or whatever. They vote on gut feelings. Or name recognition.

People, by an overwhelming majority, want universal health care. And better pay. And a clean environment. And so on. Why they don’t vote for candidates who will work for those policies is a separate, baffling question. But we have a general idea of why.

So we have all those MAGAs who hate the government because they’ve been screwed, and they vote for a guy who is going to screw them even more, and they love him. There is a disconnect.

But the dissatisfaction is real. Even if people aren’t clear on the “underlying systemic-problem.”

What people need is a more convincing version of Bernie Sanders to lead the way. We need someone bold. Someone who could tell those crowds of people to go on strike. They would do it. And they would win. We’re “this” close to forcing real concessions out of the owners. I think this IS different. But I also think it won’t go anywhere unless somebody harnesses it. And right now, the only person who can is Sanders, and he long ago decided he wouldn’t.

This argument that removing statues is erasing history is flat out irritating.

Nobody learns history by looking at a statue.

If they did, nobody would remember the Third Reich because you can’t find a statue of Heydrich or Hitler anywhere.

It’s about “reverence.” A statue is a statement of societal reverence. That’s what it’s about.

Not only are they doing it on film, a lot of people in this country seem perfectly okay with it, even delight in it.

I think it’s questionable what would happen if Trump just declared martial law. Was it here, or on FB where I saw the special letter he sent out selling camo MAGA hats “exclusively” for members of the Trump army to wear to identify themselves? He is going “there.”

I did see somebody (Joint Chief of Staffs?) say the other day that the military would not obey unlawful orders. So that may be a good thing.

I listened to this a couple of days ago while doing yardwork. I need more podcasts to listen to. I just listened to 1619 last week. All six episodes combined are probably shorter than one Rogan. I also re-listened to the Graham Hancock Rogan podcast which is very interesting. They should use that underground digital imaging thingie in the Amazon that you mentioned in the Italy post.

I need more podcasts. Give me recommendations.

Looks like Portland, Maine is out of control.

Police are at this journalist’s house right now in Portland, Maine threatening to arrest him for tweeting about cops. Not good. pic.twitter.com/uKxeuQvsyP

— Nathan Bernard (@nathanTbernard) June 9, 2020

wv wrote:

Zooey wrote:

Democrats doing their bit to make the country better.

====================

Man o Man. They must have crunched the algebra before they all did that.
They are really counting on Black Voters now.

w
v

Yeah…seems like a bad way to get it, though.

This has to be a candidate for the Transparently Ridiculous Political Stunts Hall of Fame.

It’s early June, and Biden will step on his tongue at some point in a debate, but who knows.

It’s just hard to see a president surviving a pandemic, a major recession, and riots in the streets, all in an election year. Plus all the exhausting nonsense, the noise he generates. I think it is likely that people just want a change of scenery.

But…5 months to go.