I am an expert in nothing.
The things I am good at - cooking, landscape photography, maybe garden design, packing suitcases, procrastinating - don't pay the bills in our economic system. I am, however, also good at observing, listening, remembering, and reflecting, useful skills that until recently I didn't recognize as skills at all. It seems that most people don't have them, or choose not to use them, that they are wallowing in oblivion, too consumed by the vacuity of their own existence to look around them. All this time I was just paying attention to things around me and didn't even realize that isn't something normal people do.
That's why Covid has hit them so hard mentally. Despite the fact that experts have been talking about the coming pandemics for two decades now, Americans ignored it and kept electing idiots to offices that have the power to slow or prevent them. And have Americans learned anything?
Have you seen the covidiots who refuse to wear a mask? Have you noticed we are reopening as cases INCREASE? Did you know the Trump regime fired all the pandemic experts when he took office, the same people who kept ebola, H1N1, and other pandemics out of the US prior to his arrival?
South Korea and the US had their first Covid deaths on the same day. South Korea is playing professional baseball right now because Koreans care about their fellow Koreans and because they have competent leaders who actually care about protecting their citizens. We may not have any baseball season. Americans don't care at all. They are mad that they are inconvenienced by lockdowns while real people die. We are going to reopen anyway, and the virus will spread rampantly, and Americans will continue to elect Republicans who refer to them as "human capital stock" instead of "people," and we will fall into a depression worse than that of the 1930s, and people will lose their loved ones and still not care about others, all so billionaires can get richer. Profits over people. It's unreal that even a pandemic can't make Americans care about others.
Oh sure, there are some who do care. Covid has brought out the best in some people. Others may have realized something about themselves. But my god, has it brought out the absolute worst in far too many people. The selfishness. The arrogance. The entitlement. The utter stupidity.
Thing is, Americans have never experienced any real collective adversity. We haven't had a war on our soil since the Spanish American War in 1898. 9/11 was a shock to most people because they never paid attention to foreign policy or what our government has done to other human beings under the guise of national security. Vietnam wiped out a generation of working class men but it took years for Americans to actually care about that, and even then they only cared because they were losing people close to them. Vietnam the country and the conflict was something abstract and they didn't care about that. Americans don't even acknowledge our endless wars in the Middle East.
When you don't pay attention to things, it is easy to be duped by propaganda. Republicans have been using fear of The Other to their advantage for decades. Russians. Muslims. Immigrants. All people oblivious Americans blame for the miseries in their own lives. Now they blame China for this pandemic.
They should start blaming themselves.
Oblivious Americans have been brainwashed into thinking government is bad by the very people who benefit from no government regulations. Hatred for government is why this pandemic spread like it did. They cut the pandemic teams. They cut funding for the CDC. They handed responsibility for the response to a bunch of businessmen with no medical background.
Government isn't the problem. Rich assholes are the problem, those who steal our tax dollars to make themselves richer. They need your labor to do so, and they steal that, too, in the form of pittance wages, unpaid sick leave, open floor offices, two meager weeks of vacation (if you get any) that most people can't even take, fire at will, layoffs during economic downturns (executives rarely get laid off), etc. You think a CEO deserves 1000% more pay than someone who does the actual work while he plays golf and calls it a meeting? YOU HAVE BEEN BRAINWASHED.
They've turned science, which is just the reality of the world, into a political ideology so Teh Stoopids among us will spew their propaganda for them while they eliminate regulations and all government oversight so they can get away with their corruption and the theft of taxpayer money. That's our money. So now we have Teh Stoopids running around screaming that wearing a mask to protect our society from the spread of a deadly disease is against Freedom!(TM) and half of Americans say they won't get a covid vaccine when it becomes available because they are selfish trash who don't understand basic science, and they are doing the bidding of the wealthy who right now aren't making any money from their labor. They actively cheer on spreading the virus while their overlords are dismantling the health care system that they are going to need when they get sick from their stupidity.
They tell you the rich provide "jobs." That word means nothing but the theft of your labor, for you are most likely working for an entity that pays you a pittance of its earnings. Or you are a farmer who has no choice but to sell your products to the massive corporate entities that have taken over our food supply. Or you are self-employed and spend half your time fighting to even get the money you are owed by the people who hired you to do a project. Etc. etc. etc. So much of a corporation's profits go to shareholders who don't work for the company and don't earn a damn thing. A company's profits should go to the people who made those profits - the workers.
During the first wave of the Spanish Flu, 60,000 Americans died. Then we opened everything up and the second wave killed 600,000. All for the sake of profit. Now we are doing it again.
Capitalism is the deadliest economic system. It's time to get rid of it. Make people matter again.
Wear a mask, you selfish ass.
The things I am good at - cooking, landscape photography, maybe garden design, packing suitcases, procrastinating - don't pay the bills in our economic system. I am, however, also good at observing, listening, remembering, and reflecting, useful skills that until recently I didn't recognize as skills at all. It seems that most people don't have them, or choose not to use them, that they are wallowing in oblivion, too consumed by the vacuity of their own existence to look around them. All this time I was just paying attention to things around me and didn't even realize that isn't something normal people do.
That's why Covid has hit them so hard mentally. Despite the fact that experts have been talking about the coming pandemics for two decades now, Americans ignored it and kept electing idiots to offices that have the power to slow or prevent them. And have Americans learned anything?
Have you seen the covidiots who refuse to wear a mask? Have you noticed we are reopening as cases INCREASE? Did you know the Trump regime fired all the pandemic experts when he took office, the same people who kept ebola, H1N1, and other pandemics out of the US prior to his arrival?
South Korea and the US had their first Covid deaths on the same day. South Korea is playing professional baseball right now because Koreans care about their fellow Koreans and because they have competent leaders who actually care about protecting their citizens. We may not have any baseball season. Americans don't care at all. They are mad that they are inconvenienced by lockdowns while real people die. We are going to reopen anyway, and the virus will spread rampantly, and Americans will continue to elect Republicans who refer to them as "human capital stock" instead of "people," and we will fall into a depression worse than that of the 1930s, and people will lose their loved ones and still not care about others, all so billionaires can get richer. Profits over people. It's unreal that even a pandemic can't make Americans care about others.
Oh sure, there are some who do care. Covid has brought out the best in some people. Others may have realized something about themselves. But my god, has it brought out the absolute worst in far too many people. The selfishness. The arrogance. The entitlement. The utter stupidity.
Thing is, Americans have never experienced any real collective adversity. We haven't had a war on our soil since the Spanish American War in 1898. 9/11 was a shock to most people because they never paid attention to foreign policy or what our government has done to other human beings under the guise of national security. Vietnam wiped out a generation of working class men but it took years for Americans to actually care about that, and even then they only cared because they were losing people close to them. Vietnam the country and the conflict was something abstract and they didn't care about that. Americans don't even acknowledge our endless wars in the Middle East.
When you don't pay attention to things, it is easy to be duped by propaganda. Republicans have been using fear of The Other to their advantage for decades. Russians. Muslims. Immigrants. All people oblivious Americans blame for the miseries in their own lives. Now they blame China for this pandemic.
They should start blaming themselves.
Oblivious Americans have been brainwashed into thinking government is bad by the very people who benefit from no government regulations. Hatred for government is why this pandemic spread like it did. They cut the pandemic teams. They cut funding for the CDC. They handed responsibility for the response to a bunch of businessmen with no medical background.
Government isn't the problem. Rich assholes are the problem, those who steal our tax dollars to make themselves richer. They need your labor to do so, and they steal that, too, in the form of pittance wages, unpaid sick leave, open floor offices, two meager weeks of vacation (if you get any) that most people can't even take, fire at will, layoffs during economic downturns (executives rarely get laid off), etc. You think a CEO deserves 1000% more pay than someone who does the actual work while he plays golf and calls it a meeting? YOU HAVE BEEN BRAINWASHED.
They've turned science, which is just the reality of the world, into a political ideology so Teh Stoopids among us will spew their propaganda for them while they eliminate regulations and all government oversight so they can get away with their corruption and the theft of taxpayer money. That's our money. So now we have Teh Stoopids running around screaming that wearing a mask to protect our society from the spread of a deadly disease is against Freedom!(TM) and half of Americans say they won't get a covid vaccine when it becomes available because they are selfish trash who don't understand basic science, and they are doing the bidding of the wealthy who right now aren't making any money from their labor. They actively cheer on spreading the virus while their overlords are dismantling the health care system that they are going to need when they get sick from their stupidity.
They tell you the rich provide "jobs." That word means nothing but the theft of your labor, for you are most likely working for an entity that pays you a pittance of its earnings. Or you are a farmer who has no choice but to sell your products to the massive corporate entities that have taken over our food supply. Or you are self-employed and spend half your time fighting to even get the money you are owed by the people who hired you to do a project. Etc. etc. etc. So much of a corporation's profits go to shareholders who don't work for the company and don't earn a damn thing. A company's profits should go to the people who made those profits - the workers.
During the first wave of the Spanish Flu, 60,000 Americans died. Then we opened everything up and the second wave killed 600,000. All for the sake of profit. Now we are doing it again.
Capitalism is the deadliest economic system. It's time to get rid of it. Make people matter again.
Wear a mask, you selfish ass.
