we’ve been abandoned by our government (not that they cared anyways), and we’re forced to go to work because of that fact. Individualism and american exceptionalism has poisoned the country, no one gives a fuck about each other, and we’re all gonna fucking die because of some fucking rich colonials that thought we were special
Honestly I am really internalizing the reality (which was always the case, but not so blatant) that people who are chronically ill, like me, are not at all valued and in fact considered 100% expendable.
Don’t flatter yourself. Everyone is considered 100% expendable by Capitalism, some of us just have more plausible deniability than others. Increasing ecological destruction and factory farming are going to make these pandemics more frequent, and plenty of us “healthy” people are going down as well.
NGL, the scale of it all has really been a shock to me. The US Covid outcomes have not only just been bad… but like, worst in the world bad. Worse than developing countries with far fewer resources. Worse than other countries with their own far right demogogues in power. It’s almost like they’re deliberately trying to cull people.
I mean, the government has really dropped the ball with disaster response in recent past… Hurricane Katrina, Flint, BP Gulf Oil Spill, Hurricane Sandy, California wildfires… but at least there there was the plausible deniability that those were regional issues… or surprise, surprise, a government that overwhelmingly represents corporate interests DGAF about the poor and marginalized… who were disproportionately hurt by those events.
Covid effects literally everyone. Like, it’s objectively bad for global capital and it’s got the supply chain seriously screwed up. The petty bourgeoisie are livid and the government has completely lost control of the narrative, or any sense of authority. As much as the media wants to overrepresent the “Covid is a hoax” crackpot stuff… I think that’s just wishful thinking on their part and… the sentiment on the ground is actually far more sinister and desperate.
Not so much from the amount of people that have died, but more with how few fucks many people seem to give in spite of all of that death.
Me too, this is the ultimate manifestation of the “percentage small enough that I can write it off” sort of mentality that has been pervasive in America for a while now, the same attitude that let us just passively accept all the people already dying without healthcare and all the homeless people and other horrible shit happening in the country. If it’s a small enough percentage, and that percentage is drawn from the people at the margins of society, it’s fine. Evil shit.
One death is a tragedy, one million is a statistic. 300,000 dead Americans is still less than 1 out of 1,000. Most people don’t know 1000 people well enough to be that consumed with grief. It’s a lot of dead people, but spread out over a relatively long period and effecting mostly people you “expect” to die (old, sick, etc). That’s how you get a crisis where most people only feel a vague sense of unease, if anything at all.
And Biden’s plan is to get contact tracing going, which doesn’t work in America because nobody answers the phone anymore because robocall telemarketers are still legal
Mind you, the spread is now so uncontrolled that even if everyone answered their phones / followed contact tracing rules religiously, it wouldn’t help much. Contact tracing for covid works, sometimes, but only if you do it very early. The only thing that can slow down the spread at this point in the US is a serious, constraining, nationwide lockdown (all bars, schools and non essential stores closed nationwide, etc.) - which the US won’t implement, and in fact I think genuinely doesn’t have the capability to implement due in part to the individualism OP mentioned. It’s not only a monstrous country, it’s also a failed one.
lockdown
I think it’s too late, most cases spread in homes or between close proximity people. Shutting down for another year will just slow the curve lol
I meant lockdown similar to what many EU countries (such as mine) did, where even family gatherings and the like are officially forbidden - almost impossible to enforce of course, but it was relatively well-followed here (probably wouldn’t go that well in the US of course). No private parties, no marriages and the like. You’re physically with the persons you live with for the duration and that’s it. Can work from home, you do it, can’t and non essential worker, you don’t and the state pays your salary for the duration. Under those conditions, if followed by a large enough majority, I believe the virus incidence would decrease quickly (worked here in France).
We’re somehow at a point where I know multiple non-chud people who are planning to take flights across the country in the upcoming weeks/months. These are people who are mostly fully aware of the situation, not denialists or anything, but they have weddings and family or whatever and are just going for it anyway.
