There Are More Important Things Than Living
I have long held a view of the Republican party as a bunch of rich people who are able to convince uneducated white losers to support policies to make them, the rich guys, richer. Mostly they did this by stirring up fear that some minority or other is going to take over the country and destroy "our" way of life. Republican voters are easily manipulated and there are enough of them to win elections sometimes. It still requires making sure that not everyone gets a vote, still requires some lying and cheating, but basically if you can keep the rednecks stirred up about how the threat of [insert group here], you can stay in power. Especially when the gazillionaires can directly lobby government and influence the media with their money.
In this deadly pandemic, the government has failed us but the American people have been very good about quarantining and social distancing. We've got our masks, businesses are shut down, it's strange but it's what we've got to do. The US already has the most deaths of any country and there is no sign that the virus is running out of steam, even with this drastic change to our lifestyle. It is terrible to think how much worse it could have been, if we were not quarantined and shut down like this.
Last week, the Michigan Conservative Coalition and the Michigan Freedom Fund, backed by the wealthy DeVos family, organized a protest in Lansing. In traditional Republican form, the billionaires sent around some propaganda and the streets of Lansing were jammed with pickup trucks sporting confederate flags and Trump stickers. They shut down traffic trying to get to the trauma hospital. Pretty soon old Tea-Party groups like Freedom Works and Americans for Prosperity were in on it, the Kochs and their allies backing protests to "reopen" the country.
And suddenly this is a thing. We even had a protest in Annapolis.
These are people (sometimes referred to as "Covidiots") protesting the fact that the pandemic has inconvenienced them. They want to live like they used to, they want businesses to open up, bars, sports events. The president supports these protesters, urging them to "liberate" blue states. There is some muttering about the second amendment, oh and it's religious persecution when churches, like everybody else, are prohibited from assembling crowds. This is a movement that believes if you close your eyes the virus will go away.
Nobody disagrees that this is a question about the relative importance of the economy versus people's lives. It is not clear why a bunch of working people in MAGA hats care about the economy so much, but those rich people know how to get them stirred up. The lieutenant governor of Texas had a pretty good way to put it on Fox News this week: "There are more important things than living, and that's saving this country for my children and my grandchildren and saving this country for all of us."
His assumption seems to be that other people's lives can be sacrificed so that his family can maintain their comfort level. I doubt he means that there are more important things that his own children's and grandchildren's lives. But maybe he does, maybe these rich Republicans are that hardcore about it.
Last week a Republican Congressman, Trey Hollingsworth, who by the way is worth of $50.1 million, the 12th wealthiest member of Congress, said, "It is always the American government’s position to say, in the choice between the loss of our way of life as Americans and the loss of life, of American lives, we have to always choose the latter." It makes sense to him to choose the loss of American lives, to maintain the status quo. Especially somebody else's lives, not him and his family.
I cannot understand why anybody in their right mind would be taking to the streets for the right to catch a deadly illness and spread it to others.
The Spanish Flu epidemic of 1918 had a similar phenomenon. Businesses were closed, there were laws requiring masks to be worn, and by November 1918 the epidemic was declared ended in San Francisco. They had a big celebration and went back to business as usual. But then the second wave hit a few weeks later, even harder, and people did not want to go back into quarantine. A group called The Anti-Mask League formed and held big demonstrations and the city declined to close movie theaters and businesses, and from December to February the number of deaths in the city doubled.
Kentucky had one of these stupid protests last Wednesday and Sunday the state had 273 new cases, the highest one-day spike in the state since the pandemic began. You hate to wish ill of anyone, but there is a little bit of Darwin Effect in some of this. They were protesting for the right to be exposed to infection and the right to spread it to others, and there ya go.
I think in some ways these insane demonstrations are a kind of warm-up or test of the rightwing propaganda machine. They are setting up the communications networks and preparing the slogans, the Facebook groups, to spring into action as the November elections near. At this point in time they are able to get hundreds of people to literally go out and conduct kamikaze protests. Maybe the rich folk who run the Party will be able to get them to vote for Trump again.
In this deadly pandemic, the government has failed us but the American people have been very good about quarantining and social distancing. We've got our masks, businesses are shut down, it's strange but it's what we've got to do. The US already has the most deaths of any country and there is no sign that the virus is running out of steam, even with this drastic change to our lifestyle. It is terrible to think how much worse it could have been, if we were not quarantined and shut down like this.
Last week, the Michigan Conservative Coalition and the Michigan Freedom Fund, backed by the wealthy DeVos family, organized a protest in Lansing. In traditional Republican form, the billionaires sent around some propaganda and the streets of Lansing were jammed with pickup trucks sporting confederate flags and Trump stickers. They shut down traffic trying to get to the trauma hospital. Pretty soon old Tea-Party groups like Freedom Works and Americans for Prosperity were in on it, the Kochs and their allies backing protests to "reopen" the country.
And suddenly this is a thing. We even had a protest in Annapolis.
These are people (sometimes referred to as "Covidiots") protesting the fact that the pandemic has inconvenienced them. They want to live like they used to, they want businesses to open up, bars, sports events. The president supports these protesters, urging them to "liberate" blue states. There is some muttering about the second amendment, oh and it's religious persecution when churches, like everybody else, are prohibited from assembling crowds. This is a movement that believes if you close your eyes the virus will go away.
Nobody disagrees that this is a question about the relative importance of the economy versus people's lives. It is not clear why a bunch of working people in MAGA hats care about the economy so much, but those rich people know how to get them stirred up. The lieutenant governor of Texas had a pretty good way to put it on Fox News this week: "There are more important things than living, and that's saving this country for my children and my grandchildren and saving this country for all of us."
His assumption seems to be that other people's lives can be sacrificed so that his family can maintain their comfort level. I doubt he means that there are more important things that his own children's and grandchildren's lives. But maybe he does, maybe these rich Republicans are that hardcore about it.
Last week a Republican Congressman, Trey Hollingsworth, who by the way is worth of $50.1 million, the 12th wealthiest member of Congress, said, "It is always the American government’s position to say, in the choice between the loss of our way of life as Americans and the loss of life, of American lives, we have to always choose the latter." It makes sense to him to choose the loss of American lives, to maintain the status quo. Especially somebody else's lives, not him and his family.
I cannot understand why anybody in their right mind would be taking to the streets for the right to catch a deadly illness and spread it to others.
The Spanish Flu epidemic of 1918 had a similar phenomenon. Businesses were closed, there were laws requiring masks to be worn, and by November 1918 the epidemic was declared ended in San Francisco. They had a big celebration and went back to business as usual. But then the second wave hit a few weeks later, even harder, and people did not want to go back into quarantine. A group called The Anti-Mask League formed and held big demonstrations and the city declined to close movie theaters and businesses, and from December to February the number of deaths in the city doubled.
Kentucky had one of these stupid protests last Wednesday and Sunday the state had 273 new cases, the highest one-day spike in the state since the pandemic began. You hate to wish ill of anyone, but there is a little bit of Darwin Effect in some of this. They were protesting for the right to be exposed to infection and the right to spread it to others, and there ya go.
I think in some ways these insane demonstrations are a kind of warm-up or test of the rightwing propaganda machine. They are setting up the communications networks and preparing the slogans, the Facebook groups, to spring into action as the November elections near. At this point in time they are able to get hundreds of people to literally go out and conduct kamikaze protests. Maybe the rich folk who run the Party will be able to get them to vote for Trump again.