I don’t find it that odd. It’s similar to the way the US Military-Industrial complex likes having the US fight foreign mini-wars for practice, or these days supply Ukraine with weapons to test.
A pandemic lockdown is a great way to test how well the system can keep people under control with pervasive surveillance, neighbors ratting out neighbors, all the mechanics of a super-authoritarian government. It exposes social dissidents.
They’re taking some economic hits for it, but I guess the leadership thinks it’s worth it to remind people who is in charge under the guise of a public health emergency.
They had to know. Before it came to the US, many Chinese Americans, including a person I knew, were well aware of how bad it was because they were hearing it from family and friends in China. The person I knew told me it was far worse than media reports indicated, and she began living in a pandemic-intelligent fashion while we were being told it was like the flu and masks didn’t work.
I was initially in the camp of people that did not believe in the unproven theory that the COVID virus was a bioweapon accident or bioweapon experiment gone wrong. The Communist Party’s exaggerated responses make me rethink, and take a more open view of the full range of possibilities including maleficence.
As far as I can tell, the reputable members of the US Government like Dr. Fauci are saying there is no evidence so far that Covid was a bioweapons leak. They’re saying the likely but as yet unproven origin was the expected animal-human viral transfer of a new pathogen that has been predicted for years.
The “cover up” stories are mainly coming from the Right in an attempt to attack Dr. Fauci and the Biden administration. Which makes me doubly suspicious about that explanation for Covid’s origin. China’s lockdown response seems to me just a normal reaction from that type of authoritarian system, and doesn’t lend any credence to the coverup stories.
yet this will come at some point anyway - and it will be better to handle it now than kick the problem into some future time when there will be even fewer resources and more pressures to deal with
I believe that the seriousness of this pandemic is trump’s legacy to humanity. Our epidemiologists stationed in various countries did much to control Ebola, Sars and Mers for starters. In 2018 trump reassigned many because he said “They stand around and collect their paychecks”. In 2019 (around November) covid emerged in Wuhan, China. We used to have a team there and we worked with the Chinese
When in December of 2019 covid was seen in Washington state and California trump tried to down play the danger and ignore it saying it would go away with warm weather. He denigrated science and medicine right up until covid caught and nearly killed him. Of course no one has ever suffered as he did ya knows. Then he went off on bullshit tangents with his light in the lungs and shots of bleach or pills of hydroxychloroquine (an excellent glass cleaner for fungus infected fish tanks)that led to a couple in Phoenix poisoning themselves when they did not have covid (the husband died). This pandemic got as bad as it was thru trump’s incompetency early on when it might have been controlled. He still distrusts science and medicine.
The blood of 800,000 dead Americans on his watch is on his hands. And he had the balls to say… "I take no personal responsibility at all? for this carnage. He said it not just once, but twice. What is more fundamental to a president in office than the safety of All Americans? He failed… and failed at an epic and deeply painful level. It touched my family. And my friends. I cannot forgive him.
Covid is trump’s legacy to humanity.
I try to forgive, because it’s what I’ve been taught by people wiser than me and because I don’t want to carry poison inside myself. Still it is very difficult to forgive Trump, and I don’t know that I have. I saw an essay somewhere, by a rabbi, if memory serves, saying that only those who have been hurt can forgive. Trump has hurt us all, some much worse than me, but still all of us, and it is an ongoing hurt. Not to mention that he’s still trying to do even more harm. I despise him. I don’t know that hating is a good thing, either, but how can one not hate Trump? He’s malevolence personified, albeit with a dose of cowardice and a heaping helping of fucking bozo.
Hate is caustic. It burns and damages one. I know this all too well. Love is the opposite being nurturing and gentle. But trump did what he did deliberately and he was looking out for “me” meaning only him and no one else. 800,000 dead. To forgive has limits with me it seems. People think trump is a republican. He is not. He has no conservative values. Only that which serves him and fuckalla you other rubes. To reelect him would kill America. My hope is this… that one of the laws he has so obviously broken carries the penalty of never being allowed to hold an office. If trump is indicted for “rebellion and insurrection” and convicted then he can never again hold any office again…ever.
18 U.S. Code § 2383 - Rebellion or insurrection
He spoke at the Ellipse on J6th and deliberately sent a crowd to “fight like hell” to stop certification of the electoral college vote. It was the coup that he planned. He planned to overturn th election and seize power. I hope this did not escape the DoJ.
I agree. It’s hard to say to what degree it could have been contained, but surely the Trump administration botched things at so many levels, it’s clear that had an effect.
Since the early 2000’s we’ve seen (off the top of my head) Ebola, Sars-1, Mers and covid emerge. Any of these could have been a pandemic. Until covid none were due to jumping on them immediately but there was trump in 2018 reassigning epidemiologists (he did not trust them and thought them lazy hangers on collecting checks and doing nothing) and covid emerged in 2019 any we had no one on site ready to respond and help the Chinese. trump’s bungling incompetency in 2018-2019 led to the pandemic in my humble opinion. The blood of 800,000 is on him. He has not yet paid what he owes in comeuppance (i do not mean money). My own would be to dice his flesh into tiny bits and fed to crows as he watched.
See, this is what I meant in another post about how if threatening speech laws were different, then half of the TPM commenters would be in jail.
I applaud the suggestion by the way, and you included the phrasing of “would,” which is how Trump gets away with the same thing using words like “should” for what he thinks should be done to other people. As opposed to “I’m going to dice his flesh into tiny bits and I’m going to break into Mar a Lago tomorrow to do that.” (*)
(*) Note to any Feds monitoring TPM: This was a hypothetical example and not a personal expression of intent.
Neither were mine. Simply an expression (protected by the First Amendment) of epic distaste for the putrid guy. I cannot get to where he is anyway due to my immobility and medical issues.
I did not post (out of a sense of decorum) my real thoughts of what should happen to trump. I will keep them private and certainly would not act on them.
Likewise, Happy Thanksgiving y’all! Going outside now to babysit the smoker for the turkey breast. Just me and my wife this year. We’ll play some tunes together afterwards if the tryptophan doesn’t kick in too hard or we’ve had too much wine.
