Monday Madness 008: 2 months

 2 months. Two months. II months. Two fucking months! We didn't need a vaccine. We needed 2 months. 2 months of EVERYONE staying in, wearing masks, washing hands, doing what the science says. 2 months of not providing the virus with a means of transmission and it would have died out. It was that simple. That short an amount of time. That many lives saved. Be good, be compassionate, do the right thing for only 8 weeks. 60 days. 1,440 hours. 86,400 minutes. 5,184,000 seconds. America couldn't do that. 

We are at almost the 1 year mark for this pandemic. The deaths have become like reporting the temperature. What's yesterday's number? How many more infected? A numbness sets in because really, how many days in a row can your soul handle the reality of those totals? Your mind steps in to try and preserve you. Adapts to the situation on a survival level. But periodically things come up, reminding you, snapping you out of the monotony and repetition your brain has created to buffer you from it. A funeral you are all unable to attend when a family needs your support. Remotely trying to connect, but unable to be there in person as a friend is in need. Dropping a loved one at the ER and not being able to join them, help them, comfort them in the hospital. 

Asking people to not destroy our own (and only) environment was too overwhelming a task for them, but it would have prevented this pandemic. Focusing on smaller, seemingly more attainable goals resulted in asking simply to stop murdering animals as a food source still remained too large a sacrifice, but it would have prevented this pandemic (end every other pandemic - past and future). Breaking it down to an easier, bite size ask of staying home, wearing a mask, and washing your hands for 2 months was more than the selfish nature of humans could abide. At every turn, the very core of homo sapiens has defied its own best interest. 

So a tiny, miniscule group of people are tasked with using all their combined intelligence against overwhelming odds to develop a means of protecting the rest of the population from itself. AND THEY DID IT! They created successful vaccines to combat this pandemic. But even now, they are forced to rely on others to get it distributed. Others to administer it. And ultimately they need to rely on EVERYONE to do the absolute simplest thing you can be expected to do and just show up when it's your turn to get poked. Already there are indications that even that is too much to ask of some. 

i was angry when i started this, then i became so... so... so deeply saddened, but i end feeling the anger which began this writing. All the death, all the suffering, all the struggle - all because at every opportunity the selfishness of the human race outnumbered both kindness and logic. If we cannot get 2 good months out of our civilization, what can we really expect from it at all?

Monday Madness 007: some of those that work forces

 2021 days without incident: 0. One night walking out of a bar with 2 friends back in my college days a guy aggressively came up to us asking for money. "Sorry, we have none" we replied in our extremely chemically altered state. We were all poor college students and spent whatever loose change we had scrounged up in said bar. Then in slow motion we all leaned in to watch him reach down to his ankle for a weapon. As he pulled out his knife nothing really changed. We didn't suddenly have money in our pockets. We weren't suddenly sober enough to either jump him or run away. Between the 4 of us in this situation, that knife was likely the object with the most monetary value of all the possessions between us and yet it had zero value in getting any of us what we needed at that moment. 2 of the knife dude's buddies came sprinting by and yelled "come on, we got to get out of here!"

i have had so many different thoughts in the days since Comrade Pussy Grabber's Fascist Army of the Idiotic stormed America's Capital. Today, my thoughts keep circling back to that surreal incident in college. America knew this was going to happen. The move was telegraphed. But like my inebriated friends and i, all anyone did was lean in to watch. 45 and his cohort have been calling on their easily mislead cult of caucasians to storm Washington for years now (stand back and stand by), building up the rhetoric to new heights since his political loss. How many conversations have each of us had prophesizing how the Orange Chode was most definitely going to try and hold on to office even if he lost the election and how he would call on his racist army of followers to violently converge on DC? The very people planning those actions where having the conversations out in the open of social media. This was not a spark that suddenly burst into flame catching us off guard, this was a slow motion glacier floating towards our ship over a 4 year period. 

More so, how can you be surprised when the fucking shit was scheduled and the paperwork was all turned in!!! When i participated in the March For Science down in that exact same area, early in this anti-thought administration's term, there were police and military EVERYWHERE! They were taking away all sticks, post, and anything we were using to hold up signs claiming these objects could be used as weapons. People who rode their bikes down had their helmets confiscated for safety concerns. Security forces were ever-present, aggressive, and going through every single one of our bags before we could even enter the area. We were scientists! Billy Nye was our big speaker and music performances were jazz by Jon Batiste and ?uestlove. AND WE WERE CONFRONTED AND CONTAINED BY A MILITERIZZED FORCE. 

Meanwhile, this week a group meets with overtly violent rhetoric, has the current president speak lies to the multitude and calls them to action. Within the crowd many walk unencumbered as they wave flags affixed to large poles, clubs, and bats. All carrying backpacks. Many wearing helmets. Where was the militarized security forces us scientists experienced? Let's rewind, not as far back as the March for Science, but only to this summer's events. Black Lives Matter protests in that same area had even more of a militarized presence than the scientists did. Riot shields, batons, tear gas, bean bags and rubber bullets all were used freely and aggressively on peaceful protesters. America's forces didn't lose the keys to their weapon closets. They didn't forget how to deal with crowds. This is how they were formed to function. 

Minority officers on hand have come forward to inform how members of the fascist capital attackers were flashing their badges and military ID's unabashedly to try and gain favor in going wherever they wanted to do whatever they wanted. Video after video shows the terrorists taking selfies with white police officers. Videos show white officers moving the barricades out of the way to help the terrorists gain better access. Officers were giving terrorists directions to key Democrat Congressional Offices. The institutional racism deeply imbedded within our police forces and within our military are not hidden in any way. They are instead paraded around and flaunted. The terrorists that stormed the capital where gently guided out, helped down the stairs, and led away. Juxtapose that to peaceful BLM protesters sitting in the street being beaten and thrown into the back of police vehicles. The millennials of our country are not the entitled ones, it is the white racists who have been the institutionally entitled class since the very birth of America. 

My biggest fear is not that they will try something like this again, because they most certainly will - white supremists are the most significant and active terrorist threat in America. My fear is that an intellectually inebriated America will ultimately continue to do nothings, like a couple of beyond drunk college kids getting mugged. i already see it in statements by politicians, by members of the press, and by friends saying things like "this is not what America is". This is EXACTLY what America is. A failure of acknowledging what actually goes on in this country has resulted in a delusion that allows this behavior to continue largely unchallenged. "We must all come together as one" is another bullshit talking point for those with privilege. Uniting with evil doesn't make it go away, it empowers it in knowing that its actions will go ultimately unpunished. There is no common ground with racism. There is no common ground with fascism. These are not opinions worthy of your respect, these are ideals that are to be forcefully opposed in every setting and in every incarnation.  

The worst thing we can do is NOTHING. These shitgibbons videoed everything: track them down, identify them, hold them accountable. 45 NEEDS to be impeached for his actions instigating these events. Take away his lifetime of Secret Service protection, take away his lifetime paycheck and travel expense budget. It doesn't matter how many days he has left in office, he has a lifetime of benefits that America should not be supplying for him. Defund the police and shift funding to the actual social services needed for most of the calls that go into 911. Defund the military, a fraction of the overinflated budget could be used to change how America operates. Single digit percentages of the military budget diverted could provide college for all. Similar amounts could provide healthcare for all. $800 billion dollars for national security didn't stop the Chode Commandos from taking over the capital. Time to start putting some of that money to use building a better world for everyone.

Life is not a spectator's event. Get in it. You never know what's tucked in that dude's sock. 

Monday Madness 006: Competitive Stupidity

 It would appear that Great Britain and the United States of America are having a competition for the World Championship of Stupidity. This is off-brand for "World Championships" as they usually only involve Americans challenging other Americans (and occasionally a few Canadians) for the "World" but not really world championship. But this time, the competition is indeed global. Although all nations are eligible, America and Britain have really run away with it and there really are no other true contenders. 

We are in the midst of a pandemic, in case you were lucky enough to forget for a moment. Citizens of both the USA and the UK are struggling with balancing their toxic nationalism and their personal greed. It has left me stuck humming that shitty Meatloaf song: I would do anything for love... but I won't do that. Yes, two nations believing themselves exceptional, regularly chanting about the incredible sacrifices made for their historical "greatness" and a willingness to do ANYTHING to maintain that status... unless it involves wearing a mask and staying home. That is an ask too far. 

Both nations are indeed exceptional - no other nations have done more over their existence to destabilize and damage the rest of the world. Like 7 degrees of Kevin Bacon, within about 2 degrees you can tie most any world issue back to one of these two geographies of greed. 2020, however, has shown us that America and Britain are also highly skilled at self destruction. Both nations have handled this pandemic extremely poorly, in no small part thanks to the inept leadership each had selected. These national governments are so epically botching addressing Covid-19 that BOTH the president and the prime minister CAUGHT THE DISEASE! Yes, neither nation could successfully prevent the leader of their country from exposure. That's like scoring a zero because you even forgot to write your fucking name on the test. 

Almost a year of "open for business", mass gatherings, the politicizing of masks and anything else even remotely science based, it is a surprise to no one with more than 2 braincells in their skull that cases and death totals are out of control at an unparalleled level. People who still have "never forget 9/11" stickers on their truck have already forgotten that more people died in a single record day of Covid and headed out to their Christmas gatherings... maybe to ensure that we reach new levels of spreading over the next few weeks?

Just like in high school (because things never really change, you only get older) the geeks had to do all the work for the project. Somehow, doing what normally takes ten or more years, science nerds came up with a vaccine in less than a year!!! So far at least 2 separate groups of lab junkies have come up with approved options! INCREDIBLE! But wait... the power of stupid is strong.

At just around a month into the vaccination process the US and the UK are upping their game to do everything they can to fuck it all up. Continued social gatherings and selfish actions are leading to the mutation of the virus. The race is on to get enough people vaccinated before a strain develops that the vaccine will not protect from. Now that should seem easy, simply do what we all know we are supposed to do, what most every other country is doing. Yet Americans and Britons are hell bent on proving their World Champion level of self-centered, my-mother-drank-until-the-day-I-was-born ignorance! The gatherings only get bigger. The economy keep getting more "open". It doesn't matter if every other country in the world does what they need to and gets everyone vaccinated, if strains develop that are too variant for the vaccine it will eventually spread just as the current virus has across the world. 

AND NOW: only days into the new year the muthafuckin UK is talking about prioritizing everyone getting the first dose of the vaccine rather than getting people the second dose at the recommended time interval! WHAT THE MUTHA FUCK?!?! That's not how it fucking works!!! Great... so i guess they've really planned out how to make sure the pandemic never ends. i guess America: you're up. What can you do to top that shit?

Listen to the fucking science. Stop fucking socially gathering. Wear a fucking mask. Wash your fucking hands.