TheBanyanTree: Wherein Peter goes shopping (peter macinnis)

[tobie at shpilchas.net]

	Interesting about that attitude.  I’m in Berkeley, so what with our hotbed of radicalism here, we’re not hearing a lot of that shit.  My great Aunt graduated from UCBerkeley in 1919 and said that as far back as she could remember Berkeley was always considered to be the place where revolutionaries and social provocateurs congregated to do their roiling.

	What interests me is that the wearing of the mask is more like keeping a victory garden during WWII, or the slogan on the posters, "Loose Lips Sink Ships". (no I wasn’t there. My mother was and she talks).  You didn’t see a lot of people running around swearing to holler state secrets at the top of their lungs from the roof of every building because their freedoms were being curtailed.  Perhaps framing the mask in terms of patriotism would rally the reactionary troops.

	On the other hand, why am I thinking of logic?  What an idjit.  Logic has nothing to do with it. It’s frightening how people can be manipulated, reason twisted, hysteria injected so easily into the citizenry. When truth and lies are confused, jumbled together until it’s an amalgamated bolus of suspended disbelief, people are subject to the most irrational suggestions.  And then there’s the problem with trying to talk sense to nonsense.

	There are anti-vaxers: the folks who refuse to have their children immunized against serious diseases that used to be the major threat to a child's survival. The purported reason (or one of them) was that vaccinations cause autism. Well then….being the mother of twins: one with autism the other not, I’ve got some experience and research to back my scoffing at that nonsense. Dozens, no, far more than dozens, of rigorously controlled experiments have proven that there is absolutely no connection between vaccinations and autism. But here’s the interesting dynamic: If someone is set on the falsehood (or on any bizarre whacked conspiracy theory) the more evidence you present to the contrary, the more entrenched their belief. 

	So what do we do with these, "I refuse to wear a mask," covidiots? They endanger the rest of us. They are relying on the herd to protect them while they threaten the herd with their behavior. The same applies to unvaccinated children whose parents insist that they be admitted to public schools on the grounds that their liberties should not be curtailed. It comes down to some basic questions about the function of society and what powers should be vested in it. 

	And then there’s the government …………………… oh lord.  In the US, we’z got the grand orange unmasked marauder spewing at the helm.

We’ve been sheltering extremely in place since very early March. Somebody tell me, are there still oceans? clouds? Is physical law still working? If I drop something outside of our shelter, will it be guaranteed to fall as per gravity? 

Shuddering in place,


Tobie





> On Aug 8, 2020, at 8:34 AM, trsmith44 trsmith44 <trsmith44 at cox.net> wrote:
> 
> We are dealing with covidiots here too. A surprising number perceive
> wearing a mask as an infringement on their civil rights. One prominent
> local conservative media personality actually said “Wearing a mask is
> a sign of submission. I would rather die from the Wuhan Coronavirus,
> than EVER submit..” 
> 
> Our local grocery stores have guards at the entrance and nobody
> without a mask gets in. Still, there are a few inside with masks not
> covering nose or mouth, including employees. You can be dismissive
> of their numbers, but less than a year ago this all started with one
> virus.
> 
> 
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Sometimes, being a person of principle is a pain in the ass.    THS  2016




Tobie Shapiro
mailto:tobie at shpilchas.net <mailto:tobie at shpilchas.net>