DL Open Thread Monday Jan 30 2022 – Two Year Anniversary of the First Mention of “coronavirus” on DL
On this date in 2020, Alby mentioned the early flight cancelations to/from China in an open thread. He also predicted super-spreader parties by the GOP’s brainiac vaccine deniers. At the time he probably thought he was being outlandishly satirical.
I had a niece working in China for most of 2019. She came home for Christmas that year and around New Years Eve, I remember saying, “I don’t know if you’ll be going back to China.” Being young, she wasn’t concerned and felt sure she was going back to China.
February was a blur for me, as my Mom died on the 8th (non-covid). I flew back and forth to Florida a couple of times. Nobody wore masks then. We were still a month away from the dumb fucking nitwit President saying that he wanted to keep cruise passengers on a cruise ship because it would “look bad” if coronavirus numbers went up.
By the Spring of 2020 dead bodies were being stored in refrigerated trucks parked outside of hospitals in New York, but in Delaware we had a spirit of solidarity around managing our exposure. Republican assholes hadn’t galvanized their opposition to science yet. As a country, we had survived the toilet paper shortages and were getting used to just sticking around the house. ‘Tiger King’ was released on Netflix on March 20, 2020 and quickly became a national obsession.
Seven days later, on March 27th, Trump signed the $2.2 trillion economic stimulus act which included the “Paycheck Protection Program” which made loans to businesses that were fully forgivable provided the borrowing business kept payrolls and head counts at February 2021 levels. Also, bars and restaurants were allowed to put tables and chairs outside. That was nice.
Then summer and then fall, and our college age son decided that zoom classes weren’t for him, so he looked in to taking a year off, and his program allowed him to take the year as long as he did some independent study. He is good company. We enjoyed having back home for that year. But I felt terrible (and continue to feel terrible) for people with school age children. What a pain in the ass the past two years have been for them.
Then there was a bright spot. Biden/Harris beat Trump in the election and Dems picked up some house and senate seats. I thought Biden was going to be good at being President. So did he, apparently. Who could have predicted the Republicans would make his failure their key (and only, to be honest) goal? Other than everyone, who could possibly have predicted that? They wrong footed him from the outset by not allowing a normal transition. They blocked him from filling key agency leadership posts – even ones related to fighting the pandemic. Then 2021 became 2022 and Trump illegally tried to stay in power. He is still is walking around free as a bird.
That was 2021. A shitty year.
Unless your niece is actively subverting the Chinese state, she has no legitimate business over there
The early messaging around the virus was botched. Calling it a bio weapon from the start would have created the public solidarity in the US (and the west as a whole) needed to crush the virus in the first year. The daily briefings created more confusion than answers. Early messaging implied that vaccines would mean a free pass back to normal for the vaccinated, which has been demonstrably untrue. The government is passing out free tests but they are not accepted for most travel or by employers for return-to-work. The right wing had to exert little to no effort with their disinformation given these circumstances
“The right wing had to exert little to no effort with their disinformation given these circumstances”
All good lies contain a grain of truth.
You’ve never met anyone who worked in China? You don’t get out much, do you?
If by “get out much” you mean consort with the ultra-privileged, then the answer is no. There is very little international work that an American can do in China that isn’t within the realm of the privileged class. Your own expat privilege has blinded you to those distinctions.
I’ve known people who visited and worked in China for corporations and the government for more than 30 years now. Does “having a job” now make one part of the “privileged class”? Maybe by “get out more” I meant “go to college.”
“Expat privilege”? You’re never met any poor expats either, eh? You really should get out more. Perhaps your high horse is keeping you out of places?
Yeah those people weren’t plumbers or grocery clerks. Show me a kid from the east side in town who decided he wanted to be an Expat in france.
Why? Take that woke shit somewhere it will play.
Kids from the East Side of town. Like you like there, you jive-ass phony. The poor expats I know come from the east side of Delhi.
I know a number of people who are very much from lower- and lower-middle-class backgrounds who have ended up working in various places in southeast Asia as English language teachers. The pay is just as lousy as it is for teachers over here, and sometimes worse; generally they do it for the experience of living and working abroad.
She now works in South Korea teaching English and is very not rich.
Is the Claymont guy a reactionary sinophobe?
Yes if the vaxx were more widely administered and rates were higher faster we could have outrun the variant. But it didn’t happen.
Framing this as a lie to begin with is dumb dumb stuff. It’s like blaming the weatherman if it rains when no rain was forecast. It’s nature, dude, not a conspiracy.
^This
2020 was my worst year as of yet, my wife of 39 years passed after 9 years of dementia. The original band I played with and loved for ten years went out of existence and live music in general had several more nails driven into it’s coffin. As for the virus as noted Delaware came together in admirable fashion. Trump being free is due to political cowardice, aided by the “centrists” and their “good Friends” in the Republican party, perhaps worst of all is that the Republicans came out of the Fascist closet. I actually miss the old “conservatives”, what replaced them is a monster squad indeed.
Is there anything implicitly wrong with being a reactionary sinophobe?
Rob, as a Marxist you must believe that much of the day-to-day lives of Americans are built on the lies of capitalism that have clearly been accepted for the last 200 or so years. What’s one more lie when the outcome is a net positive for American society?
Frankly I think it’s racist to believe that this virus arose from the “filthy eating habits of a backward people”. The virus arose naturally, was isolated by Chinese scientists who have a habit of playing with fire, and was inadvertently released. The CCP failed to pull the fire alarm in time, and the world has been upended as a result. Calling it a bioweapon is not too big of a jump, seeing as how the situation was weaponized bytheCCP after the fact
“The virus arose naturally, was isolated by Chinese scientists who have a habit of playing with fire, and was inadvertently released. ”
Sure. Because you know. Don’t be such an asshole and you’ll last longer here.
Provide a more reasonable explanation. Anyone can take pot shots.
Anyone can make guesses. It’s a possible explanation, but you didn’t present it that way.
Dial down the arrogance or find another audience.
There’s been an interesting pattern on twitter of Jess Scarane and her husband and some of the left-of-the-left progressives in the state totally trashing Sarah McBride and her paid leave bill. What gives? She’s not progressive enough?
Sounds more like concern trolling/TERFs to me. Has anyone validated the “left of the left”
Come on dude jfc. Are you getting enough sleep? Do you feel dizzy?
I checked Jess Scarane’s Twitter. Didn’t see any attack on the leave bill.
Sarah decided to make the paid leave bill a top priority so she made the necessary compromises. Even got our dunderhead governor to mention it in the state of the state.
Deb H who’s facing a primary challenge has latched onto this pending (compromise) victory like grim death. Gets her picture with Sarah etc.
So last week on Twitter Sarah had to call out Nicole Poore for her support. Just empty political rhetoric. Blah blah….
Poore once called Bill Martin a “faggot” so he pointed out this dumb pioitical game everyone is playing. And how it’s very weird.
Sarah is a progressive. Bill and I are Marxists. So yes we’re left of her. If you want to say I think she isn’t “good enough” or “left enough” you’re correct. I don’t.
That’s it. That’s the story. Is that “totally trashing?” No it isn’t.
Also, the idea of pretending COVID is a CCP bioweapon to get buy in from the rubes about popular cooperation is one of the stupidest things I’ve seen today.
Well done, everyone. A new low.
It’s been a long 24 months.
FWIW – I read it as what’s left of the left. Also true.
Claymonster – I would think there are kids on the east side of Wilmington who might aspire to live in France if they knew the possibilities. The story of James Baldwin or Dexter Gordon might inspire them.
“Sarah decided to make the paid leave bill a top priority so she made the necessary compromises. ”
I can’t help thinking grumpily – The new family leave bill will be celebrated by soccer moms deciding now they can have that third child, and upgrade the biannual Disney trip to the Gold package. I guess that is the core constituency.
It’s too soon now, but at some point the celebration needs to end and the conversation needs to shift to closing the gaps left by those compromises.
Don’t get me wrong, I am (guardedly) in favor of the new family leave, but it is a terrible framework for progressive action.
There is no end to the benefits workers can win, so long as they pay for the benefits themselves and exclude the most vulnerable. So – golf clap. A few more such victories and we shall be undone.
I realize now why the Chamber didn’t loudly attack the .04% employer contribution as a new tax (which it is). It’s not going to cost employers anything, because in the long run they will just reduce wages by that amount.
Agree with puck. It’s a win. A very narrow win. A political maneuver really.