"When Institutional Left elites delivered the very somber news of an emerging pandemic, the Movement Left blazed into action to launch a corporate propaganda campaign rather than a public health effort." This is it in a nutshell.
I believe SARS-COV2 continues to be a serious health concern, one that has never been properly addressed and probably never will be under capitalism. Simple preventive measures like air filtration, KN-95 masks, nasal spray, mouthwash, and existing (non-experimental) prophylactic and treatment drugs might have reduced the death toll considerably, perhaps by 75% or more. Sadly, there's no way to know.
But even more sadly, we could reduce the number of current deaths (still around 1000 per week in the US) and long-term disabilities (hard to even estimate at this point, since so little is known about "Long COVID" and its effects) by implementing these strategies NOW. If you're reading this in the US or the UK, I am almost certain that there are many people you know personally who got COVID in the past 6 months, and probably many who are still feeling its effects to this day. Maybe you call it "summer flu" or "bad cold" or whatever the powers-that-be have convinced you to call it; but the truth is, it's still SARS-COV2, and it's not going away.
We were lied to, and we're still being lied to. The tragedy of this almost completely avoidable pandemic will not end anytime soon. Our entire world has been altered, mostly for the sake of a few rich people who saw the chance to profit from our misery. What a tragic, pathetic historical moment we're living in.
Nov 30, 2023·edited Nov 30, 2023Liked by Brook Hines
Where I disagree with your excellent work is that I think we did achieve Disaster Socialism. Any economy wide socialism was always about turning over decisions to a bureaucracy insulated from concern with profit, because the economy is simply too big and complex to be controlled by any set of elected politicians.
And this is what we have achieved. Sure, some of these bureaucrats have paycheques signed "Disney" and some are signed "USA", but at the end of the day, they are motivated by natural internal bureaucratic power seeking combined with an external motive (ESG) not related to profit.
The only way to achieve the humane vision of some old members of the Movement Left is to de-bureaucratize and decentralize the economy. Whether individual pieces of that are "owned" by small communities or individuals is not that important: either way it matches the vision of us old free-enterprise libertarians.
Where that deal got the left is best summarized by the way the Biden Administration promptly chucked the "Unity Commission" proposals drafted by Bernie Sanders's people into the trash on Inauguration Day.
One of the guidelines you linked to said the right were setting up a narrative that some people are expendable, in social Darwin style. I can tell you I saw none of that and I think it’s a bit disgusting they should say such a divisive thing. I’m Australian and I’ve traditionally always been on the Left, but during the pandemic I started resonating more with Right wing or heterodox independent media. Why? Because I have a molecular biology degree, and I knew straight up that there was no way you were going to stop the spread of a respiratory disease that was already spreading in your country. I knew lockdowns would end up hurting the poor and dispossessed more in the long run (still happening), and I knew the elderly who are near death sadly will die from whatever that year’s major respiratory virus is. Right wing media that I saw reflected that basic, sensible knowledge, they did NOT say some people are expendable. They were simply REALISTIC and considered the potential negative repercussions of the interventions and weighed that against the risk of the virus, which was actually very low for most age groups, statistically (I saw that very early in the pandemic, it was available for all to see if you looked). I was alienated by a Left who seemed terrified and wanted to control everybody in ways that seemed anxiety-driven, not evidence-based. Ultimately, the majority of harm caused by the pandemic was indeed the human response to it in western nations (it was never much of a big deal in Nigeria, my Nigerian friend tells me).
I’m only partway through this but I just want to wax lyrical on my irritation with the Institutional Left’s demonisation of Individualism. Individualism is CORE to Western values, and demonising it allowed attitudes that smacked of Totalitarianism to rear their ugly head during the pandemic. I saw this when I saw normally kind people wish death on people who were “unvaccinated” (a manipulative word in itself), with a “vaccine” that did not reduce transmission!
Valuing Individualism means the individual is protected from the majority - from mob rule, from the madness of crowds. It also means each individual has the responsibility to do his/her best to look after themselves and their community. Yes it can have negative connotations if taken to the extreme (I do believe we should have social safety nets for people who aren’t capable of looking after themselves completely), but protection of the individual from the collective is very important if we want to avoid the horrors perpetuated under Sovietism and Nazism (which got really bad as soon as all dissidents were silenced, which makes me really nervous about all the censorship getting put into law around the world).
There’s nothing progressive about the entities you mentioned and labeled so. The Socialism in this country is contained to corporate entities. That’s not a problem that is contained to the democratic party. The GOP answers to the donor class as well. Jesus you are a piece of work. And, a feces fillled skin bag.
I agree with all your conclusions. We need to fight censorship for the 1st Amendment to have meaning.
"When Institutional Left elites delivered the very somber news of an emerging pandemic, the Movement Left blazed into action to launch a corporate propaganda campaign rather than a public health effort." This is it in a nutshell.
I believe SARS-COV2 continues to be a serious health concern, one that has never been properly addressed and probably never will be under capitalism. Simple preventive measures like air filtration, KN-95 masks, nasal spray, mouthwash, and existing (non-experimental) prophylactic and treatment drugs might have reduced the death toll considerably, perhaps by 75% or more. Sadly, there's no way to know.
But even more sadly, we could reduce the number of current deaths (still around 1000 per week in the US) and long-term disabilities (hard to even estimate at this point, since so little is known about "Long COVID" and its effects) by implementing these strategies NOW. If you're reading this in the US or the UK, I am almost certain that there are many people you know personally who got COVID in the past 6 months, and probably many who are still feeling its effects to this day. Maybe you call it "summer flu" or "bad cold" or whatever the powers-that-be have convinced you to call it; but the truth is, it's still SARS-COV2, and it's not going away.
We were lied to, and we're still being lied to. The tragedy of this almost completely avoidable pandemic will not end anytime soon. Our entire world has been altered, mostly for the sake of a few rich people who saw the chance to profit from our misery. What a tragic, pathetic historical moment we're living in.
Where I disagree with your excellent work is that I think we did achieve Disaster Socialism. Any economy wide socialism was always about turning over decisions to a bureaucracy insulated from concern with profit, because the economy is simply too big and complex to be controlled by any set of elected politicians.
And this is what we have achieved. Sure, some of these bureaucrats have paycheques signed "Disney" and some are signed "USA", but at the end of the day, they are motivated by natural internal bureaucratic power seeking combined with an external motive (ESG) not related to profit.
The only way to achieve the humane vision of some old members of the Movement Left is to de-bureaucratize and decentralize the economy. Whether individual pieces of that are "owned" by small communities or individuals is not that important: either way it matches the vision of us old free-enterprise libertarians.
Where that deal got the left is best summarized by the way the Biden Administration promptly chucked the "Unity Commission" proposals drafted by Bernie Sanders's people into the trash on Inauguration Day.
One of the guidelines you linked to said the right were setting up a narrative that some people are expendable, in social Darwin style. I can tell you I saw none of that and I think it’s a bit disgusting they should say such a divisive thing. I’m Australian and I’ve traditionally always been on the Left, but during the pandemic I started resonating more with Right wing or heterodox independent media. Why? Because I have a molecular biology degree, and I knew straight up that there was no way you were going to stop the spread of a respiratory disease that was already spreading in your country. I knew lockdowns would end up hurting the poor and dispossessed more in the long run (still happening), and I knew the elderly who are near death sadly will die from whatever that year’s major respiratory virus is. Right wing media that I saw reflected that basic, sensible knowledge, they did NOT say some people are expendable. They were simply REALISTIC and considered the potential negative repercussions of the interventions and weighed that against the risk of the virus, which was actually very low for most age groups, statistically (I saw that very early in the pandemic, it was available for all to see if you looked). I was alienated by a Left who seemed terrified and wanted to control everybody in ways that seemed anxiety-driven, not evidence-based. Ultimately, the majority of harm caused by the pandemic was indeed the human response to it in western nations (it was never much of a big deal in Nigeria, my Nigerian friend tells me).
I’m only partway through this but I just want to wax lyrical on my irritation with the Institutional Left’s demonisation of Individualism. Individualism is CORE to Western values, and demonising it allowed attitudes that smacked of Totalitarianism to rear their ugly head during the pandemic. I saw this when I saw normally kind people wish death on people who were “unvaccinated” (a manipulative word in itself), with a “vaccine” that did not reduce transmission!
Valuing Individualism means the individual is protected from the majority - from mob rule, from the madness of crowds. It also means each individual has the responsibility to do his/her best to look after themselves and their community. Yes it can have negative connotations if taken to the extreme (I do believe we should have social safety nets for people who aren’t capable of looking after themselves completely), but protection of the individual from the collective is very important if we want to avoid the horrors perpetuated under Sovietism and Nazism (which got really bad as soon as all dissidents were silenced, which makes me really nervous about all the censorship getting put into law around the world).
There’s nothing progressive about the entities you mentioned and labeled so. The Socialism in this country is contained to corporate entities. That’s not a problem that is contained to the democratic party. The GOP answers to the donor class as well. Jesus you are a piece of work. And, a feces fillled skin bag.
"This scam wouldn’t have worked with the politicization of public health"
Do you mean that "This scam wouldn’t have worked WITHOUT the politicization of public health"...?