I want to add some reflections I forgot to include in yesterday's post about Juan Cole's article of how US-Americans acquiesce to their abuse (and even killing in the case of COVID-19, the for-profit healthcare system in general, and [consequence free] police brutality).
What I want to add is that this happens because many US-Americans either deny their abuse is happening or they support it in some way or other. I know that both Cole and myself implicitly stated this, with talk of "brainwashing" and cultural rot. But I want to discuss this explicitly.
I just got unfriend on Zookerbook by a family acquaintance who turned out to be one of those proudly delusional anti-maskers. One of those shit-heads who sincerely believes that the pandemic is a hoax and that following government instructions to wear a mask during a pandemic viral outbreak is a sign of slave-like subservience to state diktat. When asked to explain his opinions in the form of serious answers to serious questions, Mr. Freedom Fighter was only capable of replying with cartoon non-sequitur memes. I said I would then ignore his constant all-caps postings and was summarily "un-friended."
Let's be clear: So many US-Americans (and increasing numbers of Canadians as well as other yahoos in other parts of the globe for rising infections and fatalities in their own countries) are fine with 5 million (and growing) infections and 150,000 deaths (forecasted to rise to 300,000 and more before the year is out) because they simply don't believe that it's happening. China (together with their nefarious minions in the World Health Organization) made a deadly virus and caused an international pandemic to make Trump look bad. Happily though, the virus doesn't really kill anyone. Because it's a liberal hoax. Those overwhelmed emergency rooms and patients and healthcare workers are all "crisis actors." People are dying of other things and it's being blamed on COVID-19. People die all the time anyway. So it stands to reason that the party and its supporters that were shrieking about Obama's "death panels" cutting off care for elderly patients to more speedily process them into Soylent Green are now vocally indifferent about old people dying in order to "save" the economy from a pandemic (that isn't really hurting anyone).
[I've noted several times on this blog that trying to keep up with right-wing contradictions in thinking soon makes a sane/non-stupid person's head spin. Although, to be fair, they say the same things about us. To whit: "Why do you mock us for holding mass rallies without facial masks calling the pandemic a hoax and demanding our right to shop, when you guys hold mass rallies, often without facial masks, to protest the continuing murder of unarmed Black people by unaccountable cops?!?]
I also want to stop and take not of this article from the USA's National Public Radio about international comparisons of per capita COVID-19 deaths and deaths by case count. With two helpful charts we see that the USA is 8th worst in the world in per capita deaths from the virus behind Belgium and the UK, as well as Sweden (among others). I don't know what Belgium's story is (besides having an average population age 3-years older than the USA's) but the UK's Boris Johnson had first pursued the idea of "herd immunity" which was to let the pandemic rage through the population, kill off a few (eventually this would have included himself but for the timely exertions of the National Health Service) while everyone else developed natural defenses. Sweden too was briefly famous for its "experiment" of pursuing business as usual until its hospitals became overburdened and death rates soared.
As far as case counts of people with the virus dying of the virus, we see that for all the valid criticisms of the USA's evil for-profit healthcare system, the US death rate isn't even in the Top-Ten. It's at 24th place. The worst in the world is the UK, followed by other countries with public healthcare systems including Sweden, which did slightly better here than did Canada, which has a death rate of 7.5% compared to the USA's 3.3%. (Average population age is probably more relevant here, with countries like Italy - another Top-Ten nation, having a more elderly population that the USA.)
Remember though, this virus is a Chinese hoax that was invented to make Trump look bad by not killing anyone.
One important caveat is the under-reporting of COVID-19 infections and deaths. The virus appears to have spread the fastest in the USA and Europe. But around the globe, there are inconsistencies between testing rates and accurate infection counts. Here's a nice little blog post from someone back in April on the topic. But with regards to the USA, where testing is understood by experts to be woefully inadequate, what are the odds that people without health insurance aren't going to the hospital, and dying at home from "flu-related symptoms" or heart attacks (one of the ways that COVID patients die in hospitals) and that these aren't being factored in?
But the topic of this post is the USA's population that actively, positively supports its own abuse. (Because they deny that the abuse is happening or because the abuse is happening to people that they don't like.)
All of the above was dedicated to conveying that COVID-19 is definitely real. That it is ridiculous to say it's a hoax. It's ridiculous to say it was created for the express purpose of making Trump look bad. It's real. It has killed many people worldwide and it will kill many more unless it is contained.
But Trump fans reject all this. Just as they reject the moon landings. Just as they reject global warming. Just as they reject the holes in the ozone. Just as they reject commonsense proposals for gun control. Just as they reject the idea that systemic racism exists. Just as they reject the idea that their police forces are dominated by out-of-control racist goons.
Let's be clear: If COVID-19 had appeared under Hillary Clinton the shrieking and calling for her head would have been deafening. Even though she'd probably have implemented sensible measures halfway between what Trump has allowed and what the Trudeau Liberals have done and therefore made US casualties 1/2 what they have been under Trump. (Of course, it's possible we'd have all been fried in a nuclear war by this point if she'd won and got her war with nuclear-armed Russia.)
What I'm saying is that the idea that right-wing chumps are behaving as supine sheep in their lives. Many of them still maintain that they're "rugged individualists" when they stupidly reject social welfare programs that would provide them with defenses against the oligarchy. At the same time they believe that they are under threat from "elites" who tax them, large corporations that are run out of New York City or even foreign countries, and "sub-human" swarthy races and/or lazy degenerates of any skin colour. THEY will play fair and play by the rules. But evil "others" have gamed the system, both above them and below them in the social ladder, and so they vote for parties that will simultaneously "get the government off their backs" and provide "tough love" to the dregs of society.
Of course they're deluded. And the end result is the same as it was in Juan Cole's original article. I just wanted to clarify my own thoughts on the matter.
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