This Thanksgiving holiday, we "celebrate" America's departure from reality

[marmar]

This Thanksgiving holiday, we "celebrate" America's departure from reality
Donald Trump's delusions and conspiracy theories are only one aspect of a distinctive American bias against reality

By DAVID MASCIOTRA
NOVEMBER 26, 2020 11:00AM


(Salon) On this holiday, millions of Americans are gathering around a homemade feast of comfort food, basking in the warmth of familial love and giving each other a potentially life-threatening virus. One week ago, Erin Burnett asked during the lead segment of her nightly talk show on CNN, "The CDC is warning Americans not to travel or gather in large groups for Thanksgiving. Will they listen?"

Any fool could have answered the question: No. Millions of travelers have moved through the airports to greet their loved ones, perhaps with gestures of physical affection, all but coughing in each other's faces. One cannot help but wonder how many families will share napkins as they debate the efficacy of masks as protection against COVID-19.

A pandemic is dangerous, frightening and chaotic enough in the best circumstances. Throw in a population given to superstition, hatred of experts as diabolical elites and hostility toward science, and reasons to give thanks — other than the ability to breathe without the aid of a ventilator — will rapidly diminish.

....(snip)....

Yet a baffling and terrifying amount of Americans act as if the virus is not real, or at least does not present a threat to them and their loved ones. A nurse in South Dakota, Jodi Doering, has told the surreal horror story of patients denying that COVID-19 exists, up until the moment that they die from it.

While I cannot report anything so extreme, I can say that I've had conversations with several people — all of them college-educated professionals — who repeat the following claims as if they are self-evident: 1) COVID death numbers are significantly inflated, because hospitals make more money from treating those patients; 2) China created the coronavirus in a lab as a biological weapon (this is one particularly incoherent, because even if true it would not negate the danger of the virus); 3) only the elderly die from COVID so we don't have to worry about it (if this were true, it would make adherents to that belief sociopathic, not reasonable); 4) the only way to beat back the pandemic is through herd immunity. ..............(more)

https://www.salon.com/2020/11/26/this-thanksgiving-holiday-we-celebrate-americas-departure-from-reality/

[tulipsandroses]

1. You know what is so vile about "Covid numbers are inflated because hospitals make more money"

Its the fact that the people that are admitting and treating Covid patients are staff. They don't own the hospitals. Yes, healthcare is a business, often run by corporations. The doctors, nurses, respiratory therapists, nursing assistants and all the people on the front lines are not lining their pockets with cash. There is no incentive for them to name something that its not. They are not the corporate owners.
I've had this discussion with a jackass that believes that Covid numbers are being inflated. People are going for one thing and being diagnosed with Covid 19 to inflate the numbers. You mean to tell me that you believe that nurses, doctors and respiratory therapists are basically committing crimes. Not only fraud, but assault and battery, intubating patients, and intentionally giving them medications and treatments they know they don't need.
Whenever you wonder how atrocities in history ever happened, just look around at the people making these idiotic statements.

[rickyhall]

2. Could be a good thing from an evolutionary point of view.

[hydrolastic]

3. What i am witnessing is minority rule and terrorism

I know it sounds extreme to describe it this way but in my shop 2 or 3 out of 10 remove the mask at every opportuninty another 3 wear the mask continually with nose out. The rest including the lead remove or pull away the mask to speak. I work elbow to elbow with these guys and its maddening. The day Biden announced his cabinet last week a guy (at break) went off for 15 minutes with all the talking points we all are familiar with. i could not get a word in edgewise. What this really is, Is a form of terrorism through misinformation and minority rule. 100th post