A train wreck
Watching it all unfold in real time - it's a train wreck. Senators being busted having dumped their stocks before the market crash - using their foreknowledge of the Pandemic to warn friends to bunker down, sell off shares, invest in medical stocks...shitty celebrities singing "Imagine", when all everyone ever did was imagine they could be as rich and successful as them so they could self-quarantine without fear of poverty, food, rent or reprisals, and throughout it all the US - and UK's - fundamental inability to focus on the real issues that will end up destroying them.
There's the Fucked up Corona Virus tests: https://www.businessinsider.com/early-coronavirus-cdc-tests-distinguish-covid-water-2020-3
the bailouts for bankers and markets, (and for the senators that didn't get the "sell" notice), the spring-breakers and full London Pubs, and watching the news, the numbers climbing hourly - as of yesterday, 1000 new cases diagnosed per hour, today - ? Who knows. A lot of countries have stopped reporting - the US, UK, Russia amongst them - Russia's crackdown on "Fake News" related to the Corona-Virus, it's apparent - just watching the news - that a lot of countries have simply given up.
And America's optimism - Wow - every intelligent article that says "just do the right thing and you'll be fine" undermined by every living citizen. It's too late anyways - look at the numbers in Italy - a 1% mortality rate can quickly climb to 10% when the healthcare system gets overwhelmed. 10% of the US population isn't looking like such a far fetched scenario right now. About right now all they can do is wait and gather their dead, pile them up in front of the White House so their elected officials can see the tangible results of their inability to take real decisive action. Then - why bother, it's increasingly apparent they don't care...
It would be nice to imagine a positive outcome, a regime change in the US and abroad, but, far too early to say, and the virus so far isn't selecting for the poor.
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12 Monkeys
In full Apocalypse mode, watching the trailer and select scene from the old Dustin Hoffman film "Outbreak". Which was overall a pretty bad movie, but what's curious is how every character has their own agenda, plan, scheme...
As the reality unfolds we discover how optomistic - literally - those predictions were - even for the Villains.
And, after that "12 Monkeys" - which is grotesquely brilliant, Brad Pitt - Bruce Willis - both well outside their typecast roles, and both turning in amazingly relevant performances. Still a 5 star movie, and it hasn't aged badly, not a bit...
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It's a Class War
It's about so much more than a pandemic, it's become a fully blown class war where every celebrity who was isolated anyways gets tested, and everyone else is told to ride it out. What about Jeff Bezos and Whole Foods - suggesting that his employees pool their unused sick days for the benefit of employees that are sick? Link: https://www.rawstory.com/2020/03/grotesque-level-of-greed-jeff-bezos-whole-foods-wants-workers-to-pay-colleagues-sick-leave-during-coronavirus/
Or the uplifting story about the Italian who 3D printed respirator valves - only to be shut down by threats of a lawsuit: https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20200317/04381644114/volunteers-3d-print-unobtainable-11000-valve-1-to-keep-covid-19-patients-alive-original-manufacturer-threatens-to-sue.shtml. There should be no threat of lawsuit here, unless it's against the country for withholding aid in time of National Crisis. But companies have more rights than people.
There is absolutely no good news in the world at the moment. And, cap that with Bernie's out of the race, Trump has won the GOP nomination, we're now living next to the biggest trailer park (soon to be necropolis) in the world.
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