This And That: Coronavirus

On January 25 I posted comments on the Wuhan virus and mocked the Chinese for their wet markets, but we must give credit where credit is due: the Chinese have rather remarkably and in relatively short order shut down the virus, while many of the Late Stage Capitalist states have struggled, to put it charitably.  For example, the Chinese built temporary hospitals to accommodate the surge of virus infected (true, one facility did collapse, killing a couple dozen, but overall their temp hospital program was a resounding success), while in America, well, this headline says it all: US Navy hospital ship expected to depart for Seattle next week amid coronavirus pandemic.  Late Stage capitalism moves, compared to China, at a snail's pace.  And we haven't even mentioned the most critical failure: the testing fiasco.  Weeks and weeks drag by, and still people can't get tested in an even remotely timely fashion.

Speaking of testing, a couple days ago the State of Michigan revealed these statisitics:

There have been 2,499 tests conducted, according to the state, including 744 from hospitals and 148 from commercial labs. MDHHS has performed 1,557 tests as of March 19. There were 203 cases identified by hospitals or universities, and 131 found by MDHHS, with two cases coming from commercial labs.

What do these statistics reveal? Roughly 1 out of every 7 tests from the state and the hospitals came back positive, while 1 out of every 74 came back positive from the *commercial* labs.  What does this tell us?  It tells us that the healthy rich are running off to their private VIP labs because they are terrified they will die before Elon Musk patents immortality. . .

Speaking of the fear of death, which we stated on January 25 hangs over this virus crisis, is there any way to measure the level of death anxiety?  Well, in the Late Stage Capitalist countries, fear of Socialism seems to have evaporated, as no state order or handout is protested.  Better Red Than Dead, it appears.  And we can state with a new degree of confidence there are no capitalists in foxholes.

Amid the hurricane of handouts, we can forecast, when the virus storm passes and the full extent of the devastation of the Western economy is revealed, debt cancellation on a Jubilee scale.  It will be the only way out. . .

Everybody loves Dr. Anthony Fauci. . .except me.  Tony *Two Curves* Fauci and his obvious relish of being considered the Virus Sage grates my nerves.  The shine through the television which seems to enamor everybody else is not produced by his empty wisdom (has he told anybody anything they couldn't learn by reading the label on a bottle of NyQuil?), but by his insatiable vanity.  I also got no use for the pompous crone Dr. Deborah Birx, whose head reflexively bobs up and down every time Trump opens his piehole in praise of himself.

And these Senators, such as Burr and Loeffler, who attended briefings which warned of the coming crisis, then rushed to the stock market to cash-in, and then compounded their sin by soft-pedaling the virus to the American people?  C'mon!  Is it really a shock that the political product of Late State Capitalism is usury politicians, whose main motivation is not the public good, but their own private lust to make money out of thin (privileged) air?  

Finally, what's the hold-up with my $1000 check???   

President Trump's Road To Wellville

President Donald J. Trump addressed the nation Friday in an attempt to calm an American people jittery over the novel coronavirus pandemic.

How could we best characterize the President's effort?

He resembled a poorly written and badly-acted Hollywood dystopian thriller's sinister leader teaming with sinister and greedy corporations hoping to lead a frightened, lost population to their doom (which eventuates in the parking lot of the nearest Walmart).

Trump's idiotic plan may be briefly summarized:

Those who suspect they are COVID-19 infected must surrender their data to a Google app which will determine if they are worthy of a virus test, and if so, then direct them to a Target or Walmart parking lot to get their nose swabbed.  [Poor people may have to ride the bus and hope Target or Walmart accepts walk-ups.]

After revealing his idiotic plan, Trump grudgingly accepted questions from a gathered press corps and, in varying degrees of peevishness and condescension refused to accept any responsibility for the abysmal federal response to the crisis to date, and insisted a solution heavily dependent on corporate partners was the best way forward.

Indeed, the whole address/press conference soon became nothing more than a tedious infomercial as Trump introduced one corporate executive after another, who back-slapped themselves on behalf of Walgreens, CVS, Target, Walmart, etc.

Among all the vague declarations and promises made by the corporate shills, Walmart's mouthpiece was asked a direct, simple question: when are you going to have hand sanitizer on your store's shelves? His answer speaks volumes about the likelihood of the success of Trump's idiotic corporate-dependent plan: Walmart is working very hard with their suppliers to secure additional stock. Check back with us soon.

Comic relief from this depressing example of the systemic failure of Absolute Capitalism (in which people are reduced to biological capital to be measured in time-off units from their wage masters) was provided by Vice President Mike Pence, who gave one of the greatest and most shameless brown-nosing exhibitions of all-time.  Pence repeatedly praised the magnificence of Trump's decisions whenever called upon by the President to defend his actions against reporters questions.  I imagine it would be easier to suffer COVID-19's agonizing respiratory death than live on as such a craven yes-man as Pence.

Only God's mercy can save thousands of Americans from dying due to the incompetent political product of late stage capitalism.
   

The Sickness Unto Death: Tom Hanks

The novel coronavirus (and why can't they just call it the new coronavirus?  Why call it novel, like it was created by Charles Dickens or Emile Zola??) has infected Tom Hanks. . .

Tom Hanks. . .of the privileged class.  

Tom Hanks. . .of the monarchy of celebrity.

Can you imagine his shock?  His utter and complete shock?

This is a man who has lived for decades in the parallel reality of the über leisure class.  The rough edges of the lumpen life have long since been smoothed away.

But a little molecule, tiny, electron microscopic, more than a 1000 times less than the width of a hair. . .this invisible biological agent infiltrated Tom Hanks.

One moment, Tom Hanks was living as deliciously as one can on this earth.  Then in the next moment, he felt just a little bit tired, had a little bit of a body ache. . .and, presto!, just like that, Tom Hanks is infected with a new reality.

It has to be hard for him to believe, to accept. . .

That a tiny molecule from some grubby oriental food stall was able to leapfrog the entire globe, and find Tom Hanks, find The Tom Hanks, and penetrate him, and then rape his healthy cells, leaving him pregnant with the viral offspring. . .an alien horde marching toward his lungs, leaving a cellular tidal wave of fluid and pus that may eventually drown his respiratory system and strip him of his privilege and leave him a corpse. . .

Tom Hanks had no way to see it coming. . .and now he must be sitting in quarantine dumbfounded it could all be over in two or three or four days.  

For in one hour so great riches is come to nought. . .

His mind has to be racing in existential dread, trying to reconcile his startling reversal of fortune. . .

Isolated, surrounded by strangers wearing masks and gloves, he has become an unclean thing that even the lowliest hospital janitor now lords it over him. . .

How can one come to grips with such a novel state?

Pity the man. . .




And then, much harder to pity, there is this:

The Little Iconoclast Who Almost Could

Pretty sad how easily Bernie Sanders was swept aside. . .

Like a fly the democrat donkey shooed from its ass with a swish of its tail. . .

The party bosses just had to make a few phone calls:

Hey, Mayor Queer, time to drop out. If Biden wins, he'll make you ambassador to Fairy Island. 

Hey, Klobot, drop out now and you'll be VP. 

Hey, Pochahontas, make sure you stay in at least through Super Tuesday, and you can be Treasury Secretary.

The democrats are just kicking the *socialist* can down the road, to their own further irrelevance. What are they gonna do in 8 years when AOC can run?  She won't be nearly so EZ to dismiss.

Sanders could destroy the democrat party right now.  Simply end the political theater that is the democrat primary and announce he is leaving the democrat stage show to begin a third party candidacy.  Trump would win in a landslide and the republicans would also regain the House of Representatives.  The democrats wouldn't have a pot to piss in, and would have to come to grips with their own fraudulence.  They'd have four years to find a real Democrat to rebuild around. . .and frankly, they would do well to pick this brick shithouse:

But back to 2020. . .

I don't think Sanders has the balls to light a match to the democrats, though that would be in the long-term best interest of the country.  I have a feeling Bernie wants to enjoy his sunset years with the niche he has created for himself as The Little Iconoclast Who Almost Could.  He can bask in the glow of being The Elder Statesmen of kOOks while he and his wife enjoy their *hard-earned* millions.

But Sanders revenge might be out there, lurking in a different form: the novel coronavirus.    

The virus could have been Sanders meal ticket, but the democrat party bosses were too stupid to see the big picture. You have to imagine the donkey bosses kicking their own asses when poor people start dropping like flies while waiting in line for their spicy chicken sandwich at Popeye's cuz they can't afford to get screened or go to the doctor cuz they got no insurance.  When the poor start coughing in harmony, the US will be exposed for the broken-down empire it is. China will have the virus under control by the time Americans start pushing up mass daisies, and China's *socialist* health care system will look like a model for the future, while America's absurd and feeble for-profit system is exposed as a plan that only works for the 1%.  

[I used to think there were no dumber people anywhere in the world than white republicans, you know, those poor people who faithfully vote against their own best interest every four years. . .now they may have a contender for the imbecile's crown: the idiot southern blacks who voted for Obama's water boy.]   

The Bloodsucking American Economy (Or, Why Donald Trump Can't Understand Parasite)

20 February 2020: President Donald Trump took aim at “Parasite’s” historic Oscar wins at a Colorado rally on Thursday. “How bad were the Academy Awards this year?” he asked, prompting jeers from the crowd. “Did you see it?” “The winner is… a movie from South Korea! What the hell was that all about?” he went on. “We got enough problems with South Korea with trade. On top of that, they give them best movie of the year? Was it good? I don’t know. Let’s get ‘Gone With the Wind.’ Can we get ‘Gone With the Wind’ back, please?”

One of the few charms of Our Dim-Witted Leader is his willingness to admit his frequent befuddlement.  The latest example is his struggle to understand this year's Academy Award winning best picture, Parasite:

What the hell was that all about?

On this issue, though, Donald Trump is not alone.  Americans in general have trouble processing anything concerned with class conflict, social inequality and the deleterious effects of Absolute Capitalism, which are the themes of Parasite.

That a lifelong bloodsucker like Trump would not understand Parasite is not surprising, as this only confirms Jesus' universal truth about human nature: our inability to recognize our own sins (Matthew 7:3-5). 

What continually creates exasperation is the American poor's inability to locate themselves in a class struggle. . .

What are the reasons for this?

1). The American poor do not view themselves as poor.  The American poor see themselves as an imaginary *middle class* who don't have as much money as they would like.  The American poor do not view themselves as belonging to a class of people at the bottom of a social strata.  The American poor, if they do acknowledge a class of people called poor, reserve that for people of color and white trash (mostly rural and southern).  

This haughtiness of the *middle class* is laughable.  They are poor (as this recent headline illustrates).  

This term *middle class* is a creation of the political system.  Democrats and Republicans stage political theater every election cycle, each claiming to know how best to serve the *middle class.*  In reality serving the *middle class* means how best to take what little money the poor have and give it to the rich.  That is the economic function of the political system.  The term *middle class* is merely an emotional bandage to cover the wound of poverty that afflicts most Americans.  By identifying themselves with an imaginary *middle class* of the richest nation on earth, most Americans therefore relieve themselves of the class stigma *poor.*  They put on economic airs.

2). Americans are terrified of class conflict.  Before they were terrified of muslims, they were terrified of *communists.*  The class struggles of theoretical communism became identified with the hapless and cruel failures of Soviet communism during the US - USSR Cold War.  To criticize capitalism and to view America as a failed, divided society was considered unpatriotic.  Constantly fed the propaganda they were part of an imaginary *middle class* of the richest nation on earth, the average American became disdainful of class conflict.  If there were any poor in America, it was their own fault, not the fault of the *system.*  Why, everybody knows anybody can grow up to be anything they want in America, if they only are willing to *work hard.*  America has a *level playing field.*  These simple-minded bromides continue to hold sway, even as the American's standard of living continues to decline. 

Given the above points, it is not surprising a pseudo-socialist like Bernie Sanders struggles to gain more votes than generic politicians, even cock-sucking ones.  But even Sanders is afraid to tell most Americans they are poor, as he, too, most often addresses his *talking points* to the imaginary *middle class.* Sanders admits the *middle class* will have to pay more in taxes to fund his Medicare for All Fund. . .but the cat is let out of the bag when he says that this *middle class* includes everybody making $29000 or more.  My friend, 29k ain't *middle class.*  If you make 29k in this country, you're poor.

Sanders' timid criticisms of capitalism evoke hysterical cries of *socialism* from his opponents, whether democrat or republican, because both parties are devoted to maintaining the status quo.  Both are beholden to the rich.  This is evident when democrats are open about refusing to their award their party's nomination to the candidate who wins the most delegates in the primaries. . .because that candidate will be the *socialist* Bernie Sanders.  And because Sanders will not have enough delegates to reach the 50% threshold required to earn the nomination, the democrats will have an open convention, and eventually the nominating process will fall to corrupt back-room deals and *super delegate* whoring. . .the democrat party will pick a *centrist,* meaning someone willing to keep the party faithful to every crooked trick of Absolute Capitalism.  The democrat party, as it is currently constituted, will never rally around even a modest critic of capitalism like Bernie Sanders. 

But because the American poor refuse to recognize their own poverty, refuse to give up their *middle class* delusion, they will continue to get the president they deserve, whether democrat or republican.  No voter in the world is dumber than the American, who continually votes against his own interest, and instead votes for the interests of the rich.  It's actually laugh out loud funny how stupid the American voter is, as he proudly marches into the voting booth determined to uphold the profit structure of the health insurance industry!  He believes he's fulfilling his God-given duty!

So, yes, then, back to Parasite, it's no wonder the reaction to it in America is:

What the hell was that all about?

[Some people do not understand how America's *capitalist* economy functions. Its function is to take money from the poor and give it to the rich. One small example serves as a model for the economy in general, and if one keeps this small example in mind, one will see its practice again and again in similar forms throughout the economy:

The poor person, not earning enough money to live on, despite working at least 40 hours a week, borrows money from the rich, in this example, in the form of a *credit card.* The rich persons lends money to the poor, but then demands the poor person pay it back with interest. . .and if the poor person is late in making payments, additional fees and fines are demanded. This is the entire structure of the American economy, from the individual level, represented here in the credit scam, to the corporate level, in which the rich reverse the process, borrowing money from the government in the form of *tax incentives* and then never paying it back (see here).

The beloved American economy, in text book jargon, is a high-cost rentier economy. Its GDP is empty, consisting mainly of the Finance, Insurance and Real Estate (FIRE) rents, profits and capital gains while the nation’s infrastructure decays and its labor is reduced to a part-time *gig* economy.

In non-textbook jargon, the American economy is a usury economy, and usury, as we know from the Bible, is a sin. Thus, the idiot American voter is faithful to a sinful system.]

The Klobot

Manchester, NH, 12 February 2020: Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont narrowly edged former South Bend, Indiana Mayor Pete Buttigieg to claim victory in New Hampshire's Democratic presidential primary. But the biggest winner in Tuesday's contest - the first primary in the White House race - may well be Sen. Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota, who came in a strong third. Klobuchar finished far ahead of Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts and former Vice President Joe Biden, who are limping out of New Hampshire facing serious questions about the future of their campaigns.

Klobuchar - who hails from Iowa's neighbor to the north - finished a distant fifth in last week's Iowa caucuses. But a strong presidential primary debate performance on Friday seemingly pumped up her fortunes and gave her a big bounce - as she surged the final tracking polls over the weekend. The senator was obviously able to capitalize on her last-minute momentum. Exit polls suggest that older and more educated voters, as well as moderates and those looking for a candidate to unite the country, boosted Klobuchar's performance. 

Huh?  Who would actually take time out of their day, in which they probably got to go from one job to a second job, because they felt compelled to vote for this cold fish?

I mean, listen to this creaking harpy:

With her clunky, robotic delivery, she makes stuttering Joe Biden seem smooth. . .

Who voted for her?

With her dreadful oratorical skills, I can only imagine she might appeal to Jewish voters, since (in front of a microphone, at least) she surely ain't no Adolf Hitler, but anybody else?

Maybe it's her call to *the people in the middle?*  

But who are these people, these Median people?

The imaginary *middle American?* 

Exit polls says older people and *moderates* (what's a moderate?  See Revelation 3:14-16) like her.  That means scared sheeple.  They lived a lifetime brainwashed by the American Dream, and even though their standard of living has fallen significantly, they love so-called *centrists,* robot politicians who promise they can keep their shitty health insurance, can keep working their two shitty jobs and keep sending their kids to their shitty schools where they will read Thirteen Reasons Why instead of The Catcher In The Rye.

These *centrists* promise they won't do anything radical like *socialist* Bernie Sanders with his cRaZy health care plan (how can we pay for it?!?!) or racist Donald Trump with his caged kids immigration policy.

The sheeple just want to live their imaginary middle class lives, and fear any *extremist* who would wake them from their American Dream. . .

The sheeple just want to die peacefully in their sleep, preferably just before maxing out their credit cards. . .

It's a slow, steady decline, not too bumpy, and the sheeple are content as long as they can pay for their electronic gadgets.  Their real lives may be fraying at the edges, but all that can be simply cropped out on social media, where their illusions remain picture perfect.

Amy Klobuchar, the Klobot, with her robotic delivery of *sensible policies* is the perfect Median politician, promising to do nothing that would threaten the sheeple's imaginary middle class life. . .

Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump are political Stanleys, who frighten the Blanche DuBois middle class sheeple, while the Klobot is a political Mitch, who soothes and enables them in their self-delusion.  The surprise is not that the Klobot came from nowhere to get 20% of the vote, but that she didn't get more. 

NYPDe Sade

The Big Apple, 6 February 2020: Prosecutors described in horrifying detail on Thursday the years of abuse endured by two of NYPD officer Michael Valva’s children — as the cop and his fiancee pleaded not guilty to felony murder indictments in the hypothermia death of Valva’s 8-year-old son, Tommy. Valva, 40, and Angela Pollina, 42, appeared separately in Suffolk County Supreme Court and sat stone-faced as prosecutors announced new child endangerment charges against them for allegedly neglecting and abusing Tommy and his brother Anthony. Prosecutor Kerriann Kelly said the abuse of the two boys became apparent in 2017, shortly after their mom, Justyna Zubko-Valva, lost custody of them, when the kids started showing up at their East Moriches school hungry.

“[The boys were] eating crumbs off tables and eating out of the garbage and going under the bleachers at the gym to try and find food,” Kelly said. “They were literally begging for food at school.” The two allegedly were deprived of breakfast and starved in punishment for failing to call Valva’s new paramour, Pollina, “Mommy,” Kelly said. By their second year in the school district, the elementary-age boys came to class wearing “pull-ups” while reeking of urine and feces, with bruises and cuts on their bodies. “Thomas came to school so soiled one day that the urine was squishing in his sneakers,” Kelly described as Zubko-Valva sobbed loudly in the courtroom.

The prosecutor described how the brothers were loath to go out for recess because they were so cold, leading school staff to give them clothes “in secret … as to avoid further punishment of the boys.” She also revealed new details on how Michael Valva reacted when he found out Thomas had died, allegedly saying at the hospital, “I’ve been through more stressful things than this.”

Two days before Thomas died, he was banished to the family garage and was captured on the home’s surveillance cameras “shaking in the freezing cold air and clearly exhibiting signs of his need to use the bathroom in 19-degree weather,” Kelly said. There was no bathroom in the garage and if Thomas soiled himself, he would be punished. Pollina sent a clip of the video to Valva and asked if Thomas was going to stay home from school the next day. “I have zero clothing for him, fuck the piece of shit Thomas, he’s not going anywhere,” Valva texted, according to prosecutors. Ten minutes later, he seemed to poke fun at the trembling boy. “Geez it seems like he has to go, too bad he doesn’t have a bathroom,” Valva texted. In response, Pollina allegedly wrote: “Seriously, if only he had a bathroom.”

Well, let us credit Michael Valva and Angela Pollina. . .

Credit where credit is due. . .

They prove the human capacity for inhumanity is inexhaustible. . .

One would think one had seen it all. . .

Not only in the crimes of reality, let's recall the horrible fates of Adam Walsh and Polly Klaas, representative of thousands of such crimes, so frequent an occurrence as to be commonplace, but also in the crimes of fiction, with novels, television shows and movies routine with torture and death, routine to the point of banality, if one has seen a child molester-themed episode or three of Law & Order: SVU.

One has seen cruelty again and again. . .and therefore most of it makes little impression.

And then along come the two New York greaseballs, Valva and Pollina, and their sadistic heartlessness and depravity make one pause, even in our malign saturated times.

That the New York Police Department officer Valva would say of his own dying son:

Fuck the piece of shit

and then *make fun* of the boy as he dies trembling trying to not evacuate his own waste. . .

I actually paused and wondered: how does a father become so indifferent (and this indifference is far worse than hatred)? 

What of the father's *girlfriend* Pollina?  Did she contribute to his delinquency?  Or had he merely met a kindred spirit?

What do we make of these two pieces of human shit?

[And what do we make of *the system?*  *The system* in Make America Great Again?  The system that records two boys attending school in diapers while reeking of feces, with urine squishing in sneakers, with bodies bruised and cut, but a *system* that can do nothing to help?  And yet one can't help but wonder: if poor 8 year old Tommy Valva had had the sophistication to game the signs of the times and claim his NYPD dad was preventing him from transitioning to female, wouldn't *the system* have then been able to step in and save him/her?]

What do we make of these two pieces of human garbage?

There is a school of Christianity that would have Jesus knocking on the hearts of the two New York greaseballs, begging them to open their hearts to Him. . .

There is another school of Christianity that would say Jesus don't want this human garbage, that they are children of the devil, unable to hear His word, and therefore unable to repent and be forgiven. . .

Free will. . .or predestination?  It's been debated in the church down through the centuries.

One tends to judge predestination more favorably when exposed to filth like Michael Valva@@. . .

But always there is Paul's whisper in our ear:

It is a very small thing that I should be judged of you, or of man's judgment: yea, I judge not mine own self. For I know nothing by myself; yet am I not hereby justified: but He that judgeth me is the Lord. Therefore judge nothing before the time, until the Lord come, who both will bring to light the hidden things of darkness, and will make manifest the counsels of the hearts: and then shall every man have praise of God.

@@Look at Valva in his mugshot, dressed in a suicide gown!  He must have cried when brought to jail, and whimpered he was going to *hurt himself!*  Please!  He don't have it in him!  He don't have the Judas stomach to hurt himself!  Everyone knows cops are pussies!