The Virus: Human Nature

It's just human nature, so let's not make it out to be something worse than it really is. . .

The corpses are just starting to make a tidy pile here in America, nothing yet like what we see in Italy or Spain, so there are those who still insist this virus pandemic is a *hoax,* just a Media and/or Government tool to destroy the country's economy and further psychologically cripple the citizenry to the point they loosen their last grip on what remains of their liberty (though I wish one of these pandemic deniers would tell me just what liberty the average Joe has).  I suppose there will never be enough deaths for them to admit they were wrong.  40000, 50000, 75000 corpses, the stack will never reach high enough to equal the imaginary losses in economy and liberty in the eyes of the pandemic deniers. . .

Their insistence that the fake economy and fake liberty are so precious, and so threatening to the Media and Government puppets of the 1%, that no amount of life can measure against it, is infuriating, and thus I wish they would get the virus and slowly gasp their last breaths.

OK.  OK.  Don't get too worked up.  That's why we started by saying:

It's just human nature, so let's not make it out to be something worse than it really is. . .

I am also infuriated by Donald Trump's irrational handling of this crisis, to the point I wish a fatal dose of the virus upon him, as well. . .

And among the 325 million Americans, I am confident there are many who wish the same. . .and have their own personal coronavirus death wish list.

It's just human nature, so let's not make it out to be something worse than it really is. . .

In the mind, I can picture the bloated near-carcass of Trump in a hospital bed, choking to death on his own phlegm, and it is not an unhappy thought. . .

King David, a man described as being after God's own heart, prayed to the Almighty for even worse to happen to his enemies. . .don't believe me?  Read the Psalms, they are littered with death wishes such as this:

Let his days be few; and let another take his office. Let his children be fatherless, and his wife a widow. Let his children be continually vagabonds, and beg: let them seek their bread also out of their desolate places. Let the extortioner catch all that he hath; and let the strangers spoil his labour. Let there be none to extend mercy unto him: neither let there be any to favour his fatherless children. Let his posterity be cut off; and in the generation following let their name be blotted out. Let the iniquity of his fathers be remembered with the Lord; and let not the sin of his mother be blotted out. Let them be before the Lord continually, that he may cut off the memory of them from the earth. Because that he remembered not to shew mercy, but persecuted the poor and needy man, that he might even slay the broken in heart. As he loved cursing, so let it come unto him: as he delighted not in blessing, so let it be far from him. As he clothed himself with cursing like as with his garment, so let it come into his bowels like water, and like oil into his bones. Let it be unto him as the garment which covereth him, and for a girdle wherewith he is girded continually. Let this be the reward of mine adversaries from the Lord, and of them that speak evil against my soul.

It's just human nature. . .and that's as far as I can speak for King David.

As for me, in my mind I am sickened by those who value money and flag above life, and by Trump's stupidity and delusions of grandeur.  And yet I believe if I were actually in a hospital room with Trump, saw him with an air tube in his throat, and a rectal tube and catheter, sweating, choking, stinking of death, I'd probably pat his fat head and give him a sip of water from a straw in a styrofoam cup, and tell him it was gonna be all right, hang in there, old boy.  And that's human nature, too:

Be not righteous over much; neither make thyself over wise: why shouldest thou destroy thyself? Be not over much wicked, neither be thou foolish: why shouldest thou die before thy time?

Coronavirus: God and Mammon

23 March 2020: As cases of coronavirus continue to rise, President Donald Trump said Monday that he wants to reopen the country for business in weeks, not months, as he claimed, without evidence, that continued closures could result in more deaths than the pandemic itself. “Life is fragile and economies are fragile,” Trump said, insisting he could protect both. While he acknowledged there were trade-offs — “there’s no question about that” — he claimed that, if closures stretch on for months, there would be “probably more death from that than anything that we’re talking about with respect to the virus.”

The comments were further evidence that Trump has grown impatient with the pandemic, even before it has reached its expected peak. In recent days, tensions have been rising between those who argue the country needs to get back up and running to prevent a deep economic depression, and medical experts who warn that, unless more extreme action is taken, the human cost will be catastrophic. “We can’t shut in the economy. The economic cost to individuals is just too great,” Larry Kudlow, Trump’s top economic adviser, said in an interview Monday on Fox News Channel. “The president is right. The cure can’t be worse than the disease, and we’re going to have to make some difficult trade-offs.”

Here we see the beating heart of Late Stage Capitalism: the life is not in the blood, but in the economy.  Life is put on the scale and measured against economy. . .

Jesus well said:

No man can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one, and love the other; or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other. Ye cannot serve God and mammon.

In America, the rulers clearly serve mammon.  They choose inorganic economy over life. . .

And I suppose not a few of the American pew-warmers also choose to serve mammon.  In this, they would earn the hatred of David, the king known for being a man after God's own heart:

I have hated them that regard lying vanities: but I trust in the Lord.

It really shouldn't even be a tough judgment to make.  It's absurd and anti-Christ to even put economy on the scale. . .

As Jesus instructed: 

I say unto you, Take no thought for your life, what ye shall eat, or what ye shall drink; nor yet for your body, what ye shall put on. Is not the life more than meat, and the body than raiment?  Behold the fowls of the air: for they sow not, neither do they reap, nor gather into barns; yet your Heavenly Father feedeth them. Are ye not much better than they? Which of you by taking thought can add one cubit unto his stature? And why take ye thought for raiment? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they toil not, neither do they spin: And yet I say unto you, That even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. Wherefore, if God so clothe the grass of the field, which to day is, and to morrow is cast into the oven, shall He not much more clothe you, O ye of little faith? Therefore take no thought, saying, What shall we eat? or, What shall we drink? or, Wherewithal shall we be clothed? (For after all these things do the Gentiles seek:) for your Heavenly Father knoweth that ye have need of all these things. But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and His righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you.  Take therefore no thought for the morrow: for the morrow shall take thought for the things of itself. Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof.

Is not the life more than the economy?

Of course, no one in Late State Capitalism believes this, not even the pew-warmers.  Mammon is served.  Even the poor, of whom Jesus (and I imagine Him wearily pronouncing this) said we would always have with us, serve a system which little benefits them, but, so afraid, so caught up in taking thought for the morrow, for what they shall eat or for how they shall be clothed, bow to the scraps of mammon that keep them (mechanically and anxiously) alive.

The truth is, almost all of what is called economy can be put down and taken up again, without consequence.  Money, which, to their likely eternal shame, even the pew-warmers worship, isn't even real.  In a matter of a few minutes 1.5 trillion *dollars* were conjured from thin air by the Federal Reserve to loan to financial institutions, which will then lend this *money* to debtors who are expected to pay back even more imaginary money (with interest, fees, etc).

The economy, the false god, can be shut down and started up over and over and over again.  

The reason for the rush back to economy is simple: the rich want to preserve their wealth, they have no desire to start all over again.  That's more important than the deaths of some old people, people who have lived past their usefulness to economy, anyway.

It's obvious Jesus would value life over economy, He took workers out of economy to follow Him.  Jesus repudiated the world system and instead preached the kingdom of God.  

It's just as obvious most, even among the pew-warmers, wouldn't follow Jesus today.  To them, it's the money that is real, not the Gospel.  It's the money that animates their life, nearly from birth to death taught first and foremost to chase a *good job* to fund their entirely material existence.  The Gospel is just a noble, but impractical, philosophy.

Well, in our coronavirus days, the following saying of Jesus may have an immediate, as well as eternal, fulfillment:

Whosoever will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow Me.  For whosoever will save his life shall lose it; but whosoever shall lose his life for My sake and the gospel's, the same shall save it.




{And from the what should it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, but lose his soul School of Economics, we have the Texas Lt Governor, an old man named Dan Patrick who told Tucker Carlson on his 23 March broadcast he would be willing to die a coronavirus death in order to save the economy for his grandchildren! OK. Let's hope in this case wisdom isn't justified by her children, and Patrick's grandkids tell gramps to go fuck his shitty economy. Patrick is a self-proclaimed Christian, and here we see a sterling example of the pew-warmer I mentioned above who treasures economy more than life. Patrick made the remarkable statement the biggest gift we give our children, our grandchildren is the legacy of our country. Patrick treasures economy over the Gospel. Patrick is a loser in the profoundest respect.}


Take no thought for the economy of tomorrow, sufficient unto the day is the coronavirus. . .

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.]