Terrifying how many of our medical experts are barely holding on throughout the last two years with all this violence against them

  • john_browns_beard [he/him, comrade/them]
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    edit-2
    3 years ago

    My SO is an ICU nurse and has been progressively losing her shit over the past two years. She's gone from full to part time (partially because she's taking classes for her masters while working) and still has emotional breakdowns on a monthly basis due to work stress.

    Thankfully she hasn't had to deal with any Q people, but seeing people young and old die from this shit in front of her on a daily basis and then going out in public and having basically no one give a shit has taken a serious toll. Her sister, who is also an ICU nurse, is dating a Trump conservative and he has been poisoning her brain to the point that she has become borderline anti-vax. Her dad won't wear a mask in public because "it's uncomfortable" even though he has been smoking for most of his life and will almost certainly be a serious case if he catches it, even if he's vaccinated. Her mom, an EMT for decades and someone with multiple comorbidities, won't wear a mask if other people aren't wearing one because she doesn't want to "look stupid". Her other siblings dragged their feet on getting vaccinated even as she described young, otherwise healthy people dying in the ICU. A few days ago we were at an indoor event with maybe 50 other people in the room and we were the only ones wearing masks - this is including someone who was nearly ventilated a few weeks ago. We really do fucking love to die here in the USA, folks.

    I think I saw someone say it on the Herman Cain award sub, but the truest phrase I've read about all of this is "I'm nowhere near smart enough for so many people to be dumber than me".

      • axont [she/her, comrade/them]
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        3 years ago

        I have to wonder how the calculus on this breaks down, because American society continuously tempts mass death and social collapse on a minute by minute basis. Just so the level of convenience remains constant. Readily available consumer goods, drive-thrus, and sports on TV. Those are seen as the markets of a well functioning society and nothing else matters. We'd rather all die than live with even a moment of mandated responsibility. The bourgeoisie would rather work every single person to death than build a stable society. Our imagination has been drained from us to the point we can only imagine two situations, either "normal" or dead.

      • RedundantClam [they/them]
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        3 years ago

        the need to consume even up to the point that we are ourselves consumed remains non-negotiable.

        Pretty succinctly put.

    • kristina [she/her]
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      3 years ago

      i legit had the lady giving me a vax be antivax one time. luckily im 100% certain that she actually gave me it cause of the reaction my body had, but gotta say that shit is spooky

      • spectre [he/him]
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        3 years ago

        by capitalists because one day they might get to be the capitalist

        Partly true (and I'm all good with it), but I would add that American liberals also are willing to get exploited because those outside of the borders are being exploited even more intensely by their same masters. [They think that] As long as they passively allow this to continue, low cost treats will continue to flow. This is true, but not indefinitely, however the real pressure is only just starting to kick in this decade.

          • 420blazeit69 [he/him]
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            3 years ago

            That's not a helpful level of detail in the U.S. Anyone who isn't already a leftist hears "both sides are the same" and tunes the rest out.

              • 420blazeit69 [he/him]
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                3 years ago

                So we write people off because they don't know leftist jargon, or would yawn at a dense old economics treatise? That's not a good plan.

                The main, immediate challenge for the U.S. left right now is to figure out how to bring the great mass of the population that's dissatisfied with capitalism into some kind of organized leftist movement. That's going to involve communicating with people in terms they understand, at least at first. Saying that liberals are anti-vaxers makes no sense to any ordinary person. If we can't speak to ordinary people, that's an us problem.