Michael Yeadon, Pfizer's former chief scientist and vice-president of the allergy and respiratory research division, is one of the early anti-mask/anti-lockdown figures and key in attaching 99% discredited misinfo to people dissatisfied with the manner in which COVID medical products' trials were conducted and how widely they were recommended despite other valid concerns.

It's both. their interests align.

Keeping up anti covid measures costs capitalists money.

Letting it rip means regular people are forced to pay the costs for constant illness and death.

It's also killing the old and most vulnerable, who generally are no longer able to be exploited by capitalists, so there is absolutely no motivation to save them.

Kochs were definitely linked to various anti-pandemic stuff. Where the Kochs go, Mercers, DeVos, and other billionaires soon aren't far behind.

Independent Women’s Forum, backed by Koch funding, circulates draft letter opposing school mask mandates - The Washington Post

Very much recommend checking out Dark Money: The Hidden History of the Billionaires Behind the Rise of the Radical Right by Jane Mayer | Arr

i doubt it's more organized than anything else, but fascists were saying we should sacrifice the vulnerable and elderly for the line to go up, and biden's administration has been trying to implement that plan.

is the cdc bending over for delta airlines to make flight attendants return to work a conspiracy if it happened in the open and libs don't care about the cost?

Yes. I think the best way to think about what has happened is that for a few weeks in March 2020 we turned off the wealth extraction machines of the petit bourgeoisie. The idea that society could have that level of democratic oversight over their businesses that had seemingly never occurred to them, and it enraged and horrified them.

There was a lot of latent political power in this class that went unactivated because ultimately society already was geared 100% to their whims and desires. When it became obvious not only that treating covid responsibly threatened their universal power even slightly, it animated an entire class and turned them into a bunch of activists.

So I don't think there's like an astroturfed movement from the true bourgeoisie, instead there's the collective disposable wealth of the petty bourgeoisie.

i have literally no proof of anything, but if i was a big pharma investor, i would be happy to ensure that new variants keep spreading so that demand for vaccines and other treatments never waned. so the material interest economic incentives 🤓 is definitely at play

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The material interest is not shutting things down. If people aren't going out to eat or shopping or whatever, then that's less money. It jams up the demand which jams up production and causes problems (under capitalism). They needed to buy time to adjust to covid. If you just shut everything down, they lose money while having to spend on covid protections. If you let them stay open they can slowly build up their covid stuff while still making money.

That goes into a cultural thing in America that's very closely tied to material interests. The cultural thing is that the government can't do stuff. It's just untoward. It's oppressive, it's literally 1984. Because since the late 60s everyone has been pumped full of libertarian bullshit. The government telling business when they can be open and what to do while they're open is something that's been fought against for decades if not centuries.

Another material thing is the petite bourgeois and the working class can only socialize and live their lives through consumption. Consumption means leaving the house and seeing a movie, going shopping, traveling, dining out, etc. They're only at home as much as they need to be, like for sleep and bathing. Workers have a lot less time to do this stuff so they don't do it as much, but they do it. The petite bourgeois do it a lot. The wealthy have enough amenities at home and live in such luxury that they don't have to do it. So people get mad when they can't go consume. There some justification in that anger, but only because it's a result of a much bigger problem with society and not because the guberment is too big.

Trust in medical authorities erodes when most people can't afford healthcare. They don't go see doctors. The doctors they do see charges the shit out of them for basic stuff and are usually bad doctors. Racism is responsible for mistrust of the medical establishment among marginalized groups. Plus we've seen why you shouldn't trust them. They fuck around and say dumb stuff out of political expedience and then change their tune when it suits them. People aren't going to take the pandemic seriously when the special educated class that informs everyone doesn't.

People don't trust the government because it's ran by capitalists who do everything they can to make government fail at everything it tries to do. Because the capitalists don't want government to function and they don't want people thinking the government can just command capital.

It's really the perfect storm of different things that are all related to the mode of production. It's not one single bad actor with purely material interests pulling all the strings. It's a bunch of people with aligned but separate interests doing what they think is correct and good. But they're wrong. That's why you need social science and not just vibes.

Whether it started like that or not, the second it became apparent hundreds of thousands of people were prepared to throw money at anything vaguely supportive (horse dewormer lol) there's ur profit incentive and we know what has to happen next