Some Covid-19 thoughts
POSTED BY: captaincrunch
UPDATED: Monday, September 29, 2025 18:59
VIEWED: 301579
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Quote:Trump obviously in the service of the super-rich. 6ix, if you weren't living in a hut and dreaming Trump would save you from your foolishness, you'd see it. To me it is obvious, but I'm in the class served by Trump. So where is Trump taking the US? We’re on the Brink of Cyberpunk. It’s not just the technology, surveillance, and dystopian vibes—it’s the culmination of decades of deliberate governmental erosion.
Originally posted by 6IXSTRINGJACK:
Millions aren't going to die from this. They never were.
Do Right, Be Right. :)
Where is the president in Blade Runner?
Beneath the 1982 neo-noir’s trappings of genetically engineered human automatons is a story about corporate power over and indifference to life, alienation in the face of wealthy indifference to the plight of workers. Replace the Tyrell Corporation with Amazon and reframe the replicants as “essential services,” and suddenly you have a world of workers terrified that their jobs are inherently a death sentence—moving straight from fiction to reality.
But while Blade Runner’s once-distant future of November 2019 feels resonant in so many ways—vast corporate power, persistent surveillance, life in a time of constant crisis—it misses the actual 2019’s most salient feature: an inescapable, painful awareness of politics and of the presence or deliberate absence of government in daily life.
Government, as experienced for much of the 20th century, is largely absent from the lives of characters in cyberpunk stories. Police are a durable feature, but government services and functions beyond the security state are absent.
Yet for all the aggressive visibility of politics in our daily lives, we’re not that far off from the powerlessness of a cyberpunk future. Cyberpunk speaks to the present because the conditions that inspired cyberpunk remain largely unchanged.
As the COVID-19 pandemic sweeps through the world, it collides with governments in the West that have spent decades deliberately shedding power, capability, and responsibility, reducing themselves to little more than vestigial organs that coordinate public-private partnerships of civic responsibility. This hollowing of the state began in earnest in the 1980s, and the science fiction of that time—the earliest texts of cyberpunk—imagines what happens when that process is complete. Cyberpunk is a genre of vast corporate power and acute personal deprivation. The technologies at the center of it are all means of control, control bought by the wealthy or broken by criminals. Where recourse is available, in whatever small way, it’s through direct action.
In William Gibson’s Neuromancer, characters interact with the government either through past military service or in the law literally made manifest in code. Real power is reserved for entrenched wealth. For Bruce Sterling’s Islands in the Net, politics is visible but is driven by corporations either bending states to their will or actively routing around governance. These dystopias are the logical culmination of a political project designed to fundamentally limit what government can do for people and expand what it can do for the wealthy.
Back in the 1980s, before movies and video games reduced the genre to a mass of unimaginative violence and body modification tropes, cyberpunk was the literary movement that was busy projecting our fears about rampant capitalism, media oversaturation, and emerging computer networks into fictional futures.
More at https://slate.com/technology/2020/04/coronavirus-cyberpunk-science-fic
tion-government-politics.html
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly
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Trump, what a schmuck. Congress is responsible for the relief checks not him. And if you're wondering why the delay in the checks getting to the people; look no further than this sad sack event. It's criminal...
T 
Deep state describes dedicated, educated professionals.
In unprecedented move, Treasury orders Trump’s name printed on stimulus checks
The Treasury Department has ordered President Trump’s name be printed on stimulus checks the Internal Revenue Service is rushing to send to tens of millions of Americans, a process that could slow their delivery by a few days, senior IRS officials said.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/in-unprecedented-move-treasury
-orders-trump-s-name-printed-on-stimulus-checks/ar-BB12DsbB?ocid=msedgntp
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Quote:Why not have "Vote Trump!" and a background photo of his face printed on the checks? The Treasury should know about Check Gallery: www.checkgallery.com
Originally posted by THG:
In unprecedented move, Treasury orders Trump’s name printed on stimulus checks
The Treasury Department has ordered President Trump’s name be printed on stimulus checks the Internal Revenue Service is rushing to send to tens of millions of Americans, a process that could slow their delivery by a few days, senior IRS officials said.
The second box is only 10 cents!
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly
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Quote:
Originally posted by second:Quote:Trump obviously in the service of the super-rich. 6ix, if you weren't living in a hut and dreaming Trump would save you from your foolishness, you'd see it.
Originally posted by 6IXSTRINGJACK:
Millions aren't going to die from this. They never were.
Do Right, Be Right. :)
I don't live in a hut. It's a 3 bedroom 2 bathroom house that's going to triple my money when I'm done with it if there's still an economy when the joint effort from both Republicans and Democrats possibly destroyed it.
They're ALL in service of the super rich. And, BTW, part of the stimulus bill that was a near unanimous vote was a big fat pay raise for themselves.
Do Right, Be Right. :)
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Quote:
Originally posted by THG:
Trump, what a schmuck. Congress is responsible for the relief checks not him. And if you're wondering why the delay in the checks getting to the people; look no further than this sad sack event. It's criminal...
T
Deep state describes dedicated, educated professionals.
In unprecedented move, Treasury orders Trump’s name printed on stimulus checks
The Treasury Department has ordered President Trump’s name be printed on stimulus checks the Internal Revenue Service is rushing to send to tens of millions of Americans, a process that could slow their delivery by a few days, senior IRS officials said.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/in-unprecedented-move-treasury
-orders-trump-s-name-printed-on-stimulus-checks/ar-BB12DsbB?ocid=msedgntp
I worked in direct mail and graphic design. This will add an hour at most to the process. I assume the longest delay in the process would be to have Trump take a look at it and say whether or not his signature is big enough. Otherwise it'd only be 10 minutes.
Whatever ANON "official" said this is either lying or should be fired for incompetence.
The "journalist" should to, for not knowing this yet writing about it.
Do Right, Be Right. :)
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Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick’s suggestion last month that he and other senior citizens would be willing to risk exposure to the coronavirus to get the economy back on its feet sparked headlines — and outrage — around the globe.
But the details of just how Patrick wants to jump start commerce in Texas, and who all is advising him on it, remains a state secret — with one notable exception, that is.
Patrick announced last week that G. Brint Ryan, a multimillionaire Dallas businessman and Donald Trump ally, would lead his “Task Force To Re-Start the Economy.”
Who else is on it? What’s the focus? Why all the secrecy?
Patrick’s office didn’t respond to numerous requests for more detail about his task force.
In the meantime, government watchdogs say Ryan, a Republican megadonor whose company specializes in reducing tax bills and getting economic development grants for big corporations, could benefit from his elevation to the head of Patrick’s quietly assembled task force.
Ryan denies that and insists his goal is to stabilize and revive the economy, particularly for small businesses.
The tension about who stands to gain from government recovery efforts mirrors a debate in Washington, where the lack of oversight and transparency of coronavirus-related spending is leading to concerns that the money could end up helping people that don’t need it.
“A major question here is whether Brint Ryan would be serving in this capacity in the interest of all Texans or if he is going to be serving in this capacity as sort of the Dan Patrick-sanctioned chief lobbyist for Ryan LLC,” said Dave Levinthal, editor at large at the Center for Public Integrity, a nonprofit research group that tracks the influence of money in politics.
Ryan certainly knows the tax code and how to wrangle billions of dollars out of government coffers for corporations. He’s been dubbed the “corporate welfare king” of Texas.
Savvy and politically wired: records show Ryan and his company’s political action committee together have given Patrick at least $775,000 since 2011, and over the years he has essentially power-sprayed money into campaigns benefiting major statewide Republicans.
Ryan Hired lawmakers
But he doesn’t just use campaign money to build relationships with elected officials. Ryan also puts them directly on the company payroll — even while they file bills Ryan LLC wants passed.
Case in point: in 2009 a Ryan lobbyist bragged the company was “heavily involved” in the passage of a package of property tax relief measures co-authored by then-state Rep. John Otto, R-Dayton. Otto’s other job: director of business development at Ryan. The company worked with Otto “to fine-tune” one bill and “drafted major provisions” of another before lobbying to pass the legislation, according to Ryan LLC’s own post-session analysis.
Otto told the Houston Chronicle the initiatives came from hearings he held all over the state — not from his private employer.
Ryan’s hiring of state Rep. Drew Springer of Muenster in 2017 as a “director” raised eyebrows at the Capitol since the North Texas Republican served on a key tax panel and voted in favor of several of the tax bills the company was pushing at the Capitol — including at least one Springer authored.
Springer said he’s no longer a Ryan LLC employee but he saw no conflict between his elected service and his day job, adding, “I never had anybody once come up and tell me that this would have been a beneficial Ryan bill to go vote on.”
Dallas area U.S Rep. Lance Gooden, R-Terrell, also was on the Ryan payroll for a time during his stint in the Texas Legislature, as was former state Rep. Harvey Hilderbran, R-Kerrville.
A member of the University of North Texas Board of Regents, Ryan has served as an informal tax adviser during President Donald Trump’s 2016 run, and his company sponsored the speaker series that paid for Donald Trump Jr.’s controversial 2017 speech at UNT, which came with a $100,000 fee.
Ryan said he doesn’t use his legislator-employees to advance his agenda at the Texas
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Three reasons the US is not ready for the next pandemic
https://theconversation.com/three-reasons-the-us-is-not-ready-for-the-
next-pandemic-100799
For three Texas A&M University pandemic scholars, the COVID-19 pandemic and the country’s ill-prepared response wasn’t a surprise. In fact, they predicted it and warned U.S. officials years ago.
Christine Blackburn, Andrew Natsios and Gerald Parker wrote an article in 2018, emphasizing the country’s need to prepare and to unite fronts with other countries and organizations to fight off a looming pandemic.
“It is not a matter of if, but when, the next disease will sweep through the world with deadly and costly consequences,” they wrote.
The article, “Three reasons the U.S. is not ready for the next pandemic,” was published in The Conversation, an online academic journal. It outlined the country’s gaps and risks in preparation for a pandemic, called for a strong, centralized leadership for international cooperation in health, and for U.S. officials to tackle the country’s vulnerable manufacturing chain of medical supplies.
The article noted that although global supply chains are beneficial in the way they offer cost effective, fast and efficient delivery of equipment and supplies, relying on these deliveries in other countries could leave chains vulnerable and “deprive people of needed medical supplies” in the case of an emergency or epidemic. The article even mentioned a potential shortage of N95 medical grade masks if an epidemic were to hit Asia, where most of the United States’ masks are produced.
“This interconnectedness of the global economy and the expansiveness of medical supply chains means that a disruption anywhere along the line could spell disaster worldwide,” the article authors wrote.
A&M researchers also urged U.S. officials to “address the threat of pandemics in cooperation with all other nations and with multilateral institutions such as the World Health Organization, the U.N. Security Council, UNICEF and more.” And it proposed the creation of a position within the White House that would have quick “decision-making authority” and prioritize pandemics as a threat to national security.
“When you’re talking about pandemic, it’s a collective good. We’re always in this together. Diseases don’t respect borders. … In order to address that, we need to address it as a global community,” said Blackburn, lead author of the article and deputy director of Texas A&M’s pandemic and biosecurity policy program.
With an onset of the novel coroanvirus, many of the issues or predictions presented in the A&M researchers’ article have become a reality.
Countries around the world, including the United States, are responding to a shortage of medical-grade masks — an issue that researchers suggested could have been prevented with the creation of policies to diversify production and transportation of supplies and a better understanding of critical supply chains and points of possible breakdown.
Suggested collaboration with health institutions, including the World Health Organization, is also in jeopardy.
President Donald Trump announced this week that he was instructing his administration to halt funding for the WHO, an agency responsible for international public health, pending a review of its role “in severely mismanaging and covering up the spread of the coronavirus.” The United States is WHO’s largest single donor, contributing between $400 million and $500 million annually to the Geneva-based agency in recent years.
WHO officials said they alerted the world about the virus in the early weeks of January.
Trump’s latest move has garnered criticism from global leaders and health officials, including Dr. Michael Osterholm, director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy, and Trump’s recent comments on the virus have often been at odds with state officials and officials at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Blackburn said it will take several years to move production of masks to a point where t
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*yawn*
Do Right, Be Right. :)
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I see New York is padding the death numbers by admitting to just adding 2,000+ deaths, because we're New York and we do whatever we want to do.
Do Right, Be Right. :)
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@JYSexton
I hate to tell you, but as somebody from rural America, there are going to be so many uncounted deaths during this pandemic.
Poor Americans are taught not to get medical care, are riddled with preexisting conditions, and local journalism has been absolutely destroyed.
The pandemic is seeping into rural America right now and it's going to devastate communities, most of them through service jobs and retirement homes, and the media isn't going to notice or cover any of it as the narrative turns toward this thing being over.
These communities are just now being touched by the pandemic and many of them have been told by Fox News and the president that it's a political hoax.
The consequences are going to be horrific, and the media is simply not going to notice or tell their stories.
If you have trouble believing this, just take a look at what the meth and opioid epidemics were like. Rural communities can be RAVAGED without anyone with a television show even taking notice.
America is going to "reopen" while these communities burn.
And because Wal-Mart hollowed these communities out, there's only one place for everyone to go, for everyone to transmit.
The hospitals are outdated and unprepared. And most of the people don't have health insurance or trust experts anyway.
It's...going to get bad.
In my family most people shrug when talking about death. “Reopening” America sounds good to them because generations of exploitation has worn them down. They’re ready to die to punch the time clock.
The numbers are going to be massive but mostly unregistered.
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