Friday, February 4, 2022

Comorbidities and the Republican response to Covid really undercut the All Lives Matter movement

ALL LIVES MATTER! 

So you support mask mandates?  Wide-spread Vaccination?  Testing?  School, workplace, business vaccine requirements?  And any other mitigation attempts?  Pushaw!  Never! 

It's been 10 years since the phrase and hashtag #BlackLivesMatter entered into the lexicon and widespread use.  It really gained traction in 2014 after the extrajudicial killings of Mike Brown in Ferguson, MO and Eric Garner in Staten Island, NY at the hands of white police officers.  As BLM gained influence (not power mind you) it generated pushback amongst the same cadre of bigots who currently use CRT hysteria to advance white power.  But back in 2015 the counter phrase was #AllLivesMatter.

It was clear when All Lives Matter became widespread on the rightwing internet it was a counter-campaign against Black Lives Matter.  And it never fails how disingenuously created phrases then get wide-spread mass repetition through Corporate Media, who never question the genesis of this bad faith agitprop but, instead help boost it.  By 2020 every twisted red-faced, spittle flecked white asshole couldn't wait to scream All lives matter! (sometimes while trying to shoot people with a bow and arrow)...

But, that was then and this is now.  These days everyone on Faux News, every rightwing on-line edge lord, every conservative decided masks and vaccination are Tyranny!  Instead of All Lives Matter, the rightwing position these days is: Fuck you fatties! DIE!  You're diabetic???  DIE! Immunocompromised? Too bad!

Since Feb 2020, the CDC has tracked over 1,100,000 excessive deaths related to Covid.  Those people would be expected to be alive if the Covid Pandemic had not cut short their lives.  And ALL LIVES MATTER!

Except, of course, that phrase was always hollow and when Lt. Gov Dan Patrick of Texas bluntly stated old people should be willing to die to help keep Trump in power it put the lie to the claim the GOP are the pro-life party.  Rightwing and Republican Covid denialism got far worse since then and their efforts in the courts, at Faux News, in Virginia and Florida have reaped the bitter harvest of over a million dead Americans.

Republicans are always willing to sacrifice other peoples' lives to advance their agenda of intolerance and oppression.  This was shown with their casual warmongering in Afghanistan and Iraq.  But, the pro-plague position during the last two years wherein Republicans are not only willing but, increasingly happy to undercut the United States Government covid mitigation strategies and let Americans die horrendously from Covid is an awful harbinger for the plans Republicans have for millions of Us when they next seize power.

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