Ignorance is Killing Us – Part 2 – Racism

The second danger that we are facing now is Racism. I have been with my partner Hal, who is black, for more than 20 years, and in that time, I have learned a lot about how he sees the world as a black man. The things that he has seen in his life are frightening to think about for me. As a white man, I grew up with privilege that I never realized I had. To me, the local police were people I could put my trust in, especially in a small townh. I never thought that the black children I grew up with could have such a completely different view of the world, but after being with Hal, and then talking to some of the people I grew up with, I now know that the feelings of fear and distrust did exist even when I was a child.
Those fears and feelings were never shared with me growing up because those feelings are deeply held in the black community. The common perception is that no white outsider can ever appreciate those feelings, that they would be called irrational or ridiculous. I never knowingly felt that way towards my friends, but I never realized that those feelings were being hidden from me either. My parents taught me as best they could to respect everyone, and to never look down on anyone. I am glad that those friends I had growing up never associated me personally with any of the problems that they encountered, but I wish that I had known about those problems so I could have helped to overcome them.
As the number of murders committed by the police continue to grow, it becomes apparent that the real problem is ignorance. Pretending that this is a recent phenomenon completely proves the very point that my childhood friends, and Hal, have taught me. The problem has been around for over 400 years and is deeply rooted in our society. Slavery might have been outlawed, but the repercussions remain to this very day. White society has the remarkable ability to filter out unpleasant things and pretend that things are completely fine, unless the problems affect white society. This willful choice to be ignorant is a huge part of the problem.
I am proud to be part of the #BLM movement, but I can never speak for those directly affected. I can only speak from the perspective of a white man who is woke and proud of it. I choose to not be ignorant, because ignorance is killing us, all of us. To be silent is to be complicit.

Ignorance is Killing Us – Part 1 – Pandemic

Every day, we read more about how the glorification if ignorance, in fact, pride in ignorance, is killing us. The refusal to acknowledge that we are still in the midst of a pandemic seems an alien idea to so many people. I fine it impossible how leaders and everyday people can simply ignore the facts and try to pretend that nothing is going on. They want to believe that the pandemic is over, and that everything can go back to normal. The tragic mistake is that this pandemic is far from over. In some frantic rush to “reopen” everything, elected leaders, mostly republiKKKans, have thrown public health, scientific data, and common sense out of the window. Even the proven preventative measures of social distancing and wearing a mask are now seen as political issues rather than public health issues.
The number of COVID cases continues to rise, especially in the more socially and politically conservative areas of the nation, but there is no alarm among those people. In fact, they will grab their guns (as if a gun will protect them from the virus) and demand that their “rights” supersede those of everyone else. They feel that wearing a mask is an affront to their liberty, when in fact, it is a proven means of protecting their lives, and the lives of those around them.
Every time that Hal and I go to the grocery store, we are amazed at how many people simply do not wear masks at all. Especially disturbing are the parents who refuse to wear masks and also do not have their children wear them. As an adult, the parent has the “right” to gamble with their own health, but these people are willing to play with the children’s health as well.
There is a total lack of leadership in this country as the #DumbShitOrangeNazi prepares to hold more of his Nazi rallies, blatantly ignoring the advice of public health experts, but at the same time, forcing his sycophantic followers to sign away their own rights to legal recourse should they contract COVID-19 as a result of attending these rallies and inhaling the aroma of hate and ignorance.
Public health experts try to alert us that this pandemic is only in its early phase right now, but too many people simply don’t want to listen. As a result, the predicted of fatalities continues to rise. In other countries where science is the leading factor, rather than succumbing to ignorance, there is real progress in reducing the pandemic among their populations. Sadly, we are ruled by people who worship ignorance, and it is killing us.

Is It Too Much To Ask?

I want Trump defeated so much that I’m willing to vote for the human equivalent of a baloney sandwich to get rid of trump. The question of mine that no one can answer is “Is this the best we can do?”

I have nothing against Biden other than the sad truth that he cannot inspire me at all. When the Democrats seem intent on using the campaign platform consisting solely of “Biden is better than trump.” Of course Biden is better than trump. The only people I can think of who are worse than trump would be Stalin, Mao Tse Tung, Hitler, and Pol Pot. Not to mention Jim Jones and David Koresh.

I’ve given up ever seeing a Democrat who truly inspires me, one who brings energy and vision to a campaign. When someone as bland as Biden isn’t leading by 20-25 points in the polls over trump, I consider my point has been made.

I suppose that I’ll have to wait for a Democratic candidate with a big set, I don’t see any right now. But I’ll still vote for Biden over trump.

Names capitalized or not indicate my personal level of enthusiasm. That level is extremely low.

Irresponsible Behavior

Hal and I decided to grab dinner last night from the drive-thru at one of our favorite restaurants. We knew that the restaurant wasn’t open, but their drive-thru made it possible for us to grab dinner and bring it home. This is one of the repercussions of the pandemic. The important thing is to stay safe and to not put anyone else at unnecessary risk.

The line at the restaurant for the drive-thru was unbelievable. There must have been 20 cars in line ahead of us. We relaxed and eventually ordered, got our food, and then drove home. Our experience wasn’t bad at all, but we saw something that was rather disturbing while we were there.

Apparently, today marks the irresponsible attempt to reopen businesses other than drive-thru or delivery. Next to the restaurant we were waiting at was another restaurant where people were crowded at outside tables. Social distancing was obviously not being practiced, and neither was the wearing of masks except for the restaurant staff. The relaxation of rules states that outdoor dining is allowed. I personally don’t know what the capacity percentage or protective mask rules are

Honestly, seeing those people made me nervous. Were any of them carriers of COVID-19? Would someone contract the disease by being in a large unprotected group? While Hal and I take every precaution to limit contact to protect ourselves and people we have to interact with, such as the drive-thru workers, or the employees at the grocery store and pharmacy. What about the restaurant staff who had to interact with the people ignoring rules and protection?

I can’t see anything that justifies relaxing the rules so quickly while the number of cases and deaths are still rising. I see nothing to celebrate now. The celebration comes when we finally have the pandemic under control, and not before. It is irresponsible to treat some political stunt like “reopening” prematurely as something worth celebrating.

Everyone misses what we all took for granted before the pandemic, but we cannot wish reality away because it doesn’t fit with our desire for convenience. The experts are trying to warn us about this, but political pressure is driving the decision when science should be guiding us. I am afraid that these irresponsible actions will produce more cases and deaths, and will just prolong the pandemic.

So Long , March 2020, And Good Riddance

March is almost over -FINALLY! I can’t recall a worse month in my 56 years. September 2001 used to be the benchmark, but even that tragedy didn’t directly affect the entire nation like the Coronavirus has. Almost 75% of Americans are under some sort of stay-at-home restrictions right now, but we cannot bring ourselves to call it a quarantine.

It seems like each day in March became worse than the day before. Sadly, we appear to be on this awful downward slope wearing blindfolds because no one knows for sure how much longer this will last. We just hold on because we have no choice.

We have also witnessed the worst lack of leadership in our history during March. The Dumbshit Orange Nazi shows his incompetence and complete corruption and narcissism every day. Having him in charge will cost us so many more lives than otherwise. And yet, there are still sheep who willingly follow this Dumbshit Orange Nazi to their own doom.

I desperately want April to be better, but there’s no evidence that points in that direction yet. Even after we overcome the Coronavirus, and we will overcome it, we’ll still have the problems caused by the Dumbshit Orange Nazi to correct. If I’ve learned anything in my life, it’s that stupid people never admit they were wrong. The stupid people will follow the Dumbshit Orange Nazi right over the cliff. It is up to the rest of us to outlast these idiots and restore normalcy as soon as possible.

Let’s hope that April is the time when we start to overcome the Coronavirus pandemic, so we can then address the FUCKING STUPID pandemic caused by the Dumbshit Orange Nazi and his sycophant followers.

Achieving The Impossible

I was browsing through my newsfeed this morning when I saw a story about how the projected November election between Biden and trump has become a statistical tie. Let that sink in for a minute. With all of the disastrous things the Dumbshit Orange Nazi has done, the Democrats can’t manage to find a candidate that can beat this loser.

I blame the corporate Democrats who are determined to give us a repeat of 2016, which can best be compared to the South Park episode about an election between a giant douche and a turd sandwich. The American Nazi Party, or as they prefer to be called, republiKKKans, will nominate their Cheeto Mussolini again and the Democrats force us to settle for a bland, vanilla, weak ass loser like Biden.

With this giant douche vs turd sandwich choice we are facing, the only certain outcome is that we will be fucked once again.

Disgraceful

A12 EZ RE the washington post . sunday, march 22, 2020 the coronavirus outbreak
New sick leave law doesn’t help workers who need it most
BY ALYSSA FOWERS AND SHELLY TAN
The Families First Coronavirus Emergency Response Act passed the Senate on March 18 and was signed into law by President Trump.
The “phase 2” bill was one of the first moves by Congress in reaction to the coronavirus out- break and aimed at extending sick leave to vulnerable U.S. workers, along with other finan- cial benefits.
Nearly a quarter of U.S. work- ers don’t have access to paid sick leave, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. For many of these workers, like waiters and waitresses, the federally mandat- ed leave comes too late, as layoffs from social distancing measures have spiked.
But many parts of the retail industry — such as grocery stores, pharmacies and gas sta- tions — will likely remain open, declared “essential” by such cit- ies as Philadelphia that have instituted shelter-in-place poli- cies.
Workers at these businesses will come into contact with the most people, and if they don’t already have paid sick leave, the
new law is unlikely to help.
The law extends paid sick leave to workers diagnosed with or in quarantine for covid-19, the dis- ease caused by the novel corona- virus. However, the guarantee only applies to employers with more than 50 and fewer than 500 employees. Many essential in- dustries have few companies of
that size.
Only 12 percent of workers in
essential industries work for companies that will be guaran- teed coverage by the bill. The problem is particularly acute for general merchandise companies, such as Target and Walmart. According to the latest estimates from the Census Bureau, 98 per- cent of workers in the general merchandise industry work for a business that is too large to be eligible for paid sick leave under the new law.
Many banks and grocery stores also employ millions of workers that won’t be affected by the new law.
Paid sick leave is nearly univer- sal in other industrialized coun- tries: In a review of 22 countries with high standards of living, only the United States and Japan did not guarantee paid sick days for short-term illness.
Most essential workers are at companies too big or too small to gain sick leave
Each figure represents about 100,000 employees at essential businesses
who work closely with customers do not have access to hand sani- tizer and may not be able to wash their hands.
“You have to go across a very large building to wash your hands in the bathroom.” she said, “and if you get a customer service call, you have to go back. There is only so long a customer can wait.”
Although Home Depot has shortened hours to allow for deep cleaning, Lowe’s is still open to customers from 6 a.m. to 10 p.m. Lowe’s does not plan to change its hours. “People are nervous,” Alayna said.
If a worker does fall ill, sick leave is only part of the story. Another benefit in the new law is free coronavirus testing for all Americans, even if uninsured. When an uninsured worker needs care though, they’d likely still be on the hook.
Sixteen million workers did not have health insurance at the time of the 2018 American Com- munity Survey, according to the Census Bureau. That’s 10 percent of all workers. This coverage gap is a critical difference between the U.S. health-care system and that of other industrialized coun- tries like Canada, which guaran- tees care for all its citizens.
Ten percent of American work- ers are uninsured, but some pub- lic-facing occupations have much higher uninsurance rates.
Forty percent of uninsured workers are in occupations that involve serving the general pub- lic and close physical contact with others, according to the Occupational Information Net- work. For instance, more than 1.7 million sales workers and 600,000 health-care support workers are uninsured.
For workers who have already been laid off, the most important aid is likely to come in “phase 3” of the government’s coronavirus response. That’s the proposal that could send direct payments of $1,000 or more to all Ameri- cans regardless of employment status. Until that becomes law, unemployed workers are doing what they can to get by.
“I’m hoping I can make it through on food stamps and hoping the city government will do something to address rent,” said Chad, a waiter who spoke to The Washington Post about be- ing laid off. “If the worst happens …Ican’tgothereyet.Ihaveto take it as it comes.”
alyssa.fowers@washpost.com shelly.tan@washpost.com
Workers that interact with the most people often don’t have sick leave
Each figure represents about 100,000 workers
Many essential employees are also uninsured
Grocery and general merchandise businesses too large for workers to gain sick leave
No paid sick Paid sick May be exempt from leave requirement leave required paid leave
No access to paid sick leave
Food and accommodations
63%
Nearly two in three do not have paid sick leave.
Retail trade
36%
More than one in three do not have paid sick leave.
Healthcare and social assistance
15%
Nearly one in six do not have paid sick leave.
Source: Census Bureau
Access to paid sick leave
7.2M workers
6.6M workers
3.2M workers
No health insurance coverage
Maids and housekeeping cleaners
29%
Nearly one in three
Cooks
27%
More than one in four
Waiters and waitresses
22%
More than one in five
Cashiers
16%
Nearly one in six
Child-care workers
13%
Nearly one in seven
Nursing assistants
11%
With health insurance coverage
No paid sick leave requirement Large companies with 500 or more employees
Paid sick leave required Companies with 50 to
499 employeees
May be exempt from paid sick leave Small businesses with fewer than 50 employees
7.4M workers
1.3M workers
2.2M workers
Note: Includes employees at privately owned businesses in the following industries: gas stations, general merchandise stores, grocery stores, pharmacies, hardware stores, day care, dry cleaning and laundry services, commercial banks, and veterinary services.
Source: Census Bureau
The broad aim of the sick leave law was to make sure that work- ers infected with the virus would stay home without losing their income. This was especially im- portant for workers in fields with lots of contact with customers or at-risk individuals.
Nationwide, 16 percent of pri- vate industry workers did not have paid sick leave in 2018. That
figure was much higher for cer- tain vulnerable industries.
However, even employees with paid sick leave worry about their exposure risks from customers. Alayna, an assistant manager at Lowe’s Home Improvement who asked that her last name be withheld to protect her job, said that the hardware stores are busier than ever, but employees
4.3M workers
11.8M workers
18.4M workers
446K workers
634K workers
477K workers
532K workers
172K workers
1.1M workers
1.7M workers
1.7M workers
2.7M workers
1.1M workers
Pharmacies
Ex: CVS, Walgreens
Gas stations
Ex: Shell, Exxon
Child day care
Commercial banks and credit unions Ex: Chase, Citibank
Grocery stores
Ex: Giant, Safeway
General merchandise Ex: Target, Walmart
Large companies with 500 or more employees
477K workers
383K workers
156K workers
1.4M workers
2.1M workers
2.7M workers
Companies with 50 to 499 employeees
30K workers
122K workers
238K workers
452K workers
310K workers
12K workers
Small businesses with fewer than 50 employees
157K workers
439K workers
578K workers
116K workers
396K workers
32K workers
More than one in 10
156K 1.3M workers

The Blame Game

Leave it to the Orange Nazi in the Whitest House to blame sick people for being sick. Today the Orange Nazi administration publicly blamed China for having the nerve to be the location where the Coronavirus first appeared. Apparently, president DUMBSHIT has nothing better to do than try to keep himself from any accountability for his own actions, or lack thereof.

This type of thing doesn’t surprise me. Cheeto Nazi has been a complete disaster on every single thing he has put his filthy, incompetent hands on. He can’t be out of office soon enough. This country will need many years to recover from the fucking this shithead has given us. His little Christian Fascist Nazi Zombies need to be voted out as well if we are to save this country.

We need leadership at times like this. Instead we have a shit stain Nazi without a clue.

Clinton, Biden, and Democrats – A New Example of Insanity

I want to preface this blog post by stating here and now that I am a proud Bernie Sanders supporter. I truly believe that he is the best candidate we have for POTUS.

The Democrats have been running scared of Bernie for over 4 years. It began during the 2016 election cycle, when the corporate democrats decided that somehow, in their opinion, that Hillary Clinton was more “electable” than Bernie Sanders. Obviously, this plan worked so well that the democrats are willing to try the same plan again with Joe Biden in 2020.

Let me explain what I mean. In 2016, the democrats pushed Hillary Clinton even though she was pure poison to a large segment of the electorate. There was no way that they would ever vote for her. The republiKKKans enforced this message with endless “investigations” into Hillary Clinton and her email server. Millions of taxpayer dollars were WASTED to do nothing more than keep dragging Hillary Clinton’s name through the mud and make certain that the RWNJ lunatics out there would vote for whomever the republiKKKans nominated.

The argument that Hillary won the popular vote is nice, but since the popular vote doesn’t matter (let that one sink in), the argument is futile.

The democrats think that trying the same tactic again will produce different results. They are pushing Joe Biden. The republiKKKans are already lining up “investigations” about Joe Biden and his son for no other reason than to keep dragging Biden’s name through the mud all through the campaign, but the democrats want him anyway. The democrats are pushing another candidate that the RWNJ base has been trained Pavlovian-style to vote against.

The democrats are winning elections for the republiKKKans! No wonder we have an Orange NAZI in the White House!

Disappointment, but not Surprise

I was reading some of my favorite bloggers latest posts this morning when I came across one that disappointed me. Not surprised, but just really let me down. This blogger is a dyed-in-the-wool Democrat and hates trump as much as I do. Where we disagree, apparently, is with whom we would choose to have as the alternative candidate this November.

It turns out that while I am a Bernie Sanders supporter, this particular blogger I am talking about is most definitely not, and now has turned their support towards Joe Biden. Disagreement is an American tradition, but their manifesto about why Bernie was bad for the democratic party and for the country left little doubt that we have almost nothing other than hatred of trump in common.

The blogger posted almost every single article available that referred to Bernie as too extreme, too radical, not electable. All are valid points of view that I don’t agree with. Then they proceeded to smear all of Bernie’s supporters with the “BernieBro” label and started up with the ridiculous stories of how unreasonable Sanders supporters are.

Sanders has a passionate base of supporters, something that no other democratic candidate can claim. Throwing money and corporate media influence around does not equal passion. While there are some people in every political faction that cannot control themselves, the democrats seem to relish throwing all of Sanders’ supporters under the bus and then expecting blind obedience in November.

This trick failed in 2016 when the democrats anointed Shillary and she managed to lose to trump. Now they expect us to follow Biden over the same cliff? Oh, and of course, they will want me to send them MONEY for the privilege. FUCK NO!

I will not name the blogger because I don’t want a flame war or anything like that. I just decided to un-follow them in order to keep their hatred of what I hold dear from causing any further upset for me.