I would hate to think what would happen if alt-America, or Wingnuttia, if you prefer, decided to go on a kamikaze mission against its own children. If they are putting their kids at risk for what they think are good reasons, imagine if they flat out didn’t care what happened to the young ones. Read these stats and read what the genius governor of Mississippi has to say about COVID-19. This is pure dystopian horror material, except its not fiction. Reality in the 21st Century is much stranger than anything Stephen King ever wrote. I’m sure he’d be the first to say that. The denial of science and the immorality of doing same is beyond belief. Insider:

Last month, an eighth-grader at a Mississippi middle school died from COVID-19 just days after Republican Gov. Tate Reeves held a press conference claiming that the virus only causes “sniffles” in children under 18. Reeves speculated that maybe one or two children had died from the virus in the state since the beginning of the pandemic, before state Health Officer Dr. Thomas Dobbs corrected him. To date, seven children have died of COVID-19 in Mississippi.

According to state data, at least 18,825 students have tested positive for COVID-19 within the first month of school and more than 15,000 had to quarantine last week alone.

Only 46% of Mississippians 12 and older, who are eligible to get the coronavirus vaccines, are fully vaccinated — one of the worst vaccination rates in the country.

Several Mississippi teachers told Insider that they want Reeves to issue a mask mandate for public schools, saying they see no other way to avoid disruptions in the learning process and ensure schools can stay open.

So far, Reeves has resisted. At a press conference on August 19, Reeves said reporters in the room who asked about the coronavirus and schools were making masks and vaccines into a political issue to grow their Twitter following.

This is what’s running the Republican party these days and we thought Dubya was a dummy? I’ll give credit where I see credit is due. George W. Bush gave a sane and sober speech earlier today about 9/11 and how politics nowadays are polarized. And I hated George Bush when he was in office, make no mistake. But at least he credibly read a speech on the twentieth anniversary of 9/11 and called for unity. The normal Republican office holder in this day and age is without character or a clue and doesn’t care about unity. The worst of them are only waiting for the right moment to overthrow democracy and install autocracy in this country. The worst fringe groups in the GOP are running the show and America is in grave peril.

One of the side effects of COVID-19 that no one speaks about, but you better believe it exists, is the effects on young children when they hear the adults argue over what’s real and what’s not. It is not doing this young generation any good to hear the wingnuts on right-wing media outlets, or worse yet, up at the front of the church, talking the crazy talk to gin up a buck and speaking of the “mark of the beast” in the form of microchips injected with the vaccine, and the 5G towers being instruments of mind control, and how the coronavirus vaccine will magnetize your body, so that you become a human key ring and spoon dispenser.  I could go on and on for paragraphs here but you’ve heard it all. And you’ll hear more. As long as there is an economic payoff in the crazies keeping it crazy, that’s exactly what you’re going to hear.

Here’s a comment from Mississippi’s teacher of the year.

Hannah Gadd Ardrey, who was Mississippi’s Teacher of the Year in 2020, is the choir director at a high school in northern Mississippi. While she said her school district has its own mask mandate in place, she’s afraid that the local school board could overturn it.

“We definitely make sure we’re socially distanced,” she told Insider. “We always wear masks whenever we sing, but every 10 minutes we let them go outside or spread out and take a mask break so no one gets light-headed.”

Ardrey said she wished the governor would “take a second look at the science, look at the numbers, and see that Mississippi students need to be safe.”

“Silence and compliance is worse than anything when you’re a leader,” she said.

As the Bible says, “Who who bothereth in his own house shall inherit the wind.” We can get through this together but we cannot get through it at each other’s throats. The trust fund baby reality TV actor started all this because he thought it was the best way to play the pandemic, to minimize it. He thought wrong. He suppressed information and did nothing at a crucial time. His own allies were sending him memos and he had international intelligence as early as October or November, 2019. He ignored it all, thinking he could bluff it through. Fox News jumped on board with him. Then, finally, in March 2020 the lie wouldn’t hold anymore and you know the rest. We’ve been scrambling for survival ever since. The pandemic rages on, creating new variants, while right-wing media stars, themselves vaccinated, continue to tell lies that put people at risk.

The south is in trouble in particular. I have no idea what would persuade Mississippi’s governor to take a different tack here, but I hope he wakes up soon. Maybe this cry from educators will do it. We shall see.

 

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6 COMMENTS

  1. I for one think it’s folly to expect them to change their tune. They long ago went all-in on Trump’s schtick about Covid, and some of them even hope to succeed him as head of the Party which means staying in his good graces. Trump himself made a half-assed attempt at a rally to suggest maybe getting vaccinated was a smart thing to do and got booed. He won’t make THAT mistake again. The point is that while you’re correct that these politicians and talking heads (and others including many of the mega church preachers) have gotten themselves vaccinated (even if they lie about having done so) they are even more invested in the Covid Big Lie as the election one.

    At this point what can they be expected to do to fix things? Does anyone expect them to get up on TV and say “Golly gee folks – it was politically advantageous for me to LIE to you all this time to keep Trump from saying bad things about me or having someone primary me or keep the donations/ad revenue rolling in (depending on whether it’s a politician, pundit or preacher) but now it’s time to fess up and apologize for SUCKERING you all this time. So get vaccinated.”

    That’s what it would take. Virtually all of them saying that on the same day. Even then I don’t think it would do much good. Too many tens of millions of people are beyond reach at this point. Some who aren’t beyond reach are afraid to get vaccinated because if their friends/family find out they’ll be in a world of shit. I think our only hope is that enough of the holdouts value their paychecks more than anything else and use Biden’s latest proposals as an excuse. Or just give in. After all they can still complain about having been forced to get their shots.

    I think the employers forcing people to get vaccinated will have a significant impact and if a vaccine for kids is approved we will finally gain a measure of control by spring. And you know what will happen then? Led by RWNJ Chistalibangelical tee vee preachers and other conservatives ALL the credit will go to their “prayers” to their magic Jeebus for delivering us from evil despite our being “unworthy” for electing Democrats who actually did the work to defeat the pandemic.

  2. Someone really needs to get the christists to realise that God cannot protect you from your own stupidity.

    Having the best politicxians money can buy doesn’t help either

  3. They shouldn’t be getting lightheaded from singing while being masked. They might get lightheaded from not breathing enough while singing, though.

  4. The anti-vaccine and anti-mask people just don’t get it! Covid will not go away on it’s own. Taking horse de-wormer, drinking bleach or putting a UV light where the sun don’t shine will not make Covid go away or keep you from getting Covid. There are two ways this can end. The un-vaccinated get the vaccine or the un-vaccinated all die of Covid (and their own stupidity). If the un-vaccinated choose the second way, they will be taking a lot of kids and innocent folk with them, but they don’t care.

    With the help of right-wing propaganda outlets and social media, the anti-mask and antivaxxers are making not wearing a mask and not getting vaccinated into a political statement. But Covid don’t care about politics. We cannot fix the anti-mask/antivaxx stupidity, but Covid CAN AND WILL!

  5. Ms. Faw, Wingnuttia IS on a kamikaze mission against its children. You ever wonder about ancient civilizations using child sacrifice to appease the deities? I think we have a present-day example here in the US. Maybe this is how they think they’ll grease their way into heaven-by sacrificing their kids. The children are getting ill and dying-nothing else makes any sense whatsoever besides the usual suspect: they’re just f*cking stupid.

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