We do this to Ourselves...

Recently read an essay which attempts to warn the readers of the impending onslaught of government propaganda and consumer marketing that will barrage us into returning to the old way of life, and make us forget about any benefits we may have begun to observe about a slower paced, less environmentally impacting existence. 

Although I generally agree with the prophecies portrayed, I felt the piece lacked the culpability we have in the co-dependent relationship that is us vs them, and decided to post a follow up comment, which ended up becoming an essay in-it-of-itself, so I figured I might as well capture it here:

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The problem is herd mentality. We The People are one giant flock of birds that have been sitting on the wire for a month now, and when the signal to fly comes, when the storm blows over and the clear skies of normalcy beckon, the moment we see that initial wave of family and friends take to the skies in a mad rush to exorcise all this nervous energy, it’s going to be next to impossible to resist the urge to join in. We do this to ourselves, and we do so willingly because the one thing we as individuals in a population fear above all else, is being left behind, becoming irrelevant. 

The great myth is that Marketing is some kind of leash that leads us down paths we never wanted to take. The reality is that we’ve always been *looking* for those paths, Marketing just tries to convince you that Coke is better than Pepsi. How often have you heard the phrase “We realize that you have a lot of choices when it comes to _______, so we thank you for choosing us!”

Yes. The gas-lighting will be real. What’s realer is trying to ignore our own internal processes. 

Don’t believe me? Let’s talk masks. Right now, n95 masks and other respirators share one thing in common — they’re basic and unattractive. They were designed to perform a medical function. So the “mask market” pre-covid, was about as influential in our lives as the table saw market, or the mop bucket market.

All of that is about to change, and it starts the moment you encounter Sandra with her triple-knit lavender mask or Tom with his Tactical, 3d printed mask shell that makes him look like a spec-op agent out of The Division. 

By this time next year, we’ll be flashing Supreme and Adidas branded masks with Bluetooth Voice Clarity Enhancing technology, and featuring Hepa brand filters that block 78.9% more virus particles than those “basic” n59 respirators. 

You DO want to block 78.9% more virus particles, don’t you? Of course you do.

And that’s my point — we do this to ourselves. WE create new market vacuums in space and time that never existed before, and that is the fertile field those “evil” corporations seek to harvest in our mind-shares. Without our own neurosis-driven need to have a 1 up on everyone around us, the corporations simply have no ACE-2 receptors to exploit in us, as it were. 

I get it. Holding up a mirror is an extremely uncomfortable thing to do. I avoid it, too, especially when there are convenient scapegoats around. But self-examination is the only true salvation from all this. The only way to beat the game is to stop playing it, even if it means a departure from the people around you who need to keep playing it to escape themselves. 

You just gotta fortify your mind and try to — hold on, sorry I gotta run, everyone’s flying off and I don’t want to get held up in traffic. 

Political Lines Amidst a Pandemic

Guess it's been a hot minute since I've posted to ye ole blog. Lots has happened over the past year, but coming back here was an idea that popped up after my wife reviewed a post I made on Facebook in response to a divisive article that was posted by a friend.

The article, 'Jared Kushner makes coronavirus briefing appearance, draws backlash for 'our stockpile' comment', was met among friends with the usual for-or-against points that attribute the sum of the federal government response to the President and whether he's #mypresident or #notmrpresident.

I was tagged in to the conversation by another friend of mine who made the assumption that I was one of his "liberal friends".  Although I have never claimed to be either, the assumption may have seemed fair as I have been calling out other hypocritical behaviors Republicans appear to be quite guilty of when it comes to the also-current Oil Industry Crisis between Saudi Arabia and Russia, where Republicans conveniently forget about letting the "invisible hand of the free market" work things out on their own.

So before I commented on the Federal Stockpiles, I wanted to clear up confusions on my political position and remind folks that the only "us vs them" team I'm concerned with is the Government vs. The People.

This was my post, with only the most minor of spelling/grammatical corrections afforded. One last bit of context, when I was tagged in, my friend was also asking if he was a "colossal shithead" for wanting to defend his position :

I’m not a liberal. Not a conservative either. You’re not a shithead either. The issue is tying oneself too closely to politicians simply because they have a D or an R next to their name and you have a D or an R next to yours.

The issue is cognitive dissonance. It’s like when the “only 2 parties allowed” sat down at the draft they purposely decided to exchange 2-3 critical positions that make absolutely zero sense for the other side to have, just so it’s always a guaranteed shit-show when the family gets together to talk.

I post, speak, and comment to point out the hypocrisy that exists on both sides of the isle. I constantly remind family and friends that the shitty things we attribute to Mr Trump are some of the same shitty things that happened on Obama’s watch as well. Doing so rarely gets met with an objective admittance from the Left. Usually just name calling and excuses.

It’s an uncomfortable fact when people look back on H1N1 and realize that National Emergency (not to be confused with Public Health Emergency, which is declared by the Secretary of Public Health, not the president) wasn’t declared until October and after 1000 Americans had already died.

It’s an uncomfortable realization when you show people clips of that October time-frame where people were in lines for hours trying to get vaccinated even though the administration had months to mobilize and prepare between the public and national emergency states. Yet we sit here and call our current situation a delayed debacle as if it was the first ever, and when in truth it only took about 40 days and 1 death to declare Covid-19 a National emergency. 

You see, I do this on both sides because I have the pipe dream that everyone I care about will one day wake up and realize they don’t have to don the Dem or Rep team jersey featuring some of the ideological brand logos they believe in but also the giant kick-me sign on the back for the things they have to pretend to agree with and rationalize to fit in. 

The only teams we should care about are: The Elected Officials and The Rest of Us (aka We the People).

That means holding everyone in office equally and objectively accountable for in their actions and behaviors regardless of what camp they originated from.

Those aren’t Democrats OR Republicans. Those are Senators and Congressmen. That guy is a President. The moment they became those things, they became job functions entrusted to keep the interests, prosperity and safety of  everyone in this nation in mind.

With that perspective, it’s fairly obvious the dude we elected is, overall, a poor choice. Not poor, perhaps, from a “make shit happen now” perspective, but one where the ramifications of his actions will be carried by generations to come. But you know what? It’s not entirely his fault, just like it wasn’t entirely Obama’s fault then.

Given the fact that the president’s ability to MSH is almost entirely dependent on all of the other committees, agencies, and branches that support him, it’s painful to watch him take sole credit for the positive outcomes, while throwing other agencies and individuals under the bus for poor outcomes and negative consequences.

In short, if you're going to grandstand and say “I did that, you’re welcome”, you’ve also gotta be ready to say “I did that, I’m sorry”.

At Dell, I don’t just get measured on my outcomes. I get measured on “How Behaviors” deigned to stop people from becoming supreme assholes in a quest to make a name for themselves hiding behind achieved target goals. We have to consider a President's "How Behaviors" and stop giving him the "Yeah he's a dick, but..." pass. 

On the Stockpile- Also a dick move by the Feds to take this position. This is tantamount to sitting at a dinner table with all of your friends, agreeing to split the check, and then lambasting the ones who can’t afford their split when the check comes and “it’s way bigger than anyone could have imagined”.

At the dinner table (i.e. in the middle of the crisis) is NOT the time nor place to throw shade, or decide you’re only really wanting to help Billy because Bob was kind of a dick to you last week.  

I’m also extremely troubled by our carelessness as we high five him when he asks these falsely-provocative “Why the hell” questions without considering the risks.

“Why are we throwing away the masks” - Well, because this is the proper, reviewed, and accepted SOP that has been in place for decades as the safest way to deal with biological waste in a hospital setting to prevent cross contamination or reinfection.  The supplies that protect us in those risky contact situations are disposable BY DESIGN to ensure our safety!

It’s why swabs, needle tips, bags, gloves, masks, gowns and alll that other shit is meant to be collected and disposed of properly. Now you got a guy saying “Hey fuck all that smart shit, why are you throwing those away let’s save on supplies.” and people are like "Yeah! Cut that red tape Mr President!!"

But notice, the smart ones have to come in later and interpret this careless behavior to say “Well, I guess we could try to sanitize and reuse.. but it’s unproven and each time you do so, the mask degrades, and you risk not getting it all”. And the part no one wants to talk about: You better hope it actually gets done properly, and no one cuts corners or forgets to sanitize between patients.

Consider this: Would you reuse a condom? Up to 20 times? Or just grab another one to be real sure? I know what I'd do. 

“Hey let’s use all the drugs and see if they work” is also a bold move that brings with it high risks. The fallout is at least less than the PPE situation. The patient rolls the dice on dying to the virus or dying from liver failure right, what’s the difference? I get it. Give them the choice to use the experimental drugs or wait for the clinical trials on the correct drugs and call it a day.

But where we should care indirectly as a taxpayers is the liability when the law suits come from groups given ineffective or adverse medicine in this knee jerk “screw clinical trials” reaction.

It’s the public and legal amnesia that will arise months and years later when no one wants to remember the bold “people are dying!” sentiment and the narrative shifts to how “irresponsible” the administration was for allowing these treatments to go out unproven.

A crisis shows people’s true colors when the chips are down- and that’s the point of this article when it comes to the Stockpiles.

The message from the Feds to the rest of the States was made quite clear...

“We are here to ensure *our* masks are on first before assisting others”.