<
https://blog.petrieflom.law.harvard.edu/2023/07/24/running-cover-for-death-pandemic-minimizers-normalize-an-inhumane-baseline/>
"Last week, David Leonhardt took to the pages of the
New York Times to
celebrate the latest COVID death figures, which he claims mean the U.S. is no
longer in a pandemic, because there are no more “excess deaths.”
The hunger for good news is, of course, understandable amid this ongoing
nightmare. But to respond to death with “smile everyone, it could have been
more deaths!” is grotesque because of the disrespect to the dead and those most
affected by the deaths.
It also lets the powerful off the hook, which is Leonhardt’s primary
motivation, I assume. In other words, looking for good news is a political
position.
The sociologist Goran Therborn has argued that ideology is always a matter of
assertions about what exists, what is possible, and what is just. Leonhardt
(I’d call him Lyin’ Heart, but it seems wrong to imply he has a heart) and
other ideologues like him start from the position that the Biden Administration
has succeeded, and they fold assertions about what exists (few deaths! and only
among nobodies!), what is possible (nothing more than what has already been
done!), and what is just (Biden is good! Masking is bad, so is work from home,
aren’t you TIRED of all the RESTRICTIONS!?), in order to create a depiction of
policy success. There is no level of contorted reasoning they won’t engage in.
It would be funny if it weren’t so ghastly."
Via Violet Blue’s
Pandemic Roundup: July 27, 2023
https://www.patreon.com/posts/pandemic-roundup-86727898
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
