Premature Relaxation 1: Unmasked

In defiance of the idiots running this country, the Guardian reports promising early signs for Imperial College's vaccine efforts. Fantastic.

In non-defiance of the idiots running this country, the Guardian reports that, because she doesn't kiss Dominic Cummings' arse, Ruth May is excluded from Covid briefings. She's only the chief nurse.

He doesn't care about the pandemic, which means he doesn't care about us. Our health is irrelevant. This was already demonstrated in the Barnard Castle debacle. Our health is partisan to these people. Either you are on board with their fundamental reordering of society, moving further to the right, or you can die. Either way, you can die. The working class does not benefit. We all kbnow, or shoudl, that this is an opportunity to sell off the rest of the family silver.

And the desperate voted for this.

If only they knew it.

Why are people so afraid of wearing masks? Have they never had an interaction with a doctor, surgeon, or dentist? I find it hard to think that, if this had happened in place of SARS (which was serious elsewhere just not here) folk wouldn't have had this reaction. Something has happened along the way to infantilise people, brainwashing them into strange notions of freedom. Perhaps the result of years of austerity and hardship - from all parties, let's be honest. But instead of placing the blame correctly - on the shoulders of the ruling class - people have fallen for divide and rule. Punching down, not up. Now they blame each other because they think being told to wear a mask somehow prevents them from, quite literally speaking. Even if that were true it doesn't prevent them from airing their views on social media. Views that probably reach more people than spoken in person (because the only people they interact with are the right wing echo chamber).

Over the weekend, in Hyde Park, a bunch of these people had a protest meeting. Mistakenly believing that the government is going to listen to them. Did any of them really believe that was ever going to happen? Of course not, it's just an exercise in reinforcing their sense of persecution, which is what they thrive on. Without it they would have nothing.

Don't misunderstand, the government is persecuting all of us. As it always does. But that's a macro view; it just so happens wearing masks is in our interests at this time.

But congregating, without any protection, in the midst of a virus whose presence among them is uncertain and invisible makes utterly no sense at all. This is what has become of our society now. People so twisted up by the exploitation but lacking a real analysis of the powers at work. They just assume every authority is bad, even if it can be justified. Understand: the order to wear masks isn't based on ruling class dogma, it's based on science. Acquiescing to that doesn't make you a "sheeple". It is following a justified claim of authority, even if, in the case of the £100 fine proposed, it comes with coercion.

That's the best deal we have right now. All of this sucks. I don't enjoy wearing masks any more than I enjoyed lockdown. But we are where we are. Flying in the face of that serves no one but the virus.