Saturday, October 18, 2014

When Ebola Makes It To Your City


I'll have to try to find the link, and then watch the video, but I saw a meme (with video) that was captioned:

"What to do when Ebola makes it to your city."

And I thought "Shit, guess we really ought to have pulled our heads from our asses and stopped this thing back when it was only killing people in Africa."

Note, there's dripping sarcasm here.

  1. Why the fuck has this disease been allowed to kill thousands of people? We bloody well know how to stop epidemics, if only the resources had been mustered and provided to the peoples of Africa;
  2. Why do we - here in the US - always have our heads up our ass when it comes to the reality that the world is a big place, and we - as Jesus said - have a responsibility to each other. "Am I my brother's keeper?" No, but he's still your brother, so suck it up and lend a hand when he's dying;
  3. Sheer Enlightened Self-Interest ought to have motivated us to prevent this sucker from crossing the ocean and endangering more people. Also, viruses mutate, so bloody well better to find a treatment now before it turns into something worse and becomes a lot harder to stop.
  4. We - meaning the asshats running the profit-machine known as "Big Pharma," actually - have incredible resources in terms of brainpower and equipment to shut down most viruses if we really try. I mean, we even have a vaccine against a type of cancer! Surely we could shut this sucker down.
Just as a final note, I'm hearing the fear-mongers in right-wing world chanting "October Surprise" and how the President and Center for Disease Control "failed to act," and "failed to protect Americans" and blah, blah, blah, be Very Afraid and Do-What-I-Say-And-Everything-Will-Be-Fine-(For-Me-Ha-Ha-Ha).

Well, guess what right-wing world: you reap what you have sown. YOU put the GOP in Congress, and YOUR GOP cut the CDC funding, therefore YOU are to blame for any "failings" of the CDC. Now, suck it up and accept responsibility like adults - instead of trying to point fingers like children - and figure out how to stop panicking and do something productive. (Hint: restore  Nixon-era taxes on the billionaires and re-fund the CDC and Keep America Safe.)

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