Please note that he said this all the way back in 1967. And yet, were he still living, he could just as easily have uttered it yesterday. The very conditions black US-Americans face today were already in place back then. And they had been for decades, as far back as the end of the US Civil War, in fact. The same hatred, discrimination and oppression that were holdovers from the slave era have endured to this day. Dr. King didn’t condemn riots OR “rioters”, but rather, the conditions that DRIVE people to riot.
Knowing that, it becomes a lot more understandable why Minneapolis erupted in “riots” recently in response to the police killing of George Floyd, doesn’t it?
And if you think my characterization of them is harsh, stick around for the last minute or two, when an emergency-room doctor chimes in. He’s already working his ass off (as are all his colleagues), and not enjoying a day in the sun, because all these heedless halfwits are out there thinking it’s suddenly safe again to gather in crowds…when, in fact, it’s far from it. The last thing he wants to see is them in his intensive-care ward. The second-last thing he wants to see is them, doing what they’re doing right there when a killer virus is making the rounds, and at least one carrier in every three has no symptoms. Namely, exposing themselves and countless others to it when they should be taking every possible measure to avoid it.
The lockdown is still in place, and frankly, it should be much tighter than it is. People who think it just magically doesn’t apply to them, or that they’re somehow immune, may well deserve to get sick in order to learn that hard lesson…but the innocent people they’ve exposed through their own blind recklessness do not.
Yesterday marks 40 years since that fateful day in 1980. Above is a documentary shot shortly thereafter, showing the volcanic eruption, its devastating aftermath, and some of the things irretrievably lost in it all. Most notably, 80-year old Harry Truman (no relation to the former president who shared his name), who was swamped by the eruption, along with his beloved lodge, his cats, his player piano, and the forest all around them on the shores of Spirit Lake. The only quote more memorable than the salty things old Harry said came from the lips of then-president Jimmy Carter himself, who remarked after touring the area by helicopter that “the Moon looks like a golf course compared to what’s up there”.
Life has since returned to the disaster area, but the lessons of St. Helens should not be forgotten. Those who insisted on being so close to the mountain when it blew its stack were lost, and nothing can bring them back.
Reminds me of that part in Mother Night (by Kurt Vonnegut, a must-read) in which a character chants, almost melodiously, the German phrase: “Leichenträger zur Wache!” (“Corpse-carriers to the guardhouse!”) He’s remembering Auschwitz, and how prisoners there were called upon to carry the bodies of comrades who had died (of disease, starvation, or worse) to the crematoria. These people aren’t carrying real corpses just yet, and this Bad German is hoping they will never have to.
And before anyone comes at me about how the US today, under lockdown, is exactly like a concentration camp, you can fuck all the way out of here with that noise.
Those places under lockdown are the OPPOSITE of Auschwitz, because at least in a lockdown state, where you get to stay safely at home, somebody cares enough not to just let masses of random people die of contagious diseases. By contrast, Auschwitz was a place where they dragged you from your home and locked you in, not to keep you well, but to virtually guarantee that you would sicken and die, en masse. And nobody gave a plague-ridden rat’s ass whether you lived or died. You know, like those “right to work” states in the US where they would rather work you to death than lift a finger to help you survive even a little bit?
One thing that heartens me is that at least two-thirds of US-Americans are, at least, aware enough of the danger that they don’t want lockdowns prematurely lifted. That leaves, however, the one in three who are insane…driven that way, no doubt, by not being able to go out drinking, golfing, or to get a friggin’ haircut. Maybe it’s no consolation to them to hear this..but really, nobody else cares about your pickled liver, your golf game, or your high-maintenance haircut. All those things can wait.
…and it’s killed all my nostalgic affection for him and his music, too:
Let’s count the facepalms here, shall we:
Okay, dude, here’s where you lost me: The moment you started to whine about having to cancel your LUCRATIVE concert series, from which you stand to make literal MILLIONS.
And you have the gall to call the Chinese “some fucking bat eating, wet market animal selling, virus making greedy bastards”? And to tell people who can’t afford that bourgeois lifestyle of yours to “go vegan”? How far out of touch and up your own ass ARE you, anyway?
With all due respect: Vegan lifestyles are NOT going to save this planet. They are expensive and highly petrochemical-dependent, and often both nutritionally and environmentally unbalanced. Ultimately, they are not natural to our species, which is naturally omnivorous, not herbivorous. And even if they weren’t, they still wouldn’t solve this crisis any more than drinking bleach, shooting Lysol, popping malaria pills, or shining a sunlamp on your ‘nads.
When people live at close quarters with animals (which they do all over the world), they run the risk of catching viruses that are native to those animal populations, and foreign to us. The current novel coronavirus outbreak isn’t a simple matter of people eating animals, it’s a complex matter of people sharing an entire fucking global ecosystem with them.
And it’s only the latest in a long history of animal-to-human transmission of devastating viral diseases. The Kansas flu pandemic of 1918, for instance, started on a farm, then jumped to a military base, and thanks to American soldiers shipping out to fight in World War I, it wound up wiping out millions more than the war itself did. The virus itself is of avian and equine origins, and may have links to an earlier epizootic outbreak of influenza in horses, in 1872, which wiped out so many horses that travel and trade throughout North America ground to a standstill:
In fact, the species from which this coronavirus jumped to humans was not even a bat, but a pangolin…a species much in demand with rich, air-headed status seekers who have much more in common with Bryan Adams himself than they do with his audience. Maybe this outbreak will finally kill demand for the species, but I wouldn’t bet the farm on it.
Meanwhile, thousands of poor folks who’ve never tasted pangolin meat have died of this pandemic and are still dying now. Some of them may even have been “clean”, ostensibly healthy-living vegans. Their lifestyle hasn’t saved them from what is, in fact, an airborne virus. One that you could catch simply by breathing within a few metres of any critter that’s carrying it — be it bats, pangolins, or who knows what.
And in the midst of all that, ol’ Bryan is pissing and moaning from the safety of his mansion about how much richer he won’t be getting this year off the backs of fans who can ill afford to see him anyway.
It’s enough to make you sick, if you aren’t already.
…and that’s really saying something, because this is the man who stripped down to his underoos during a child-custody hearing in which he was, strangely, NOT stripped of custody, much less visitation rights. But now he’s not just into weird sexual intimidation, but…CANNIBALISM? Yup:
Fear doesn't travel well; just as it can warp judgment, its absence can diminish memory's truth. What terrifies one generation is likely to bring only a puzzled smile to the next.
--Arthur Miller, "Why I Wrote 'The Crucible'", The New Yorker, October 21, 1996
All opinions here are the brain-wrackings of Sabina C. Becker, unless otherwise credited. If you cite them, please give credit where due.
