I’m back and honestly, I’m only madder than I was two days ago because I’ve had time to mull the bullshit over. Link, for those of y’all out of the know.
It appalls me that any community of people that claim to be marxists, that claim to follow the scientific method in all things that would contribute to the betterment of the world we’re forced to share, that claim to be really out here performing praxis and making differences in their communities; it fucking galls me that a community like everything I just described can still look at a still on-going pandemic and still have such a tacit anti-mask stance.
More of you admitted to not masking than I’m comfortable with and y’know what, maybe we could’ve left it at that. It’d have been a form of liberalism to not dig my heels in on that and take a swing at that mindset because again: I took on a new disability in the wake of a COVID infection. My partner took on a new disability in the wake of their infection. I was put in a hospital bed, my grandparents were put on respirators, so many members of my family and my community were genuinely out of commission and a good number of us really had to question if we were going to make it to see the next morning under those infections-- but maybe, we could’ve left it at that.
But then, I have to see you people not only trying to justify it, but taking up for smuggards who just think it’s all some big fuckin joke, like they’re their favorite podcast crackerbro getting to have their own personal Matt Christman moment. I expect “u mad bro” smuglord fuckery out of crackers who can’t even be trusted to properly wipe their asses after they shit, or to wash their hands after doing so. And worse, you expect me to not be heated about smug-assed crackers making light of genuinely-disabling infections after the fact.
I stand ten motherfucking toes down on what I said to Cantaloupe Ass and Ghost of Faso; any plague rat motherfucker who wants to take issue with how I feel about people who won’t mask can catch the same cases my partners and my family caught. It’s a whole lot of you motherfuckers that are so unserious, so emphatically not my comrades that it sickens me seeing you call yourselves so.
Do better. Deuces.
As @[email protected] stated here, the reason you received a temp ban was because you told someone (from a comrade server) that you hope they get covid. That is completely innappropriate, and its almost unbelievable that you’d wish that pain on someone else. The point of these temp bans is to give people a chance to cool off, and that’s a very minor thing considering.
I’d wager that most of us on lemmygrad (including me) mask in public, and your temp ban had nothing to do with that. The only bannable offense w/ respect to masking here would be someone posting anti-science articles, or wishing that someone gets covid like you did. People can (and do) report those comments, so we can remove them as necessary.
I’m locking this as its trying to start a struggle session that’s a distraction over your temp ban for saying you hope someone gets covid.
I stand ten motherfucking toes down on what I said to Cantaloupe Ass and Ghost of Faso; any plague rat motherfucker who wants to take issue with how I feel about people who won’t mask can catch the same cases my partners and my family caught. It’s a whole lot of you motherfuckers that are so unserious, so emphatically not my comrades that it sickens me seeing you call yourselves so.
To address this, at no point have I ever said that people should not mask, I advocated for masking alongside infection rates rising and not masking when the current infection levels are low enough (like less than 10 cases country wide) and at that point masking in clinical settings or around more vulernable people.
I took issue with you wishing death/disablity on another poster, and I stand by that.
Edit:
To people bandstanding about how in the coming revolution they dont understand how people like me would be able to contribute.
I was in the COVID trenches, I was working in a hospital helping manage my cities infection response to COVID. I alone probably helped vaccinate and give mask/isolation/money advice to over 20,000 people and managed a team that facilaited my entire city getting that.
A year in after threatining to strike I managed to convince our managers manager to let us work from home. I have been a tireless advocate for worker centric policies and responses and changed and effected as much as I could to protect as many people as I could.
I would have to get a bus to the hospital everyday, when I realized most people on the bus to hospital where not masking, I literally just got off the bus and walked, I biked everyday (2 hours) after that, even in the winter, on xmas day and new years eve I was working. I would often have to pass piles of dead bodies, sobbing carers ect to get there.
This is all to say, have some goddam empathy, most of us are exhausted, I did all of this while managing my own schizophrenia and recent enstrangement from both of my biological parents over there fascist politics.
I understand you’re in the same position Pharoh and rightfully angry and pissed off, but please pick your battles more carefully.
If you’d like to talk about your temp ban we can talk about it. The way they’re structured means they’re instantaneous and cut all contact for the duration, but we’ve explained them before to users after they asked for a follow-up.
Nobody likes getting banned, neither do I, but if we wanted to silence someone we’d give them a permaban and refuse all their new account requests. You received a 48 hours ban for wishing covid on someone else from Lemmygrad, despite you yourself having been through covid and arguing for methods to minimize it so that others wouldn’t catch it. Do you feel that comment was productive?
I hope you have to live with the kind of lung scarring that my partner has to
I curse you with that.Oh shit. Well that’s not nice or comradely.
Masks, just like the “litterbug” campaign, are a way to offload responsibility and blame onto the working class, responsibility that should fall to the government and companies.
Case: a person is sick, maybe covid maybe not. Instead of telling the person to stay home (cutting productivity, therefore cutting profits), they just tell the person to wear a mask.
Case: a person works from home, and is sick. Instead of the government providing groceries and ensuring the person doesn’t have to go out during the 4-5 days they are contagious, they tell them to mask up and go grocery shopping.
People don’t even know how to wear a mask. I have seen so many people wear a mask under their nose, or have a mask on that is used and wet from sweat (ineffective). I also see many people have gaps on the sides, or under their chin, might as well not wear a mask at that point. Don’t even get me started on those visors…
The media lied to people. First they said masks don’t work, told people not to buy, but then couple of months later there was a mask mandate.
Their mask rules were ridiculous. When the restaurants opened (for example), the rules were that you had to wear a mask while not seated, walking between tables, but then you could take it off once you’re at the table. LMAO
Those thin masks don’t offer much protection. The ones that do are the N95 and surgical ones, yet people were allowed to wear homemade knitted masks, cloth masks, novelty masks, etc. There was no enforcing of a standard. Masks other than N95 or surgical simply don’t work.
“Well, what’s the alternative??!!”
- when sick, people should stay home (they should have paid sick leave)
- covid tests should have been free and people should have been testing themselves every few days, I’d much rather that everyone around me had been tested in the last 24-48h, than everyone wearing a mask (improperly) while not knowing whether they have covid or not
- ventilation, UV lights (like others have said)
- hand sanitisers everywhere, plus free hand sanitisers given out (this has been done for the most part)
- quick, population-wide vaccination, no dilly-dallying, no vaccinating this group, then this group, then this group
I assume this is a US thing? In my country COVID cases have fallen so low that we are no longer keeping track of new cases in our statistics and the government has already declared a return to normalcy (hospitals included) more than a year ago. I’d like to ask for confirmation if this is the case because seeing infighting over this makes me feel like I am coming from another planet.
you people
y’all
Who is your criticism pointed towards? The whole website? The ones you saw promoting not using masks? Try not to generalize a whole website because of a single post you saw 😉
$10 says you don’t have anything approaching this energy for people in real life, who actually pose a danger to you.
You will never meet anyone here in real life.
I hope this is cathartic, though.
I get an extra $5 if you use “showing your ass” or “I hope you catch COVID and die” in the reply btw
how is this even a discussion? wear a mask people
Damn, glad I missed that thread. I’ve been self-isolating this whole time, it sucks not seeing the people I care about as frequently as I want to, but the alternative is seeing them sick, or devastated because their friends or family have died. I understand self-isolation isn’t an option for a lot of people (I am lucky enough to work from home) but that kind of indifferent defeatist attitude is troubling. Western governments declared covid “over” and that was that apparently. Covid wasn’t even “that” deadly. Another plague could legitimately wipe out humanity if we have a similar response to it as we did to covid.
Honestly, after having six people agree with someone telling me they’re “indifferent to what happens to me” and completely misinterpret what I said into standing up for anti-maskers, I feel you. Kind of realization to put energy and feel a kinship with people who don’t feel the same.
Lurking on hexbear might be the better option for now, I guess.
People get heated sometimes, but I see a lot of compassion and thoughtfulness on Lemmygrad overall. I can see the effort you put into being thoughtful in your posts in this thread and I appreciate it. Whether you go more to hexbear or continue here, I wish you well.
I mostly recall posts qualifying as “anti-mask” coming across as a defeated, beaten down attitude about it, like “I give up”, not something anti-science or the like. I understand some stuff got heated and removed though, so if there were posts going into detailed anti-mask stuff, I don’t think I saw it. A lot of what I was there for to reply to people (that I can recall) was trying to commiserate and relate to people on reasoning they’re dealing with and how hard it is dealing with the pressures of other people and the system as a whole, trying to be conscientious in spite of that. Some of us dealt with, or still deal with, family members who refuse to take it seriously now, or for some people, family members who never took it seriously. On top of living in places where virtually nobody else is doing it anymore, which can attract strange looks or worse, depending on the place. Which can be very isolating, trying to somehow overcome that and be principled while people are getting sick in spite of what we do. It can make a person feel helpless and demoralized. That was one of the sentiments I saw there and I know it well in certain forms myself.
I mostly recall posts qualifying as “anti-mask” coming across as a defeated, beaten down attitude about it, like “I give up”, not something anti-science or the like.
That is being anti-masking and anti-science. Copying and pasting what I said in the Hexbear thread on this:
Should I not confront racism or misogyny in my workplace just because everyone around me is racist/misogynistic? Should I not reject the attitude of lesser-evilism just because everyone around me are chauvinistic liberals? Of course not. I don’t understand why so many cannot make that same connection with masking. Yes, our governments, especially the US government, have severely dropped the ball with Covid. But masking is only one step towards a community response to protect the vulnerable, and the most basic one at that. If we can’t clear that bar, how can we expect to accomplish anything?
If you live with people who refuse to mask, I feel for you, that’s awful and I’m sorry they are damaging your health through their inaction. That does not excuse contributing yourself to the spread of illness in your community. If you have the ability to mask but refuse and take a defeatist attitude, then you are not my comrade. Camaraderie is not given freely. Respect is not given freely. I’m tired of being talked down to people who claim to be on my side while contributing to the shit that has fucked up me and my family’s entire life for the last almost half decade now.
On top of living in places where virtually nobody else is doing it anymore, which can attract strange looks or worse, depending on the place. Which can be very isolating, trying to somehow overcome that and be principled while people are getting sick in spite of what we do.
I’m sorry but fuck off with this. You want to know what’s isolating? Having all your friends abandon you because you are immunocompromised. Being forced out of every community you were a part of because none of them will accommodate you. Being forced into the fringes of society because everywhere you go, everything you do, is a constant, neverending reminder that your life matters less than everyone else’s to the general public. And you know what’s really isolating? Spending years, years, calmly and patiently explaining to people the dangers of Covid, the effectiveness of masking, the history of ableism that has led to this disaster, the action we can take to improve, offering people free masks, free tests, anything at all out of my own pocket (even though we are barely scraping by ourselves!) just to try and get anyone to care at all, and none of them accept them, no one takes what we say seriously, and no one can be fucked to change their behavior. How long do I have to be nice and patient with people for? Cause it sure as fuck isn’t working, and if being nice won’t work, then I have no problem with getting mean.
I’ve worn a mask the entire time and self-isolated a lot. My whole approach to this topic from the start was in good faith, to better understand where people are at with it and if possible, to reinforce my own reasons for wearing a mask.
I’m sorry but fuck off with this.
I can empathize with how bad you have it, though I can’t pretend to say I understand it, as I’m not immunocompromised. But I’m not going to go along with a tone that implies real struggles people are dealing with aren’t real because someone else has it worse. My whole household got sick with covid at one point, after a long period of managing to avoid it, because one person was being a socialite and not masking. Thankfully we’d been able to vaccinate before that happened and there was no (known) long-term damage, but by god did it get to me after how hard I tried to manage the risk. That is real and demoralizing. I can’t even imagine how bad it is not having the vaccine as an option, but you are effectively taking shots at the messenger here. I’m trying to understand and describe a problem and what its challenges are, not make excuses for people having such a systemic lack of any sense of social responsibility.
Don’t confuse me for someone who wants to compromise on important issues because they don’t want to make waves. The problem is the practicality of it. I can’t give people more willpower to stand up on this. And sure I can go on with guilting myself or telling myself I’m doing some small amount of % harm reduction or telling myself I’m being principled, but it’s not helping me persuade anyone else or explain well to them why I’m doing it. Like what am I supposed to tell people? I’m seriously asking here. I don’t know and I don’t expect you to know either, but I really don’t know what to say to people about any of it. People are insistent on treating it as a thing you just sort of “move on from” at some point and I don’t know how to counter that. Should I yell at them about immunocompromised people? I’ve never tried that one. I honestly don’t know if it would move anyone.
Like what am I supposed to tell people? I’m seriously asking here. I don’t know and I don’t expect you to know either, but I really don’t know what to say to people about any of it.
I don’t know either, I really wish I did. Appealing to their morals doesn’t work. Appealing to their self-interest doesn’t work. Yelling at them about immunocompromised people definitely doesn’t work, maybe the least effective thing I’ve tried so far. Being visible and vocal in my workplace hasn’t worked. And people’s logic just goes round and round, you disprove one thing and they use it to justify some other misinformed take, and then you disprove that one and they move on to the next or bounce right back to where they started. It’s a never-ending cycle of cynicism and defeatism at best, and ableist, settler brainworms at worst. I wasn’t kidding when I said being nice doesn’t work, so now I’m just mean. At least that way I’m not biting my tongue off.
The problem is the practicality of it. I can’t give people more willpower to stand up on this. And sure I can go on with guilting myself or telling myself I’m doing some small amount of % harm reduction or telling myself I’m being principled, but it’s not helping me persuade anyone else or explain well to them why I’m doing it.
So what are we supposed to do? At least masking can have a positive effect at all. Who benefits from us not wearing a mask? The capitalists kind of benefit I guess, but even then I can’t see mass disabling your work force as beneficial to them, really. The only other people I can think of are those who choose to opt out of masking for their own personal comfort, trading their health and the health of those around them to avoid social pressure. Hell, it’s not exactly a material benefit, but least when I see people properly masking I can feel a little relief that anyone around me cares.
The only other thing I can think of is if you are the organizer for any sort of event or social gathering, require N95 respirators and strictly enforce that rule, kicking out anyone who takes theirs off or refuses to wear one. Agitating in gatherings you don’t organize is worth it too I’d say, though frankly I wouldn’t expect much in my experience. I guess if you can get your job to provide air filtration that would be good too, but again good luck if you already can’t get your coworkers on board.
Even if we set aside the question of efficacy of masking in a society where few others do (and it is still efficacious to you and people you regularly interact with), any so-called communist who doesn’t mask is a communist who is utterly failing at even the bare minimum of solidarity with their immunocompromised comrades. Do you consider yourself someone who is mindful and compassionate of other working people in your community? Then you should be masking.
What a shit-show that thread was. For some strange reason, the warped mind runs sickeningly deep in every corner of the culture of the west. The inherent need for blood in exchange for justice that was designed through every facet of our media, our art, our relationships with each other in an fierce individualism that demands “justification” for why a person themselves should change or adjust to the conditions around them.
A design to slaughter Native-Americans, to separate the sick, the poor, the different. To make a culture where even if there is no divide, to create one. It’s something that we all must fight every day. I wanted to ask, are you leaving? I appreciated your posts.
I am not going to lie, my biggest takeaway from these threads is that most Americans, even leftist ones, are fuckin crazy.
I do want to say, wishing COVID on someone isn’t cool. I’ve lost one of my best friends to that. You have lost more. I don’t wish COVID or any disease on my worst enemies. I view it in the same breath as “biological/chemical warfare” sort of thing. There is just indifference to death. There is a reflection there that I see that I wish to avoid.
I don’t wish COVID or any disease on my worst enemies.
You wouldn’t wish covid even on our billionaire overlords who intentionally sabotaged any chance we had of containing it and thus condemned millions of people to death by covid, and magnitudes more to a lifelong debilitation for the sake of profits? I would and I do. I wish that upon them and much much worse.
This feels eerily close to the line of thinking that libs use when they say, “Oh? You want to get rid of the death penalty and focus on rehabilitation? Even for murderers, rapists, and war criminals? You must be evil then too.”
Taking an extremely uncharitable view of 666’s words and then somehow trying to say that he somehow believes that billionaires shouldn’t feel the consequences of their actions is bizarre.
Obviously you can always find some asinine edge case for absolutely every statement, but that doesn’t make the rebuttal strong at all.
No, you have it completely backwards. I’m the one saying “in a communist country, the death penalty is not always a bad thing, but may be commensurate justice to be used against those responsible for the exploitation of an entire society and the torture and murder of thousands of working class people,” when a lib, in their usual cringe idealism, draws a blanket assessment like “noooo, killing is always bad and there are no exceptions!” Saying “it’s not cool to wish covid on anyone no matter how evil they are” is sheer idealism. “Wishing” alone will never make any material difference in the first place, but there’s nothing wrong with desiring the death of people who absolutely deserve death, which is fine, normal, in some cases even positive.
Your analogy is what’s absolutely bizarre and asinine because you either totally misunderstand what’s happening here or, like I said, you got it very obviously ass backwards. Funny enough, your reading of what I said is far more uncharitable than anything in my response to -6-6-6-.
The death penalty has no place in a socialist state. Once the revolution passes the initial stage, the death penalty becomes purely a tool of retribution and vengeance, the same as it is in a liberal state.
What’s ass backwards if your takes.
I’m somewhat neutral/leaning towards being supportive of the death penalty, and I understand your sentiment. And I’m not trying to be a contrarian or sound like a smug “know-it-all” or edgelord.
But I genuinely want to ask, can you really say that the death penalty isn’t a necessity on some level?
I do think and hope that the death penalty will be used less at least in a socialist society, but my opinion is that it should always remain an option.
I am aware that it is a great tragedy that as many as 4 percent to 15-ish percent of those that are executed by the state are innocent of their charges. And I am aware that a lifetime in prison can arguably be “worse” and a more fitting punishment for the convicted.
I’m of two minds: I think the death penalty should be reserved for the most heinous crimes where there is a mountain’s worth of evidence and nearly no shred of doubt, and if the person is a genuinely dangerous threat that refuses to respond to treatment, therapy, education by work and humility.
I don’t understand how/why the death penalty should ever be completely removed as an option or last-resort.
I am aware that China for example supposedly has long-term plans to stop the use of capital punishment, which I think is fairly commendable.
I’m also aware that when capitalism is overthrown, crime and violent crime will drastically decrease.
I’m talking like, in regards to people like unrepentant rapists/pedophiles, reich-wing agitators like Steven Crowder or Ben Shapiro, people like Peter Scully, Shanda Vander Ark. I don’t see the benefit in letting them live.
But I genuinely want to ask, can you really say that the death penalty isn’t a necessity on some level?
Yes, any government shouldnt have the power to execute workers. People get things wrong and the death penalty is permanent. Sankara believed that on some level, and I think the death penalty is too powerfull of a lever to hand out usually.
I’m talking like, in regards to people like unrepentant rapists/pedophiles, reich-wing agitators like Steven Crowder or Ben Shapiro, people like Peter Scully, Shanda Vander Ark. I don’t see the benefit in letting them live.
I also do see this arguement, I think for me its the pre/post revolution arguement. When we’re in power we shouldnt kill our own.
Exactly. Billionaires get the wall. Where you get to do with your hands.
Who do they spread it too? Sure, their servants or their “dogs” if you want to say that. Who do they then spread it too? It is not like a nuclear weapon; or any weapon of mass devastation even chemical. It is actual, ultimate desolation that will kill far, far more than you want to.
It is not something to toy lightly with.
If the people with the power and authority to mandate vaccines, distancing, “lockdowns,” and public mask wearing but who instead ensured those measures could never be seriously implemented had themselves all gotten fatal cases of covid and died slow, horrble deaths from it, then the world would be a much better place now. Who knows how many decent real people who did die of covid would still be alive, if common sense and normal community response had not been thwarted by those in power? Even belatedly, if the people most responsible for the scale of death from covid somehow got it now and died as a result, it would be a good thing worth celebrating.
It’s very hard to take seriously any so-called ML who thinks that billionaires dying of the same disease they condemned millions of others die of is such a bad thing that no one should even be able to wish it would happen.
Who do they spread it too?
This isn’t about spreading it. You said you wouldn’t “wish it on” your worst enemies, which is pretty unambiguous in its meaning that you think that even your enemies don’t deserve to suffer as one does with covid. If you read my other comment in this thread, you’d know that I always mask and always will because I care about the well-being of people in my community, immunocompromised comrades, and all people of the working class in general. Preventing the spread of covid is deeply important to me, more so than to those who make excuses for their failure to mask. Don’t be disingenuous and try to imply I am not concerned about the spread of covid simply because I recognize that it would be nothing short of cosmic (if coincidental) justice if the people most responsible for its continued spread and resulting mass death covid caused were themselves to suffer and die from it.
It is not like a nuclear weapon; or any weapon of mass devastation even chemical. It is actual, ultimate desolation that will kill far, far more than you want to.
… You do realize almost everyone has been infected with covid now, right? You’re saying it’s cool to wish that capitalists get nuked (or suffer other weapons of mass devastation), but wishing covid upon them is a step too far because it is ultimate desolation? What are you even talking about? This is nonsensical.