off-guardian | Recently I had the poor judgment to turn on National Public Radio for
about an hour, under the impression that I was going to learn something
about the day’s news.
I could have saved myself the trouble. During the hour in question, I
learned nothing at all about the presidential election campaign (now in
its final months), nothing about the tens of millions
of my fellow citizens whose jobs have been snatched away by government
fiat, nothing about climate change, nuclear arms buildups, international
refugees or growing worldwide poverty – nothing even about the intensification of air and water pollution authorized by recent federal regulation, although pollution kills an estimated 100,000 Americans every year.
No – for a solid hour, I heard the following: that COVID19 – in
reality, at most, a moderately serious flu virus – is the worst medical
threat the United States has ever faced; that this “deadly” virus (the
word “deadly” was repeated obsessively, even though the disease is fatal
in a tiny percentage of cases) has been empowered by a conspiracy of
Republican politicians serving the arch-demon Donald Trump; that recent
data showing the rapid decline in deaths attributable to the virus may
have been faked, because the numbers aren’t what the “experts” want them
to be; and that a massive increase in COVID19 tests – primarily among
people between 20 and 40 years of age who are subjected to swabbing
because their employers demand it, not because they’re in any danger –
cannot possibly have anything to do with a rise in the number of
reported infections, and that anyone who dares to suggest otherwise is
“putting lives at risk.”
But the real theme of the hour was masks, masks, masks: how to make
them, how to wear them, their different types, who doesn’t seem to have
enough of them, and why muffling our faces (even though no such thing
was ever demanded of us during dozens of past viral outbreaks) is
absolutely, positively good for us all.
I waited in vain for some mention of the fact that every single order requiring the wearing of muzzles in the US is probably unconstitutional,
a matter that National Public Radio – which once prided itself on its
legal affairs reporting – might have been expected to care about.
Nor did anyone mention that just a few months ago, the Center for Disease Control and Prevention was explicitly advising against a general mask-wearing regime, as was Anthony Fauci, the High Priest of COVID19.
No, facts would only have complicated matters. After all, we already
knew what good little boys and girls were expected to do with those
muzzles. At the close of each weather forecast, just in case anyone had
missed the point, the reporter said cheerily, “And when you go out – put
on a mask.” “And drink milk with every meal,” I half expected him to
add, but I guess self-conscious condescension would have spoiled the
effect.
Put on a mask.
In well over half a century, I cannot remember a weather report that
ended with a brisk piece of non-meteorological advice, let alone a
patently silly one – after all, if these magical masks were to make any
difference, their greatest usefulness would have been at the beginning
of the outbreak, not on its heels.
Yet throughout March, while police-state fever prompted the suspension of democracy in some 40 states
and most of the US population was being hustled into virtual house
arrest, the pro-incarceration crowd’s loudest voices unanimously
insisted that masks were of no practical value.
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