Thursday, October 15, 2020

Masculinity A "Barrier" To Covid Safety Precautions? Nope - The Enemy Is Ape-ism, Or Toxic Pseudo-Masculinity

 As the segment on NBC News began last night,  one could hear (from inside a Wisconsin ICU),  gurgling noises mixed with choking.  Janice aptly observed: "God, it sounds like one of the zombies on the Walking Dead!"  And so it did.  But this was no zombie but a human victim of Covid struggling to get air, to simply breathe..  In the next scene Medical director Dr. Paul Casey appeared and said with a somber voice:

"We thought we dodged a bullet then lo and behold here we were on the first of October and this virus has come back with a vengeance. So we're in deep trouble"

He was referencing crashing patients in ICUs, ICUs and hospitals filled to capacity, and a state record for deaths.   In the next scene nurse Carolyn Shenko from Aspirus Hospital in Wausau bore witness:

"People are dying virtually every day and there's nothing we can do about it, the virus is just beating them.  We're trying, we're doing everything that we can."

Then another  nurse(Jessica Landry) in Green Bay appeared, and worried that public support for them is slipping: 

"We're seeing multiple deaths, multiple days in a row. It's really hard to stay positive when the community itself doesn't really have your back.  They don't believe it exists. They don't see what we see."

Nurse Melissa Resch from Aspirus then appears and pleads:

"I ask you, the general public, to please wear a mask, wash your hands, social distance."

In other words, the very basics to prevent the spread of this gnarly, devastating disease - to keep these health workers from crashing as well.  Basic safety from a virus which, until it's controlled, will continue leveling people as well as the economy - since it is folly to open the latter up when positivity rates exceed 5% as they do now in more than 30 states. Including here in Colorado according to a Denver Post report yesterday.

What is going on? Why can't we get it together and work collectively as one nation to quell this virus until we get a vaccine?  A primary reason was evident in one Sunday Denver Post headline on page 8A: 'Safety Runs Into Stubborn Barrier: Masculinity'  

Which I first believed to be a misprint or a reckless mislabeling and skewing of the facts.  But then one read, confirming worst fears of growing imbecility:

"Tomi Lahren, a FOX commentator - after Joe Biden said Trump was reckless for not wearing a mask, blurted that Biden "might as well carry a purse with that mask."

Carry a purse? WTF, are you retarded?  That mask saves lives and the sanity of health care professionals like Jessica Landry, Melissa Resch and Carolyn Shenko in Wisconsin.  But lordy be, the Reepo Reeptards and their fake macho shtick are having none of it. Oh no.  As one professor of social sciences at Lawrence University quoted in the piece observed - in relation to the GOP messaging (and Trump's): "If you wear a mask their underlying message is you're afraid of catching this disease.'  If you're afraid you can't be a real man."

But as I noted in my October 13 post in regard to this drivel:

"The fake hyper-masculine worldview holds that any change in our behavior, any restriction on normal activity — no matter how beneficial and rooted in scientific evidence — constitutes an unacceptable “feminine retreat.” Taking precautions against catching or transmitting a potentially lethal disease somehow means that we have allowed the virus to win, to dominate, and hence acting the part of a submissive female.  This purportedly explaining why the GOP is the party of "manly men" and why Dems are the party of the "Nanny state".   

The last, as the Post article notes-  based on research from a Nathaniel Schermerhorn at Penn State, because:  "The GOP is seen as endorsing more traditional masculine ideals, and so polls also show Trump attracting more support from men than from women.  Republicans have been doing this since 2016, effectively feminizing or suggesting Democrats have masculine shortcomings."

Which is total, unadulterated horse shit.  Why?  Well, let's see - maybe just because one inherits the XY genotype doesn't mean he leaves his brains in the womb! Hence, if intelligence is not also part of masculinity - like strength etc. - then one is missing a most critical element and ends up being an APE. How about the GOP then being the party of stupid apes? Because:  Masculinity MINUS intelligence = APE.

The article in The Financial Times,

Pulled no punches as to the long term damage Covid 19 wreaks on the body. As the piece notes:

"Patients infected in the first wave of the virus have continued to suffer disorders in the brain, lungs, heart, gut, liver, skin and other parts of the body, according to a new review of the disease conducted by the UK National Institute for Health Research.

Some of the symptoms of Long Covid, as the condition is often known, can be seriously debilitating, like “brain fog” and extreme exhaustion. Other consequences are milder, such as hair loss and the inability to taste or smell.

“A common theme is that symptoms arise in one physiological system then abate, only for symptoms to arise in a different system,” the NIHR report said. The review aims to increase awareness of the condition among health workers, while stimulating further research since so little is known today about the prevalence or the causes of Long Covid.."

Added Elaine Maxwell, lead author of the NIHR report:

The overwhelming message is that this is not a linear condition.  Many [patients] suffer a rollercoaster of symptoms moving around the body, from which they do not recover.”

Men, American men especially, have a choice then: they can either carry on being phony masculine APEs, or add intelligence to their stock, respect this damned virus and its predations and ACT as if they care.  That means following the advice of Wisconsin nurse Melissa Resch:  wear a mask, social distance, and wash hands.  The Right wing trope that this is all about "freedom" is just plain bollocks.  As Michael Tomasky recently wrote:

"Freedom means the freedom not to get infected by the idiot who refuses to mask up. Even John Stuart Mill would have agreed."

Effeminate?  Unmanly?  Only an unintelligent ape would believe so.   A posturing, fake macho ape like Donald Trump.


Will more men join Trump's collection of imbecilic apes?  The jury is still out like it is on whether we can rescue democracy - and avoid becoming the nation of the apes!

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