03-13-2020, 02:43 AM
(03-12-2020, 09:54 PM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote: Among other things, Rachel Maddow just had an AIDs atavist present putting his spin on the virus. One thing he brought up was this was not the first time an US administration at the top has heavily resisted action against an epidemic. In the 1980s the Reagan crew treated AIDs as a behavioral solvable disease that only effected the homosexual community which was rejected using tribal thinking.
This administration has its own non scientific reasons for not responding, but there is some degree of similarity.
In the 1980's homosexuality was still largely seen as itself a sickness. Since then most of us have grown up about homosexuality.
AIDS in the USA is now largely spread through IV needle use, especially with heroin. Americans are going to take much longer to see heroin use as mainstream behavior.
... COVID 19 is not associated with behavior usually considered pathological -- not with something like reckless sexuality or IV drug use. And, yes, we have a President who has a weak hold on scientific reasoning and evidence, which is a very bad sign.
Quote:The point he has made is that these days the deep state, the pharmaceutical companies, the universities, the medical communities, all know what to do. They need less to be told what to do. They have seen AIDS, Ebola, SARS, etc…. In recent administrations there has even been a group of specialists standing by waiting on the next outbreak.
But COVID 19 is similar to other viruses (the common cold) in the means of transmission, but much deadlier. Our current President often contradicts the experts or frustrates them when they admit that they do not have the means for dealing with the disease.
Quote:But they do need funding to be made available, and are accustomed to somebody saying go. We badly botched the testing element, but there was a matter of fact assumption that somebody must be working on a vaccine?
They must be. Right?
Vaccines do not ordinarily anticipate the disease.
Viral diseases are difficult to treat, which HIV/AIDS demonstrates extremely well. At best the immune system catches up to the virus and starts exterminating the virus.
The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated Communist but instead the people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists -- Hannah Arendt.