They see a future in which their jobs have vanished

Kos of Daily Kos has been writing Anti-Vaxx Chronicles – posts about a person who promotes not getting the vaccine and then dies of COVID. This one is different. It is about a doctor and his encounters with an anti-vaxx family. A summary (which is a spoiler alert): Father is in the hospital and quite ill. Mother and daughters want to visit but refuse to wear masks, so are denied entry. Mother demands her husband be treated with all those miracle things that don’t work. The doctor refuses. Father dies. Mother accuses the doctor of murder and assaults him. The doctor won’t press charges, knowing that will make him an anti-vaxx target. But this was the final incident to prompt him to switch jobs to something adjacent to medicine where he never has to see another patient. Rebekah Sager of Kos reported that while at the far right Turning Point USA Conference Jesse Watters of Fox News called for stochastic terrorism – a kill shot with an ambush – against Dr. Anthony Fauci, our top infectious disease doctor. Fauci, who has 24/7 security, went on CNN to call for Watters to be fired. Fox hasn’t responded. I listened to another Gaslit Nation bonus episode (available to subscribers). I’ve been listening because I asked a question and I want to hear the answer. More of that in a bit. The first question was about billionaires. Host Sarah Kendzior said many billionaires are not acting to help alleviate climate change. Instead, they appear to be preparing to ride out the storm. They’re doing such things as hoarding resources and buying land. But why are they doing that? One billionaire bought a big chunk of land in Minnesota, perhaps to build a private bunker. But a fire swept through that land this summer. No place on earth will be safe. Besides, what kind of life would a billionaire, his family, and entourage have if confined to a bunker because the planet’s resources are stretched thin and the restless population is fighting over limited resources? That billionaire would be in a much more comfortable position if he spent a chunk of his wealth on efforts to reduce a climate catastrophe. So, why are they doing what they’re doing? This reminds be of something I wrote about in mid July. Many religious end-time stories say the world will go through hell, then after that a select number will enter heaven. Put another way, triggering a cataclysmic climate will get rid of the lower sections of the social hierarchy while preserving those at the top, or at least make the smaller number of them terrified and thus easier to control. My question wasn’t answered in the way I had hoped. Kendzior has said that many members of Congress, and certainly the leadership, know about Jeffrey Epstein and his sex trafficking of minors. Many of Epstein’s customers were members of Congress. Because of that Epstein had, and now the transnational crime syndicate behind him (see the current trial of Ghislaine Maxwell) has, leverage over those members. My question was what would happen if a member went public with which members were under the influence of this syndicate. The answer was a discussion of how the various news sources of Maxwell’s trial are talking about everything but that. So I reframed the question and asked again. Which means I’ll listen to more bonus episodes. Leah McElrath tweeted a quote from WikiVictorian, which included the photo:

Tsar Nicholas II and Empress Alexandra Feodorovna, seated on cane chair, both smiling, on board the Imperial Yacht Standart, at Reval, Russia (now Tallinn, Estonia). Photographed in 1908. Royal Collection.

McElrath added:

A decade later, they were both executed by gunfire, and their bodies were disfigured, dismembered, and burnt. Income inequality at these levels does not historically end well. Just saying. Apparently this observation was too real, even for my battle-hardened, generously hearted followers. But it’s the truth. I don’t understand how those with the greatest wealth and power fail to understand that increasing overall well-being is in their best interests too.

They’re willing to give up some of their own well-being to maintain the gulf between themselves and those towards the bottom of the social hierarchy. Marissa Higgins of Kos reported that Jeff Green, CEO of The Trade Desk and in the billionaire league, sent a letter to the Mormon Church leadership saying he and his family were resigning their membership. The reason was, “I believe the Mormon church has hindered global progress in women’s rights, civil rights and racial equality, and LGBTQ+ rights.” Green had promised to donate 90% of his wealth (keeping hundreds of millions) at or before he died. As a step toward that he donated $600,000 to Equality Utah, which supports LGBTQ+ causes. Half of this money will go towards scholarships for LGBTQ+ students, especially those who need to leave the Mormon associated Brigham Young University, which has a ban on same-sex behavior. Joan McCarter of Kos reported more on what the United Mine Workers of West Virginia are saying about their senator, Joe Manchin, and his killing of the Build Back Better bill. McCarter wrote:

The United Mine Workers are telling Manchin it’s time he work for them and support this bill. “We urge Senator Manchin to revisit his opposition to this legislation and work with his colleagues to pass something that will help keep coal miners working, and have a meaningful impact on our members, their families and their communities,” Cecil Roberts, president of the United Mine Workers of America, said in a statement Monday. They see a future in which their jobs have vanished, and want help now. For example, Build Back Better includes tax incentives—which the industry is fighting—to encourage manufacturers to build new facilities at the coal site and hire unemployed miners. ... The bill “provides the potential for good jobs that our members who have been dislocated can get,” Smith said, adding that about 45,000 coal mining jobs have been lost in the past decade. “We’re likely to lose coal jobs whether or not this bill passes,” Smith told Sargent. “If that’s the case, let’s figure out a way to provide as many jobs as possible for those who are going to lose.” He said that the tax incentives in Build Back Better provide a “pathway to do that.” In addition to the job replacement possibilities the bill offers for coal miners, there’s an extension of a fee coal companies have to pay to fund benefits for miners with black lung. ... It’s not just Build Back Better that the union is trying to get Manchin to support, by the way. “I also want to reiterate our support for the passage of voting rights legislation as soon as possible, and strongly encourage Senator Manchin and every other Senator to be prepared to do whatever it takes to accomplish that,” Roberts said in the statement. “Anti-democracy legislators and their allies are working every day to roll back the right to vote in America. Failure by the Senate to stand up to that is unacceptable and a dereliction of their duty to the Constitution.

Several news outlets are reporting Pfizer’s paxlovid has been approved for treating COVID. It has the advantage of being in pill form, rather than IV, so can be taken at home. That prompted Tyler Albertario, an LGBTQ+ historian, to tweet:

Paxlovid contains protease inhibitors, a class of drugs that wouldn't exist without the tireless efforts of ACT UP in the 1980s and 90s. Their thankless activism that was routinely mocked in the media and pop culture is now saving humanity.

ACT UP was an organization that, during the AIDS epidemic, staged noisy and in-your-face demonstrations trying to get government and Big Pharma to pay attention to the needs of gay people. Dr. Ali Nouri explains how paxlovid works. Bill in Portland, Maine, in his Cheers and Jeers column for Kos, reminded us that today is Festivus. As far as I can tell this unofficial holiday had its origins in a scene in the TV show Seinfeld. A part of the way the day is commemorated is an Airing of Grievances. I’ll summarize parts of Bill’s list (which is close enough I don’t have to create my own): * President Joe Biden is being treated more negatively by the press than his horrible predecessor. * Joe Manchin and his joy in watching people suffer. * We’re not into COVID so it should stop being so into us. * The anti-vaxxers. * The left is always asked to compromise with the right but the right is never asked to compromise with the left. Well, OK, one of my own: * The slowness of the Democratic response to the Capitol attack, the Big Lie, and voter suppression bills. Adam Sharp tweeted a long list of international ways of saying “I don’t care.” Warning, many in his list are not safe for tender ears. I’ll stick to the safe ones. * It’s sausage to me (German) * Narrate that to a tortoise (Filipino) * Even the dog is uninterested (Hungarian) * I don’t give a frostbitten onion (Romanian) * It bothers me like a cardboard duck (Danish) * I don’t give a cabbage (Italy)