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 @CriticalResist8@lemmygrad.ml 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 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.
Yup. Still a thing, and another wave is definitely on its way.
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 😉
Do you wear a respirator in public?
$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.
Actually I do, motherfucker, because I wear a god damn p100 everywhere I go. A fucking gas mask with removable cartridges and everything. Do that and get back to me. I get stared at, laughed at, pointed at, and I stare right back. My wife and I have been fake coughed at as we are passed. I go about my business. I organize with my local community to give out free respirators, information, and education to anyone who needs it. Now tell me what the fuck it is you do again?
I’m not arguing against masks. You’re using me to let off steam from frustration in your actual life.
I get an extra $5 if you use “showing your ass” or “I hope you catch COVID and die” in the reply btw
Do you wear a respirator in public?
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.
Covid wasn’t even “that” deadly.
You people are going to make me lose my mind. Current estimates in the US are at about 1500 deaths a week. The last four years are the most excess deaths “during peacetime” that have ever been recorded. Ever. How much worse does it need to get???
I don’t mean it isn’t dangerous, don’t misunderstand me, I’m saying that if people had this same callous disregard for human life with a deadlier disease, it would literally cause the death of humanity.
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.
Again: what comrade? Not mine.
Comrade is as a comrade does.
Then that motherfucker’s going to spread a plague, ain’t they? Not mine. You motherfuckers are going to learn that we don’t do free camaraderie and entitlements to respect. Shown nothing, proven nothing, and still out here with your hands out.
Do you feel that comment was productive?
I stand ten toes down on what I said. If people really want to take up for anti-maskers, if people really wanna smug and optics politic how I feel about petri dish-assed settlers, the I give less than zero fucks what happens to them after that point because how dare they call themselves my comrade?
When someone shows me who they are, I believe them; and if someone tells me they’re my comrade while espousing mindsets that could kill my loved ones, then no the fuck they are not; and I’ll handle them like I would any other reactionary from that point forward.
Do you wear a respirator in public?
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.
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
Your solutions offer little help to immunocompromised people who are often afraid to leave their house because covid could significantly worsen their disability or kill them. They also do not help us today to prevent more people from getting a disabling disease called long covid.
immunocompromised people who are often afraid to leave their house because covid could significantly worsen their disability or kill them
Sure, and they should wear a mask. The point I was trying to make is that most people don’t wear a mask properly, or wash/sanitise their hands properly, so people wearing a mask just to wear a mask doesn’t help much.
Here’s another solution: an honest, public education campaign with free masks that makes people want to wear them and know how to wear them properly.
It was botched during covid cause every country had its own guidelines and program, so people were reading about these ones and those ones. And of course it was turned into a political issue. This was perfect for a global organisation like WHO to handle on a global scale with shared resources from every country, but the US and other Western countries were spreading propaganda about WHO being in the pockets of China and they’re not to be trusted. This despite China and WHO warning about covid months before it became a pandemic. Western governments have mishandled the pandemic, lied to their own people, told them this, that, do this, don’t do that, confused the people until they just didn’t care any more, politicians enriched themselves, a lot of money was pilfered from the economic help fund, and these same governments say “wear a mask because we say so”. Now why should anyone listen to them, why would anyone want to? I can understand that reasoning.
I still wore a mask to protect vulnerable people (haven’t worn one in a long time cause literally no one around me does), when I feel covid symptoms I test myself, if I think I have covid I tell people with whom I shared a space recently, etc. But I do this cause I want to do these things, not because I am told to, and I want to do it cause I know the virus can hurt vulnerable people. A lot of people don’t even “believe” in covid. That’s the level of public education in neoliberal states.
There’s so much to unpack here. Most COVID infections are passed from an asymptomatic or pre-symptomatic carrier. Surgical masks absolutely protect the wearer and more so the people around the wearer. But you know what? You can wear an KN95 and above. Hand sanitiser is a pretty low effect remedy when touching is a lower risk danger for a respiratory virus.
restaurants
Careful people can avoid indoor dining. We can’t avoid you in mass transit and in the shop
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.
In the first few months of the pandemic, there was a short supply of masks for hospitals. I don’t want to be mean, but this sounds like stuff old white dudes post on Facebook.
I swear I say this out of concern for you, but I would delete your comment as it doesn’t put you in the best light.
In the first few months of the pandemic, there was a short supply of masks for hospitals.
But why lie? Why not say “masks work, but there is a shortage in healthcare and refrain from buying too much”? This is why people’s trust in institutions is eroding. Our institutions are neoliberal constructed and controlled anyway. Then they lied about the efficacy of vaccines. Again, why not be honest about it? Liberals have been digging their own grave for a while.
Surgical masks absolutely protect the wearer and more so the people around the wearer.
Where did I say they don’t?
We can’t avoid you in mass transit and in the shop
lol
I would delete your comment as it doesn’t put you in the best light.
You should read my comment more carefully, before having a knee-jerk reaction to a few key words.
But why lie?
Honestly, post a source that the media lied about masks. I can’t believe you’re allowed to post this.
Surgical masks absolutely protect the wearer and more so the people around the wearer.
Where did I say they don’t?
“Those thin masks don’t offer much protection.” This is just misinformation.
We can’t avoid you in mass transit and in the shop
lol
Sociopath level response.
Also I told you about asymptomatic transmission yet your comment remains unedited.
“Those thin masks don’t offer much protection.”
Not compared to N95 and surgical masks, no. I’ve seen people wear one-layer cloth masks. Can anyone guarantee that every mask sold in a shop or at home is made according to WHO’s recommendation of three layers of certain fabrics/material?
post a source that the media lied about masks.
Only place I could find from a quick search: https://www.reuters.com/article/world/fact-checkoutdated-video-of-fauci-saying-theres-no-reason-to-be-walking-arou-idUSKBN26T2T9/
A video circulating on social media shows Dr Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) at the National Institutes of Health (NIH), saying “there’s no reason to be walking around with a mask.” Fauci’s remarks were made on March 8, 2020 [start of the Pandemic]
In the clip, Dr Fauci says “There’s no reason to be walking around with a mask. When you’re in the middle of an outbreak, wearing a mask might make people feel a little bit better and it might even block a droplet, but it’s not providing the perfect protection that people think that it is. And, often, there are unintended consequences — people keep fiddling with the mask and they keep touching their face.”
I remember seeing that on TV in March. I remember cause I wasn’t traveling and I was watching TV in the hotel. For a second I thought I may have imagined it (which I would have admitted had I not found anything).
Also I told you about asymptomatic transmission yet your comment remains unedited.
What do you want me to do about it? Isn’t asymptomatic transmission more likely at home or at work where you spend a lot of time indoors with the same people? Do people wear masks at home?
Not compared to N95 and surgical masks, no. I’ve seen people wear one-layer cloth masks. Can anyone guarantee that every mask sold in a shop or at home is made according to WHO’s recommendation of three layers of certain fabrics/material?
And this is an argument to not mask to protect vulnerable comrades why?
Only place I could find from a quick search: https://www.reuters.com/article/world/fact-checkoutdated-video-of-fauci-saying-theres-no-reason-to-be-walking-arou-idUSKBN26T2T9/
At least you found a source. I hope that you see that something that happened at month 1 of the pandemic, shared solely on Facebook of all places, shouldn’t be affecting your decisions in any way.
What do you want me to do about it?
Remove insinuations that sick leave and hand sanitising are substitutes for masking. By themselves, they’re fine. But to uses them as an argument that we shouldn’t mask is hella misguided.
And this is an argument to not mask to protect vulnerable comrades why?
That’s not the argument I made.
to uses them as an argument that we shouldn’t mask is hella misguided
My argument was that blaming individuals (especially the working class, rich people never got punished for breaking covid regulations) for the spread of covid when governments should have done much more in the very beginning, namely shutting down most international flights, gave people months off work, shut down everything but the essential places, etc. But throughout the whole pandemic every Western government kept thinking about is keeping the economy afloat, coming up with ad-hoc measures and silly half-measures (like wearing masks in restaurants while walking). By the time covid is all around you that you need a mask 24/7 it’s already too late and the blame shouldn’t be put on working class people who (rightfully) have grown distrustful of their governments and their institutions.
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.
“Well, what’s the alternative??!!”
-List ten things that aren’t masking
You honestly trying to tell me that you’re not making an argument that we don’t have to mask??? Do you mask, for real? You "lol"ed my comment that we have to face unmasked people in mass transit and shops.
deleted by creator
how is this even a discussion? wear a mask people
But it’s harddddddddd
go off, i still don’t know why people are so mad about just wearing a mask.
go off, i still don’t know why people are so mad about just wearing a mask.
Fairweather “leftists” that are too fucking selfish to handle inconveniences even for the sake of other people.
Im pretty tired of being guilted about masking at required events that should have never been planned.
If you’re really out here like “wuhhhh no one else is dealing with it so why should I”, if you’re really out here like “it’s a style choice at this point”, if you’re really out here like “but i need to see faces for 2% of my interactions in a day how dare you interfere with my liberty”, then how the FUCK am I supposed to trust that when the pigs are goosestepping down the street with M4s at port ready over their chests, that when there’s Humvees convoying down the streets of my hood, that when the Second Night of Long Knives happens, that ANY of you’d have the discipline to be of ANY FUCKING USE?
I felt, and still feel, very much the same way. The covid pandemic, which never ended no matter what propaganda says and in many ways is only getting worse and harder to even try to mitigate, demonstrated just how selfish far too many people really are, people that couldn’t handle fucking inconveniences in their daily routines that nonetheless present themselves as the future’s comrades in a conflict that would be far more fucking inconvenient than masking and social distancing while gobbling treats at a bar/whatever.
To date, the single worst post I’ve ever seen on Hexbear, the one that did the most overall damage, that drove away numerous people that I still haven’t seen since because of the toxic assholish bullying that the poster and likely alts performed afterward, was a post titled “you need to go out” by “RonJeremyCorbyn” and seconded by numerous dubious probably-alt accounts. It had a slimy opener about “loving you all” that then went and called people “shut-ins” if they weren’t going out on New Years to “kiss strangers” and otherwise be boomer-tier plague rats all for the sake of “normalcy” that would supposedly “stop embarrasing leftism.”
That shit went on for days afterward, probably from that piece of shit’s alt accounts. I still miss some of the people that were bullied off the site, and I still utterly loathe that piece of shit for that post.
Hexbear isn’t exempt from treat hogs that have superficial leftist beliefs but also a whole lot of “DON’T TELL ME WHAT TO DOOOOOOOOOOOOO” selfish asshole attitude beneath that that goes off from even the suggestion of personal inconvenience for the sake of others. Such attitude has material consequences and can and will do actual harm to others in the offline world.
Jesus I think I memory holed that one, was like a fucking post by a disciple of Nurgle trying to edge people out to perpetuate a plague during one of the worst periods at that time with an ongoing covid surge. It’s freaking weird how so many countries have a tradition of masking even before covid during seasons of high flu and yet western people aren’t just baffled but outright RABID whenever masking is discussed, as though covid doesn’t fucking exist and the latest surge never fucking happened (then again mainstream news said very little about it so for most Americans it never happened or was fake news).
EDIT: I considered linking to it, but considering that some people that were bullying “shut-ins” back then are still posting now, maybe I should just send a private message and just hope that those boomer-brained plague rats found a conscience and some empathy since then.
hope that those boomer-brained plague rats found a conscience and some empathy since then
one can hope
I don’t think the current anti-mask “back to normal” sentiment is in any way “western”. It’s very much global outside Japan (and maybe a few other countries). Not many ppl worry about covid anymore and unless there is state willingness and proper enforcement of masks that isn’t going to change.
Forever thankful my workplace encourages masking
Your workplace should encourage testing by giving free covid tests and encourage people to stay home when sick.
Let me guess, you have to buy your own masks?
Nah it’s a hospital so we already do all that thankfully (and we got over the mask shortage so now there’s extra that can be “taken home” as needed) and our public health department is still sending out masking advisories for healthcare staff. Cons though is having to work with patients that actively have covid.
Nah it’s a hospital … our public health department is still sending out masking advisories for healthcare staff
Oh ok, then wearing a mask makes sense, 1) they’re surgical masks (not cloth), and 2) there’s a bunch of people wearing them properly and changing them often, in addition to proper hand hygiene and overall hygiene, so it further reduces the chance of spread. Nurses and doctors in hospitals wore masks and gloves long before covid, anyway.
Cons though is having to work with patients that actively have covid.
That’s why hospitals have the N95 or surgical masks. The cloth masks don’t offer good protection or have a good seal around the face. The masks I wore were surgical masks ordered from China, but what I’d see most is people wearing a novelty cloth mask, or hand-made one, or a few days old surgical mask, at that point why even bother?
That’s why hospitals have the N95 or surgical masks.
Yeah the N95 is the gold standard and what is used for all of our airborne iso rooms (this includes covid patients) that go into a negative airflow room (surgical masks are okay but I’d never want to be within six feet of someone with active covid without a N95). Still though 12 hour shifts working in close proximity with someone has led to quite a few of our staff getting covid recently which sucks. There’s still very much an active covid problem that will likely lead to another surge as people conduct maskless travel again for the holidays (as well as the piss poor vaccine rates).
Uphold Amerikan Pharaoh thought.
The Western left, such as it is, has really shown their liberalism when it comes to COVID. What should have been a time for us to shine was dominated by a small liberal anti-mask sentiment, then a larger liberal anti-anti-mask reaction, and finally liberal normalization and a much higher anti-mask sentiment. We should be 100% top of caring for community, organizing in community, calling out liberal hypernormalization and building from it.
Instead, we have mostly seen opportunism. COVID-cautious folks (which is to say, correct folks) a minority in orgs, sometimes listened to at first. Orgs trying to say that wearing masks alienates you from the proletariat (lmao). And then people who are understandably tired of being the odd one out using this as justification to be massively inconsiderate, even dangerous.
There is still plenty to organize around, though the lightning strike moment has passed for now. Paxlovid is $1400 for the uninsured in the US. There’s currently a wave. There’s a new, seemingly better vaccine and we could organize around access to it. There are locales trying to ban masks in order to crack down on Palestinian solidarity protests. Public health aside, normalizing masks is good for our ability to safely carry out actions. It’s not out of the cards for lightning to strike again and give us dual pandemics, as COVID damages immune systems and public health had adapted to a “fuck it” status quo, flirting with bird flu for no reason other than a poultry lobby. Will your org be ready to agitate? Or did it alienate the people with the most knowledge and investment in this topic?
Promote correct positions (COVID-safe) and reject dominant liberalism (nornalization), especially in our own spaces!
