Say What You Will About China... They Have A Gold Standard Way To Open Up Businesses

You don't need to watch this whole long video. I have it started at a spot that explains how China has been able to successfully reopen businesses. That's the part that's important to listen to. There is a difference between opening up willy-nilly (the Texas and Florida model) and opening up safely (the China model). I left in a short intro by Chris Martenson, but the stuff about the epidemic prevention measures by the guy in the red shirt with the British or Australian accent-- at around the 7 minute mark-- is what we need to hear. He discusses 6 categories of things that will protect workers as we reopen offices, factories, stores, etc. They are mandated by law in China-- what Martenson calls a "no b.s. sort of approach." Listen to what he says about masks; this is crucial and a major problem for Republicans.

• health checks
• social distancing
• personal cleanliness
• no touching of anything
• disinfection of facilities
• eating and smoking rules

Last week, Mike Davis, predicted at Jacobin that the way the U.S. is reopening will send us to hell. "People desperately need to go back to work and save what they can of their lives. But heeding the siren call of the MAGA demonstrators, puppets on strings manipulated by hedge funds and billionaire casino owners, to 'reopen the economy' would only result in tragedy." He then asks his readers to consider 4 points:

• Sending millions of people back to work without protection or testing would be a death sentence for thousands. Thirty-four million workers are over fifty-five; ten million of them over sixty-five. Millions more suffer from diabetes, chronic respiratory problems, and so on. Straight from home to work to ICU to morgue.
• Millions of our “essential workers” face intolerable hazards because of the shortage of protective equipment. It will be weeks, at best, before there will be an adequate supply for medical workers. Workers in warehouses, markets, and fast food have no guarantee of ever receiving masks, unless legislation compels it. If this is a war, Trump’s refusal to use existing laws to federalize the manufacture of masks and ventilators is a war crime.
• The proposal to test people’s blood and then issue back-to-work certificates if they have the right antibodies is mere fantasy at the moment. Washington has allowed more than a hundred different firms to sell serological kits without human trials or FDA certification. The results they give are all over the map, just a mess. It may be weeks or longer before public health workers have reliable diagnostics to use. Even then it would take months to test the workforce and it’s doubtful that enough people would have the antibodies to safely staff all the closed businesses.
• The most heroic assumption is that a vaccine could be available by spring 2021, although no one knows how long its conferred immunity would last. Meanwhile, hundreds of research teams and smaller biotech firms are working on medicines that will reduce the risk of respiratory failure and serious heart or kidney damage. But this sprawling scientific experiment lacks coordination and funding from Washington.

"Nothing," he concluded, "is as emblematic of the Trump administration’s total dereliction of duty than the fact that on the same day that the president was bragging of the United States’ 'unmatched scientific and technological superiority,' the New York Times was devoting a page to 'How to Sew a Mask at Home.'"

Yesterday, Max Boot explained why these crackpot Republican death cult conspiracy theories are more dangerous than ever. "Every great disaster of the past century has brought forth conspiracy-mongers," he explained "What’s different about this particular moment in conspiracy history? Three things, I think. First, conspiracy theories spread more efficiently by social media than by previous communications media. The online world is a post-truth space where there are no undisputed facts, only competing narratives, and even the most deranged claims (e.g., QAnon) can aggregate an audience. Second, the stakes are higher now. It doesn’t much matter if someone thinks that UFOs landed at Roswell, N.M., or that Elvis is still alive-- but it matters greatly if someone thinks that the coronavirus isn’t real or that a vaccine may be more dangerous than the disease. Such beliefs, if they become widespread, pose a danger to public health. Indeed, anti-vaccine activists are already a menace. Third, we now have an unhinged conspiracy-monger in the White House."

A couple of days ago, John Pavlovitz wrote about how badly the white evangelical church in America has failed us all-- "fully, grievously, irreparably... The irony in place, is that despite all their sanctimonious sermonizing and finger-wagging condemnation and sky-is-falling histrionics, the white Evangelical Church has enabled, nurtured, and championed more inequity and more misery in these days than any other entity-- and there is no close second. For the disparate masses of the world, the Church has become a barrier to belonging, a sanctuary for supremacy, and a hostile presence for the least of these... But more than anyone-- the white Evangelical Church has failed Jesus."

He's talking about Trump's people-- his last remaining base of support other than Big Money. He wrote that they've misappropriated Jesus' likeness, hijacked Jesus' name, and weaponized Jesus' message into something grotesque and oppressive-- and it is rightfully repelling good people. If not for the white Evangelical Church, people might see the peacemaking, wound-healing, leper-embracing, crowd-feeding Jesus that deserves to be seen-- and run toward it. If not for them, religion might not be a trigger of the worst abuse and the greatest harm and the worst violence that has visited them. If not for the White Evangelical Church, Christianity might be the refuge for the hurting and the hopeless that it was intended to be-- and it can be again." I thought what followed would be the perfect way to start a Sunday in the Age of the Pandemic:

Followers of Jesus can be the healers and lovers of people that we were called to be if we have the courage to be, if we have the strength to oppose this bitterness, to reject it, and to leave it.

So cue the exodus, throw open the doors, and let the good people stream out of the pews and into the streets. May that thing become a deserving dead relic of the distant past; a dusty museum of another fully fallen empire.

Let us set a table big enough for everyone who has been failed by this Frankensteined freak show claiming to be of God, and let us remind people that where Jesus is, there is good news for the poor, embrace for the unloved, rest for the weary, and a belly-busting meal that demands no prerequisite but hunger. Let us make sure love gets the last, loudest word.

Yes, the white Evangelical Church has failed us, but followers of Jesus will not fail him-- and we will not fail one another.

Want to know why the U.S. is going to have hundreds of thousands more cases and more deaths than need be? Here's why:

How many masks do you see in that demonstration? Or in this one below? Not even the cops are wearing masks! No wonder Minnesota has been spiking like mad! There were 840 new cases yesterday, bringing the total to 19,845-- not because of the governor, but because of the idiots like the ones in this clip. Minnesota has a frightening 3,519 cases per million and, unfortunately, is headed for a horrible Wave II. Tragic!