The last Tweet before I went to bed last night was this video, impassioned, coherent, and entirely justified.
This morning I googled both men involved: the infected Republican, Andrew Lewis at
and
the indignant protester, Brian Sims at
What follows are the thoughts that the situation prompts, not so much about the specific men as about the story. Evidently Lewis has or had Covid-19 and at the urging of his Republican leadership did not tell the Democrats that he was contagious nor did he quarantine himself while contagious. This exposed the biparty committees he was on and, indirectly, their families and friends. He and the leaders did warn the Republicans. No info about masks.
This was a crime of omission meant to protect the reputations and intentions of the Republican party, even if it meant sickness and death of the Democrats. Rather than treating the political and governing bodies of the State of Pennsylvania with dignity, the Repubs treated it as a “take no prisoners” situation of war. If they have so little regard for the lives of those they work with, what hope do the residents of the state have?
Lewis is a family man with three business degrees which he earned with the help of the GI Bill. His campaigning relies heavily on his affinity with the military.
There are already aired Repub complaints about Sims, who was elected as an openly gay man and who pursues Dem issues like protecting Planned Parenthood. He uses “doxing” of people who attack, including the researching of the backgrounds of teenagers demonstrating against Planned Parenthood clinics. One could see this would have big consequences for a young woman who was there because of personal situations.
“Doxing, or doxxing, is the Internet-based practice of researching and publicly broadcasting private or identifying information about an individual or organization. The methods employed to acquire this information include searching publicly available databases and social media websites, hacking, and social engineering.” This is widely used in politics now, often presented as transparency.
Sims’ parents were both military people, which gives him a certain point of view. No one has “doxed” whether or not he is carrying HIV, which can be suppressed to the point of harmlessness but not cured. But it’s easy to see that he would be supersensitive and highly aware of the danger of the viruses that sweep through our lives over the last century or more. Larry Kramer’s death has reminded us of how deadly and widespread AIDS has been. 400,000 deaths as opposed to 100,000 Covid-19 deaths so far.
The differences are worthy of thought. HIV is a virus carried mostly in blood but also other body fluids. It travels only in intimate contact but gender or age don’t matter. Because intimate contact in this culture means “sex”, which is stigmatized, and “gay sex” which is even more stigmatized, the demographic of men often powerful and gifted has become active, networked, and -- with the urging of Kramer -- militarized. That is, the metaphor is war.
From its beginning Covid-19 has been political and not quite militarized. The economic consequences are devastating. This virus is highly contagious and the vulnerable population is elderly or handicapped. There is no effective medicine but only critical care and the invasive respirators that are expensive and in short supply. Repubs were quick to take advantage of the crisis by using insider information to protect from stock market damage, by cornering all needed supplies and selling them at inflated prices, forcing states to compete against each other, even raiding shipments meant for others, and selling basic supplies to foreign countries while buying shoddy versions to resell in the US.
In other words, they have treated this wave of death as a marketing opportunity which is the whole purpose of being Republican and staying in power. They have become monsters and somehow have swindled their voters into compliance, even as their grandparents die. They had already removed all the regulations that protected nursing homes, children’s insurance and food projects, and vaccination programs. Their narcissism includes only their bank accounts -- not their neighbors.
Sims’ outcry will be mocked and belittled but it strikes to my heart. Nothing like working with American indigenous people to understand that a virus can be more effective than an atom bomb and leave all the desirable property up for grabs. After the virus has greatly reduced dependency by killing as many as possible, pinch off their food supply so that the rest die of starvation. Unless they learn to make common cause and resist.
For decades we will be finding dead people where they holed up, their bodies rotted unfound, because government policies have ripped up families and interfered with bonds that used to create our communities. The Republican party has been destroyed. Our election systems are wobbly. After November we will have to replace almost the entire government, building on what has survived and then figuring out how to safeguard the future. Punishing these lowlifes is almost beside the point.
These two men make an excellent opportunity for plays and books, debates and vids, to educate what children who are well-fed enough to pay attention to the basic concepts that were taught to me in the aftermath of WWII, the essentials that we fought for. If these two men confront around what is military, we need to take a good look at what that preoccupation has enabled. It looks to me like Homeland Security and ICE are private armies for an entrenched mafia, not worthy of a memorial day.
It’s scary to talk this way and may worry people in this town, but I think it’s past time to speak out.
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