one thing that's happening very clearly RN IMO is a vivid, dramatic tightening of longstanding continuums of exploitation and disposability

like, all these ppl shoved into places / consigned to trajectories where, figuratively speaking, they're deemed as though they might as well be dead / experience various kinds of social death, are now facing even greater risk of quicker death, and the response seems to be a shrug

our culture has developed robust mechanisms for naturalizing artificial scarcity, normalizing punitiveness, and justifying suffering as morally deserved - in everything from poverty to incarceration to health care and more. I fear these will only consolidate faster now.

like, to the extent to which the galvanizing cry is a return to a "normal" of working people to death and consigning them to lives of slow death-bound immiseration, the more parsimonious path for libidinal and psychic economies to take might well just be to double-down

IDK folks, I just keep thinking about that hostage UPS driver and the bystander shot to death when the cops decided to escalate that Florida hijacking into a Matrix 2-style mid-freeway rolling gun battle, and how UPS immediately thanked the police for their service

commerce must keep moving, the wheels have to keep on turning, and the folks caught in the gears are just write-offable gristle for the ones that oversee the grinding. casualties in the wrong place at the wrong time, but also where they always invariably have no choice but to be

so that is what the plan is then, eh https://twitter.com/Yamiche/status/1241855658607218691

basically, then, in a moment when the *inevitable* *best case scenario* is spacing out deaths manageably, the *bandaid* is a rolling distribution of preventable death and illness throughout the most vulnerable people in the workforce. ok.

and we can't nationalize anything, because look what happened in a country that nationalized things, and which is unrelatedly under punishing sanctions from us. you see, they have shortages and death panels there, and people are just grist for the mill of sick, corrupt leaders

We will let hospitals go bankrupt and strip them for parts and have package delivery workers dying on doorstops sooner than people in power will bail folks out, because then everyone might realize that this entire way of life is a giant, evil lie and they might get ideas.

after decades of dismantling institutions of solidarity and elite indifference to public mass protest: business as usual, just much, much more lethally, compulsory for everyone, but with the felt, human axes of solidarity curtailed b/c you must stay at home as much as possible

and what's the precedent for otherwise? docility and risk aversion have been cultivated at all possible levels. will people that out of fear or greed or lack of imagination signaled acceptance with a norm where everyone's bled to death slowly by a thousand cuts do otherwise now?

No one was held accountable for '08, Or the invasion of Iraq. Or Katrina. Or Flint. Instead, all these and more were leveraged into money-making opportunities for savvy players, and the suffering hung around the necks of the already most desperate. Why would this be different?

which way do you think he's leaning https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1241935285916782593?s=19

TFW lessons were learned and we'll definitely try something new this time

I love floating above workaday affairs, ensconced by obscene wealth and an utter lack of accountability, reflecting with sad resignation about the forced choices the Little People will be compelled to face, and the "tradeoffs" "we" are going to make https://twitter.com/maxwelltani/status/1242119326897000451

"Sorry, Lunchpail Joes, my champagne fountains won't unclog themselves, it's back on the clock for you. If you need a wheelbarrow to carry out your dead, I will condescend to lease you one at reasonable rates! You don't need to thank me too much, since we're all this together."