(((I Will Outlive)))

During the 2019 flu season in Canada, 46k people were diagnosed with influenza. That’s not people who “felt sick”, that’s people who went to their doctor or emergency, had a test done, and were told “yup, that’s the flu”.

Of those 46k, 2000 had symptoms severe enough to be hospitalized so they could be monitored.

Of those 2000, 600 ended up in ICU, connected to machines to breath for them.

Of those 600, 200 died.

2019 had a fairly average flu season.

During the 2020 flu season, that was 69. Total. Zero hospitalization. Zero ICU. Zero deaths.

The 2021 flu season is almost over and since people were “more comfortable” this year not wearing masks where they should have been the numbers are higher, but still only in the hundreds of cases, with zero deaths to date.

If anyone tries to tell you masks don’t work, there are statistically at least 400 people who did not die of the flu who prove otherwise.

WE PROBABLY ELIMINATED TWO STRAINS OF INFLUENZA IN HUMANS. WE CUT TRANSMISSION SO MUCH THE STRAIN DIED OUT BECAUSE IT COULDN’T SPREAD TO PEOPLE.

WEAR THE GOD DAMNED MASKS. 

https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2021/03/02/children-flu-deaths/

https://www.livescience.com/flu-virus-types-extinct-covid-19.html

I currently have a lot of Jewish mutuals/people I follow and over the course of the last few months, almost Every. Single. One has talked about their mental health declining, that they’re exhausted and terrified, that they’ve become more closed off and lost their trust in people from outside their communities, due to being gaslit and ignored constantly on a society wide scale. Almost all of them have experienced antisemitic abuse or violence personally or had bomb threats to their synagogues and community centres or had swastikas and slurs graffitied on their properties.

The worst thing about this outrage is that none of them are really surprised by it - frightened, sickened, yes - but not surprised. They and their ancestors have had to deal with this shit for thousands of years. And all of them expect - no they *know* - it’s going to get worse.

It’s beyond fucking shameful. We are failing these people on a massive, society wide scale. Again.

So, I NEVER want to see a single one of my fellow goyim say shit like “Jews are just playing the victim,” “the rise in antisemitism is overblown and not as bad as they say because I haven’t seen it,” “it’s just a few extremists,” because NO, IT ISN’T - it’s systemic. Those who aren’t directly perpetrating it are mostly ignoring it. If you won't believe or listen to Jewish voices (if not, why not?) then the cold statistics cannot be waved away.

https://www.reuters.com/world/us/us-antisemitic-incidents-up-about-400-since-israel-hamas-war-began-report-says-2023-10-25/

https://news.sky.com/story/more-than-4-000-antisemitic-incidents-recorded-by-jewish-charity-in-uk-in-2023-with-explosion-in-hatred-blamed-on-hamas-attacks-13071580

https://www.reuters.com/world/how-surge-antisemitism-is-affecting-countries-around-world-2023-10-31/

I love that the pandemic actually definitively proved a lot of those "hard" questions for us. Masking up reduced cases of the flu to almost nonexistent numbers and we had zero flu deaths for a time. The welfare and social service and unemployment programs helped keep people living paycheck to paycheck out of poverty, and those stimulus checks some folks keep complaining about actually massively benefitted the common man and the economy. Individual personal travel was so extremely restricted on a global scale that we basically have concrete proof that individual restraint in terms of driving cars or travelling means absolutely nothing by comparison because the mass pollution is coming from the fisheries and the corporations with private jets and container ships. Working from home actually has massive benefits for a company like productivity boosts and better mental health of employees while also saving gas

and we're just. Willingly going back to how everything was before. We were shown how to do things better and the people in charge said "that's nice but we just want to get everything 'back to normal' :)"

we’re not willingly going back to how everything was before. we are being forced back into it by members of the ruling class who found out that making things better for almost everyone else made them feel bad.

we are in a media literacy crisis

friendly reminder that characters don't need to be saints to be entertaining. and telling a story does not mean endorsement. art does not need to be all about morally good people.

IDK if this was meant as hyperbole but it's literally true:

Adult literacy is low.

Child literacy is low.

Information literacy has shifted dramatically in the last decade, but reputable information sources like research journals and factual news reporting have been unable to keep pace.

We are genuinely in a crisis of media literacy, with ever fewer genuinely factual resources available in the style and language used by contemporary audiences.

It may sound condescending, but we genuinely need to remind people, or worse, explain to them for the first time that art is not evidence of real world behaviour.

So, thank you, for this reminder. Genuinely.

You're correct:

Art does not need to feature exclusively morally pure characters. Art is not proof of the creator's secret, violent desires.

ETA; Yes, the links are US American; no your country is not immune to propaganda. Be POLITE in asking, and I will help you find the data for your own country as well.