I think it’s the Boomers fault.
If like me, you grew up under the specter of the ATOM BOMB and “duck and cover” exercises in school, you can see that we are at fault.
Since us Boomers all feel that we grew up pretty much okay, except for the one quarter of us who are certifiably insane right wing ranters who think denial of the obvious will some how insulate them from extinction at the hands of an angry god, we figure that we best instill a large chunk of panic in the national diet so that upcoming generations will grow strong like us.
This explains, I think, why media grand viziers seem determined to make each and every “event” one in which we should all be checkin’ our survival rations and “bug out” plans.
It should be, therefore, clear why ALL the media is in a panic about EBOLA. The fear of God requires it ya see, for only after learning to hold one’s bladder and sphincter in the face of impending death can we come out the other side as well-rounded happy and content people that most of us Boomers actually are.
Of course on the far-far-right in a galaxy too stupid to find it’s way in orbit, the media has all sorts of unusual if not predictable explanations. WorldnetDaily which is peopled by a class of subhumans intractable in their level of stupid, it’s all a deliberate plot by the dark guy Barack Hussain to rid the planet (Amerika that is) of white people. Secretly of course all black people have been issued hazmat suits. (The fist bump signals, “I got mine, you got yours?)
Every Republican running for office is pondering whether we should close the beaches or just nuke the hell out of the continent of Africa and make the world safe for white people. The media, meanwhile is busy asking questions like, ” are we prepared, should people fly, should they poop, and WHO THE HELL IS IN CHARGE?” Which is all quite funny since the Surgeon General would be the obvious person to be in charge but we don’t have one, because the NRA doesn’t like the choice, and the CDC functions with a slashed budget, again because the NRA is afraid that somebody might suggest that gun deaths are a national epidemic and where the hell are guns sales going then?
There is a story, but of course, not one that anybody bothers with, because gosh and darn it, one might have to think a bit, and actually go out in the FIELD and ask questions rather than simple vomit (yikes, where’s the HAZMAT suit?) out trite talking points?
A few days ago, just after the nurse was confirmed as a patient, a bunch of nurses representing some nurses association started talking. And at first it seemed weird and rather silly. Ya see, at first the only question was “how could this nurse contract EBOLA? After all, we had been assured that all them medical folks knew the “protocols” and so it must be this damn African thing was a lot more dangerous than we had been led to believe (enter cries of “it’s Obama’s fault”).
My first reaction was that this was just a bunch of nurses arguing that they were not to blame (the CDC insisting that for a caregiver to come down with the virus meant that there had been a break in established protocols). I kind of laughed it off.
But it was more than that. It turns out the National Nurses Union was giving the country information that was not forthcoming from the people in charge. Certainly nobody at Texas Health Presbyterian was making these admissions. The information the NNU was providing came directly (so they claim) from nursing personnel at THP, information that they were afraid to share openly out of fear.
Why you ask?
Because like most of the South, and increasingly almost everywhere, Texas is a right-to-work state, and the massive THP is not unionized. Nurses there had a story and they were afraid for their jobs to relate it. The NNU received their reports and relayed the information anonymously to protect them from retaliation from the corporate heads.
The reality is that the first patient with Ebola was left in a common area (with other patients and medical personnel) for “hours” after being brought in by ambulance before he was transferred to secure isolation. Senior nursing supervisors complained of this to no avail apparently. Further, nurses were not given proper hazmat suits but used fairly flimsy “contagious disease” coverings that left parts of their bodies exposed. Protocals were “not in place” and the required equipment was not there. Higher ups in the administration of the hospital apparently would not ask for help.
What does this all mean?
It’s hard to say, but surely it should be looked at. The fact is that it is hard to believe that in a unionized business, workers would be afraid to speak out against dangerous conditions. Unions are there for that reason, to protect them against being fired. Further, unions themselves put their foot down and insist on corrections or threaten a strike. It is entirely possible that the the secondary infections could have been avoided. Of course it may not have been either, and we make no blanket assertion because it is an unknowable.
However, we do know that unions are in place for just these sorts of things–to give workers the ability and protection needed to speak out about issues that often they know much better than suits far removed from the scene do.
It continues to be appalling that our apparently poorly educated folks never learned how much their good life today was due to the unions that are quickly becoming a quaint history notation. Many of these people grew up in union homes and should know this without more. Yet, they have so readily been misdirected to blaming unions for their present financial woes whatever they might be. Surely unions are not perfect, but without them, the worker is left to the devices we see in play at DHP–proper actions being taken too late to be effective.
Just something to think about.
Existential Ennui 