By Philip Drucker
I don’t know about you but I’m just going to say it. I am sick and tired of dealing with people, persons, playthings, lemmings and sucker/losers that refuse to acknowledge any information or POV other than that which supports, sans any reason, rational or outside research, their current world view.
As I do have many conservative friends, if I seem a bit as you like to say, agitated, or more than likely “triggered” in your Don Jr. inspired terminology (that alone should be a warning you are on the wrong track) you are right and let me tell you why.
The simple answer is I have cancer. When you have cancer (crossing my fingers you or your loved ones never do), you go into a state of hyper-reality as in, if I don’t deal with this, right here and right now I’m going to die an unpleasant, if not painful as all get out death. For those of you who have never felt the “bite” of cancer, it’s like something inside you has an acetylene torch and is trying to make its way out of you from the inside out. Kind of like Alien, I would imagine but without all the fun of a cosmic parasite and with no Sigourney Weaver coming to the rescue anytime soon.
Speaking of parasites, I don’t know about you but I am tired of lending even the a scintilla of credence or validation to what are clearly lies, rumors, innuendo, made-up stuff, conspiracy theories old and new, self-serving and self-righteous pronouncements and pontification which at best represent “alternative facts” (there is no such thing) and promote a line of supposedly thought out and sensible geo/political/social “mainstream” positions that are in fact right wing alt extreme, sometimes to the extent they don’t even belong in the normal course of everyday discourse.
Reality is not a multiple-choice test. People, places, events and history are not subject to re-interpretation based on the latest meme as proof of their “existence” and here’s a big one, just because you think something is important, doesn’t make it so. If climate change was cancer, I guarantee after hearing the first 99 oncologists tell you it’s “real” and you need chemo, you will not look for the 100th saw bones who will say “you’re fine” and “here’s a report I wrote just for you” and be done with it. Or would you? Let me tell you a story.
When I went in for my first surgery, a laparoscopic colorectal resection, where they cut out the diseased section of the colon, and then re-stitch the pieces together, I found myself staying overnight with a roommate. Not the biggest deal in the world mind you, but I was rather hoping he had the good sense not to watch a Family Feud marathon like the last overnight guest I had the “pleasure” to bunk with.
By the end of the next 24 hours, I would have watched “Keeping Up With The Kardashians” tied to a chair for eternity on an endless loop-de-fruit-loop cause I’m telling you, this guy was what I call the crazy dangerous (Covid-19 deniers take note) among us who can’t see the forest fire through the brush, 99% of California’s fires being dried brush fires, and not you can rake all day and it will change nothing for these are not forest fires fueled by dead logs, debris and leaves lying on the forest floor. Let me explain.
First, he shouldn’t have been there in the first place. He was suffering from a shortness of breath (I assume that much is true) caused by his chronic emphysema. Get this, exacerbated by his refusal to give up smoking. Exacerbated even further, by his unwillingness to take all his medications as directed because he “didn’t like the way they made him feel” and so, apparently, he preferred not breathing and hacking out a lung every hour or so to taking a handful of pills. Dude had one serious MF of a cough. I would have been plenty worried, but he, was not. Why? Let me tell you.
On top of everything else this clown was down for, and the nurses, patient as saints kept warning him about, was how likely he was to get lung cancer if he didn’t at least quit smoking. At this suggestion, he reared up a bit and got his pointy finger ready for battle. He, and I’m not kidding, told the nurses that cancer was a myth created by the left-wing socialists, communists, anarchists, intelligent elites, just short of “illuminati” although I believe given more time he would have gone there, to control the masses into believing smoking was bad for you. I’m not kidding, really, I’m not.
You see, he and his right-wing nut lunatic fringe cadre of brain surgeons and rocket scientists no doubt had figured out nobody dies of cancer. This, in a not so funny, but unbelievably dense display of “alternative facts” is correct, but as there’s no such thing as alternative facts, is irrelevant and if believed, potentially very dangerous, even deadly. Please allow me to continue.
If you have cancer, you will most likely die due to either pneumonia, infection, or in the alternative organ failure. So, technically no one dies of cancer in and of itself is true. Problem is, it doesn’t matter as if left unchecked, the cancer cells roaming throughout your body will facilitate all the above. I don’t know about you, but I don’t care what it says on my death certificate. You?
Picture this if you will. Here I am, lying in a hospital bed in pain and missing a big piece of my colon, which I apparently stupidly had taken out as cancer can’t kill me and, what I should be doing is smoking, otherwise, I’m but a mere pawn in this existential, underground, idiotic, centuries old conspiracies tacked onto the deep state running child trafficking rings in a pizza parlor owned at least in part by the Clintons.
For those of you who do not realize I am restating the QAnon philosophy, now you know. They really are this insane. No proof of any of it, but hey, like I said before, facts, evidence, proof is all just weeds in their magical garden of fear producing Venus fly trap make believe, rainbow unicorns apparently sold separately to anyone who will buy, and not included.
My response? I turned on MSNBC loud, real loud. I heard the nurses tell Mr. What Did I
Say? I had cancer. He looked at me a bit sheepishly and before he had a chance to make things worse, I drew the line, in this case the plastic curtain now between us so I could not see him, and he, me. I would have gotten up except I couldn’t. Fortunately, he was released about an hour later. The nurses apologized to me, they didn’t need to, but they wanted me to know he was a “known commodity” and routinely checked himself in for no particularly good reason, that I pointed out was a waste of a hospital bed, time, money, and the very air we, the sane, all cherish and breathe.
Here’s the deal, there are more of them than you might imagine, than any of us imagined. That is the shameful truth about our nation. It is also what I believe will go down as the ultimate realization and sadness of the Trump administration. We all now know just how many of our fellow Americans were willing to form a death cult around a fat, stupid, racist, sexist, homophobic, intolerant, incoherent and incontinent, free of uncomfortable facts and full of beautiful lies for the mass consumption including those related to a deadly pandemic (let me guess, Covid-19 fill in the blank some version of doesn’t kill you…) there are.
If that doesn’t make you mad, to the point you won’t take it anymore, and let me add I assure you Mr. Hacky and his pals can’t wait to vote, I don’t know what will.
I don’t know about you but I’m mad as hell and I’m not going to take it anymore.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZwMVMbmQBug (Network 1976)
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