COVID Conscious Under Capitalism
We are over three years into the COVID pandemic, is anyone even paying attention anymore? As we see health officials start to wear masks again, it seems a good time to talk about the COVID conscious community who has never stopped taking precautions.
Host Jessa McLean sits down with Kim Crawley, a cyber security expert who has gone through great lengths to prevent exposure to the virus that has not only claimed immeasurable numbers of people worldwide, but has been labelled the single most debilitating event in history. As noted throughout the episode, it takes incredible privilege and acquired knowledge to effectively avoid COVID. However, even with all the resources available, many folks who should do and know better, haven't.
From a class analysis, this episode looks at individual human behavior, the response of our governments and how the greed of our 'capitalist overlords' plays into it all.
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Transcript
Greetings, friends. My name is Jess McLean, and I'm here to provide you with some blueprints
Speaker:of disruption. This weekly podcast is dedicated to amplifying the work of activists, examining
Speaker:power structures, and sharing the success stories from the grassroots. Through these discussions,
Speaker:we hope to provide folks with the tools and the inspiration they need to start to dismantle
Speaker:capitalism, decolonize our spaces, and bring about the political revolution that we know
Speaker:we need. Welcome to Blueprints, Kim. Can you introduce yourself to everybody? Yeah, my name
Speaker:is Kim Crawley. I, as far as my profession is concerned, I'm a cybersecurity researcher and
Speaker:writer, which isn't official credentials for understanding the topic at hand, which is COVID,
Speaker:but there are parallels between cyber threats and this biological threat that we're now facing.
Speaker:Tell me more about that, because I saw you tweet one time and... I don't know if you really
Speaker:got into it that if somebody wasn't taking COVID seriously, that they couldn't really be a good
Speaker:cybersecurity expert. What do you mean? Understanding cybersecurity is more about understanding human
Speaker:nature and understanding the nature of dangers and risks and threats than it is about the
Speaker:technicalities of computing. Understanding the technicalities of computing is very important.
Speaker:But it's not the only important thing. I would say having a sense for threats and how they
Speaker:impact people in general, not just when they use computers, is more important when it comes
Speaker:to being good at cybersecurity than being a master computer programmer, for instance. Well,
Speaker:and I guess we've seen with all of the science that has developed around COVID, it's really
Speaker:people's behavior that all of it hinges on. We could have the best masks, the best vaccines,
Speaker:and distribution systems. But if people aren't taking these threats seriously, or we can't
Speaker:predict on how they will behave, we obviously were not able to contain it. Yeah. And I think
Speaker:anyone who ever had any faith in capitalism and trust in our government beforehand, if
Speaker:they are thinking critically at all right now, they should have no trust for any of those
Speaker:institutions left because we have basically been left to die. Yeah, basically you're right.
Speaker:What are we, we're at over 50,000 deaths in Canada? I would look at all the official figures
Speaker:and I would multiply that by at least five or 10 times because there are multiple issues
Speaker:involved in all of the official figures being undercounts. One is the criteria for declaring
Speaker:a death, a COVID-related death is very, very narrow. and probably more than half of COVID
Speaker:deaths aren't even in hospital. And there's usually a main issue that kills someone and
Speaker:that isn't considered to be COVID even if it is. So for instance, heart attacks. If someone
Speaker:had a COVID infection six months ago and they thought that they were fine afterward and then
Speaker:they just collapsed and had a heart attack and died six months later, that probably won't
Speaker:be counted as a COVID death officially. Kind of worse, you're going to see on social media
Speaker:that folks are going to attribute that to a vaccine, right? All of these unexplained sudden
Speaker:deaths has almost become a meme for anti-vaxxers. That is a big problem. And then of course,
Speaker:we have long COVID. So I mean, just you correcting me there on the figures that I was able to
Speaker:pull up kind of speaks to the overall lack of information, misinformation. conflicting information,
Speaker:especially now, since hardly anyone is reporting on the numbers, the cases, what vaccine you
Speaker:should be taking, when it'll be available, what masks work best, and if you're even allowed
Speaker:to wear them to work. So what has happened here, Kim, that we have all these other major events
Speaker:happen, other scientific advances happen, and we are given the information a lot more clearly,
Speaker:a lot more succinctly. until we understand it, but COVID has been a real mismatch of sources
Speaker:and reliability. Has that been one of the major downfalls in adjusting human behavior? To continue
Speaker:to resist, like I now am probably one of less than 1% of the general population who has never
Speaker:had COVID. And although a lot of COVID infections are asymptomatic and a lot of transmission
Speaker:is asymptomatic. I can be pretty confident that I've never had COVID because A, and I know
Speaker:this is a privilege that most workers don't have, I work from home. I don't have children.
Speaker:I don't live with any other human beings. When I'm away from home, even when I'm in the hallway
Speaker:of my apartment building and I'm taking the garbage down the chute, I have a respirator
Speaker:on. not a baggy surgical mask, but a good solid elastomeric respirator. In other words, you've
Speaker:had to go through incredible and isolating means to avoid exposure. I don't, the last time I
Speaker:dined inside a restaurant was late, you know, probably December 2019. Rat tests aren't the
Speaker:most accurate, especially if you're not symptomatic. But if you take two or three rat tests every
Speaker:week and you're taking them properly and they're always negative all the time, you can be pretty
Speaker:certain that you haven't had COVID. But yeah, my situation is a rare combination of privilege
Speaker:and knowledge because a lot of Ontarians do not have the privileges that I have. But at
Speaker:the same time, I'm going to be completely honest with you, I live in a kind of upscale apartment
Speaker:building. Like it's on, it's one of those new condos on the Toronto Lake shore. And although
Speaker:most people, there are factors in their lives they can't control. They have children bringing
Speaker:COVID home from school. They have to go to Tim Hortons to do their Tim Hortons job. They can't
Speaker:afford proper protective gear, or if they do, their employers penalize them for it or threaten
Speaker:their jobs or their livelihood. And people have to take public transit. There are a lot of
Speaker:factors in people's lives that they can't control, but my neighbors are better off than the average
Speaker:Torontonian, right? And I think most of my neighbors could afford to protect their kids, like send
Speaker:them to private schools where all the air is filtered and they can afford. If they tell
Speaker:their boss, I'm gonna work from home from now on, their jobs aren't at stake, money buys
Speaker:you a lot of COVID protection. And I'm afraid that probably 95% of my neighbours have still
Speaker:had COVID probably multiple times because even though they have all those privileges that
Speaker:being upper middle class or whatever grants them, they don't exercise those privileges
Speaker:because they wanna go to the bar and they wanna party and they feel like they're invincible
Speaker:and having privilege is not enough. Having knowledge is not enough because there are people with
Speaker:knowledge who don't have the privilege. You need to have that combination of privilege
Speaker:and knowledge. And not just knowledge, I think it's character. I don't think someone who is
Speaker:making 15 bucks an hour at McDonald's, for instance, who got infected with COVID at work, lacks
Speaker:character. I think people who are like, I cannot go three days without... going to this swanky
Speaker:restaurant on King West, those people that character. And being neurodivergent really helps with
Speaker:this, resisting peer pressure. I go out there, I'm the only person wearing any sort of face
Speaker:covering, let alone a proper respirator. I'm sure I get stared at by people. Oh, I feel
Speaker:it. I live in a small town and I am- My family are the only masked people here most of the
Speaker:time. My little one is the only masked one I see going to school. That hasn't stopped us.
Speaker:You know, I have not dined out either. We have never, we've always maintained masking and
Speaker:relative social distancing, and we've missed a lot of family, but we are in a position that,
Speaker:yeah, we haven't had to go to work. I wanna go into your comment of character, not to criticize
Speaker:you, but... when you describe kind of swanky neighbors and high-end jobs choosing to go
Speaker:dine out on King West. We're like, yeah, of course. But we're also seeing people who should
Speaker:know better. They have the resources and the knowledge and they apparently should have the
Speaker:character, our allies, not doing a damn thing about COVID. And I saw a couple of tweets this
Speaker:morning talking about yesterday and... the amazing show of support that came out to support queer
Speaker:kids, but just not queer disabled kids. Lulu, a friend of the show, made that point, as she
Speaker:often does have to remind us that we don't really take disability rights and whatnot. Not to
Speaker:say COVID is just a disability issue that it only will impact disabled people because it
Speaker:will actually disable you through its infection and multiple infections. However, there is
Speaker:a huge... portion of our population that are already immunocompromised, that an infection
Speaker:just like isn't an option. And there's a lot of letdown there. You feel that too? Because
Speaker:I mean, you're trying to be, I see you, I see you, you're like screaming into the void sometimes.
Speaker:Not that people aren't listening, but that, because a lot of people are, but so many are
Speaker:almost agitated by it. Even my own family, for example, I'm the one that's reminding, do you
Speaker:have a mask with you? You're going to mask when you go in there, right? Because I feel like
Speaker:if I'm not watching, they're actually not masking because it's like it's me. I'm the neurotic
Speaker:one. I use scare quotes because I feel like I'm the only one kind of couched in reality.
Speaker:And my son, if you ask him, he'll say he's protecting his community. He gets it. But I'm surrounded.
Speaker:We are surrounded by people that know what community defenses are. except when it comes to wearing
Speaker:a mask? Help me understand that. Yeah, that's been really disappointing about the left because
Speaker:the minority of people on the left who do recognize COVID as a threat as it is, recognizes that
Speaker:going around maskless, you are basically furthering capitalism's destructiveness. The reason why
Speaker:the powers that be, both in business and in government, have discouraged. masking, for
Speaker:instance, is because it's a visible sign of the pandemic. And it prevents people, it prevents
Speaker:us from, you know, enthusiastically going to wage slave for our capitalist overlords. And
Speaker:it, you know, and it prevents us from, you know, going out and shopping and going to restaurants
Speaker:and spending money. It is a bit of a downer, right? Like if you look around and you see
Speaker:everyone mask, I don't like the white surgical colored ones, because they remind me of hospitals.
Speaker:So I get I can't actually wear them. I have to wear the black ones because I'm kind of
Speaker:pretending to myself it's a mask that I'm like hiding, that I'm not, and just mentally it
Speaker:helps me continue to be masked because it is depressing. It is hard on the soul to continue
Speaker:to live through this pandemic, not knowing when it's going to stop. I might be unusual relative
Speaker:to the people that you know, but I would feel a lot more comfortable in public if I saw people
Speaker:wear respirators. I have unfollowed people on social media because they've posted photos
Speaker:of themselves in public places without wearing anything on their face. Because to you that
Speaker:speaks to a lack of character, right? No, not just that, but I think of the implications
Speaker:of what they're doing. Of the actual post. Yeah. I gotcha. I can't help but look at all these
Speaker:things and think of the long-term effects of all of it. One of the biggest misconceptions
Speaker:that people have, other than... erroneously thinking that the pandemic is over, is they
Speaker:definitely people who are immunocompromised and people who have other serious health conditions
Speaker:are usually more likely to die imminently if they get infected than people who were in generally
Speaker:good health before. But more often than not, people get infected and they feel really horrible
Speaker:for a week or two weeks. And then afterward they feel normal and they go on with their
Speaker:lives and whatnot and they think, okay, that's what COVID is. So COVID is like a flu, even
Speaker:though the flu does kill people, but COVID is just like the flu, but I'm over it now and
Speaker:everything's better and it's no big deal. But they don't realize that the acute infection
Speaker:stage is only a small part of it. If that acute infection phase doesn't kill you... you still
Speaker:have long-term damage done to your body. There is plenty of scientific evidence now that it
Speaker:damages the T cells that are the basis of your immune system. So you get more prone to all
Speaker:infections in general. So a lot of people are sick now constantly because they have COVID,
Speaker:but a lot of people are also sick now constantly because they're getting sick from things that
Speaker:wouldn't have made them as sick before. The big lie is... you know, immunity debt and we
Speaker:were in lockdown for 20 years. I was going to say they. And they restored people's immune
Speaker:systems. They blame that on the fact that we wore masks for so long that we didn't expose
Speaker:ourselves to viruses. And so now that we are unmasked, well, some people, they're blaming
Speaker:it on the use of masks. But the truth is, no exposure to any virus is good for anyone. So
Speaker:it's not immunity debt. it's people's immune systems are being weakened by all of these
Speaker:infections constantly. And then they don't realize like this will scare people and it should.
Speaker:There are credible scientific reports coming out now that COVID does the kind of damage
Speaker:to your body long term that HIV, like untreated HIV does. You know, some of the bolder people
Speaker:in the COVID cautious community, who I agree with, are calling it, you know, airborne aids.
Speaker:Like people don't realize you could be fine for a couple of years or more, think that you're
Speaker:fine. And all of a sudden, all that hidden damage starts to surface and you're more prone to
Speaker:heart attacks and strokes. And there's been links found to cancer and COVID. And the brain
Speaker:damage thing scares me the most. You did talk about that because you rely so much on your
Speaker:brain to do your work. Yeah. What I'm about to talk about, there is a ton of nuance. I
Speaker:think if people can wear a proper respirator to go and get their COVID vaccines, then if
Speaker:they wear a proper respirator to do so, they should go and do so. It does at least reduce
Speaker:your chances of imminent death. Contrary to what the anti-vaccine are saying, all these
Speaker:horrible health effects people are having are not from the vaccines, they're from COVID,
Speaker:if I say. But... The problem with the COVID vaccines is they're always for a strain of
Speaker:COVID that is a year old or more. And because people are going out and about maskless and
Speaker:they're spreading the virus around willy-nilly, every person in fact, it gives the virus more
Speaker:and more opportunities to mutate. So because of how quickly all these strains are coming
Speaker:out all the time, vaccination should never, ever, ever be your only line of defense. It
Speaker:should always be a part of a stack of various mitigation measures that you're taking. So
Speaker:one of the big lies of the powers that be sold us is if you get your vaccine, you don't need
Speaker:to wear your mask anymore. Vax and relax. Yeah, exactly. And we're going to shift a little
Speaker:bit from individual responsibility and mitigation to our governments or a collective, more of
Speaker:a collective response. And there was one tweet, again, most of my interactions with you are
Speaker:on Twitter. So this is where a lot of our conversations are starting. It was pretty controversial in
Speaker:that it said, essentially, we might have been better served under Trump during a COVID response
Speaker:versus Biden. And everyone in the show is going to be like, gasp, you know, like that just
Speaker:sounds awful. But it was in the way the media responded to Trump and all his ridiculous claims
Speaker:about COVID not existing or being treated with malarkey. And they questioned him. They pressed
Speaker:him. They were critical of him. And then when Biden took over, he had the real vax and relax
Speaker:approach. It was completely swallowed by the media and regurgitated back to us without question.
Speaker:Still is, right? We can't criticize Biden still, just like we can't criticize our own leftists,
Speaker:apparently. But this, this is a bit of a controversial take, but it's hard to argue with because people
Speaker:are generally just going to take what's coming from high up. I mean, we are a little more
Speaker:critical of folks now and we know how the anti-vaxxers feel about Trudeau. It doesn't matter what
Speaker:his health officials say. But for most people, they carry a lot of weight. I cannot reiterate
Speaker:that Donald Trump is evil. There's no doubt about that. He is completely evil. The liberals
Speaker:probably don't want to hear that Joe Biden is also evil. Joe Biden and Donald Trump's politics
Speaker:are actually pretty similar. And Joe Biden as well has a long history. of being super racist
Speaker:and of enacting really racist policies. You know, you and I, because we're not liberals,
Speaker:we look at Joe Biden and we know we're looking at someone who's not just right, but from my
Speaker:perspective, someone who's far right. So to me, there's not much difference between Donald
Speaker:Trump and Joe Biden except for aesthetics. But also... And how the media respond to them.
Speaker:Yeah. But the problem is... Liberals are more likely to listen to Joe Biden, whereas they
Speaker:know if Donald Trump is saying something that he's lying and he's completely evil. The liberals
Speaker:were in, you know, they were masking when Donald Trump was president of the United States. The
Speaker:liberals were resisting and all that stuff. And now they're going to brunch. So that is
Speaker:a huge problem. As far as I'm concerned, Biden and Trump are equally evil, but it's how people
Speaker:react to them that impacts the way things are. You went back to that point of the visual of
Speaker:the mask, right? And it was a sign of resistance, or at least that something's not well, right?
Speaker:Like things can't be hunky dory if everyone's walking around in a respirator. And we lost
Speaker:that resistance because they had to put up that strong front that we are okay, that we're doing
Speaker:a better job than the last guy. And that need for political clout has cost fucking lives.
Speaker:I wonder, Kim, if you could make decisions, knowing what you know now, especially like
Speaker:three years into this, and you were to call on the government at the onset, like what could
Speaker:we, could we have done anything right to... mitigate COVID from the beginning? Or is it
Speaker:like capitalism on the global scale and socialism on the global scale? Sure, you could have got
Speaker:Canadian governments to do the right thing, but then we would have needed every other country
Speaker:to do it. What's your thoughts on how this should have been handled from the very beginning?
Speaker:Dr. Elizabeth F. Jones Yeah, globally, we could have completely
Speaker:a proper lockdown for a month. And I know a lot of people depend on their jobs outside
Speaker:the household to pay their bills, give those people money to stay home for that period.
Speaker:And the only people not staying home being like people like firefighters, for instance. And
Speaker:if we had done that, we could have completely eliminated COVID. Unfortunately, doing things
Speaker:to fight COVID effectively is counter to capitalistic interests. We had a little bit of stay at home
Speaker:and a little bit of ineffective mask wearing and stuff like that in 2020. We had our $2,000
Speaker:a month is a lot more money than people on OW get and people on OGSP get. For a lot of people,
Speaker:it's a significant pay cut. But it's something that was able to keep some people at home a
Speaker:little bit. I think that payment should have been like at least four grand a month for most
Speaker:people. And I don't think it's fair that OW is less than $1,000 a month or ODSP. The way
Speaker:things are with inflation, how much everything costs and all that, everyone should be taking
Speaker:home at least five grand a month, whether they work or not. everybody on lockdown for a month
Speaker:and only a month or two months and not six months of disruption and now three years of the unknown.
Speaker:Those checks could be bigger because it would have been for a much shorter period of time,
Speaker:right? An actual lockdown in earnest. Absolutely. We know the funds are there for emergency services
Speaker:like that, red baiting as it goes. China's not even a communist country. It's a bit of a hybrid.
Speaker:We were not here to get into that, but we do love to demonize China in Canada, at least
Speaker:our governments do. They did use real lockdowns where food was delivered, martial law essentially
Speaker:declared, nobody on the streets. Their economy did not collapse. They were able to do it a
Speaker:few times when needed to bring the numbers down. It's strange that- we still continue to even
Speaker:criticize those lockdowns as like undemocratic, authoritarian, yet they were doing everything
Speaker:possible to save the people. If you have a safe home, and I know a lot of people don't, a lot
Speaker:of people unfortunately live on the streets or they have domestic violence at home, but
Speaker:for people who are safe at home, a lockdown is great. Like really. Maybe because I'm an
Speaker:introvert, I don't get it. But if you have a comfortable, safe home to stay in, it's not
Speaker:a big deal to spend a month at home. We've got the internet, we've got TV, we've got books
Speaker:and movies and a lot of us have video games and we can talk to people online and stuff
Speaker:like that. To some people, not being able to go out drinking every couple of days is torture
Speaker:for them, I guess. That pisses me off so much because I've been like on a three year lockdown.
Speaker:Yeah. I go go, I do our shopping, but there's no extra. If it's extra, it's outdoors. So
Speaker:many family things missed for years now because some people, our governments mostly, because
Speaker:we really did need leadership at the beginning to show that all hands on deck to solve something
Speaker:like this. And it really wasn't. You're in Ontario with me. That lockdown was just an absolute
Speaker:joke. The exceptions that were made in you know, started to include nail salons at one point.
Speaker:Construction sites, like my husband was going to a construction site where you are working
Speaker:right beside people, it was ridiculous. The rule on site, Kim, you're gonna love this,
Speaker:if you were smoking, you didn't have to wear a mask. So folks would just have an unlit smoke
Speaker:hanging out of their mouth all of the time so that their foreman couldn't make them put on
Speaker:a mask. And, you know, he had to go to work in these conditions. That's what's bad. We
Speaker:never ever had a lockdown. We never had any government really taking this seriously. And
Speaker:so now after three years, I feel like it's three years. I don't know. It's all a blur. Three
Speaker:and a half at least. We're starting to see these health officials come out with masks again.
Speaker:What's going on? I haven't seen them in a mask in a while. Yeah. I think some parts of our
Speaker:capitalist overlords, I think our capitalist overlords are at odds with each other right
Speaker:now, because there are some who are recognizing, this is hearsay that I hear through social
Speaker:media, but most workplaces right now have most people off sick. So that's all they care about
Speaker:is people showing up to work and wage slaving for their capitalist overlords. You know, a
Speaker:McDonald's franchise, for instance, say it employs 40 people, if 39 of those people are out sick,
Speaker:then... You know, that McDonald's franchise has to hire new people immediately, like within
Speaker:a couple of hours, or shut down for a few days. And even the most right-wing pro-capitalist
Speaker:person would be forced to do that. So I think another problem is, and I think this is really
Speaker:important for people to understand, the masks that we were sold on originally in 2020 were
Speaker:not effective masks. You mean the blue ones with the ear loops? or the hand knitted ones.
Speaker:Yeah, surgical masks, in the COVID cautious community, we call those bandages. The thing
Speaker:is, the reason why, you know, ineffective cloth masks and surgical masks were pushed on us
Speaker:in 2020, is because the powers that be did not want to acknowledge that COVID is airborne.
Speaker:They wanted the theory that it was droplets, transmitted by droplets. with wash your hands,
Speaker:that was the main messaging. So the wash your hands, stay six feet apart. Still some shopping
Speaker:malls have things on the floor where it's like everyone stand six feet apart from each other
Speaker:and it's like smoke. If you've ever seen someone light a joint or a cigarette and seen how the
Speaker:smoke travels, that's how COVID travels. Surely my neighbors smell my smoke. Exactly. And it
Speaker:also means that Okay, let's say for instance, like my home is very, very COVID safe. I've
Speaker:got, I've got HEPA filters everywhere. I've got good ventilation, but let's say I didn't
Speaker:have any of that and someone who was actively infected with COVID and they weren't wearing
Speaker:a respirator and they walked into my apartment and they hung out for a couple of minutes,
Speaker:breathing in and out, and then breathing COVID into the air in my apartment as they were doing
Speaker:so. And then they left. And then, Two hours later, someone who was not infected with COVID
Speaker:walks into my apartment and they can get infected by that person who was in my apartment two
Speaker:hours ago. They're not there anymore, but some traces of the COVID they left in the air are
Speaker:still in the air. If you don't have CR boxes or HEPA devices and you don't have good ventilation,
Speaker:then that's going to stay in the air for a lot longer. Then there's so much nuance because
Speaker:there are... People who I don't agree with, who are considered to be part of the COVID
Speaker:cautious community, who, you know, just as it's wrong to think of vaccines as the only measure
Speaker:of mitigation, it's wrong to think of air quality as the only measure of mitigation. It's a very
Speaker:important one. And it's, you know, all those groups that are fighting to clean the air in
Speaker:children's schools and whatnot, they are doing very good work and they should keep on. doing
Speaker:that. And it's horrible now to think of the air quality that we had to deal with, even
Speaker:before the pandemic when we were in public school, like it's brutal. And COVID is not the only
Speaker:reason why the air should be cleaned and ventilated and whatnot. But the benefits, as far as COVID
Speaker:is concerned, the benefits of filtering the air and good ventilation means that COVID doesn't
Speaker:stay in the air for as long of time, right? So instead of being in the room for hours,
Speaker:it's in the room for 20 minutes. But it's still in the room for 20 minutes while that ventilation,
Speaker:HEPA filtration, all that is going on. So there are people in our community who are like, oh
Speaker:the CO2 level in this room is 450 and there's a CR box over there. I can take off my, we
Speaker:can all take off our masks. But just like it travels like smoke. So Having all that stuff
Speaker:in the room means if you lit a cigarette, your cigarette smoke is not going to stay in the
Speaker:room for as long. Only a teenage kid trying to smoke before their parents come home believe
Speaker:that, right? Right. Leaving it away, I'll be good. No, it lingers. But if someone smokes
Speaker:a cigarette in front of you, that cigarette smoke is still going to be there for several
Speaker:minutes at least before it's all filtered or ventilated out. So you need a combination of...
Speaker:respirators and air filtration. And then another misconception is that you can't get infected
Speaker:outdoors. But if you're walking outside with someone smoking a joint, you can smell their
Speaker:joint. So people have gotten infected. It's safer to be maskless outdoors than it is to
Speaker:be maskless indoors. But you can get infected, especially if someone right across from you
Speaker:is infected. So there's all this nuance that people don't understand. And the reason why
Speaker:surgical masks and cloth masks aren't very good is they are good for droplets. So if the problem
Speaker:is your spit is infected, that will protect you, because it'll protect- Your sneeze, your
Speaker:cough especially, right? Like contain. Yeah, but then we're also realizing that the common
Speaker:cold and other diseases are also airborne. So you won't get hit by someone's mucus if they're
Speaker:wearing a surgical mask, right? But there could still be virus spreading in the air, like not
Speaker:for six feet, for many, many feet, like the whole room. Unfortunately, it can be a bit
Speaker:expensive. I keep boxes of 3M Aura. They're N95 grade 3M Aura respirators. And I buy like
Speaker:the big boxes of 40 of them. and they still work out to be about $2.50 each. And that's
Speaker:not a big deal if you're middle class. You can throw out a $2.50 respirator every day if you're
Speaker:middle class, no problem. But yeah, if you're on OW or homeless, that is, you cannot handle
Speaker:that expense at all. You don't have, there's no money for it, even if you're buying them
Speaker:individually. No, I even messaged you the other day about more affordable masks, my little
Speaker:guy, he loses them, right? He always has extra in the back of his backpack, but sometimes
Speaker:it's more than one a day, plus what we need to go around and do anything that we need to
Speaker:do. And that's a huge barrier for folks. They never really did hand out masks. Our vaccines
Speaker:are free because our healthcare is so called free, but masks were never distributed on mass,
Speaker:which really... puzzles me, the rapid tests were and all of that, but nothing to actually
Speaker:stop the spread. And even the efforts, I remember the hashtag, COVID is airborne, like there
Speaker:were real efforts made mostly by grassroots people to drive home that very simple point
Speaker:that we seem to understand now. But when we were in the droplet, it's wash your hand phase,
Speaker:not just the schools that was, you know, there's been a lot of work to do. to clean the air
Speaker:in schools because they almost have no choice there. But even scientific facts bringing them
Speaker:to the forefront was like required activism, which to me is just so absurd because of the
Speaker:amount of money that we spend on our public health system and research and all of that.
Speaker:They had to have known it was airborne. They did. From the onset. I was so angry. It's no
Speaker:wonder nobody trusts them. I was so angry because like early in March, 2020, when it started
Speaker:to become an official problem in Canada. The first message that we were given by the powers
Speaker:that be is if you don't work in healthcare, you don't need a mask. Save the mask for the
Speaker:healthcare workers. I was ticked off by that already, but then I think a few weeks later,
Speaker:when the message changed, I made my first fabric mask. And I wish I had known that the fabric
Speaker:mask and all the hair and sanitizer and all that were all for naught. but they knew as
Speaker:early as February 2020, if not earlier, that COVID is airborne. And I recommend that listeners
Speaker:to this show, if you're not on X Twitter, no one calls it X, we call it Twitter. Probably
Speaker:that's the best, or go to Mastodon or Blue Sky now, and search for World Health Organization,
Speaker:so WHO and Tedros, T-E-D-R-O-S, in February 2020. and the World Health Organization did
Speaker:a press conference in February 2020. And Dr. Tedros said briefly, it's airborne. And then
Speaker:Dr. Mike Ryan, who was right next to him, said, whispered something into his ear. And you can
Speaker:see this on video if you search for it online. And then all of a sudden he said, no, I'm sorry.
Speaker:I didn't mean that. That is the military word. It is droplets, droplets. And I would be happy
Speaker:to share that with you and you can put it in the show notes. I will gladly link that. I've
Speaker:already jotted it down. Now, the reason why they didn't want us to think it was airborne
Speaker:was that if we acknowledge that COVID is airborne, that is no longer an individual, you and me,
Speaker:responsibility completely. It is society's, it's society's and it's business and it's our
Speaker:institutions, it's their responsibility. to clean the air and they did not want to do that.
Speaker:So they want me, it's your individual responsibility. So there's so much of that shit going around
Speaker:from climate change to poverty, it putting it all on the individual. And you know, there's,
Speaker:there is no way that this pandemic can end by making it an individual problem. That doesn't
Speaker:mean that I forgive people for being maskless in public. Right, right. I hate our powers
Speaker:that be. But I also sincerely detest my neighbors when I see them going around maskless. There
Speaker:are people who I like, love and respect, but my feelings about the general population and
Speaker:humanity at large, my opinion of people in general has plummeted since this pandemic has started.
Speaker:I don't think you're alone there. Even within families, it's been a real divider. Yeah. It
Speaker:crosses all political lines. because early in the pandemic, I lost comrades almost immediately.
Speaker:Anti-vaxxers that were almost, not almost, they were very aggressive about it. In your face,
Speaker:angry, and I didn't even understand that point of view at all at that point, but the divide
Speaker:was there. And yeah, when you have families where some of them are taking it seriously
Speaker:and then some are flaunting it. It creates the animosity that you just talked about because
Speaker:you're doing everything you can and it will mean fuck all for the community unless everybody
Speaker:does it right. I can keep my family safe ish but not as good as I could if my neighbors
Speaker:could also do the same. Right. And so you get like resentful but then you're physically separated
Speaker:too because you're not going to take precautions because leftists are going to hold events that
Speaker:don't have mandatory masks or any kind of social distancing or any precautions whatsoever. you're
Speaker:not welcome there anymore. All of these spaces where, yeah, people are screaming at each other
Speaker:and standing up, but they're side by side by side by side with no mask on. And so you've
Speaker:been ostracized in a way, or you have to create your own community of COVID conscious people,
Speaker:which is dwindling because it becomes harder. Like there were people in my family that were
Speaker:like, yes, we're on it and they're tired. I have to remind them more and more and more,
Speaker:and I kind of get flack. It's like, yeah, give me the mask, here I go. You know, it's getting
Speaker:harder and harder to keep people vigilant. It's disparaging. Maybe some of these people would
Speaker:be a little more, maybe not all of them, but maybe some of them would be a little more vigilant
Speaker:if they understood that it's not flu symptoms for a couple of weeks and then you're fine.
Speaker:There is scientific evidence that COVID fuses brain cells together. is a new story, I can
Speaker:find it so you can add to the show notes too, of a 19-year-old young woman who has dementia.
Speaker:It might be the youngest medically recorded case of Alzheimer's disease. I don't know if
Speaker:it's Alzheimer's disease or general dementia, but this young lady, her brain was perfectly
Speaker:fine until she had a COVID infection. It's probably absolutely terrifying to be immunocompromised
Speaker:or you're a cancer patient or for any number of reasons like that. But it seems the difference
Speaker:between immunocompromised people and people who aren't yet immunocompromised is just your
Speaker:risk of imminent death. And even that's not confined to immunocompromised people. Right.
Speaker:Because folks sometimes don't even know how sick they are. They don't know that they have
Speaker:comorbidities to begin with. And those comorbidities are a lot. So that was another really disheartening
Speaker:narrative that really took hold at the onset was sure people were dying, but they were already
Speaker:sick. That was a big fuck you to the disabled community as well. You're literally saying
Speaker:it's okay, it's only disabled people dying, you'll probably survive. Like this is before
Speaker:we understood long COVID, at which some people still don't. And just to know, like you've
Speaker:mentioned a lot of it, but... Long COVID is this rainbow of still-to-be-understood issues,
Speaker:health issues that are seemingly lifelong for some folks. Some, you know, it's a few years,
Speaker:we don't know, because obviously we were only three years into this, but decreased lung capacity,
Speaker:your heart weakens, some things you don't even notice until you go in to figure out something
Speaker:else and they find out your body's actually been ravaged by something that is barely holding
Speaker:together this whole time. and something simple has completely wrecked you. So like we don't
Speaker:even fully understand, but surely, surely there is no person that has been untouched by COVID.
Speaker:I've had, like I've known two people to pass away from COVID decidedly, like not after the
Speaker:fact, not from long COVID, from an acute infection. I can't be an anomaly with the numbers that
Speaker:we see. So why doesn't that hit people, you think? Why doesn't that personal loss or that
Speaker:threat of long-term disability or chronic health issue, why doesn't that scare people enough?
Speaker:Yeah, I'm banging my head about it too. Even if I didn't need my brain in order to labor
Speaker:for my capitalist overlords, if brain damage is your main symptom after COVID. From what
Speaker:I hear, it is really scary. Cause like to, I have one friend in the COVID cautious community
Speaker:who unfortunately has been infected at least once. And she says she doesn't recognize faces
Speaker:anymore. Some people congenitally are face blind and they've grown up without all their lives
Speaker:and they've learned how to, you know, recognizing people by their faces was never a thing for
Speaker:them. So it's not such a big deal because they've adapted all their lives to it. But for someone
Speaker:to have recognized faces all their lives and then suddenly lose that ability, one of the
Speaker:most common things I hear from people online is they used to be able to watch a movie and
Speaker:follow what's going on and now they can't. So they can't even like sit back at home and enjoy
Speaker:a movie because they can't follow what's going on. That that is scary. Like. It's a shame
Speaker:that we need to be mentally and physically capable in order to wage slave for a capitalist overlord.
Speaker:But even in our downtime, that stuff really messes you up. Well, even most people don't
Speaker:need their smell or taste to do their work. You know, chefs aside, that scares me. Yeah.
Speaker:All these other scary things, I guess you kind of deal with a lot. Like I could, I could.
Speaker:have a heart attack, my dad had a heart attack, my uncle, like that's a possibility for me.
Speaker:I kind of live with those possibilities all the time. And I smoke weed, so my lungs aren't
Speaker:great. So maybe I was like, well, but actually the idea of never being able to taste your
Speaker:favorite food or smell the roses is, that's a bit of a loss of your humanity. Not to say
Speaker:that folks that don't have that are less human, but that is an intricate part of your life.
Speaker:When you do have that, for me, That's how you experience joy. Yeah. And I would never wanna
Speaker:lose that or the sharpness that comes like from how my neurodivergent mind works. If I ever
Speaker:lost the ability to make all those connections rapidly, I would not be myself anymore. Although
Speaker:it's a curse sometimes, I still, it's me. And it would, that would be terrifying to lose
Speaker:a cognitive ability you've always had. Yeah. Food is a pleasure that probably most people
Speaker:who are able to afford the food they like, they take for granted. They take for granted that
Speaker:their favorite comfort food is there and they can taste it and enjoy it. So, yeah, that is
Speaker:a pleasure that's taken away from you by the damage that COVID can do. Another thing is,
Speaker:if you're my age or older, you probably remember like around 1998. when Viagra first came out,
Speaker:it was such a big deal. It was such a big moneymaker for the pharmaceutical companies when they
Speaker:learned that it treated erectile dysfunction and people were buying it in masses. COVID
Speaker:has been found, and because of the damage it does to your blood vessels, it has been found
Speaker:to cause erectile dysfunction in people with penises. And for people with penises, regardless
Speaker:of their gender, their ability... to have an erection is a private pleasure for them. And
Speaker:again, it's taken away if comid damages their penises. And you would think with how popular
Speaker:Viagra was that not wanting to lose your ability to orgasm would be enough motivation for people
Speaker:to wear a respirator. I don't know what effect it has on clitorises for those of us who have
Speaker:clitorises, but it's probably similar, right? the people with penises talk make me think
Speaker:of the warnings on cigarette packs that started just with texts and grew and grew and they're
Speaker:convinced now that if they take up three quarters of the pack with the most grotesque image that
Speaker:is going to trigger fear in you, that isn't working. So if we can't scare people into masking
Speaker:or staying home. what do we do? Yeah. Because people, I mean, at least people get joy out
Speaker:of smoking. I don't get it. I don't like the smell I used to smoke as a kid. You don't even
Speaker:get high. So I know it calms some people down, but generally it's kind of a lot of risk for
Speaker:very little gain, but it persists. I know there's a physical addiction, but people start smoking
Speaker:even though they see this. Absolutely. So like something's wrong with humans in our brain,
Speaker:the cognitive dissonance that we do or the damage that we do to ourselves voluntarily. self-preservation
Speaker:isn't always our best attribute, I suppose. But that's why I think we got to go back to
Speaker:governance. Although everything is great that comes from the bottom up, we do have governance
Speaker:for a reason. Like, is there anything you think the government could do that we could be lobbying
Speaker:for them to do or demanding rather? Fuck lobby. Taking to the streets to demand. What would
Speaker:that be? Would that be another 30 day lockdown or is that not going to cut it now? Yeah, maybe
Speaker:the lockdown wouldn't work so well at this point, but definitely we need to, and I should mention
Speaker:this on the show in case there are people listening who do need free respirators who can't afford
Speaker:them, you can go to DonateMask.ca and that charity will give you free respirators if you can't
Speaker:afford to buy them yourselves. But that's something that the government should be doing. not a
Speaker:private organization. There should be an enforced mask mandate in public places. And if you don't
Speaker:already have a respirator mask on, one is given to you. And they did that sort of thing in
Speaker:Vietnam. And it worked very well. You might not get 100% compliance, but you know, back
Speaker:when we did have mask policies, there was at least 90% compliance. There was never a mask
Speaker:mandate on the TTC. Really? Since 2020, I have not been on the TTC and it's such a mind fuck
Speaker:because I don't drive a car. I live in a place with good public transit, like the 501 Queen
Speaker:Streetcar goes by near where my apartment building is. When I first moved back to Toronto, I bought
Speaker:a Metro Pass every month, and I was on the TTC subway and on streetcars and all that 20 plus
Speaker:times a week. I have not been on the TTC since early 2020 because they never had a mask policy.
Speaker:For a brief period of time in 2020, I think they had, please wear a mask if you can, but
Speaker:there wasn't zero enforcement and it wasn't even mass or mandatory. It was, again, suggested,
Speaker:recommended. I don't get that because you're talking about places where, like a subway.
Speaker:for example, where people are crammed on there, there's zero ventilation, your heads are beside
Speaker:one another. You would think that would be the one place other than hospitals that would be
Speaker:the first to experience the mask mandates. We like to roll things out, not to scare people,
Speaker:right? A lot of people, they have no choice, but to take public transit for their wage labor
Speaker:jobs. Yeah, not everyone can get an Uber, right? Right, yeah, well. I work from home and then
Speaker:the odd time that I have to go to a completely different part of Toronto for something, I
Speaker:take a taxi. What do you do if your taxi driver's not mass? Oh, I now have a routine. So like
Speaker:one of the reasons why I use taxis like once every couple of months is I have hair appointments
Speaker:and my hairstylist is in North York and I'm in South Etobicoke. You love your hairstylist,
Speaker:Kim. So yeah, so that is like a $70, $80 taxi fare one way. That's a privilege, definitely.
Speaker:I mean, I could have done that for $3 on the TTC. Some taxi drivers, and I always use like
Speaker:a Beck taxi or traditional taxi and not Uber, because although traditional taxi drivers are
Speaker:exploited as we are, we're also exploited. But all things being relative, traditional taxi
Speaker:drivers are less exploited than Uber drivers. So I take a traditional taxi, usually back
Speaker:taxi, and a year ago when I started doing this, I found that some taxi drivers now don't have
Speaker:any sort of masks. The odd one that you do has a completely ineffective surgical mask and
Speaker:they don't even wear it. It's like dangling on the ignition of their car or whatever. And,
Speaker:you know, they might put it on once you're already inside the vehicle, when all that time they
Speaker:could be breathing COVID inside. Anyway, I hate it. I wear the last americ respirator, which
Speaker:means it's like silicon where it touches my face. It's reusable. I have learned because
Speaker:there was one time when I was so frustrated and I just like gave the taxi driver a lecture
Speaker:about how their surgical mask wasn't any good. And it was not any good to just put it on when
Speaker:I entered the car. and he broke down and tears and he's like, ma'am, I cannot afford anything
Speaker:better. And I used to be poor, but I have been out of poverty for long enough that I had forgotten
Speaker:what it's like to not be able to afford like two, three dollar N95 respirators. So from
Speaker:that point on, and the only reason why I buy the disposable 3M Aura respirators, is because
Speaker:I need to give them away to people. So now when I go take a taxi, I have a few 3M's on me wrapped
Speaker:so you know that they're hygienic and all that. In my bag, I hand one of them to the driver
Speaker:and I say, I am not taking this taxi trip unless you put this on. And I make it as easy for
Speaker:them as possible. And I say to them, you will get a good tip if you put this on. That's a
Speaker:lot, that must be, it's exhausting and expensive. It's so stressful. for me, yeah. What's it
Speaker:like always being the COVID conscious person, both in your daily life with everybody you
Speaker:interact with, but also consistently advocating online for something that gets a lot of flak?
Speaker:Yeah, it takes tremendous stubbornness. If I was in my 20s, I don't think I'd even have
Speaker:the fortitude to resist as much as I've been doing. Yeah. I wish more people around me would
Speaker:care about this stuff more, so then the psychological burden of always having to make conculations
Speaker:in my head all the time. Are they doing this? Is this going on? Are they cooperating? How
Speaker:do I get them to cooperate? Blah, blah, blah. I am very fortunate in that my romantic partner,
Speaker:who does not live with me, but we've been together for five and a half years now, and he does
Speaker:visit my apartment on average one day a week. and he spends overnight here most of the time.
Speaker:I am, because I hear horror stories online about how COVID has separated couples. I'm very fortunate
Speaker:that he cooperates with me. I pay for, you know, rats are not completely useless, but a rat
Speaker:will often only detect that you're infected like four or five days into your infection.
Speaker:I... by Q-Test and Q-Test are significant financial investment that a lot of people can't afford.
Speaker:All this stuff is more expensive here in Canada than it is in the United States. Of course.
Speaker:But the initial investment is about $700. You get a peripheral that's like the small white
Speaker:dock that charges in the wall by USB and it connects with Bluetooth to your phone. and
Speaker:then your phone is supposed to have an app and you also get like a, for the $700 investment,
Speaker:you also get like a 10 pack of tests. And it's also, you got to sign up for a $50 subscription
Speaker:on top of that. And they only give you 10 tests with your initial $50 subscription, but you
Speaker:can order new packs of three tests for about $250. Wow. I use the Q-Test for my partner.
Speaker:So he has the Q-Doc. I bought, again, I'm paying for all this stuff and I'm having to do all
Speaker:these calculations and thinking about stuff. He has the doc at home. I have the app on my
Speaker:phone. He has the app on his phone. The condition for him to visit me is that the Q-Test that
Speaker:he takes the day before he comes, the day that he comes over, like that morning, has to be
Speaker:negative. They have a better accuracy rate, much better. Almost as good as a PCR test.
Speaker:Yeah, all this stuff the government should be paying for. Not us. And the fact that, you
Speaker:know, probably more than half of Canadians would have real problems with forwarding all this
Speaker:stuff. But like I was below the poverty line for like a good 20 years of my life. If this
Speaker:pandemic had happened back then, I would have certainly been infected multiple times by now.
Speaker:No matter how much knowledge I had. But yeah, so he has to test negative. I buy him a good
Speaker:quality respirator. I bought him HEPA devices for his home. I remember to buy him replacement
Speaker:filters. So I ordered them like from Amazon. I know Amazon evil, but, and I have all this
Speaker:stuff shipped to his home. And I, he cooperates, thank goodness he cooperates because not all
Speaker:partners even cooperate with all this. Still, like this should not be my burden. It should
Speaker:be society's burden. It should be like the government paying for this. Absolutely, and it reminds
Speaker:me of the shots of Davos that we saw, I think, last year. And I can only imagine they had
Speaker:these cue tests everywhere. And they were taking every precaution imaginable, right? Because
Speaker:as much as we hate them, they do have access to a lot of knowledge and they have incredible
Speaker:privilege. Not so much character, but they know it's important to keep themselves safe. Yeah.
Speaker:Right? While they're exploiting millions and billions of workers across the world and hoarding
Speaker:all of the resources that we have, still those one percenters were making sure not to infect
Speaker:each other. Yeah. Because of the threat that it holds to them. I thought folks seeing that
Speaker:would be an eye opener because I think a lot of times COVID conscious people were labeled
Speaker:as neurotic. obsessive, too much. And on top of all of the cost and the layers of thinking
Speaker:that you need to do, and I really see the tie between that and being an ethical hacker or
Speaker:cybersecurity, you know, having to anticipate how other people are going to react and mitigate
Speaker:that before you have to worry about it. That is a heavy burden. But then on top of that
Speaker:being kind of labeled a bit of a pain in the ass and having to kind of go up against that
Speaker:over and over, you know, when you take a cab, when, you know, you're reinforcing with your
Speaker:partner. Yeah. You're right. Like that is a load no individual should carry. And if we
Speaker:had gotten leadership, actual leadership from the onset, I feel like people's mindset would
Speaker:be different, even with the burdens that it would have carried with it. If it weren't for
Speaker:capitalism, then society would be doing the right thing, and we wouldn't be burdened so
Speaker:much. Those of us who are doing everything that we can to avoid it. Capitalism has caused two
Speaker:major crises that we are dealing with right now that will probably, if not spell the end
Speaker:of humanity, at least spell the end of society as we know it, which is climate change and
Speaker:this pandemic. We both know how capitalism has caused both of those problems.
Speaker:I'm almost 40 now. I fully expect by the time I'm in my 60s, things will totally be Mad Max,
Speaker:if not worse than that. It might come a lot sooner. As we both know, the worst of climate
Speaker:change is hitting the planet a lot sooner than anticipated. We've had the most extreme weather
Speaker:all around the world this year. There are vast areas of this planet that have been either
Speaker:burned or flooded. The food prices are rising to a point that it's a struggle for most Canadians
Speaker:to buy food. But if you think things were bad this year, as far as grocery store prices are
Speaker:concerned, and we know, you did a great episode on it, we know that it's like the Western Corp
Speaker:and all these corporate monopolies. But the other factor is we've lost so much farmland
Speaker:that next year and all the years after that, food is going to be even more expensive. You
Speaker:used kind of a small scale analogy, but it should be applied to the whole broader scope of a
Speaker:McDonald's restaurant having X amount of employees sick so much so that it can't operate. We only
Speaker:have public health care here because capitalists understand they need a healthy workforce. The
Speaker:same goes for public education. These were capitulations to make sure that they had an adequate workforce.
Speaker:Right. Roads, same thing. You know, it's not. to make sure individuals are okay, it's to
Speaker:keep capital okay. How have we not hit a point though that capital needs to understand that
Speaker:the workforce is becoming mass disabled and they will start to mitigate this even just
Speaker:for their own factory sake because otherwise, yeah, it'll collapse. Your Mad Max has me a
Speaker:little bit anxious and I know some folks out there will get a little bit of political despair
Speaker:when they think of this, when we really look at the big picture, it's hard. But on the bright
Speaker:side, surely this has to spell the end to capitalism. Yeah. Oh yeah, we are in end stage capitalism
Speaker:right now. This is a discussion that we've had in COVID cautious circles. It is a mass disabling
Speaker:event. Most people will not be able to. keep on wage-saving for much longer, not after their
Speaker:third, fourth, fifth infection. And I think most people are on infections number three
Speaker:or four at this point. But there are some really great advocates in the disability community.
Speaker:One that I recommend is Amani Barbarin. So Amani Barbarin is very prominent. She has loads of
Speaker:followers, like hundreds of thousands of followers. on Twitter and she's big on TikTok, either
Speaker:like a Manny Barbarin or Crutches and Spice. And she has talked about this, not just about
Speaker:COVID being a mass disabling event, but also there are, you know, about companies like BlackRock
Speaker:and whatnot. They're like some of the most evil corporations out there. Some of these same
Speaker:kinds of companies are betting on exploiting us when we the institutionalization of us,
Speaker:whether it's in prison or it's in long-term care facilities or whatnot, making a profit
Speaker:off of us anyway. So even if we're not in a position where we can wage slave, if we're
Speaker:in a terrible long-term care home, we're being abused there, the government is still paying
Speaker:that corporation like 10 grand a month or whatever to exploit us there, right? So there's no short
Speaker:of profiteering off misery. The made industries, another example. So a dollar sign can be put
Speaker:on our heads, it seems like, whether we can labor or not. Fuck. AI can't do everything.
Speaker:Robots can't do everything. There is an element of capitalism eating itself. One example of
Speaker:that is Zoom. Everyone knows what Zoom is, the video conferencing app, right? Zoom headquarters
Speaker:is forcing their employees go back to their office to work, saying that you can't use Zoom
Speaker:to log into working at Zoom. You have to go to the Zoom office physically. And it's like,
Speaker:aren't you kind of trashing your own product? I feel their shares plummeting as you talk.
Speaker:That's capitalism in itself, right? And also capitalism is not sustainable obviously, because
Speaker:it concentrates all these resources to very few people. The vast majority. of our labor
Speaker:is not going to benefit society, it's going to make some billionaire richer. So it's a
Speaker:tremendous waste of human potential and labor and effort. And then our planet has finite
Speaker:resources and we've pretty much exhausted that. And you know, our planet is starting to become
Speaker:uninhabitable now. There were some fortunate white people in the middle of the 20th century.
Speaker:My parents are a perfect example of that, who did great because that was like an earlier...
Speaker:stage of capitalism. My dad was born in the 1930s and my mom was born in the late 1940s
Speaker:and they both had white privilege, like especially my dad, even though they did not come from
Speaker:noble families or anything like that. They did, your average working class white person, I'm
Speaker:saying white person because we know that those privileges did not extend to people of colour,
Speaker:to indigenous people. It was mainly half of... you know, working class white people thrive
Speaker:relatively speaking in the mid 20th century. Can't say that now. You can't say that now.
Speaker:I mean, white privilege certainly still exists, but there is almost no middle class and they
Speaker:didn't even have to go to college or university and they could get a decent paying job in the
Speaker:auto plant because of unions, obviously. Yep. My father is a perfect example of what you're
Speaker:talking about as well. Absolutely. But I can only hope that we are in the end stages of
Speaker:capitalism and that COVID is helping to pull that curtain back a little bit and disrupt
Speaker:people's just wholehearted support of capitalism that still exists for some reason in some people.
Speaker:As we do on this show, we'll provide as many ways to disrupt capitalism and today, hopefully
Speaker:you got a few ways to disrupt COVID. And that's why it's so aggravating that all these supposed
Speaker:leftist institutions, like I'm not talking about the NDP, I'm talking about, you know, people
Speaker:who call themselves Marxists and whatnot, are, I used to have a subscription to Canada Marxist
Speaker:Fightback magazine, I had a subscription. up until this past winter when I cancelled my
Speaker:subscription. And the reason why I cancelled my subscription was none of the issues ever
Speaker:even mentioned COVID. So I was like, why? I'm more than happy to pay for a subscription to
Speaker:benefit a Marxist organization, but not if they completely ignore the issue of COVID. That
Speaker:and they kept holding schools, gatherings, conferences, completely unmasked. And like single them out
Speaker:isn't... terribly fair there an example, but it's been a massive letdown. Yeah, from folks
Speaker:who definitely should have know better and definitely from the folks we expected this from. Thank
Speaker:you, Kim, for coming on and sharing, you know, not only your expertise, but also a bit of
Speaker:your vulnerabilities and just being a great example of what it means to be like persistently
Speaker:COVID conscious, not just when it was comfortable, but when it's really uncomfortable because
Speaker:I feel like that's when it's most needed. So we're going to see numbers go up again. I hope
Speaker:it takes traction. I hope people aren't too exhausted by hearing it, you know, three years
Speaker:in that they've just tuned out. Like we've tuned out so much because we just can't afford it.
Speaker:We absolutely can't afford it. And I want to take myself out of lockdown at some point.
Speaker:So get it together, people. I've been living in lockdown too. Yeah. Thank you so much, Kim.
Speaker:Thank you. That is a wrap on another episode of Blueprints of Disruption. Thank you for
Speaker:joining us. Also, a very big thank you to the producer of our show, Santiago Jaluc Quintero.
Speaker:Blueprints of Disruption is an independent production operated cooperatively. You can follow us on
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Speaker:please share our content. And if you have the means, consider becoming a patron. Not only
Speaker:does our support come from the progressive community, so does our content. So reach out to us and
Speaker:let us know what or who we should be amplifying. So until next time, keep disrupting.
