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Well, double trouble Julia. I just became a paid subscriber. You are one of very few bloggers I will kick in some money for. Do not expect it to continue indefinitely.

I do my own blog. Find it here. https://timrourke.substack.com/

I do not charge anybody anything for my pearls of wisdom. I am on a decent pension so I can work for free.

I especially like your comments about the left. I do not think we really have a left anymore. Maybe something of a left in Canada but it seems like nothing south of the border.

I am an old leftie from away back but I am sick of todays left. Most of it is just a slightly different flavour of fascism. A lot of it is just what you have recounted in this article, the indifference of the left to covid and the rights of the vulnerable and disabled. In fact, anything to do with public health.

Yet they are all screaming about identity politics, transgender, potty politics, all that.

They have bought into all the climate change neoMalthusianism, but are mostly uninterested in environment.

A worm may be turning. I am surprised that most of the left has turned out in support of the Palestinians. That the people in it have been able so far to defeat all the usual cooptation tactics. I think a lot of that has to do with the presence of real Palestinians. The Palestine diaspora is becoming an effective counter to the zionist lobby based inside the Jewish diaspora.

But back to covid and public health. In Canada our supposed left party has gotten us some trivial reforms in health care. We have the beginnings of a drug and dental plan. But the tory provinces are steadily defunding everything else, privatizing the hospitals, and the left is just not there.

And they are clueless about covid. Last time I attended anything remotely left, I was one of two people there who were masked up. I had people I have known for years, worked with on things, looking at me like I was crazy and backing away from me.

My question, and I hope you are also asking and maybe suggesting answers, is what does it take to make this an issue among the left?

However, I am starting to think that the real answer is, for those people who cannot see covid protection as an issue, and normalize protective and preventive measures, maybe they are not worth it. Maybe they are not a real left.

Maybe new left movements have to develop build around, first of all, protect al participants. Be an example of good practices. And finally, deal with real issues, not contrived ones.

So?

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