I’m sure I’m not the only one who remembers the old Jack Benny joke where a robber points a gun at Benny and says, “Your money or your life!” and Benny replies, “I’m thinking, I’m thinking.”

It seems to me as though this is where we are today, although it is no joke. We are being asked to give up our own, our family’s, our neighbors’ lives to “reopen the economy”.

Yesterday, “Dr” Oz told Sean Hannity that we need to “get our mojo back”. According to Oz, one “appetizing opportunity” (yes those are his words) is to reopen our schools. Oz read an article that says there would only be a 2-3% mortality rate among schoolchildren if we open schools now. According to what I’ve read, 2-3% of schoolchildren is approximately 1.5 million kids. Way to “get our mojo back” on the deaths of over a million children! What a compassionate “doctor”.

In addition, a republican in Indiana, Trey Hollingsworth, says that reopening the economy is “lesser of two evils”. He has walked that statement back somewhat, but his default is that we need to “reopen the economy”. If people die because we opened it too soon, oh well… The way I understand that statement is, “if some people have to lose their lives, so that I can keep my money, so be it.”

Basically, that’s the same thing anyone who wants to reopen the economy is saying. My or yours or your family’s or your neighbors’ life/lives is not more important than his money. Just for the record, though, I’m trying to understand what good your money will do if you’re already dead, which leads me to the conclusion that it’s MY death needed to save HIS money. After all, which is more important?

Here’s what I know. We have had terrible economies before, and we have recovered. We will recover from this terrible economy. It may not be soon, it may not be to the level we had before, it may not be before the November election (which is what “reopening the economy”) is all about, but we WILL recover.

What will NOT recover is all the people who have died so that the economy recovers. Let me take that one step further, while I’m at it. What will the economy look like once it’s recovered? Will it look like the screenshot I saw the other day on fox-so-called-news where the pundit had a chart next to his head that showed the stock market having the largest one-day gain while at the bottom a chyron ran that showed 16 million Americans were unemployed? IOW, is it recovery that Wall Street is booming while Main Street is suffering? Will all of those unemployed people miraculously get their jobs back? Or will employers cut back under the guise of “recovering”? What about all those small businesses that have gone out of business? Will they be able to open again? Will they able to hire all of their employees back? Will they be able to pay them? All of this is for another article, of course, and really has no answers until it happens.

So, back to my original question. Which is it? Your money or your life? And a thousand poxes on the TLB for getting us to this point where we even have to ask this question.

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TOCB
Member

Who do you believe, Biden or Reade? IF you believe Reade, what do you do about it? Are Democrats willing to say since Biden is accused of sexually assaulting only one woman, and trump is accused of sexually assaulting dozens of women, we will excuse it because he is our guy? IF Reade’s story is true, Democrats still have time to nominate someone else, OR we can take the chance that all of trump’s negatives will outweigh this infraction by Biden.

We should not be deluded into thinking we will ever have a perfect candidate. However, there are degrees of imperfection. The question is, are we willing to accept this degree of imperfection?

https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2020/04/theres-new-corroborative-evidence-for-tara-reades-story.html

Khirad
Member

All I’m saying is this. I don’t know Joe Biden. I think I heard Aubrey Plaza say she had a wonderful experience in a very appropriate way. I think Al Franken was set up when you looked at her history.

I hope I’m in a safe place to say this all. I mean, I’ve never been a politician or in a position of power, but it all gets iffy sometimes. All I know is we need to confront this and not call her crazy.

We will never have a perfect candidate, but, I’m sorry – I can kinda guage the median age here – like the liberal FOX demo. I would have preferred a person not 300 years old either way.

Like, I’m just going to watch Mad Men while each side says the other is more senile than the other. And you can’t fault me for that. Yes, I’m voting Joe, but I’m not who you need to worry about.

Khirad
Member

For the record for all the Bernie or Busters: there’s the Green Party, Socialist Party USA. What galls me is I could almost get behind that if you put as much energy into third parties as you do into parroting FSB talking points. I mean, dividing the vote is never good, but, it’s a wager they will never take because they have no progressive values to begin with.

Khirad
Member

Okay, so I had a pretty thoughtful reply here, not at all confrontational. And my computor blapped out and I don’t feel like writing it again. I agree, he just needs to effing deal with it while I watch my Mad Men DVDs.

TOCB
Member

I apologize. I thought I was posting on “Short Post”. My comment didn’t have anything to do with your post about re-opening. My comment related to that is this:

Like most people, I support re-opening if it is done in a way that protects the health of the country. Lives, even the lives of the most vulnerable among us, who are often the least of these, is more important than money.

If people go out without face coverings and don’t continue to practicing social distancing, common sense tells us the number of cases and the number of deaths WILL increase.

Khirad
Member

Wibbly, wobbly, timey wimey stuff here. I don’t recall saying anything about re-opening at all. Did I? I mean, I could have, but – it doesn’t sound like me. I mean the Swedes are being pretty Viking about it all but I need to hop back to the Tardis.

Khirad
Member

For the record, I’m pretty discombobulated and try my best to follow the threads. If anything, it’s an interesting concept, but I only give Sweden a pass for now because, Sweden. As to the Confederate yahoos… well…

Khirad
Member

I do believe we’re on the Turkish man still and I was going to flash my Atatürk watch at some point. And yes I do have one, and a flag, and an introcduction to Turkish. Though, that’s my own kind of being a piece of shit.

Khirad
Member

Am I allowed to make Turkish jokes here? I shouldn’t be, it’s a bitch of a language to learn.

So, an Armenian walks… and walks…

Weight loss!

Oh god, I’m gonna get myself banned here too. You know I can do both languages, at least. Though honestly, Turkish is like nothing you ever dealt with before, don’t let the latin alphabet fool you.

I’m not saying Dr. Oz is a quack because he’s Turkish, but – I wonder what his family thinks.

MurphTheSurf3
Editor

Here is what Wikipedia has to say about Dr. Oz.

Medical claims on The Dr. Oz Show (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medical_claims_on_The_Dr._Oz_Show)
Oz has faced criticism due to his tendency to feature non-scientific and pseudoscientific advice. He has been supportive of homeopathy,[40] and is a proponent of alternative medicine.[41]

Oz is a spokesman and advisor for the website RealAge.com, which The New York Times has criticized for its pharmaceutical marketing practices.[42]

His image and quotes have been exploited by many weight loss product scammers. While he himself has not been found to be involved in these scams, he has made statements that were exploited by scammers.[43][42] During a Senate hearing on consumer protection, Senator Claire McCaskill stated that “the scientific community is almost monolithic against you” for airing segments on weight loss products that are later cited in advertisements, concluding that Oz plays a role, intentional or not, in perpetuating these scams, and that she is “concerned that you are melding medical advice, news, and entertainment in a way that harms consumers.”[44][41]

In September 2016, during his presidential campaign, Donald Trump appeared on The Dr. Oz Show.[45] In the lead-up to the show’s taping, Oz promoted Trump’s appearance with a claim that Oz would assess medical records submitted to the show by Trump and reveal his assessment on the show.[46] Several news outlets speculated that Trump’s appearance aimed to appeal to The Dr. Oz Show’s large female viewership.[47][48] In 2018, Trump appointed Oz, athletes and The Incredible Hulk star Lou Ferrigno to his Council on Sports, Fitness, and Nutrition. Trump’s selections were criticized as choosing “pundits over experts” for the panel.[10]

In April 2020, he was criticized after an appearance on Fox News with Sean Hannity in which he said that reopening schools that were closed because of the coronavirus pandemic might be worth the increased number of deaths it could potentially cause. He later said in a video on Twitter that he “misspoke”.[49]

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It is pretty clear to me that the man thrives on controversy and works to create a whirl of charges and counter-charges around him. His notoriety is the key to his income. Oprah has much that speaks well of her…..her promotion of Oz is not one of them.

Oz’s comments (and those of a number of his fellow travelers) showed a spectacular hard heartedness….but it is a tone that so many on the right seem to embrace with glee. Callous and unprincipled nonsense but a road to fame, fortune and power.

Khirad
Member

Was John Oliver not kosher?

Khirad
Member

So we all saw John Oliver?