Of Dictators And Religions

It was interesting, a few years back, watching the retrospectives of the fall of the Berlin Wall.

Here’s a sjhort one:

It’s as fun to watch now as it was otherworldly and unbelievable back then: after decades of complete control, a government official’s inadvertent slip causes and uproar; another official’s resigned ad-libbed decision opens a single gate; from there, the entire Eastern Bloc, the Communist world that all the experts reminded us was here “forever”” disappeared inside a couple years.

I thought about that last week, as CDC director Rochelle Walensky abruptly changed course on masks. One week after President Harris was “inadvertently” photographed trying to french-kiss her husband through paper masks on an airport tarmac in front of a random mob of press cameras, one week after “President” Biden did a press conference wearing a mask standing 20 feet from other people, the CDC flipped.

And people started ditching the masks. Major retailers jumped off the Karen Train, joining vast swathes of the country that have changed course, to protecting the vulnerable.

And just like that night at the Bornholmer Straße gate over the Berlin Wall, many – but not all – people ditched the masks. Roughly 10% of the entire population of East Germany roamed the streets of West Berlin, at one point that glorious night, tasting and smelling and buying freedom.

The Communists spent a few years trying to put that genie back in the bottle, and failed. Their distant cousins here are trying to do the same thing.

Promptly, Big Karen – a wholly owned subsidiary of Big Left – leapt into action.

Some cities, and other subsidiaries of Big Left, clung to the ban. Given that the ongoing mask mandate had nothing to do with science – the CDC said so – the only logical conclusion is that “Masking Up” is a statement of faith, almost a religious exercise in self-abasement and rule following.

And Big Left, being the Curia of this particular church, is all about keeping people following rules.

And that explains a lot about Karen, whoever he or she is; they seem to be people whose connection to logic, fact, even “science”, involves logrolling others into following the rules they’ve mastered. It’s the ugly side of the Scandinavian culture to which so much of Minnesota traces its roots – the flip side of close-knit communitarianism is passive-aggressive rule-lawyering.

And that passive-aggression seems to have worked. A casual count of people at newly-mask-free Target in Shoreview yesterday showed about 80% of customers, and probably more among employees, still wearing masks. We know that at least half of those people, likely more, are vaccinated, so the exercise is more or less pointless.

It’s been 30 years since the Berlin Wall fell. There are still people who pine for the days when the Stasi and ZOMO kept things nice and tidy and in order.

And watching some of the urban social media groups, plenty of little Karens are already feeling pretty bereft.

10 thoughts on “Of Dictators And Religions

  1. I needed to make a Target run the other evening; the day after Target said it was removing its mask requirement.

    I saw about 50 customers; I and only one other customer were mask-less. Nobody gave me the stink-eye (customers or staff), though I suppose they could have stuck their tongue out at me, and I wouldn’t have known. The staff member at the self-checkout gave me a very cheerful, “Have a good evening!”

  2. I went to the Cub on Larpenteur and Fernwood the day after, saw the mask sign gone, and went in maskless. Was the only person without one. No one bothered me over it though, so that’s nice.

  3. Here in So. Cal there is a local radio show guy who plays the LA County spokehole’s daily press conferences on covid, and it is amazing to listen to her. First off she is not a medical doctor, not a scientist at all, degree in social services or some such. Second, you can hear the anger in her voice when people ask her about the cdc decision to unmask. It’s like she knows her time is coming to an end, and she just can’t live with out all this sweet face time with the public.

    Cali is “SCHEDULED” to open and unmask on the 15th of June, and when asked about that date, she added so many caveats that I wish I could bet every penny I have ever made that the date will absolutely be pushed back. So many states are open and Cali isn’t even CLOSE to considering it. And oh, the contempt in her voice when told that stores like Trader Joe’s are no longer requiring masks.

    This is a terrifying bunch of Karens, and they will not go quietly, and when they do, they will be back.

    Cali will be closed until Labor Day, calling my shot.

  4. I was in the Forest Lake Wal Mart last night – most of the employees were masked but only about 25% of the customers. This was after visiting a local restaurant where I didn’t see a single mask.

  5. My take on this is that I’m vaccinated–say 95% less likely to get the disease again–and have had the disease–further likely reduction in susceptibility–and over the past weeks, only about half a million people have been diagnosed.

    So we have about 1 in 500 people with a communicable level of the disease, and I’m something like 98% less likely to contract it or pass it on. So my mean contacts to problem is something like 25000 people. Mean contacts to death or hospitalization ten times that. I’ll take those odds.

    One thing that really needs to happen as well is that in many areas, the CDC just plain dropped the ball. Again, people with COVID getting sent to nursing homes with disastrous results, and then you’ve got the failure to tell event planners that marking areas off as “off limits” actually increases the amount of virus that an average person will inhale. Oopsie, evidently nobody at the CDC ever learned that dilution does indeed reduce the problems you’ll get with poisons of various types.

    And then a bunch of different stories on masks and other things…..sorry, they didn’t exactly cover themselves in glory here, that’s for sure.

  6. I’ve been taking Vitamins B-Complex, C and D3, Magnesium and Zinc. You know, what FAUXci said he takes, last year. Considering I haven’t had so much as a cold in ten years, my immune system must be pretty stout. Despite being exposed to four people that had the ChiCom flu, I never got it.

  7. Reading the list of things Rochelle will allow me to do I had to lmao. Been doing it for months already. She’s demented.

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  9. Mitch, great observation.

    Saturday night I need to go to a family dinner in Minneapolis. Our go to Richfield spot was booked.

    It will be interesting how many people wear the mask for that small amount of time between entering and the water gets served.

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