I live and work between Torino and Milano. One of my main talking points with friends, colleagues and strangers in these past few weeks has been the 2019 winter flu season. Jan-mar 2019 was a horrible time for respiratory related illnesses and “flu-like symptoms” in North East/central Italy. Kids and adults alike were sick for weeks, many in my community for 3-4 weeks rather than 10-14days... I know many people who probably would have benefited from hospital treatment last year. But those were the old days!, people still believed you could beat a flu because flus don’t kill you, and why would you bother going to a hospital to risk a bacterial infection for something so stupid as a flu? (50k+ deaths from hospital infections in Italy annually).
So, since the Covid-19 situation has engulfed my region, comparing the generally good health across the cities and workplaces this year to that of last year, even the most hard-core establishment folks were able to see my point about the exaggerated reaction from a populace which has been waaaay healthier this year (and enjoying a premature spring after a short mild winter... perfect in some ways, snow in the mountains since early December, with low precipitation and stable-mild weather patterns through Jan-Feb).
This most welcome and encouraging information from the C’spirits brings some clarity to the Italy situation for me.
The goodwill of the people in Italy in this moment is astonishing. Everyone knows that the politicians are corrupt and self-serving. But a genuine desire to sincerely sacrifice oneself to save the “old, infirm, at risk” is nearly universal in the general public. Of course, individual fears of death are guiding many people’s behavior, this is normal especially given the alarmism in the press. Nevertheless, people here have shown more love and respect towards their neighbors and their neighbors’ parents than can justifiably be explained in a context of rational, economic thinking. Sure, the government has slowly managed this shutting down, even ‘imposed’ it, but it is the people who have voluntarily shut down and imposed it on themselves. For the sake of shared health.
So, yes, it makes sense that this particular virus has already passed this way, many have had it already, and these are so deeply committed to an STO agenda that they will be the first to suicide their already-precarious economy and affirm their commitment to saving lives. Happy to stay at home and help the austerity-depleted national health service do what it can with limited means, supporting the chances for people who are dying (or suffering ) to get onto a high-demand breathing machine.
They might even be so STO oriented that they are also at the service of the “leaders”, even trying to help those poor idiots save the lives of people who they obviously don’t care about in the first place (otherwise they would have found solutions to preserve our admittedly world-class public health system without cutting budgets, reducing personnel, paying pharm-companies big bucks for stupid medicines etc, competitive salaries and better infrastructure).
The “funny thing” about the Italian situation as based on this latest information, would be the current reaction of the local PTB ... the people here have been so over-the-top compliant that now the government must look for ways to break their spirit. They’ve found themselves in front of an open goal: as the C’s said, they’ll blow it.
STS goals are running aground here, people will continue to support both saving sick old people AND a worthless government... even as said government fines them for dog-walking, makes them wait all day for groceries, and tries as always to make the people rebel into a skull-crushing baton.
Tranquilli, as hungry as people have been in Italy over the generations, including those still living, nobody is complaining about waiting in line to go into a fully-stocked modern supermarket full of generally local and mostly genuine, healthy produce. (Italian cuisine is based in poverty, all the best plates have their roots in the most simple and diffuse ingredients... good luck starving this country to death, better to limit their exports to more strategic EU countries where the STS agenda can make a bigger world-impact? My father-in-law grew up with with an anchovy hanging from a string in the kitchen. Five people in the family would rub their hard bread on the anchovy to give flavor to the bread. An anchovy would last at least five days... before the bones went into a garlic bath and spread onto that night’s boiled vegetables.)
Fascism is tolerated insofar as it is self-imposed... maybe the self-discipline practiced amongst good humans will cause the ‘enemy’ to miss his shot on an open-goal... erroneously mistaken good intentions for silent consent, the shot is missed and the game is over... nobody ever remembers the score, not even who won... they remember that that guy missed, and the rest was history.
cassiopaea.org
