News from the USA, United States of America

[Chandelier]

'Punching down': Comedian Jon Stewart under fire as mockery falls flat with progressives

www.rawstory.com

400-word article.

AI Summary

• Jon Stewart faced backlash after joking on The Weekly Show about people who still wear masks in progressive workplaces.
• Critics accused him of “punching down” at COVID-cautious and medically vulnerable people.
• Disabled individuals, caregivers, and Long COVID advocates said masking is a necessary health precaution, not a joke.
• Commentators argued that asking why someone masks is invasive and dismissive of disability and chronic illness.
• Stewart was also accused of hypocrisy, given his strong advocacy for 9/11 first responders suffering long-term health effects.

 

[rvallee]

Sometimes I wonder if after all this messaging rejoicing the good news of how "only" vulnerable people were dying of COVID has led to most people just assuming that COVID killed everyone who was vulnerable and therefore there aren't any left.

Which, ooof. But also years of messaging promoting infections as good for health might do that all by itself. In combination, though, yikes.

 

[V.R.T.]

Sometimes I wonder if after all this messaging rejoicing the good news of how "only" vulnerable people were dying of COVID has led to most people just assuming that COVID killed everyone who was vulnerable and therefore there aren't any left.

Which, ooof. But also years of messaging promoting infections as good for health might do that all by itself. In combination, though, yikes.

I keep seeing people saying locking down to protect the vunerable was a mistake. Because people think only ill and disabled people died or got really sick.

They were saying everyone who died who wasn't elderly had 'pre existing conditions'. But when you looked even things like depression counted, so anyone could have pre existing conditions. In The Wire, they call this kind of figure manipulation 'juking the stats'.

 

[rvallee]

They were saying everyone who died who wasn't elderly had 'pre existing conditions'. But when you looked even things like depression counted, so anyone could have pre existing conditions. In The Wire, they call this kind of figure manipulation 'juking the stats'.

It's not a perception that can be fully controlled or managed, but it seems that there is a huge problem with how people understand "pre-existing conditions" as basically "were going to die soon anyway", rather than literally anything that can be diagnosed, including things like relatively benign asthma and so on, which amounts to something like 1/3 of the population in most countries.

It takes a very close reading of the news to know better, while most people only ever see bits and pieces and so missed the context entirely. Because of course that perception was thoroughly abused to hint strongly that it was all fine. Many big problems fall in this category, where similar things are equated for a purpose, but the comparison sticks for entirely different ones, like how "infections are good for you" was meant (by most MDs anyway) to only apply to some viruses, but even then the whole "it's just the flu" mess. Just like "hey, the flu and other common infections also trigger chronic disabling health problems that can't be treated so let's keep ignoring it all, yeeehaw!"