Another round of terminations, combined with previous layoffs and departures, has reduced the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention workforce by about 3,000 people since January.

  • A_norny_mousse@feddit.org
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    4 months ago

    I don’t understand. It just does not make any sense, even for a far-right autocratic regime.

    The only explanation is that whoever is pulling the strings behind all those clowns really just wants to destroy the whole government & administration. Using crackpot media pundits as useful idiots.

    • MrSmiley@lemmy.zip
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      4 months ago

      It’s called the Dark Enlightenment, they essentially want to accelerate civilization collapse so their utopian vision is realized. The financial backers behind Trump adopted this philosophy, and have articulated their plan: dismantle democracy, Balkanize America and establish a patchwork of technomonarchy city-states. People really need to be talking with their community about localization of production of basic necessities, otherwise it will be chaos, famine and death when the system fails.

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        4 months ago

        I’d think this is a crazy conspiracy theory, except that it’s pretty much all written down in the open. No crazy links to obscure Catholic orders and Mason lore and George Soros. It’s just “Peter Thiel listens to Curtis Yarvin, and Thiel is getting his money’s worth from saving the Trump Campaign from financial ruin”.

        • meco03211@lemmy.world
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          4 months ago

          Until it fails from yet another once-in-a-century ice storm this decade. But they’ll probably blame meteorologists for getting the once-in-a-century “wrong” rather than understand the effects of climate change.

        • Neps
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          4 months ago

          It is not because of what you think it is. They love the privatization of everything here its just for more capital. I’ve only ever lived in deep red states my whole life and have never had the power go out nearly as much as it does here. Can’t wait to leave this shithole.

      • kautau@lemmy.world
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        4 months ago

        utopian

        For them, sure. Feudalism is pretty utopian when you’re a king, not a peasant

      • SabinStargem@lemmy.today
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        4 months ago

        Their utopian vision is really weird. I like having humans, they create cool stuff. My anime, tasty plebian food, and so much more are made by the hands and minds of ordinary people.

        What is the point of being “rich”, if all the neat things are gone?

        • mushroommunk@lemmy.today
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          4 months ago

          Because they don’t think these things are neat. They like anything bland and gold. They want everyone to like the exact same stuff so you know exactly how much more theirs cost. They want you consuming exactly the same things so they can control people through the product.

          Individuality and humanity run directly counter to their power.

      • village604@adultswim.fan
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        4 months ago

        It’s times like these I’m happy that my mom still has her farmland and I spent all of high school working it. I need to invest in seeds.

      • A_norny_mousse@feddit.org
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        4 months ago

        Oof. I knew Peter Thiel and by extension this fucker’s “philosophy” is behind it, but I guess I never realized how neatly it all fits until now.

        Once again, dictators usually tell you what they want to do, better listen.

        Except this time one has to be aware of the dictator behind the dictator, and way too few people are.

        For Thiel, such a malleable (i.e. 100% corrupt) government must be his life’s wet dream.

    • kersploosh@sh.itjust.works
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      4 months ago

      Remember when Ronald Reagan said this in 1981?

      government is not the solution to our problem; government is the problem.

      American conservatives grabbed onto that line and have held it as gospel ever since. Kneecapping the government has been a major goal of theirs for over four decades now. You will sometimes hear people talk about “bleeding the beast”: taking all the government benefits they can get their hands on and then dodging taxes, with the assumption they are helping to slowly kill the system. Unfortunately, there is no plan (AFAIK) for what they want the world to look like after the collapse.

      • A_norny_mousse@feddit.org
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        4 months ago

        government is not the solution to our problem; government is the problem.

        Bleak. And this was a transatlantic trend, many European states had their own version. I just hope that this time around they learned their lesson before it all goes to the dogs: in the end lean government just gives more direct and undemocratic power to the rich who only speak the language of money. Which makes it hard to get out of, because what politician wants to cut off their own cash flow.

    • chaosCruiser@futurology.today
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      4 months ago

      Less money spent on services means more money can be spent on the king’s new palace. At least that’s the way it worked in France long ago.

      If the numbers are public, have a look at what your local dictator is spending it on.

    • ExtremeDullard@piefed.social
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      4 months ago

      At this point, I’m convinced the motive for most of what the Trump regime does is gratuitous cruelty. Once you accept that explanation, all those motherfuckers do starts to make sense.

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      They won through lies and deception, now they need to comply unless they want to enrage their ever diminishing support base.

    • RedGreenBlue@lemmy.zip
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      4 months ago

      I’m sure it is something like ‘lets make it private and 1000x more expensive. Also, only my guy has the right company for the task.’

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    4 months ago

    I have a friend working there. At least she was until 4 AM Saturday. But surprise, she’s working there again as of Sunday. Pure chaos!

  • Komodo Rodeo@lemmy.world
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    4 months ago

    Fucking imbecile MAGA ghouls, all of this because of contention over well-established, well-researches, well-supported results from inoculation campaigns, and the ideology surrounding medical treatment for the trans community. A lot of people are going to get sick in the U.S. (I know, I know, they already are but Measles outbreaks are set to increase in scale and scope), and this is going to get really, really fucking bad. Expect for people that you know to start dying from diseases that were killing members of your grandparent’s generation. See image of U.S. states affected by Measles outbreaks in 2025:

  • TheHiddenCatboy@lemmy.world
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    4 months ago

    Yeah. Because just not looking for new diseases erupting is such a great idea. I hope Europe and China are doing their due diligence, and hopefully we don’t have the next big disease kick off in the USA.

    • DeathsEmbrace@lemmy.world
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      Oh it most certainly will. The worst pandemic is one full of ignorant people and leadership. They’re basically a powdered keg from a disease standpoint.

    • SaveTheTuaHawk@lemmy.ca
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      No point in diligence when the response was poorly coordinated between European countries and China just denied SARSCov2 was even a problem. Sweden and Holland did fuck all.

      • Sp00kyB00k@lemmy.world
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        We did do a lot. But our government has done the job of kicking the can for years. Thanks to Rutte…

  • Ensign_Crab@lemmy.world
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    4 months ago

    If anyone at the CDC is reading this: destroy the smallpox sample before trump decides to use it.

  • StinkyFingerItchyBum@lemmy.ca
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    4 months ago

    You ask why? I think the ideological side of Maga understands, on some basic level, the challenges of ecological overshoot. They heard about degrowth and are trying the psychopath version of getting populations down.

    Short of an all out war, disease is the next best way to shave some numbers off our 8.2 billion. Remember the US CDC also studies every nightmare bacteria and virus, including gain of function. Now we have a bunch of unemployed and unemployable virologists whose degrees just became useless. I wonder if anyone might steal from their employer and have a 12 Monkeys kind of time.

  • kikutwo@lemmy.world
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    Apparently MAGA has innate super-immunity and doesn’t have any need for the CDC or vaccines.

    • floofloof@lemmy.ca
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      Fascists believe that only the strongest should survive and everyone else must die. So if you get sick and die it proves you were inherently inferior and didn’t deserve to live. Eugenicism and the abuse of evolutionary theory are rife among the far right. And they all assume that they themselves are the Übermenschen whose genetic superiority will protect them from disease, so they have no need for government protection, unlike their inferiors. They’ll believe this right up until they’re in intensive care with bird flu, whereupon they’ll start panicking and changing their minds, just like Republicans did under COVID. But this message won’t get through to their peers because their peers too don’t care about it until they themselves are in trouble. Unless they’re wealthy, in which case they’ll buy themselves the care they’re denying to others, and consider this very fact proof that they are superior and deserve to live.

      • prole
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        But this message won’t get through to their peers because their peers too don’t care about it until they themselves are in trouble.

        This is a fundamental aspect of conservatism. Just look at MTG suddenly standing up for ACA subsidies now that her adult children’s premiums will be doubling. She literally said so herself.

  • justadudeingear@lemmy.world
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    4 months ago

    So like kids can’t get measles vaccines? I had to. Measles mumps and rubella and chicken pox. Trumps want to pick and choose which one we get so we take one vaccine at a time?