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Fear, Anger, and Blame
I work at a very small office, a total of six employees, of which only three regularly come in. One of my coworkers just got a breakthrough case of Covid, has a 102°F fever, is quarantining at home. Our former owner, retired twice, still works, and is a Karen about masks. He is aware that I am a huge Trump fan, disdain the wearing of masks, and that I am a skeptic on manmade global warming. He has a granddaughter, now almost three, who was a 22-week premie. She was scheduled for surgery yesterday to correct some leg development issues.
We received an email this AM informing the employees about the coworker who got the ‘vid. The former owner responded with this:
I was planning to come to the office today but will not be doing so now due to Dxxx’s positive test. Rxxx’s surgery was cancelled 18 hours before it was due to begin because the children’s hospital does not have any beds due to children with Covid needing all of the beds. This did not have to happen. The selfish and the misinformed would not do the right thing for our nation. We had a sorry excuse for a president that politicized science because he would lie, cheat or steal if he thought it served his personal purposes. He has done so all of his life.
These lowlifes have negatively impacted my family, my friends, and our economy. They have impacted the sanctity of the democratic process and are tearing our nation apart for their own personal agendas. Natural disasters are being fuel by global warming that they deny and they think that they can fix with a Sharpie or by nuking hurricanes.
Whatever your political leaning, please do whatever you can to see that science is followed so we can put this pandemic behind us and protect our loved ones. Put pressure on our government, businesses and anyone you interact with to get vaccinated and wear a mask in public places so we can reclaim what has been lost in this pandemic.
Don’t drink the Kool Air (Clorox) and pay attention to the science. Time to put politics aside and do the right thing. It is up to us to stop this.
Hard for me not to think that this was specifically directed at me, so being a selfish lowlife, I wrote quite a few responses before deleting each. Writing those responses helped me vent some anger… Eventually, I sent the following:
I am so sorry to hear about all those children in the hospital and Rxxx’s surgery being postponed. I hope they all get the treatments they need and get better.
Dxxx too!
My former owner/boss is genuinely a really decent guy. He is just afraid that his granddaughter might get Covid, or might not receive the surgical treatment she needs, and that the planet is doomed, and ergo her future, and… so many other things we are told to fear. His fear has driven him to anger and blame.
I have been pretty angry too recently and ironically want to blame BodyBagBiden supporters for everything from Covid, lockdowns, mask nazis, the Afghanistan debacle, and January 6 Americans in solitary, all of it, everything, globally. I am fearful for our future as a country, for my grandchildren who might be taught they are intrinsically racist because they are white, for the lunacy of our debt and the Green New Deal… and everything else we understand to be wrong. In my mind, this is happening because they supported and voted for BBB. I see others here, writing about their fears and their anger and directing it at the shills at the Bulwark, some of our Rico directors, and some of the members who also supported BBB. Hatred is the emotion that is being brewed in this pot of fear and anger.
I have been nurturing a festering anger towards my old owner since the election, and it appears he has too, towards me. Or maybe not really me, but all Trump supporters. I just happen to be in his proximity, and he is particularly angry and frustrated this morning, so he blurted it out in his email. And I realize I don’t hate him, but I see him two or three days a week, so he becomes the target for my fears, anger, and blame.
We are all at the point of cracking with overwhelming stress, and a media and government that seems totally at odds with my perception of logic and truth. And my former boss lives in the alternate universe where he believes everything fed to him and daily repeated by the media and our pols. And everyone seems to be nurturing a festering anger where we blame the others. The rhetoric and level of accusations grows ever more outrageous. For example, pro-lifers are like the Taliban.
I don’t have answers, I am certainly not in a position where I can control or influence regional, national, or global outcomes. So I have fears. The only thing I can control is my anger. I am working on that.
Say a prayer for everyone, for everyone that has fears or is angry. Say a prayer for the kids in the hospitals, for the kids who can’t be in the hospitals, for everyone, especially those who wouldn’t pray for themselves.
Published in General
“Let’s put politics aside while I go on a political rant.”
Amen.
I’ve been struggling with a similar issue with a friend of 20 + years. I think a combination of factors have pushed her over the edge, where she may well have been teetering for many years.
Last night I got an unhinged email from her asking if my grandchildren had to wear masks to school. That she had given up on me, but maybe she could save my children and my grandchildren.
I responded that since I had never discussed the issue of masks or the vax with her, she had no idea of my feelings on the matter and I had no idea what she was on about.
The last time we discussed politics was just prior to BO being elected the first time. She snapped at me that I wouldn’t vote for him because I thought he was a n*****. I physically threw her out of my home that day. After many, many months she made amends.
Which is a long way to say while she may be pretty sure I voted for Trump, it’s not because she ever asked me or I ever told her. I had no lawn signs and she never saw my MAGA hat.
This is the “final word” email I received at about 2:00 am this morning:
Needless to say, her emails, which were going into a “special” folder for my eventual perusal, are now blocked.
I have barely managed to maintain my composure these past months, but will continue to make all efforts to do so. I am in a rosary group that meets regularly, and the fellowship and prayer have been very helpful. But as we become further divided as a country I find those with black hearts are at least making themselves obvious (I don’t think that describes your boss, but it does describe my friend). The Twitter mob convulsing in disappointment that Joe Rogan didn’t die of Covid is a perfect example.
And in those moments when I can barely muster a prayer, I can usually choke out this one:
The people who voted for Biden are actually to blame. I can draw a cause and effect line.
Your coworker has no such line he can actually draw, no matter what he thinks. He may have correlation but no causation.
That is fact.
He voted for Biden? He knew what he was voting for. He and every single person who voted for Biden knew what they were getting.
I agree with everything you say about the anger that’s being whipped up between people, and I place the blame solely on the media — news media and social media.
However, I do think someone needs to confront this former business owner about what he sent out. He has basically made the co-worker who got COVID into his scapegoat for everything. I suspect that particular co-worker is feeling extremely upset by being singled out — because yes, that co-worker was definitely singled out. “I was going to come in to work except THIS AWFUL PERSON HAS COVID!” and from there the rant escalated.
And worse, this co-worker did exactly what the ranter wanted — got vaxxed — and still got a case of COVID. Yet is being made the source of all blame.
He has created a toxic work environment, and if I was the person who dutifully got the jab, then got COVID, then was made into the scapegoat, I think I would quit and sue the company for workplace harassment.
I understand the frustration, but that’s no excuse to behave like a [redacted].
You might point out to the former owner that we have vaccines now **only because** Trump pushed them hard. Under the normal way of doing things, we’d be getting vaccines sometime between mid-2022 and the Twelfth of Never.
Well, actually, I am the only person in the office today, unvaxxed, and most social with the guy who is AT HOME with the ‘vid. So I am the threat… Obviously, I must have been exposed, and am a super spreader without symptoms, or something… The reason the old owner didn’t come into the office was because I am here. I am not the guy who quits and sues, and, payment wouldn’t come out of the old owners pockets (even though they are reasonably deep), it would come out of the new owners pockets. The new owner didn’t do anything wrong.
Yeah, this is parallel universe stuff, and an example of the evermore extremism in rhetoric and accusation. It also is likely that it was a drunken email, especially being sent at 2AM. But liquor does unveil the truth, hmmm. How terribly sad. Your former friend may need crutches after your fervent praying.
You are admirable! You ranted to yourself and then hit the pause button. You have the wherewithal to observe a co-worker in distress, mainly because of his grandchild. You are right about all of us feeling these extreme emotions over may things because they seem out of our control. We all need to pause daily and take a mental health break. I can’t watch the news for more than two minutes at a time. I can’t stand the talking heads around Biden or him babbling in some other worldly way. Go outside, get fresh air, read something positive, and step away from this storm. You aren’t ditching it, but your and our mental health need it.
Oh, I get that. However, maybe the old owner needs to “spend more time with family” . . .
Yes and if anything, paying more to science via Fauchi than he should have.
During this time, Biden and Harris were downplaying and politicizing any vaccine developed under Trump.
i can’t remember who said it, but “We think liberals are wrong, They think we are evil”
Sadly, she doesn’t drink. I’ve often thought that she would benefit from the occasional stiff G and T
I do suspect she’s on some sort of psyche meds – she’s a definite believer in better living through chemistry.
I have been saying, and even commenting a bit on the the growing antipathy we, even (or especially) on the right — and including me myself — have been obviously feeling and also showing for those on the other side. I feel that they are truly wrong and constitute (at least in a symbolic way) contributing to the the cultural and governmental morass that we have entered.
And I have read even today of people’s satisfying urges for revolution, and my concern — right or wrong — is that this is the result, and plays into — a spiritual war in which one side is equally contemptuous of the other. This may have played out during the Civil War, exactly as it is playing out today, but the frustration, anger and contempt the we feel only fuels division, viewing others as the enemy, and a desire, growing towards eagerness, to use force. And the healing after the Civil War was only partial.
I am concerned but also confused: how do we live with people who are so irrational as the person you quoted? My first thought was to ask him to justify all his accusations, but of course a company e-mail is not the place to do that.
I suppose prayer is the first answer, and the only one I can think of to avoid open physical conflict. I pray, not often enough, that the Holy Spirit speak to everyone in the US and elsewhere to bring insight and righteousness and reverence toward God, and peace, and to overturn the hearts toward Him of those in control of our country.
This is a spiritual war.
Suggest to the ex-owner that he blame and be angry with China and the CCP.
People with masks and without masks get sick, and die.
People that get the vaccine, or dont get the vaccine get sick and die.
I’m alive and well.
How does anyone know who is, or is not a deplorable?
At this point, I count myself a Blessed Child of the King.
I have a broken 30-year friendship over vaccines too, but my friend is from the Alex Jones universe, and on the Right. He ridiculed and harangued me constantly since I got the vaccine as a condition of my job in South Korea. He called me a sellout, a sheep and told me I have Stockholm Syndrome etc. It didn’t matter that I am against vaccine mandates, and preferred not to take the vaccine.
“Can’t we all just get along?”
I used to think that, driven by ignorance and moral superiority (I’m just better than them, I know my side doesn’t think they are evil- just wrong! We are above that!) Years later my views have changed- I think liberal policies and many of their adherents are more evil than just plain wrong. Many of them know what they push and therefore don’t deserve our sympathy. They deserve our condemnation.
It’s sad because my changing belief leads to more division than unity. It’s going to be harder to keep the country together if each side believes the other is evil- but here we are. The reality is that we have two irreconcilable world views. The only thing that will save this country in the long run is federalism: we need an agreement that there are blue states and red states, and while the blue states will naturally be governed like trash, we need to leave each other alone. Unfortunately right now we have one party that is working at the national level to push their beliefs onto everyone else. To ensure federalism, we need to win battles at the national level and force the Democrat party into demanding federalism after many conservative national wins.
I am sorry to hear this. There are fanatical jerks both left and right. Our current state of affairs increases the emotions and fouls logic and judgement for both camps. I have avoided the vax because I truly think I had the ‘vid in late Spring of 2020 and don’t need the poke. The more I hear, and am pushed by society to get vaxxed, the more resistant I am.
I’m glad you took the high road; I hope I would have been able to do the same–it would have been really, really hard. You’re a good man.
Thank you Susan. Not usually. My mouth usually moves before my brain does. I was pretty proud of my response today, that’s part of why I had to write about it!
A few points. First, prayer works, although prayer cannot supplement science totally.
Second, I don’t have kids. I think that I am not well enough informed and invested in masks for kids at school. What I want to see is that decisions be made by local folks and not “one size fits all” state and federal governments.
Third, I have a 71 year old teacher friend in San Diego who is terrified of COVID. She wears a mask not only to school, but enforces that charter schools mandates. She also still wears a mask when she goes on walks.
Fourth, while vaccines are not always effective, on balance I believe in them, and statistically their benefits far outweigh not being vaccinated. The last 17 days have been a huge pain in the neck (and the back of my head). I respectfully ask that all unvaccinated people be vaccinated.
Fifth, it appears that I was far too dismissive of ivermectin. My physician brothers suggested that I review the clips about Dr. Campbell and ivermectin. There are increasing studies by general practitioners that suggest that if properly dosed, ivermectin is a positive, the problem is that there are no peer-reviewed double-blind studies. Given that ivermectin up is so cheap, there is no incentive for very expensive double-blind studies. He suggested that one reason for this hostility was TDS. I think that he is right.
“We have nothing to fear but fear itself.” Some dude in a wheelchair.
If people have lived their lives well, what do they have to fear? That they might die? News flash, they will die of something eventually. Three of my grandparents didn’t make it to 61, let alone 71. Go forth and conquer, not cower.
Wow. Gary, has someone taken your pad at the hospital while you’re sleeping? 😜
he’s been hacked, or the bump on the head worked…
Given that Ivermectin is so cheap there is every incentive to suppress its use in favor of vaccines. In fact there have been many randomized trials, as well as observational trials and other research, but you would never know it if you read only the MSM.
https://covid19criticalcare.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/08/SUMMARY-OF-THE-EVIDENCE-BASE-FINAL.pdf
Thanks for nothing Sandy. I had hopes that this post might make the Main Feed. But now with your comment, it will be banned forever to the smoldering heap of discarded member feed posts.
I am of an age where no one is stealing one minute from me.
And I have grandchildren. And I will fight to the death that they not lose one moment of their childhood. If I lose time, it’s off the back end. Not a great loss They will lose time from moments and years that will NEVER come back.
It’s unforgivable that most of my children and all of my grandchildren are far, far away. And I’m grateful.
Following posts of friends and family on facebook has probably been the stupidest and most destructive thing I’ve ever done.