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UPDATE: CDC and Gov’t Studies Indicate that “Stupid” Will Be the Next Pandemic to Sweep the Nation. Scientists and Pharmaceutical Companies are Optimistic that a Vaccine Will be Ready In Time — They Hope

Polls are already showing a growing divide on who will be blamed for it. Masks not included.

As tweets echo down the great corridors of our nation’s government, and IQs stumble and fall, we are faced with yet another threat to the security of the country we all love — no not social media (though it’s progressing nicely in its quest for first place) but something even more insidious — the wholesale adoption of Stupid as an intellectual default.

And as members of congress trip and fall in their race for relevance we are made to question, not how we as a nation can come together in peace — but what the hell does gazpacho have to do with fascist regimes or Nancy Pelosi?

Even our trucker neighbors to the north are not being spared the ravages of — he said, she said — as they clog the arteries of commerce and declare that vaccine mandates are a scourge to human rights and have no place in a free society where people can smoke and drink wherever they want and have full and unrestricted control over their own bodies.

Well, for the most part. But not always, nor in all situations. But you get the point. We shouldn’t be forced to vaccinate when there is no, ah, insufficient proof . . . a lack of comprehensive proof that vaccinations won’t make people sterile or lose all their hair, and . . .

Moving on.

Yes, people have died because of the Covid-19 Pandemic and that is absolutely tragic. And yet there is not one member of Congress who wouldn’t begin a speech or sound bite, without stating quite clearly that this virus is a terrible thing that has no place in American society.

And that they will do everything in their power to eradicate it — though wearing masks and eliminating TGIF for a bit may simply be a step too far.

It’s not that we as Americans do not see what we’re faced with. It’s not that our elected officials do not grasp the inherent dangers in being lax or indifferent toward an entity — Covid-19 — that does not play by the same rules as the rest of us. It’s simply that we are tired.

Tired of being without. Tired of watching our bank accounts dwindle and our sense of right and wrong falter or stumble altogether. Tired of being afraid and anxious about things we know too little about.

Tired of waiting for the Amazon truck to deliver the TP we need while taking the long way around.

We all know deep down where most secrets and embarrassing moments are kept, that the Pandemic didn’t cause all the troubles that we as a nation and we as a member of this world order, are now experiencing.

A virus didn’t single-handedly create the pain and loss and confusion that we have been plunged into over the past 24 months.

No. We know that in large part, we did it to ourselves.

By not listening. By not reacting quickly enough. By ignoring those with greater insight and practical experience in such matters.

By doing shit in labs that was bad. By engaging in he said, she said, while the world caught fire and some brought marshmallows instead of doing their jobs.

We know that we as a society have been following rules forever. That we became a nation so that the rules we would follow in the future would be those created by us and not by anyone else.

We also know that 50 hands cannot steer a bus safely or prepare a meal without chaos and yet have stood by and watched as governors and mayors and city councils launched their own Titanics in an effort to be seen as more efficient, more visible, and more commanding.

And at times we have defended them. And praised them for failing but for not failing as badly as others had failed. For being forceful and dynamic while driving the national bus into a ditch.

And over the past 24 months, many have gone back and tried to rewrite what has happened, not to learn from our mistakes but to soften the blow to our collective egos and ensure that these small errors in judgment do not interfere with their bids for reelection.

Stupid is the inability to see where we are going, understand what we are doing, or have the presence of mind to know when something is not working and probably never will.

And while many of our leaders, both local and at a national level are scrambling to redefine terms and boundaries and what right and wrong actually look like, we are propping them up in an effort to not look stupid along with them.

But unlike the Covid-19 virus and the terror it has brought to all of us, the next Pandemic can easily be avoided.

The reason being — we already know the drill and have been practicing for its eradication all our lives.

We already know to stop our cars when people are crossing the street.

We already know that when people lie to us, we stop trusting them. And when we hire someone and they cannot or will not perform the tasks they are being paid to do — we fire them.

We’ve already been down dead-ends before and know that all the honking and cursing and driving forward won’t get us any further and that we simply need to turn around and start over and do it better the next time.

So, when we watch our leaders engage in shouting matches and tweeting messages that our twelve-year-old children would never be caught doing, and contradicting themselves while thinking they’re actually being witty, we should stop nodding and thinking — he may be an idiot, but he’s my idiot and start looking at how to replace them and put someone in place that might actually know what to do.

With Covid-19 we didn’t crack open our chemistry and biology books from graduate studies and figure out for ourselves what was happening and try to fix it. We didn’t because the vast majority of us never came within 100 feet of those subjects and were honestly at a loss as to what we could do.

But Stupid is a different matter. We all have seen stupid before. We all have worked with, studied with, and made love on more than one occasion to stupid, so we are pretty well versed on what the damn thing looks like.

So, let’s not pretend that we didn’t know. Let’s not feign ignorance and look confused when some politician, corporation, or podcast host says or does something incredibly dumb and self-serving and claim they had no idea.

We know. Deep down, right next to where we keep gems like — not running with scissors, or keeping the seat down when we pee or not recognizing that having sex, can, you know, lead to 18 years of parenting.

We know when those leading us, couldn’t lead a troop of shopping carts back to the store, that we can do better.

And if better happens to be the other party, then so what. Or better yet, fix the problem altogether by removing the monopoly that we call our political system.

Yes, it has worked for over 200 years, that’s true. But then, the toilet has only been around for a hundred years or so and for the previous 100,000 years, well, we did things differently and finally changed. And that worked out pretty well for us. Perhaps we shouldn’t wait quite so long this time before making a change.

While Stupid will probably not have the morbidity rate of Covid-19 or the Delta Variant, it will be equally hard to get rid of if we don’t act quickly. Think, climate change, fossil fuel, and Disco music as examples.

The one thing we have going in our favor is that Stupid is not an organism, so its ability to mutate is limited by the people around it refusing to mimic what It does.

So, if Stupid steps onto a soapbox and starts shouting “Our Bodies, No Vaccines,” while simultaneously declaring “No Abortions, No Way,” we know exactly what is happening — Stupid is at it again, trying to sound intelligent and pious while being neither.

Action: Turn and walk away. Better to do nothing, than do stupid.

Dr Mehmet Yildiz Karen Madej Tree Langdon James Knight The Secret Aspirant George J. Ziogas Paul Myers MBA Desiree Driesenaar Rebecca Romanelli Jenine Bsharah Baines Sherry McGuinn Esther George Melinda Blau Adelia Ritchie Stuart Englander Claire Kelly Linda Caroll Salvatore Cagliari P.G. Barnett