Imagine you work with a mistake-prone coworker who's always fouling things up, and you're always cleaning up after him. Now imagine that, one day, you see a particularly egregious mistake. You reflexively blame your coworker and starting cleaning up the gaffe, but you begin to realize that the mistake wasn't his—it was yours. Know that feeling? Now get this: ever since the Fauci email scandal broke (I can imagine many bubble-residing leftists going "what scandal"?), we've been discovering just how deep this particular rabbit hole goes, and one thing we're learning is that the Wuhan lab benefited from US money for things like gain-of-function research (i.e., deliberate weaponizing of viruses to explore countermeasures).
So while it was fashionable among conservatives, barely a week ago, to scream that "China's virus was an act of war" because it killed millions (true: millions of the very old and very sick, not the general populace), it now seems that China's counter-accusation that the US was the cause of the pandemic may be at least partially true. The virus is not entirely China's fault. Obviously, this rankles, like realizing a mistake was yours and not your coworker's. But worse than rankling, it seems the US itself is directly implicated in the spread of the pandemic, and now the world knows it. You might say, "Well, the US didn't do the actual research." First, that's not entirely clear. Second, what's clear is that US funding helped the research happen. There's no escaping moral culpability, and it looks like the US owes the world a huge apology.
It's small comfort that this scandal harks back to the Obama era and not to Trump; I don't think the world is going to care. Certain people in business and government have some explaining to do, and heads really ought to roll, but because we now live in an age where true criminals never see justice, I have little faith that actual justice is going to be done. Maybe some minor functionaries will take the fall, but the big dogs will remain rich and safe. Anthony Fauci himself will remain rich and safe, whether his book is published or not.
I agree that the US is culpable in the development of the virus and that is truly shameful. The real crime, though, was China's actions AFTER the virus escaped the lab. That's all on them. Which is not to say that the actions taken by federal, state, and local governments, in response to the outbreak weren't criminal in their own right.
ReplyDeleteI sympathize with what you're saying, but I think the guilt you're talking about extends further than China. The WHO acted and still acts as a Chinese stooge. The US news media (and the media in other countries) have done what they can to play down the ways in which Trump has right about both the pandemic and the way to respond to it. Blue states continue to insist on lockdowns and are only reluctantly conceding that the time to wear masks is over (has been over). This whole pandemic has been one big symphony of human stupidity. I mean, I agree with your basic point that China stands at the heart of all this, but there's certainly enough blame to go around, and delusional people remain delusional. I have friends I can't rationally talk to about any of this because they're so ideologically committed to their point of view that they can't possibly see the truth.
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