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The hysterics make sense when you factor in the fear that dominates all neoliberal power structures. People achieve status by betraying their fellows. Merit is at best a secondary consideration. They all know they can be tossed under the first available bus if they abandon the program of engorged plutocracy. They also all, for the most part, speak English and are graduates of conformist education. So when one set of forceful hysterics comes up with a half-assed plausible game plan, they all adopt it. It's safe. Other people are doing it. Therefore it's no one's fault, there are no alternatives, etc. Penetrating that bubble is extraordinarily difficult, and of course completely out of reach for people devoted to fatuous pronoun crusades.

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Yes! Add to this toxic mix the other salient feature of neoliberalism which the obfuscation of responsibility. No actual living person is to blame for anything! Our authorities are simply bowing to the Market. Or Science. Or here in euroland, the EU. Because Brussels, etc. Heed the models! Even though the modellers get it wrong, time and time again. Rational inquiry is all but dead.

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