The health of the people overrides the market
If he stuck to his principles he would have been a success.
Unfortunately, he didnt have the bottle.
Even in Wuhan?
Glib.
It’s Corbyn’s fault Johnson went with herd immunity because he stayed as interim leader until Starmer’s election.
It’s the Democrats’ fault for Trump ignoring the Coronavirus - because they impeached him.
This is what passes for analysis now in the right-wing press. People either get that right-wing media has concocted a vast fantasy world because that’s the only way these charlatans can stay in power, or they don’t. There’s not much point arguing with those who don’t because they are demonstratively brainwashed.
Like blaming a woman for getting beaten at home
Corbyn lost his job long before the bit of flu though didnt he?
Boris is a cunt, they both are being honest.
The fascism is what I abhor - and thats what we’re facing globally at the moment, sadly.
You’re really demeaning yourself calling this a bit of flu
I’ll put it this way to you mate, I’m not prepared to lockdown for 18 months for a virus that cant be contained especially when the airports and ports are wide open.
There’s every chance half the board here have had and gotten rid of the virus without so much as a cough. there’s no testing being done ffs.
Cocoon the elderly and those with underlying illnesses, other than that we should take our chances and not buy into the hysteria for essentially the flu.
End of April, after that - things have to go back to normal.
You do know it’s til May 5th?
I do indeed, it’ll be the 5th June next, etc, etc
April, I could understand, but after that it’s going to do more harm than good in my view.
Next week and the week after that and that are crucial etc I’m sick of it now
The media environment in pretty much all countries, but particularly Britain and even more particularly the US, is a case study of why Marxism existed in the first place.
Media organisations are owned by wealthy people who want low taxes and the power of inherited wealth to be absolute. They depend on advertising. Advertisers want low taxes, they want high consumption and deregulated, privatised markets, and as non-existent a welfare state as possible. Even in the US, where MSNBC is derided as “far left” or even communist, look at their adverts, all for drug companies or big health insurance companies. Media organisations in Britain will gnerally naturally tend towards supporting the Tories because the Tories are the big business/big corporate money party, and that’s ultimately what the media organisations are too.
Tory policies have been consistently disastrous for ordinary people. Even a very mildly redistributive Labour government under Blair (leaving his massive mistake in Iraq aside) seems like a golden era looking back now in comparison to Thatcher and the latest bunch of charlatans the Tories unleashed 10 years ago. The Republicans are like the Tories on steroids, EPO and growth hormone with added racism.
These parties are made up of demonstratively terrible people, serving demonstratively terrible people. The whole thing is a circular con. Run down education to make the working classes thick. Produce mindless television programmes which promote “values” of selfishness, greed, individualism and vacuity for the same ends. Vilify anybody who genunely tries to change the system for the better and glorify the actual elites. While simultaneously claiming to be anti-elite.
Then there’s the endless conveyor belt of think tanks and their aggressive, robo-conservative talking heads. There’s the endless line up of talking heads from “alternative” right-wing media like Guido Fawkes, Spiked Online etc.
“The marketplace of ideas” has been one of the most disastrous concepts in history. It is a con. It claims to democratise “opinion” but in practice, works like all right-wing “libertarian” ideas - the strong devour the weak. For every reasonable demand ordinary people have, be it fair wages, decent working conditions and representation, a well funded, functioning public health system, decent secondary schools, or environmental concerns, the money men will have a talking head to come up with a mind-bendingly awful propaganda narrative against it. The logic of the “market” says that opinions are only worth how many clicks or comments they can garner or what sort of ratings they can pull in. And so the most deliberately stupid opinions drive public “debate”, and politics becomes a grotesque reality show, with Trump the logical outcome.
In the US or the UK, any Democratic presidential candidate or Labour leader basically has to be Superman, ie. has to have the rhetorical skills of Martin Luther King, has to be squeaky clean in their personal lives (usually anyway), yet has to promise the moneymen not to rock the boat too much, in fact not rock it all, to stand a chance. Otherwise they’ll be savaged.
And the US and UK are above all imperial nations where the imperial mindset is promoted relentlessly. Any politician who goes against that, who says that the imperial past or present of the UK and US might not be good, is savaged. And the Israel thing is just Kafka-esque. Israel has the patent on smearing politicians who challenge them.
Self proclaimed “centrists” will always choose a fascist over mild social democracy. Even in Labour they did it. And people wonder why politics is such a shit shoow all over the world now. It’s because the same patterns repeat themselves over and over and over again. Capital is destroying politics, destroying public debate, destroying societies and destroying the planet.
I dont mind it too much to be honest, mate. Wfh is grand for myself personally.
But, we’re pissing against the wind after the 30th April in terms of isolation, mental health, delayed operations, supply chains etc. All of these things need to be considered vs the scenario of actually just cocooning and properly looking after our vulnerable people.
I would find it hard to argue with a single point of that
That must be a first for you
Ok.
If we don’t control the virus there will be no operations, at all, because ICU will be overwhelmed. Mental health will be no better because people will be buried in mass graves without an honest and decent burial.
The economy wont be any better because an economy needs confidence. There is no confidence.
The measures being taken now are necessary. Not otpional. Necessary
Excellent post
That’s a Dear Editor post👍
But we can control it if we look after the at risk groups properly.
Mate, as things stand, we’re just delaying the inevitable. It’s a joke having airports open if you truly want to delay this thing.
Our numbers for what they’re worth given our disgraceful lack of testing are meaningless.