Dutton-style bullying should not be a tool of diplomacy, particularly with regard to China, writes Bruce Haigh.
Is
America, in lockdown, with 26 million unemployed and entering a new
depression, up for a confrontation and Cold War with China? For that
appears to be where the GOP wishes to lead us. According to Politico, a
57-page memo from Mitch McConnell's senatorial committee instructs GOP
candidates to blame the coronavirus pandemic on China,... Read More
A
split between the nation’s economists is emerging over the immediate
future of Australia’s COVID-19 lock-down. Marcus Reubenstein reports.
The pandemic has inflicted carnage in care homes across England, where 4343 residents died in just one fortnight.
The case numbers are unknown. Meanwhile, Andrew Bolt decries modelling but promoting his at the same time. The "known" deaths and cases in Australia he heralds as the reason to "go back not forward" are derived from real known numbers, yes. However, the fact that the information on hand is the only information there is a model in itself and as such involves a risk if acted on.
It involves a greater risk when he says we should all go back to work and the medical front line in hospitals where we assume the greatest protection is,is where the greatest number of additional victims other than patients are. "Save the Economy" wouldn't be the Bolt's cry if he or a family member were at risk. Flattening the "social risk" first not just the virus might be advisable and that's a cry of "Change the Economy" not just "Save it"
We live in an interwoven, interconnected world where an injury to one is truly an injury to all. We must confront the coronavirus with solidarity and fight for a society where the health of all is more important than profits for a few.
Is it impossible, too much to ask? It’s worth remembering that our
alone-together world of individualist ethics and material
interdependence didn’t just happen. It takes a vast and intricate
infrastructure to keep us all running in one another’s service, and in
the ultimate service of return to capital: from highways to credit
markets to the global trade regime. The fact that these interwoven
systems are tanking financial markets around the world at the prospect
that people might need to spend a few months sitting at home rather
than hurrying around exchanging money shows how finely calibrated they
are to profit, and how totally lacking in resilience to shifts in human
need.
The hands and minds that built up this order are not powerless to
make one that puts health first, at every level: of individuals,
communities, the land, and the globe. That is a different, deeper
resilience, though to get there requires a political fight over the
value of life itself, whether we are here to make profits or to help one
another live.
News Corp sends quite an opposite message of saving rather than changing our current priorities. Finally, the LNP has shown their true colours and offered Victorian Independent schools a "bribe". Should we be surprised?(ODT)
FAKE NEWS
WHO REPORT; THESE CRIPPLING VIRUS BANS DON'T DO MUCH GOOD
Do they know what they're doing as they smash economies?:
"Last year the World Health Organisation issued advice to governments
on.. social distancing, workplace and school closures and travel
restrictions... Hand hygiene and 'respiratory etiquette' were
recommended... yet there was precious little evidence for any of the
other... interventions."
3h ago
Britain
and the US are basket cases and have been underquoting the number of deaths and cases and have lost control. Science has openly admitted that we know very little about the disease and its consequences yet. They provide the best source of hope and that's not short term. This virus has been found to have been transferred from humans to animals and has had serious effects on some children. Nothing is certain other than idiots like Bolt telling others to "Save the Economy"
We know it spreads like wildfire and it kills the elderly, those with a
predisposition, and those with low immunity. Numbers of which are in the community we don't know. We haven't a clue on numbers because there was never testing of everyone only "modelling" which Bolt has been the first to disparage.
Social conditions guarantee the risk isn't equal for everyone and we know it clusters. Overcrowding we know is just one factor simply
by the events that have taken place on tourist ships, in London and New
York, hospitals, prisons where the virus hasn't been able to be contained. Real numbers have proved that
Bolt's
cry to "Save the Economy" is better defined by his resistance to "Changing the
Economy" on no terms have his demands found the traction he claims he has. He's the equivalent of an ISIS recruiter searching for a revolution hoping to incite a riot of demand. He's Donald Trump. His Murdochian wisdom criminally irresponsible cry over and above real experts has fallen on deaf ears. Besides he doesn't lead by example or even practise what he preaches he's no martyr for the cause social distancing has always been his lifestyle, not his current message. A message the majority of Australians find criminally irresponsible to the
public good,
"Change
the economy" might be a better start bring in a UBI along with rent assistance. Health testing to lower the cluster risk, Ye's flatten the risk not first. Whose to pay? Well, News Corp hasn't paid taxes for years isn't being prosecuted for its unproductive messages it might be a good start. A people first economy might at least equalise avoidance opportunity from being first socially in Bolt's line of death. You know Andrew Bolt being 74 or 80 and not wanting to die isn't a selfish act. Economic Rationalist modelling however is. There might be some virtue in what Bolt says but shouldn't the curve of social conditions that determine risk be flattened along with the virus?
NO DANGER. NO RISK. BUT LET'S FINE THE MP ANYWAY
Can't be too careful! Too extreme!: "The LNP’s Trevor Watts
has resigned from the party’s shadow ministry after breaching COVID-19
restrictions by attending driveway drinks with his neighbours, including
two police officers." Drinks were in the street outside his Toowomba
home. Active coronavirus cases in the entire Darling Downs region: 1.
8m ago
Bolts a worm, a grub an unproductive parasite not a man. There can't be any exceptions to safe schools as any exception might start a flood of sexual and religious social change. However, exceptions akimbo when it comes to the government's coronavirus policies to keep us safe should be allowed even encouraged. What Bolt considers a social virus need to be policed Muslims Africans and trans starts in schools. Yet a physical condition a real threat like Covid-19 doesn't. That's the nature of this man's public concern.
Climate Change, screw 50 years of science the exceptions prove the falsity of the rule not just the improbability but the falsity. There go, Newton and Einstein, they are just another religion. Does Andrew Bolt encourage his kids to smoke because of the modelling that shows not everyone who does contracts cancer so it can't be the cause? No siree he doesn't.
PROFESSORS CALL FOR CHINA-STYLE CENSORSHIP
One author is a Harvard professor, the other at Arizona
University: "In the great debate... about freedom versus control of the
network, China was largely right and the United States was largely
wrong. Significant monitoring and speech control are inevitable
components of a mature and flourishing internet, and governments must
play a large role."
1h ago
When organisations are criminally irresponsible and encourage domestic terrorism in the name of free speech they ought to be prosecuted. News Corp does just that and isn't prevented in white-anting responsible safety directives. They invite and encourage the breaking of rules designed to keep the community safe from real physical threats. Rules supported by the majority of the community all in the name of defending 'free speech' a false flag if ever there was one.
The incitement to demonstrate against public safety, to complain daily is an act of criminal vandalism the equivalent to what ISIS recruiters were doing wishing for terrorist acts that lead to injury or death. Andrew Bolt's been an agent for News Corp for years and they should be treated accordingly. China threw Murdoch out of the country. The UK found him criminally irresponsible but compromised allowing him to close News of the World but jailed staff instead of Murdoch who played the Alan Bond dementia card in a successful plea for sympathy. He simply came back harder than ever in the USA and Australia.
LOVELY, BUT THE VIRUS MODELS WERE TRASH
Happy stories about our overreaction: "Australia’s
manufacturing response to the coronavirus crisis has gone agile, with
the first of at least 500 rapid-response hospital beds rolling off the
production line." Health Minister Greg Hunt yesterday: "We have 7500
ventilators that are available." Virus patients in hospital: 109. On ventilators: 27.
2h ago
Economic rationalists have been running these ideas for years. That we can respond to crises as they happen because of the cost. In 2020 volunteers provide sufficient action to respond yet insurance companies report the opposite is the case. Stockpiling and public defence at government expense is simply a waste of money an overreaction to a crisis that just might not happen.
The consequence we have generally been underprepared and 2020 has proved it. Death was invited in during the Spanish Flu as have countless crises for which we were never ready. However, Bolt's of this world will always tell you how underprepared we are for war and are even ready to fire the first shot to prove it. The Industrial and Military are areas where the money is insufficiently spent but better managed privately.
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