Open Thread 2020-86
News & views ...
Posted by b on October 28, 2020 at 18:39 UTC | Permalink
« previous pageToday,protest march organized by Gilets Jaunes,(Yellow Vests) in Paris.
https://www.facebook.com/events/869098287164759/
What each one of the participants risks:
Maybe the french people will wake up when their democracy starts putting their mask-refusing children in camps.I suppose some of this site will postulate to become wardens in such a camp.
Posted by: willie | Oct 31 2020 7:36 utc | 302
Well actually in France hospitals receive 5000 euros per covid-death declared,to support their efforts in fighting the imaginary disease.Now what hospital director ,getting paid 200000 a year would refuse such an offer,and tell the public it's a scam?French people always go for corruption,they are brought up that way,and call it "magouille" to make it a daily sin,not so important.
So Trump could be right at that for the USA.
Posted by: willie | Oct 31 2020 8:03 utc | 303
"Dis-entangling the rhizome of supply chains built-up through decades of globalism is difficult and onerous: The multinational companies which sell into the Chinese market may have little choice but to try to stay put. However, if de-coupling as a key U.S. foreign policy persists, then products ranging from computer servers, to Apple iPhones, could end up having two separate supply chains — one for the Chinese market, and one for much of the rest of the world. It will be more costly and less efficient, but this is the way that politics is pushing (at least for now)...
Some years back, when travelling across Europe, passengers commonly had to exit one train on reaching the frontier, and cross to a different train and carriages, beyond the border. This still exists. The railways were operating on entirely different gauge rail tracks. We have not reached that point in Tech. But the future is likely to become more complex – and costly – should Europe, the U.S. and China adopt different protocols for 5G...
It is possible then, that 5G may be divided into two competing stacks to reflect different U.S. and Chinese standards? For outsiders to compete, they may find it necessary to manufacture separate equipment for these different protocols. Some measure of division is also possible in semiconductors, artificial intelligence and other areas where U.S.-China rivalry is intense. For now, Russia and Iranian infrastructure is fully compatible with China. The West is not yet a ‘separate gauge’; it can still work with Iran and Russia, but dual-functionality in the tech sphere nevertheless will cost — and probably require careful legal workabouts, to avoid legal or regulatory sanction."
https://www.strategic-culture.org/news/2020/10/19/the-two-undersides-to-geo-politics/
When they invaded the Soviet Union the Germans were hindered by the different rail gauge.
This excerpt gives an overview of part of what's at stake at this moment. The globalist "Great Reset" wants to overcome these, from its point of view antiquated obstructions to its power and profit. From the point of view of the Earth and especially humanity it's essential to obstruct the globalist-technocratic elite as much as possible.
So it follows that anything which sustains and multiplies the number of gauges any globalist actor has to traverse is a good thing, while anything that streamlines, unifies, renders more "efficient" is bad. Real anti-globalists always have known this, and the need has never been more critical than now.
So it follows that gratuitous US imperial belligerence is in fact being "creatively destructive", to use one of capitalism's own religious terms, in spite of the US empire's own long-run goals and interests.
willie | Oct 31 2020 8:03 utc | 303
"in France hospitals receive 5000 euros per covid-death declared,to support their efforts in fighting the imaginary disease."
Same thing in the US - hospitals get greater Medicare compensation for a Covid "case"* than for a flu case, and vastly more if a ventilator is used. This was a nudge installed at the outset to help drive the immense fraudulent over-diagnosis of Covid cases.
*I wonder if the terminological fraud, universal among every kind of pro-lockdown covidiot, of calling alleged infections "cases" in direct flouting of all previous medical protocols may have started among hospital administrators and doctors working to inflate their "Covid case" numbers in order to keep the gravy train flowing. Needless to say there's been a pandemic of corruption since the terror-lockdown assault began.
Yes their making big money out of it.
Yes their keeping this pandemic going longer than the 3-4 months it should of taken to get under control.
And you Russ / Typhoid Mary are the stupid tool they have used to do so. You and deniers like you.
And all under a trump govenment.
Stockholm syndrom ? And you still vote trump on your way to hell !
Gullible fool
Posted by: Mark2 | Oct 31 2020 8:27 utc | 306
@Circe | Oct 31 2020 1:24 utc | 300
Norwegian, fake doc wellington, and others spreading COVID Conspiracies should be put in a room with Covid patients on ventilators and be forced to witness for days and months the sacrifices being made every day by healthcare workers to try to save lives in this pandemic.You all stink.
Miss all caps is ventilating and throws a temper tantrum again, it seems to be the norm now.
However, the burden of proof is on you my dear child. Your extraordinary claims require you to produce the evidence to support them, but they are nowhere to be found. The null hypothesis stands.
And talking about sacrifices: I am banned from going to work in my country because your country is having an election between two imbeciles, and at least one of them "stinks" as you put it (through his diapers).
Posted by: Norwegian | Oct 31 2020 8:35 utc | 307
This is how France and USA corrupt criminal governments are joined at the hip.A complete list of the "Young Leaders graduated from the French-American Foundation" organisation founded in 1981.
For further reference.
People who are on recent years lists are likely to be promoted in a near future,as is the case with the Bilderberg conferences.
Posted by: willie | Oct 31 2020 8:45 utc | 308
mark2 306
"keeping this pandemic going longer than the 3-4 months it should of taken to get under control."
Your brain-dead institutions never had any chance of preventing nature from completing its cycle once this bug came out of your bioweapons lab and ranged widely across the global environment. Only a Dominionist retard like you can be deluded enough to think any "control" was possible short of Gaia's own herd immunity control.
A natural or feral virus isn't like your sheeple, stupid - it won't obey you.
But of course a totalitarian statist like you has nothing but your deluded fantasy of total Nazi control, and so you keep spinning your drunken nightmares.
And to state the fact once again, this mild bug never needed any control measures whatsoever beyond those for the comparable regular flu. The terror-lockdown assault which uses covid as a pretext stemmed 100% from the economic and political strategy of the globalist elite. The mass response has arisen 100% from their own mass dementia. Neither direction has anything at all to do with any public health concern. Zero. Zilch.
Russ
What a flat earther you are ! The whole world has been infected by this very real virus. Trumps is responsible for that. Exploited and weponised it.
Your psychopathic projection is wearing thin, pathetic!
I’m anti-fascist as all here know, so you hope to accuse me of being a fascist?
Like you people accuse black people of violence! After 4 hundred years of oppression, up to this very day.
Trump is an insane monster, kkk fascist pig. And you are a pathetic gullable loser.
Your not the master race,! right wing America are a small loud minority. You know it.
You and trump have built your whole fake reality on a tissue of lies and deception.
Your house of cards will collapse!!
Posted by: Mark2 | Oct 31 2020 10:13 utc | 311
Mark2 | Oct 31 2020 10:13 utc | 311
"Your psychopathic projection is wearing thin"
Says the "control"-obsessed projectionist. Look to the beam in your eye.
"I’m anti-fascist as all here know, so you hope to accuse me of being a fascist?"
Nobody here knows any such thing, and you accuse yourself, such as with your open call to censorship of dissident ideas and your pathetic drunken threats of violence.
"Your not the master race"
You're the Dominionist theocrat babbling about "controlling" nature, not me.
The Earth laughs at you. How's that vaccine for the Corona common cold coming along after over a hundred years of trying?
Trumps whole foreign policy is based on theft, beyound any shadow of doubt.
Some here may enjoy that fact.
But trumps policy toward Americans is the same. Milking the taxes via arms industry, massive escalating cost of military style curupt cops, you have no cops just thug criminals in uniform.
If trump wins the far right violence lovers will rampage across America stealing your hard earned money and property, raping your doughters.
But ya vote trump, suckers
Posted by: Mark2 | Oct 31 2020 10:33 utc | 313
The lockdowns, of course, are deliberately calculated to keep the bug (that is, the propaganda of the bug) in play for as long as possible by delaying its inevitable natural progress toward herd immunity.
The reason Russ sounds like a tape recorded message is becouse he has been brain washed and re-programmed by the elite ! Weaponised deception !!
He wants you to catch this virus and die !
Disregard him.
Stay safe. It’s a no brainer really.
Ignore the Russ puss
Posted by: Mark2 | Oct 31 2020 10:51 utc | 315
On second thought, aside from forcing them to witness for months on end what front line workers and patients are suffering with Covid, I wish Norwegian, fake doc wellington, Russ and the other crazies here had to endure the 2-month hermetic Wuhan lockdown. Now that's what a lockdown really looks like!
You're a bunch of whiney, blubbering spoiled babies who'll fabricate all kinds of bullshit to get your way! Out of sight, out of mind: let the frontline workers suffer the consequences of our irresponsible behavior. That's you!
You know what you are? You're the guy in the disaster flick that resorts to sabotage so he can secure the chance of saving his neck first in case all can't make it. You're selfish, ignorant and stupid suggesting criminal recklessness! And of course you support the mongrel President who thinks as selfisly as you!
Worse, you think you're smarter than everyone else...arrgh!
Posted by: Circe | Oct 31 2020 11:33 utc | 316
Well, here you have the goal of the Nagorno Karabakh conflict, and strange ( since what they push for always is war, especially in Russian borders...) US intends of negotiating a "ceasefire" or "peaceful settlement"...
Statements by the US National Security Advisor, Robert O'Brien: "It is difficult to imagine a ceasefire agreement that does not involve the dispatch of multinational armed forces for the maintenance of peace".
https://twitter.com/descifraguerra/status/1322481687675179008
By "multinational armed forces" he obviously means aremd forces who were not previously there, since Russian troops are already in Armenia and have enough credible background as peacekeeping...What he means by "multinational" is obviously placing NATO troops in the a bit nearer the orders of Russia.
Thus, as Armenia sadly has just discovered, its people and infrastructure have been slaughtered/destroyed to advance NATO´s encirclement and agression towards Russia.
This is the explanation for the participation of Turkey in this conflict which some of us advanced since the frist shot, and first jihadist proxy, was made/delivered.
Posted by: H.Schmatz | Oct 31 2020 12:03 utc | 317
H.Schmatz @Oct31 12:03 #317
... NATO´s encirclement and agression towards Russia.
It seems to me that the encirclement is as much, or more, directed at Iran as it is at Russia.
!!
Posted by: Jackrabbit | Oct 31 2020 12:10 utc | 318
Jackrabbit | Oct 31 2020 12:10 utc | 318
It would be an attempted twofer and only serve to bring Russia and Iran closer together contrary to their modern-era historical inclination.
How the pandemic is instrumentalized to advance regressive policies, criminalize legitimate protest and militarize the streets in the far-right regimes in Europe close to the US TRump adminstration, following the same intedns in the US by poliiticaly coopting high courts.
Notice that demonstrations of some dozens of thousands ( in the best case )by tiny opposition in Belarus were esgrimed as enough to overthrow the legitimate government of Lukashenko winner by wide majority of past elections and start "a peaceful trnastion of power"...
More than 400.000 people demonstrated yesterday through Poland against anti-abortion legislation decided by the high court which criminalize abortion in almost 100% of cases, including congenital malformation, against, clearly, the will of the people. it is estimated around 73% of Polish population oppose this law.
Only in Varsaw or Wroclaw 100.000 were protesting....
Hooded gangs of far-right thugs attacked the peaceful demonstrators and the press, while the gvoernment declared the organizers "epidemiological menace" and Justice Deputy Minister declared organizers must be declared criminals and could face 8 years of jail...
Farmers, miners y taxi drivers apoyan a los manifestantes, bringing in their vehicles into demonstrating in the cities.
Thread, roll down:
https://twitter.com/descifraguerra/status/1319371034332680193
Posted by: H.Schmatz | Oct 31 2020 12:32 utc | 320
@Circe | Oct 31 2020 11:33 utc | 316
On second thought, aside from forcing them to witness for months on end what front line workers and patients are suffering with Covid, I wish Norwegian, fake doc wellington, Russ and the other crazies here had to endure the 2-month hermetic Wuhan lockdown. Now that's what a lockdown really looks like!
Since the suffering you talk about is hardly detectable, that isn't a very scary scenario, but thanks for reminding us that to you the lockdown is a weapon, as if we didn't know.
The reason why you are so angry is not because you are right and we are wrong, if that was the case you could have laughed at us the way we are laughing at you now. You are angry because you realize you don't have the facts on your side, but your ideology does not allow you to admit it to yourself. Look up cognitive dissonnance.
Posted by: Norwegian | Oct 31 2020 12:33 utc | 321
To expose Russ and Norwegians blatant lies. And hope fully distroy any credabilty they may have left in the eyes of the gullible——-
Here’s the truth ——-
https://mobile.twitter.com/toryfibs
They create a big lie and just keep repeating it, over and over ! And we know where that tactic came from don’t we ?
Pure fascism.
Posted by: Mark2 | Oct 31 2020 13:01 utc | 322
Norwregein @ 322
But we are laughing at you fool, your to thick to notice, bit like you haven’t noticed the virus !
Ha ha ha
None so blind.
How do you like your platform now ! Fascist scum bag !
Ha ha ha yaa, I love this free speech, platform for far right scum.
Pass the rotten fruit. Snigger
Posted by: Mark2 | Oct 31 2020 13:13 utc | 323
Family members before boarding the plane from African country to Paris,were tested.Father and mother got PCR up their noses,got clearance for being negative quite rapidly.Their three-yearold got long needle under the skin for blood,got clearance for being negative,with even statement no anti-bodies found.So everybody on plane was negative.Still they were obliged to wear masks in the airplane.In Paris no papers demanded,only question have you been tested?
Now compare this to a friend of mine here who was suspicious to have caught covid.Being no idiot he demands testing.Made appointment,got tested outside laboratory with PCR up his nose.Was told results will be sent in three to four days.Now it's been ten,still no results.
All libraries in France had to close ,because the government calls them "non-essential commercial activities".Big warehouses also sell a lot of books,( for a big part wordsalades of politicians and celebrities' writings not worth of reading,but also classics in pocketbooks) so the librarians protested a lot along with cultural associations.The government has now closed also those parts of big warehouses that sell books.Fahrenheit 451 anyone?
Guess I'll have to read Le Debacle by Emile Zola on the internet,because I have no bankcard that allows me to command on Amazone.Got it?
Posted by: willie | Oct 31 2020 13:40 utc | 324
@Mark2 | Oct 31 2020 13:13 utc | 323
Norwregein @ 322
I recommend you put that bottle away.
Posted by: Norwegian | Oct 31 2020 13:52 utc | 325
H Schmatz & Willie
You both appear not to grasp —
The virus is being used by the right as a genocide weapon, they want to kill you.
That’s why they relaxed the lockdown when it began to work.
That’s why you have plains arriving from badly infected countrys, why your schools are used to ‘seed’ your community’s !
The virus is a weapon.
But vote trump go right wing. Stockholm syndrome.
Posted by: Mark2 | Oct 31 2020 14:00 utc | 326
@Posted by: Jackrabbit | Oct 31 2020 12:10 utc | 318
Of course, never miss the opportunity to shoot two birds with one shot, but there are no Iranian troops in Armenian borders already deployed that could act as peacekeepers and have internationaly recognized fame on this role.
Just yesterday was viewing a Russian film on the destruction of Yugoslavia where it was showed how a Spestnaz group who previously have gotten stranded in Yugoslavia took over Pirstina airport and saved the skin in the last moment thanks to confussing orders coming from Moscow on retreat of peacekeeping forces in Serbia...
Also, got clear in the film when the support of NATO/West for albano-kosovar assassins of allegedly islamic creed whose motives were far from defending islam, or any other highly placed ideal fro that matter, but organizing into warlords gangs to terrorize and mass kill so as to be able to smuggle whatever gives them noney, from drgugs to human organs, and seize Serbian national assets and land on behalf of themselves and by passing Western "democracies" so as to place another NATO base in what was previously russophile territory, as happened in the territories of the USSR in the 90s....
First plain beheadings, an menaces of, were also showed in this film happening on a child and a Serbian fighter fighting along the Russian team of heroic "illegal" Spetsnaz ( featuring a multiethnic team from several creeds and Soviet Republics...) decades before the appearance of ISIS/Al Qaeda....
The film...broadcasted yesterday by a Spanish private TV channel...
"The Balkan Line"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N00Q9Mj2xZg
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u4xB1A0KOYs
...and the events I think it is based on...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VdEpWDUx9XE
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uSxuQQxIgIY
Posted by: H.Schmatz | Oct 31 2020 14:07 utc | 327
Posted by: H.Schmatz | Oct 31 2020 12:32 utc | 320
Esgrimir is to wield in english, your passion peppers your writing with Spanish words.
Posted by: c1ue | Oct 30 2020 22:02 utc | 298
Yes indeed, Cicero was the system guy, but let me ask you a question, do you think the appropriately defined as Dims by Gruffy are “progressive”? what does that word mean anyway? They are trying just as much as the Republicans to keep, or conserve if you like, their privileges.
Posted by: willie | Oct 31 2020 8:45 utc | 308
The main reason for the West unstoppable decadence, IMHO, has been the impunity of its leaders. The Tunisian terrorist that killed the worshipers in Nice had just arrived from Africa, but nobody asks BHL or Sarkozy for responsibility, they destroyed Libya, and they keep on preaching and enjoying the perks of the elites. Same thing for the Azores threesome, Bush, Blair, Aznar, and the smart guy that was not in the picture but was in the action, Barroso. They destroyed a country, caused over a million deaths and there you have them, enjoying the fruits of their labour. Impunity, that is the cancer.
Posted by: Paco | Oct 31 2020 14:14 utc | 328
@Posted by: H.Schmatz | Oct 31 2020 14:07 utc | 327
By featuring a multiethnic, multiconfessional, compact team of Spetsnaz 8 compossed of ethnic Russians, Tatars, Inghusetians, Uzbeks and other soviet republics..) the film also debunks far-right ideologues and current offensive in Europe intends on trying to demonstrate that multiconfessional societies can not function, unite and collaborate on basis of a common patriotic good...
Full film in Russian...regretably...yo ucan hire one with subtitles over there..
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4sI75AYj8Ss
Posted by: H.Schmatz | Oct 31 2020 14:17 utc | 329
Posted by: H.Schmatz | Oct 31 2020 14:07 utc | 327
Balkansky Rubezh not a bad film, I watched it a few months ago.
Wesley Clark ordered the British officer in command to shoot at the Russians, to wich the officer answered: I am not going to start WWIII.
Serbia was sold by the drunkard Yeltsyn, just like everything else in his own country, what a sinister character.
Posted by: Paco | Oct 31 2020 14:21 utc | 330
@Russ #310
While I don't believe lockdowns make sense now, I also don't agree that COVID is a mild flu.
It is definitely still killing significant numbers of people.
US overall mortality is up 20% vs. last year; a really bad flu season only jumps overall mortality 2%. And while there are categories where deaths are up: suicide, overdose and homicide, there are more categories where deaths are down (like regular flu. Regular flu deaths are basically 0).
My view is that lockdowns are pointless because they won't ultimately save many lives over the full period in which vaccines are not an option.
Nor is it guaranteed that a vaccine will be tested, approved, manufactured, distributed and administered in less than 2 years - particularly given the anti-vax views of many such as yourself and the for-profit nature of the US health care system.
Thus my view is that there has been insufficient (nonexistent) discussion of the tradeoff of ongoing ginormous economic dislocation vs. a potential months of lifespan saved - of which the latter is not 100% clear since the increases in homicides, suicides and overdoses is largely within much younger populations.
But this doesn't mean that I think bans on large gatherings or mask mandates are bad.
It doesn't mean that I don't think vulnerable groups such as seniors (and the people who serve them) shouldn't take greater precautions.
The COVID cat is out of the bag. Lockdowns will not stop the disease. This is abundantly demonstrated by resurgences everywhere in the world.
Victoria, Australia did a really harsh lockdown for 112 days. source
With Victoria accounting for about a quarter of the nation’s gross domestic product, the restrictions have deepened Australia’s first recession in almost 30 years.The lockdown has slashed A$100 million ($71 million) a day from economic activity and through August and September resulted in a daily average of 1,200 jobs being lost across the state, Luke Yeaman, a Treasury department official, told a parliamentary panel this week.
...
Business leaders say it may take years for Melbourne -- ranked as the world’s second-most livable city last year -- to recover. Melbourne chef Scott Pickett warned that ongoing capacity restrictions would continue to hit restaurants and cafes and that many would fold once government wage subsidies end early next year.
“Some may get to Christmas, January and say they can’t do this anymore,” said Pickett, who owns the bistro Estelle. “It’s going to be a bloodbath out there at some stage.”
“This is the beginning of a long road of recovery,” said Michael Madrusan, co-owner of Made in the Shade, which operates venues in the city including The Everleigh cocktail bar. “We are in no way out of the woods just because we can open the doors.”
...
The social costs are also mounting. The Royal Australian College of General Practitioners says demand for health services nationwide has risen 15% since early March, and by 31% between September and October in Victoria. Alcohol consumption has risen and domestic violence spiked.
The good news is that Victoria has cut its case rate from 700 new cases a day to 2. However, I guarantee that Victoria will see a new spike, later. No place is immune.
The other good news is that mortality rates are falling. Spikes in cases everywhere are not accompanied by proportionate spikes in deaths. Doctors are learning and improving in treating serious COVID cases plus the lowering average age of COVID cases means lower base mortality.
Regarding the NWO, government, whatever: I am not a believer in any of that. Not to say that there aren't those who want it - rather - the friction of reality means such an effort is impossible due to petty tin gods/egos clashing, incompetence, confusion, miscommunication, disparate long vs. short term goals - in short, the problems which organizations of any size experience which are amplified 100-fold in a "secret" effort.
Rather, my view is much simpler: the PMCs (professional managerial class) finds lockdowns to be very beneficial both in not having to commute, having the economic means to have everything delivered to them, not having to worry about income due to lost hours, and finally minimizing their risk of COVID (and everything else).
Why wouldn't a PMC or a retired person with already secure income be fine with a lockdown, personally?
On the other end of the spectrum: anyone operating the majority of businesses which are severely impacted by COVID - not just the direct ones like restaurants, travel and entertainment but at least 50% of the 70% non-restaurant/travel/entertainment which depends on overall economic activity - is in serious trouble already and facing far worse as this drags on.
The reason I think this election is going to be really interesting is that this large number of people have been spending their time trying to figure out how to survive and move forward.
Will they vote? Will they have spent the time to understand what is going on and why things are what they are?
There are 30.75 million small businesses in the US. These businesses employ 59.9 million people. 86.6% have no employees. source
This group is the one paying the highest price for the COVID lockdowns.
While I am sure at least some will vote according to ideology, I wonder if these people realize what is being done to them and will act accordingly.
Even compared to the conservative bias against polls - small business owners are likely even worse responding to polls.
Posted by: c1ue | Oct 31 2020 14:32 utc | 331
"Esgrimir is to wield in english, your passion peppers your writing with Spanish words".
Posted by: c1ue | Oct 30 2020 22:02 utc | 298
Yeah, dude, I notice that, short of time, I kinda invent new English neologisms by anglonizing Spanbish verbs, words, and so on...What has it of bad when we were invaded by a lot of angliscisms in our own languages out of the Imerial crusade?
Anyway, I am seeing that you managed to understand, the important thing is get the message through, I did not mind, since I do not underestimate you guys here, knowing as I know that the commentariat is quite smart... and mutilanguage...including the myriad of intelligence services operatives fishing OSINT from the 4 corners of 5 eyes and NATO...
Go accustoming to the reversing process of empire building...
I hope you can enjoy the film as much as I did...tronco
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yWo_uSJQE-s
Posted by: H.Schmatz | Oct 31 2020 14:38 utc | 332
Four more years of trump insanity ?
What would that look like ?
I don’t need a Cristal ball.
Massive death by virus (unchecked)
Massive death by the resulting poverty and breakdown in infrastructure.
Escalating death by police controlling the resulting unrest (already trained equipped brainwashed killing machines)
Race hate encouraged.
Jobs gone.
Higher taxes to pay for geo political warfare.
The end of any future political opposition or unbiased media.
Activists criminalised.
Thanks but no thanks.
Posted by: Mark2 | Oct 31 2020 14:39 utc | 333
@Paco #328
You said:
do you think the appropriately defined as Dims by Gruffy are “progressive”? what does that word mean anyway? They are trying just as much as the Republicans to keep, or conserve if you like, their privileges.
Anyone in power has at least some incentive for self-preservation and/or self-enrichment. However, few people are only driven by such - the Clintons and Obamas may be among them.
No, the Democrat party today is not progressive. Nor are the Republicans. Both Democrats and Republicans have been progressive at times in the past.
I would note - likely controversially - that Trump is more progressive, economically, than either Democrats or Republicans. The massive offshoring of American jobs via NAFTA, later China, was very much a bi-partisan affair. It has unquestionably damaged the American economy and American society as an outcome.
Yes, Trump still benefits the interests of the wealthy via tax reductions and other ways - he isn't altruist - but he actually passed significant amounts of benefit to the lowest working classes, unlike at least 4 of his immediate predecessors.
He has also directly attacked the pharmaceutical interests - again in contrast to his immediate predecessors.
Is he truly Progressive? I would say not - rather - a Populist.
Nonetheless - to answer your question: Yes, the American oligarchy comprising both Republicans and Democrats are clearly 100% interested solely in their own welfare. They don't represent their constituents or even long term American strategic interests.
I liked Trump in 2016 precisely because he threw a gigantic monkey wrench into both Republican and Democrat machinery. He doesn't care about traditional Republican (or Democrat) ideology or interests. He absolutely does have his own interest in mind, but self interest is still less damaging than class interest, and his willingness to stampede around, policy wise, has crushed any number of political sacred cows.
If "Disruption" is still a good thing - Trump epitomizes that.
As for conservative: you are absolutely right that being conservative means keeping the bad as well as good. That's why I'm not ideologically fixated either way. I actually personally think that too much continuity is what leads to the formation of an oligarchical class. In the Soviet Union - this evolved to be the bureaucrats. In feudal times, it was the King and the next 2 tiers of aristocracy. In social democracies, it is the center left and right merging into an undifferentiated mass. And in the US - it is the top tier Republicans and Democrats being equally corrupt in the service of energy/land and tech/enviro/pharma interests, respectively.
Posted by: c1ue | Oct 31 2020 14:54 utc | 334
c1ue | Oct 31 2020 14:32 utc | 331
It is definitely still killing significant numbers of people.
US overall mortality is up 20% vs. last year; a really bad flu season only jumps overall mortality 2%.
Excess mortality spiked briefly in the spring and then plummeted back to the normal range. The great majority of all excess deaths were attributed to Covid among a demographic on the average older than the average lifespan. Of course we don't know how badly distorted those diagnoses were or how much really came from the flu. See the next point.
there are more categories where deaths are down (like regular flu. Regular flu deaths are basically 0).
Which is extremely suspicious, especially when we consider how prone the PCR test is to false positives (including through deliberately loose interpretation of this very impressionistic test) and the great pressure on and incentives to hospitals and care facilities to overdiagnose "Covid". We already were asking last spring, what happened to the flu? It's clear what happened to it - all its cases got reassigned to the Covid category.
the anti-vax views of many such as yourself and the for-profit nature of the US health care system.
By which you mean, of course, the anti-vax views of many such as myself because of the for-profit nature of the US health care system. The entire vaccine paradigm would be radically different, and no doubt vastly less ramified, if there were no profiteering involved.
But this doesn't mean that I think bans on large gatherings or mask mandates are bad.
The science on maskism is long-standing and not controversial. For decades there's been consensus that professional-grade masks may help in a clinical setting where worn by health professionals spending long hours tending to symptomatic respiratory patients, but are definitely useless and often harmful outside this narrow context.
The only place there's any controversy over masks is among politicians and other political operatives and talking heads on the TV news.
And of course this entire line of debate assumes the framework which automatically assumes the maximum lethality of "Covid" while discounting all other values and concerns to zero. I completely reject this standard framing.
On the contrary, my study of history convinced me long ago that nothing is remotely as horrible as totalitarianism, and no alleged crisis I've ever heard of would warrant escalating the police state or running any significant risk of abetting the erection of a totalitarian system. So my default from day one was to compare any alleged danger from Covid to the proposed "cure" and the dangers of it. Not even the most extreme scenario promulgated by the pro-lockdownists ever came into the same galaxy as would cause me to even for a second to wonder whether lockdowns and an astroturfed religious cult of masks and hex spacing was worth the definite and potential harms.
All the temper tantrums! Both candidates are 100% approved and vetted by your masters. It is a plausible assumption that there are factions amongst the rulers. No reason to assume the faction split has diddly to do with Dems and Repubs. Your owners will be fine and dandy whoever wins. They are enjoying the spectacle of you all fighting with each other.
The script for November 3 has already been written.The newscasts for November 4 are already scripted. They no longer even bother with hiring good writers. People believe whatever they are told to believe. Including those here. Not excepting myself here. Sometimes some of us penetrate some part of the veil or get a little peak behind the curtain, none of us has much of an idea what happens where we are not allowed to look.
Posted by: oldhippie | Oct 31 2020 15:12 utc | 336
There are 30.75 million small businesses in the US. These businesses employ 59.9 million people. 86.6% have no employees.
Posted by: c1ue | Oct 31 2020 14:32 utc | 331
Something is wrong here. One possibility is that most of "small businesses" are so-called paper companies. They are registered, but perform no "real activity", even if some of them have very active bank accounts. Hard to tell if paper companies and their bank accounts suffer under lockdowns or other restrictions, and if it matters. Second possibility is that in the same sentence, self-employed are treated as employees and as not employees.
It is clear that many types of jobs faced lack of income or drastically reduced income during the epidemic, and those who need a "hard-brick" place are heavily hit by rents or mortgages placing them in the red and driving them toward bankruptcy and making it very hard to restore business after the epidemic -- they will have status of penniless homeless orphans. Then again, there should be plenty of available places for lower rents than before, leveraged owners of those places may themselves be in bankruptcy...
One can observe that establishment, especially political and medical, got intellectually overwhelmed. Their mental capacities are barely sufficient in the normal times. Normally we require our leaders to either (1) being able to tie their shoelaces, or (2) having assistants capable of doing it for them, or (3) avoiding foot ware with shoe laces. (I guess, both Trump and Biden use a combination of (2) and (3)). Sadly, faced with many unknowns, that is not enough. The public is also confused, what to requite from the leadership?
Posted by: Piotr Berman | Oct 31 2020 15:32 utc | 337
@Russ #335
You said:
Excess mortality spiked briefly in the spring and then plummeted back to the normal range.
Lockdowns do reduce mortality from accidents - which used to be the 3rd largest cause of death. I would also note that the comorbidity thing with COVID means both accelerated deaths for people with most of the other top 11 causes of death.
And, as I noted, flu deaths are way down. In 2017: there were over 80K flu deaths over the whole year, the majority of which occurs over the winter months.
So I would say that "equal" overall mortality does not mean COVID isn't a factor - with lockdowns as part of the equation.
You said:
there are more categories where deaths are down (like regular flu. Regular flu deaths are basically 0).
I don't think so. Lockdowns definitely impede the spread of flu.
I would argue flu spread is *more* impeded by lockdowns, because the various flu strains all have significant existing populations of immune - if not necessarily herd immunity.
You said:
The science on maskism is long-standing and not controversial.
The thing is - it doesn't matter. Unless masks hurt - which they definitely do not - the whole point is that masks are low cost, low risk. If they don't do anything, they don't harm. If they only do a little, it is still worthwhile.
This is in opposition to lockdowns where the harms are great and unquestioned.
You said:
On the contrary, my study of history convinced me long ago that nothing is remotely as horrible as totalitarianism, and no alleged crisis I've ever heard of would warrant escalating the police state or running any significant risk of abetting the erection of a totalitarian system.
Well, your study of history is apparently quite different than mine.
From my view - tyranny is bad primarily because the original tyrant, assuming they weren't awful, is certain to be followed by successors who are.
Yet we have had tyrants in the US. Jackson acted as a tyrant in taking down the 2nd Bank of the US. FDR tried to pack the Supreme Court and did all manner of terrible things (including Japanese internment camps).
Thus tyranny is only determinable ex-post-facto and in light of personal views.
Posted by: c1ue | Oct 31 2020 18:05 utc | 338
@Piotr Berman #337
Perhaps you can expand on your statement that "there's something wrong here". You don't seem to believe that there can be 30.75 million small businesses in the US - why?
There are 660K restaurants alone. Every event planner, most accountants (1.3 million), IT consultants and MSPs, many lawyers (1.35 million), doctors (1.1 million), dentists(200K), consultants for other areas, bodega owners, hardware shops, dog walkers, etc etc are small businesses.
So are many truck drivers (350K independents) and taxi drivers who own and operate their own vehicles.
The United States is a service economy. The majority of the services are provided by small business owners.
You said:
Then again, there should be plenty of available places for lower rents than before, leveraged owners of those places may themselves be in bankruptcy...
Is this based on experience or theory?
In my experience, rental owners don't lower rents unless forced to by hard negotiations. They know full well that most people/businesses face a major expense/hassle to move and count on it. This is yet another example of how "efficient market" theory is bollocks.
Secondly, a highly leveraged property *cannot* lower rents much, because then they are structurally dooming their ability to repay. The reality is that most rental owners are not highly leveraged.
Posted by: c1ue | Oct 31 2020 18:17 utc | 339
c1ue: what I see wrong in your sentence
There are 30.75 million small businesses in the US. These businesses employ 59.9 million people. 86.6% have no employees.
is "employ 59.9 million" with "86.6% have no employees".
I suspect that you count "self-employed" in "59.9 million" and you do not count them as employees in "86.6%". And I agree that all categories you list were painfully affected. But the stat that of 30.75 million small businesses only 4 millions "have employees" is puzzling and I would welcome a link.
Posted by: Piotr Berman | Oct 31 2020 21:55 utc | 340
c1ue | Oct 31 2020 18:05 utc | 338
You said:
"The science on maskism is long-standing and not controversial."
The thing is - it doesn't matter. Unless masks hurt - which they definitely do not - the whole point is that masks are low cost, low risk. If they don't do anything, they don't harm. If they only do a little, it is still worthwhile.
This is in opposition to lockdowns where the harms are great and unquestioned.
You said:
"On the contrary, my study of history convinced me long ago that nothing is remotely as horrible as totalitarianism, and no alleged crisis I've ever heard of would warrant escalating the police state or running any significant risk of abetting the erection of a totalitarian system."
Well, your study of history is apparently quite different than mine.
From my view - tyranny is bad primarily because the original tyrant, assuming they weren't awful, is certain to be followed by successors who are.
Yet we have had tyrants in the US. Jackson acted as a tyrant in taking down the 2nd Bank of the US. FDR tried to pack the Supreme Court and did all manner of terrible things (including Japanese internment camps).
Thus tyranny is only determinable ex-post-facto and in light of personal views.
Indeed our view of history is quite different if you're either that ignorant of what life under Stalin's regime was like, or the Nazi regime for any of its target groups, or consider that vision of "life" attractive. I'll wager some of those Japanese-Americans also had a clue, not to mention the exterminated or forcibly deported, interned, subjugated native "uncivilized".
The death cult which uses ritual superstitious masking as its standard rite and mode of identifying Us and Them is being used as an organizing principle by the globalist elites toward whatever goal, including full-on de jure fascism, the elites choose to try to deploy the cult toward. It's inherently dehumanizing and thus contains all the necessary elements for mass murder. Anyone who's studied history knows that, unless they have extreme religious blinders toward the here and now.
There is considerable evidence that masks do cause physical harm through oxygen deprivation and serving as bacterial incubators and other effects.
Far worse than these is their serving as an organizing principle, a way to identify fellow committed cult members (e.g. anybody that would wear one outdoors or alone in their own car is really flying the flat-earth wingnut flag), those whose faith is tenuous (who might not wear it in the most extremely idiotic circumstances, such as outdoors in the woods), and the infidels. As I said, they contain the poison seed of fascist tyranny.
And worst of all is how demeaning, dehumanizing, and flat out retarded it is to put on a worthless face diaper at the command of the government and media and the mass of idiots. Evidently you have no such feelings and would submit to any ritual no matter how humiliating normal humans would find it, but for those of us who still retain some human dignity and self-respect this is odious.
"If they only do a little, it is still worthwhile."
Are we still talking about professional-grade masks or any old rag or piece of toilet paper like 99% of the mask-faces wear? Since you show no sign of discrimination I take it you believe in the magical power of faith in the ritual of putting ANY old thing over your mouth. But what's really going on there is that the rag or piece of paper signifies allegiance or at least submission and obedience to the cult. That's all it's meant to do, not actually prevent infections or illness. In the same way the elites have no intention that mass coerced vaccinations would actually put an end to their great organizing vehicle. That too would have other, very different purposes.
The last thing the impresarios of the terror-lockdown assault which uses covid as a pretext want is for this thing to go away, ever. The intend a boot stomping on a masked, unhumanized face forever.
@Russ | Nov 1 2020 6:32 utc | 341
Far worse than these is their serving as an organizing principle, a way to identify fellow committed cult members (e.g. anybody that would wear one outdoors or alone in their own car is really flying the flat-earth wingnut flag), those whose faith is tenuous (who might not wear it in the most extremely idiotic circumstances, such as outdoors in the woods), and the infidels. As I said, they contain the poison seed of fascist tyranny.
Thank you, I agree with this and the rest of your analysis. We are indeed dealing with a fascist death cult.
Posted by: Norwegian | Nov 1 2020 7:42 utc | 342
Norwegian | Nov 1 2020 7:42 utc | 342
One of the many proofs of the bad faith of the maskochists is how they deny this. Even if one really believed that covid is so lethal and that masks really help, how could one deny the swastika-armband aspect of it (and implicit yellow star for those who don't obey), or at least the potential for these which many of the impresarios and fanatics openly telegraph, unless one is a bad-faith liar.
@Russ | Nov 1 2020 7:57 utc | 343
Yes. Maybe we should make yellow stars and sew it onto our clothes? /s
Posted by: Norwegian | Nov 1 2020 10:45 utc | 344
The night of November 5th is nigh.
Wonder how many votes Guido (Guy) Fawkes will get November 3? There is something to be said about blowing up toffs assembled - efficiency - British or other, no matter.
Posted by: Formerly T-Bear | Nov 1 2020 12:10 utc | 345
Formerly T-Bear | Nov 1 2020 12:10 utc | 345
Remember, remember!
The fifth of November,
The Gunpowder treason and plot;
I know of no reason
Why the Gunpowder treason
Should ever be forgot!
Cheers
Posted by: V | Nov 1 2020 12:25 utc | 346
@ V | Nov 1 2020 12:25 utc | 346
¡Traditionalist! Some situations demand 'treason', just to maintain sane.
Oops! another one liner.
Posted by: Formerly T-Bear | Nov 1 2020 12:50 utc | 347
Russ
___________________________________
One of the many proofs of the bad faith of the maskochists is how they deny this. Even if one really believed that covid is so lethal and that masks really help, how could one deny the swastika-armband aspect of it (and implicit yellow star for those who don't obey), or at least the potential for these which many of the impresarios and fanatics openly telegraph, unless one is a bad-faith liar.
___________________________________________
Russ your argument is idiotic. It only works if you can convince people we are also idiots and should all act like idiots. Not wearing a mask is like wearing a sign that says "I'm an idiot I hope you are also".
In Hong Kong everyone put on a mask in public as soon as they heard of the virus. In New York city nobody wore a mask and as a result 100 times as many people died even though both are similar populations. The irony is that in New York City it was legal to wear a mask, but in Hong Kong the govt had made it illegal to wear masks in public. The people of HK chose to disobey the law because they are not idiots The result of this little experiment was 10000% increase in deaths where masks were not worn. Today most people in New York and Hong Kong are convinced that masks do work in reducing deaths from covid.
Posted by: jinn | Nov 1 2020 13:45 utc | 348
Ruling party in Georgia, Georgian Dream-Democratic Georgia, wins the parliamentary elections.
Today there are also presidential elections in Moldova...
Expect the usual violent contestation of results by the pro-West losing minority...
Posted by: H.Schmatz | Nov 1 2020 14:41 utc | 349
Nice to hear from you Herr Schmatz. Per the 4 corners of 5 eyes --
https://vowpeace.org/nofighterjets/
https://thetyee.ca/Opinion/2020/07/23/Canada-Spending-Jet-Fighters/
Background
https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/canada-fighter-jets-f35-boeing-saab-lockheed-martin-1.5669496
Det ligger en hund begraven... :-)
Posted by: Quasi Retired anonym | Nov 1 2020 15:12 utc | 350
Regarding flu deaths, death rates, etc.
1.) Since flu and COVID-19 have similar target populations, it seems reasonable to think that an increase in deaths from either in a particular season would entail a decline in the other, they are in competition. So this year, COVID being "novel", it got to them first.
2.) Making everybody stay home, all by itself, will drastically change mortality rates for all sorts of things, I would think.
3.) Even absent goverment action, people will take their own measures according as they see the situation. That alone will cause all kinds of disruption in travel and hospitality related sectors, among others. Health care is another.
COVID was going to have a large economic impact regardless, and things were already economically "brittle", so I think the death rate, high or low, has not much to do with the economic crash, a precipitating agent at best.
The question ought to be, in my view, what policy results in the best and fastest recovery? And on the evidence that would seem to be places like China and New Zealand.
Much of the hysteria occurring in "the West" over COVID is precisely because governments in the West have thoroughly beshit themselves in handling of COVID. Go to World-O-Meter and click on the tabs for Europe, USA and the other regions, you will see who is and is not dealing with the disease. It is the Neolib paradises that have dropped the ball.
Posted by: Bemildred | Nov 1 2020 15:25 utc | 351
What the heck, Schmatz, since you brought up NATO, permit me to add
https://twitter.com/FP_Champagne/status/1322923191736635394
https://twitter.com/EU_Commission/status/1321829061581279234
Posted by: Quasi Retired anonym | Nov 1 2020 15:48 utc | 352
Norwegian, FWIW, I think you (and all your Nordic friends) should probably stay at home. You never know when the virus might strike like it just did for Canada`s Deputy PM and Finance Minister, Chrystia Freeland.
Posted by: Quasi Retired anonym | Nov 1 2020 16:18 utc | 353
This seems significant. `What`s happening` on Nov. 3rd:
https://twitter.com/davidpugliese/status/1323642450221559808
https://twitter.com/mfa_russia/status/1323641060116045825
Posted by: Quasi Retired anonym | Nov 3 2020 15:31 utc | 354
The comments to this entry are closed.
"You all stink."
Posted by: Circe | Oct 31 2020 1:24 utc | 300
...
Fuck yeah, pass the popcorn!!! Butter please. What a week its lining up to be. Spooky dreams to all you stinks.
Posted by: CitizenX | Oct 31 2020 7:17 utc | 301