Coronavirus

December 2024 Forums General discussion Coronavirus

Viewing 15 posts - 886 through 900 (of 1,593 total)
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  • #206196
    Bijou Drains
    Participant

    I think the government campaign to get workers back into city centre offices may have something to do with the Tory doner companies who own huge swaiths of city centre offices. Workers working from home don’t need to be accomodated in glass cages in city centres and the arse is dropping out of the office lettings industry.

    Apparently London has seen home rental values drop by about 8% since the start of coronavirus as people who can work from home, realise they don’t need to pay a king’s ransome to live in a 1 bed bedsit.

    #206198
    ALB
    Keymaster

    Surely those selling doners in city centres aren’t Tories. More likely to be Turkish or Cypriot nationalists  😊

    #206200
    Bijou Drains
    Participant

    Well spotted, that should have read donor.

    #206214
    ALB
    Keymaster

    It is interesting to see how, in their bid to get people back into the city centres to buy things and keep office rents up, they are emphasising the social relations aspect of work and how not having this by staying at home all the time might harm health and well-being.

    A different story from when they are objecting to socialism on the grounds that no one would want to work as  without wages there’d be no incentive to.

    #206358
    L.B. Neill
    Participant

    We are amid a pandemic in Melbourne. We have been in lockdown for some months.

    The science of public safety in these times should not be dismissed: but some seem spurred on by notions of ‘freedom’. It seems the term freedom is subjective and depends on political expression. The economy should be healthier than our health for some of these demonstrators! It is the nearest example of antisocial, individualist centred oddities, and it is so ‘typical’ of a pre-social class of beings.

    A group arranged a demonstration against medical necessary restrictions.

    Has commerce over health entered a new normal- a new dangerous expression? Below is an ABC news report:

    https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-09-05/coronavirus-australia-live-news-victoria-nsw-border-permit/12632184

    or try this link- the link seems ethereal!

    https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-09-05/melbourne-coronavirus-restrictions-lockdown-protests-police/12633164

    It seems the defences capital may use to justify the economy over science has amplified- but to who’s expense.

    I am promask- and if you wear one too- it is mutual, beneficial and has a shared altruism… If I mentioned that statement at their rally, I would have no teeth left.

    L.B.

    Post Note:

    Just in case- I do not aspire to vanguard ideas- and any mention of a pre-social class is not aimed at a Loche  like division into greater or lesser class of conscious beings. It is that it seems a protest of a few over the greater health of the many. And that few seem captured by a nodal point located in ‘laissez faire ‘ ideations, and at all costs- but deaths are its collateral damage.

    Good reason for the edit option!

     

    • This reply was modified 4 years, 3 months ago by L.B. Neill.
    • This reply was modified 4 years, 3 months ago by L.B. Neill.
    • This reply was modified 4 years, 3 months ago by L.B. Neill.
    #206363
    ALB
    Keymaster

    There have been similar demonstrations here in the UK but the authorities have adopted a different tactic — fining the organisers but leaving the demonstrators alone ( for the moment anyway):

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8679509/amp/Jeremy-Corbyns-brother-Piers-gets-10-000-fine-London-illegal-gatherings.html

    Piers Corbyn is talking nonsense of course. There is a pandemic and until they find a vaccine there is a danger, even if for some people the symptoms are fairly mild. But these people can pass it on to others who could die from the complications it has for them,

    I am not sure about masks as they’ve changed the advice about them (one of the many U turns the government here has done). At the beginning they said they wouldn’t protect you against catching it. Now they are saying they should be worn to re-assure people that it’s safe to go back to work. I am sure that the don’t do any harm, though, and that it’s better to be safe than sorry.

    That reminds me. I wonder what happened to our resident denier here, Dave B. I hope he didn’t go to one of those    virus parties, catch it but not recover,

    #206364
    alanjjohnstone
    Keymaster

    People here will recall that i was a denier as well and it took some time before i was persuaded otherwise by the convincing arguments that challenged my view . In my defence, it was at the early phase of the pandemic and before the mortality rates became significant.

    Perhaps Dave B has changed his views but is a bit embarrassed to admit he was wrong.

    When evidence is produced to refute your own opinions, there is nothing wrong in changing one’s position and admitting an error. It is how science works and progresses.

    #206367
    L.B. Neill
    Participant

    Alan, the wonderful thing is- people are able to change a stance. And it is very great to see that people can both fess a new postion or state later that it was wrong

    I have posted some post- impossiblism statements on this forum in the past, and when I return, a little red faced (and dare a smile), I have been given the space and permission, and kindness, to correct it.

    Why else educate on socialism! We change stances and positions through life. And I am sure public discourse to help correct anti vac, covid denial in the near future. We all need that patient posture to change… some alas, may not…

    ALB- I’m sure the medical narratives on mask wearing will shift all the time- but in the meantime it is one tool in the challenge of COVID,

    Be safe,

    L.B

    #206391
    alanjjohnstone
    Keymaster

    I won’t blog it until it actually happens but as we always said it will be the workers who will pay for the pandemic

    https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2020/sep/06/freeze-national-living-wage-totally-wrong-tuc-frances-ogrady

    “…the Treasury reportedly considers backtracking on a planned pay rise for the lowest paid…spokesman for the manufacturer’s organisation Make UK said firms would back moves to keep the national living wage down..”

    #206486
    rodshaw
    Participant

    One good thing that may come out of this pandemic is more research into ME and associated illnesses, through the number of people who are suffering long-term after-effects. One of my daughters has ME and I know how limiting it can be.

    But I won’t hold my breath, this is capitalism after all and any such research isn’t going to be particularly profitable.

    #206546
    Anonymous
    Inactive

    The book Rage written by the Journalist Bob Woodward tells everything about the handling of the Coronavirus by the USA government, Donald Trump and his team, the Intelligence Committees,  and the Congress. They knew about the dangers of the virus since January or probably before  January, and China openly informed them about the virus, of how dangerous it was, and how to handle the situation, but they kept it as a secret and never informed the public, therefore, blaming everything in China is just a scapegoat, as well the infection reached the USA from European tourists, and before that the virus had existed in places like California. The pretext is they did not want to create a panic, the real reason is profits before peoples. They all should be arrested  taken to jail and throw away the keys

     

     

    #206550
    alanjjohnstone
    Keymaster

    While what you say is true, Marcos, what i find frustrating is the anti-Trump liberals and progressives ignoring the failures of all the rest of the world’s politicians to tackle the pandemic effectively. They procrastinated as much as Trump and do we ignore the Democratic Governor of NY Cuomo contributing to the death toll of those elderly in the care homes as expendable – as did that so-called shining beacon of social democracy -Sweden.

    A few nations responded in a timely fashion with effective lock-downs but they were the exception.

    And now we have the haste to return to work in the industrialised nations which is already resulting in a second wave of infection and the return of local lock-downs.

    I’m going to give Trump a pass on the pandemic since his actions reflected the policy of many other countries such as our own Boris Johnson and his failures are only being emphasised because of the election and Biden’s attempt to discredit Trump. I don’t believe a President Biden and a Democratic Party administration would have much of a different outcome.

    As for Woodward’s ‘Rage’, he himself is deserving of a lot of criticism for sitting on the details for month after month, with-holding the information on Trump until his book’s publication  just so he can sell more books – not the act of a responsible journalist.

    #206552
    Anonymous
    Inactive

    They are all in the same hole including the media who was  holding the information  I am clear about that. I am just  mentioning about the publication of the book which should have been published a long time ago and the journalist or the newspaper were holding the information

    #206554
    L.B. Neill
    Participant

    Marcos,

    I relate to your comments on Woodward’s rage.

    There is a reprehensible action sitting on such information during a global health crisis.

    I wish his text was published by open commons- and extemporaneously- information in the here and now. But alas, profit from the sales meant he had to write it first- and all that time in book deals, chats and rewrites, editing, and so on. This is a sad and typical example of what you said: profit over people.

    You know: the whole notion to withhold information to reduce panic- makes things worse. Sound and evidence based and immediate communication in society would have been a better public health response from the outset.

    Well, I guess you can’t go to detention for making a profit. My general feeling of the political fallout for the Trump administration from this text… is… business as usual.

    Wish the whole community would collaborate their intel- and not on a profit basis- will be good to hope that the roll out of any COVID vaccine does not get caught up in ‘Vaccine Nationalism’

    LB

    #206564
    Anonymous
    Inactive

    This is the typical case of Bourgeoise Journalism which only serves to the interest of the capitalist system and the system of profits. This is something that millions of peoples do not understand that journalism has its seal of class, every class has its type of journalism that is the reason why most socialist/communist organizations have their newspaper, calling the USA commercial press ( New York Time, and Washington Post ) a leftwing press it is a sign of ignorance or being confused.

    In Colombia and Mexico, and others parts of the world journalists ( Men and women )  are killed because they do not hold the true, they publish it right away as soon as they confirm the sources of the information.  Who is going to kill a journalist that is attached to the system of profit? One of the few USA journalists who did not hold back his information was Gary Webs and he died

    Nowadays the so-called School of Journalism is just a joke, in What is to be done? Lenin said something that is true in regard to the newspaper; It is an organizer, an agitator and a means of spreading information, therefore, the working class must have its own journalism and its own newspaper, counting on the bourgeoisie press it is counting on misinformation.

    Probably,  Bob Woodward is going to earn millions of dollars by publishing that book, but workers will continue following capitalist politicians and capitalist leaders, and they will continue placing in power their own class enemies, in the case of Donald Trump they are going to vote for him, and probably he will win again

Viewing 15 posts - 886 through 900 (of 1,593 total)
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