What Do You Think Today?

[peter]

If I were an officer in the upper echelons of the British Army I would be very unhappy - very unhappy indeed - with the Prime Minister's veiled threat implied in his declaration that he will "use the army to backfill if necessary" in the enforcement of the Government's Covid regulations.

What exactly does he mean by this? Is his implication that if the army are called upon to break up demonstrations and the like, that they will be somehow more brutal than the police would be in doing so? There is some unstated but definite underlying implication cum threat about his use of the language and I don't like it a bit. This is not the way a PM should be talking to his people, with threats and exhortations to snitch on your neighbors - am I the only one who can see that?

And as for the Army, they deserve better. Their job is to defend the people of this country not be used as a veiled threat against them and if I was amongst their commanding officers I would be demanding that the PM refrain from abusing the men of honour who comprise the service in this way. In fact I'd be making it plain that it would be a cold day in hell before any of the troops under my command would be set in any way, shape or form against the citizenry of this country, no matter what numbers they were gathering in.

[peter]

Time was when a confrontation between police and demonstrators, in which bottles were thrown and baton charges used to break up the event, would have been front page news. Today however you have to actively search to discover that this indeed happened yesterday (again) in Trafalgar Square - and literally one line (half a sentence) is devoted to it on the front pages of today's papers. Knowing that the meeting was scheduled, and likely to be combustive, this morning I went searching for news in both the papers and on news sites generally. Yes, it is there - but you ain't going to know about it unless you look. A line from the BBC reported that the use of battons by the police had left some people "visibly injured".

Why is that? Why is this not blazoned across every page on the newsstands? Demonstrators injured in clash with baton wielding police. Is it such a small thing as to be un-newsworthy? Are we simply not interested when our erstwhile guardians are utilized to use state sanctioned violence in order to disperse people gathered together to protest against Government rule by dictat and authoritarianism. This is never a small thing. Never should a policeman anywhere ever raise a baton to a member of the public but that it is reported, investigated, the people being made aware of what is being done in their name. And in the situation that we currently find ourselves, that the media have not seen fit to ensure that the events were given wide scale coverage is shameful. We walk by single steps towards a bad place.

[peter]

Yesterday on the radio I heard a woman who had phoned in say to the program presenter words to the effect that not everyone who attended rally's of the type mentioned above was a conspiracy theorist whereupon the presenter immediately came back and said "Well, to be fair I've spoken to quite a few of the attendees of them and they all tend to be believers of the 5G thing". He then cut her off without giving her a chance to reply.

This type of conflation is widespread at the moment - witness Boris Johnson refering to "anti-vaccer nut-jobs" in a recent speech to the UN - and is entirely unfair. Because you have concerns about the democratic and freedom implications of what is going on at present (I do) doesn't mean that you think Covid was made in an American lab and shipped to China (I don't), or that because you require that any large-scale vaccination program unveiled on the public utilises all of the normal safety and trialing protocols (I do) doesn't mean that you believe vaccination is a covert Government plot to get us all (what?) to obey the state like zombies or something (I don't). But it serves a good purpose of course, if you are the Government and you can create such a conflation, because it allows you to present anyone who voices even the slightest question over what they are doing as somehow out on a limb and not to be listened to.

But in actuality it is the Government who is out on a limb here and try as they might to cover it, the public are beginning to get it. On the same program a man commented on the dreadful situation of fresher students being drawn, by all appearances deliberately, into their new halls of residence, only to be almost immediately locked in without proper facilities or provision of food. He said (perfectly reasonably it seemed to me) that if he had kids in this situation he'd be in his car and off to collect them forthwith, rules or no rules. Again he was cut off immediately he said this, but his comment illustrates a real problem that the Government has in this situation - quite simply, they have lost the confidence of the public. What with the debacle over the phone app, the student situation and a real failure of understanding as to what it is that the Government is trying to achieve with its new regulations policy, public belief in the Johnson administration is evaporating by the day and their patience along with it.

And at this absolutely crucial time in our history - and not just on the Covid front, we've got Brexit and the end of the transition period to navigate through as well (not even thinking about the economy) - the absolutely last thing we need is not to have confidence in our Government.

[Avatar]

My family has always been blue collar workers. Not slave holders.

It's not about whether your family owned slaves Sarge, it's about the fact that life was automatically slightly easier for you as a white man in a country governed by white men than for any gender or race.

If I were an officer in the upper echelons of the British Army I would be very unhappy - very unhappy indeed - with the Prime Minister's veiled threat implied in his declaration that he will "use the army to backfill if necessary" in the enforcement of the Government's Covid regulations.

They deployed the army here on that basis...it didn't go well...some people were killed etc. Lawsuits are pending.

...the absolutely last thing we need is not to have confidence in our Government.

And yet it does little of nothing to inspire it...

--A

[sgt.null]

Avatar - the ease of life in America is a class issue. You have money, doors will open for you.

[Avatar]

I largely agree, but class is inextricably bound up in race as well for historic reasons. And class mobility in the US is far more difficult than is generally believed by people. (Conversely, in the EU, people believe it is more difficult than it actually is.)

--A

[sgt.null]

avatar - I know of no other country in the world where anyone can succeed like you can in America . Have a skill and you will make it.

[Avatar]

Sarge, go check out the income equality thread (I think) in the 'Tank, I posted (twice) a link to a fairly extensive study comparing social mobility in the US and Europe.

--A

[peter]

People are not by nature disobedient to the instructions of their governments. The inclination to obey those above us in the hierarchies of our social structures is hardwired into us over a long period of evolutionary development and it goes against the grain for most people to even consider non-compliance with instructions from above, even when those instructions fly in the face of what is individually good for us.

But... this leaning toward obedience is not a given; if confidence is eroded following a series of clearly questionable decisions by those above, then even the mildest and most compliant of individuals will begin to exhibit signs of disobedience, and this is exactly what we are seeing now in the UK. People do not understand what is being asked of them, they see the flaws in the Government policies followed to date and as a result the latest round of regulations and instructions is meeting with some serious dissention. The Government seems not to understand that what it is asking of people - to self-isolate, not to go to work or see their families, to forgo the leisure activities that make life worth living after a week of toil - come at a heavy price. Six months of abjuration of their lives while those at the top seem to carry on as normal as though this thing does not apply to them [the PM's 'sqeeze' sunning herself on boats in Greece, his father shopping with no mask, the PM himself exhibiting no understanding of his own rulings] - it becomes too much for people to stomach. They see the PM's chief advisor getting away with what they would be heavily fined for and they see precious little relationship between what is happening in this country as compared to others [both in terms of the mortality figures and in terms of lockdowns and regulations] and they question why?

Todays papers make a point of playing the economic consequences of the Government policy against the health considerations. As a case in point, yesterday we learned that a million women have not had breast cancer screenings that they should have had, and it is estimated that eight thousand plus cases will be missed as a result. That's only one disease; add in all of the rest, the prostate screenings, the heart and lung diagnoses and referrals, the blood pressure and sugar monitoring that have fallen by the wayside, the operations put on hold, and the cumulative cost in lost life hours is immense - probably massively outweighing that as a result of that which will be saved by the Government strategy on dealing with the virus.

So if the Government want the obedience of the population they are going to need to act quickly to address these important considerations and remember that there is more going on in peoples lives than just a blind following of their Covid instructions - that and to start obeying the bloody rules themselves!

[I'm Murrin]

All they had to do was keep the original lockdown going about a month longer than they did. But no, they reversed it all while we were still at about 800 cases a day, and we immediately started to see that small upward climb that lasted through August and turned into a full second wave in September. Now we're gonna lose a lot more - financially, and in terms of lives lost - than we would have if they'd just kept the lockdown another month or so.

[peter]

Agreed - and it will be doubly hard to get the infection rates down this time because before the people were 'onside' (as it were). Now they are surly and discontented.

[peter]

Apparently both the Health Secretary Matt Hancock and The Express newspaper think it is a good idea that EU 'red-tape' pertaining to the safety protocols and licencing of new "miracle" drugs will be swept aside when we finally exit the transition period, allowing them to be got onto the shelves [and the profits therefrom onto the balance sheets of the Big-Pharma companies which produce them] that much more quickly.

And this after Ministers have sat on a hundred different interview shows promising that "because we are leaving the EU does not mean that we are immediately going to abandon all of the safety and regulatory standards we have adopted in a frantic 'race to the bottom'".

Do the Express seriously think that their readers are such fuck-wits that they will not be able to immediately see through this piece of near transparent spin; that they will not be aware that the so called "red-tape" is in fact the only thing that protects them against the premature release of medicines that the makers, who need to get a return onto their books as rapidly as possible, and are quite prepared to take the risk of paying out a few compensation claims years down the line when balanced against the certainty of billions of profits today. Do they really think so little of them.

......On the other hand - they do read The Express every day!

[peter]

Fred Dibnah How to climb an overhang at 50+

Wish I could link to the above YouTube vid for you, but if you really want your heart in your mouth, if you want to feel fear for another human being, watch Fred climb a three hundred foot plus chimney without a rope or safety harness of any kind, in hobnail boots and overalls, talking all the while in his Lancashire accent, cool as a cucumber while a single slip, a single mistep meant unquestionable death (or a half--day out with the undertaker as he puts it, hanging from a ladder, at an angle, with no harness, three hundred feet above the ground). And the man was not one of these lycra clad fitness freaks you see in climbing vids - he was a heavy drinking smoker of over 50 years old!

Give it a try. Fred was a showman of the highest order and should not be forgotten.

[Avatar]

Here's the link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3R3-YwDZrzg

Now, this one makes me sweat: The first free solo ascent of El Capitan in 2017:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3-wjmIFlnNo

--A

[peter]

Thanks Av!

Awesome! I've heard of El Capitan before, but to see someone clinging limpet like to its face makes me cringe.

Are you still climbing Av? (Say no and make me happy - I have an inbuilt fear of heights and could never get my head around actually confronting them for pleasure!)

[Avatar]

Hahaha, I'm not Peter, but it's pure laziness. And I never really did the sort of climbing where I was ever seriously at risk, as long as I was fastidious about the proper precautions.

I always lived by the words of that great Victorian mountaineer, Edward Whymper:

Climb if you will, but remember that courage and strength are nought without prudence, and that a momentary negligence may destroy the happiness of a lifetime. Do nothing in haste; look well to each step; and from the beginning think what may be the end.

(I'm not a huge fan of heights either, but I found that it's not much issue in climbing because you're so focused on what is right in front of your face.)

--A

[deer of the dawn]

Climb this: Wase Rock in Nigeria. I have hiked around the bottom. You would need SKILLLLZZZZ to do this mother. It's about 1000 feet high.

[peter]

If I were a climber I could see two routes to the top of that mother Deer - and I know which one I'd be taking!

[Avatar]

From what I can see, the climbing scene in Nigeria is very under-developed.

Saw a few South African's had been to (and helped organise) a climbing competition there nearly 10 years ago, and bolted a few routes (at Indanre) but haven't seen anything since.

Political / social climate probably doesn't lend itself to such pursuits, although they could drive some extra tourism by promoting it. (Which appears to be what that comp in 2012 was in aid of).

Amazing looking rock, but too hectic for me...I'm a single-pitch kinda guy.

--A

[peter]

What does that mean Av - hectic and single-pitch?