What Do You Think Today?

[Avatar]

Ah, but that raises the question of whose definition of one or the other we will assume...



--A

[peter]

Agreed Av, but I think we sort of know what is meant by it. In this context we are not talking 'evil' certainly, but the bad stuff of the world never (or rarely) happens in a lump. Single steps, single steps.

In respect of the tyranny phrase, I think 'coercion' is better substituted in the current situation. Our new 'vaccines Tsar' Nadim Zahawi spoke of the possibility of introducing 'vaccine passports' without which, entry into restaurants, cinemas and flights etc would be denied. The suggestion, quickly denied by Michael Gove yesterday, amounts to no less than creating a coercive carrot and stick policy whereby to refuse to take the vaccine would be to effectively bar oneself from being able to engage with the society within which one lives. I will take the vaccine (when I am sure that it is both safe and effective) - but I'm damned if I will submit to coercive pressure that I consider our Government has no mandate to engage in. This is one step away from making the vaccine mandatory - and then we are truly into the realm of tyranny.

[Avatar]

...whereby to refuse to take the vaccine would be to effectively bar oneself from being able to engage with the society within which one lives..

I don't know if I have a problem with that actually. If you are unwilling to take measures deemed necessary to protect that society, why should you be able to enjoy the benefits thereof?

My only issue would be that for it to be equitable, everybody must have the same access to the vaccine.

If one chooses to endanger other members of ones society what consideration should one be granted and why?

Nope, you want a social contract, then this is one of the prices you pay.

--A

[peter]

But we have no evidence that the vaccine prevents one from transmitting the virus. So how can having it be claimed to be protecting the society or not having it endangering it?

And if the vaccine is as effective in rendering the protection from the disease as it's claimed (way more so than the normal flu vaccination dished out each year) .... and the relative danger to the lower risk section of society is not much different to ordinary flu anyway.....then why adopt such a radically different approach to the vaccination program being suggested here. No-one is forced to 'carry a passport' to demonstrate that they have had a flu jab each year; I see no reason why they should (given the points I've made above) here either.

And what of work? Should I be forced to remove from involvement in society only in the places where I might go to enjoy myself, or would this apply to where I work as well? Or is it okay for me to 'endanger society' while I'm working, but not while I'm playing? And if I'm to be excluded from going to earn my living will I be entitled to the benefits that payment of my taxes over a lifetime of work would ordinarily entitle me to - or should I be left bereft of income as well, because I choose not to be coerced into taking this vaccine? Mmm.... I'm not sure we're actually going to a better place here.....

(Edit; But it's a good argument Av (albeit one that can be turned the other way), not least because I am a believer in the social contract.......

Oh, dear - why is life so complicated. I'm off to fifteenth century Bohemia where the choices are much simpler! )

[Avatar]

But we have no evidence that the vaccine prevents one from transmitting the virus. So how can having it be claimed to be protecting the society or not having it endangering it?

Well, that is the sticky point isn't it? I see the EU has quite strongly criticised the haste with which the UK has approved it.

(Also, I thought that the tests didn't show that it prevented transmission etc? Just that it significantly ameliorated the effects?)

And same should apply to work...but equally it is probably something that should be handled on an employee contract level..."if you want to work here, you have to show that you have taken steps to protect customers" or something along those lines.

--A

[sgt.null]

So while Biden was candidate it was just to question the vaccine. Now that Biden is pre-president is it unjust to question the vaccine?

[Avatar]

Don't see anybody saying that Sarge...

--A

[sgt.null]

Don't see anybody saying that Sarge...

--A

Plenty on both sides here are questioning the vaccine. I complained when Biden and Harris did it.

The whole anti-vax idiocy promoted by some celebs is dangerous.

[peter]

For those who might be interested I highly recommend a visit to YouTube to watch a couple of very interesting vids presented by Double Down News, an alternative news media outlet that presents current affairs stories in ways never covered in mainstream media scources.

The first is a vid entitled "Meet the Wrong Type of Jew, the Media Doesn't Want You to Know Exists" - the view from the other side of the Jewish community who did not see Jeremy Corbyn as arch enemy number one and who have been unable to obtain a hearing via the traditional channels of news dissemination.

The second video, presented by Guardian columnist George Monbiot, called "George Monbiot on Brexit: Capitalism's Civil War", explains Brexit in terms of a civil war within capitalism, and is an interesting peek behind the scenes into a shadow world that rarely if ever takes a bow under the spotlight of mainstream media.

Both are short vids of the highest quality. I recommend them.

[peter]

Sky News' Kate Burley gets busted having a sixtieth birthday bash totally flouting all of the rules that she has been grilling other celebrity rule-breakers about on her news show, bragging about it on the night before being shopped by one of her colleagues, and as punishment gets to fly off to Richard Brandon's fifteen hundred pound per night luxury resort in South Africa. Proof positive that we're all in it together - not!

[peter]

The UK Government's messaging over the latest rise in Covid infections and how this impacts upon the forthcoming five day 'regulatory break' over the Christmas period is interesting. To scared to actually pull the rug on the relaxation (which allows for the the mixing of unlimited numbers from three different households over the period), it has instead embarked on a campaign of fear propoganda and warning in an attempt to get people not to take advantage of the 'liberties' it has allowed them for this brief period.

In an announcement it said that "Just because you can mix with (whatever) does not mean that you have to or that you should. There will inevitably be a large aspect of personal responsibility in this".

So what it is effectively saying is that if there is a post Christmas upsurge in the infection rate it will be your fault for exceeding the sensible application of the freedoms you have been allowed. This is bullshit. Of course people are going to want to see their families over Christmas - and if they have extended families over three households, how can they not? Which of their offspring, for example, are they going to exclude - which household is going to be excluded from the bubble? Can you see the problems resulting from that? People will use the freedom to the maximum extent it allows not by choice, but because of lack of it. In any normal year it is a real conundrum as to who will spend Christmas where in many families - this time it is a hundred times worse after, in many cases, months of enforced separation.

Get real Government and stop being so duplicitous. Either backtrack on the relaxation or let people enjoy it without putting a cloud of guilt over their heads for doing so and shoulder the consequences. This weak parenting approach of "well you can go if you want, but it's your fault if it goes wrong" helps no-one. In fact you help people more by taking any blame out of the decisions you otherwise force them to make, and simply barring all household mixing for the duration. Either you want to stop the spread of this thing or you don't and the Christmas period is an ideal point at which to engage in a total break while the business of the country is in abeyance anyway.

[Avatar]

Yeah, got some mix and match stuff happening here too over the festive season...another result of course is that nobody is happy. Some say too much restrictions, others, not enough.

--A

[peter]

It's a difficult one Av, and I don't know - maybe the Government approach is the right one...... but from the couple of hundred or so people I served in the shop last night the general feel I got was that people are confused and unhappy with the situation. They don't seem to know what is expected of them - or if they do, it is at odds with what the family pressures demand that they do.

[Avatar]

Well, we know what I think of family pressures, but others doubtless have a different view.

As I've said before, it's mostly down to "restriction fatigue" I think...the virus appears no longer immediate. Also of course, the vaccine may cause everybody to think all is well now, even though it will be months at least before there is widespread positive impact from it.

--A

[peter]

There is no end in sight to this Av, and in the meantime we our gaze is being misdirected away from the millions of people who are being broken by this - not by the virus, not by statistical second waves, but by the mental anguish of seeing their lives torn asunder, the certainties of their existences smashed, the life giving necessity of being able to mix with, to be close to, to share their lives not only with their immediate families, but with their wider family of fellow human beings. Rather than see this, let alone even have the temerity to talk of it, our gaze is kept fixed on the vaccine, the death toll, the petty relaxation for a faux Christmas that must be carried out at a distance, within bubbles, for which we are supposed to be pathetically grateful while we hold our virtual singalongs and pretend we are having fun.

Listen to people's conversation; time was when you could do what you wanted excepting there were laws specifically proscribing it. Now, in so short a time - so short - it has gone volta face and we talk in terms of "if it is allowed", or "depending on whether we are permitted to do it."

At some point someone has to have the balls to stand up and say "Hang on - this is not normal! This is not the way it is meant to be." This will not end until people themselves demand that it must. Otherwise we truly do become a world of slaves and those fashionable T-shirts with the word OBEY stamped on them take on a chillingly prophetic meaning. Governments are too far down a road that allows for no turning back. I say again that there is no end to this but that we the people make it so before it is too late. What we are doing is as futile as trying to hold back autumn by running around sticking the leaves back on the trees. The collateral damage wreaked on our lives, our societies, our futures in the process is more damaging to our collective health, our collective wellbeing, than a thousand Covid viruses could ever be. This must stop.

[I'm Murrin]

Nah

[StevieG]

At some point someone has to have the balls to stand up and say "Hang on - this is not normal! This is not the way it is meant to be." This will not end until people themselves demand that it must. Otherwise we truly do become a world of slaves and those fashionable T-shirts with the word OBEY stamped on them take on a chillingly prophetic meaning. Governments are too far down a road that allows for no turning back. I say again that there is no end to this but that we the people make it so before it is too late. What we are doing is as futile as trying to hold back autumn by running around sticking the leaves back on the trees. The collateral damage wreaked on our lives, our societies, our futures in the process is more damaging to our collective health, our collective wellbeing, than a thousand Covid viruses could ever be. This must stop.

What would you do if you were in power?

[peter]

I'm not. I wear the mask, I socially distance, I obey the rules. I retain the right to state the horror of the place we find ourselves in. I will not be silenced nor bullied into the ranks of what has become a semi-religious demand that we not only abide by what we are instructed, but must also embrace it - be seen to rejoice in it, to be cheerful, to 'make the best of it'.

Fuck that! This is an aberration, an abhorrence, a destructive rendering down of everything we hold dear and with no perceivable end in sight.

I might have to obey the rules, but I don't have to buy into them. I retain my right to be a **** and speak it like it is.

-----------------------------------0----------------------------

Edit: But out of respect for the question (and having blown off some steam ), I would immediately put this thing back into the box where it always should have been kept from the outset, and return it to being the medical problem that it always was. I would immediately lift all restrictions and concentrate efforts on ensuring that our hospitals were in a position to be able to deal with any influx of patients (that there is ample evidence would not be as extreme as was initially feared) that might result - and that they would have been perfectly capable of dealing with had our health services not be stripped to the bone by successive years of cuts and pennypinching post the economic crisis of 2008. I would, should the need arise, utilise the nightingale hospitals as isolation facilities specifically designated for the care of Covid patients and focus concentration on the repurposing of existing therapeutics instead of the hitherto race to develop new and untested products at the expense of using the armoury of tried and tested ones. The success of the use of dexamethasone, initially resisted by the medical community despite the testimony of its efficacy by numerous clinicians, is a case in point here, and the current possibilities as yet unexplored of ivermectin, lend hope that there are yet discoveries to be made in this approach.

But most of all I would attempt to bring this thing back into perspective. I would stop using fear as a means of effecting social control. I would stop this incessant hammering of statistics of death and infection rates down people's throats and try to get them to understand that it's okay to live, okay to get on with life, with business, with all of the things that we do. Coronavirus is a bug. It's a bug that will kill some of us, but still a bug. If the scientists and pandemic experts had not fired it up into the life-changing experience that it has become, most of us would barely have registered its existence. I am not blase about the losses of loved ones, the pain and suffering that results - but we are hardwired to deal with this.

And worst case scenario - millions die. Then I'd take this on the chin. One way or the other, we have to get to the other side of this thing for better or worse. I don't believe it would happen and neither do huge swathes of the scientific community that are thus far being denied a voice. But if it does, if we are wrong, then so be it. The life we are saving on our current course is to me a life not worthy of the name.

[I'm Murrin]

So you're in the "just let people die" camp, huh?

[peter]

No - I'm in the make sure your health service is in the best possible place to keep them alive camp ..... something that the Tories have singularly failed to do for the last fifteen years, and something that when this terrible tragedy is finally laid to rest they should be held accountable for at every general election for the next half century.

We have less ICU beds available now than they did in the nineteen sixties; you simply cannot pare your health service down to the bone and expect it to be in a fit state to deal with a problem of this magnitude, and we have known that something like this was coming for years. But having said that, destroying our economy is not going to help; the lockdown measures, the masks and the tiers are patently not working, or why have the most Draconian measures outside of full lockdown had to be announced mere days before the Christmas relaxation period was due to begin - and this following a steady ramping up of the measures introduced to supposedly slow down transmission over the last however many weeks. I repeat, the measures are not working and the collateral damage they are resulting in, in terms of mental health problems, increased death as a result of missed diagnoses, missed treatments, failure to report problems, the list goes on, is almost incalculable.

This is not just me saying this Murrin. Look out there. Start with the pathologist I referred to a few posts back on YouTube and listen to what she has to say.

("Boris Johnson and Chris Whitty have to start questioning if they are wrong", a Talk Radio interview with Dr Clair Craig, in which she lucidly explains where so much of the thinking on this situation is simply wrong.)