Day of Chaos 2: a.Covid-19 thread.

[Richard]

The best arguments against Brexit were always that Brussels is less incompetent and less heartless than Westminster. </Brexit>

[sheridan]

The best arguments against Brexit were always that Brussels is less incompetent and less heartless than Westminster. </Brexit>

One friend of mine (before that date in 2017) claimed that the worst thing about the EU was how corrupt it was.  This was at the height of (one of) the expenses scandal(s).

[shaolin_monkey]

Whenis shit is over, it seems like there are some very serious questions to be addressed about how we do things.

Those questions have been asked over and over by UK charities for about a decade now.  It has been widely discussed in such papers as The Guardian and The Independent for many years also.

Does anyone remember the visit from UN Special Rapporteur Phil Alston, and his report on UK poverty?  He put his incredibly damning report in front of Conservatives and they basically denied the existence of starving children.

Here's his report, if anyone is interested:

https://www.ohchr.org/EN/NewsEvents/Pages/DisplayNews.aspx?NewsID=23881&LangID=E


Here's how government reacted:

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2019/may/24/un-poverty-expert-hits-back-over-uk-ministers-denial-of-facts-philip-alston


The point being, I guess, is that we've been screaming this until we are blue in the face for years and nothing has changed. What is the solution though, outside of violent revolution?


Jim - totally hear you.  The media, including FB and Twitter, have been on a massive pogrom of propaganda, lies, half-truths, misinfo, confusion and goodness knows what else with the sole aim of keeping Corbyn out of power.  It is a well established tactic which we have seen from tobacco companies, and also (you've guessed it) the fossil fuel industry re climate change.  Sow doubt and discord to prevent action. The tactics are tried, tested, and incredibly successful.

Anyway, I digress.  Apologies everyone for derailing the thread.

On a COVID-19 related note, I am now working from home.  As is my partner.  I should be glad, but she has a really loud telephone manner, and the kid next door to our spare room where I have set up office plays Kanye West really loud.

On the plus side I've eaten so much cheese the toilet roll shortage won't be an issue.

[Professor Bear]

I'd never truly appreciated the power of the media until the last couple of years, having had multiple conversations with people I would otherwise have thought politically fairly sensible, or at least moderately savvy, absolutely convinced that Corbyn was more or less literally Satan.

Supermarkets are currently stripped of products and people don't even know why they bought them, so I'd say the lie that the media doesn't effectively brainwash people has had its day.

What got me about the incredible reach of right wing media was when I recently had to replace all the tvs in the flat, and so without much choice in the matter I ended up with "smart" tvs, which are like regular tvs but cluttered with pop-up ads like you get on your phone.  It is remarkably easy to get into the Youtube app because it comes right up on the screen as an option, which means that the default news videos on Youtube (from places like the Daily Mail and Telegraph YT channels) are right there on your tv, circumventing television broadcasting regulations and likely being watched uncritically by many old biddies who consider it equivalent to anything they see on BBC news.  I can't even imagine the ramifications of the Youtube recommendations algorithm on any lengthy viewing session that begins with a Daily Mail video.

[blackmocco]

Can't lie, sitting in Los Angeles I'm more concerned about people than viruses. LA is notoriously non-neighbourly. I've lived in places before for years and never gotten to know who lived next door. There's a good argument to be made that maybe this city doesn't have the greatest cross-section of humanity seeing as most of the residents are here to "make it" at any cost and genuine human interaction is kinda the opposite of that goal. (Yes, that's a gross generalisation, I know. Truthfully, the people who were born and grew up here are the only ones immune to the call of the Siren) In any case, everyone is hoarding here, a lot of the supermarkets are stripped to the bone and gun sales are booming. I'm hardly here to defend Ireland and her culture from fault but at least back home, I'd feel reasonably confident that if shit went down, people in the immediate vicinity would have my back and I'd have theirs. My mum died last October and I've been living away from home for over twenty years but I was struck by how caring and concerned all her neighbours were for her the last few years, even those of them that barely knew her. In LA, I'm not confident that kind of neighbourly concern is high on people's agendas. Ugh. Time will tell.

[Funt Solo]

Close schools - starve 1 in 3 kids

This should not be on the list in a civilized nation.

Some quick space math gets 3 million may rely on school meals out of a student population of approximately 10,320,811.

So that's 29% (UK).

In the US, it's 22 million out of 56.6 million, which is 39%. (Highly skewed by area: so in New York City it's 74%.)

I don't know about in the UK, but locally (WA, US) the schools provide meals all through the summer as well: which is why they've been able to quickly start providing takeaway meals during this school closure - they've just switched to the summer model of distribution. The UK could do the same. You could suggest it to your local school, or MP, or..?

---

Moving away from meals, the other thing schools provide is a stable environment and a caring adult presence: which isn't necessarily available at home. In our street, there are at least three elementary age kids who basically look after themselves when school's not on: their parents and other carers are out at work from early to late in poorly paid jobs.

It's not possible to "packed lunch" our way out of those problems.

[IndigoPrime]

Perhaps it’s different elsewhere, but outside of school time, you don’t get anything in the UK. Even in school time, there are major limits. Basically, you get free meals in infant school, but — at mini-IP’s school — have to ‘subscribe’ to milk. In junior school, you start paying for meals. Outside of term time, there are clubs you can join, but they cost money as well.

[Professor Bear]

The point being, I guess, is that we've been screaming this until we are blue in the face for years and nothing has changed. What is the solution though, outside of violent revolution?

Your ideas are intriguing to me and I wish to subscribe to your newsletter.

[IndigoPrime]

Schools closing from Friday.

[sheridan]

Schools closing from Friday.

Though some nurseries and private schools will be involved in taking on children of NHS and other priority workers. 

Exams are suspended for this year.  Children will somehow still get qualifications - quite how has not been revealed, and it's Boris Johnson so details are not in evidence.

[Funt Solo]

I've never been a Boris fan, but it's not his fault that this is difficult and doesn't have easy answers. I defy anyone to come up with easy answers to almost any question about daily life at the moment.

How do we educate with closed schools? How do we pay for things without an income?

You can generalize the question: how do we carry on as before when we can't carry on as before? Even realizing what the question is, is difficult. Assume you solve the question of qualifications: do we then send people off to college and university in the Autumn? Or are we still in lock-down then? What jobs exist then? What is the timescale of the curve-flattening exercise?

I predict rationing. And more military involvement. And nationalization of vital industries.

[TordelBack]

Or to put it another way: it's total war.

But this time with a virus, not a nation.

This is a familiar if horribly difficult concept, but if we refuse to let our vulnerable be murdered en masse by this thing, which we unequivocally do, then we must accept that the whole of our society and economy has to be redirected to this end for the time being.

And when we win, which we will at enormous cost, we have to take a long hard look like at ourselves and decide what we are prepared to do to stop this happening again.

[shaolin_monkey]

While you’re doing that, please also prep for the droughts, floods, heatwaves, sea level rise and crop failure that are already with us but getting exponentially worse every year. To quote an archaeologist:

“You really, truly do not want to see the text chains being sent between archaeologists who study collapse of civilizations.”

We need to be ready to rock once we’re through this, ‘cos worse is on its way.

[Jim_Campbell]

At this point, money is exposed as the fiction that it is. The government has two options—pretend that all the old economic ‘realities’ still apply and let a few hundred thousand people die, or adopt some policies that three months ago we were told were communist heresy and would mean the end of the world.

[Dandontdare]

My  nephew's a primary school teacher and even though they're still open to the end of the week, attendance was about 20% yesterday.

"I hope you're not going shopping"  I said to my mum. "Of course not" she replied, "if we need any bits, your dad gets them when he picks up the newspaper" 

Although I think the seriousness is sinking in as she was shocked that there was no gin in Aldi on Monday.

I told work I'd just flown back from Canaries and that I felt fine, no temperature, but I do have a chesty cough (mainly from smoking too much) - they told me not to come in!