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The Coronavirus
(05-09-2020, 01:10 AM)Classic-Xer Wrote: I don't know if I have COVID19 or not or if I may have already had it in early JANUARY. If I did, I'm not aware of anyone who gotten severely sick or died. I could say that you fear dying from COVID19 and only seem to care about yourself and you don't seem to care about how much sacrifice is imposed and expected by others to keep you and others from getting it. As far as my grandma? My grandma passed away a long time ago. If she was alive today, she wouldn't expect me to do what you and others expect others to do to keep you alive. YOU ARE RIGHT, WE HAVE DIFFERENT VALUES AND I'VE PROVEN TIME AFTER TIME THAT MY VALUES ARE STRONGER AND HAVE A MUCH BROADER APPEAL THAN YOUR VALUES. The fact is that  FDR doubled down on what Hoover had already started and then resided over a sluggish economy until the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor.

Here's a hint: dying is a pretty big sacrifice to expect of anyone.!
Intelligence is not knowledge and knowledge is not wisdom, but they all play well together.
Reply
(05-09-2020, 10:10 AM)David Horn Wrote: I'll be honest, I can't fathom the logic of Trump's response to a threat that will fall directly on him (his #1, if not only, concern).  No advanced country, as well as most of the third world countries, has done as poorly as the USA.  We are intentionally pathetic. In my opinion, it's criminal.

Ignoring the problem and the science is a go to Republican approach to anything. Admitting you are wrong isn't something that Trump does. Mix the two together, and you get to Trump's response.

It is looking like he will stick with the current approach.
That this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom, and that government of the people, by the people, for the people shall not perish from the earth.
Reply
(05-08-2020, 09:00 PM)Classic-Xer Wrote:
(05-08-2020, 07:46 PM)pbrower2a Wrote: Just a reminder -- today is the seventy-fifth anniversary of the formal surrender of the demonic Third Reich, and it would be a day of gigantic festivals of celebration except that a tiny virus has prevented those. Technically the celebration was on the Ninth in the USSR because the Soviets had their own ceremony in Berlin due to logistical difficulties of getting their top generals to France...

It may be ironic that the two German generals who signed the surrenders (Alfred Jodl in Reims and Wihelm Keitel in Berlin) would be tried as major war criminals, be convicted, and be hanged for those crimes. The war was over in Europe, and there has since been no war between the major powers in Europe since them. Fear, yes, due to ideological differences and a missionary desire to establish dominion in the name of the ideology of the main winners. Free-wheeling capitalism and barracks socialism are diametric opposites in economics and politics.

The sort of war that had been commonplace in Europe as one despotic leader got angry and started a war to punish an affront was over. Democracy would become the norm... if abortively behind the Iron Curtain. Fascism died everywhere in Europe except in Spain and Portugal, whose leaders managed to stay out of the war. (It turns out that Churchill bribed Franco in Spain and Salazar in Portugal, which was a good deal for all concerned).

Who cares about that? Who cares that the Russian Generals only had easy access and the power to celebrate their victory in  East Germany and East Berlin for obvious reasons? A tiny bug stopped the NHL season, the NHL playoffs and the Stanley Cup Final and stopped thousands of concerts that would have taken place in their arenas across the country during the off season and eliminated the jobs of millions of local people who work there. That's just one example of many, many, many examples of economic losses that liberals are ignoring right now. The Minnesota Twins, the Minnesota taxpayers and the city of Minneapolis are paying for an empty stadium right now. The city of Minneapolis and Minneapolis residents are absorbing/seeing it's economic loss right now.

You grossly misunderstand historical reality. One does not celebrate final victory in a war zone. The German Army had disintegrated in the western parts of Germany because the German Army had nothing worth fighting for. The Americans, British, and Free French were well behaved, and about all that the Germans were going to miss was Nazism. The fear that the Gestapo enforced would never re-appear. So swastika flags, copies of Mein Kampf, portraits of Nazi leaders, and statures of Hitler get trashed.  In contrast Berlin was a war zone into the very early part of May even after Hitler blew his brains out and Josef Goebbels offed himself. German troops continued fighting in part to defend German females from rape. But once Berlin was no longer a war zone, the German Armed Forces could surrender at any place of convenience. 

If in western Germany the Wehrmacht had lost the cause to fight, in eastern Germany the Wehrmacht lost the means by which to fight. Once Berlin was safe for a surrender ceremony that American, British, and French officials could participate could the Soviet Army get the highest-ranking member of the Wehrmacht surrender.  

The formal division of Germany would happen later, although it was already agreed upon. 

........................

So a "tiny" bug (actually a virus) could stop your precious NHL season? It also stopped the 75th anniversary of VE-Day, which could have been a huge celebration. It has also stopped the Final Four in the NCAA, it has stopped the NBA playoffs, it has stopped the start of the 2020 MLB Season, the Triple Crown of racing, the start of the WNBA... it put ends to opera and symphony concert seasons... lots of local spring festivals, and made a travesty of many people's school years. It has put a damper on dating, marriages, and coming-of-age festivals. That is before I mention commerce, the Holy Grail of a capitalist society.

Most significantly in America it has put an end to the lives of over 78,000 lives. I hope that that is no triviality to you. It could have killed more had some state governors not declared emergencies so profound as to cause stay-at-home-orders. Millions of Americans hate what is going on, and I concede that we will probably start doing more of what we enjoy doing as the danger abates or conduct ourselves in fitting ways -- like wearing masks, spraying or wiping things off with disinfectants,  and washing our hands obsessively.  We will adapt or die, and we will innovate to evade a tiny virus. 

Small things can kill.  So it is with small amounts of venom, drugs, chemical reagents, radioactive materials, bacteria, and viruses. Need I continue?
The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated Communist  but instead the people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists -- Hannah Arendt.


Reply
(05-09-2020, 10:21 AM)David Horn Wrote: China is several times our size and less wealthy per capita by far.  They managed to do better 

Far from clear.  They say they did better, but some statistics point to a lot of population loss in Wuhan.
Reply
Ordinarily I would put this in Obituaries, but if anyone wants to know how effective  COVID-19 is in killing people who should have everything going for them (except age) in avoiding death from a respiratory disease...


Dimitris Kremastinos (GreekΔημήτρης Κρεμαστινό; 1 May 1942 – 8 May 2020) was a Greek politician, physician, Professor of Cardiology at the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, and member of the European Academy of Sciences and Arts. He had served as Minister of Health and Welfare and Social Security, Chairman of the Standing Committee on Social Affairs of the Hellenic Parliament, and in 2015 was elected Vice-President of the Hellenic Parliament. He was elected MP of the Dodecanese with PASOK and the Democratic Alignment. He was the personal physician of Andreas Papandreou.[1]

On 26 March 2020, he was admitted to the Evangelismos Hospital in Athens, due to a severe infection with COVID-19. He died at the hospital on 8 May 2020.[2][3]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dimitris_Kremastinos
The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated Communist  but instead the people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists -- Hannah Arendt.


Reply
(05-09-2020, 10:33 AM)David Horn Wrote:
(05-09-2020, 01:10 AM)Classic-Xer Wrote: I don't know if I have COVID19 or not or if I may have already had it in early JANUARY. If I did, I'm not aware of anyone who gotten severely sick or died. I could say that you fear dying from COVID19 and only seem to care about yourself and you don't seem to care about how much sacrifice is imposed and expected by others to keep you and others from getting it. As far as my grandma? My grandma passed away a long time ago. If she was alive today, she wouldn't expect me to do what you and others expect others to do to keep you alive. YOU ARE RIGHT, WE HAVE DIFFERENT VALUES AND I'VE PROVEN TIME AFTER TIME THAT MY VALUES ARE STRONGER AND HAVE A MUCH BROADER APPEAL THAN YOUR VALUES. The fact is that  FDR doubled down on what Hoover had already started and then resided over a sluggish economy until the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor.

Here's a hint: dying is a pretty big sacrifice to expect of anyone.!
Like I said, pick your poison. We have people out there every day of the week working to keep you fed, keep that social security system that you are tapping viable, keeping the roof over your head in your possession and so forth. Why are you here preaching to me? Should you be preaching to me? I'm not expecting you to die, whether you live or die, is up to you and I'm sure that you will take every precaution, do whatever it takes and pay whatever expense there is to keep yourself protected. I'm pretty sure that you can afford and wouldn't mind hunkering down for a couple of years as COVID19 gradually disappears and becomes a non issue as the rest of us go about our business and our lives so to speak.

Do you want to live out the rest of your life in China? I'm sure we can help make that happen. It isn't all that much different than the good old Soviet Union. I wonder how many COVID19 people are buried in mass graves within China? I wonder how many COVID19 people were rounded up and executed like sick cattle?
Reply
(05-09-2020, 11:12 AM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote:
(05-09-2020, 10:10 AM)David Horn Wrote: I'll be honest, I can't fathom the logic of Trump's response to a threat that will fall directly on him (his #1, if not only, concern).  No advanced country, as well as most of the third world countries, has done as poorly as the USA.  We are intentionally pathetic. In my opinion, it's criminal.

Ignoring the problem and the science is a go to Republican approach to anything.  Admitting you are wrong isn't something that Trump does.  Mix the two together, and you get to Trump's response.

It is looking like he will stick with the current approach.
Ignoring the problem and the science seems to be what you're doing these days. If the science says that 99 out of 100 are likely to survive, do you stop everything and hold back all progress for the one percent? You better wake up.
Reply
(05-09-2020, 12:44 PM)Warren Dew Wrote:
(05-09-2020, 10:21 AM)David Horn Wrote: China is several times our size and less wealthy per capita by far.  They managed to do better 

Far from clear.  They say they did better, but some statistics point to a lot of population loss in Wuhan.

Well, they managed to lie better at least, for the moment.
That this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom, and that government of the people, by the people, for the people shall not perish from the earth.
Reply
(05-09-2020, 03:59 PM)Classic-Xer Wrote: Ignoring the problem and the science seems to be what you're doing these days. If the science says that 99 out of 100 are likely to survive, do you stop everything and hold back all progress for the one percent? You better wake up.

One percent of everybody is more than most people are willing to accept without fighting it as best they can.
That this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom, and that government of the people, by the people, for the people shall not perish from the earth.
Reply
(05-09-2020, 02:50 AM)Classic-Xer Wrote:
(05-09-2020, 12:15 AM)Eric the Green Wrote: And do you think that a president and a Party that refuses to make tests and masks available and keep money away from those who need it, are going to distribute a vaccine to all when it is developed and approved? NO, they will NOT. If you vote for them, you are voting for indefinite sickness and depression, as well as the permanent removal of democracy, our only viable remedy to this horrid misrule.

Like I said, if you don't mind food shortages and seeing lots of violence, we'll wait however long it takes for billions of tests and billions of masks that are on order. It would be nice if we could snap our fingers or flip switch and be back to normal tomorrow. Do liberals live in fantasy or what?  Remember, there is a global pandemic and every country needs them as much as us. So, what is your problem, don't you understand or don't you know what to do/say when with other who understand a lot more than you and others around here do these days?

Food shortages have been slow to develop, and they mostly reflect bad hygiene in food-processing places in which keeping production costs down mattered more than keeping the workers therein safe. We got incredibly cheap food for a long time, but that is over. 

Here is a basic reality of economics: low prices are nice, but they are meaningless unless one has a reliable supply. Just look at Venezuela, where the "socialist" government kept prices low on paper but had extreme shortages that made those low prices a fantasy.  Because meat-processing places will no longer be able to pressure sick people to work out of fear of being fired and will no longer get to impose the crowding that was once the norm, we will probably see big increases in food costs.
The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated Communist  but instead the people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists -- Hannah Arendt.


Reply
(05-09-2020, 12:01 PM)pbrower2a Wrote: You grossly misunderstand historical reality. One does not celebrate final victory in a war zone. The German Army had disintegrated in the western parts of Germany because the German Army had nothing worth fighting for. The Americans, British, and Free French were well behaved, and about all that the Germans were going to miss was Nazism. The fear that the Gestapo enforced would never re-appear. So swastika flags, copies of Mein Kampf, portraits of Nazi leaders, and statures of Hitler get trashed.  In contrast Berlin was a war zone into the very early part of May even after Hitler blew his brains out and Josef Goebbels offed himself. German troops continued fighting in part to defend German females from rape. But once Berlin was no longer a war zone, the German Armed Forces could surrender at any place of convenience. 

If in western Germany the Wehrmacht had lost the cause to fight, in eastern Germany the Wehrmacht lost the means by which to fight. Once Berlin was safe for a surrender ceremony that American, British, and French officials could participate could the Soviet Army get the highest-ranking member of the Wehrmacht surrender.  

The formal division of Germany would happen later, although it was already agreed upon. 

........................

So a "tiny" bug (actually a virus) could stop your precious NHL season? It also stopped the 75th anniversary of VE-Day, which could have been a huge celebration. It has also stopped the Final Four in the NCAA, it has stopped the NBA playoffs, it has stopped the start of the 2020 MLB Season, the Triple Crown of racing, the start of the WNBA... it put ends to opera and symphony concert seasons... lots of local spring festivals, and made a travesty of many people's school years. It has put a damper on dating, marriages, and coming-of-age festivals. That is before I mention commerce, the Holy Grail of a capitalist society.

Most significantly in America it has put an end to the lives of over 78,000 lives. I hope that that is no triviality to you. It could have killed more had some state governors not declared emergencies so profound as to cause stay-at-home-orders. Millions of Americans hate what is going on, and I concede that we will probably start doing more of what we enjoy doing as the danger abates or conduct ourselves in fitting ways -- like wearing masks, spraying or wiping things off with disinfectants,  and washing our hands obsessively.  We will adapt or die, and we will innovate to evade a tiny virus. 

Small things can kill.  So it is with small amounts of venom, drugs, chemical reagents, radioactive materials, bacteria, and viruses. Need I continue?
A close relation of the family who served under Patton as an infantryman assigned with the American 3rd Army, a veteran of the Battle of the Bulge who also survived crossing the Rhine River three times (twice over once back) was stationed just outside of Berlin as ordered, as the Russian army went in and finished off the Third Reich as planned.

I've never ignored the fact that lives are being lost or ignored the fact that the disease can be really dangerous for some or ignored the fact that there's an active pandemic. You can focus on the deaths and continue to ignore the needs and the rights of the living and continue stressing the amount of death. If the 78,000 could vote do you think the majority of them would vote to take away the weddings and graduation ceremonies of their grandchildren, the lively hoods of their children, grand children and millions of other working American. I've heard the price of a barrel of oil is -$30.00 which means the tax revenue is a minus too. I've also heard that food producers are killing livestock and crop growers are holding off on planting crops and manufactures are holding off on manufacturing goods and so forth. I don't know if this is a sign of what's to come as far as liberals/Progressives go but a local news channel recently cleaned house and got rid of a group of political activists who viewed themselves as being immune for some dumb reason. I suppose the fear of being sued enables some to develop as sense of immunity to not being held the same standard as everyone else.
Reply
(05-09-2020, 11:12 AM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote:
(05-09-2020, 10:10 AM)David Horn Wrote: I'll be honest, I can't fathom the logic of Trump's response to a threat that will fall directly on him (his #1, if not only, concern).  No advanced country, as well as most of the third world countries, has done as poorly as the USA.  We are intentionally pathetic. In my opinion, it's criminal.

Ignoring the problem and the science is a go to Republican approach to anything.  Admitting you are wrong isn't something that Trump does.  Mix the two together, and you get to Trump's response.

It is looking like he will stick with the current approach.

It's one thing to shoot yourself in the foot and quite another to shoot yourself in the brain.  Donald tried the latter several times and, so far, he's missed.  That can't go on forever.
Intelligence is not knowledge and knowledge is not wisdom, but they all play well together.
Reply
(05-09-2020, 12:44 PM)Warren Dew Wrote:
(05-09-2020, 10:21 AM)David Horn Wrote: China is several times our size and less wealthy per capita by far.  They managed to do better 

Far from clear.  They say they did better, but some statistics point to a lot of population loss in Wuhan.

There is little reason to think that we're less pathetic than the Chinese. After all, they had the entire supply chain In their country.  Response is a lot easier when you already make what you need.  The Orange One decided that using the DPA was embarrassing, so here we are.  I blame our business culture first, and Trump second, if that's any solace.
Intelligence is not knowledge and knowledge is not wisdom, but they all play well together.
Reply
(05-09-2020, 03:46 PM)Classic-Xer Wrote:
(05-09-2020, 10:33 AM)David Horn Wrote:
(05-09-2020, 01:10 AM)Classic-Xer Wrote: I don't know if I have COVID19 or not or if I may have already had it in early JANUARY. If I did, I'm not aware of anyone who gotten severely sick or died. I could say that you fear dying from COVID19 and only seem to care about yourself and you don't seem to care about how much sacrifice is imposed and expected by others to keep you and others from getting it. As far as my grandma? My grandma passed away a long time ago. If she was alive today, she wouldn't expect me to do what you and others expect others to do to keep you alive. YOU ARE RIGHT, WE HAVE DIFFERENT VALUES AND I'VE PROVEN TIME AFTER TIME THAT MY VALUES ARE STRONGER AND HAVE A MUCH BROADER APPEAL THAN YOUR VALUES. The fact is that  FDR doubled down on what Hoover had already started and then resided over a sluggish economy until the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor.

Here's a hint: dying is a pretty big sacrifice to expect of anyone.!

Like I said, pick your poison. We have people out there every day of the week working to keep you fed, keep that social security system that you are tapping viable, keeping the roof over your head in your possession and so forth. Why are you here preaching to me? Should you be preaching to me? I'm not expecting you to die, whether you live or die, is up to you and I'm sure that you will take every precaution, do whatever it takes and pay whatever expense there is to keep yourself protected. I'm pretty sure that you can afford and wouldn't mind hunkering down for a couple of years as COVID19 gradually disappears and becomes a non issue as the rest of us go about our business and our lives so to speak.

Do you want to live out the rest of your life in China? I'm sure we can help make that happen. It isn't all that much different than the good old Soviet Union. I wonder how many COVID19 people are buried in mass graves within China? I wonder how many COVID19 people were rounded up and executed like sick cattle?

There is vast difference between essential services and ones that aren't. Sorry, but nail salons and gyms are luxuries, not necessities … but it's the economy, isn't it?  Rolleyes 

So, where's the trade-off between life and profit?  I come down hard on the side of life, because focusing on the profit side above human life is immoral, in my opinion.  You seem to take the other tack, so tell me how this works if the number of cases rises again and open/close decisions need to be made? 

Then, take a few minutes to read how this should have been done from the git-go.
Intelligence is not knowledge and knowledge is not wisdom, but they all play well together.
Reply
(05-09-2020, 07:05 PM)Classic-Xer Wrote: … I've never ignored the fact that lives are being lost or ignored the fact that the disease can be really dangerous for some or ignored the fact that there's an active pandemic. You can focus on the deaths and continue to ignore the needs and the rights of the living and continue stressing the amount of death. If the 78,000 could vote do you think the majority of them would vote to take away the weddings and graduation ceremonies of their grandchildren, the lively hoods of their children, grand children and millions of other working American...

Why does the one lead to the other? Keeping people alive does not involve squashing their dreams like a grape. Quite to the contrary. Where do you get this? Read the article at the link I included in my last post.
Intelligence is not knowledge and knowledge is not wisdom, but they all play well together.
Reply
(05-10-2020, 08:58 AM)David Horn Wrote: It's one thing to shoot yourself in the foot and quite another to shoot yourself in the brain.  Donald tried the latter several times and, so far, he's missed.  That can't go on forever.

I don't know. It's such a small target. Rolleyes
That this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom, and that government of the people, by the people, for the people shall not perish from the earth.
Reply
The CDC normally puts forth rather blunt documents saying what to do with a particular health threat.  They have not done so with the virus as the White House wanted a different public relations message to get out.  The CDC has prepped messages, but either they get watered down or cancelled due to administration censorship.

That is one thing that can be done in the crisis end never again conferences.  Somebody might tell The World Health Organization to ignore the politicians and to do what the CDC usually does, to write blunt, scientific advice on how to respond to a given health threat.  There might be a treaty written that if the WHO wants to investigate a health threat, nobody stops their investigators.

Another thing to be done might be to make sure each country has good reserves of things like PPE and ventilators or things like ventilators that might be required to counter other sorts of bugs.  They might even create their own reserves for countries with governments without be prepared mentalities, though there is the temptation to let such countries stew in their own juices.

Anything else that might happen at crisis end?
That this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom, and that government of the people, by the people, for the people shall not perish from the earth.
Reply
(05-10-2020, 09:13 AM)David Horn Wrote: There is vast difference between essential services and ones that aren't. Sorry, but nail salons and gyms are luxuries, not necessities … but it's the economy, isn't it?  Rolleyes 

So, where's the trade-off between life and profit?  I come down hard on the side of life, because focusing on the profit side above human life is immoral, in my opinion.  You seem to take the other tack, so tell me how this works if the number of cases rises again and open/close decisions need to be made? 

Then, take a few minutes to read how this should have been done from the git-go.
Technically, air conditioning is a luxury too. It's fortunate that most people don't view it that way anymore these days. Profit??? You are looking at this as trade-off between life and profit? Boy are you stupid..... So, how long would you survive without any income these days? I'm assume that you still rely of a source or sources of income like most everyone else these days. I assume that you feel that those income sources of yours or your wife's are pretty secure and therefore a non concern by the mindless liberal position you're taking with me. Dude, you are right up there with the movie stars and musicians who seem so elitist and so disconnected from reality these days.

Dude, if there was a way to remove all of your income, all the income of your well to do politicians, well to do heirs of past robber barons, well to do actors, well to do musicians I would do it just to hear what the liberals sound like when they're REALLY HURT and to teach you all a lesson about the weakness/absence of values? Are you an essential person? I don't think you're as essential as the salon owner and her employees or the bar owner and their employees or the baseball team owners and all their employees and so on. I would sacrifice you for the greater good of all those people in a heartbeat and I would accept some personal risk to get all those people back to work and earning income. Right now, the COVID19 survivors significantly out number the COVID19 dead by a wide margin. Yes, the more free we are the greater the chance for someone like you to get it and possibly die from it. Well, it's up to you to protect yourself if you are at higher risk.
Reply
(05-10-2020, 09:21 AM)David Horn Wrote:
(05-09-2020, 07:05 PM)Classic-Xer Wrote: … I've never ignored the fact that lives are being lost or ignored the fact that the disease can be really dangerous for some or ignored the fact that there's an active pandemic. You can focus on the deaths and continue to ignore the needs and the rights of the living and continue stressing the amount of death. If the 78,000 could vote do you think the majority of them would vote to take away the weddings and graduation ceremonies of their grandchildren, the lively hoods of their children, grand children and millions of other working American...

Why does the one lead to the other?  Keeping people alive does not involve squashing their dreams like a grape.  Quite to the contrary.  Where do you get this?  Read the article at the link I included in my last post.
I don't need to read an article of yours when I understand the importance of life, sharing life's experiences with loved ones and so forth and understand there overall relevance to the living/survivors  these days. You are nothing to me at this point. You keep fucking with peoples income and keep fucking with the lives and dreams of the living and continue being dismissive and continue dictating what it is essential or not, these lives matter more than those lives then you and others here are going to learn what it's like to die in a world of hurt and complete rejection so to speak.  Liberals don't get it, liberals never got it which is why the liberals have never amounted to much as a group and rely on one way approaches and cheating systems. Liberals are going down and the liberals are determining how hard the liberals will be going down. I think it's quite fitting myself. I'm a mean old liberation who doesn't have a problem with morons destroying themselves and the morons related related to them.
Reply
(05-09-2020, 07:05 PM)Classic-Xer Wrote:
(05-09-2020, 12:01 PM)pbrower2a Wrote: You grossly misunderstand historical reality. One does not celebrate final victory in a war zone. The German Army had disintegrated in the western parts of Germany because the German Army had nothing worth fighting for. The Americans, British, and Free French were well behaved, and about all that the Germans were going to miss was Nazism. The fear that the Gestapo enforced would never re-appear. So swastika flags, copies of Mein Kampf, portraits of Nazi leaders, and statures of Hitler get trashed.  In contrast Berlin was a war zone into the very early part of May even after Hitler blew his brains out and Josef Goebbels offed himself. German troops continued fighting in part to defend German females from rape. But once Berlin was no longer a war zone, the German Armed Forces could surrender at any place of convenience. 

If in western Germany the Wehrmacht had lost the cause to fight, in eastern Germany the Wehrmacht lost the means by which to fight. Once Berlin was safe for a surrender ceremony that American, British, and French officials could participate could the Soviet Army get the highest-ranking member of the Wehrmacht surrender.  

The formal division of Germany would happen later, although it was already agreed upon. 

........................

So a "tiny" bug (actually a virus) could stop your precious NHL season? It also stopped the 75th anniversary of VE-Day, which could have been a huge celebration. It has also stopped the Final Four in the NCAA, it has stopped the NBA playoffs, it has stopped the start of the 2020 MLB Season, the Triple Crown of racing, the start of the WNBA... it put ends to opera and symphony concert seasons... lots of local spring festivals, and made a travesty of many people's school years. It has put a damper on dating, marriages, and coming-of-age festivals. That is before I mention commerce, the Holy Grail of a capitalist society.

Most significantly in America it has put an end to the lives of over 78,000 lives. I hope that that is no triviality to you. It could have killed more had some state governors not declared emergencies so profound as to cause stay-at-home-orders. Millions of Americans hate what is going on, and I concede that we will probably start doing more of what we enjoy doing as the danger abates or conduct ourselves in fitting ways -- like wearing masks, spraying or wiping things off with disinfectants,  and washing our hands obsessively.  We will adapt or die, and we will innovate to evade a tiny virus. 

Small things can kill.  So it is with small amounts of venom, drugs, chemical reagents, radioactive materials, bacteria, and viruses. Need I continue?

A close relation of the family who served under Patton as an infantryman assigned with the American 3rd Army, a veteran of the Battle of the Bulge who also survived crossing the Rhine River three times (twice over once back) was stationed just outside of Berlin as ordered, as the Russian army went in and finished off the Third Reich as planned.

Many Germans turned tail and fled west so that they could surrender to the Americans or British rather than to the Soviet Army.The Third Reich crumbled quickly west of the Elbe because most German soldiers no longer had much for which to fight. I have seen footage of the American entry into Munich.  People seemed to have the expression "So what?" in a city designated as the "Capital of the Nazi Movement" until Americans started dismantling signs so suggesting. Munich is the city in which Hitler staged his infamous Beer-Hall Putsch in 1923).

Quote:I've never ignored the fact that lives are being lost or ignored the fact that the disease can be really dangerous for some or ignored the fact that there's an active pandemic. You can focus on the deaths and continue to ignore the needs and the rights of the living and continue stressing the amount of death. If the 78,000 could vote do you think the majority of them would vote to take away the weddings and graduation ceremonies of their grandchildren, the lively hoods of their children, grand children and millions of other working American.

Death is inevitable for us all, but there are few things worth dying for. Saving more lives, maybe. American combat deaths are smaller than the Jewish population alone in America, and it is safe to assume what Hitler would have done to American Jews had he had the chance. Taking risks to save lives and those risks sometimes resulting in death to a hero? Heroic death is a tragedy even if it serves a noble purpose. Promoting human dignity? The world is better off without slavery, racist oppression, and all forms of despotism. Heroic death in the elimination of tyranny is still tragic; dying on behalf of oppression is pointless. A German or Japanese soldier of World War II died for nothing. And don't let me get into Commie horrors in the Soviet Union, China, Cambodia, and North Korea -- or the genocide involved in the enslavement of Africans to toil in the New World. There will be deaths involving construction, transportation, and industrial production. Rebuilding, bypassing and closing, or replacing "Blood Alley" can reduce traffic deaths more than the toll of  deaths that arise from construction deaths. 

80.000 deaths from COVID-19 now? Some may have been doomed anyway, but so one could say of old people driven into gas chambers in the demonic Third Reich. Obviously the most pointless deaths are the ones called murder... and killing someone 75 years old with terminal cancer is not treated any more leniently than  murdering an infant. 

President Trump may not be a direct murderer, but he certainly has blood on his hands, so to speak.  

Quote:      I've heard the price of a barrel of oil is -$30.00 which means the tax revenue is a minus too. I've also heard that food producers are killing livestock and crop growers are holding off on planting crops and manufactures are holding off on manufacturing goods and so forth.

It's a mixed bag, Food consumption is not in decline. Certain foods are less available if they are elaborate to prepare (many sea-food items) or more difficult to get. Some food-processing plants are in hiatus because of COViD-19 outbreaks. I'm going to give you the [citation needed] warning about planting crops. The problem with the oil industry is that production went up to meet what was then a rising amount of energy use. As production fell and fewer people commute, fewer people buy as much gasoline. 

(Don't argue with me on basic economics. My BA is in economics).

I am predicting that our food will be more expensive because the profit-maximizing behaviors that allowed super-cheap food in the last few years has suddenly become excessively dangerous to people who process the food. The transition from one market paradigm to another is't always perfect for the consumer.  

Quote:I don't know if this is a sign of what's to come as far as liberals/Progressives go but a local news channel recently cleaned house and got rid of a group of political activists who viewed themselves as being immune for some dumb reason. I suppose the fear of being sued enables some to develop as sense of immunity to not being held the same standard as everyone else.

Again, I'm going to give you the [citation needed] warning because (1) I am unfamiliar with the Twin Cities' media as you are, and (2) there is much turnover of television journalists. If the TV journalist has gone off to another city he (no gender assumption, please) may be at the end of a contract. For example, be really good at WCCO-TV (Twin Cities), and WBBM-TV  (Chicago) might be interested.  Some retire and some go off to other things, like academia or politics.   

Participation in partisan politics is generally a violation of terms of a contract, which is where Keith Olbermann got into trouble with MSNBC.
The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated Communist  but instead the people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists -- Hannah Arendt.


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