The Coronavirus

[pbrower2a]

(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. 

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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.