Some Covid-19 thoughts
POSTED BY: captaincrunch
UPDATED: Monday, September 29, 2025 18:59
VIEWED: 301579
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Quote:Not very many.
What percentage of those parallel universes do you suppose they're sending their children to school to say the Chinese or the Russian or the German pledge of allegiance while gazing up at a much different looking flag with their hand over their hearts?
SIX, since our military and deep state "interventions" clearly have not benefitted the average person in the USA, or protected our borders, you do have to wonder WHY we intervened. If you look into history, you'll see that (with the glaring exception of WWII, the Korean war, and Vietnam) our wars were primarily for the benefit of transnationals. From our "interventions" in Central America so United Fruit could continue to turn their land into giant banana planations ("banana republics") and our NYC banks could acquire their banking systems to our military base in Northern Australia ("Asia pivot" under Obama) our wars have been primarily for economic or financial reasons. Some of them were to protect "our" resources abroad, some were to protect "our" banking dominance, some were to protect "our" shipping lanes, and most of our Mideast wars were to protect our petrodollar.
Yanno, if you have to enforce your trade at the point of a gun, it's clearly not trade that the partner considers "fair".
Quote:Probably quite quickly. Xi seems particularly sensitive to shipping thru the South China sea and around the Strait of Malacca/Singapore. Also very sensitive about Hong Kong and Taiwan.
The one thing that I'm not at all concerned about right here right now is being invaded by a foreign power in the US. How quickly do you think all those virtue signalers would start balling their eyes out if we completely shut our borders, withdrew all troops, lined up our aircraft carriers and entire Naval fleet on our east and west coast, and stopped any and all foreign aid to them?
I think in 2020 the answer to that question is how fast would Xi take advantage of his new situation.
I think if S Korea, Japan, the Philippines, Taiwan, and SE Asian nations and Australia are really worried about that, they should set up their own defense system. Give them, yanno, five years to get their shit together while you gradually pull the plug.
Same with NATO.
Anyway,this is pretty far away from Covid-19 and only relatable because of military v health care spending.
-----------
Pity would be no more,
If we did not MAKE men poor - William Blake
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Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:Quote:Not very many.
What percentage of those parallel universes do you suppose they're sending their children to school to say the Chinese or the Russian or the German pledge of allegiance while gazing up at a much different looking flag with their hand over their hearts?
SIX, since our military and deep state "interventions" clearly have not benefitted the average person in the USA, or protected our borders, you do have to wonder WHY we intervened. If you look into history, you'll see that (with the glaring exception of WWII, the Korean war, and Vietnam) our wars were primarily for the benefit of transnationals. From our "interventions" in Central America so United Fruit could continue to turn their land into giant banana planations ("banana republics") and our NYC banks could acquire their banking systems to our military base in Northern Australia ("Asia pivot" under Obama) our wars have been primarily for economic or financial reasons. Some of them were to protect "our" resources abroad, some were to protect "our" banking dominance, some were to protect "our" shipping lanes, and most of our Mideast wars were to protect our petrodollar.
I don't mean how many Americans sending their children to school, but those in foreign nations that benefit from our insane military presence. You seem to get that point with the rest of your reply, but didn't get it here, so I wanted to be sure you knew what I meant.
I won't argue at all about your reasons for the why. But that doesn't change the fact that there are a lot of countries in the world that benefit either directly or indirectly from our military, regardless of the true intentions behind it.
Imagine if Pearl Harbor never happened and we never joined WWII. That's the point I'm trying to make.
Quote:
Yanno, if you have to enforce your trade at the point of a gun, it's clearly not trade that the partner considers "fair".
Nope. I don't suppose it is.
Quote:Probably quite quickly. Xi seems particularly sensitive to shipping thru the South China sea and around the Strait of Malacca/Singapore. Also very sensitive about Hong Kong and Taiwan.
The one thing that I'm not at all concerned about right here right now is being invaded by a foreign power in the US. How quickly do you think all those virtue signalers would start balling their eyes out if we completely shut our borders, withdrew all troops, lined up our aircraft carriers and entire Naval fleet on our east and west coast, and stopped any and all foreign aid to them?
I think in 2020 the answer to that question is how fast would Xi take advantage of his new situation.
I think if S Korea, Japan, the Philippines, Taiwan, and SE Asian nations and Australia arer eally worried about that, they should set up their own defense system. Give them, yanno, five years to get their shit together while you gradually pull the plug.
Yup. Like I said, you seemed to be catching what I was throwing with the second part of your reply, but didn't with the first part of it.
Do Right, Be Right. :)
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My reply to the first part was "not very many". I understood what you posted.
Germans would not be pledging allegiance to Russia, and Japanese would not be pledging allegiance to the Chinese. The only two nations truly at risk of a mainland Chinese takeover are Hong Kong (which technically belongs to China anyway) and Taiwan, which China regards as part of it's sovereign territory.
The one thing about having mutiple regional powers is that the Vietnamese can play the Russians against the Chinese, the Indians can play the USA, Chinese, and Russians off against each other; the Italians are actually busy playing Russia and China off against each other, and Germany and France and Poland can form an alliance. I think it would lead to nations with similar interests coalescing together, if nothing else into bloc of "non-aligned" states, instead of being forced into a "with us or against us" alignment with the USA.
-----------
Pity would be no more,
If we did not MAKE men poor - William Blake
#STAYTHEFUCKHOMEg
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Coronavirus: Boris Johnson moved to intensive care as symptoms 'worsen'
T 
Deep state describes dedicated, educated professionals.
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CITIZEN! YOUR PAPERS, PLEASE! (immunity certificates)
Quote:
Some of the first talks of this has originated in the UK. The government could roll out immunity passports to Britons who have already contracted and recovered from the virus so they can reenter the economy, reported The New York Times. (Britain Looking at Virus Immunity Certificates but More Research Needed) https://www.nytimes.com/reuters/2020/04/02/world/europe/02reuters-heal
th-coronavirus-britain-immunity.html
"(An immunity certificate) is an important thing that we will be doing and are looking at but it's too early in the science of the immunity that comes from having had the disease," health minister Matt Hancock said at a Downing Street press conference.
"It's too early in that science to be able to put clarity around that. I wish that we could but the reason that we can't is because the science isn't yet advanced enough," Hancock said.
UK Health Secretary: "We are looking at an immunity certificate. How people who have had the disease, have got the antibodies, and therefore have immunity, can show that, and so get back... as much as possible to normal life." pic.twitter.com/SVLV8U2YwG
— The Hill (@thehill) April 3, 2020
... In Germany, researchers are preparing a study that would see if people already immune to the virus could reenter the workforce and be granted immunity passports.
(Germany To Introduce Coronavirus 'Immunity Certificates' For Recovered Public)
https://www.newsweek.com/germany-antibodies-tests-general-public-immun
ity-certificates-1494934
In Italy, the conservative president of the northeastern Veneto region has proposed an immunity passport for people who possess antibodies that show they are resistant to the virus.
(In Italy, Going Back to Work May Depend on Having the Right Antibodies)
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/04/world/europe/italy-coronavirus-anti
bodies.html
The former prime minister, Matteo Renzi, has called it a "Covid Pass" for the uninfected who can return to their normal lives.
If you have to show papers in order to live a "normal" life, there's nothing normal about it. So don't use "return to normal" as a phrase to make this sound more acceptable.
Another problem: nobody knows how long the antibodies circulate in your blood. A month? A year? Ten years? IF the immunity fades in a year, your certificate also fades.
They'd better make these certificates hard to counterfeit.
And finally, it really would compel people to get vaccinated, when (and if) they ever develop a vaccine, leading to a windfall for the vaccine developer.
It would be better to keep pursuing a successful treatment that you could use even on critical cases.
-----------
Pity would be no more,
If we did not MAKE men poor - William Blake
#STAYTHEFUCKHOME
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Nobody knows if those antibodies are actually protective in the first place. Maybe they are, maybe they aren't. Some people were truly reinfected (not just relapsed) and AFAIK there hasn't been a study on it.
Nobody knows how high an antibody concentration (titer) you need to have to be protected.
Nobody knows how broadly applicable those antibodies might be to minor - or major - variations in the strains going around.
And of course, as you mentioned nobody knows how long they last. They could be like Noro virus (cruise-ship trots) antibodies that fizzle in a few weeks, and there you are, with another lovely case after you just got over your last case.
This is such a medically bunged idea at the least!
And then there are - yeah - the need to have those certificates on you as you go about your life. The enforcement, being stopped, or denied entry, or a return to your workplace. And there's the whole apparatus of testing, recording results, certifying IDs and so on. And all the mischief that goes along with that. Sheesh. "Never let a good crisis go to waste" indeed.
A good treatment, and I think a vaccine would reduce the risks to the same as 'the' flu (as a reminder there are many influenza viruses that go around every year that often occur at the same time! that cause illness). And everybody could decide for themselves what level of risk they'll tolerate with which course of action.
On a different post-COVID topic, no, I don't believe this will remake our economy. Too many people have invested too much money and are making too much money the way things are now. It could CRASH the economy, but so did 2008. And what changed after that?
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Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
My reply to the first part was "not very many". I understood what you posted.
Germans would not be pledging allegiance to Russia, and Japanese would not be pledging allegiance to the Chinese. The only two nations truly at risk of a mainland Chinese takeover are Hong Kong (which technically belongs to China anyway) and Taiwan, which China regards as part of it's sovereign territory.
The one thing about having mutiple regional powers is that the Vietnamese can play the Russians against the Chinese, the Indians can play the USA, Chinese, and Russians off against each other; the Italians are actually busy playing Russia and China off against each other, and Germany and France and Poland can form an alliance. I think it would lead to nations with similar interests coalescing together, if nothing else into bloc of "non-aligned" states, instead of being forced into a "with us or against us" alignment with the USA.
-----------
Pity would be no more,
If we did not MAKE men poor - William Blake
#STAYTHEFUCKHOMEg
You can't just look at it as "what would happen today". There's two different questions here. What would happen if we pulled out everything everywhere today, and what if throughout history, we had not played International Police To The World.
There has been a lot of power shifts over the decades. The only true constant has been the US Military presence, particularly in the last half century but dating back further than that as well. There is no doubt that a map of Europe would look quite a bit different today had the US not gotten involved in WWII.
Again, I don't want to make any mistake that I'm justifying our military budget and everything that we've done at all. I'm just saying that a lot of people in the world take for granted that their lives in many ways are the way that they are because of it. And I'm not talking about the brown people that we exploit and manipulate for oil. I'm talking about friendly nation states that probably wouldn't even be around today in the first place, but certainly wouldn't have been able to skate by on a shoe-string military budget to try to defend their borders if the US military didn't exist.
Canada and Mexico both benefit the most from this, naturally, since they are the countries who share our borders.
Do Right, Be Right. :)
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America’s Pandemic War Games Don’t End Well
The lessons drawn from the 2001 "Dark Winter" exercise provided a stark preview of what the United States would face in 2020.
On June 22, 2001, a group of well-known U.S. officials and a handful of senior policymakers gathered at Andrews Air Force Base in Maryland for a senior-level exercise that simulated a biological weapons attack—an outbreak of deadly smallpox—on the United States. Designed by the Johns Hopkins Center for Civilian Biodefense Strategies (now called the Center for Health Security) and the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), the day-and-a-half-long “Dark Winter” simulation was conducted to gauge how senior leaders would respond to such an attack and included such high-level participants as Sen. Sam Nunn (who played the president), former White House advisor David Gergen (the national security advisor), and the retired career diplomat Frank Wisner (the secretary of state). But Dark Winter has since become legendary in senior policymaking circles in Washington for a different reason: It has regularly been cited by its designers and participants as the clearest exhibit of the spiraling stresses, and potential social collapse, that could be sparked by a public health crisis.
Dark Winter (which stipulates a smallpox attack by an unknown assailant) is not COVID-19 (a disease inadvertently spread by human contact), of course. But the fallout from the coronavirus pandemic bears an eerie resemblance to the simulation: leaders hampered by an inability to address a crisis they hadn’t foreseen (“We’d have been much more comfortable with a terrorist bombing,” Nunn later said in congressional testimony); national decision-making driven by data and expertise from the medical and public health sectors; management options limited by the swift and unpredictable spread of the disease (and a limited stockpile of vaccines); a health care system that lacks the surge capacity to deal with mass casualties; increased tensions between state and federal authorities; the rapid spread of misinformation on cures and treatments for the outbreak (the only way to treat smallpox is to not get it); the difficulty of controlling unpredicted flights of civilians from infected areas; domestic turmoil sparked by political uncertainty (with sporadic rioting—quelled by National Guard units—in large urban areas as grocery stores are shuttered); and an increasing reliance on the willingness (and unwillingness) of individual citizens to self-quarantine to stop the spread of the contagion.
The Dark Winter exercise ended on the second day of the simulation after three long sessions—and purposely without resolution. But then, the exercise’s goal was not to predict the future but to dramatize the issues faced by the federal government during a nationwide health crisis. In this it masterfully succeeded, showing that what begins as a localized disease outbreak (of smallpox appearing in Oklahoma City and then in two other densely populated urban areas) can quickly become a crisis that envelopes the entire nation and the world: State borders become chokepoints crowded with those fleeing the disease, Canada and Mexico close their borders with the United States, and foreign nations restrict the travel of American citizens. There is no worst-case scenario, with the collapse of American democracy, but democratic institutions are severely tested and strained. After Dark Winter was concluded, the participants drew clear lessons from the exercise, focusing on the federal government’s lack of preparation for a public health crisis.
More at https://foreignpolicy.com/2020/04/01/coronavirus-pandemic-war-games-si
mulation-dark-winter/
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly
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For the record, Dark Winter was held under GWB, a Republcian, and therefore a Preident that SECONDRATE hates. So we can discard this example because a Republican thought of it.
-----------
Pity would be no more,
If we did not MAKE men poor - William Blake
#STAYTHEFUCKHOME
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Quote:
Originally posted by THG:
Coronavirus: Boris Johnson moved to intensive care as symptoms 'worsen'
T
Deep state describes dedicated, educated professionals.
Where's your celebration gifs?
We know how happy this makes you to hear. Almost as happy as if you heard that Trump got it.
Do Right, Be Right. :)
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