- Re: Don't worry -- you've got your wish now, as have all others keen to lock everyone up nm Archived Message
Posted by Sinister Burt
on December 20, 2020, 12:19 pm, in reply to "Don't worry -- you've got your wish now, as have all others keen to lock everyone up nm"
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I just don't want my mum to die sooner than needed for the sake of gdp or the hospitality industry or whatever. And i don't want my sister or myself to catch covid in work and give it to her becasue somebody (meaning the government/upper classes not you) who'll never be under the risks we're asked to be thought that risk could be balanced against the smooth running of the economy (meaning the usual exploitation in most cases). As john mcdonnel said, we can revive an economy but not dead people. The governemnt could just write a big blank cheque for two years worth of money for everybody - it's all funny money anyway (and they did it when banks needed it) - sort out what needs sorting health wise and worry about the economy later - of course they (mostly) wont (or will say they aren't even if they end up having to) - that's just the hegemony of neoliberalism restricting their imaginations (in directions that suit their class position naturally) - but it's perfectly possible. At this stage how else, other than our panicked too-late lockdown, do you deal with the hospitals filling up again? The reason we're where we are right now is because johnson listened to people saying the stuff you've been saying: he had that guptra and heneghan in downing street early september, and they advised him to go against SAGE who were saying we should have a 'firebreak' lockdown then. Guptra claimed the modelling was all wrong - the scary modelling that has now come true almost exactly. If we'd have done that sep lockdown like the scientists advised (and done it properly, including putting schools/unis online for a while) there's a good case to say we'd have ameliorated spread of the disease somehwhat, or at least would have ended up being under lockdown less overall. And to repeat again, if (if) we had proper local public health (including track and trace people) rather than it being basically destroyed since 2012, and shut the airports etc, we could maybe have avoided needing to lockdown so much in the first place; not to mention maybe avoiding having the highest death rate in the world at the same time as the worst economic hit (among the stinky rich countries anyway). It's funny that (as we all said repeatedly) not sorting public health out properly will cost the economy more anyway (the classic false economy) - this is the case under a pandmeic or not (though when the end goal is dismemeberment of the public NHS there may be other motivations for things being done badly). |