World Politics

[deanb]

Yeah, a lot of places over here have started looking at the stats like that rather than just the government given data (which is purely limited to hospital only cases, with confirmed covid. So missing out anyone that wasn't tested, or anyone that died outside hospitals which we already know to be a few thousand in care homes have died from it).

Our official figure is ~21,000. Our actual "above average" figure puts us at ~50,000, which is more than double what the government is saying.

[TheMightyEthan]

Man, whatever Denmark is doing seems to be working.

[deanb]

Went into lockdown nearly two weeks before us, and pretty much in one go. Also being Scandinavian pretty intense social net packages too, so closing down work wasn't as impactful on employees as it is in other nations.

This'll be something that'll keep statisticians busy for years, if not decades, to come.

[MetalCaveman]

I would be interested in seeing that info for Mexico, a lot of deaths are just being reported as atypical pneumonia, and with only a small amount of cases being tested real numbers may be way higher than reported.

 

Then again, given we're in line for out bloodiest/most violent year in a while, I wonder how would that affect the data.

 

[TheMightyEthan]

2 hours ago, MetalCaveman said:

Then again, given we're in line for out bloodiest/most violent year in a while, I wonder how would that affect the data.

 

Yeah, that would make it harder, cause you can't just assume all extra deaths are due to the virus.

[MetalCaveman]

Some big-name business owners made a deal with BID (Inter-American Development Bank) to offer credits to small and medium business owners, that they can keep afloat while this lasts, the president is pissed at this, probably the most furious he's been (at least live, during his press conferences). The thing is that, from my understanding, credits will come FROM the bank, and won't incur in costs to the government, the president argues that he won't pay to "save corrupt neoliberals, when 60 million poor people die*", however, if this is entirely from the private sector then he has no reason to complain.

 

*Of course, instead of spending more on hospitals, safety, schools, roads, etc, which would actually benefit people, he'll spend billions upon billions on his pet projects, ensuring these cannot be affected in any way shape or form regardless of economic or health crisis, while also increasing and adding new taxes, most of which will affect the poor people he claims to protect.

 

In other news, attacks against doctors and nurses continue, a nurse talked about how some kids threw soda and water at her when she was going to get some coffee at a convenience store, then the mother of the kids walked out and the two got into a fight, in the end, the nurse ended with two broken fingers.

 

In a separate case, a nurse was headed for work when two people tried to steal her stuff, when they saw her uniform they said (according to her) "This is one of them doctors who are infecting us! Beat the shit out of her, teach her a lesson!" they then proceeded to kick her while she was down on the ground.

 

Those were two of many other cases.

 

People are spreading news about doctors being the ones infecting people with the "Chinese plague" as they call it, and they want bus drivers, metro workers, restaurant owners and others to stop offering their services to doctors and nurses, some go as far as to threaten anyone who helps doctors with violence "Le partimos la madre al chofer que ayude doctores!" (We'll beat the shit out of any drivers* that help doctors!), they're also promoting attacks on any medical workers, because they "have the Chinese plague and they want to infect us all".

 

*Chofer often refers to public transport, busses, cabs, etc.

 

Oh yeah, the president also put forth this change in government management, which would allow him to directly control the budget for the entire country, completely skipping everyone else, then he'd be able to do whatever with the entire budget and no one would be able to tell him no. Because his party controls the senate and congress this is likely to pass, stupid as it is. With this and some other, rumoured, changes, he's well in his way to becoming a one-man ruler. Given his propensity to attack and vilify anyone who doesn't bow down to his will, I'm sure there's no way this will end up badly, no sir, no way.

 

We spent 75 years with a one-party government, the PRI doing whatever they want, when we finally got out of it, we had 12 years of PAN, which then fucked things with the war on drugs, then we went for 6 years of the "new" PRI a bit like the old one, and now we (I didn't vote for him, but "we" the country did) decided to go back to someone born and raised in the old PRI, where we'll go from here? What's next?

[deanb]

I thought our ineffectual government and "clap for nhs" stuff was pants, but at least we're not outright attacking health workers. 

[Mal]

In the name of Kim. Kim Jong Un lives!

 

If you look at other analysis, he might have some real medical issues. Hard to tell. Also his sister, Kim Yo Jong, is wearing makeup. A unholy Western thing.

[deanb]

See on one hand I'd suggest they might have a library of stock footage they can roll out whenever, but on the other if they did then surely given the international speculation they wouldn't have waited until today to post stuff up.
So I'd say he's not dead, but entirely possible he has had some heart ops and does sound like they're prepping Kim Yo Jung as heir apparent as a just in case.

[Mal]

Tinfoil: I think he probably had a Corona scare, one of his bodyguards tested positive, which led to him probably taking hydroxychloroquine. He should know better but if Dear Leader wants it, he gets it. So in it goes and out comes the heart issues. Wasn't enough to off or harm him too bad but enough to cause his 21 days of absence. Or/and he got and recovered from COVID-19. Nothing too bad (think Boris Johnson level of sick) but enough to harm his image if he shows up sick. Anyhoo... 

 

21 minutes ago, deanb said:

prepping Kim Yo Jung as heir apparent as a just in case.

I'm wondering if this can/will cause friction between the two. Their uncle was blasted by an AA gun... 

So juicy. 

 

[MetalCaveman]

Whelp, just another day in Mexico.

 

In Ecatepec, relatives of a person who died from Corona stormed the Hospital de las Americas. They claim their kid was "fine yesterday" they broke in and found some more victims of the virus, all who had been sealed in bags to prevent infection.... The people who broke in opened the bags, inspected each body and recorded the whole thing, all the while saying things like "Look here! All these people, they're killing them in here! The doctors are killing them! They know what's going on!" They then proceeded to attack doctors and nurses screaming about how their relative was fine the day before and how doctors had killed him.

 

At night, after the national guard arrived, these people claimed they wanted their son "not in a bag, not in ashes, complete because we know covid is fake, it doesn't exist, they brought our son here to kill him, they injected him and killed him".

 

After opening the bags and exposing themselves they walked through several areas of the hospital.

 

My uncle died from influenza, he was in a coma when he died, the hospital told us he could not have a normal funeral because he had to be sealed in a bag (I'm sure there's some technical/medical term I'm missing) to prevent infection, no one raised an objection. My grandparents wanted to see their child, but even they understood why they couldn't, my father printed a picture and placed it over his casket. 

 

Seeing people react in this way pisses me off to no end. I try to understand where they're coming from, losing a relative is not easy, much less a child, but to go from that to blaming the people who are risking everything to try and save as many lives as possible, to attack them and outright claim they have some kind of genocidal agenda... That's just something that I can't comprehend.

 

Obviously, their video ended up being shared by others who share their idea, so now doctors, nurses and other health workers are in even more danger.

[Mister Jack]

Why...exactly...would doctors and nurses inject someone with a death virus on purpose? What exactly is the logic behind this conspiracy theory?

[MetalCaveman]

Thing is, they don't think the doctors are injecting a virus into people, rather, they don't think the virus is real, so doctors are injecting "something", one of them said they didn't know what the doctors were injecting into people, just that it was doctors that were killing people.

 

I've been reading interviews with these people, trying to see if there's some kind of conspiracy theory that could explain it, but so far they just repeat the same thing "He was alive yesterday, I have a photo to prove it, today he's dead in the hospital, doctors killed him!". There doesn't seem to be much behind their belief other than:

 

was fine -> visited hospital -> dead -> doctors did it

 

I don't know, there might be more behind it, but this is all these people say/know. Some other people have accused doctors of working with "them" whoever that is, they don't say, just that "them" know something and are behind this. 

 

Whatever/whoever "them" is, all these people know for sure is that the virus isn't real.

 

I wish our conspiracy theories were as fleshed out as US ones, ya'll can at least say it was the deep state/illuminati/aliens/demons/masons/flavour of the week, we just have to settle for "them".

 

 

@1:20:

 

The man confronting the doctor asks him what are they injecting them with, the doctor first dismisses his question, prompting the man to push further, when the doctor begins to explain, the man responds "what solutions!? What medicines?! Give me their names!"

 

The next clip is from a woman chasing a nurse, the nurse asks not to be touched, the woman responds "I'm not going to touch you, but I'm going to record this, you everyone can see this fucking bitch"

 

Followed by: "Here's the police, they're in collusion! They know what's going on!"

[MetalCaveman]

Well, from a facebook post a relative sent me, it seems that at least some people believe doctors are killing people because they're stealing "knee fluids" (synovial fluid) because apparently it's worth more than platinum, so they get people who visit the hospital for whatever reason, steal their synovial fluid, kill them and then blame the death on a non-existent virus.

 

This was just one post, and it did lead to an interesting conversation trying to explain said relative why this was complete bullshit and how the virus is very, VERY real.

 

So yeah, at least now some light has been shed as to the reasons why people think this kind of stuff, still monumentally stupid though.

[Mal]

Sounds like the typical "Western medicine bad, they're *insert reason here* to us" sort of thing you see pop up from time to time. Sadly, there is a hint of truth to it all due to people and nations having done down right evil medical practices on the helpless and ignorant. 

 

This is not those times. 

[deanb]

 

Doctors in russia having a hard time not acccidentally falling out of windows.

 

Also mexico has chubacabra (or however that's spelt) so there's that which stuff could be blamed on. We have similar-ish to "them" in that it's the "elites" (even though most folks whining on about the "elites" are publicly schooled oxbridge graduates with millions in the bank, and usually a side job writing in national newspapers)

 

[MetalCaveman]

Russian architecture needs some work.

 

I think people don't blame the chupacabras because of the scale of things, if these were smaller incidents then yeah an alien/monster whatever would be their go to... Then again, a small town did claim they were being besieged by werewolves so...  

[Mal]

You remember in like middle school to high school when you play around with graphs on the computer with no regard to reality? This literally is that at the White House. 

[MetalCaveman]

Hey! Remember those people who wanted to burn down a hospital? One of them just died... From Corona.

 

In another town a hospital was surrounded by people who wanted to "rescue" a corona patient, once more, they "know" the virus is a lie, so they wanted to get that person out of there. The national guard and police forces managed to stop them.

[Mister Jack]

19 minutes ago, MetalCaveman said:

Hey! Remember those people who wanted to burn down a hospital? One of them just died... From Corona.

So how are they gonna explain away this one? 

[Mal]

In good (?) news, all this SIP slammed shut the flu season in at least Queensland. 

Bad news is... you know.

 

Wouldn't be funny if we somehow managed to squash all existing flu strains? 

[MetalCaveman]

On 5/5/2020 at 8:30 PM, Mister Jack said:

So how are they gonna explain away this one? 

 

Oh I'm sure they'll find a way to blame doctors for it too.

 

Meanwhile, because our president is not one to miss an opportunity, using the current emergency as an excuse, they're pressuring wind and solar energy companies to stop producing energy, telling them that if they don't the government will simply not buy energy from them. This under the argument that renewable energies are unreliable because they are dependent on nature, while good old carbon and oil are effective, fast and cheap. Keep in mind, the way it works here is that companies have priority based on who sells the cheapest energy, with the national CFE being on the lowest end, as their oil plants are super expensive compared to wind and solar, thus, CFE is way behind everyone else, and instead of investing in renewable energy themselves, they stick to oil and carbon, they do operate a hydroelectric, but that one produces nothing compared to their oil stuff.

 

This of course did not sit well with these companies, particularly because it wasn't done through the government offices in charge of this stuff, rather, the office in charge of energy distribution was the one to take this step, bypassing COFECE and CRE who should be the ones managing any kind of issue related to this. They will push for this in court, as they deem this to be an illegal move to benefit CFE even though the results would be more expensive electricity for everyone, not to mention the contamination resulting from more oil/carbon plants operating at full capacity.

 

The president says this is justice, as we as a nation will no longer bow to foreign interests.  

 

Related, the president has asked that things like economic growth, GDP and other neoliberal indicators be abandoned, instead, he says, we should focus on spiritual well-being and growth.

 

Oh yeah, he also asked media to cancel any campaigns to promote stay-at-home stuff, saying that we should trust the wisdom of the people, 'cause that's worked so well so far.  

 

Oh, and there's something about beer running out, but I don't know much about that one, and in international news, something about killer hornets from hell, but who has time for that stuff.  

 

 

[deanb]

6 hours ago, MetalCaveman said:

The president says this is justice, as we as a nation will no longer bow to foreign interests.  

 

That damn foreign wind coming over to Mexico, taking Mexican oils jobs! Don't even get me started on that solar power, who knows where that stuff is coming from and what it's picking up along the way.

(turns out you guys export oil too, rather than import so I guess it would be true that oil isn't relying on foreign interests, unlike many other countries. Given your neighbours that sounds like a very precarious position to be in  )

 

Also I would agree with ditching GDP as a national measure, but given everything else about your current prez I'm not sure it's for altruistic reasons.

[TheMightyEthan]

The US is a net exporter of oil too now, which is why suddenly our government wants to keep oil prices high rather than low. And while I know Mexico isn't the most stable country in the world, I don't think they're in any danger of invasion from... *checks map*... Guatemala.

[MetalCaveman]

8 hours ago, deanb said:

 

That damn foreign wind coming over to Mexico, taking Mexican oils jobs! Don't even get me started on that solar power, who knows where that stuff is coming from and what it's picking up along the way.

(turns out you guys export oil too, rather than import so I guess it would be true that oil isn't relying on foreign interests, unlike many other countries. Given your neighbours that sounds like a very precarious position to be in  )

 

Also I would agree with ditching GDP as a national measure, but given everything else about your current prez I'm not sure it's for altruistic reasons.

 

Yeah, it's more about all his promises about unparalleled economic growth, millions and millions of jobs created, the end of poverty, etc, and then delivering the exact opposite. Even before Corona hit, the economy was tanking, people were losing jobs left and right and every safety net was either destroyed or its scope was reduced to specific sectors (i.e. those that support the administration). That's when he started going on and on about the moral economy and spiritual growth.