Politics

[IndyNorm]

Originally Posted by rm1369

I doubt anyone disagrees with your views on China. However I have no voice in what happens in China, and China isn’t responsible for the shit show of a reaction we’ve had here. China isn’t the cause of Trumps lying. China isn’t the reason the governor of Georgia claimed we just learned about asymptotic people spreading the virus, as an excuse for his delay in ordering shelter at home, when it’s been widely reported for several weeks if not months. I won’t focus on China because that’s the excuse and distraction being handed down to cover up our own failings. There will always be countries that lie and hide this kind of shit. Watching Trump lie to the American people daily do you honestly believe he would have been forthcoming with the truth if it started here? Fuck no he wouldn’t have. Not to mention that was the responsibility of the pandemic response team that Trump and Bolton dismantled. Remember - he’d just hire back the scientists when they were needed. He didn’t like paying people when there wasn’t a crisis. Blame the Chinese all you want, they deserve it. But the only thing within our control is our countries response to it. Don’t let China distract you from that shit show.

I'm sure people are/will try to play the blame game with China to distract from the shitty job Trump is doing, but I'm not trying to do that. I'm pointing out the root cause of the outbreak, which the Chinese government is fully responsible for. Yes we were completely unprepared for this, Trump is an asshole, and the Georgia governor looks pretty incompetent. All of those things need to be corrected, but none of those issues are any way the root cause of why the outbreak happened. This is the engineer in me talking, but if the root cause of a problem isn't fixed then the problem is likely to re-occur. The only way this fix will happen is for the world to collectively hold the Chinese government accountable or at least get them to agree to work with the rest of the world on containment the next time this happens. And while I can't vote on this to happen, I can try to spread awareness in an attempt to have this gain enough momentum for it to become an actionable issue. I doubt it'll happen, but I can at least try.

Anyway, that's my take, and rest assured it hasn't blinded me from the lack of preparedness and shit show in Washington.

[rm1369]

Originally Posted by IndyNorm

I'm sure people are/will try to play the blame game with China to distract from the shitty job Trump is doing, but I'm not trying to do that. I'm pointing out the root cause of the outbreak, which the Chinese government is fully responsible for. Yes we were completely unprepared for this, Trump is an asshole, and the Georgia governor looks pretty incompetent. All of those things need to be corrected, but none of those issues are any way the root cause of why the outbreak happened. This is the engineer in me talking, but if the root cause of a problem isn't fixed then the problem is likely to re-occur. The only way this fix will happen is for the world to collectively hold the Chinese government accountable or at least get them to agree to work with the rest of the world on containment the next time this happens. And while I can't vote on this to happen, I can try to spread awareness in an attempt to have this gain enough momentum for it to become an actionable issue. I doubt it'll happen, but I can at least try.

Anyway, that's my take, and rest assured it hasn't blinded me from the lack of preparedness and shit show in Washington.

That’s fair, I don’t disagree at all. Unfortunately I’m concerned we are trending again towards nationalism which tends to hurt the whole idea of global cooperation. There is a whole lot of things that the international community should be addressing with China, but the only real way it works is when a majority of the international community stands together. That often requires partners to cooperate more and not allow side issues to threaten the cooperation. I just don’t see that with the current political climate. Trump is a large part of that obviously, but not the only part. Europe is having its own issues with Nationalism. That makes things significantly easier for China.

And my fear is that the current administration will use this to not only hide their own domestic failures with the virus, but to continue weakening international alliances. The WHO certainly has questions to answer as well, but that type of international organization actually needs strengthened, not weakened if you want to minimize future issues. But I don’t believe that’s the current goal.

[IndyNorm]

Originally Posted by rm1369

That’s fair, I don’t disagree at all. Unfortunately I’m concerned we are trending again towards nationalism which tends to hurt the whole idea of global cooperation. There is a whole lot of things that the international community should be addressing with China, but the only real way it works is when a majority of the international community stands together. That often requires partners to cooperate more and not allow side issues to threaten the cooperation. I just don’t see that with the current political climate. Trump is a large part of that obviously, but not the only part. Europe is having its own issues with Nationalism. That makes things significantly easier for China.

And my fear is that the current administration will use this to not only hide their own domestic failures with the virus, but to continue weakening international alliances. The WHO certainly has questions to answer as well, but that type of international organization actually needs strengthened, not weakened if you want to minimize future issues. But I don’t believe that’s the current goal.

Agree with your concerns. You would think 100,000+ deaths and the devastation to our economies would be a great rallying point for the international community. Hopefully it is, but like you I have my doubts.

As for the WHO, I think/hope the threat to withhold funding is a play to get Adhanom to resign, which at the very least needs to happen. The WHO prioritized their political ties with China over the health of the world and in doing so aided in China's cover up which lead to the outbreak. Perhaps this was inadvertent, but they still need to be held accountable.

https://asiatimes.com/2020/03/who-re...s-virus-alert/