Coronavirus: Already In a Neighborhood Near You

[gehringer_2]

7 minutes ago, ewsieg said:

 

All that said, I contend that if the US flipped the Obesity rate with China or Canada, and nothing else changes, those other countries have more Covid deaths (per capita) than the US.  

 

that would be interesting to see some data on - I wouldn't argue that's one factor.

[mtutiger]

19 minutes ago, ewsieg said:

That's always the case with both parties, and yes, it's asinine. 

Maybe one expects more from the party that, up until 5 mins ago, claimed they were against government intrusion into local matters.

Edited February 6, 2022 by mtutiger

[Tigeraholic1]

2 minutes ago, gehringer_2 said:

you have nothing straight. No one said anything is "OK", no one said one thing justifies the other, only that both things exist together in one complex reality, just like how the US does some great stuff and some shitty stuff. The Chinese today see Islam as exactly the same kind of existential threat to them that we saw Communism as 70 years ago and they are doing the same kind of horrible stuff in the name of those unfounded fears that we did 70 yrs ago in the name of ours. In fact we have a president not too long ago that wanted to 'ban Muslims'. Our sympathy for Muslim populations as a nation even today in fact tends to track inversely to the possibility of them emigrating here, which makes the Uyghers a safe object of our sympathy.

Muslim travel ban was/is a comparable atrocity to placing a sect of people in concentration camps. Also Americans killed people 50 years ago so that now enters into our judgment of how we see the current Chinese human rights violations. BECAUSE they brutalize their citizens but (Glass half full) they take Covid much more serious than mouth breathing dumb Americans. 
 

I got that right yes?

 

 

[Tigeraholic1]

I agree with Neil Young but found this picture powerful.

 

Edited February 6, 2022 by Tigeraholic1

[Jim Cowan]

57 minutes ago, ewsieg said:

All that said, I contend that if the US flipped the Obesity rate with China or Canada, and nothing else changes, those other countries have more Covid deaths (per capita) than the US.  

 

Not without increasing the vax rate in the US, the difference in vax rates has been the main reason for the difference in death rates.

[Tigeraholic1]

1 hour ago, ewsieg said:

No, he's saying you can look at China's issues separately and judge them on their own merits.  One can be good, despite something else being bad.

So if Trump forced a national lockdown and introduced “Warp Speed” Covid vaccination. AND separated kids from their parents and locked illegal immigrants in cages at the border we could judge Trump on his  “merit “ and the plus over minus doing the right thing. Despite one being bad of course.

 

 

Edited February 6, 2022 by Tigeraholic1

[gehringer_2]

54 minutes ago, Tigeraholic1 said:

Muslim travel ban was/is a comparable atrocity to placing a sect of people in concentration camps. Also Americans killed people 50 years ago so that now enters into our judgment of how we see the current Chinese human rights violations. BECAUSE they brutalize their citizens but (Glass half full) they take Covid much more serious than mouth breathing dumb Americans. 
 

I got that right yes?

 

 

so is there is a statute of limitation on murder, burning villages and poisoning nations with defoliant? I don't find the 50 yr gap to be an justification for seeing the difference. How many civilians have we killed in the last 20 years in the ME? I don't think anyone in the US is even interested in figuring that number out. Beside, isn't 1950 the America the right wants to go back to? Great powers do terrible things - it's the nature of the beast. Some are better or worse on the whole than others, but none have clean hands and OTOH very few reach the territory of the Nazi Germany or Stalin's CCCP. You find most on a broad continuum. China is a mixed bag, they can be terribly coercive but are less likely to outright murder people than say - the Soviets were. That's just the reality in this world. You don't get anywhere demonizing every aspect of a billion people because their empire acts like every other empire that ever existed.

Edited February 6, 2022 by gehringer_2

[Tigeraholic1]

Arghhh Merica past arghhh. 
 

Present day, I don’t make this stuff up.

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/is-china-committing-genocide-against-the-uyghurs-180979490/

The story of what the Uyghurs have experienced in Xinjiang, from detainment to mass surveillance to forced sterilization, has trickled out slowly due to the stringent control China exerts over its media. But over the past ten years, as documents have been leaked to the press and more Uyghur activists have escaped the country, a bleak picture has emerged, leading some observers—including the U.S.—to classify China’s ongoing human rights abuses as genocide. Here’s what you need to know about the Uyghurs ahead of the Olympics’ opening ceremony on Friday, February 4

[gehringer_2]

9 minutes ago, Tigeraholic1 said:

Arghhh Merica past arghhh. 
 

Present day, I don’t make this stuff up.

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/is-china-committing-genocide-against-the-uyghurs-180979490/

The story of what the Uyghurs have experienced in Xinjiang, from detainment to mass surveillance to forced sterilization, has trickled out slowly due to the stringent control China exerts over its media. But over the past ten years, as documents have been leaked to the press and more Uyghur activists have escaped the country, a bleak picture has emerged, leading some observers—including the U.S.—to classify China’s ongoing human rights abuses as genocide. Here’s what you need to know about the Uyghurs ahead of the Olympics’ opening ceremony on Friday, February 4

 No one is denying for a minute that the Chinese are being terrible in Xinjiang. It's still completely irrelevant to the question of how they are doing public health in the rest of the county. Just like in the ancient past of August 2021 we were blowing up civilians in Afghanistan at the very same time we were developing vaccines for Covid.

Edited February 6, 2022 by gehringer_2

[Tiger337]

1 hour ago, ewsieg said:

No, he's saying you can look at China's issues separately and judge them on their own merits.  One can be good, despite something else being bad.

All that said, I contend that if the US flipped the Obesity rate with China or Canada, and nothing else changes, those other countries have more Covid deaths (per capita) than the US.  

 

Very good point.  The United States has one of the highest obesity rates and lowest lifepans among developed countries.  It's a huge problem in general and definitely a big contributor to Covid deaths.  As an aside, if you take away immigrants, we would be doing even worse.  

I also wonder what percentage of vaxers and anti-vaxers are obese.  Given the that the red states have very high obesity rates, I'd bet that there is a high percentage of obese among the unvaccinated.     

[Tigeraholic1]

3 minutes ago, mtutiger said:

Is what the artists are doing to Spotify technically a boycott?

If you are a content provider in a capitalist system, you should be able to do business with whoever you like. 

If you are peddling an idea we don’t agree with even though we are being payed royalties for the use of our content and you decide you would rather not take the royalties by not allowing the use your content.

I know I’m a dumb red state guy but that smells like a boycott. Probably wrong though.

 

 

[mtutiger]

8 minutes ago, Tigeraholic1 said:

I know I’m a dumb red state guy...

Why so you keep saying this?

I can't speak for others, but I try to discuss this stuff respectfully and without regard for 'red states' or any of that stuff.

My only point is that Neil Young or Joni Mitchell or whoever are free to do business with whoever they like. Thats capitalism. And a lot of folks seem offended by that, for reasons that I cannot figure out.

Edited February 6, 2022 by mtutiger

[Tigeraholic1]

10 minutes ago, mtutiger said:

Why so you keep saying this?

I can't speak for others, but I try to discuss this stuff respectfully and without regard for 'red states' or any of that stuff.

My only point is that Neil Young or Joni Mitchell or whoever are free to do business with whoever they like. Thats capitalism. And a lot of folks seem offended by that, for reasons that I cannot figure out.

 Come on 90% of our wonderful posters here despise anyone to the right. That’s a fact. Do most of the right deserve that judgment of course. 
 

I served two tours in Iraq and one in Afghanistan. I met some wonderful Muslim people. I am also a devout Christian. I would re-up if I knew I was protecting a people from forced sterilization and imprisonment for your faith. 

This whole conversation started with a forced mask mandate and morphed into China “ain’t so bad” because talk. I saw brothers die fighting for the idea of freedom over oppression.  That’s why I will stay on the hill of not comparing genocide to Covid precautions.

 

[gehringer_2]

1 hour ago, Tiger337 said:

Very good point.  The United States has one of the highest obesity rates and lowest lifepans among developed countries.  It's a huge problem in general and definitely a big contributor to Covid deaths.  As an aside, if you take away immigrants, we would be doing even worse.  

 

in the 1st 6 months CDC estimated that 30% of hospitalizations were obesity related. So yes a very big %, but big enough to be the 300% difference between the US and Canada? OTOH CDC does say obesity 'triples risk'

https://www.cdc.gov/obesity/data/obesity-and-covid-19.html

Edited February 6, 2022 by gehringer_2

[mtutiger]

13 minutes ago, Tigeraholic1 said:

 Come on 90% of our wonderful posters here despise anyone to the right. 

You quoted me in that response. And I dont despise you. 

14 minutes ago, Tigeraholic1 said:

I served two tours in Iraq and one in Afghanistan. I met some wonderful Muslim people. I am also a devout Christian. I would re-up if I knew I was protecting a people from forced sterilization and imprisonment for your faith. 

This whole conversation started with a forced mask mandate and morphed into China “ain’t so bad” because talk. I saw brothers die fighting for the idea of freedom over oppression.  That’s why I will stay on the hill of not comparing genocide to Covid precautions.

 

I won't defend China. Their actions with the Uyghurs are horrific. 

I just don't understand what that has to do with something completely different transpiring between artists who are making business decisions about how they market their product and which content providers they do business with. 

I guess it's meme-able or something, idk.

[gehringer_2]

32 minutes ago, Tigeraholic1 said:

This whole conversation started with a forced mask mandate and morphed into China “ain’t so bad” because talk.

which you still insist on mis-characterizing. No one is making the Chinese out to be what they are not, only pointing out that as a highly advanced, socially organized, economically powerful, rich, scientific and technologically sophisticated nation they are perfectly capable of doing domestic pubic health regardless of whatever bad things they may also be doing.

Edited February 6, 2022 by gehringer_2

[Tigeraholic1]

4 minutes ago, mtutiger said:

You quoted me in that response. And I dont despise you. 

I won't defend China. Their actions with the Uyghurs are horrific. 

I just don't understand what that has to do with something completely different transpiring between artists who are making business decisions about how they market their product and which content providers they do business with. 

I guess it's meme-able or something, idk.

Artist standing together against Joe ain’t gotta clue Rogan due to his stupid unfounded Covid treatment nonsense. Their product is being sold under the distributor Spotify. Yet they have no problem taking money from say Apple or Nike who do business with oppressive China. 

I guess that was the meme-able something.

your a good person with a good heart. I just don’t understand why we Americans turn I blind eye. 
 

As for awful Vietnam, my Dad who was drafted. Was spit in when he came home. My Mom died of liver cancer at 28 after living on base.

https://www.va.gov/disability/eligibility/hazardous-materials-exposure/camp-lejeune-water-contamination/

My Dads days are numbered as he fights Parkinson’s, prostate cancer and  Non-Hodgkins Lymphoma due to Agent Orange exposure.

I know the sacrifices of freedom and its dirty underbelly.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[mtutiger]

1 minute ago, Tigeraholic1 said:

Artist standing together against Joe ain’t gotta clue Rogan due to his stupid unfounded Covid treatment nonsense. Their product is being sold under the distributor Spotify. Yet they have no problem taking money from say Apple or Nike who do business with oppressive China. 

I assume they do business with Walmart too. 

Or is that different?

[Tiger337]

43 minutes ago, Tigeraholic1 said:

 Come on 90% of our wonderful posters here despise anyone to the right. That’s a fact. Do most of the right deserve that judgment of course. 
 

 

 

That has been true only since MAGA started.  Practically every right wing politician has either become radicalized or enables the radicals because they don't want to lose the MAGA base.  It's a mess.  I remember dropping by this forum prior to MAGA and thinking that it was very balanced.  

[Tigeraholic1]

3 minutes ago, mtutiger said:

I assume they do business with Walmart too. 

Or is that different?

I don’t choose who they take money from. I only here about who they don’t.

[Tigeraholic1]

4 minutes ago, Tiger337 said:

That has been true only since MAGA started.  Practically every right wing politician has either become radicalized or enables the radicals because they don't want to lose the MAGA base.  It's a mess.  I remember dropping by this forum prior to MAGA and thinking that it was very balanced.  

Very true but if you identify as right of center today you are labeled a racist xenophobic anti vaxxer.

[gehringer_2]

5 minutes ago, Tigeraholic1 said:

I know the sacrifices of freedom and its dirty underbelly.

then you know that a nation is perfectly capable of presenting one aspect of itself to its chosen enemies which can be quite different from the aspect it shows its friends or internally. That is the parallel between the US, or any great nation and China, (not a net moral equivalence) and why your outrage at their treatment of the Uyghurs is justified but should not color your thinking about how they act internally in a different context. Xi has no interest in being malevolent to his own Han Chinese population (as long as they don't make political waves anyway) regardless of how differently he feels about/treats his Muslim minorities.

[Tigeraholic1]

3 minutes ago, gehringer_2 said:

then you know that a nation is perfectly capable of presenting one aspect of itself to its chosen enemies which can be quite different from the aspect it shows its friends or internally. That is the parallel between the US, or any great nation and China, (not a net moral equivalence) and why your outrage at their treatment of the Uyghurs is justified but should not color your thinking about how they act internally in a different context. Xi has no interest in being malevolent to his own Han Chinese population (as long as they don't make political waves anyway) regardless of how differently he feels about/treats his Muslim minorities.

Exactly move on there is nothing to see here. Trump catered to his base except there is no base in a dictatorship.

[mtutiger]

Just now, Tigeraholic1 said:

I don’t choose who they take money from. I only here about who they don’t.

Be that as it may, millions of Americans, including many in your neck of the woods, do business with Walmart daily.

Applying the same standard you are applying to Neil Young, you seem to be suggesting that anybody who shops at a Walmart are condoning of China's actions against the Uyghurs.

Let's just put it this way: if we all are held to that standard, for better or worse, we all are gonna fail it. Every last one of us. You fail it, and I fail it.

[gehringer_2]

1 hour ago, Tigeraholic1 said:

Come on 90% of our wonderful posters here despise anyone to the right.

Building a shared sense of persecution is a key element in propagandizing a movement. You (in fact make it "we") should be on guard against it.

I happened to spend an hour recently trapped in a space playing country music and no kidding, 90% of the lyrics were "We're the only sane ones, kiss my ass the rest of you". ("kiss my ass" was literally a featured lyric)  It was kind unprecedented to my memory. The nearest thing I could come up that had the same kind of sense to it was David Crosby - "Almost cut my Hair" as the hippy anthem back in the day. They felt they were persecuted because they were being sent off to war involuntarily. Not sure what the right is suffering from that matches that other than a paranoia of not being a majority. But if you are going to live in democracy, you have to accept the odds you are not always going to be in control or else you are being a terrible hypocrite.

Edited February 6, 2022 by gehringer_2