American Politics

[JustTK]

You said "It's equally valid to compare USA to Aus, as it is to compare it to ay other country. " Wrong, wrong wrong!
The article compared the US to Australia because Australia has about the same population demographic and because Australia is a "rich" country.

Right, right, right! Haha.

Yes, but you could make any other comparison that you wish to make. Why is demogrpahic or wealth, any better a comparison to many other factors you could choose? Why not compare the country with one that the same levels of obesity. Or same levels of vaccine hesitancy. Or same lack of publci health care?

But regardless, ypu are choosing to argue about smthg that is totally tangential to my post. Which was how much freedom are you prepared to give up to save lives?

[Paulie97]

OK, maybe you're right. But voting for fascists leads to the same result whether a voter is fascist or not. Let's think about it from another angle. Can you imagine a liberal voting for a communist or Maoist or another leftist extremist? Hell, no. So what is it about right-wingers that makes them stick to the ideology while dismissing all warning signs?

For a conservative, voting for fascists like Trump or LE Pen even if only due to their tribal affiliations makes them at least enablers of fascism, IMHO.

But then it comes down to how you define "Fascist. " That's actually fairly complicated, with a historical context stretching back to the post WW I era. And what about center and left-center voters who are faced with the choice between a MAGA candidate who pushes the whole catalog of wingnut conspiracy theories, including the great replacement theory, and one all hot for LGBTQ issues like allowing athletes born with XY chromosomes to play women's collegiate sports. That's where the phrase "hold your nose" often comes from.

[Xpartan]

That 40% is schewed as LE Pen only got 23% in the first round with another far right candidate picking up 7.47 to 32% of Republicans (depending on how the polling questions are worded) believe the 2020 election was legit. Thus once down to a two way not all who voted for Trump is a MAGA fanatic or could be called a Fascist. The same can surely be said of those who voted for LE Pen in the final round.

OK, maybe you're right. But voting for fascists leads to the same result whether a voter is fascist or not. Let's think about it from another angle. Can you imagine a liberal voting for a communist or Maoist or another leftist extremist? Hell, no. So what is it about right-wingers that makes them stick to the ideology while dismissing all warning signs?

For a conservative, voting for fascists like Trump or LE Pen even if only due to their tribal affiliations makes them at least enablers of fascism, IMHO.

[JustTK]

You guys are just crazy, I think you want Covid to drag on forever, just like most liberal's. This is the main difference between Rep. And Dem....the bottom line is everyone did there best, nobody tried to kill people
Now we are dealing with the ramifications from the crazy ass lockdowns, and it is not good. ... You guys may get your wish and nobody will have jobs and will be living off the government.

Then you must have totally misunderstood my post. I didn't state an opinion on lcokdowns. Personally I am anti-lockdown and pro-public healthcare. That is a position of neither party. .

[Paulie97]

You guys are just crazy, I think you want Covid to drag on forever, just like most liberal's. This needs to end and we need to move forward. This is the main difference between Rep. And Dem. I think you guys really do not want Covid to end. You can argue who was write or wrong, the bottom line is everyone did there best, nobody tried to kill people, Covid was terrible for everyone.

Now we are dealing with the ramifications from the crazy ass lockdowns, and it is not good. Now we have Shortages and major supply chain issues. Many of shortages are being ignored by the media and the government.

Either way this is not good and we need solutions quickly before this spins out of control. You guys may get your wish and nobody will have jobs and will be living off the government.

As usual all you have to offer is straw men and personal attacks. Covid IS going to "drag on forever" as it is in the process of becoming endemic. Restrictions relieved stress on hospital systems, so bodies didn't flow out into the streets and beds were available for non-Covid related emergencies. Restrictions also bought us time to develop vaccines and effective treatments. Many countries struck a pretty good balance between maintaining a levels of freedom and economic activity while saving lives and relieving our healthcare systems.

P.S. Covid of course only wants a host and couldn't care less what label you attach to yourself, whether moderate, progressive, conservative, MAGA, or the "liberal" that conservatives over time turned into a pegorative. It's the right wing nuts that have been doing most of the politicizing, and that likely cost Trump the election. And this while they have killed off an unnecessary proportion of their voters, as red states as a whole have considering higher Covid death rates than the blue.

You guys are just crazy, I think you want Covid to drag on forever, just like most liberal's. This needs to end and we need to move forward. This is the main difference between Rep. And Dem. I think you guys really do not want Covid to end. You can argue who was write or wrong, the bottom line is everyone did there best, nobody tried to kill people, Covid was terrible for everyone.

Now we are dealing with the ramifications from the crazy ass lockdowns, and it is not good. Now we have Shortages and major supply chain issues. Many of shortages are being ignored by the media and the government.

Either way this is not good and we need solutions quickly before this spins out of control. You guys may get your wish and nobody will have jobs and will be living off the government.

As usual all you have to offer is straw men and personal attacks. Covid IS going to "drag on forever" as it is in the process of becoming endemic. Restrictions relieved stress on hospital systems, so bodies didn't flow out into the streets and beds were available for non-Covid related emergencies. Restrictions also bought us time to develop vaccines and effective treatments. Many countries struck a pretty good balance between maintaining levels of freedom and economic activity while saving lives and relieving our healthcare systems.

Covid of course only wants a host and couldn't care less what label you attach to yourself, whether moderate, progressive, conservative, MAGA, or the "liberal" that conservatives over time turned into a pejorative. It's the right wing nuts that have been doing most of the politicizing, and that likely cost Trump the election. They've also with their obstinance effectively and unnecessarily killed off a substantial proportion of their voters, as red states as a whole have much higher Covid death rates than the blue. Thus no one should be moved when they want to go online and sling mud.

https://abcnews.go.com/Health/red-bl...ry?id=83649085

[ScatManDoo]

You guys are just crazy, I think you want Covid to drag on forever, just like most liberal's. This needs to end and we need to move forward. This is the main difference between Rep. And Dem. I think you guys really do not want Covid to end. You can argue who was write or wrong,

We could also argue who is literate and who is not.

Hahaha.

People who refuse to get immunized and people who refuse to wear masks are prolonging this pandemic.

[Elvis 2008]

Coming to this thread after awhile, and what I see? There are still some "experts" here trying to defend Buyden collapse! Wow! Even the Democratic Party machinery moved on from this administration's failure LOL.

Yeah, the Dems have not gotten over Trump. After watching 2000 mules and listening to the jack offs here, it is not only obvious that the dumb Dems rigged the election and are attacking freedom of speech and the first amendment because they do not want anyone talking about it. Add in Biden's attempt to federalize the election controls and it is obvious what happened.

The latest NYT belching on Covid is the same old crap. "If only we had done what South Korea had done, we would be fine. " It is like someone then told the NYT that South Korea is now #8 in cases in the world, and the latest golden child is Australia. So the NYT changes South Korea to Australia. Of course, they only talk about the Covid deaths. The harsh Australian lockdowns caused horrible emotional distress. Thing is Covid is polling in last place with regards to what people care about.

The latest Biden move is to say some 18 year old nut job who actually trashed Fox news and was in a nut house a year ago killed people in Buffalo because of free speech. Yeah, we cannot have that.

I come here because I am short the market and I need to be reminded how fucking crazy these dumb Dems are. Trump killed one million people with Covid. The election was not rigged. If you voted for Trump, you are a racist moron. We cannot have freedom of speech, the second amendment, fourth amendment nor due process. The swamp can break the law, but you better not. Going to the brink of nuclear war with a country no one really cares about is sound policy. Inflation and the supply chain issues are Trump's fault. The borders are fine. If people have to hungry because of the war in Ukraine, it is worth it for the sake of Democracy. Simply put, if it is good, it is Democrat. If it is bad, it is Republican. There is zero attempt to get to the bottom of any issue.

I have never seen a political party so devoid of ideas. I invested along side Obama and did well. Thing is with this clown Biden there I see no good arguments or policies. They are all a disaster. Yeah, the smart Dems have moved on but we do not have smart Dems here.

[PVMonger]

It's equally valid to compare USA to Aus, as it is to compare it to ay other country. As long as one understands the playing fiield.

In 2019 Aus had 8.7 million international tourists. In 2018 NYC alone had 13.8 million international visitors. Domestic tourism accounts for 73% of total tourism revenues in Aus. It is clear that Aus is a far, far more isolated and remote destination. At 3.000 USA deaths per million (likely underreported by 25%) compared to 300 in Aus, clearly there is a major difference. Healthcare system and state of public health in general will have an effect, as would government policy. Aus imposed extremely authoritarian controls on personal freedoms, USA did not. In fact, people from the USA were just about the only regular international travellers over the past 2 years.

As much as we do not like to accept it, we all face the question. How much death are we prepared to accept in our way of life? There are countles things we could do if we changed how we all lived to reduce death, but we don't do them because we have come to accept that those deaths are tolerable. So how much is tolerable from a new disease like COVID?.

You said "It's equally valid to compare USA to Aus, as it is to compare it to ay other country. " Wrong, wrong wrong!

The article (which you obviously did not read) compared the US to Australia because Australia has about the same population demographic and because Australia is a "rich" country. You can blather on and on about all sorts of things yet the big determining factor was that Australians believed that their government was trying to do the right thing whereas 30+% of the US thought (and still think) that the whole thing was a big hoax or nothing more than the flu or any one of a hundred other stupid ideas. Australians, as a people, were willing to do the right thing for their fellow citizens. 30+% of Americans were not.

Sure, health care plays a part. But overrun hospitals are overrun hospitals, no matter how you slice it and no matter whether or not the country offered "single payer" healthcare.

The simple facts are that the US government "screwed the pooch" when it came to COVID response and the governmental leadership was so lacking that a million people died. "Failure of capitalism"? Hogwash.

[DramaFree11]

It's equally valid to compare USA to Aus, as it is to compare it to ay other country. As long as one understands the playing fiield.

In 2019 Aus had 8.7 million international tourists. In 2018 NYC alone had 13.8 million international visitors. Domestic tourism accounts for 73% of total tourism revenues in Aus. It is clear that Aus is a far, far more isolated and remote destination. At 3.000 USA deaths per million (likely underreported by 25%) compared to 300 in Aus, clearly there is a major difference. Healthcare system and state of public health in general will have an effect, as would government policy. Aus imposed extremely authoritarian controls on personal freedoms, USA did not. In fact, people from the USA were just about the only regular international travellers over the past 2 years.

As much as we do not like to accept it, we all face the question. How much death are we prepared to accept in our way of life? There are countles things we could do if we changed how we all lived to reduce death, but we don't do them because we have come to accept that those deaths are tolerable. So how much is tolerable from a new disease like COVID?.

You guys are just crazy, I think you want Covid to drag on forever, just like most liberal's. This needs to end and we need to move forward. This is the main difference between Rep. And Dem. I think you guys really do not want Covid to end. You can argue who was write or wrong, the bottom line is everyone did there best, nobody tried to kill people, Covid was terrible for everyone.

Now we are dealing with the ramifications from the crazy ass lockdowns, and it is not good. Now we have Shortages and major supply chain issues. Many of shortages are being ignored by the media and the government.

Either way this is not good and we need solutions quickly before this spins out of control. You guys may get your wish and nobody will have jobs and will be living off the government.

[JustTK]

Australia's location in the distant Pacific is often cited as the cause for its relative COVID success. That, however, does not fully explain the difference in outcomes between the two countries, since Australia has long been, like the United States, highly connected to the world through trade, tourism and immigration. In 2019,9. 5 million international tourists came to Australia.

It's equally valid to compare USA to Aus, as it is to compare it to ay other country. As long as one understands the playing fiield.

In 2019 Aus had 8.7 million international tourists. In 2018 NYC alone had 13.8 million international visitors. Domestic tourism accounts for 73% of total tourism revenues in Aus. It is clear that Aus is a far, far more isolated and remote destination. At 3.000 USA deaths per million (likely underreported by 25%) compared to 300 in Aus, clearly there is a major difference. Healthcare system and state of public health in general will have an effect, as would government policy. Aus imposed extremely authoritarian controls on personal freedoms, USA did not. In fact, people from the USA were just about the only regular international travellers over the past 2 years.

As much as we do not like to accept it, we all face the question. How much death are we prepared to accept in our way of life? There are countles things we could do if we changed how we all lived to reduce death, but we don't do them because we have come to accept that those deaths are tolerable. So how much is tolerable from a new disease like COVID?

Some countres that imposed very strict measures were complete failures, others that were more open did well. Government policy didn't have a clear impact across the world. I would suggest that countries could do far more by examining their public healthcare systems, and the general state of health of the population. It is clear that healthy people are far less likely to die, and even more so if they can get affordable care should they become seriously ill. To me this looks like a glaring failiure of reliance on capitalism.

[EihTooms]

What follows is an interesting article detailing Australia's response to COVID vs the US response to COVID. Both are "rich" countries with similar population demographics. Australia's "COVID deaths per capita" are 1/10th the US death rate. Therefore, what a country does and how it's citizens view citizenship matters. The article points out how the responses differed in both countries.

The funny thing is, I know exactly how the wingnuts will respond and it will be like the idiots they are.

"How Australia Saved Thousands of Lives While COVID Killed 1 Million Americans"

If the United States had the same COVID death rate as Australia, about 900,000 lives would have been saved.

For many Americans, imagining what might have been will be painful. But especially now, at the milestone of 1 million deaths in the United States, the nations that did a better job of keeping people alive show what Americans could have done differently and what might still need to change...

Bottom line was Trump "led" like a typical USA Republican, rejecting and denying science and instead making self-serving economic, national security and political decisions like defunding and dismantling the proven Pandemic Prevention and Response teams, removing all of them from those Chinese labs in 2018 against all expert warnings not to do something so stupid and dangerous and spending nearly the entire first critical year of 2020 lying about the viral spread he laid the foundation for emerging, mocking the known effective mitigation efforts, insisting no one need bother inventing a vaccine for it nor taking one, etc etc.

He thereby not only worked harder than any other world leader, really more than any one person on the planet, to produce the Trump's Pandemic it became around the world in the first place but also more responsibly than anyone for at least 90% of the 1 million (and counting) American deaths from it so far as well as most of the subsequent global economic and Supply-Chain collapse and hyper-inflation.

It really is impossible for anyone who knows the facts to come to any other logical conclusion.

[Paulie97]

Not so small. LE Pen got over 40%. Quite troubling for an EU country actually.

The appeal of fascism is stronger than ever, IMHO. Neither Trump's disastrous rule nor Putin's war have made a dent in their collective psyche.

That 40% is schewed as LE Pen only got 23% in the first round with another far right candidate picking up 7.47 to 32% of Republicans (depending on how the polling questions are worded) believe the 2020 election was legit. Thus once down to a two way not all who voted for Trump is a MAGA fanatic or could be called a Fascist. The same can surely be said of those who voted for LE Pen in the final round.

[Gino02]

Coming to this thread after awhile, and what I see? There are still some "experts" here trying to defend Buyden collapse! Wow! Even the Democratic Party machinery moved on from this administration's failure LOL.

[PVMonger]

What follows is an interesting article detailing Australia's response to COVID vs the US response to COVID. Both are "rich" countries with similar population demographics. Australia's "COVID deaths per capita" are 1/10th the US death rate. Therefore, what a country does and how it's citizens view citizenship matters. The article points out how the responses differed in both countries.

The funny thing is, I know exactly how the wingnuts will respond and it will be like the idiots they are.

"How Australia Saved Thousands of Lives While COVID Killed 1 Million Americans"

If the United States had the same COVID death rate as Australia, about 900,000 lives would have been saved.

For many Americans, imagining what might have been will be painful. But especially now, at the milestone of 1 million deaths in the United States, the nations that did a better job of keeping people alive show what Americans could have done differently and what might still need to change.

Australia offers perhaps the sharpest comparisons with the American experience. Both countries are English-speaking democracies with similar demographic profiles. In Australia and in the United States, the median age is 38. Roughly 86% of Australians live in urban areas, compared with 83% of Americans.

Yet Australia's COVID death rate sits at one-tenth of America's, putting the nation of 25 million people (with around 7,500 deaths) near the top of global rankings in the protection of life.

Australia's location in the distant Pacific is often cited as the cause for its relative COVID success. That, however, does not fully explain the difference in outcomes between the two countries, since Australia has long been, like the United States, highly connected to the world through trade, tourism and immigration. In 2019,9. 5 million international tourists came to Australia.

So what went right in Australia and wrong in the United States?

It looks obvious: Australia restricted travel and personal interaction until vaccinations were widely available, then maximized vaccine uptake, prioritizing people who were most vulnerable before gradually opening up the country again.

From one outbreak to another, there were also some mistakes. And with omicron and eased restrictions, deaths have increased.

But Australia's COVID playbook produced results because of something more easily felt than analyzed at a news conference. Dozens of interviews, along with survey data and scientific studies from around the world, point to a lifesaving trait that Australians displayed from the top of government to the hospital floor and that Americans have shown they lack: trust, in science and institutions, but especially in one another.

When the pandemic began, 76% of Australians said they trusted the health care system (compared with around 34% of Americans), and 93% of Australians reported being able to get support in times of crisis from people living outside their household.

In global surveys, Australians were more likely than Americans to agree that "most people can be trusted" — a major factor, researchers found, in getting people to change their behavior for the common good to combat COVID.

But of greater import, interpersonal trust — a belief that others would do what was right not just for the individual but for the community — saved lives. Trust mattered more than smoking prevalence, health spending or form of government, a study of 177 countries in The Lancet recently found.

Government: Moving Quickly Behind the Scenes.

Greg Hunt had been Australia's health minister for a couple of years when his phone buzzed Jan. 20,2020. It was Dr. Brendan Murphy, Australia's chief medical officer, and he wanted to talk about a new coronavirus in China.

Murphy said there were worrisome signs of human-to-human transmission.

"I think this has the potential to go beyond anything we've seen in our lifetime," Murphy said. "We need to act fast. ".

The next day, Australia added the coronavirus, as a threat with "pandemic potential," to its biosecurity list, officially setting in motion the country's emergency response. Hunt briefed Prime Minister Scott Morrison, visited the country's stockpile of personal protective equipment and began calling independent experts for guidance.

The first positive case appeared in Australia on Jan. 25. Five days later, when the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention confirmed the first human transmission of the virus in the United States, President Donald Trump downplayed the risk.

The same day, Hunt struck a more practical tone. "Border, isolation, surveillance and case-tracing mechanisms are already in place in Australia," he said.

Less than 24 hours later, on Feb. 1, Australia closed its border with China, its largest trading partner. On Feb. 3, 241 Australians were evacuated from China and placed in government quarantine for 14 days.

A full border closure followed. Hotels were contracted to quarantine the trickle of international arrivals allowed in. Systems for free testing and contact tracing were rolled out, along with a federal program that paid COVID-affected employees so they would stay home.

Health Care: Sharing the Burden.

The outbreak that many Australians see as their country's greatest COVID test began in late June 2020, with a breakdown in Melbourne's hotel quarantine system. The virus spread into the city and its suburbs from guards interacting with travelers, a government inquiry later found, and within a few weeks, daily case numbers climbed into the hundreds.

At Royal Melbourne, a public hospital built to serve the poor, clusters of infection emerged among vulnerable patients and workers.

"We recognized right away that this was a disaster we'd never planned for, in that it was a marathon, not a sprint," said Chris Macisaac, Royal Melbourne's director of intensive care.

In mid-July, dozens of patients with COVID were transferred from nursing homes to Royal Park, a satellite facility for geriatric care and rehabilitation. Soon, more than 40% of the cases among workers were connected to that small campus.

Kirsty Buising, an infectious disease consultant at the hospital, began to suspect — before scientists could prove it — that the coronavirus was airborne. In mid-July, on her suggestion, Royal Melbourne started giving N95 masks to workers exposed to COVID patients.

In the United States, hospital executives were lining up third-party PPE vendors for clandestine meetings in parking lots. Royal Melbourne's supplies came from federal and state stockpiles, with guidelines for how distribution should be prioritized.

In New York, a city of 8 million people packed closely together, more than 300 health care workers died from COVID by the end of September, with huge disparities in outcomes for patients and workers from one hospital to another.

In Melbourne, a city of 5 million with a dense inner core surrounded by suburbs, the masks, a greater separation of patients and an intense 111-day lockdown that reduced demand on hospital services brought the virus to heel. At Royal Melbourne, not a single worker died during Australia's worst institutional cluster to date.

Society: Complying and Caring.

When Australians are asked why they accepted the country's many lockdowns, its once-closed international and state borders, its quarantine rules and then its vaccine mandates for certain professions or restaurants and large events, they tend to voice a version of the same response: It's not just about me.

The idea that one's actions affect others is not unique to Australia, and at times, the rules on COVID stirred up outrage.

"It was a somewhat authoritarian approach," said Dr. Greg Dore, an infectious diseases expert at the University of New South Wales in Sydney. "There were lots of mandates, lots of fines for breaching restrictions, pretty heavy-handed controlling, including measures that were pretty useless, like the policing of outdoor masking."

But, he added, the package was effective because the vast majority of Australians stuck with it anyway.

"The community coming on board and remaining on board through the tough periods of 2020 and even into 2021 was really, really important," Dore said.

Now, more than 95% of Australian adults are fully vaccinated — with 85% of the total population having received two doses. In the United States, that figure is only 66%.

The arrival of the omicron variant, which is more transmissible, has sent Australia's case numbers soaring, but with most of the population inoculated, deaths are ticking up more slowly.

"We learned that we can come together very quickly," said Denise Heinjus, Royal Melbourne's executive director for nursing, whose title in 2020 was COVID commander. "There's a high level of trust among our people."

The source of the article is the NYT which will cause the wingnut crown to lose what little minds they have. https://news.yahoo.com/australia-sav...120039853.html.

[JustTK]

Regardless what the actual number of deaths were that could be attributed directly to the disease of Covid due to the coronavirus infection, the fact that hospitals were swamped, beds were filled, rooms were not available and medical staff and equipment to treat those requiring hospitalization were stretched beyond their ability to save hundreds of thousands of lives did actually happen, it wasn't "fake news." As if there were only a few fat, old Americans with pre-existing conditions likely to need much attention for this historic event so what was all the fuss about.
... in a "for profit" healthcare treatment country like the USA where Capitalism required there not be one extra bed, hospital room, doctor or nurse expense paid until people were dying in the streets for lack of them...
The upshot being when a lean, otherwise healthy 28 year old motorcycle or car accident victim needed immediate care or he'd die, he just might not have gotten it and died. The deadly and life-altering ripple effects of hospitals and medical staff being swamped due to just the fat, old Americans with or without pre-existing conditions showing up with Trump's Pandemic virus disease were enormous and real.

I agree w all of this, apart from Blaming Chump for it. Look, I am not one to defend a person like Chump, but I imagine the outcome would not have been any better whoever had been in power. The real issue is that the USA has only private heallthcare, and both political have had many opportunities to change that and yet did nothing. So they are equally as culpable. In fact, since the Dems got to power, they didn't even "force the vote", so clearly they intend to do nothing to ensure this is never repeated again. I suggest that any person that is happy with private healthcare, that votes for a person / politcian that does not advocate for public health, must answer the big question. Are you happy with the consequences of your choices?