Woke Mayor to Turn Cancel Culture Against WuFlu
[guest post by JVW]
London Mayor Sadiq Khan has hit upon a, well, curious idea for addressing the COVID-19 virus. Behold:
It's unacceptable that BAME Londoners are being disproportionately affected by #COVID19.
I've called on the Equality and Human Rights Commission to conduct a full inquiry – and ensure that lessons are learned.
Change cannot wait any longer.https://t.co/vVh839MPEq
— Sadiq Khan (@SadiqKhan) May 10, 2020
“BAME” appears to be John Bull shorthand for “Black, Asian, and Minority Ethnic,” so I guess the term “people of colour” is officially out of fashion in Jolly Old England. And suddenly the issue of higher infection and death rates among this population group is the new hobbyhorse of the social justice left, as witnessed by the incessant coverage in The Guardian. To be sure, there is nothing inherently wrong with going back to study why certain communities had higher infection and/or death rates than other communities; that is the sort of thing that we ought to do in order to better prepare for future crises. But the very tenor of Mayor Khan’s Tweet — “it is unacceptable,” “change cannot wait” — and the fact he is calling upon the intervention of the Equality and Human Rights Commission suggests that their report will nicely mesh with the political agenda of the crybullies.
Kevin Williamson had one of his typically excellent pieces yesterday on the death of consensus and how just at a point when it would have been helpful for our fractured political class to set aside differences and work together, each side instead manned its own barricades and sought to wring political advantage out of the crazy events. Of course how can we blame them when this sort of factionalism has become the default forum in which we operate? Mr. Williamson’s piece is well worth reading as he excoriates the worship of elite opinion just as much as he mocks aggressive populism, but his conclusion is chilling:
With the economy cratering, unemployment at unthinkable highs, tens of thousands dead and thousands more to die, it is almost impossible to write this, but: We are lucky that this epidemic is not a great deal worse than it is, because we are not ready for it and do not seem to have the capacity to get ourselves ready for it.
– JVW
It’s become a rather tired cliché to point out that we right now have the most uninspiring and largely dull-witted political class in the history of our republic, but hey, we’re the ones who elected them, so whose fault is it really?
JVW (54fd0b) — 5/11/2020 @ 12:28 pmWilliamson ends his piece by saying, ” I do not want government to do very much, but I want government to do the things that we need it to do, and to do them effectively.”
This begs the question of “What do we need the government to do?”
John B Boddie (141cfc) — 5/11/2020 @ 12:50 pmWell, the American people seldom get the government they deserve, but always get the government they elect. So, yeah, it’s largely our fault putting these numb nuts in office.
Gawain's Ghost (b25cd1) — 5/11/2020 @ 1:14 pmN.R.A. members are buying more guns to shoot virus out of the air. Whacky all around.
asset (ecedf2) — 5/11/2020 @ 1:17 pm“It’s become a rather tired cliché to point out that we right now have the most uninspiring and largely dull-witted political class in the history of our republic “
What’s amazing is that we’ve got an even lower life-form in regards to ethics and reason (and oh yeah, politically-tilted 90% one-way) reporting on them.
Related:
Matt Lewis
@mattklewis
Ugh. The Chuck Todd/Bill Barr thing comes on the heels of the Jimmy Kimmel/Mike Pence thing…. We all make mistakes, but the media’s zeal to push back on Trumpism is ironically reinforcing Trump’s dangerous “fake news” narrative…
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Brian Cates //Flynn & Breitbart’s Army!
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LOL.
“Mistakes”
LOL.
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Stephen L. Miller
@redsteeze
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Now compare how many times this happens in the other direction. You’re in for another surprise.
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Seth -Michael Basketball ☂
harkin (8f4a6f) — 5/11/2020 @ 1:31 pm@seth_michael45
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the fact we’re equating Kimmel and Todd as having equal function here says way worse things about our current news media than anything Trump could say
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This begs the question of “What do we need the government to do?”
It used to be popular during the Bush-Clinton-Bush eras to claim that there wasn’t a dime’s worth of difference between the two major parties, but I think that these days the question above reveals a huge split in ideology that is very difficult to bridge.
JVW (54fd0b) — 5/11/2020 @ 2:12 pmI wonder, JVW, if that’s really true. Absolutely, there’s a huge gulf between AOC and Tom Cotton. But between people out in the hustings, I’m not at all sure there’s that much separating us. In some respects, that’s not a happy thought for a conservative. We like a lot more disagreement on how big government should be, for instance.
Ragspierre (d9bec9) — 5/11/2020 @ 2:18 pm2. That question was supposed to be settled by the constitution. And since that out-of-date piece of parchment doesn’t matter anymore…I guess the real answer is “everything it can to take care of the sheeple.”
Gryph (08c844) — 5/11/2020 @ 2:23 pm“Now compare how many times this happens in the other direction. You’re in for another surprise.”
Can I use Fox and OANN? or are they not part of “the media”?
Davethulhu (244ed8) — 5/11/2020 @ 2:26 pmAbsolutely, there’s a huge gulf between AOC and Tom Cotton. But between people out in the hustings, I’m not at all sure there’s that much separating us. In some respects, that’s not a happy thought for a conservative.
I kind of anticipated that response, and I think there is a great deal of validity to it. Certainly we have a lot of people in this country who want big government but low taxes, or they want lots of personal freedoms but a giant safety net if they go astray. And a lot of populist voters of various ideologies seem to believe we could have all sorts of great things at virtually no cost if only those people wouldn’t keep them from us. But I do think we are lucky enough to have a fairly obvious divide between the socialist left and the small-government right, and comparatively fewer Clintonian/Bushonian types around these days who think we can somehow thread that needle with government experts who make the bureaucracy run more efficiently.
In other words, this would be the absolutely right moment for a principled conservative leader to stand up for free markets, low taxes, lean government, a return to true federalism, and the principle that the citizen is capable of providing for him/herself. But of course the ostensibly conservative party in this country is stuck with the leadership that we have.
JVW (54fd0b) — 5/11/2020 @ 2:35 pmThat question was supposed to be settled by the constitution.
No, it wasn’t. Not at the time and not since. Even at the time of the founding, for instance, there was a dogfight over the military. And that’s just the national government. The other levels of government have gone through a LOT of fits and starts that the Constitution had and has nothing to say about.
Ragspierre (d9bec9) — 5/11/2020 @ 2:38 pmIn other words, this would be the absolutely right moment for a principled conservative leader to stand up for free markets, low taxes, lean government, a return to true federalism, and the principle that the citizen is capable of providing for him/herself.
I love the impulse…
But I look at the crap on crap choices we are confronted with this fall. (Gloom…)
Ragspierre (d9bec9) — 5/11/2020 @ 2:43 pm“ whose fault is it really?”
– JVW
It’s the two-party system’s fault, and more fundamentally the fault of any first past the post electoral model.
The sooner that Americans reject that model, the more hope we can have for a better political future.
Leviticus (6159e1) — 5/11/2020 @ 2:45 pmHere’s a fun question: who here thinks that Hillary Clinton would have managed this pandemic worse than Trump has managed it? How much worse or better, in terms of American lives lost?
Leviticus (6159e1) — 5/11/2020 @ 2:46 pmI really like that you put this in the post. Unlike Mayor Khan, who also wants to find out why certain communities were hit harder, his motives are immensely different. He is looking for someone to blame.
Dana (0feb77) — 5/11/2020 @ 3:04 pmThere are too many contingencies, Leviticus. She might have prepared better on testing and PPE, but maybe not. She probably wouldn’t have issued that China travel ban–so the argument there is on how effective that actually was. It’s probably safe to say that she would have been more aggressive on quarantine/shutdown orders, but also highly likely the GOP would be push back/not cooperate on those. We would not to be treated to the Trump Hour aka those daily performances at the press briefings, and everything that came with those.
Kishnevi (4aeca3) — 5/11/2020 @ 3:19 pmThere’s also the probability that the GOP would have held the House and had better results in the Senate, and therefore any economic relief packages would be substantially different.
There is also the possibility that the GOP House would have found a reason to impeach her, although there would be enough Democrats in the Senate to save her, as happened with Billy Jeff.
One critical difference would be that Hillary, for all her less-than-admirable qualities, would not step on the toes of medical experts and those on her task force. She would not publicly challenge, contradict, and most assuredly, would not promote various treatments for the virus, and then have to have those same experts clean up her mess.
Dana (0feb77) — 5/11/2020 @ 3:26 pmThe flip slide of HRC not stepping on the toes of medical researchers is that there would be a huge sense of “don’t you dare question the experts,” especially at the point when we are trying to figure out how to rescue the economy from disaster, Ideally we would have someone who could navigate between the shoals of cheap populism and elite groupthink.
JVW (7c9592) — 5/11/2020 @ 4:04 pmThe flip slide of HRC not stepping on the toes of medical researchers is that there would be a huge sense of “don’t you dare question the experts,” especially at the point when we are trying to figure out how to rescue the economy from disaster, Ideally we would have someone who could navigate between the shoals of cheap populism and elite groupthink.
Agreed that this balance is important. But question whether Trump is capable of this. Thus far, all he seems to have done is go along with the experts, and then do some cheap sniping on Twitter. Serious engagement in balancing competing policy considerations seem to be beyond him. Either intellectually or tempermentally.
Bored Lawyer (56c962) — 5/11/2020 @ 4:09 pmSpeaking of cancel culture:
Trump visit to Pennsylvania factory that produces PPE materials was scuttled after plant officials expressed concerns about health risks
President Trump was pushing to get out in the public eye in recent weeks and tout his leadership during the pandemic, and White House staff thought they had hit on the ideal event: a presidential visit to thank the Pennsylvania factory workers who had recently taken herculean steps to ramp up U.S. supplies of protective equipment.
Workers had received national attention after dozens of them lived for 28 days inside their factory so they could ensure they were virus-free and their production was not contaminated or disrupted by illness.
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The president has told others he dislikes masks and thinks they suggest weakness…..
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Factory officials were initially excited about the idea of hosting a president but also had reservations, according to the two people familiar with the planning talks, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe internal discussions.
The plant officials told the White House advance team that they doubted their workers could attend the event. It was too risky for them — and would run counter to the effort they had taken by self-quaratining.
The White House then suggested that a few corporate officials could join the president, the people said.
Factory officials said they didn’t feel comfortable bringing the president and his entourage, which included a detail of several Secret Service agents, inside the plant, in part because social distancing would be hard to maintain. In response, the White House proposed holding the event in the adjoining open-air parking lot.
Ultimately, company officials suggested rescheduling after the pandemic was over, saying that a visit from the president was just too risky at this time.
RipMurdock (d2a2a8) — 5/11/2020 @ 4:29 pm……
While we are locked down, forcing people into destitution all because of government demands?
NJRob (c4fe22) — 5/11/2020 @ 4:36 pmMuch worse. Would’ve mandated a top down, one size fits all model and run it like NY.
NJRob (c4fe22) — 5/11/2020 @ 4:38 pmGov. Whitmer becomes target of dozens of threats on private Facebook groups ahead of armed rally in Lansing
Dozens of angry Michiganders, fueled by conspiracy theories and disinformation about the coronavirus, are promoting violence and mobilizing armed rallies against Gov. Gretchen Whitmer on Facebook, in violation of the social media company’s policies.
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Assassinating Whitmer is a common theme among members of the groups. Dozens of people have called for her to be hanged.
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The comments are especially disturbing because some of those calling for violence are planning to attend an armed rally at the Capitol building in Lansing on Thursday. …..
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“We haven’t had any bloodshed yet, but the populous is counting to three, and the other day was two,” Dave Meisenheimer wrote in Michiganders Against Excessive Quarantine, which has more than 385,000 members. “Next comes watering the tree of liberty with the blood of tyrants.”
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“There are legislators who are wearing bulletproof vests to go to work,” Whitmer told ABC News last week. “No one should be intimidated by someone who’s bringing in an assault rifle into their workplace.”
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The private Facebook groups are a hub for far-fetched conspiracy theories and disinformation, reinforcing people’s fears and anger. For some, the state’s stay-at-home order is an unconstitutional plot by liberals to strip residents of their freedoms and steal the election from President Trump. Some insist the coronavirus is a hoax, and others believe it’s a manmade disease designed to enrich billionaires and force vaccines on the masses.
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Not surprisingly, many members of the groups say they will never wear a mask because they believe they are unsafe or represent tyranny.
Birbot Arvo suggested he would resort to violence if police approached him about wearing a mask.
“Cop or not. You come at me strong about a mask and I will break your face,” Arvo said.
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To Melody DeCaire, wearing a mask is useless because the coronavirus isn’t real.
“theres no such thing as Covid,” she insisted. “Its radation [sic] poisoning coming from the 5g,” referring to the conspiracy theory that 5G towers cause the illness.
RipMurdock (d2a2a8) — 5/11/2020 @ 4:48 pm…..
Facebook users called Whitmer a “Nazi,” “spawn of the devil,” “wicked witch,” “arrogant facist [sic] pig,” “Gestapo Gretchen,” “tyrant,” “Soros puppet,” and “baby killer tyrant.”
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Much worse. Would’ve mandated a top down, one size fits all model and run it like NY.
She’d be in a Franzia-induced coma…
Colonel Haiku (2601c0) — 5/11/2020 @ 4:53 pmFacebook users called Whitmer a “Nazi,” “spawn of the devil,” “wicked witch,” “arrogant facist [sic] pig,” “Gestapo Gretchen,” “tyrant,” “Soros puppet,” and “baby killer tyrant.”
A real shame, let’s see if she can take the verbal abuse for the remainder of her term.
Colonel Haiku (2601c0) — 5/11/2020 @ 4:55 pmAn organ grinder’s monkey would have managed this pandemic better than Trump has managed it. Most worthless President ever.
Let me tell you just a handful things that Hillary would/would not have done:
nk (1d9030) — 5/11/2020 @ 5:02 pm— When her HHS Secretary tried to warn her, she would have listened, and not switched the subject to vaping.
— When it broke and the whole world was reacting to it she would not have called it a Republican hoax intended to bring down the stock market and ruin her chances of reelection.
— She would have shut down international travel a month before Trump did.
— She would not have appointed her worthless son-in-law to procure additional medical equipment and supplies who then sent the FBI to confiscate them from already known legitimate sources and keep the places who needed them from having them.
— She would not have sent out President Clinton’s Coronavirus Guidelines and then sent out tweets inciting her neo-Nazi inbreds to violate them.
— Most important, she would have STFU and let people who knew what they were doing do their jobs.
— She would not have proposed quack cures to make his other dingalings happy.
White House dismisses economic ‘pity party:’ ‘This is not the Great Depression’
White House trade adviser Peter Navarro on Monday dismissed what he described as an economic “pity party” a day earlier and said the U.S. is not facing another Great Depression amid the coronavirus pandemic.
“This is not the Great Depression,” Mr. Navarro said on “Fox and Friends.” “Anybody who thinks this is the Great Depression doesn’t understand either history or economics.”
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Mr. Navarro’s comments came after White House senior adviser Kevin Hassett and Treasury Secretary Steven T. Mnuchin warned on Sunday that more economic pain – including an unemployment rate potentially approaching 20% – is likely forthcoming in the short term.
“That was a pity party yesterday,” Mr. Navarro said.
The Labor Department had reported on Friday that the U.S. unemployment rate surged to 14.7% in April, the worst since the Great Depression.
RipMurdock (d2a2a8) — 5/11/2020 @ 5:03 pm@25-
RipMurdock (d2a2a8) — 5/11/2020 @ 5:05 pmI have read so many posts (not here) about “watering the tree of liberty” that it is an empty threat. Until someone tries it, of course.
While we are locked down, forcing people into destitution all because of government demands?
No. Because of a pandemic, and the public health response to it. Which are largely state and local issues. Like in NJ.
Changed the laws there yet?
Ragspierre (d9bec9) — 5/11/2020 @ 5:05 pm“Trump’s Feeling Is, ‘Why Are We Losing Everywhere?’”: With Advisers Feuding and Numbers Plummeting, Trump Eyes Campaign Shake-up
With the coronavirus death toll surpassing 80,000 and the unemployment rate at Great Depression-era levels, there is a growing consensus among senior Republicans that Donald Trump’s reelection is slipping away. Recent internal polls show Trump trailing Joe Biden in six swing states, a data point that augurs a landslide loss in November. “The swing state polls are horrific,” a prominent Republican briefed on the numbers told me. The White House’s COVID-19 outbreak is only the latest headline that reinforces the narrative that Trump can’t get control of the pandemic. “This is what should worry the campaign: Biden is in his basement and he’s beating Trump,” a former West Wing staffer told me. “If I were Biden, the lesson I would learn is: Shut the fuck up and let Trump go out there and destroy himself.”
RipMurdock (d2a2a8) — 5/11/2020 @ 5:36 pm……
Trump Says More Testing Makes U.S. ‘Look Bad,’ But Its Availability Remains A Concern
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In recent days, [Senator Lamar] Alexander has said that the coronavirus testing the United States has done so far is “not nearly enough,” and “there is no safe path forward to combat the novel coronavirus without adequate testing.”
Trump has touted the overall number of tests that have been conducted in the country — now more than 8 million. But at times he’s read a different message in them.
“If we did very little testing, [America] wouldn’t have the most cases,” Trump said Wednesday. “So, in a way, by doing all of this testing, we make ourselves look bad.”
RipMurdock (d2a2a8) — 5/11/2020 @ 5:41 pm…….
CEOs, Farm Bureau President Told To Remove Face Masks Before Meeting With Mike Pence
Four CEOs of food companies and the president of the American Farm Bureau Federation were told to remove their face masks before a meeting in Iowa Friday with Vice President Mike Pence, a startling video posted by The Intercept reveals.
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The audience watching the Iowa roundtable practiced social distancing in the wide spacing of seating, but almost no one wore masks. Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue, Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), Sen. Joni Ernst (R-Iowa) and Republican Gov. Kim Reynolds (R) all participated in the roundtable, but none wore a mask.
Pence traveled to Iowa to hail the state’s “success story” in getting back to business amid the COVID-19 crisis. But the Sioux City metro area had the most cases per capita of any county in the nation, according to a data analysis Sunday by The New York Times.
Iowa has also been struggling mightily with major outbreaks of the disease among workers in five meatpacking plants in the state.
RipMurdock (d2a2a8) — 5/11/2020 @ 5:47 pm……
I have read so many posts (not here) about “watering the tree of liberty” that it is an empty threat.
They leave out the “… and patriots” part, too. Those white supremacist poofters can’t even go without their Denny’s Super Slam, they’re going to start a revolution? Ha-ha-ha!
nk (1d9030) — 5/11/2020 @ 5:48 pmI have to say that I’m very proud of normal Americans, the 99.99% who don’t wear Confederate flag underwear. They have adjusted to the situation a lot better than I thought they would.
nk (1d9030) — 5/11/2020 @ 6:08 pmYou know this how?
Hoi Polloi (dc4124) — 5/11/2020 @ 6:09 pmMayor Khan not wearing a mask.
Bugg (ebf485) — 5/11/2020 @ 6:29 pmnk, you express a lot of confidence in a woman who ignored entreaties for more security in Benghazi because it didn’t fit the narrative that the Administration in which she worked had pacified the situation there. I think that HRC would have been a lot like Andrew Cuomo, Gretchen Whitmer, or Sadiq Khan (or, for that matter, Donald Trump): she would have prioritized appearing confident, resolute, and in charge over actually trying to balance the need for public safety with the need to maintain a sense of normalcy in people’s lives.
JVW (54fd0b) — 5/11/2020 @ 6:45 pmLike in a lot of other cases, statistics are being used – and only very highly abstract statistics are used to reach a false conclusion. They’re not drilling down into what;’s actually causing this disparity.
Somebody is probably trying to figure out a way to use this disparity to justify a “remedy” that will not remedy any of this. You can’t sue a virus for discrimination, and neither can they sue the NHS, so it’s probably a government appropriation.
This is copied from the United States. It won’t last in the United Kingdom. Won’t last here either, because there’s no real way to exploit it, and there’s flood of anti-coronovirus money going out anyway for people to grab some of that, than to try to create a racial remedy cause for spending money.
Sammy Finkelman (375edc) — 5/12/2020 @ 8:31 am17. Dana (0feb77) — 5/11/2020 @ 3:26 pm
Even when they are wrong, even when she knows they are wrong.
She might have endorsed something like the guidelines attempted in New York State – EMS should not attempt to revive heart attack victims and stop CPR after 20 minutes.
This was the other controversial order that came from the New York State Department of Health
https://www.firerescue1.com/cpr/articles/fdny-ems-ordered-not-to-transport-cardiac-arrest-patients-that-cant-be-resuscitated-in-field-yjD7yH3AShEyCOSK
This was reversed.
And she might even have tried to block states from outlawing the placement of Covid-positice people in nursing homes.
She would not publicly challenge, contradict, and most assuredly, would not promote various treatments for the virus, and then have to have those same experts clean up her mess.
Sammy Finkelman (375edc) — 5/12/2020 @ 8:50 amKhan hasn’t apparently had much success dealing with knife crime – which also disproportionately effects BAME Britons (and poor whites of various shades, but they don’t count).
I imagine few Brits are surprised that he hasn’t done much to offset this crisis either.
JP (f80220) — 5/14/2020 @ 3:29 pm