Just Close The Airports And Allow Us Some Sun: Vitamin D Fights COVID-19 Better Than UK Government
By Neil Clark – Sputnik – April 9, 2020
Irish academic research has shown that Vitamin D, which we get from sunlight, can boost resistance to respiratory infection, including coronavirus, yet the UK government isn’t listening and instead warns us all to stay indoors.
Summer seems to have arrived early in Britain. It’s forecast to be 24 degrees Celsius on Saturday in some parts, with lovely sunny weather and warm temperatures returning in the second half of next week.
Not that most Brits will be able to enjoy it. We’re in ‘lockdown’ and only supposed to go outdoors for a very small number of reasons. Sunbathing, as the police and government have both made very clear, is not one of them. A video was doing the rounds on Sunday showing cops in a patrol van telling people not to sunbathe in Peckham Rye Park in London.
Of course, gatherings of more than two people need to be dispersed. But even someone sunbathing on their own, properly socially distanced from the next person, could end up getting into trouble. This is nonsensical. So long as social distancing rules are observed, sunbathing can actually do us a lot of good in our current situation.
The stronger our immune systems, the better our protection against the coronavirus. Vitamin D is crucial as the Irish research, from Trinity College Dublin, shows. At the end of a long winter our Vitamin D levels are usually very depleted- meaning of course we are more likely to be susceptible to infections.
Dr Eamon Laird, co-author of the report, says: ‘‘These findings show our older adults have high levels of vitamin D deficiency which could have a significant negative impact on their immune response to infection. There is an even larger risk now of deficiency with those cocooning or confined indoors.’
There hasn’t to my knowledge been a study this year in the UK on the same subject, but it’s reasonable to assume that with similar weather to Ireland, British citizens, at the end of a gloomy, mild and very wet winter will have the same deficiencies.
Sunlight can remedy that. As the report’s summary says: ‘Vitamin D is produced in the skin by exposing the body to just 10-15 minutes per day of sun.’ Not only that, sunlight increases the brain’s release of the hormone serotonin, making it a natural anti-depressant. Vast amounts are spent on anti-depressant drugs, but the best medicine for this condition is out there, available for free, in front of our eyes.
No one is talking here about denying the need for social distancing to mitigate Covid19’s spread, but surely, given the clear benefits of sunshine in improving physical and mental health, the UK government ought to be taking be a more nuanced approach?
Instead of introducing staggered time slots for different ages to go to them, parks and open spaces are being closed. A lot of Brits who don’t have a garden, are going to be spending the next seven days cooped up inside, when- provided they keep their distance- it would be better for their health if they spent some time soaking up some sun-rays. Rather than take on board the Irish research, the UK government seems to be going in the other direction. On Sunday Health Secretary Matt Hancock warned that exercise out of the home ‘could be banned’- meaning we wouldn’t even be able to go out for a bike ride up and down the road. Yes, the Chopper could be in for the chop.
How extraordinary would that be when one considers that flights from Covid-19 hotspots have been coming in to the country unchecked! Professor Neil Ferguson of ICL has said that Covid-19 has been ‘seeded’ around the UK by people arriving into the country by plane. You could say that was ‘stating the bleedin’ obvious’, but according to reports the Chief Medical Officer Professor Chris Whitty thought there was no evidence banning flights would stop the spread of a global pandemic … that has been spread by people travelling from one country to another!
The failure to close our airports- and introduce proper quarantine measures at all ports of entry- is likely to cost thousands of lives. Yet it’s sunbathing on your own that is deemed a bigger problem.
The UK government’s policy can be likened to a householder who faced with a flood, turns the kitchen tap off but leaves the one in the bathroom running. The sensible thing to do of course is to turn off the stopcock so no more water can come in. But throughout the crisis Johnson’s crew have been anything but sensible. The flip-flopping has been extraordinary.
On 5th March, Boris Johnson said on television: ‘People can see the country is going to get through this in good shape’. The Daily Express reported that ‘He (Johnson) repeated his insistence that he will not give up shaking hands because of the outbreak. He shook hands with presenters on arriving on the set and later did the same thing with Maltese President George Vella’. The PM, the Express said, emphasised that the risks from the virus were small- and that measures such as closing schools and cancelling sports events and other big public gatherings were unlikely.
Yet just a week later, on 12th March, Johnson was warning that Coronavirus was the ‘worst public health crisis for a generation’ and declared: ‘I must level with you- many more families are going to lose loved ones before their time’.
We went from Bouncing Boris to Grim Reaper Boris in just seven days.
But there were still no restrictions on movement announced until Monday 23rd March, which was much too late. Even then, as mentioned earlier, the flights from hotspots still were allowed to come in unchecked. On 27th March, the man who wouldn’t stop shaking hands announced that he had tested positive for the virus. Quelle surprise, you might say. (Boris Johnson is currently spending his fifth day in hospital and of course one wishes him well).
While there have been plenty of warnings to ‘stay at home’ to protect the NHS, what we haven’t received yet is any practical information from government on how to build up our immune systems to make us less susceptible to infection. For all the six figure salaried officials at Public Health England today, it seems we got better advice back in the 1940s. Anyone remember Lord Woolton and the Ministry of Food?
Cod liver oil- a rich source of Vitamins A and D, was given free to children, pregnant mums and nurses in the 1940s and 50s, but to my knowledge not one UK government minister or public health official has talked of its benefits in recent weeks, or even mentioned the words ‘Immune Boosting Vitamins’ or ‘Immune Boosting Food’.
The official line has gone from a glib ‘you’ve nothing to worry about, carrying on going out and about and to large events and shaking hands’ to ‘this is the worst public health crisis for a generation, many families will lose loved ones before their time’, with nothing much in between. By not stopping people ‘seeding’ the virus from incoming flights, it’s clear that the government, for all its draconian talk about enforcing a ‘lockdown’ hasn’t abandoned ‘herd immunity’. The most plausible explanation I’ve seen of the seemingly contradictory policy, came from Julian Symes on Twitter who described it as ‘Herd Immunity accelerate/break’.
The government wants the virus to spread as quickly as possible, but subject to the NHS’s ability to cope. So flights can still come in unchecked, but we have distancing measures too. That can also explain why they haven’t been extolling the benefits of Vitamin D- or working out a scheme which combines the maintenance of distancing measures with an acknowledgement of the health-boosting effect of sunshine.
When one factors in the failure to plan or prepare in any meaningful way for the pandemic, which means that some NHS staff are going into front-line battle with just bin bags for protection, then we can say that the government’s handling of the Coronavirus crisis has been ‘Fail’ an epic way. So it’s no surprise that they’d rather blame us- the public -for simply wanting to do what comes naturally at the end of a long winter.
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About 300 inmates at Chicago jail test positive for coronavirus
Press TV – April 10, 2020
Almost 300 inmates at a Chicago prison have tested positive for the novel coronavirus that has killed at least 18,000 people across the United States and infected more than 475,000 individuals.
The Cook County Jail on Friday reported that 276 prisoners tested positive for the COVID-19 this week, ring to according to Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot (D). In addition, 115 prison staff have also tested positive for the virus.
The development has fueled fears about coronavirus outbreaks among the prison populations across the US, which has the highest documented incarceration rate in the world.
The 4,500-person Chicago has the largest reported coronavirus outbreak within an American prison so far.
“First and foremost, no one should be locked up if they’re not a danger to the community or a flight risk,” Lightfoot told CNN. “And certainly not because they can’t afford to pay bail.”
The family of a prisoner who died in custody filed suit against Cook County and Sheriff Tom Dart on Thursday, claiming he was shackled while died of the virus, according to the New York Times.
Human rights groups including the American Civil Liberties Union have urged US prison authorities to release nonviolent prisoners during the pandemic to mitigate the spread of the virus, but most of the US states have refused to do so. Only a few states, such as California, announced last month that it planned to release 3,500 nonviolent offenders.
The attorney for Washington, DC, Timothy Shea, last week opposed release of prisoners amid the coronavirus pandemic, arguing that “violent criminals” should not be set free.
She expressed the opposition in response to an emergency motion filed by the Public Defender Service general counsel.
According to the motion, outbreaks of COVID-19 “are far from speculative — they are imminent, with confirmed positive cases [at the jail] now approaching double digits.”
The Public Defender Service general counsel introduced the motion after several inmates in Washington jails tested positive for the coronavirus.
There are concerns about the conditions of prisoners in American jails as the pandemic is growing fast across the US states amid a shortage of medical supplies.
‘They Didn’t Get a Death Sentence’: US Inmates Set for Release Put Near COVID-19 Patients – Report
Sputnik – April 10, 2020
As of Thursday, 283 federal inmates in the US have been diagnosed with the new coronavirus and eight have died, as federal and state prisons are expanding early release to try and slow the spread of the coronavirus in otherwise congested conditions.
The US government’s handling of the coronavirus spread in federal prisons puts the health of inmates at risk, POLITICO reports citing the accounts of convicts’ spouses.
“They’re quarantining these healthy inmates with sick inmates that are already down there,” said a woman whose husband was placed in a special housing unit at a federal prison in Cumberland, Maryland.
The unit is used to quarantine prisoners before early release for 14 days – the estimated incubation period – and it is not clear why it also housed inmates suspected of having the virus.
“It’s crazy how they’re doing this,” she reportedly said. “It’s like they’re just waiting to get this…. They’re at risk of being forgotten about. They didn’t get a death sentence.”
Another woman whose spouse was sent to the same special housing unit pending early release confirmed that account. “I’m pretty sure that is not the correct protocol for quarantine,” she was quoted as saying.
Justin Long, the Bureau of Prisons spokesman, did not explain whether the agency is taking steps to separate prisoners who display COVID-19 symptoms or are presumably infected, from those set for release.
“All of the BOP’s institutions have been directed to designate available space for isolation and quarantine for inmates who have been exposed to or have symptoms of COVID-19,” he stated. “The BOP follows all CDC guidelines with regard to isolation and quarantining.”
There are around 2.3 million people being held in jails, prisons and detention centres in the United States. There are over 173,000 federal inmates in the US; the rest account for state-run and private prisons.
The coronavirus pandemic has raised concerns over the health of prisoners, who are living in congregate settings where it is nearly impossible to heed the 6-feet social distancing instruction.
As of Thursday, 283 federal inmates and 125 staff have tested positive for the coronavirus nationwide and another eight inmates have died, according to figures from the Bureau of Prisons which manages federal facilities.
Last month, in response to calls from lawmakers and campaigners, Attorney General William Barr encouraged federal prisons to double down on early release programmes and move low-risk inmates to home confinement in a bid to curb the spread of the pandemic. Meanwhile, all federal inmates have been held in their cells since 1 April as part of a 14-day lockdown.
Some state and private prisons have also started to release certain prisoners home as inmates file petitions for “compassionate release”, an option typically reserved for extreme circumstances such as terminal illness.
California plans to fast-track the release of 3,500 non-violent prisoners in the next two months, and New Jersey will temporarily free up to 1,000 jail inmates.
Twitter jams open a back door to track your phone – which may already be in use by the government
By Helen Buyniski | RT | April 9, 2020
Twitter is no longer allowing users to hide private data like their phone’s unique tracking identifier from advertisers, at the same time the US government is apparently targeting advertiser data to track Covid-19. Coincidence?
The social media giant announced the changes in a popup when users logged in on Wednesday, glibly informing those outside Europe that they would no longer be able to disable sharing “mobile app advertising measurements” and that there was nothing they could do about it.
The latest invasion of user privacy is just the most recent incursion on user rights coming out of the social media monopolies. Last month, users were informed that content not violating the rules might be removed anyway, because coronavirus had somehow forced the platforms’ human content moderators (some of whom already worked from home) to take time off for safety reasons.
But while Twitter claims that the new always-on “share data” setting is merely intended to reassure advertisers that people are watching their ads, it coincides with a dramatic uptick in government interest in advertisers’ location data, supposedly to track the spread of the coronavirus pandemic that has torpedoed the world economy and effectively imprisoned a good chunk of humanity in their homes.
The US government was reportedly already slurping up location data on millions of Americans through mobile advertisers – the same companies that are benefiting from Twitter’s new “always-on” mobile data sharing policy – even while it was meeting with Twitter and other social media platforms to gain access to their own treasure troves of user information, according to the Wall Street Journal, which cited several individuals involved in the surveillance project.
Given the public outrage in the past when social media users discovered the government spying on them through their beloved platforms, it’s no surprise Twitter would rather just leave the back door open through its advertisers and let the government take what it wants without getting directly involved. Certainly, Facebook is taking a bigger gamble by bragging about pressing users’ private data into service in the fight against the virus. The company of course claims to be protecting user privacy, but they’ve made that claim many times – usually right before a big privacy scandal.
Even those who believe enhanced government surveillance during a pandemic is justified need only look to history to observe how ’wartime powers’ are seldom relinquished during peacetime. While it would be naive to claim Twitter isn’t already funneling users’ private data to governments as well as its corporate clients – that has been public knowledge since former NSA contractor Edward Snowden released documents on the PRISM project in 2013 – the growing romance between Big Brother and Big Tech should be cause for concern for anyone interested in ensuring privacy doesn’t become the biggest casualty of the coronavirus epidemic.
Helen Buyniski is an American journalist and political commentator at RT. Follow her on Twitter @velocirapture23
Iran releases ‘political prisoners’ amid Covid-19 outbreak, while virus-stricken UK keeps Assange behind bars
RT | April 9, 2020
Tehran has released an Iranian national seen as a political prisoner in the UK as it fights the coronavirus. British activists and media rushed to say Iran’s move was not enough – while being blind to a bigger problem at home.
Aras Amiri, an Iranian national and UK resident who worked with the British Council, has been temporarily released from jail, where she has been held since 2018 after being found guilty of spying. The move is likely to be a part of efforts taken by Tehran to stem the spread of the novel coronavirus in prisons in particular.
The UK board director of Amnesty International, Daren Nair, used the occasion to remind his Twitter followers that Amiri was “unjustly imprisoned” and to demand that Iranian authorities not just set her free but “let her come home to London to be with her fiancé.” The news was then eagerly picked up by various Western media outlets, including Radio Free Europe.
Amiri was arrested back in 2018 while on a family visit to Iran. Her work with the British Council reportedly involved organizing film festivals and other cultural exchanges between the two countries. The organization, describing itself as the UK’s “international organization for cultural relations and educational opportunities,” has been banned in Iran since 2009 in response to the launch of the BBC’s Persian service and the British embassy’s supposedly “significant role” in protests that rocked the country earlier the same year.
It seems that Iran – which various British officials and activists like to scold over alleged human rights violations – is showing concern for the fate of its inmates in the face of an epidemic that has seen more than 64,000 people infected nationwide.
Earlier, Tehran also temporarily released another person who has long been seen in the UK as a victim of unjust political persecution. Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, a British-Iranian journalist and aid worker, was sentenced to five years on charges of plotting to overthrow the Iranian government back in 2016.
In mid-March, she was among some 85,000 other inmates released from Tehran’s Evin prison as part of the state response to the spread of Covid-19. On March 29, her temporary leave was extended by an additional fortnight.
Such measures were just what UN Human Rights Chief Michelle Bachelet had called for in an address to governments around the world amid the pandemic.
However, Julian Assange, whom Amnesty International also called “a prisoner of conscience,” has so far been denied the same treatment from UK authorities. The British justice system has refused to release him from maximum security prison HMP Belmarsh on bail, even though the facility has already reported not just several confirmed coronavirus cases, but the first death within its walls from the dreaded disease.
Activists, medics and even the UN rapporteur on torture have repeatedly pointed to the WikiLeaks founder’s poor state of health while calling for his release. However, their pleas apparently do not provide enough ground for London to release Assange, who has not been found guilty of any serious offenses and is awaiting a court decision on his extradition to the US.
International Solidarity Movement statement on reported FBI probe
International Solidarity Movement | April 7, 2020
Recently, the Intercept published a report of a surveillance investigation conducted by the FBI on the International Solidarity Movement (ISM). The highly invasive investigation targeted ISM activists, their associates, and other organizations ISM worked with, from 2004 – 2006, using informants as well as physical and telecommunications surveillance.
We, at the International Solidarity Movement, denounce this shameless abuse of power and misuse of public funds in an attempt to criminalize Palestinian solidarity and anti-occupation activism, as well as the current ongoing campaign in some American states to criminalize the BDS movement. ISM activists have been secretly spied on and targeted by various intelligence services, including British, Israeli, and U.S., for over 19 years, merely for standing up for the rights of Palestinians.
We call on those who believe that Palestinians are entitled to the same rights as the rest of humanity to take action and raise awareness about local, state, and national attempts to criminalize nonviolent resistance such as BDS and Palestinian advocacy, and boycott those profiting off the Occupation of Palestine.
According to the Intercept report, an FBI investigation was launched after an American volunteer with ISM was shot and wounded by Israeli forces at a protest in Occupied Palestine. Instead of investigating the foreign army that injured an American citizen exercising his First Amendment-protected right to peaceful protest, the FBI’s response was to probe the survivor. While the 2 primary investigations were launched by the Los Angeles and St. Louis FBI Field Offices, agents from at least 11 cities were involved in spying on various ISM activists and related organizations. Using far right and extremist news sources, the investigation attempted to link ISM to international terrorism.
After two years of investigation, multiple rights and privacy violations, hundreds of pages of reports and tens of thousands of taxpayer dollars wasted, the investigation only proved what we have always maintained: ISM is a non-violent movement committed to ending the Occupation of Palestine through non-violent means.
Notably, the investigation began in March 2004, shortly after the murder of American Rachel Corrie and Briton Tom Hurndall (2003) by the Israeli army. The probe coincided with an Israeli government campaign to de-legitimize ISM and discredit Palestinian rights activists. It also reflects the increase in recent years of FBI investigations into non-violent activist organizations such as Black Lives Matter and Antiwar.com. Today, lobby groups, politicians, and leaders in the United States continue to violate First Amendment-protected rights to free speech through criminalizing non-violent Palestinian activism, such as the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) movement.
“The fact that ISM was under this kind of extensive investigation is ridiculous and a complete waste of taxpayer money. ISM has always been open and transparent about who we are, what we do, and what we stand for, which is purportedly what this country stands for — freedom and human rights.” — ISM co-founder Huwaida Arraf
“In Dr. King’s time, surveillance was justified in terms of alleged Communist influence; in recent years, surveillance has been justified by alleged association with terrorists. In both cases, U.S. citizens were employing nonviolent action to confront injustice and oppression.” — ISM activist spied on by the FBI, Mark Chmiel
“Business as Usual” Isn’t Even a Choice
By Anatoly Karlin • Unz Review • April 1, 2020
A few days ago, I joked on Twitter:
The choice isn’t between boomer genocide and an economic collapse.
The choice is between boomer genocide and economic collapse, or producing millions of 5 cent masks and making people wear them.
Reality is, it is only boomer genocide that isn’t a choice.
74% of Americans support a national quarantine, and that even includes 72% of Republicans. In France, there is a near consensus on lockdown at 96%. In Italy it is 94%.
In Brazil, Jair Bolsonaro – the only President of a major democratic polity who continues to insist on treating coronavirus as a nothingburger – has been made into a lame duck, his commands ignored by 24 out of Brazil’s 27 governors and even by his own Health Minister.
Meanwhile, as predicted by Ron Unz, Trump has performed a volte face, extending federal social distancing guidelines past Easter up to April 30 and now touts 100,000 deaths as a “good scenario.”
Which is just as well, because as we know see, modern democracies are simply incapable of “powering through” even through what is a fairly low-mortality pandemic in historical terms.
Consequently, the only choices are:
- Nip it in the bud early on through mass testing-tracing-treatment, border controls, and limited lockdowns, resulting in limited economic damage. [for example]
- Wait until later, necessitating progressively more massive, longer, and economically ruinous lockdowns. [for example]
So the only correct move is to clamp down close to the start, and to clamp down hard. This is what was done in all the East Asian polities, be they chaotic democracies, city-state technocracies, or Communist single-party states.
Because in the latter scenario, there will eventually come a time when you are simply sidelined by your own underlings and by regional authorities, adding a political crisis on top of a healthcare and economic one.
In my post on Trump’s initial decision, I speculated:
Far out scenario: Blue states may outright defy Trump on abandoning containment measures, in which case they too would be doing starkly better than Red states (unless it also sparks a Constitutional crisis into the bargain).
Well, on that note, here’s a Tweet from California governor Gavin Newsom today. That’s some interesting wording there:
California is an enterprising, modernizing, nation-state. 40 million strong. Together, we will get through this. pic.twitter.com/PBTc7ukmak
— Gavin Newsom (@GavinNewsom) April 1, 2020
So again, good on Donald Trump to have come to terms with Corona reality and averting what could have become a very dangerous experiment.
This brings us to another interesting question: Will we get a “clean” experiment anywhere?
As per above, I don’t think it’s going to happen in any democracy. Britain backed away from its “herd immunity” idea two weeks ago, on realizing that their models didn’t include a term for ventilator shortages. The Dutch followed soon afterwards. With Sweden’s coronavirus mortality trajectory beginning to radically diverge from those of its Nordic cousins, I believe it is only a matter of time before they go into lockdown as well.
My guess is that our best “hope” – inappropriate as that expression may be – lies in Belarus, which is run by a decidedly non-coronapilled dictator.
India introduces new Kashmir domicile law, raising fears of demographic manipulation
Press TV – April 2, 2020
India has introduced a new law that would make its citizens eligible to become permanent residents of the Indian-administered Kashmir, raising fears of demographic change in the Muslim-majority, Himalayan region.
The new law, which was announced by the Indian Ministry of Home Affairs on Wednesday and which reportedly is not subject to parliamentary review, will deem any person who has resided in the Indian-controlled Kashmir for a period of 15 years or studied at certain school grades there as “domicile” of the territory.
The new law will also provide domicile status to the children of central government officials who have served in the Indian-controlled Kashmir for a total period of 10 years.
It will also open local jobs to non-residents.
The introduction of the law comes almost eight months after the Indian government stripped the disputed region of its limited autonomy. On August 5 last year, New Delhi revoked Article 370, a constitutional provision that had come into effect in 1949 and had granted special status to Kashmir, allowing it to have its own flag and constitution, among other rights.
In the lead-up to the revocation, India sent thousands of additional troops to the disputed region, imposed a curfew, arrested political leaders, and shut down telecommunication lines.
The new law also comes as the country of 1.3 billion people is under a 21-day lockdown in an attempt to prevent the spread of the new coronavirus, raising speculation that the timing is intentional.
Legalizing settlements?
Residents in the Indian-controlled Kashmir fear that the new law would alter the demographic status of the region, with experts saying it will lead to “demographic flooding.”
“It is a lot to circumvent the law. I think it illustrates clearly that some will not stop from politicking during coronavirus [epidemic],” Siddiq Wahid, a political analyst based in the Indian-controlled Kashmir, said.
“Obviously it is an attempt to change the demographics, not only change but flood it. It will lead to demographic flooding,” Wahid said, according to Al Jazeera.
Sheikh Showkat Hussain, a professor of legal studies based in the region, said the move had already been in the offing.
“The whole purpose of revoking Article 370 was to settle outsiders here and change the demography of the [Jammu and Kashmir] state. Now this provides the modalities and entitles so many categories of Indians whose settlement will be legalized over here.”
India’s ruling Hindu-nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has denied that the new law is an attempt to change the demography of the region.
Kashmir has been split between India and Pakistan since partition in 1947. Both countries claim all of Kashmir and have fought three wars over the territory.
Meanwhile, Muslims elsewhere in India have also been facing abuse and violence.
How It Starts
By Craig Murray | April 1, 2020
The brevity of this post is out of proportion to the enormous importance of the subject. But I want to let you know I am thinking and working on it.
It is a recognised pattern for dictatorship to commence with emergency measures designed to combat a threat. Those emergency measures then become normalised and people exercising arbitrary power find it addictive. A new threat is then found to justify the continuation
It is by no means clear to me that it is a rational response to covid-19 to tear up all of the civil liberties which were won by the people against authority through centuries of struggle, and for which people died. To say that is not to minimise the threat of covid-19. It is also worth pointing out that a coronavirus pandemic was a widely foreseen eventuality. People keep sending me links to various TV shows or movies based on a coronavirus pandemic, generally claiming this proves it is a man-made event. No, that just proves it is a widely foreseen event. Which it is.
The lack of contingency preparedness is completely indefensible. It is partly a result of the stupidity of Tory austerity that has the NHS permanently operating at 100% capacity with no contingency, and partly the result of the crazed just-in time thinking that permeates management in all spheres and eliminates the holding of stock.
It is incredible to me that the UK is willing to throw away some £220 billion and rising on Trident against a war scenario nobody can sensibly define, but was not willing to spend a few million on holding stock of protective clothing for the NHS against the much more likely contingency of a pandemic. What does that say about our society?
Anyway, we are where we are. Nobody knows how deadly this virus is. There have not been, anywhere, sufficient reliable large general population samples to know what percentage of people who get the virus will die. We just do not know how many people in the UK have had it and not got seriously ill. My suspicion is that in a couple of years time it will be discovered the mortality rate was under 1%. But I do not know, and I do not blame the government for making worst assumptions in the absence of reliable scientific evidence. Personally, I am obeying lockdown and would advise others to do so too until the situation is clearer. But I do not want to see the police harassing people for going on a long walk or posting a letter. It really is a problem to have police empowered to stop and question a citizen for just walking in the street. It is also a problem that Peter Hitchens is being reviled for saying, in essence, little more than that. When you can’t criticise restrictions on liberty, you know society has entered a very dark phase indeed.
I would feel much more comfortable if they were open about what they do not know. All the excuses for not testing people rather than admit they did not have the tests rather rattles trust. The ability of the rich and well-connected to access tests also rattles trust.
But none of this justifies rule by fiat – if Parliament cannot sit, I personally believe it would benefit the nations of the UK to have no new laws for a while. There are too many laws already. It does not justify banning political gathering. I don’t recommend anyone to gather, and I don’t imagine they would gather, but the evil of banning political activity is much more serious than the danger of four lonely people in Solihull getting together to talk about coronavirus restrictions.
It certainly does not justify banning jury trials, which the Scottish government has just dropped from today’s Bill after a revolt led by Joanna Cherry. The bill still weakens the defence in trials by allowing pre-taped video evidence and dispensing with the right to cross-examine. If the accusers had been allowed to get away with their lies in the Alex Salmond trial without cross-examination, the result might have been very different. For God’s sake, if you cannot do justice, suspend it. Do not dispense rough justice.
Scotland’s “Sinister” Covid19 Response – Suspend Trial by Jury
Coronavirus (Scotland) Bill removes and undermines hard-won legal protections
OffGuardian | March 31, 2020
The new legal powers sought by Scotland’s devolved law-makers undermine ideas of justice in place for hundreds of years, according to the Scottish Criminal Bar Association.
The new Coronavirus (Scotland) Bill grants sweeping powers to Nicola Sturgeon and the Scottish Parliament, and makes dramatic changes to the criminal justice system.
Among a long list of changes, the Bill seeks to:
- Replace trial by jury with bench trials, presided over by a Judge or local Sheriff
- Remove the maximum time of 140 days an accused can await trial
- Relax hearsay evidence law, allowing judges to hear pre-recorded witness statements that are not open to cross-examination
The new rules, unlike similar Diplock rules used in Northern Ireland in 1970s, do not guarantee an automatic right of appeal.
The Scottish Judiciary claims these powers are vital to protecting people from potential coronavirus infections, whilst following the European Convention on Human Rights requirements for an “effective justice system”.
But the Scottish Criminal Bar Association strongly disagrees.
In a statement on their website, SCBA President Ronnie Renucci QC wrote:
The SCBA believes that these draconian measures seeking to bring about seismic changes to our system of justice are premature, disproportionate and ill-advised. They are at best a knee-jerk reaction to an as yet unquantified problem instigated by panic or at worst, something far more sinister.
A long-form response, going point-by-point through the bill is available here.
Will other countries follow Scotland’s example? It remains to be seen. We will no doubt be discussing this unsettling development more in the future.
Open Letter to Chinese Government Highlights MSM Hypocrisy
By Daniel Lazare | Strategic Culture Foundation | March 30, 2020
The Washington Post, New York Times, and Wall Street Journal have written an open letter to the Chinese government urging it to reverse its “damaging and reckless” decision to expel their reporters amid a spiraling COVID epidemic.
The letter makes all the usual points about a “free flow of reliable news and information” in the middle of a growing international emergency. And however clichéd, such sentiments are correct since access to the broadest possible sources of information is indeed essential if the world is to make it through the crisis.
But the letter would have been a lot more convincing if the three papers had spoken up on Mar. 2 when the Trump administration moved to expel sixty Chinese journalists working for five news organizations that the White House regards as little more than state propaganda outfits.
Moreover, they’d be on even firmer footing if they had not actively cheered on the most dangerous anti-media effort of all, the U.S. crackdown on the TV news service RT, formerly known as Russia Today, that began in November 2017.
The crackdown on RT was in some ways even worse than McCarthyism since the latter was at least about something real and important, which is to say a Communist movement that controlled roughly forty percent of the global population and was pressing in on capitalism from every side. If the ruling class seemed spooked, it was facing a challenge of unprecedented dimensions.
But the threat this time around was about something entirely made up, i.e. the belief that Russia had supposedly used various dark arts to trick Americans into voting for Trump. The nonsense began in January 2017 when the CIA, NSA, and FBI “assessed” that Vladimir Putin had interfered in the previous year’s election in order “to undermine public faith in the U.S. democratic process, denigrate Secretary Clinton, and harm her electability” and, in the process, boost Trump. The report was entirely devoid of evidence, yet the press took it as gospel. Even worse, the intelligence report included a seven-page annex accusing RT of engaging in “criticism of U.S. and Western governments as well as the promotion of radical discontent,” running “numerous reports on alleged U.S. election fraud and voting machine vulnerabilities,” contending that U.S. election results cannot be trusted and do not reflect the popular will,” and hosting third-party candidates who contend that “the U.S. two-party system does not represent the views of at least one-third of the population and is a ‘sham.’”
Imagine – a foreign news service daring to suggest that U.S. politics were flawed! If papers like the Times or Post had the slightest inkling of self-respect, they would have laughed themselves silly over such hyper-sensitivity and told the CIA to grow a thicker skin. But they didn’t. Instead, they worked themselves up into ever greater levels of indignation. Within a few months, the New York Times was warning that “if there is any unifying character to RT, it is a deep skepticism of Western and American narratives of the world and a fundamental defensiveness about Russia and Mr. Putin” and that, thanks to snazzy graphics and snappy repartee, the network had put together “the most effective propaganda operation of the 21st century so far, one that thrives in the feverish political climates that have descended on many Western publics.”
Of course, one might observe that outlets like CNN and MSNBC are characterized by a deep skepticism of Russian narratives, so what’s the difference? But that wouldn’t be fair since everyone knows that America is right and Russia wrong and that any comparison between the two is automatically invalid, isn’t it?
Not to be outdone, the Washington Post – official slogan: “Democracy dies in darkness” – ran not one but two op-eds (here and here) calling on the federal government to require RT to register as a foreign agent, a step the Trump administration would dutifully take just two months later.
So the big two turned out to be more aggressive than the Trump administration in reducing journalistic diversity and using the power of the state to undermine a foreign competitor. Finally, just a month ago, the Times ran a front-page article declaring – queue the ominous music – that Radio Sputnik, RT’s sister outlet, had begun “broadcasting on three Kansas City-area radio stations during prime drive time.” Horror of horrors, the station was bombarding Missourians with Russki propaganda criticizing impeachment, the media, and the U.S. political system in general and informing that, in the words of one Sputnik host, that “the masses of poor and working people don’t have access to even the most essential things.”
Where did Radio Sputnik come up with such a notion? Doesn’t everyone know that perfect equality reigns in the United States and that anyone who says otherwise must be working for a foreign power?
In fact, while America never tires of touting its devotion to the First Amendment, it loses control when a foreign news service turns tables by engaging in journalism that is cheeky and irreverent. It wants a free press, which is to say one that is free to repeat over and over again how perfectly wonderful America really is. But it does not believe in a free press that allows foreigners to say the contrary.
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From the Archives
World War II Didn’t End The Great Depression
Stark Realities with Brian McGlinchey | April 4, 2024
A principal goal of Stark Realities is to “expose fundamental myths across the political spectrum” — and few myths are as universally embraced as the notion that US participation in World War II (1941-1945) lifted the American economy out of the Great Depression.
This myth is dangerous not only because it leads citizens and politicians to see a bright side of war that doesn’t really exist, but also because it helps foster a belief that government spending is essential to countering economic downturns. That belief, in turn, has helped propel us to a point where the national debt now exceeds $34.6 trillion, with interest payments alone on pace to reach $1 trillion a year in 2026, inviting financial catastrophe. … continue
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