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COVID-19 Has Blown Away the Myth About 'First' and 'Third' World Competence:
One of the planet's – and Africa's – deepest prejudices is being demolished by the way countries handle COVID-19.
For as long as any of us remember, everyone "knew" that "First World" countries – in effect, Western Europe and North America – were much better at providing their citizens with a good life than the poor and incapable states of the "Third World". "First World" has become shorthand for competence, sophistication and the highest political and economic standards.
[...] So we should have expected the state-of-the-art health systems of the "First World", spurred on by their aware and empowered citizens, to handle COVID-19 with relative ease, leaving the rest of the planet to endure the horror of buckling health systems and mass graves.
We have seen precisely the opposite.
[...] [Britain and the US] have ignored the threat. When they were forced to act, they sent mixed signals to citizens which encouraged many to act in ways which spread the infection. Neither did anything like the testing needed to control the virus. Both failed to equip their hospitals and health workers with the equipment they needed, triggering many avoidable deaths.
The failure was political. The US is the only rich country with no national health system. An attempt by former president Barack Obama to extend affordable care was watered down by right-wing resistance, then further gutted by the current president and his party. Britain's much-loved National Health Service has been weakened by spending cuts. Both governments failed to fight the virus in time because they had other priorities.
And yet, in Britain, the government's popularity ratings are sky high and it is expected to win the next election comfortably. The US president is behind in the polls but the contest is close enough to make his re-election a real possibility. Can there be anything more typically "Third World" than citizens supporting a government whose actions cost thousands of lives?
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Phoenix666 on Monday May 18 2020, @01:39PM (25 children)
Hold on. Weren't you the ones sobbing a couple months ago how bush fires caused by runaway climate change had destroyed Australia? You are talking about that Australia, aren't you? Failure to clear brush and fight fires is not laudable.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 2) by Pav on Monday May 18 2020, @02:16PM (7 children)
I'm not saying Australia is perfect, and our government certainly sucks. The undeniably miserable bushfire response made our prime ministers grip on power somewhat shakey, so that played some part in him taking this pandemic more seriously... though he still managed to blunder a couple of times eg. allowing flights of young partiers from Italy and expecting them to self isolate. Still, he allowed actual experts to mostly control the response, and we've got a heathcare system leagues better than the US... and somewhat better than europes worst (ie. Sweden and the UK).
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Monday May 18 2020, @03:06PM (4 children)
I am not panning Australia. It's a lovely country with lovely people. (It has not been very nice to the aborigines, but as an American I really can't talk.)
My larger point is that nobody knows what the right answer is with this thing. The WHO has alternately praised China and Sweden for their approaches, and held them up as models for the rest of the world. But Sweden and China took opposite tacks so the WHO is really talking out of both sides of its mouth. There's another question, too, implicit in this matter: if Trump did the most amazing job in the world, and managed the largest number of infected to the lowest number of deaths, would anybody who hates him give him credit, or would they find some other thing to criticize him on or give the credit to somebody else? Given what has gone on the past 3 years, I say that for those that hate him, Trump can do nothing right. The other side of the coin is those who love Trump and will never say anything against him.
Generally, I think jingoism is a bad habit all of us should curb.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 2) by Pav on Monday May 18 2020, @03:36PM
On US politics I haven't found a trustworthy mainstream source. I like the "Rising" show on YouTube from "The Hill" and the sarcastically named "Useful Idiots" show from "Rolling Stone"... and I can listen to them while doing other stuff unlike text sources. Granted, they're somewhat fringe... but they criticise and (much less regularly) praise both sides.
(Score: 4, Informative) by Barenflimski on Monday May 18 2020, @04:31PM (1 child)
From my experience people will continue to hate the guy and anything that comes out of his mouth.
I was talking to a very neighbor of mine over the weekend. She can't stand Trump and is much like anyone else I talk to that simply can't stand anything the guy says or does. I said to her, "It seems to me that another issue with this COVID response is that even when the president rambles and says something that is correct people simply go to, 'If he said it, I'm against it.'" She said to me, "Yes, I am doing that for good or bad. I just simply can't stand the stuff that comes out of his mouth most of the time and I'm not going to parse any of it anymore."
He has turned vast amounts of people off to the point where they simply won't entertain anything that he puts in front of them as he's worn them out. We are seeing this play out in the response to the virus along political lines. It puts all of our politicians in a tough situation. Do something that the president promotes and you may be cast as a Trump supporter. Do something that he doesn't promote and you may be cast as being woke.
Unfortunately for the rest of us this political nonsense affects us as our politicians are more worried about the correct political response instead of the smart response.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday May 19 2020, @06:30AM
(Score: 3, Informative) by dry on Tuesday May 19 2020, @06:18AM
Here in Canada, actually Ontario, we have Doug Ford, was he hated, for many of the same reasons as Trump. While he started out dismissing the pandemic, telling people not to worry and go party, he quickly turned around and even the extreme left has praised his leadership during the crisis. This includes following scientific advice, calling the protesters out as hooligans and so on. I'm sure once this is over he'll go back to his old self but who knows. Right now his popularity has gone from the low 20's IIRC to the high 80's.
If he can do it, so could Trump. The key is allowing the experts to lead while giving them support and handling the economic issues. Here in BC, it is the head of health, a civil servant, who gives the daily updates, with the Minister of Health doing introductions and little else and the Premier only showing up occasionally to deal with economic matters. I believe it is similar in all Provinces and all our governments have had a huge uptick in popularity. Of course that is likely to vanish once this is over.
Meanwhile Trump has been more of a hindrance then a help, doesn't know when to step back and support the experts, steadily wishy washy and seems intend on doing everything opposite what a good leader should do. The weird thing is how his cult worships everything he says, even when he says the opposite 5 minutes later. It's scary that people can be so deranged. Holding your nose and voting for the lesser evil is one thing, worshiping the evil because he's our evil is another.
(Score: 2) by FatPhil on Monday May 18 2020, @09:26PM (1 child)
You too, eh? Estonia feels your pain.
Right, I'll go and crack open a brilliant local beer brewed by a fantastic Australian brewer who now lives here!
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 19 2020, @12:32PM
Those Estonians flying from Italy, mostly went through Riga airport, and overland from there, didn't they? Add to that Latvians doing same, add to that the absence of lockdown in Latvia, look at the statistics, compare with Estonia. Try explaining the difference.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by c0lo on Monday May 18 2020, @02:17PM (8 children)
You're an idiot if you imagine you can know better from the distance what the conditions were here.
At least, have the decency and inform yourself however minimally [wikipedia.org]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Phoenix666 on Monday May 18 2020, @02:56PM (4 children)
You're the idiot if you cannot get that my point was he was praising how great Australia is at managing its affairs after complaining a couple months ago how Australia is ruined because of brush fires. (Sorry, I do not mean to call you an idiot because I know you are not one, but you did call me one)
See, I think it's less deterministic. Countries do some things well, and other things poorly. Sometimes the strategies they choose ultimately work, and are praised afterward; sometimes the strategies they choose fail, and are panned afterward as ridiculous or evil or worse. Some countries choose better across many areas over time, and thrive, others fail at most and decline. Some countries that fare well for a time lose that Eye of the Tiger and disappear. Others hit their stride and succeed.
It's all armchair quarterbacking, if we're honest.
But, yeah, I'm not impressed with brush fires because I grew up in the Rockies which have "devastating," "catastrophic," "worst fire season EVAR!!!" forest fires every summer. BFD. You shrug and get on with life. It's the same as a Texan scoffing at New Yorkers who got their panties in a bunch over the minor Hurricane Sandy. Or like Australians listening to people screaming about black widow spiders, or something.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by c0lo on Monday May 18 2020, @03:15PM (3 children)
I did it because you tabled a patently false claim as the main cause for 2019/2020 megablazes - govt or not, nothing you can do to clean that bush after 3 years+ of draught and when the fire season starts 5 months in advance of the usual (June instead of October).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Phoenix666 on Monday May 18 2020, @03:27PM (2 children)
And he tabled a patently false claim that the government is to blame (or praise) for how the coronavirus has spread and affected regions around the world. But you want to take the one, but not the other.
In fact I don't blame Australia for how bad its brush fires were. They were worse than authorities there were prepared for. Yes, they could have said, "gosh, we're in a multi-year drought and could be looking at a really bad fire season, so we better triple our budgets for fire-fighting in preparation." But that's not how governments work in the real world. Occasionally they can prepare well, but mostly they're reactive. In Western America there are frequent droughts, so they're more prepared to handle them. It's not because they're more special or smarter than Australia is, but because it's within the range of what they expect and are used to it.
Is that a shocking or particularly controversial thing to say?
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by c0lo on Monday May 18 2020, @03:35PM (1 child)
Come on. You know well the handling of corona situation in US has been so sub-optimal it isn't very hard to do much better.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday May 19 2020, @06:51AM
(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday May 19 2020, @06:42AM (2 children)
Well, how much further away was Phoenix666 than you? I don't see how living in a country means you know anything at all about their wildfire policy, to name an obvious example. Meanwhile, one can google [soylentnews.org] for said policy and get a better idea in a few minutes - assuming they can read English, no matter where in the world they happen to live.
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Tuesday May 19 2020, @12:57PM (1 child)
People who live in New York are utterly ignorant about how to farm, ranch, log, make anything, get their hands dirty, and so on. But they are sure they know everything about what the rest of the country needs.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday May 19 2020, @06:27PM
(Score: 0, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 18 2020, @02:26PM (7 children)
Lol, your swing away from the DNC led straight into the stupid bush.
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Monday May 18 2020, @03:09PM (6 children)
Is it that you have difficulty with prose in English? Did you get thrown out of debate club? Did you never learn to type properly because your first device was a phone you had to use abbreviations on?
It's marvelous to hear such from an AC that can't reason, form complex thoughts, or even muster the gumption to use a handle.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 1) by fustakrakich on Monday May 18 2020, @03:26PM (5 children)
I believe he is mocking the pendulum politics, where angry people swing from one crooked party to the other and back, instead of looking for something else to break the circle. It is a chronic issue that very few people want to address
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 18 2020, @04:36PM (4 children)
Exactly, P666 claims he worked for the Clinton campaign, became a disaffected Democrat and now spouts rightwing talking points. Maybe it just highlights how party affiliation is a very rough guide for someone's true opinions.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday May 19 2020, @06:54AM
Like what? I doubt US rightwingers are defending the handling of covid by comparing it to Australian brushfires.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by Phoenix666 on Tuesday May 19 2020, @12:38PM (2 children)
I worked for the Clinton Foundation, not the Clinton campaign. I have been a progressive all my life. I first joined the Green Party; they turned proto-Woke, so I left and became a Democrat. When the Clintons rigged the 2016 primary against Bernie, I left that party. I am not affiliated with any party now.
Having had a window right into the heart of the Democratic Party, and indeed right into the heart of wealth and power in the world, I see things much differently now. I can discern things I couldn't before. For example, you, dear AC, carry the miasma of government shill all around you. Do the occasional pats they give you on the head fulfill you as much as they used to when you were fresh out of school? Or are you starting to notice that carrying their water doesn't gain you anything, and you're growing ever more concerned and possibly upset at that thought?
I call things the way I see them, without script. If that seems "right wing" to you, it's only because you've fallen off the leftward edge of the universe and have lost all sense of perspective.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 19 2020, @09:58PM (1 child)
Noice overton shoving yer doing, keep it up! Soon we'll all get to enjoy the freedom of the post-apocalypse. You claim progressive stances, but your use of "woke" and the rest of the opinions you have are definitely rightwing to libertarian. Maybe you'ee just what passes for progressive as an older east coast resident, maybe you're just another fake account astroturfing US voters.
I know I'm real, and all I know about you is that your opinions don't match claimed political leanings. The most effective propaganda comes from users with a "reputation." My AC shitposting doesn't do anyone much good unless they're trying to get a better perspective on SN users.
I'll offer an apology for calling you rightwing. You are closer to libertarian than the religious noids.
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Wednesday May 20 2020, @12:20PM
Principles exist in a three dimensional space, but you are a two dimensional being.
Washington DC delenda est.