[Xmca-l] Re: Unbelievable: number 19th strain according to Fox News?

[Julian Williams]

Martin

I agree with you – and I will even be using the Latour instrument, too, for local work at least (it’s not really a survey tool as you say).  But this is all really about local practice, the big national and international questions of governance are mediated through the political/social movements and news media.

In the UK, the government is in a bit of a mess, jumping round (herd immunity is gone, but still dithering over masks, etc) and leaping at anything that might look like potential good news, and one of their great problems is that they have spent the last 20 years arguing for outsourcing, privatisation, and shrinking the state and public services, so they are really not attuned to taking ‘action’- they know about financial action,  putting stuff out to tender and privatisation, etc, but actually establishing and running an organisation that shifts equipment around is not in their skill set, they bring n the army to do that . At least we do have a public health system, terribly emasculated as it is; on the other hand the social care system is in dire straits and has been terribly hit for many years by austerity… something like 1/3 to ½ of our death rate is in care homes or just homes, and their numbers have not even been counted until the last few days (I guess this is a global phenomenon, we only get the numbers of those who make it into a hospital to die… ).

A really unfortunate effect of isolation has been the closure of all proper politically organised activity in the Labour Party branches, though debate is burgeoning and we are riven by scandals breaking out since the elections, so not much of a chance of holding government to account for all their misjudgments and carelessness to date, and the news media as a whole is worse than useless.

And there is hardly any sign of international collaboration. Some in the UN, WHO, in some science communities, and some in the EU, but all very weak. There are a few places where we can communicated internationally, and perhaps learn. As previously posted, the great fear after the West  will be India/South Asia and Africa, IMO.
I keep asking “what can ‘we’ do?” …

Julian

From: <xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu> on behalf of Martin Packer <mpacker@cantab.net>
Reply-To: "eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity" <xmca-l@mailman.ucsd.edu>
Date: Saturday, 18 April 2020 at 02:10
To: "eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity" <xmca-l@mailman.ucsd.edu>
Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Unbelievable: number 19th strain according to Fox News?

Hi Julien,

The idea of a survey doesn’t exactly excite me either. But the open discussion of how we would like things to be different seems eminently doable and important.

For example, I was saddened to read that one of the first companies trying to bring workers back is Boeing. Just what we need, I thought, more planes. And built by a company that doesn’t consider human factors in their designs. But, of course what Boeing is trying to work on is their ‘defense’ contracts.

So that brings up the question, what is defense spending protecting us against, when it is at the cost of health care? When an aircraft carrier, nuclear-powered for heaven's sake, can be rendered inoperative in a few days by this virus.

So we want to see a shift in priorities, from military to health care. The US needs a national health care system. It needs unemployment benefits in all states. And much more. The UK too needs more spending on the NHS. An end to austerity. And to combat climate change both countries (and others too) need rationing of air travel, decarbonization of industry, protection of wilderness, reforestation, and more.

Obviously the current US administration would pay no attention to such proposals. But given the November election this is the perfect time to communicate to Biden and other democrats that a platform built around proposals such as these could get him into the White House.

And perhaps Boris, given his brush with the infinite, may have changed his priorities? (Or was he just taking one for the team to build herd immunity?)

Martin






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