All purpose news and politics thread part v: The quickening

[InformationGeek]

Oh WBE! More with Wisconsin Speaker Robin Vos and also, State Senator Majority Leader Scott Fitzgerald, have filed action the Wisconsin Supreme Court to challenge Governor Evers stay-at-home extension. Here's the filing here.

And here is their official statement.

[WestPhillyPunisher]

Barr Threatens Legal Action Against Governors Over Lockdowns



Barr may be driving his train off the rails.

Lemme see if I’ve got this right: Trump made like Pontius Pilate and washed his hands of any responsibility states had for dealing with the virus, but now he’s got his attack mutt Droopy Dogg Barr going after governors who won’t give the all clear right away. And it’s no coincidence blue states are in the crosshairs since they’ve held the line on the shutdown, if I’m Phil Murphy (New Jersey), Tom Wolf (Pennsylvania) or Gretchen Whitmer (Michigan) and Barr came calling with some specious lawsuit, I’d say “**** off. See you in court!”

[PaulBullion]

What do you have to lose? Trump asked.
Well, how about your LIFE?

More deaths, no benefit from malaria drug in VA virus study

[Maine Starfish]

The problem is that he seems to equate any criticism of the Chinese government as being the same as lame generalizations about everything from China.

there’s several posts on the last few pages that are generalizing China and its people, they are not just criticizing the government of China.

[GozertheGozarian]

yeah, I’m with @PwrdOn

It’s important to distinguish between criticism of the current government of China and just making lame generalizations about all of China or its people.

Agreeing with a terrible person makes you a terrible person.

[Maine Starfish]

Agreeing with a terrible person makes you a terrible person.

no

because first, I never said I agreed with everything, I don’t even particularly know the poster, I’m relatively new here

And second, all i said is that it’s important to distinguish between criticism of the government and the people of China. It’s not terrible to think that’s important.

[PaulBullion]

So far this week, the DJI has lost over 1100 points.

We're not out of the woods yet.

[sammy_hansen]

I would like to believe that people claiming to only criticize the Chinese government are not just being racist dickwads, but just from my personal experience I've just heard way too many uninformed rants from supposedly well-meaning white people on why I need to answer for Tiananmen Square or whatever, and very little in the way of substantive, meaningful critique that doesn't just stick to the same old talking points. And honestly I do feel like maybe we in America invite this treatment sometimes by always trying to act as the "model minority" and giving people the benefit of the doubt when they don't really deserve it, or go overboard playing up some patriotic pantomime routine like Andrew Yang suggested, and I don't really have the patience for that anymore.

Like I said, you don’t know anything about me. I’m talking about a specific action by the Chinese government that caused more harm than was necessary. I ain’t said a thing about Tiananmen Square or Tibet or the Uighurs. You’re generalizing me whilst complaining about people who generalize.

Like, my country does some really shitty things. We lock up refugees on desert island gulags. We pump pollution from coal mines into the Great Barrier Reef. We can’t get anywhere close to reconciliation with Australia’s Indigenous people’s. I criticise that and vote against that and protest that. And I criticise China’s government in this moment about this specific issue.

[PwrdOn]

Like I said, you don’t know anything about me. I’m talking about a specific action by the Chinese government that caused more harm than was necessary. I ain’t said a thing about Tiananmen Square or Tibet or the Uighurs. You’re generalizing me whilst complaining about people who generalize.

Like, my country does some really shitty things. We lock up refugees on desert island gulags. We pump pollution from coal mines into the Great Barrier Reef. We can’t get anywhere close to reconciliation with Australia’s Indigenous people’s. I criticise that and vote against that and protest that. And I criticise China’s government in this moment about this specific issue.

I'm going to go out and limb and say that you've probably never harassed or called out for anything your country has done, whereas I've lost count of the number of times people have tried to lecture me, an American, about how bad China is. I'm not saying it's impossible for people to have reasoned critiques of the Chinese government without being motivated at all by prejudice, it's just quite rare in my experience. And quite frankly, I can't really blame you, given how the media in Australia is seemingly fixated on portraying the Chinese as this tide of filthy vermin that will soon overrun your precious country and turn it into a giant wet market, but if you can accept that most of the other stuff that those same media outlets say about the economy and the environment and everything else is wrong, maybe most of the stuff they say about China is misleading as well?

[Tami]

In front of White House, nurses read names of colleagues killed by coronavirus

Registered nurses gathered Tuesday in front of the White House to read the names of health-care workers who have died fighting the coronavirus pandemic.

Wearing masks and standing six feet apart, the nurses held up photographs of the deceased as Melody Jones, a member of the National Nurses United union, addressed the news media in an otherwise empty Lafayette Square.

The names came from all over the country — New York and Alabama, Puerto Rico and Nevada, California and Michigan, Florida and Maryland, New Jersey and the District.

A man in blue scrubs stood behind Jones as she read, holding a metallic gold sign painted with the message: “20 seconds won’t scrub ‘hero’ blood off your hands.”

“Let us remember and honor the ultimate sacrifice these nurses paid,” Jones said before reading about 45 names, which she said is a partial list of those who have died. “We commit ourselves to fight like hell for the living.”

[Kirby101]

More deaths, no benefit from malaria drug in VA virus study

A malaria drug widely touted by President Donald Trump for treating the new coronavirus showed no benefit in a large analysis of its use in U.S. veterans hospitals. There were more deaths among those given hydroxychloroquine versus standard care, researchers reported.

The nationwide study was not a rigorous experiment. But with 368 patients, it’s the largest look so far of hydroxychloroquine with or without the antibiotic ************ for COVID-19, which has killed more than 171,000 people as of Tuesday.

[sammy_hansen]

I'm going to go out and limb and say that you've probably never harassed or called out for anything your country has done, whereas I've lost count of the number of times people have tried to lecture me, an American, about how bad China is. I'm not saying it's impossible for people to have reasoned critiques of the Chinese government without being motivated at all by prejudice, it's just quite rare in my experience. And quite frankly, I can't really blame you, given how the media in Australia is seemingly fixated on portraying the Chinese as this tide of filthy vermin that will soon overrun your precious country and turn it into a giant wet market, but if you can accept that most of the other stuff that those same media outlets say about the economy and the environment and everything else is wrong, maybe most of the stuff they say about China is misleading as well?

Well, if one is foolish enough to consume Murdoch’s News Corp media then yes. I don’t. And what has frustrated me here is you say that I could be sincere in my critiques, but you’re 99.9% I’m not and you’re comfortable with lumping me in with the deplorable.

[jetengine]

For one thing, it's not my government because as you astutely pointed out earlier, I am indeed an American. I do of course have plenty of criticisms to level against the Chinese government and society, but I have always found it practically impossible to have a level headed discussion on any of those topics with Westerners because it always ends up being practically an invitation for them to lay out all their racial prejudices, even if it not directed at you, and that forces you to look differently on someone whom you may have previously liked quite differently. Back in January when this outbreak started, the only people over here who bothered to pay attention to it were inevitably these "China experts" who could barely contain their glee that the communist barbarians were finally getting what was coming to them and gloating that such an outbreak could never be a problem over here. So despite all of the warnings coming from China and the substantial information about the virus that was already out there, nobody really took the threat seriously until it started spreading in Europe, and by then it was already far too late.

Frankly, I and most other Asians are pretty much conditioned to all of the orientalist nonsense and have long tuned it out, the main reason I point it out is not because my feelings are hurt, but because people who still buy into propaganda from the 19th century are actively hurting themselves and their communities by thinking that pandemics are somehow a product of culture and government rather than freak accidents that everyone should be vigilant of and which require cooperation to solve and not finger pointing. Nobody blamed the H1N1 outbreak on savage pig-eating Americans after all, nor did the Spanish flu cause Spaniards to be targeted by hate crimes worldwide, it's almost as if people are just using the outbreak to try and justify their pre-existing biases, rather than thinking clearly and logically.

I know its not your government, but you go to bat for them.a hell of a lot more inbetween shitting on the west or the dems. And yes people DO actually **** on America for swine flu. Its regularly mentioned that American farmers overuse antibiotics causing the chance of this **** happening again to increase.

Again, I feel for you that your getting racist **** thrown at you, but burning bridges and spitting on everyone because scared stupid people are being scared and stupid is gonna lead you to nowhere.

But looking at your other posts its pretty apoarent its a bit late your bitter and anyone even vaguely criticising China triggers your racism alarm even when its legitimate criticism. As sammy pointed out, he's never mentioned Tiannemen yet you just jump to it.

[PwrdOn]

I know its not your government, but you go to bat for them.a hell of a lot more inbetween shitting on the west or the dems. And yes people DO actually **** on America for swine flu. Its regularly mentioned that American farmers overuse antibiotics causing the chance of this **** happening again to increase.

Again, I feel for you that your getting racist **** thrown at you, but burning bridges and spitting on everyone because scared stupid people are being scared and stupid is gonna lead you to nowhere.

It's not so much going to bat for the Chinese government as it is just pointing out that a lot of the supposed critiques are really just thinly veiled racist stereotypes, such as that thing about eating dogs which was posted earlier. But I don't see why I would need to go out of my way to prove my loyalty to my country, like that moron Andrew Yang suggested, and I think it's far more important for me to criticize what's going on closer to home that I actually have some degree of control over, rather than trying to jump on the anti-China bandwagon just so that everyone will see me as "one of the good ones" if some kind of conflict does come to pass.

[jetengine]

It's not so much going to bat for the Chinese government as it is just pointing out that a lot of the supposed critiques are really just thinly veiled racist stereotypes, such as that thing about eating dogs which was posted earlier. But I don't see why I would need to go out of my way to prove my loyalty to my country, like that moron Andrew Yang suggested, and I think it's far more important for me to criticize what's going on closer to home that I actually have some degree of control over, rather than trying to jump on the anti-China bandwagon just so that everyone will see me as "one of the good ones" if some kind of conflict does come to pass.

How is it racist to say "Dont fucking lie or gulag the guy warning you?" Or "Wet markets are a haven for disease, you traced a nasty outbreak back to one in the early 2000s and still haven't sorted that **** out" or "Stop lying to the world, your numbers dropped in Wuhan because you stopped testing"

It would be the same irrelevant of the nation. Hell just the fact that I question why your defending a nation that keeps fucking up makes you immediately start talking about a fucking race war.