ALB
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“Problem with this ‘rational attitude’ is, if it’s rational for you to wait and see what happens to other people, it’s also rational for them to wait and see what happens to you, ergo, it’s a quasi-antivaxxer argument. It also presupposes you’ll have a choice in the matter. States may not force people to take vaccines when offered, but they’d be pretty stupid not to make a note of who’s refused. That could well have consequences later, especially if you subsequently get Covid.”
By coincide a sympathiser who is over 80 (and who used to teach philosophy) phoned me this morning to ask if he should take the jab. He had been invited to have it when he goes to his local hospital to pick up some other medicines he has.
He too made the point that to say “let others go first” was unethical in that it couldn’t be a general rule or, if it was, nobody would go for the jab.
He also told me that he had been asked to sign a form saying that he agreed to come for the jab on Tuesday. Obviously he wouldn’t have to come even if he signed this but, as you say, the state would have a record of this which might later be held against him.
He texted me just now to say that he was on his way to the hospital to say yes on the grounds that, being a philosopher, he had no alternative. By the time my turn comes millions will have gone before me so I won’t face his philosophical dilemma.
“The issue is is that when rolled out in general populations, more evidence can be gleamed from greater numbers, and some adverse reactions, or even more known benefits (what a binary). “
This suggests that the rational attitude that an individual should take in their own personal interest is not to rush to be at the head of the queue for a new vaccine but to wait for millions to have had it first. Then we will know more about the adverse affects and who is likely to suffer them. I expect the new vaccines will be safe but they won’t be perfectly safe. So, unlike Alan, I am going to be wait to be done. I’d also prefer one where you only need one jab not two and for it to be done in a hospital not some local surgery unequipped for emergencies.
Anyway, Alan, you go first. You’re a better man than me, Gunga Din
It seems that the jury has returned its verdict on Sweden’s policy of trying to encourage herd immunity on the advice of its home-grown mad professor, Anders Tegnell. An unwelcome verdict for Covid-deniers and other Covidiots.
And we can move rapidly. Yesterday Rees-Mogg, the Minister in charge of the business of the House of Commons, pointed out that in 1936:
“… Parliament managed to pass the legislation to remove a king emperor within 24 hours,” Mr Rees-Mogg said. “So Parliament can act very quickly when necessary.”
“He must leave on January 20, 2021, otherwise, he is going to be escorted from the White House as a trespasser.”
It would be a good thing if this happened and was filmed as this is what will happen to the last capitalist government if they refuse to accept a socialist electoral victory.
Threat and counter-threat:
If it comes to it, the French fisherman are in a stronger position than the Royal Navy.
So, the Royal Navy is going to patrol the channel to keep French fishermen out, not that they will be able to prevent them blockading the port of Calais with all the economic consequences that will have. The last time the Navy took on foreign fishing boats was in the Cod War with Iceland in the 1970s. Iceland won.
Sad proof that Chomsky has lost the plot. Trump’s policy was essentially the same as that of the last previous Republican, George W. Bush — not to accept any measures that would harm the US fossil fuel industry or more generally undermine the competitiveness of US capitalist industry in particular in relation to China.
It was just that Trump’s language was more erratic and provocative. It is not even clear whether Trump actually was a climate-denier. He seems to have been more of a climate-ignorer. Or a simple opportunistic vote-catcher.
https://www.bbc.com/news/amp/world-us-canada-51213003
Anyway it is silly to try to attribute economic and political events to a single individual. That’s the discredited Great Man Theory of History.
There is something odd about this news item about AstraZeneca collaborating with Russia. After all, it was only a few months ago that the government here (and in Canada and the US) were denouncing dastardly Russian government for hacking into vaccine research in particular in Oxford.
It’s probably a commercial decision now that AstraZeneca’s bungled tests and attempt to fiddle the result will delay if not prevent them selling their vaccine in the US. A deal with Russia could open new markets.
Of course it’s good that scientists are collaborating rather than competing (as would happen as a matter of course in a socialist world) but I suspect the motive will be commercial.
This from George Monbiot is quite good actually: that it’s a conflict between two sections of the capitalist class.
The ending is a bit weak as he seems to be arguing that more democratic decision-making procedures in themselves are what is needed, whereas this is not enough, in fact not up to much unless on the basis of the common ownership of resources.
I was going to post that the islamic fundamentalists were worse than the christian ones as they actually killed people giving the vaccinations. They have done but, when I looked up the news reports about this, the objections of the Taleban leaders was practical rather than religious— in their hunt to track down Ben Laden the CIA used an immunisation team in Pakistan as a spy unit ( rather like using a Red Cross van to transport arms, which I am sure they will have done too). As a result the Taleban is suspicious of all such teams. The CIA got Ben Laden and dumped his body in the sea (no loss that), but thousands of kids in Pakistan and Afghanistan got struck down by the poliovirus.
All the same, some islamic “scholars” have produced nonsense arguments against vaccination.
It looks as if Boris really is going to put into practice his aside made while still Foreign Secretary in 2018 of “fuck business” and put nationalism before commerce. It seems incredible from a government that is supposed to look after the interests of the capitalist class but we will know by Sunday, apparently, if it’s true.
From Financial Times of 29 June 2018;
Boris Johnson’s Brexit explosion ruins Tory business credentials
The foreign secretary’s outburst reveals commerce has lost out to nationalism.
”Fuck business.” Never was the Brexit manifesto more succinctly captured than in Boris Johnson’s impromptu aside. As slogans go, it has everything. It surfs the populist wave of anger towards elites. It is easy to understand. Hell, it’s even shorter than “take back control”.In switching you’d be in good company. At one time De Leon argued that political action was the sword and economic organisation the shield (his position at the time the SPGB was formed in 1904 and basically ours if you like). But when the IWW was formed in 1905 he switched to saying that economic organisation and action was the sword and political action the shield.
I think I’ve got it the right way round.
Anyway, it was still Edward Jenner who made the breakthrough:
i liked this bit:
“A late 19th century engraving shows a calf, tethered in a little tent behind a much larger tent where fashionably dressed Parisians are receiving their vaccine straight from the “skin blisters” on the calf. The Anti-Vaxxers of the day drew cartoons showing people with cow horns growing out of their heads!”
The level of argument of the anti-vaxxers hasn’t changed.
