Thinking Ahead to the Post-COVID 19 World

Discussion in 'Coronavirus Pandemic Discussions' started by Talon, Dec 11, 2020.

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  1. Talon

    Talon Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    I touched on this subject in another thread and thought it might be worth a discussion of its own.

    With the arrival of vaccines on the immediate and near horizon, I think it's about time we started thinking and talking about the post-COVID 19 world that lies ahead of us. After the pandemic and its responses are behind us we're still going to be left with the consequences of both, as well as the vital question of how can we ensure that this never happens again? Obviously, this is a matter that concerns domestic and foreign policy, not to mention how we conduct our own personal affairs.

    To get things started, I'll throw a few of the biggest and most obvious questions out there for discussion and debate:

    1) How are we going to restore the private sector economy?

    2) What, if anything, can be done about the millions of American workers in the private sector who are currently unemployed and underemployed?

    3) Is the existence of the middle class in America under threat, as some people have claimed, and what threats does that pose to our country and our people? What lessons from the past might help us to avoid the fate of other nations who experienced a similar crisis, such as Weimar Germany?

    4) What are we going to do about China and its government? What are we going to do about our supply chains and over-reliance on that country for the things we need? Should we boycott Chinese goods?

    5) There's been much talk - and rightly so - about the violations and erosion of our rights and freedoms by government officials in response to the pandemic. Does this constitute a trend towards further government control and authoritarianism? If so, how can that be reversed? Finally, what can we do to ensure that the excesses committed by various government entities are never permitted to occur again?

    These are just a few of the things we should be looking at - certainly there are many more. I'll add my personal observations and opinions later but for now I yield the proverbial floor...
     
    Last edited: Dec 11, 2020
  2. joesnagg

    joesnagg Banned

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    I don't know about the rest, but as for #4 this should the wake-up call that we HAVE to bring some of our manufacturing home by any means necessary, particularly medical supplies and pharmaceuticals.
     
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  3. Talon

    Talon Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    I wholeheartedly agree, and I hope that is something all of us have learned by now and can agree on.

    The question in my mind is whether or not Americans will personally assist in this effort by making a conscious decision to purchase American manufactured goods whenever and wherever they have the option of doing so.
     
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  4. Eleuthera

    Eleuthera Well-Known Member Donor

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    Many if not most Americans are far too frightened to make conscious decisions based on facts. In terms of perceptions, they are very much under the control of social media and mainstream media.
     
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  5. joesnagg

    joesnagg Banned

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    That is an exercise in futility at best, with the exception of foodstuffs a trip to any retailer yields mighty slim pickings for American made consumer goods. People of a certain age will remember when "made in Japan" was both a punchline and epitaph, but those numbers PALE in comparison with the "made in China" label, both totally and component parts today. I personally see this as a national security issue, if the Chinese went "nuclear", regardless of the cost to them, and embargoed their exports to us for any length of time, WE would be in a world of hurt. Think of the leverage that gives them over us.
     
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  6. Kranes56

    Kranes56 Banned

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    I'm kinda surprised you forgot the political consequences of the disease. What is going to happen after so many people were killed? Mark my words this is only going to make things worse politically. After all if the government failed to save people in their time of need and turned to outside help, what will happen to the legitimacy of the government?
     
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  7. Pants

    Pants Well-Known Member

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    ...and their wallets! Without China, there would be no Walmart (and many other low priced retailers). I've been boycotting Walmart for about five years now, and for those interested or concerned, there are bargains everywhere...you just have to look.
     
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  8. joesnagg

    joesnagg Banned

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    An excellent, overlooked point! Trust in the government and it's institutions was in the gutter well before Covid to begin with.
     
    Last edited: Dec 12, 2020
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  9. Kranes56

    Kranes56 Banned

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    Especially on the international stage. Foreign powers are looking at the US and might start thinking the internal problems of the country are going to effect its military capability abroad. Can't sustain a conflict overseas if you need the troops back home for riot control.

    That doesn't even look at the long term effects of people with COVID-19. A person will remember how the government let their father die because they didn't want a mask mandate, for what? So some business somewhere could stay open a couple of hours later? That's how people become radicalized to the point violence is acceptable.
     
  10. Talon

    Talon Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    It is a bit difficult, but if you take the time to look and are willing to pay more to support our economy and fellow American workers you can find a lot of products made in the USA or countries other than China. It certainly helps that I don't shop in places like Walmart where just about everything on sale is cheap Chinese made crap. Another thing I've discovered over the years is that the quality of the products made here in America and places like Japan and Germany are worth the extra expense.

    I generally don't like to get the government involved in anything but I think it can play a helpful role in encouraging people to make a conscious effort to purchase American goods. Knowing our attention spans as I do Americans are going to have to be constantly reminded of the consequences of our over-reliance on China and what the pandemic exposed. I agree with you that this is a national security issue. Imagine if this had been a war instead of a pandemic? The embargo scenario you mentioned would have been a devastating reality.
     
  11. Talon

    Talon Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    True. I've been boycotting Walmart for decades and that hasn't deprived me of anything I've wanted or needed.

    Furthermore, now that people are doing more shopping online a wider variety of goods are available to the consumer and it's easier to avoid Chinese manufactured goods.
     
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  12. Talon

    Talon Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    If you were addressing me/the OP, I touched on that in item #5, but since there is a lot of ground to cover there I left it to everyone else to throw their thinking cap in the ring.

    Obviously, there is a lot more to the situation involving COVID 19 than the disease itself, and one would think that there will be political consequences for the mistakes that were made. For example, here in Virginia, the governor, who has a history of overreacting to potential crises, shut the entire state down instead of taking a targeted approach, and countless businesses and jobs were unnecessarily lost in the process. To make matters exponentially worse, him and the General Assembly did not take prepare the state agencies they are in charge of running to handle the instant tidal wave of unemployment claims that completely overwhelmed the Virginia Employment Commission, et al, BEFORE the statewide lockdown order was issued. Evidently, the lives of the disposable "non-essential" hoi polloi in Virginia wasn't worth their time and consideration, and why should the self-proclaimed "essential" public officials in Richmond worry about the 800,000 people they kicked to the curb throughout the Commonwealth when they were able to hold on to their own jobs and incomes?

    Did I happen to mention that our governor also got caught violating his own social distancing and mask mandates like so many other politicians in this country? Restrictions and mandates for thee, but not for me...

    Obviously, there are going to be political repercussions for that recklessness, incompetence and hypocrisy and it won't come soon enough.
     
    Last edited: Dec 14, 2020
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  13. Eleuthera

    Eleuthera Well-Known Member Donor

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    Thanks to the good work of Reiner Fuellmich in Germany, political repercussions are brewing there over the abject failure and fraudulent misrepresentation of the RT-PCR tests upon which this fraud is based.
     
  14. Kranes56

    Kranes56 Banned

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    Literally nobody is going to remember the governor not wearing a mask or going to a nail salon or something else. That's too national. That's too big. Look at the small stuff. Make it personal. People will remember being without a job. They'll remember their government didn't give them money compared to other countries that did the same thing. They'll remember begging for unemployment or being forced to move out because their government didn't do anything. They will also remember dead family members more. That's what's really going to do the worse. Going without a business or a job isn't the same thing as losing a parent or a grandparent. It's kinda telling that you are more worried about jobs than people who know someone who died. Jobs are something we are expected to lose (at least my generation). But they'll remember their government abandoned them in their time of need.
     
  15. Talon

    Talon Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    Literally millions of people will never forget that those hypocrites and frauds labeled them "non-essential" and destroyed their lives over a virus they didn't consider dangerous enough to follow their own mandates and restrictions.

    I'll remind you that many of those hypocrites and frauds are state and local officials, so you may want to reconsider your "too big" and "too national" remark.

    That being said, no one is oblivious to how the lockdowns and losing their jobs affected them personally and how state and national officials kicked them to the curb and then neglected to take responsibility for their actions.

    You're presenting a false choice here - people are quite capable of being concerned about their health and their livelihoods. Proper consideration can and should be given to both.

    So, what have we learned about our reliance on government, Kranes? I suspect different people have learned different things. For example, the failure of our state and federal government to provide financial relief to the people they put out of work reminded me of the danger of relying on state and federal officials to put bread on my family's table, keep a roof over our heads and pay our bills. Had I abandoned my personal responsibility my family would have been screwed when those officials abandoned us. Politicians are good about talking about how much they care about you, especially when they want your money and your vote, but when the chips are down they're nowhere to be found. You're on your own.

    I learned this lesson a long time ago, which is why we were prepared to ride this shitstorm out, but many people are just learning it now, and they're learning what a mistake it is to rely on the people who put them in these predicaments. That's a hard lesson to learn, and all I can hope is that we'll be better for it in the long run, but I have little reason to be optimistic. People are demanding more out of others and less from themselves, and that's bad for them and it's bad for our country.
     
  16. Zorro

    Zorro Well-Known Member

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  17. truth and justice

    truth and justice Well-Known Member

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    Human behaviour will not change. We will just go back to doing what we were all doing 18 months ago. It will take a couple of years after the pandemic is over to get back to our normal
     
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  18. Eleuthera

    Eleuthera Well-Known Member Donor

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    Human behavior has already been changed by Operation Covid. Otherwise intelligent but thoroughly frightened humans put on masks that do nothing to prevent the airborne transmission of virus, so that they will not catch a virus that is nearly identical to the flu virus.

    Young children are now a year into being conditioned to believe that anybody not wearing a mask is dangerous. They have been conditioned to be mistrustful of others and paranoid to some degree.

    The damage has been done.
     
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  19. ToddWB

    ToddWB Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    There is never going to be a "post covid" world. Why would the totalitarians give an effective tool?
    they can continue to control the hysterical masses through fear forever. The resistors will be easy enough to identify.. they are already vilified and called "anti-maskers". It seems it is going to work like the inverse of the yellow star in Nazi Germany. I can't predict exactly what the future ho9lds, but is is not good.
     
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  20. Daniel Light

    Daniel Light Well-Known Member

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    Hopefully, the big thing we take out of this Covid affair is that we finally take Science seriously when they continually
    warn us that pandemics pose as great a threat as any foreign enemy.

    Hopefully, we set up permanent infrastructure to handle such pandemics in the future at the state and national level.

    Hopefully, we learn NOT to politicize such events in the future. A mask is not a sign of oppression. It's the sign
    of basic hygiene protocol during a pandemic. Hell, throwing on a mask if you're going to work when you feel just the
    signs of the common cold or flu should be basic, common curtesy to your fellow humans.
    Washing our hands isn't the mark of the Deep State overlords, it's
    just common hygiene - should be at all times.

    Covid was an unknown when it was hitting hard the first round of this pandemic, so being overly cautious was
    a predictable human self-preservation response.

    We've had two pandemics in the last decade and a dozen in the last 100 years. If we ignore the future threat, we
    aren't going to be prepared for the next one that might be closer to Ebola than the flu. Pandemic protocol isn't
    a Deep State power play, it a recognition of the deaths and illness in our history. It's common curtesy to
    your fellow humans. It's as basic as covering your mouth and nose when you sneeze.
     
  21. Eleuthera

    Eleuthera Well-Known Member Donor

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    Those who buy into the official narrative told by Fauci & Friends will indeed be obedient subjects and "learn" everything Daniel has learned.

    Those with open eyes and open minds will notice all the facts that contradict the F&F narrative, think for themselves, and realize we've all been hoodwinked.

    Never the 'twain shall meet?

    It turns out Mikki Willis and Dave Martin and all the other dissenters from the F&F narrative were right on. It very much was a planned event designed to plunder the US Treasury and redistribute wealth in favor of the fantastically rich men of Davos, who benefit the most from the Plandemic.
     
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  22. Zorro

    Zorro Well-Known Member

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    Oh yes it will.

    Is It Almost Over: US Sees Record One-Day Drop In COVID Hospitalizations
    [​IMG]
    If only Biden's inauguration had been a few months earlier...

    But wait, another election, need lots of mail-in ballots - Super COVID Strains! The horror! Only mail in ballots can save from sure death!
     
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  23. fiddlerdave

    fiddlerdave Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    Its funny to think of those who are trying to make fun of those who had the option to mailed their ballots!

    Hmmm, how many voters got to mail or drop off their ballots?

    A significant list of many millions.

    There is a certainty that some number of those millions avoided of infection, illness, a for some, death. Even some Republicans I know liked being able to mail their ballots, who avoided unnecessary contact in a pandemic.
     
  24. ToddWB

    ToddWB Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    There will be NO post-covid world.. at least not for the USA and probably not for most of the mostly free West. Poland seems to be the last bastion of the Free World... perhaps those Hungarians too.
     
  25. Zorro

    Zorro Well-Known Member

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    With updated voter rolls and valid signature matching I'm fine with it as well.
     

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