Facebook Thread With Tom Magnuson & Others Concerning Left-Wing & Right-Wing Conscience

• 
  

  Tom Magnuson: A denkschrift on the costs and benefits of staying closed or opening the economy, either way seems rather grim:
  
  

  

  

  
  

  THEATLANTIC.COM

  
  

  Take the Shutdown Skeptics Seriously

  This is not a straightforward battle between a pro-human and a pro-economy cam
• Cindy Robertson

  
  

  All that may be true but the skeptics fail to see another option; how about a social safety net (aka a golden parachute for the commoners) so that a choice between money or death would not be necessary?

  
  

  

  6

  

  • Like
  •  · 
    Reply
  •  · 4d
• 
  

  
  

  Statler Gilfillen

  
  

  raises some serious issues

  

  • Like
  •  · 
    Reply
  •  · 4d
• 
  

  
  

  Judith Yeabsley

  
  

  A good analysis of all points, except possibly the most crucial one. The recession was always coming - and therefore all those socio-political-economic costs. The virus had merely hastened it, and made the dominoes fall faster and more simultaneously. … 
  

  See More

  
  

  

  2

  

  • Like
  •  · 
    Reply
  •  · 4d
  
  

  Judith Yeabsley replied

   · 8 Replies
• 
  

  
  

  Nancy Taylor

  
  

  https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/health/2020/05/08/coronavirus-pandemic-boosts-suicide-alcohol-drug-death-predictions/3081706001/

  

  

  USATODAY.COM

  
  

  'Deaths of despair': Coronavirus pandemic could push suicide, drug deaths as high as 150k, study says

  'Deaths of despair': Coronavirus pandemic could push suicide, drug deaths as high as 150k, study says

  • Like
  •  · 
    Reply
  •  · 3d
  
  

  
  

  
  

  Tom Magnuson replied

   · 2 Replies
• 
  

  
  

  Jon Rhodes

  
  

  What we should have been doing all along.

  
  

  https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/sweden/2020-05-12/swedens-coronavirus-strategy-will-soon-be-worlds

  

  

  FOREIGNAFFAIRS.COM

  
  

  Sweden’s Coronavirus Strategy Will Soon Be the World’s

  Sweden’s Coronavirus Strategy Will Soon Be the World’s

  • Like
  •  · 
    Reply
  •  · 1d
  
  

  
  

  
  

  Tom Magnuson replied

   · 11 Replies3h
• 
  

  
  

  Alan Archibald

  
  

  Lest we forget…

  
  

  China contained the coronavirus and has pretty much re-opened its economy after a brief period of draconian measures. …
  

  See More

  

  • Like
  •  · 
    Reply
  •  · 1d
  • 
    

    
    

    Judith Yeabsley

    
    

    Although there is a lot of debate about what actually happened (and is happening in China). Estimates of infection and death rates are many, many times higher than the official stats. Love the Jeb Bush quote 

    

    • Like
    •  · 
      Reply
    •  · 1d
  • 
    

    
    

    Jon Rhodes

    
    

    
    

    Alan Archibald

     Lest we forget China killed tens of million people with their “Great Leap Forward” and has a authoritarian government I can’t believe anyone in the US would elect. Government power doesn’t tend to recede after crises are over. Remember 9/11, extraordinary rendition, Guantanamo, Prism.... This won’t be any different. Or do Uber lefties only get mad when it’s a Republican doing the thing that offends liberty?

    

    • Like
    •  · 
      Reply
    •  · 11h
    •  · 
      Edited
  • 
    

    
    

    
    

    
    

    Tom Magnuson

    
    

    
    

    Jon Rhodes

     History quite likely will place Trump alongside Mao, Stalin, and Hitler even if the first writings by Republican victors don't. Don't crank up the shaming crap; our history has very little to brag about. The reason we are the racists that we are is our chosen method of conquest (genocide) and our "peculiar institution. To make them acceptable to good Christian minds required a great deal of lying and obfuscation; our skirts are no cleaner than the Chinese, the Russians, the Germans, and the Belgians. We are very much the modern form of the Romans, and as Calgocus (Caledonian) said after the Romans who conquered his people, 'they make a desert and call it peace.

    

    • Like
    •  · 
      Reply
    •  · 10h
  • 
    

    
    

    Alan Archibald

    
    

    Jon Rhodes You seem to assume that "Uber Lefties" forget the atrocities of history. I don't know where this assumption comes from but it's in the same ball park with the lunatic right-wing assumption that Hitler's "National Socialism" is "proof positive" that Bernie Sanders' "Democratic Socialism" would have the nation leap headlong from "Lemming Cliff" into political damnation.

    
    

    In any event, I live in full awareness of the damnable behavior of Mao Zedong, Stalin, Hitler and all the other thugs.

    Acton's dictum is no secret: "Power tends to corrupt. And absolute power corrupts absolutely."

    Notably, longshoreman-philosopher Eric Hoffer described the "corollary" that "absolute faith also corrupts absolutely" which is where American conservatives --- particularly white, "Christian" "conservative" Trump Cultists --- might take a close, beneficial look at themselves.

    I commend Tom Magnuson for his customarily incisive, insightful review of History's omnipresent dark side.

    Taking my cue from Tom I will elaborate on the genocidal roots of American history.

    General George Washington Orders "Complete Destruction" Of Iroquois Settlements

    http://paxonbothhouses.blogspot.com/2012/02/general-george-washington-orders.html

    (I must mention that I grew up in Iroquois country, and one of my childhood homes was alongside the trail used by Washington's murderous thug-designee General Sullivan who did his best to exterminate the Seneca - one of the six tribes comprising the Iroquois peoples.)

    The Origin Of White Supremacy: "An Indigenous People's History Of The United States"

    http://paxonbothhouses.blogspot.com/2018/08/the-origin-of-white-supremacy.html

    Snopes: "Did Christopher Columbus Seize, Sell, and Export Sex Slaves?"

    http://paxonbothhouses.blogspot.com/2018/05/snopes-did-christopher-columbus-seize.html

    I, for one, do not "only get mad when it’s a Republican doing the thing that offends liberty."

    But I wonder...

    Are you prepared to go on the record with a robust criticism-denunciation of Trump who is the greatest existential threat ever to American liberty, not to mention his determination to undermine the rubrics of representative government as it relates to separation of powers, the Rule of Law, an independent judiciary and the avoidance of overt criminality as evidenced by daily receipt of emoluments and the crimes against humanity perped -- even now -- in Uncle Sam's Tex-Mex concentration camps.

    "Definition: Concentration Camp" http://paxonbothhouses.blogspot.com/2018/06/definition-concentration-camp.html

    There are also the issues of Malignant Messiah's interpersonal abusiveness, misogyny, racism and horrifying cruelty. "More Of Trump's Cruelty"

    https://paxonbothhouses.blogspot.com/2020/04/cartoon-more-of-trumps-cruelty.html

    And finally, although I'm aware that America's right-wing has lathered itself to appropriate the following Lincoln quotation as its own, Abe's instincts were thoroughly liberal - even progressive -- and remarkably critical of Capitalism.

    Abraham Lincoln: "Capitalists Generally Act Harmoniously And In Concert To Fleece The People"

    http://paxonbothhouses.blogspot.com/2019/07/abraham-lincoln-capitalists-generally.html

    Abraham Lincoln On The Relationship Between Labor And Capital

    http://paxonbothhouses.blogspot.com/2012/08/abraham-lincoln-on-relationship-between.html

    "Lincoln's Prediction Of Political Suicide As A Clear And Present Danger, Far More Dangerous Than Any Hostile Power From Overseas"

    http://paxonbothhouses.blogspot.com/2017/10/lincoln-comments-on-vicious-portion-of.html

    "I know one thing---there is a strike! And I am glad to know that there is a system of labor where the laborer can strike if he wants to! I would to God that such a system prevailed all over the world."

    http://quod.lib.umich.edu/l/lincoln/lincoln4/1:2.1?rgn=div2;view=fulltext

    

    

    PAXONBOTHHOUSES.BLOGSPOT.COM

    
    

    General George Washington Orders "Complete Destruction" Of Iroquois Settlements

    General George Washington Orders "Complete Destruction" Of Iroquois Settlements

    • Like
    •  · 
      Reply
    •  · 
      Remove Preview
    •  · 4m