One of the things the UK should be very grateful for is that whilst we are in the midst of a world pandemic and a country whose own record of dealing with said pandemic is, to say the least, mixed, we are fortunate to have surfeit of celebrity epidemiologists, people who have somehow managed to combine careers in soap operas, as TV personalities and as the frontmen of rock 'n' roll bands (and doesn't that sound like a very 20th century occupation) with becoming experts in the transmission of disease and the social policies that should accompany infectious disease. How they've managed to find the time to gain their degrees and PhDs, not to say the hours of laboratory work involved, with the endless touring and rehearsing is a mystery.
Many of them also seem to be under the impression that their edgy and free thinking views are hardly reported anywhere in the 'mainstream media' (or to quote Ian Brown the 'lamestream media'- nice one Ian). I think we've reached a point where anyone who uses the letters MSM or 'lamestream media' in a debate should be automatically disqualified from taking part in it. One thing the UK does not seem to be short of is libertarian right wing voices presenting their views in the mainstream- during the years of the Brexit debacle the BBC gave the right wing a voice every single day, time after time, on the news. It gave Farage a voice on Question Time on over thirty occasions. That's all quite mainstream isn't it? The newspapers may be suffering from falling physical sales but their online presence is huge and they still play a key role in setting daily political agendas. At last reckoning the voices of the libertarian right can be found in The Daily Mail, The Daily Express, the Telegraph, The Times, The Sun and The Star not to mention magazines such as The Spectator where the views of maskless warriors like Toby Young are printed weekly. ITV and Sky News are available to fill in any gaps that these may have left. I think the mainstream media have this area fairly well covered. On the internet places such as Twitter, which has forty eight million daily users, are forums where 'non- MSM' voices are widely heard and amplified. If you're are a celebrity epidemiologist and you decide it's high time your important voice was heard on subjects such as wearing a small piece of cloth over the lower part of your face when in Sainsburys for fifteen minutes to prevent other people potentially catching your germs, there aren't exactly a shortage of places ready to report your wisdom.
The same celebrity epidemiologists should also possibly take a look at their views and then enter a period of self- reflection, examining other well known figures who share them. If you find yourself on the same side of the fence re: mask wearing, as say Donald Trump (worst Covid 19 death rate in the world), David Icke (believes the world is ruled by a shadowy cabal of lizards) and Nick Griffin (disgraced racist and former leader of the fascist British National Party), maybe you need to think again.
Ian Brown, former frontman of The Stone Roses, recently Tweeted about masks being muzzles and the removal of freedoms. If anyone was going to be susceptible to Youtube conspiracy theories it was going to be Ian but his increasingly demented defence of his opinions was sad to say the least (and in no way related to the release of a particularly poor single). Screaming into the internet with caps lock on, suggesting that Dave Haslam had no right to counter Ian's views because his Dad was a vicar from Birmingham, using the hashtag #researchanddestroy when it seemed his own research was a ten minute Youtube video, Ian looked less like the loose limbed, sugar spun hero from 1989 and more like an advert for the view that long term marijuana use really does damage cognitive function. In 1990 Ian famously said 'it's not where you're from, it's where you're at'. Ian is not at anywhere we would want to be. The frightening thing is the number of his followers who reply praising him for 'dropping truth bombs' and 'telling it how it is'. Funny how many of the free thinkers have to follow a leader and tow the line.
I have no real love of Oasis so Noel Gallagher's continuing spiral into becoming the Rt. Hn. Member for Burnage (Con) doesn't dismay me that much but his small minded, infantile comments about masks recently were a new low. Noel doesn't want to wear a mask because 'there's too many fucking liberties being taken away from us now'. He was challenged for refusing to wear one on a train and said 'I choose not to wear one and if I get the virus it's on me and not on everyone else. If every other cunt is wearing a mask I'm not going to catch it off them and if I've got it then they're not going to catch it off me'. An overindulged rock star who went straight from living with his Mum to living in a mansion in Primrose Hill thinks everyone else should wear one but him. There's this thing called society Noel, it's a community where we all to some extent do things that are for the good of everyone else. I wear a mask in the shops to protect you and you wear one to protect us. We all help each other by doing things which may be inconvenient but which are for the common good. However Noel thinks he is above this. His backbench Tory MP views would have found great favour with another heritage act, the 1980s Conservative Party, and its frontwoman's views that 'there is no such thing as society, only individual men and women'.
Van Morrison, another over indulged rock 'n' roll 'maverick', has been throwing his views about lockdown into the ring. But, y'know, it's Van Morrison, who gives a fuck? There can't be many people who have paid much attention to what Van Morrison has said or done since Astral Weeks came out (1968 for the record), apart from being forced to endure Brown Eyed Girl at wedding receptions.
Wearing a mask seems a bizarre hill to make your stand on. The view that you have suffered some essential loss of a fundamental freedom by wearing a face mask for ten minutes while in a shop is bewildering. There is also a view gathering pace that some shadowy, deep state overlords have invented the virus and are using it to remove all our freedoms, that the government wants to lock us all down and control us. The people sharing this view, like Ian, say that the Covid 19 app is being introduced to track your movements so 'they' know where you are. They always share these views on their mobile phones (which already have their data and can track their every movement and message) and on social media platforms (which, ditto). If the shadowy overlords really do want to control us all and this is the start of it, they couldn't have picked a worse government to do the job. I don't know if Ian et al have been so busy studying for their epidemiology degrees that they haven't seen any TV news but this government is wilfully incompetent, they can't control their advisors never mind the whole country. Their senior advisor can't cope with having to do a couple of days of primary childcare on his own without driving two hundred miles despite laws to the contrary. Look at them. Look at Matt Hancock and Dominic Raab, two men who seem to have gone directly from being deputy head boy at a minor private school to secretary of state. These overpromoted imposters are the men selected to shut us down and remove our freedoms forever? Really?
Here is some music from Chocolate Hills.
21 comments:
I'm glad to have an excuse to wear a mask that everyone accepts. What I'm worried about is that at some point governments will have to backtrack and make them illegal so that their face tracking will work.
Great stuff SA. I just don't get the hysterical reaction to having to wear a facemask. It is a bit of an inconvenience one more thing to remember when you go out and for glasses wearers the 20 seconds of blindness can be a bit disconcerting but nothing compared to when the visor on a helmet when it mists up when you are doing 30 mph which brings we to the twat from that Manchester band who was a scooterist in his teenage years. I bet he was one of the twats that went to those rallies against having to wear a helmet when riding at speed, they did happen in the 80s anyway; not sure if everybody is a bit more sensible now about that but when you take what we are talking about I suspect there are still some rockets who believe that saving you from instant death and having some poor bugger from the emergency services scrape up your brains from the tarmac is an infringement on your right from killing yourself and traumatising others for life
We still have Jedward. Is there anything more 2020 than the Grimes brothers a double act who were dismissed by most as being a couple of clowns being the voice of reason in this most fucked-up of years
Great post Adam. It seems to be the same at my place. MSM is going to be taken over by populists ignoring the reasons why we have to carry masks in the future as well. Of course it is irritating carrying masks but it is still necessary, especially when we winter time is coming. Sometimes I can't stand those fools.
Another great post Swiss, I agree with what your saying. I could let out a foul mouthed tirade about celebrity opinions, anti-maskers and conspiracy nitwits.
Yes Adam your words about society are spot on. The reason we are taking all these precautions is because we (our British society) value the elderly and the vulnerable. Society is measured by how it cares for one another. These were the principles of the founding of the NHS and the Welfare State. These are the same principles that must guide us through this pandemic. To shield the vulnerable and elderly and slow the virus down, so that the NHS, it's doctors, nurses and all the carers are not over run. Do whatever it takes. This is something we do as a community, together. It is a great credit to our nation that the vast majority do still believe in the principles of our community. These out spoken musicians don't seem to understand that with liberty comes responsibility. Responsibility to each other and to the medical staff and carers, who i'm sure they themselves, their families and loved ones have benefited from in their lifetimes.
-SRC
Not to disagree with anything you've written - in my view celebs should keep their mouths shut on most topics; why do people credit their opinions on anything but their actual job? - but it's worth taking a look at the statistics for China. They are the single lowest, i.e. best, on ALL measures of this virus. If we take their stats at face value (arguable) that would imply that the most successful strategy is that implemented by an authoritarian mass surveillance state with enormous police powers. Food for thought.
Even a stopped clock and all. There always has to be some small upside to these authoritarian systems and this time it's the fact that they can deal with a pandemic really well because they're people are more willing to do exactly what they're told (S. Korea similarly as they were until relatively recently an authoritarian state).
Even a stopped clock and all. There always has to be some small upside to these authoritarian systems and this time it's the fact that they can deal with a pandemic really well because they're people are more willing to do exactly what they're told (S. Korea similarly as they were until relatively recently an authoritarian state).
Yep, as Michael says maybe it's because their populations are ready to do as they're told. China's statistics may need some verification I think.
Right, any criticism of UK or USA responses must take into account the fact that our populations are not disciplined and that there is zero will to genuinely discipline them. A higher death rate is one of the prices of freedom of thought, of diversity of thought - one of the prices of democracy. And democracy is good, as I am sure all agree.
In a world where, no matter how much we "progress" it still comes down to survival of the fittest, this current pandemic has only gone to prove we are not among the fittest being on the Earth and don't really have any real innate survival capabilities any longer. We are, as a society, weak willed, impatient, and out of touch with any sense of what it really takes deal with suffering because we can't even get past inconvenience.
@Swanditch makes a point that our definition of Freedom of Thought and Diversity of Thought can be a price of living in an open society, but it is precisely this price we must do the work necessary to reverse using it as an excuse.
Wear A Mask, Protect Lives.
Well argued Adam. What is happening in society today confirms what I have always known. There are lots of gullible people and too many ill informed idiots in our country. The super rich are moulding our world into something that benefits them. Politicians are puppets and are leading us down a path of destruction. We are wasting the earth's resources for the benefit of the few. No one wins.
Excellent post A
Though I have to say Van M has released many superb records since Astral Weeks
I wondered if I may have been a bit harsh on Van Morrison Lee but I was on a roll by that point. I stand by Brown Eyed Girl being a wedding reception endurance test though.
An excellent if grimly on point post, Adam. For every good news story highlighting and emphasising how caring, compassionate and community-minded we human beings are, it's also brought into sharp relief our capacity for selfishness, divisiness and self-preservation. Celebrity (and what does that really mean these days?) commentary is fine, but I'd like to see more of these brave Twitter warriors propound their theories to a live audience. Preferably one made up of young people like my pre-teen, who would be interested to know why some people's sense of entitlement and particular definition of liberty means they don't give a damn about its impact on others' freedom of choice, now and in the future.
The Chocolate Hills track is great, by the way.
Khayem that's a perfect example of wanting a disciplined population. Now, do you have the will to create it? Do you actually want to see the people disciplined?
Swanditch we all have our own opinions, that is truly a lovely thing, but hinging your personal liberty on having the freedom not to wear a mask seems out of proportion to the liberties that so many lack in the world. But of course this highly totalitarian police state that we live in does give you the freedom to protest. Me I don't wear a safety belt in my car, my choice, but you see i'm not taking any body else with me when i go head first through the windscreen. Because I wear a mask am I disciplined, or am I not disciplined because I don't wear a safety belt? Life's a morale maze isn't it? peace brother.
warwick@SRC
Anon you've read me wrong, I wear masks as and when required and have no objection to any measures I am asked to take to combat this virus. I am making a larger point about the way our societies run, and how it is not in fact possible to get people to be more obedient without taking steps that no one is prepared to take, and that therefore objecting to people resisting masks etc is ultimately futile. Brown et al are still being wankers though.
I will also note here that there have been months now of large scale public gatherings in many countries and there has been nary a peep of criticism of these gross violations of social distancing.
Let's also keep in mind that the UK and US governments, to name just two, have given people ample reason to distrust and disobey them. I mean not just in the past few years but stretching back some decades now.
Swanditch sorry if I misunderstood. I do understand your wider point, and i'm as paranoid as the next man/woman. That's why i'm not on social media and i don't own a smart phone, even though i know Smith Glaxo Kline own my DNA and Apple own my dreams. Peace again brother and Adam please bill us for this conversation.
warwick@SRC
Spot on with your post, and just heard Ian Browns new single, what an embarrassing effort it is
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