Daily review 06/09/2021

Written By: - Date published: 5:30 pm, September 6th, 2021 - 30 comments
Categories: Daily review - Tags:

Daily review is also your post.

This provides Standardistas the opportunity to review events of the day.

The usual rules of good behaviour apply (see the Policy).

Don’t forget to be kind to each other …

30 comments on “Daily review 06/09/2021 ”

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  2. aj 2
    6 September 2021 at 7:57 pm

    An excellent tweet about the inability of countries to learn from the past.

    https://mobile.twitter.com/math_rachel/status/1434671339210563584

  4. roblogic 4
    6 September 2021 at 8:35 pm

    Speaking of "learning from the past"… interview with Michael Moore, one of the few who opposed the Afghan war back in 2001

    https://youtu.be/MgdzEdFUQyw

    • roblogic 4.1
      6 September 2021 at 8:40 pm

      The anchor also gave this great quote:

      “Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed. This world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children. This is not a way of life at all in any true sense. Under the clouds of war, it is humanity hanging on a cross of iron.”

      ― Dwight D. Eisenhower

      • Gezza 4.1.1
        6 September 2021 at 10:37 pm

        Yes. Good interview. I well remember reading of Ike's warning to the US citizens to beware of the military/industrial complex. I've always argued against the invasions of Afghanistan & Iraq.

        They got Bin Laden in the end in a covert special forces operation in bloody Pakistan. They should've always confined themselves to rocketing the terrorist training camps post-9/11, & mounting special forces ops on likely locations, imo.

        The problem I thought they'd have when they invaded & deposed the Taliban was that they'd never put enough of their own troops in to flood the place, like they did in Japan & Germany, they were always going to be infidels or crusaders in Muslim lands, in a rugged country where trying to impose some sort of Western notion of democracy was never going to work, & where they'd ultimately fare just as badly as the Soviets.

        They never beat the Taliban, & had no hope of doing so. That country is riddled with ethnic factions & tribes who've had their own way of sorting out constantly changing alliances & it will just have to evolve its own system of hopefully more enlightened government in its own time.

        The Afghan govt was corrupt, rotten to the core, soldiers weren't paid for months. Money just disappeared down holes. Bribes had to be paid everywhere. They were as bad as the Taliban in how they treated many rural villagers. Creating more Taliban sympathisers.

        I'd hate to live under the Taliban, & especially to be a female or atheist or Christian or LGBT there – but it's not the West's call to tell them how to run their country.

        Nobody tells the Saudis.

        And same with Iraq. My worry was that they'd blow the lid off the sectarian divide & have Kurds, Sunnis & Shia all at each other's throats – while sucking in Jihadis from all over the Muslim world to join Al Qaeda & get rid of the "crusaders". I never dreamed something as bad as ISIS would evolve out of that & spread out into North Africa, Central Africa. East Africa, Afghanistan & gawd knows where else – but I did expect home-grown terrorists to attack the homelands of Western countries.

        Pretty much the same kinds of issues with how the Iraqi government operates as the Afghan govt, seems to me. They're not culturally set up for Western notions of democracy. They need to evolve their own form of government.

        At least the Iraqi Kurds didn't in the end decide to go for their own state; they decided they were Iraqis 1st, Kurds 2nd. That surprised me. I was sure they would go for an independent Kurdish state, not just an autonomous region within Iraqi borders.

        How many hundreds of thousands have now died in the Middle East & elsewhere since that 2nd invasion that ultimately spawned the Islamic State?

        I'm not sure Biden's entirely onto it, mentally, he sure shows signs of confusion at times – but I give him credit for taking it on the chin & pulling the troops out of Afghanistan. The Taliban were always going to retake that country in the end.

    • Morrissey 4.2
      6 September 2021 at 9:36 pm

      … one of the few who opposed the Afghan war back in 2001

      ?!?!?!?

      Before the Coalition of the Killing went in to Afghanistan in 2001, tens of thousands of citizens protested across the western world, from Los Angeles to New York to London to Paris to Berlin to Barcelona to Sydney to up and down New Zealand.

      https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2001/10/nyc-o12.html

      https://www.democracynow.org/2001/10/1/thousands_take_to_the_streets_in

      https://www.theguardian.com/world/2001/oct/13/afghanistan.terrorism5

      • roblogic 4.2.1
        6 September 2021 at 9:58 pm

        Moore was boo'ed by the entire room at the Academy Awards. The Afghanistan war was opposed by a single vote in the US Senate. Few in the establishment opposed the war drums.

        • Morrissey 4.2.1.1
          7 September 2021 at 2:53 pm

          Moore was boo'ed by the entire room at the Academy Awards.

          It wasn't the entire room. The nastiest and most brutal supporters of the destruction of Afghanistan and Iraq were also the loudest. That audience no doubt predominantly supported Moore, given that most Hollywood people are liberal in their views. But they lacked the sheer energy and malice of the people who jeered and booed.

          Someone that everyone in Hollywood seemed to support at that time was another overweight gentleman….

          • roblogic 4.2.1.1.1
            7 September 2021 at 4:56 pm

            A few celebrities like Susan Sarandon have principles but most of them care only for fame and glory, and they went with the herd. Understandable perhaps but not ethical.

  5. miravox 5
    6 September 2021 at 9:13 pm

    Pharmac has today announced that Roche, the global pharmaceutical company which provides tocilizumab, will not provide New Zealand with product for the next three months, due to massive demand worldwide.

    Alternative headline: Rheumatoid Arthritis patients lose access to treatments that enable them to live without joint destruction and disability as drugs are redirected to treat Covid.

    Add this to the list of healthcare consequences of covid ripping through communities (e.g. along with delays in diagnosis and hospital treatment and dangerously over-worked healthcare staff)

    In New Zealand, about 400 people use Pharmac-funded tocilizumab for a number of conditions, such as rheumatoid and juvenile arthritis. Tocilizumab is still under patent protection; this means no other companies, other than Roche, are able to manufacture this product. There are no biosimilar alternatives available in New Zealand.”

    This drug is a last resort drug for auto-immune joint disease, many people taking it have failed to have their disease controlled by any other drug Pharmac funds. People who take it are often young. It's a monthly infusion that allows them to be active participants in work and family lives – and when I say family I mean raising toddlers and primary school-age children. It's not the only drug made for auto-immune diseases being repurposed for Covid. And these drugs are not cheap – in some cases thousands of dollars per dose.

    Many thanks to all who are taking covid seriously by playing by the lockdown rules, getting tested and vaccinated.

  6. Anker 6
    6 September 2021 at 9:23 pm

    God, that is bad, ie about the drug for Rhumatoid Arthritis

  7. Patricia Bremner 7
    6 September 2021 at 10:28 pm

    We are entering a time of struggle against huge dominating companies, who appear to be using this situation.

  8. McFlock 8
    6 September 2021 at 11:44 pm

    Nice to see a defiant polluter get his comeuppance. Dairy farmer and his company together fined $103k.

  9. Patricia Bremner 9
    7 September 2021 at 1:09 am

    I hope no-one visits The Eagle Pub in Southland, their sign is disgusting in every way. Sorry can't link.

    Calling the PM Hitler and Dr. Bloomfield Goebbles is crass.

    As this is in the NZ Herald and critical of the health approach we are able to read it!!

    • dv 9.1
      7 September 2021 at 7:43 am

      Yes complaining that you need to sign in to tracking.

      May be they (who ever they are) need to conduct a raid and take them away to a concentration camp with gas chambers then.

      [Could you please dial it back? – Incognito]

    • Ngungukai 9.2
      7 September 2021 at 7:47 am

      Jacinda and Bloonfield are trying to do what is best for the citizens of NZ, I would hate to see the situation if Collins and Seymour were in control ?

      • Gezza 9.2.1
        7 September 2021 at 9:42 am

        The beauty of being in the Opposition. You can criticise everything the govt does & says & not have to have your own vague or dodgy alternative policies subjected to serious scrutiny or be accountable for their likely shortcomings. Barking at every passing car, as they say. Hypocrisy's also a given for Oppositions.

    • mac1 9.3
      7 September 2021 at 9:40 am

      It's also an argument for the teaching of history in New Zealand schools as to who the Nazis actually were, and what they did.

      Maybe, also, the teaching of the concepts of hyperbole, false equivalence and political propaganda as practised by the late Dr Goebbels.

      • Gezza 9.3.1
        7 September 2021 at 10:07 am

        Yes. My old man was a Kiwi machine gunner in North Africa & Italy in WW2. Like many, he didn't talk about it much. But the Nazis were still awful, recent history for someone of my age. I devoured WW2 history books, but from personal interest.

        I took History in 6th form but the curriculum mainly looked at history leading up to WW1 & the development of the Italian & Prussian/German states from bits of Austria-Hungary.

        The Nazis & WW2 are probably more remote, ancient history for those of the two generations since. The priority challenge for general history in schools is probably going to be the NZ history curriculum though.

        • mac1 9.3.1.1
          7 September 2021 at 12:23 pm

          WW1 was over 47 years back in history when I did history at school in 1965. A modern high school student would find a parallel in the Vietnam War ending in 1975. So, you're right that WW2 and the Nazis are a generation further away. Time slips by…

          When I first taught history in 1971, New Zealand was still involved in fighting in Vietnam. Now it's assigned to 'wars of history'.

          I'd hope that when our students do cover WW2 as it affected NZ, that the study of the causes of that war would include the topic of fascism. Then our sign-writing people in Southland would recognise that World War 2 saw 52 million people die, 20 million in Russia alone, that 6 million Jews were killed by the Nazis, that 49% of casualties were civilians, that Hitler and the Nazis were psychopaths who took over a country and then tried to take over Europe and beyond, that Goebbels practised propaganda in ways that can still be seen practised in our time. Then they might see where being required to sign into a venue sits in the scale of severity of social requirements.

          If the historical approach is one of themes affecting New Zealand history, then I'd expect a study of our style of democracy would be facilitated also by a study of other forms of political philosophy, again including fascism.

          • Gezza 9.3.1.1.1
            7 September 2021 at 12:44 pm

            Yeah. The challenge is going to be teaching how "our form of democracy" overtook the Treaty of Waitangi, & how some Maori students may now feel about that, without polarising the classes.

            • mac1 9.3.1.1.1.1
              7 September 2021 at 1:40 pm

              When you get into the area of possible polarisation, you're probably getting into the area of proper teaching- arguing a case, finding evidence to support, reading, hearing, acknowledging different points of view, understanding that historians, and people in general, argue from already established positions and therefore the need to understand how we must identify and understand those positions. And that's just the teachers!

              But disciplined, reasoned debate, in a framework of respect and tolerance, is a skill we all need in our lives.

              Then your point above at 9.2.1 about how people in Opposition can just avoid scrutiny of dodgy assertions is addressed if people are given, taught, practise, the skills of historical debate.

    • aj 9.4
      7 September 2021 at 10:43 am

      The Eagle Pub in Southland. their sign is disgusting in every way…

      Deeply offensive to most southerners too. Like every part of New Zealand we have a few people who go right off the wall.