To serve two masters

by liberal japonicus

I don't know if the commentariat here has a lot of military experience, my impression is no. (I don't, but there is one person here who I think does have some experience/insight, but I leave it to them to speak) And I realize there are a lot of things that, if you are a civilian, are hard to understand. But I find this pretty astonishing.

It's impossible to keep up with all the opinions here, and there were some excellent twitter threads, one of which suggested that the problem was both sides were right and Crozier did what he did knowing that he was going to be fired. What I cite is going to reflect what I sought out, so there is a bias, but this, via LGM, seems important.

Modly argued that his problem with Crozier’s actions was not the contents of the letter, but rather the way in which Crozier bypassed the chain of command. This argument, too, suffers from a lack of transparency. Modly’s prepared remarks emphasized the importance of the chain of command and included a statement that Crozier’s boss, an admiral embarked aboard the carrier, did not see the letter until it was sent to him by Crozier. In other words, the problem wasn’t that Crozier didn’t inform his boss (he did), but that he didn’t informally tell his boss he was going to do so, in advance of formally telling him.

During questions, a reporter asked if the other people in Crozier’s chain of command were included on the letter, and Modly admitted that they were, but added that many others were included as well, though he declined to say who the objectionable additional recipients were. Incredulous, a reporter asked, “Is he being relieved because he cc’d too many people?” Modly replied that he was being relieved because, “to me, that demonstrated exceptionally poor judgment.” This pattern was frequently repeated in the press conference: Modly would make a strong initial statement that could be misleading. When pressed on the specifics, he would backtrack to a less-categorical position. The overall impression was that the acting secretary of the Navy was attempting to portray Crozier’s actions more negatively than the facts warranted — he was trying to “fog one by” the reporters, the public, and the sailors he leads.

Regarding the competence of the Navy’s response, Modly stated that nearly 3000 appropriate off-ship accommodations had been made available for crewmembers and that sailors were being tested for COVID-19, the ship was being cleaned, and a skeleton crew was remaining aboard to safeguard the ship — essentially the plan recommended by Crozier in his letter. When asked if these actions would have been taken without Crozier’s letter, the acting secretary mentioned that many of the actions required lead-times longer than would have been possible if they had begun only with receipt of the letter.

While plausible, this raises a question: Why would Crozier have sent the letter if he had known that these actions were underway and that he was receiving the support he needed? After all, he had little to gain if he knew the actions were already underway, and much to lose. At best, this suggests that senior Navy leaders hadn’t communicated effectively to Crozier the full scope of response measures underway. But, given the lack of candor and transparency in Modly’s other responses, this also raises questions as to whether the letter may indeed have been the impetus for the Navy’s actions. And the delayed pace of the Navy’s response since Crozier’s relief suggests that Modly may have exaggerated the resources available to care for the crew.

Finally, Modly’s performance did not convey a commitment to some of his most important people: commanding officers confronted with the extraordinary challenge of leading and maintaining readiness during a global pandemic. It is highly unusual for a secretary of the Navy to personally order the commanding officer of a deployed warship fired — normally this action, if required, would be taken by uniformed leaders in the chain of command. It is even more unusual for him to hold a press conference about it. And it is unprecedented for the reasons for a firing to be so thin. The standard of “loss of confidence” in a commanding officer is broad, but it is highly unusual to lose confidence just because an e-mail had many recipients in addition to those required. It seems more likely that Crozier was fired for embarrassing the Navy, because his letter pointing out the ways in which he felt the Navy was not acting sufficiently to care for his crew became a public news story.

This impression is strengthened by reports that Modly pushed for the firing against the advice of senior uniformed leaders, who wanted to conduct an investigation of the leak, and that President Trump was upset with the media coverage surrounding the letter. According to David Ignatius, Modly reportedly told a colleague a day before the firing, “Breaking news: Trump wants him fired.” Yet, when asked at the press conference, Modly stated, “I’ve received absolutely no pressure. I’ve had no communication with the White House about this.”

In reporting published late Sunday April 5, Igantius relayed a conversation in which Modly told him, “I didn’t want to get into a decision where the president would feel that he had to intervene because the Navy couldn’t be decisive.” Adding that his predecessor Richard Spencer had, “lost his job because the Navy Department got crossways with the president,” Modly also reiterated that he had not communicated with Trump on the decision prior to firing Crozier.

Ironically, two days before Crozier was relieved, Vice Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Robert P. Burke sent a message to the fleet regarding COVID-19 response, which stated:

There are times that you will need to push back on operational requirements. There are times that you may need to go to an installation commander for places to house your Sailors because you cannot effectively isolate your personnel. There are times when they may not be able to help. We want these decisions to be fact-based, and not emotionally-driven. If you’re not getting what you need, don’t suffer in silence, get the word up the chain. Above all, and I want you to hear this from me and the CNO, WE HAVE YOUR BACK. When in doubt, lean forward and lead.

This is a far cry from Modly’s statement at the press conference: “[Crozier] created the impression that the Navy was not reacting … that displayed poor judgment … [and] created a firestorm.”

Thoughts?

Comments

[John D Thullen]

Libertarian republican subhuman brandishes weapon in law class on ZOOMBoomYourfuckingdead:

https://www.lawyersgunsmoneyblog.com/2020/04/how-your-neocofederate-affirmative-action-network-sausage-gets-made

Non-vaccinated libertarian subhumans right across the state line from me threaten to force Covid-19 on my son.

https://www.esquire.com/news-politics/politics/a32098036/kansas-republicans-easter-church-coronavirus/

Might pop out to the Kansas and or Oklahoma border with a sniper rifle for self-defense.

See if I can identify the republican murderers exercising their freedoms by trespassing on my state while conceal carrying disease and illegal weaponry.

I may have to quarantine their children for a lengthy period and release 'em in Mexico where they don't trouble no one no how for being assholes.

[wj]

Now John, just let them go off to their church services, cough on each other, pray for deliverance, and then let nature take its course. Given what their preferred policies have done to hospital capacity in the areas they control, it will be messy but quick. And without you lifting a finger.

[John D Thullen]

Yeahbutt, they'll be coming into Colorado for deer hunting season next Fall carrying the hoof and mouth and Lyme disease with them as well.

These zombies just are not hygienic.

Speaking of dirty guys, I was going to post one of my "Before It Became News" predictions yesterday regarding this Oklahoma freak show murderer of man and beast being pardoned soon by Trump and appointed Supervisory Inspector General of the U.S. Government's Concentration Camp System, now under construction in red vermin states as part of the reality show infrastructure stimulus package.

Trump, being smarter than McKinney and me together plus the rest of ya's here beats us to the punch again.

https://nypost.com/2020/04/08/donald-trump-on-joe-exotic-pardon-ill-take-a-look/

I'm ashamed at my tardy failure of imagination regarding the murder syndicate called the Republican Party.

I'm losing my touch.

I know that all of you expect more of me.

I try. I do.

[John D Thullen]

The new Deep State Unelected Bureaucrackpot murderous head of Trump's next Council on Reviving Republican Vermin Ban accounts and Fucking Everyone Else:

https://www.rawstory.com/2020/04/this-economist-wants-to-cut-worker-salaries-and-tax-nonprofits-and-he-might-lead-trumps-recovery-effort/

Trump is also halting funding for Covid-19 testing teams tomorrow across the country.

https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2020/04/trump-admin-pulls-funding-for-drive-through-covid-19-testing/

Cold-blooded murderers.

Anyone who does not vote for Joe Biden in November .. I don't care who he finger-fucked in 1993 .. is complicit in the republican conservative genocide of American citizens and will be met with the kind of savage justice meted out to Nazis in the closing days of World War II and Commies as the Soviet Union's grasp on Eastern Europe fell in 1989.

Tear down That Genocidal Republican Party, or goddamned else!

[John D Thullen]

Trump gathers his new Covid-19 Dispersion Task Force, sans Fauci and anyone else who knows anything, for their first meeting:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EyF_XafkUCk

[John Thullen]

Cold-blooded murderer Trump provides a timeline today for opening America during his who-can-vomit-farther-me-or-sean-hannity horror briefing.

Says c'mon out, you are safe, you wouldn't believe how safe you are, it will be beautiful and perfect, take a deep breath, give us a little twirl and exhale on Mike Pence as a test:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sQey4ai1_zI

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1swzjZvAeiI

[Snarki, child of Loki]

Lurker, new a Finnish guy back in the day, and the one thing that I gathered about his military obligation is that he got some really good training in cross-country skiing.

Winter biathlon, they rule it. Skiing and shooting.

On another comment, from a friend who was drafted to Vietnam, made during basic training to his drill Sargent who asked him "what he thought about it":

"It's like playing army when you're a kid, but the toys are better, there's more rules, and you can't go home when you get tired."

MAJOR KP DUTY.

[Priest]

I think the article-writer is overplaying this for click-bait effect, but I thought his take fits with part of the conversation here about U.S. cohesion, or lack thereof.

https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2020-04-09/california-declares-independence-from-trump-s-coronavirus-plans?fbclid=IwAR1X3IqmPKXNHwjD9foEX75AL4VCWWSTN1u1pEfou87Pye4o56bDhH2FA7U

[Bruce Baugh]

I want to come back to strategic bombing for a sec:

He concluded: "in the last spring of the war I could no longer find any excuses."

I can help him with his problem: Auschwitz, Bergen-Belsen, Treblinka, Chlemno, Dauchau, to name a few.

I have a family interest in this. Dad learned in the 1980s, when reading about then-recently declassified aerial photos of Auschwitz and other camps, that some of them had been taken by the 7th Photo Reconnaissance Wing of P-38s, to which he'd belonged. Some work with his log books suggests but does not make it possible to establish for sure that he took some of the photos in question.

This troubled him. A lot. The idea that he helped gather information which could have led to an identification of the camps as what they were and that wasn't acted on until ground troops hit the scene was not a comfortable one. So he poked at it further, and we talked about it as he went.

This is what he settled on. It's not readily apparent from purely aerial data that the camps were for mass extermination. A likelier interpretation would have been that they were factories running on slave labor, which is ghastly evil but not unlike a bunch of other sites all over the Nazi empire. Further, they had some buildings prominently marked as hospital spaces. Bombing hospitals was right out, and the Nazis didn't abuse that sanctuary privilege - there are all kinds of legacy of honorable conduct in the midst of the Nazi shit.

So based on the evidence available and informed interpretation, they would not have been bombed.

More broadly, it is - as I understand it - that the kind of strategic bombing was involved in significantly weakened Nazi commitment to and ability to continue fighting. It was just too damned inaccurate. When I got to hear Freeman Dyson talk a few years after Dad's difficult discovery, he felt that the war effort would have been better served by abandoning it entirely, except that that was psychologically impossible for a state in Britain's condition.

Granting here that he was way over on the "let's not do war" side, but from what I can tell from thoroughly unsystematic research, there's no very solid evidence for an argument that strategic bombing produced results to get anywhere close to its costs. Simply destroying stuff and people en masse in zip codes somewhere near actual strategic targets doesn't impair war making a lot, and there's a point where "but it's all we can do" is not a sufficient moral argument.

[Hartmut]

Of course, one can still find the opinion in certain circles that the problem was that the terror limited itself to fire and steel leaving out plague and poison (both were available to the major combatants).
I assume, those guys also subscribe to 'what use are nukes, if one can't use them?'.

As for the camps, as far as I know the only thing seriously called for (by infiltrators that got first hand news from the sites themselves) was bombing the transport infrastructure leading to them not the camps (except for precisely timed diversionary attacks that would enable mass breakouts).
In Britain that got discussed but in the end no action was taken (reasons are strongly disputed reaching from 'too high a risk for the planes' to 'our own antisemites will rise hell if we divert ressources to save Jews' to 'the camps divert German ressources away from the front, so it would be militarily counterproductive').

[John Thullen]

Excellent points, Bruce Baugh. Very interesting recollections by your Dad.

My late father-in-law flew 30-some missions over Europe, but I don't recall him mentioning the Dresden missions. His ethos changed (he was a bombardier) on about the fourth mission when a piece of shrapnel opened up the sheet metal fuselage of the plane at his feet like a flower and the hot hunk of metal passed right by his testicles, his chin, and his nose, before exiting the roof of the plane.

He was 17, having lied when he signed up, and after that incident he was suddenly 30 going on 40 and he said to himself "those f*ckers are trying to kill me", and he never experienced a single qualm about bombs away for the rest of the duration.

The permanent frostbite in his feet didn't ameliorate his reasoning, nor did picking up the pieces of his cohorts on the runways when their damaged planes crash-landed on the returns.

Also, remember, Dyson was recounting what went through his mind in 1945, when he was still a relative pup.

Further, there is no evidence that Dyson had personal knowledge of the camps, but it would not surprise me if he did.

The Allies came round to strategic bombing of civilian targets after long debate in government and the military.

No, it was not moral.

As an aside, in the Dresden book I'm reading, of course Kurt Vonnegut is given some paragraphs. I haven't read "Slaughterhouse Five" for at least 50 years, and we know that he was a prisoner of war housed in a abattoir.

What I did not know was that he survived the bombing because as the German sirens sounded before the first round, he and his fellows were ushered deep underground via an iron staircase through rock into a meat locker, also encased in thick ironwork and kept cool merely by its depth underground.

He sat there among the hanging carcasses, like a second tier Mafioso awaiting the meat hook, while his captors returned above ground to be wiped off the face of the Earth by fire from the sky, which was not their first concern.

Instead, they were scared poopless by the more than rumored Russian Army closing in from the East, their bayonets mounted and their rape kits ready for action.

All of it was horrific and inhuman. Nothing good can be said except that is over.

After I finish the Dresden book, I'm going to start Victor Klemperer's "The Language of The Third Reich" and then move on to his diaries.

Klemperer and his wife survived the war as residents of Dresden, incredibly, from the start of SS the crackdown on the Jewish population and right through the bombing.

In fact, after the bombing, they returned to their home, which was still standing, and collapsed in their bed covered in glass and plaster.

Some of the details of Klemperer's and other witnesses' description of the SS' and the Dresden Gauleiter behavior at times reminded me of the current inhumanity to man by predatory wolves.

The name that comes to mind is Stephen Miller, the facts of whom (irony is not a word any longer in this f*cked up world of the inhumane American conservative movement) are criminal and will be avenged.

It is no wonder that Trump kept a copy of "My New Order", Hitler's sequel to Mein Kampf, mostly consisting of speeches, on his bedside table at some points.

He moves his lips as he follows the sentences with his index finger and occasionally has to ask Melania: "I'm a poisonous lout, but tell me again what an umlaut is?"

[wj]

The Allies came round to strategic bombing of civilian targets after long debate in government and the military.

I was under the impression that what you are talking about (e.g. stuff like Dresden) was called "carpet bombing". And "strategic bombing" meant bombing specific** stuff (weapons factories, transport infrastructure) away from the immediate battlefield. That is, "strategic" as opposed to "tactical".

** The importance of the Norden bombsight was that it allowed accurately hitting specific targets, rather than "wasting" bombs on other stuff. I seem to recall that the US did that kind of bombing, while the Brits did carpet bombing, exactly because we had that kind of bombsight.

[John Thullen]

I guess I'm using the term to describe the decision that was by the Allies to bomb civilian targets as a strategy to punish and bring the Third Reich to its knees.

[John Thullen]

This afternoon, Trump lauds the job he is doing fighting Covid-19. Awards himself with left hand, and accepts with right hand, the Nobel Prize:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jTJI9fNudnQ

[John Thullen]

The Scalias never skip a generation when murdering American citizens:

https://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2020/04/eugene-scalia-is-doing-his-best-to-gut-the-coronavirus-rescue-bill/

Republican Governor of Florida sucks own cock while sending infected kids back to school to murder teachers, because, he says, the latter get paid during the summer while not working, thus they deserve it.

Texas Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick sez, "Gimme some of that, because grandma promises to die for my stock portfolio. Talk to the mask."

https://www.mynews13.com/fl/orlando/coronavirus/2020/04/10/ongoing-coronavirus-reporting

[Hartmut]

The Brits did carpet bombing to a degree because they were forced to go in at night when the losses during daytime became untenable (and H2S radar was not yet available). And the precision of the Norden bombsight was imo extremly overhyped.
I think a lot was simply mentally rationalized for (seeming) lack of alternatives.

[John Thullen]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bombing_of_Dresden_in_World_War_II

"316 B-17 Flying Fortresses bombed Dresden, dropping 771 tons of bombs.[64][65] The remaining 115 bombers from the stream of 431 misidentified their targets."

In the "Schrekensnacht" (Night of Horror) chapter of Sinclair McKay's "The Fire and the Darkness, he notes that there were reports that bomber crews were purposely offloading their ordnance into the North Sea even before they reached Dresden.

Further, a fairly notorious English bombardier by the name of Miles Tripp, using his command override of the pilot as targets came under his aiming purview, would navigate the plane to the outskirts of Dresden and drop their ordnance in open fields, though the aiming was so haphazard that the author speculates that humans in the suburbs were probably blown to kingdom come as well.

Whether Tripp was engaged in a moral act of empathy or was merely using his judgement that the firestorm raging below was already so devastating that pouring gasoline on the inferno would be tactically pointless is unclear.

By the way, the eyewitness descriptions of the sheer horror and danger these B-17 crews endured, not only on the bombing runs, but on the way back to their bases, in many barely limping in and crashing in balls of fire are the most chilling depictions, because McKay is such a fine writer, I've read in World War II airborne histories.

Of course, the horror on the ground far exceeded that in the air.

[GftNC]

The controversy about the role of Bomber Command in this was such that the memorial to them was only built and opened in 2012.

The Wikipedia article on it is here.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RAF_Bomber_Command_Memorial

The first para gives an idea:

The controversy over the tactics employed by RAF Bomber Command during the Second World War meant that an official memorial to the aircrews had been delayed for many years. Despite describing bombers as "the means of victory" in 1940, British prime minister Winston Churchill did not mention Bomber Command in his speech at the end of the war.

[Hartmut]

Didn't the controversial character of 'Bomber' Harris play a role in that? I remember that the memorial being or including a statue of Harris was the main point of protest.

Film portrayals of Harris seem to be more of the friendly kind (friendly towards him, not claiming that he was particularly friendly).

[Hartmut]

Edit: The statue of Harris controversy was much earlier, I think in the late 80ies.

[wj]

Of course the military is not the only group struggling with two masters. (Or at least one schizophrenic master.) Now the White House is denouncing . . . Voice of America! Claims it was pro-Chinese and repeating Chinese propaganda about the coronavirus. Never mind that Trump has spent a lot of weeks praising China for how it has dealt with the virus.

Of course, if you are a news organization that cares about objective reporting (i.e. not Fox News), you aren't going to praise Trump enough to suit him. But still, to claim a US government operation is pro-Chinese. The mind boggles.

[John Thullen]

Whatever WHO learns about this phenomenon, good or bad, they should not share any of the findings with vermin subhuman republican America.

https://talkingpointsmemo.com/news/world-health-organization-investigate-cured-coronavirus-patients-test-positive-again-who

[John Thullen]

Two murderous republican shits, are there any other kind, themselves vectors of a deadly disease and who deliberately tried to infect, assassinate, yes, assassinate, via Covid-19, high-placed members of the US Government, but in a politically correct bipartisan fashion, including coughing into Mitt Romney's beef stew, whine about their humane Democratic Governor attempting to save the lives of a bunch of fake Christians, themselves vying to contract the disease and infect their fellow Americans with death.

https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2020/4/10/1936353/-Kentucky-Governor-Beshear-To-Quarantine-Churchgoers-Guess-Who-Throws-Hissy-Fits?utm_campaign=trending

Paul and Massie, the perfect definition of rabid, diseased dogs coming at ya slavering, who require the ultimate treatment.

EVIL all the way down.

[John Thullen]

Paul Gigot is trying to fit this tweet up his guilty republican ass.

https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2020/4/10/1936138/-Trump-responds-to-Wall-Street-Journal-criticism-of-his-daily-clown-show-briefings?utm_campaign=trending

I wouldn't approach The Beast you put in power, Gigot and begged for tax cuts from:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8QjrBjdb2T8

[Girl from the North Country]

BoJo on release from hospital, in which he admits he almost died:

Our NHS is the beating heart of this country.

I guess it took almost dying to make him realise it, but at least he has realised it.

[John Thullen]

Socialized single payer medicine saved the Prime Minister of England's life.

I hope all other English citizens get the same level of care that Boris Johnson did, though the really odd thing about conservatives is that they can even make socialism into a trickle down scheme with those on the bottom getting a drip now and then.

I'll hold my breath waiting for some acknowledgement on these pages from the usual suspects regarding this victory, especially those who agree with Johnson's Brexit catastrophe and are happy he has survived to destroy European economic unity.

Must go wash my hands.

[liberal japonicus]

a FB friend noted that the two nurses that BoJo thanked were foreign (one from NZ, the other from Portugal) Hope someone reminds him of that every god damn day...

[wj]

My sense is that BoJo is basically a xenophobe of convenience. So he wouldn't need reminding personally.

What he needs is a change of view by the folks he's pandering to. Which seems more of a stretch.

[sapient]

some acknowledgement on these pages from the usual suspects

Speaking of the usual suspects, there was a great post and discussion on LGM regarding the Post Office, and Republicans' desire to destroy it. For the life of me, I just don't get it.

[wj]

For the life of me, I just don't get it.

I think it's pretty simple, actually. Assume, for the sake of discussion, that (Federal) government is bad, and you want to convince people of that. The worst possible circumstance for your argument is a piece of the Federal government that people interact with constantly, which gets the job done, and has no obvious downside (as opposed to the other Federal agency people all interact with: the IRS).

So it becomes urgent to get rid of that highly visible, and working, piece of Federal government. Slash the budget, force service cuts, etc., etc., etc.

[John Thullen]

I will post tomorrow on what to get about the Post Office defunding.

LGM, surprisingly, is only 40 % right about the sinister, malignant reasons why the Post Office will be out of business or severely hobbled come election time, should that time actually come in fascist republican america.

[CharlesWT]

So it becomes urgent to get rid of that highly visible, and working, piece of Federal government.

You're picking a low bar.

"Potential Privatization

The Postal Service could do more to address its shortfalls, but options are limited because, as part of the U.S. government, Congress sets the rates it may charge for its services and requires the agency to operate less efficiently than it is capable, often in response to political pressure to sustain numerous money-losing operations around the country.

Those restrictions may loosen as early as this year, as policymakers consider privatizing some parts of the Postal Service’s operations. Fortune‘s Nicole Goodkind explains:

...
"The USPS’s current business model has become outdated due to changes in technology, markets, and customer needs and preferences,” the report stated. “It is unsustainable and must be fundamentally changed if the USPS is to avoid a financial collapse and a taxpayer-funded bailout."

Can the US Post Office Break Its 13-Year Losing Streak?: Becoming more independent of the U.S. government will be critical to its success.

[Marty]

Dont hold your breath. I'm sure he appreciates the care, I had a heart attack in Canafa and they saved my life, just like they would here.

Health care workers are amazing and deserve immense respect. How we pay for their services diesnt change that. If I walked out of the hospital and said Our health care system is the backbone of our country, which it is, no one would be rushing to disband the NHS.

The PM got good health care, who would have figured that?

However, I dont get the issue with the USPS, Breaking something that works and is necessary is pretty foolish. See employer based insurance.

[liberal japonicus]

Marty, Canada? I think that while they are related, the Canadian and UK health systems are different.

And I don't understand the phrase
If I walked out of the hospital and said Our health care system is the backbone of our country

Would you say that the current US system is the backbone of the country? If so, why? Or are you just saying that the PM is saying this because he had a brush with death and doesn't really know what he is saying?

[Marty]

I'm saying he had a brush with death and he was recognizing the excellent health care workers that saved his life. NHS was shorthand for all those dedicated people. I suspect it wasnt a political statement.

[Girl from the North Country]

Marty, your interpretation is very understandable, because you aren't English. This is a very subtle example of two peoples divided not by a common language, but by a different culture or even, in this case, a different mythology/religion.

The entity referred to as the NHS in this country is more akin to a religion than anything else. I would say that an affection or fierce regard for the NHS, and to a much lesser extent (to my regret) the BBC, is one of the few things that is shared by almost everyone here. The mantra "free at the point of delivery" is regarded as sacrosanct. The leaflet that was sent out to the population, at its establishment in 1948 said this:

Everyone - rich or poor, man, woman or child - can use it or any part of it. There are no charges, except for a few items. There are no insurance qualifications. But it is not a “charity”. You are all paying for it, mainly as taxpayers, and it will relieve your money worries in time of illness’

And so it has remained. This totemic attachment to the NHS explains the outrage that greeted Jackass's (and his idiot Ambassador's) statement that of course the NHS would be "on the table" in any trade talks. People didn't know exactly what it meant, but they knew enough about the USA's health system to know they wanted no possible variant of it to be under consideration here.

The point of what BoJo said, and the man I quoted the other day who said (absolutely intending its Churchillian echoes) that the creation of the NHS was this nation's finest hour, and that the staff were the equivalent of the 1940s spitfire pilots (Churchills "few"), is that both these men are very clearly rich and upper class. Totemic feeling for the NHS, and its founding principles, cuts across wealth and class in this country.

This was very definitely a political statement. Let's hope, in BoJo's case, its sincerity lasts.

[Girl from the North Country]

p.s. BoJo didn't say it was the backbone of this country. He said it was its beating heart. I trust you can see the difference, in the context of what I have explained.

[John Thullen]

I can never tell which Marty is posting.

There are so many of them. The Martys are legion.

I like a few of them.

They contain platitudes.

"NHS was shorthand for all those dedicated people."

Actually, it was longhand.

All of the underfunded people at NHS are dedicated. Just as all attempting to destroy the NHS are dedicated to their malign, murderous goals.

The former ARE the Deep State.

Long live the Deep State.

The latter happen to have just barely lived thru the worldwide contagion, saved by the deep state government they've despised and spat upon for four decades, going on forever.

The latters' conversions are suspect, at best. I suspect they are serial offenders who should not be allowed to walk the streets once again after this parole, the scars of the pestilence still evident on their persons.

It's hard to tell at the moment whether the scars will be conversionary and thus salutary to humane governance or merely the Evil mark of the criminally double-downed conservative scarfaces yet again avoiding their ultimate fates to kill again.

In November, if the election is not stolen or canceled by the fascist Trump Republican Party, the conservative thieving corrupt malignant deep state now infesting and ruining the government of the United States of America, will be purged, individual by individual, desk by desk, department by department.

They can walk out the front door of their own volition and submit to quarantining themselves from infesting my government for the rest of their lives, or they can leave by the back door feet first.

I'm pro-choice in that department.

Think for a moment what the transition after the November election will look like, if by some miracle the election is not stolen by the highly effective, organized and evil republican party, just now undergoing a dress rehearsal in Wisconsin for the cheating re-election of Ferdinand Marcos, Vlad Putin, and similar vermin.

Remember the last civilized transition of power in 2016?

There wasn't one.

This time around, the new folks will find all computer files wiped, all paper files in ashes and/or missing, all department funds transferred to anonymous offshore bank accounts, as government is finally run like a private business, much like the Mafia picks up garbage, all federal warehouses once filled with life-saving equipment now empty, the now "privatized" contents whisked away in unmarked truck caravans to unmarked warehouses, the anonymous new owners' names missing even from the bearer bonds, on the outskirts of American cities suffering from devastated, bankrupt hospitals and other institutions desperately trying to pay back "loans" to the scores of predatory anonymous Mnuchins and Kushners.

The Trump name will not appear. It never does.

Because the Donald is smarter and dumber and bulletproof from all justice, and will continue as such after being hauled out of his legal hidey hole (a legal confection crafted by Barr, Kavanaugh and the corrupt, venal federal judiciary) called .. the Presidency.

He and his corrupt spawn will saunter off like Hannibal Lechter, except their gustatory tastes run more to human offal, rather than the fleshy bits of their victims.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sbJ89LFheTs

Really, tens of thousands of determined, ruthless bounty hunters with wide-open purviews regarding the means of savage justice to be applied to their criminal prey will be required to serve the public interest and remove the republican contagion eternally from America, and the world.

But don't worry, conservatives, with your help, Trump will win in a fake landslide in November and you can continue fucking America like humping rabid dogs.

Damn John Jay.*

But to make sure, fill his dead mouth with salt.

*John Jay, were he living today, would call for the violent overthrow of the Trump Republican government, so his mention here is so much fun figurative rather than literal translation of what's coming in reality show America, which for once, will be real.

[Marty]

GftNC,

I guess I dont understand, backbone/ beating heart, for him the care is important but he gets that care no matter whether its owned by the government, single payer or paid by insurance companies.

The difference in the UK, I suppose, is that the health care workers actually work for the government. The health care system is not the same as who pays for it. The US healthcare system is pretty awesome, the access to it needs some work.

[Girl from the North Country]

So I see that in my rush to post, what I neglected to say was this. Although everything I said was true, the rich and rightwing who often use private medicine (fancier consultation rooms, more choice in who you see, hotel-style hospital rooms for elective procedures) can be lulled into forgetting what the NHS means to the vast majority in this country, and can flirt with ideas to introduce more profit-based elements into it. But when they do so, they forget about a) the NHS's symbolic and emotional significance to the population, and b) their own reliance on it when the chips are truly down- because all emergency medicine in the UK is NHS. You saw this with David Cameron and his very badly disabled child, and you see it with BoJo and his recovery from Covid-19. Even die-hard, privatising Tories, when they have to interact much with the NHS, are brought face to face with what it means not just to the rest of the country, but also to them. And then that experience often segues into something almost mystical - BoJo: "It is powered by love."

[JanieM]

I guess I dont understand

You should have stopped right there.

Instead you went right on digging.

GftNC, thanks for explaining with such eloquence.

[Girl from the North Country]

I guess I dont understand, backbone/ beating heart, for him the care is important but he gets that care no matter whether its owned by the government, single payer or paid by insurance companies.

There are two simultaneous categories of phenomenon going on in this country, regarding the NHS. The first is a purely practical system of trained professionals doing their jobs and getting paid a wage, along with ancillary workers like cleaners, cooks etc. In this one, the nurses aren't paid enough, the various reorganisations that have taken place are management-heavy and have involved damaging upheavals, or improved efficiencies, variously. This is what you are talking about, Marty.

The second is a symbolic phenomenon, a willed joint creation of an entire population, who choose to believe that healthcare is a right in a civilised country, and that taxes should pay for this as they pay for other things which constitute the public good. This phenomenon implies a belief that healthcare professionals have a vocation, not a profit-motive, and that they put themselves in harm's way in order to serve this vocation (and their fellow human beings). This second phenomenon, which you could also regard as a mass delusion if you were so minded, is what fuels the public attitude to the NHS that I was trying to explain.

And it is this second phenomenon which explains, for example, BoJo's rhetoric: "It is this nation's beating heart" "It is fuelled by love." I think he believed it when he said it, and I hope he goes on believing it. But it may have been (or end up being) cynical: because he knows that this language speaks straight to what the British public feels about the NHS>

[russell]

The US healthcare system is pretty awesome, the access to it needs some work.

Every public policy debate about healthcare in this country is exactly about access. Mostly how to make it possible for people to afford it, to a lesser degree how to increase the availability of it, at any price, in underserved areas.

So, you make the "progressive" point, here.

Regarding the NHS, I think Americans have lost, or perhaps never actually had, whatever instinct it is that gives concepts like "common good" resonance.

[sapient]

Regarding the NHS, I think Americans have lost, or perhaps never actually had, whatever instinct it is that gives concepts like "common good" resonance.

40% of Americans.

[JanieM]

I wish we could learn it without going through the equivalent of the Battle of Britain....

The more likely path...I don't want to contemplate at the moment.

[Marty]

I have a consistent view on universal access to healthcare. Look it up.

Thanks GftNC. The symbolism is a phenomenon I can relate to but don't fully appreciate, I'm sure. We have many arguments here in the US that ignore that aspect of American culture and history, or deride it.

[wj]

For all that we have wandered off into a cross-cultural discussion of health care systems, I thought the relevant part of BoJo's comment that got us started was that the two people from NHS he was thanking were immigrants. And xenophobia was the beating heart of the Brexit platform he was elected on.

It's a point on which the US and UK are alike. Both are critically dependent (although, I believe, the US moreso) on immigrants. And none more that the same people who are so loudly supporting those who are trying to get rid of them. If Stephen Miller ever succeeds in his quest to eject every illegal immigrant, he and the rest of us will starve. Because they are the ones who make the harvest possible. And the aging base of the GOP will discover that they (and their parents) are without the basic healthcare workers they depend on.

[liberal japonicus]

I have a consistent view on universal access to healthcare. Look it up.

Yes, I have noticed that it is undisturbed by facts. UK, US, Canafa. It's all the same.

Now, South Korea, that's different...

https://www.propublica.org/article/how-south-korea-scaled-coronavirus-testing-while-the-us-fell-dangerously-behind

[CharlesWT]

"As the COVID-19 spreads through the United States, the government has closed its borders to foreigners. Yet millions of immigrants already here are working every day to defeat the contagion or mitigate its economic effects. From cleaning away germs to developing cures for them to delivering needed supplies, immigrants are disproportionately engaged in the effort to defeat COVID-19. Indeed, immigrants are overrepresented in nearly every job that is critical during this pandemic."
Immigrants Aid America During COVID-19 Crisis

[John Thullen]

Right on, Charles.

Seriously.

And yet like previous fatal, murderous deportations during even more parlous times in history, World War II for example, our current malign, sadistic all-American villains are doubling down on deportations against those for whom it could also be fatal.

I thank each and every front line worker I encounter in grocery stores, public transport, and healthcare settings for taking the mortal risk of of being there for me, even though I could well be a vector for the disease.

I wish Victor Klemperer, Primo Levi, and Elie Wiesel, among others, were here to put their hands around Stephen Miller's neck, among others, and strangle the living breath out of that sadist.

Unfortunately, it looks like I'm going to have to do it.

[hairshirthedonist]

Something that either occurred to me or someone pointed out to me (can’t be sure now), well before this COVID-19 business, was the under-appreciated value of janitorial work. It would be nearly impossible, or so it seems to me, to calculate the costs, both human and financial, of the instances of illness prevented by the work of janitors.

[Girl from the North Country]

I thought the relevant part of BoJo's comment that got us started was that the two people from NHS he was thanking were immigrants. And xenophobia was the beating heart of the Brexit platform he was elected on.

I don't think this was the relevant part of his comment for most people, it was just a cheap and easy shot. Xenophobia may well have been the motive force of Brexit for most Brexiteers, but nobody ever thought that was the main thing for Boris. He is a racist, in the common-or-garden rather old-fashioned upper class English way (picanninies, letter boxes etc), but his attachment to Brexit was purely opportunistic. It may well be that the role of immigrants in the NHS enlightens some of the Brexiteers after the Covid epidemic, although it certainly didn't seem to get through to them before when it was endlessly pointed out, but its effect on Boris is unlikely to be decisive. He is unprincipled and has achieved his lifelong aim of power, but perhaps his near-death experience will have some effect on him, at least when funding the NHS after the emergency.

[wj]

GftNC, I thought that's what I was saying. But apparently not. Sorry

[JanieM]

What's the implication of "letter box" ??

[CharlesWT]

I think that Johnson referred to women wearing niqabs as looking like letterboxes.

[John Thullen]

Regarding the heist of the U.S. Post Office (I'm still receiving bills, despite forwarding them to McKinney, although I'm in receipt of various mis-routed depositions from his law firm; those postal workers can't do anything right), it has been reported that Trump threatened to veto the stimulus bill if the Post Office received emergency funding so that postal works can continue catching Covid-19 from well-licked conservative Christian church mailers exhorting the faithful to witness the risen coughed up lung, because of his grudge against Jeff Bezos for mailing me books, and incidentally engaging in a free press.

While there is plenty that Bezos needs to account for pertaining to his treatment of his labor force, and while I'm sure trump is indeed sucking his thumb over Bezos' nearly Michelle Obama-orangutan-like uppityness, consider that many blue states, mine included, depend to a great extent on vote-by-mail and now some red states are moving in that direction too because of Covid-19.

Consider that trump, staying true to the sociopath profile of telling you exactly how he plans to fuck you over BEFORE he does it, and then smirks as we once again, for the millionth time, gasp that surely, he wouldn't go that far, .......would he? .... has expressed every republican operative's fear that THOSE people might actually vote in numbers by mail and deliver him into the hands of hanging prosecutors as he runs from the White House, and by the way, republicans might lose some fair fucking elections for a change.

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/08/us/politics/republicans-vote-by-mail.html?action=click&module=Top%20Stories&pgtype=Homepage

Hobbling the Post Office will disrupt (have you noticed how conservatives, despite hating change of any kind, are right up front when it comes to "disrupting" everyone else's lives) mail-in voting and provide for the stealing of the 2020 election, the second, perhaps even the third presidential election they've stolen in 20 years, without a shot being fired in a country in which they have provided all of us with every variety of firearm and ammo imaginable.

You don't think that's the plan? I'll take that bet.

It's bad enough that the Post Office is shackled with pre-accounting annually in its budget for the benefits it provides its workers, some 50 or more years before the benefits are actually paid out, unlike any other entity walking the Earth.

That's just one fascist vermin scheme going on.

Here's another, and see where the link originates:

https://www.theamericanconservative.com/state-of-the-union/republicans-recruiting-ex-soldiers-cops-to-patrol-2020-voting/

Next November, rather than mail my ballot in as I customarily do, I'm going to find a polling station in a predominately black or Mexican section of Denver and hang out after voting.

I've always wanted to see if asshole republican Navy Seals and cops really have the chops to bring armed war or least armed intimidation more commonly seen in the Confederacy and various third world shit holes run by mini-Trumps to the American mainland.

I hope they get in my face. I'll stop social distancing just for them.

I'm going to send these folks a donation and might even pick up a membership:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Redneck_Revolt

I was pretty a good shot as a kid, gotta medal for marksmanship, but I hate the sight of weapons, particularly in settings customarily set aside for civilians, which should be everywhere besides the battlefield.

I've always been fascinated by John Brown's mission as well, but he made a mistake going in with only 18 combatants.

It would be nice to see 18 million this time around on John Brown's side.

[John Thullen]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v2Kk5IG2b8E

[Girl from the North Country]

Sorry, wj, I didn't mean to have a go at you.

[Nigel]

...and you see it with BoJo and his recovery from Covid-19...

That is pretty well true.
Though bear in mind that private healthcare (certainly hospitals) in the UK has been effectively nationalised for as long as the crisis lasts.
Most consultants who work in the private sector also work for the NHS, and for the time being will only work for the NHS.

[Girl from the North Country]

Most consultants who work in the private sector also work for the NHS, and for the time being will only work for the NHS.

This is very true, and given that they all trained in the NHS, and worked exclusively there in their early careers, most continue to work in the NHS part time to give back. And, related to what you say, some of the very grand ones who retired from the NHS in their eminent later years to make pots of money doing private work, have gone back in for the duration for the crisis.

[John Thullen]

Maybe I could get to like elections stolen by Soviet Republicans:

https://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/shocker-in-wisconsin

No sweat, the legislature will change the rule tomorrow to ensure the subhuman republican wins anyway.

[wj]

What Wisconsin seems to demonstrate is that if you are blatant enough about prioritizing your politic benefit over the health and safety of your voters, it will blow up in your face. Note that the outcome in that state supreme court election was an upset. That is, if they hadn't been so obvious about putting their thumbs on the scale, Wisconsin Republicans could have expected to get the result they wanted.

Put another way, the saving grace, for the rest of us, is the massive, pervasive, utter incompetence of Trump's boys. Otherwise, they would be doing far more damage.

[John D Thullen]

"Put another way, the saving grace, for the rest of us, is the massive, pervasive, utter incompetence of Trump's boys. Otherwise, they would be doing far more damage."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KyR7XB0VBPM

[John Thullen]

I was remiss last night in not recapping Trump's press conference yesterday. They haven't made the horror flick yet that would do it justice, so I provide the lame stream media's pale version of reality:

https://www.poynter.org/newsletters/2020/president-trump-attacked-the-media-in-an-off-the-rails-press-conference/

He also rolled out his new and improved Task Force charged with stealing the upcoming election in November and commencing a worldwide nuclear holocaust with China:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aOAmRxvPXLE

[John D Thullen]

I understand he also gave Fauci the dreaded vote of confidence:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DjUOBVAbGhQ

So much for social distancing.