Tomás Ó Flatharta

Looking at Things from the Left

A Belt of the Crozier on Paddy’s Day 2020

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Greetings! Mike Finn’s Forgets the Snakes.

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Mar 17, 2020 at 9:31 am

Mike Finn’s March 16 Limerick for “Those Wearing Scrubs”

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Brilliant!

Written by tomasoflatharta

Mar 16, 2020 at 6:18 pm

Coronavirus In Ireland: A Doctor’s Grim Warning – 277 Intensive Care Beds in Ireland – 60,000 Will Be Needed – Stay Home!

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A Very Scary Message to All in Ireland, Passed On by Ed Moloney.

I received this message in an email from a friend in Dublin, earlier today. It came originally from a doctor practicing in Ireland who wishes it to …

Coronavirus In Ireland: A Doctor’s Grim Warning


Scary Numbers from a Doctor Working in Ireland

The Government has said between 25% and 75% of the population will get the virus. If 25% of the Irish population get it, which based on the numbers above is a very low estimate, that’s 1.2 million people.
5% needing intensive care means 60,000 people will need intensive care beds to stay alive.
We currently have 277 intensive care beds in Ireland.
I’m going to say that again:
At least 60,000 Irish people will need an ICU bed to stay alive.
We only have 277 ICU beds in Ireland.

Let’s place the Irish Crisis in an International Political Context; Daniel Tanuro writes :

6. The major danger of the epidemic is the possible saturation of hospital systems. This would inevitably lead to a worsening of the price paid by the poorest and the weakest, in particular among the elderly, as well as a further shift of care tasks into the domestic sphere, that is to say generally onto women. The saturation threshold obviously depends on the countries, the health systems and the austerity policies that have been imposed there. It will be reached all the more quickly insofar as the governments are running behind the epidemic instead of preventing it. The fight against the epidemic therefore requires a break with austerity policies, a redistribution of wealth, refinancing and de-liberalization of the health sector, the suppression of patents in the medical field, North-South justice and a clear priority given to social needs. This implies in particular: banning dismissals of infected workers, the maintenance of wages in the event of partial unemployment, stopping checks, “activation” and sanctions against social security recipients, etc. It is mainly on these questions that we must intervene to counter irrational responses and their potential for racist-authoritarian slippage.

7. There are many commonalities between the Covid-19 crisis and the climate crisis. In both cases, the capitalist system’s logic of accumulation for profit makes it incapable of preventing a danger of which it is nevertheless aware. In both cases, governments oscillate between denial and the inadequacy of policies designed primarily according to the needs of capital, not the needs of populations. In both cases, the poorest, racialized and weakest, especially in the countries of the global south, are in sights, while the rich say that they will always get by. In both cases, governments are using the threat to advance toward a strong state while far-right forces are trying to take advantage of fear to out forward foul Malthusian and racist responses. In both cases, finally, the social law of capitalist value comes into direct contradiction with laws of nature with exponential dynamics (the multiplication of viral infections in one case, warming and its positive feedbacks in the other).

http://www.internationalviewpoint.org/spip.php?article6452

Daniel Tanuro, a certified agriculturalist and eco-socialist environmentalist, writes for “La gauche”, (the monthly of the LCR-SAP, Belgian section of the Fourth International).

Daniel Tanuro is the author of The Impossibility of Green Capitallism, (Resistance Books, Merlin and IIRE) and Le moment Trump (Demopolis, 2018).

The Boris Johnson/Arlene Foster CoronaVirus Inaction Strategy “Government tipping Britain towards huge death toll”

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Actions of the Dublin and Belfast Governments Confronting the CoronaVirus Health Crisis Diverge.

Phil Hearse’s attached article graphically explains the “death cult” plan of Prime Minister Johnson and his Adviser Dominic Cummings.

Here are the views of a genuine expert, Professor Gabriel Scally

The nonsense in England about the #publichealth concept of ‘herd immunity’ is shocking. The Government’s Chief Scientist is a former researcher in vascular biology and for over a decade has been working on R&D for a major pharmaceutical company. Where’s the public health voice?

https://mobile.twitter.com/GabrielScally/status/1238761911459733504?s=04

Stormont First Minister Arlene Foster is faithfully implementing the Johnson plan –

Serious Questions Arise Over Sinn Féin Participation in the Belfast Devolved Government.

TV journalist Robert Peston has summed up the government’s virus strategy as follows:
The strategy of the British government in minimising the impact of Covid-19 is to allow the virus to pass through the entire population so that we acquire herd immunity, but at a much delayed speed so that those who suffer the most acute symptoms are able to receive the medical support they need, and such that the health service is not overwhelmed and crushed by the sheer number of cases it has to treat at any one time.[1]

In other words, you’ve all got to get the virus, and then we’ll be OK. Except we won’t. Jeremy Rossman of Kent Universityestimates that the herd immunity strategy would require 70% of the population to get the disease, or 47 million people. He says:

Achieving herd immunity would require well over 47 million people to be infected in the UK. Current estimates are that COVID-19 has a 2.3% case-fatality rate and a 19% rate of severe disease. This means that achieving herd immunity to COVID-19 in the UK could result in the deaths of more a million people with a further eight million severe infections requiring critical care.[2]

This strategy, which the Financial Times attributes to Dominic Cummings, is an exercise in brutal eugenics. As Owen Jones argues, poorer people are much more likely to have underlying health conditions and weaker immune systems. He says:

A decade of austerity, and a social order that deprives millions of citizens of a comfortable existence, will mean many more deaths in the coming weeks and months that could have been avoided. The government’s determination to discover a vaccine for coronavirus must be accompanied by a renewed commitment to addressing poverty. Like every crisis, this one is likely to affect working-class and poor people worst. That is not inevitable. It’s a choice – and one within our power to stop, if only we had the will to do so.[3]

The Johnson/Cummings strategy is basically to let poor people and old people die. No wonder a Daily Telegraph journalist said that the virus might mean ‘an economically beneficial cull of over-80s’.[4]
— Read on www.timetomutiny.org/post/government-strategy-tipping-britain-towards-huge-death-toll

On Saturday March 14 Stormont Bosses Michelle O’Neill and Arlene Foster aired public policy differences

When asked about the different approaches being taken on the island, she said: “In terms of the co-operation I don’t think the co-operation could be any better between our chief medical officers, between our ministers of health and between the Government of Ireland and the Northern Ireland Executive.”

Northern Ireland Deputy First Minister Michelle O’Neill repeated a call she made on Friday that Northern Ireland should follow the Republic’s lead and close schools.

She said: “People are taking decisions in advance of government and my own personal opinion is that schools should close now.

I think the fact that you can have two schools a mile apart and one school’s open and one school’s closed, that’s a very confusing picture and a very confusing message for the public.”

Mrs Foster said both governments had “very coherent messages” and that Stormont is taking advice from the Public Health Agency and the chief medical officer on when was the appropriate time to shut schools.

There are two different jurisdictions on this island and we may do things differently in terms of timing, but the tools are all the same in terms of what we are going to do to try and combat this virus,” she said.

Sinn Féin president Mary Lou McDonald, who was not at the meeting, said the UK’s response to coronavirus “should be rejected” and is “totally unacceptable in the north of Ireland”.

https://www.irishexaminer.com/breakingnews/ireland/five-new-covid-19-cases-in-the-north-mcdonald-says-uk-response-totally-unacceptable-in-ni-987981.html

Stormont, Lord Carson’s Crypt, Is Back to Normal – Time for Sinn Féin to Evacuate.

Renewable Heat Initiative at Stormont …where incompetence carries no sanction – Cash for Ash| Tommy McKearney

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In the North of Ireland the Chuckle-Sisters Foster and O’Neill (Democratic Unionist Party-Sinn Féin) Escape Sanction.

Renewable Heat Initiative – Arlene Foster Stormont First Minister Must Go

The minister in charge of the department responsible for the scheme was briefed of its flaws by whistleblower Janette O’Hagan as early as 2013. Nevertheless, in spite of this she remained oblivious to what thousands of others knew and exploited. Moreover,  having inexplicably failed to read the legislation she presented to the Assembly, Mrs Foster felt and continues to feel under no obligation to do the honourable thing and offer her resignation. On the contrary, the DUP leader has actually been rewarded and now acts as First Minister of Northern Ireland.

Across the corridor from Mrs Foster sits Michelle O’Neill who throughout the years of the ‘Cash for Ash’ scandal was Stormont’s Minister for Agriculture. Notwithstanding the fact that a majority of those installing biomass boilers were poultry farmers, the minister apparently remained blissfully unaware of the lucrative scheme that many of her constituents and supporters were availing of. However, as with Arlene Foster, this prolonged period of somnambulance has had no detrimental impact on Ms O’Neil’s career. She now holds the position of Northern Ireland’s Deputy First Minister

Foster and O’Neill the Stormont Chuckle-Sisters

— Read on http://www.tommymckearney.com/blog-/stormont-where-incompetence.html

A Limerick A Day – Mike Finn

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Always Look On the Bright Side of Life!

Written by tomasoflatharta

Mar 14, 2020 at 12:42 pm

Dublin Temple Street Doctor Explains Social Distancing – A Hammer 🔨Blow Against the CoVid-19 Virus

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📌 A very good explanation of social distancing 📌

This is message from a Doctor to secondary students re covid virus. Worth a read and a forward.

Hi Boys and Girls
Dylan here I am writing to you tonight because I need your help urgently.⏰ For those of you who don’t know me I am a doctor💉 in Temple Street and the Mater hospital.
You all know something of what is going on but there is much more that you need to be aware of. The Corona bug🦟 is spreading fast but you guys are safe. Some of you may get the infection – but you won’t even realise you have it and that is the problem!
You see, this virus is not very strong 💪🏿but it gets around very quickly🚀! Strong fit healthy young people like myself and all of you are going to be fine 👌🏻even if we get it, however, what Im going to tell you, you need to do for your grannies, grandads your sick relatives and family members and finally for me and all my mates in the Mater and Temple street.
One of the biggest problems we are going to have is that doctors, nurses and other health care professionals are going to get infected 🤢🤮(3 of my friends already have it!). We won’t be very sick and we will be fine in the end, but if too many of us get sick then we won’t be able to take care of the people who really need us (like your grannies and grandads etc).
So what can you do?

Read the rest of this entry »

Written by tomasoflatharta

Mar 14, 2020 at 10:23 am

Sinn Féin, Cheltenham Horse Races, and Treaties

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This reminds us of a Very Popular Quiz Question :

Q What is the Difference Between the Sinn Féin Negotiators Who Came Back With Treaties Negotiated With the British Ruling Class in 1921 and 1998?

A At least The 1921 Negotiators Came Back With 26 Counties!

Trump Is Toast? Comeback Kid Biden Staggering Into Evil of Two Lessers Saloon?

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The Coronavirus crisis will destroy any chance Donald Trump has of retaining the US presidency this November, for one very simple reason. Driven by …

Trump Is Toast

Ed Moloney thinks he has spotted a silver lining in the CoronaVirus Cloud Haunting the USA.

Comeback Kid Staggers into Evil of Two Lessers Saloon

Trump’s USA Rejects WHO Covid-19 Test Kit – Increases Likely Death and Infection Rate

Not a great deal wrong with that on first view except the Trump-dominated bureaucracy proved incapable of putting that wish into action and so there are not enough US-made test kits to meet the predicted demand. Elsewhere in the world, by sharp contrast, there is no shortage of WHO testing kits, a tribute to the power of international co-operation.

Driven by Trump’s ultra nationalist political world view, the US rejected an international plan for a COVID test kit proposed by the World Health Organisation (WHO) and decided to plough its own furrow.

The consequence of that will be a huge spike in undiagnosed Coronavirus victims in the USA who will not be treated or even put into quarantine and the numbers of those stricken with the virus, and the deaths that will follow will be proportionately higher. The US, thanks to Trump, will not come out of the Covid crisis unscarred.

A Climbing American Death Rate in the Summer Months?

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COVID-19: The monster is finally at the door

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Hurricane Katrina was a climatic disaster for the great city of New Orleans, USA in 2005. 
https://www.nationalgeographic.com/environment/natural-disasters/reference/hurricane-katrina/

Mike Davis argues that Covid-19 could in 2020 provoke a social and medical collapse of the privately-owned nursing home industry -A Medical Katrina – in the land of Donald Trump.

We are in the early stages of a medical Katrina. Despite years of warnings about avian flu and other pandemics, inventories of basic emergency equipment such as respirators aren’t sufficient to deal with the expected flood of critical cases. Militant nurses unions in California and other states are making sure that we all understand the grave dangers created by inadequate stockpiles of essential protective supplies like N95 face masks. Even more vulnerable because invisible are the hundreds of thousands of low-wage and overworked homecare workers and nursing home staff.

The nursing home and assisted care industry, which warehouses 2.5 million elderly Americans—most of them on Medicare—has long been a national scandal. According to The New York Times, an incredible 380,000 nursing home patients die every year from facilities’ neglect of basic infection control procedures. Many homes—particularly in Southern states—find it cheaper to pay fines for sanitary violations than to hire additional staff and provide them with proper training. Now, as the Seattle example warns, dozens, perhaps hundreds more nursing homes will become coronavirus hotspots and their minimum-wage employees will rationally choose to protect their own families by staying home. In such a case the system could collapse, and we shouldn’t expect the National Guard to empty bedpans.

The outbreak has instantly exposed the stark class divide in healthcare: those with good health plans who can also work or teach from home are comfortably isolated provided they follow prudent safeguards. Public employees and other groups of unionized workers with decent coverage will have to make difficult choices between income and protection. Meanwhil, millions of low wage service workers, farm employees, uncovered contingent workers, the unemployed and the homeless will be thrown to the wolves. Even if Washington ultimately resolves the testing fiasco and provides adequate numbers of kits, the uninsured will still have to pay doctors or hospitals for administrating the tests. Overall family medical bills will soar at the same time that millions of workers are losing their jobs and their employer-provided insurance. Could there possibly be a stronger, more urgent case in favor of Medicare for All?
— Read on socialistresurgence.org/2020/03/12/covid-19-the-monster-is-finally-at-the-door/