Coronavirus

[orathaic]

Not long at all. Labour was founded in 1900, spent a decade or so as a minor party (5% of the vote in 1906, 7% in 1910 etc), became the 2nd largest party in 1918, and we had the first Labour PM in 1924. So using their minor party size as a sensible starting point, we're talking a progression from also rans to dominant big two status in around a decade.

And no, the green movement does not live and die in the Labour Party. There are strong and growing green movements within all the major parties. But the Green Party, which is a hard left environmentalist party, very much competes with Labour to provide a natural home for its members. This was especially true when Corbyn was in charge.

The question was for how long were the two major 'traditional' parties in power before the Labour movement had any effect?

Labour Unions existed long before 1900 I'm sure.

[Octavious]

Quite probably, but as most people didn't have the right to vote I don't think looking long before 1900 is particularly useful

[taylor4]

Parnell - did he ever suggest injecting or drinking Kool-Aid or Lysol ?

[orathaic]

Quite probably, but as most people didn't have the right to vote I don't think looking long before 1900 is particularly useful

This is actually interesting (noting: there were no changes in who could vote between 1884 - where ~60% of males were allowed to vote, based on a property qualification - and 1918, where the vote was extended to all men over 21 and women over 30 - as a consequence of World War 1, men coming back from the war and not being allowed to vote, women who worked through the war etc. Aswell as decades of fighting for women's suffrage). So previous to 1884, the two main parties were the parties of landed males. Thus terms like Liberal and Conservative - where Liberal's wanted businesses to be free to do whatever they wanted, while Conservatives were built around a strong state.

Later, the Whigs drew support from the emerging industrial reformists and mercantile class, while the Tories drew support from farmers, landowners, imperial military spending and, relatedly, royalists

So obviously those political philosophies were built around the interests of those who could vote. I don't think i had made the connection before. Of course after 1918 the voting population massively increased and the partied of bussines and military spending were forced to merge in order to block the party of state protections for workers rights.

Compare and contrast with the US where both parties support massive military spending, and Federal spending provides jobs across every state in order to gain support...

Anyway. My point stands. In the UK there was a massive change due to world war 1.in Ireland it was after the war that we fought a war of independence, and then civil war. In this context people were defined more by which side of the civil war their family fought on than by class. Irish Labour's relative weakness was a result of this (and the lack of development of industrial cities in Ireland, which had been economically sabotaged for over a hundred years in the interest of British based businesses - NB Dublin had been the second largest city in the Empire until the industrial revolution, but the Irish were seen as untrustworthy, rebellious and lazy, and were treated as tenants on their own land. Hence the defining political position until 1918 being based on Irishness and not class as it was in England).

Most two party systems are based on an US vs Them mentality. And the UK's Labour Party had the massive advantage of millions of working class people gaining the right to vote. While Ireland's civil made a natural divide between those who accepted the treaty (and abandoning Northern Ireland/accepting partition) and those who rejected the treaty.

[orathaic]

The modern Irish political system still see farmers voting for the anti-treaty splitters and the wealthy elites voting for the pro-treaty side of the split. While the left (and working class vote) has moved to the party of the violent Northern Irish movement for independence (with the left split between more moderate Labour Party and Social Democrats and the hard left (re branded) Socialist party and Socialist workers party. And somewhere the greens, who seem to get votes from every other party when their candidates. (thr right meanwhile is mostly split, at least where they are getting seats, by independents with enough local support that leaving the two right wing parties didn't cost them their seats - the existence of a few minor parties who opposed abortion rights, or support an Anti-EU nationalism, doesn't really split the right, as despite our very representative voting system, they still have seats, or local councillors).

So the two right wing parties do really reflect the Whig and Tory divisions in 19th C England, except the business interests reflect those US multinationals and the farmers got their land by dispossession English landlord in/around 1918, kicking them off the land and burning their estates.

[taylor4]

Broader picture: Ancient Roman/Italian peasant farmers dispossessed of or not owning land. Land which was snatched up by the governing class of the day, the Optimates - the (Senatorial) consulars.
Following Sulla's return to Rome, his army veterans were awarded arable, or some not so valuable, land.
The aristocrats lived upon the labour of their clientalia.
Crassus said that no-one was rich who didn't have an army [ i.e. any army not of slaves but of clients (who voted only in the Assembly) and (often bribed) supporters.]
Roman senators were the sole jurors in the law courts until the Knights (Equites) gained juryman status.

[orathaic]

Latest newsheadline: Us confirms 58 thousand dead, more than died in the zvietnam war...

Of course this is only counting the US dead in the Vietnam war, likely over a million Vietnamese were killed, including civilians gunned down, bombed, napalmed and sprayed with agent orange... But sure we'll just leave that out of our current propoganda, do Asian people even count?

[peterlund]

58000 now may sound much, but worse will be the death toll coming from the economical depression that is just around the corner...

[Randomizer]

58000 now may sound much, but worse will be the death toll coming from the economical depression that is just around the corner...

The virus will be worse because it's forcing hospitals to not take in patients with other life threatening conditions, causing people to risk getting sick, and just draining the economy to pay for the growing problem.

The US and world has recovered from economic depressions. But too many dead and especially in the first responder areas will be worse since these are people that take years of training to be replaced. Sure we've survived pandemics, but the consumers will be gone and the survivors won't have the money to pay for those costs.

[orathaic]

58000 now may sound much, but worse will be the death toll coming from the economical depression that is just around the corner...

Another consequence of not taking the virus seriously?

Pity the US intelligence services didn't warn someone... Oh wait, what's that, Trump knew and lied repeatedly to the public while some republicans sold off shares before the market tanked? How unusual..

[Randomizer]

58000 now may sound much, but worse will be the death toll coming from the economical depression that is just around the corner...

Another consequence of not taking the virus seriously?

Pity the US intelligence services didn't warn someone... Oh wait, what's that, Trump knew and lied repeatedly to the public while some republicans sold off shares before the market tanked? How unusual..

It goes back to when the Trump team was being briefed after winning office. Trump doesn't want to hear hypothetical bad news possibilities. It's why so may Trump businesses failed, because he never considers bad things happening so he doesn't prepare for them. Trump avoided hearing about the problem for months and listen to those that said it wouldn't be a problem.

However you can't sue a virus or solve it by bankruptcy. Yelling at the virus and lying doesn't work. So there goes all of Trump's solutions.

So we have the highest death toll under a US president since Johnson and he was fighting a war in Vietnam. Trump has caused more Americans to die than Bush so Trump's number 1!

[peterlund]

58000 now may sound much, but worse will be the death toll coming from the economical depression that is just around the corner...

Another consequence of not taking the virus seriously?

We take it seriously. We slow it down. Our health care still have unused ventilator capacity and nurses if it increases.

I think they said today on our news that we have now around 2500 covid19 deaths in Sweden, with about half of them in the Stockholm region.

In Stockholm we now have some 20-30% calculated to have had the virus already so there is still substantial spreading going on among the 80% that not yet have had it. The spread rate is expected to go down when 50-60% of the Stockholm population has been visited by the virus.

Yesterday on the news 2 scientists had independently made calculations coming up with the expected end death toll in Sweden (A year from now). They both guessed that we would end up with somewhere between 10-20 thousands dead from covid19.

[Randomizer]

Only Trump would fire competent, trained, professionals who know what they are doing against COVID-19 and promote his failing son-in-law to head another group when he couldn't do any of his previous jobs.
https://news.yahoo.com/kushner-botched- ... 03862.html
Unless Kushner's real job is to hoard resources to save Trump, his family, and friends while rewarding states that support Trump instead of sending them where they are needed. That would explain FEMA seizing supplies that states ordered after Trump told them to do it instead of getting them from the federal government agencies.

[Fluminator]

Ok I've quarantined myself for a couple months now. I was willing to give the benefit of the doubt to the people in charge, but data point after data point keep showing how wrong they are yet they keep doubling down harder with no logic. I'm done.

[orathaic]

Ok I've quarantined myself for a couple months now. I was willing to give the benefit of the doubt to the people in charge, but data point after data point keep showing how wrong they are yet they keep doubling down harder with no logic. I'm done.

Done with what?

If thebquarantining works, then it will quickly seem like it wasn't necessary. New Zealand and South Korea seem to be handling this with minimal deaths, yet also have some of the most extreme quarantining, testing, and contact tracing.

So it seems to be effective.

[flash2015]

Ok I've quarantined myself for a couple months now. I was willing to give the benefit of the doubt to the people in charge, but data point after data point keep showing how wrong they are yet they keep doubling down harder with no logic. I'm done.

Can you elaborate?

[Randomizer]

https://www.yahoo.com/news/coronavirus- ... 17286.html

It's all Obama's fault for not demanding a third term in office to make up for all the time Trump wasted with the fake Birther fight and congressional investigations. If we had Obama in office we would have had a president that had successfully dealt with previous virus outbreaks and kept the death toll to a small fraction of Loser Trump's numbers.

[Randomizer]

https://www.yahoo.com/news/trump-vaccin ... 01908.html

Trump's COVID-19 czar owns $10 million in stock options in a company that he's funding for vaccine research with $483 million. Moderna told Trump that they could do it in 42 days, but the company has never brought a vaccine to market and hasn't even made it to Phase 3 trials. It hasn't even got an FDA approval in years for any product.

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

[orathaic]

Honest Government Ad | Coronavirus: Flatten The Curve

https://youtu.be/aWl7kQZHZE0

[Octavious]

Lol! Brilliant