Just a few short months ago, The New York Times was condemning Eastern Europe for its nationalism, authoritarianism and lack of liberalism.
“BRUSSELS — As the coronavirus has hopscotched the world, a paradox has emerged: Rich nations are not necessarily better at fighting the crisis than poorer ones.
Wealthier countries, traditionally able to deploy resources quickly and fortified by well-funded state mechanisms intended to weather crises, have generally not managed the coronavirus pandemic well.
In Europe, the disease has been burning through Britain, France and Italy, three of the continent’s four biggest economies.
But smaller, poorer nations in Europe quickly imposed and enforced tough restrictions, stuck to them, and have so far fared better at keeping the virus contained. …”
Strange new respect.
What a difference two months can make.
1 in every 500 residents of New York City is now dead after its liberal elites sanctimoniously lectured Eastern Europe about its “racism” and “xenophobia.”
In Eastern Europe, there are 215 dead Serbs, 280 dead Czechs, 413 dead Hungarians, 90 dead Croats, 26 dead Slovaks, 102 dead Slovenians, 800 dead Poles, 961 dead Romanians, 91 dead Bulgarians and 151 dead Greeks. More people live in Greece alone than in New York City.
In the future, the power of a nation will be determined by its health, which is determined by the health of its public (not privatized) health system if it has a public health system:
“All of us on this planet are moving into a post-coronavirus world, which will be one in which the strength of a country’s public-health infrastructure will necessarily constitute, and be seen as, a major component of a nation’s power. Countries that do not have a strong public-health infrastructure will not only see their power in world affairs declining speedily, they will also increasingly find themselves being excluded from normal intercourse (personal visits, trade, etc) by the countries that do.” Source: https://www.moonofalabama.org/2020/05/helena-cobban-on-the-recovery-of-nations-from-covid-19-.html
More from the same excellent “Moon of Alabama” post:
“There are three key factors that will determine the effectiveness of any country’s ability to bounce back, economically, from the effects of Covid-19 (or of any of the other Covids that may come in its wake…) They are:
1.The effectiveness of the medical and public-health measures that are taken.
2.The nature of the government’s economic intervention. (I was considering breaking this out into two sub-categories: the size and the direction of any such intervention. But a wrongheaded, financier-coddling intervention would be damaging whatever its size…More on this below.)
3.The ability of the government to maintain public support for its actions regarding #1 and #2 above.
As I blogged here, May 6, the U.S. government’s response to the medical/public-health challenge has been astoundingly poor. A recorded death rate as of then, of 21.78 per 100,000 of population, within just over two months from the first death, is appalling in such a rich country. (Many Covid-19 deaths may not have been recorded as such.) And in the United States, the death toll continues to mount.
In China, by contrast, the death rate was 0.33 per 100,000 and the pandemic was apparently halted in its tracks back in March. This was the result of public health measures judged by many outsiders at the time to be draconian. They included the speedy development, distribution, and, deployment of a test for the virus; a complete lockdown of the sizeable city of Wuhan; widespread restrictions throughout the whole of the rest of the country and especially at its borders; and the mobilization of numerous different layers of cadres for both medical and social-service tasks….”
There is no such thing as “public health.”
“no such thing as public health”
No such thing as “society” either, right? Ayn Rand would agree. There is nothing common, everything must be privatized.
@Anonymous…
Interesting reply to an interesting remark.
Sorry I am not expansive enough to keep the ball rolling:)
Correct, there is no such thing as “society.” While we’re on the subject, there’s also no such thing as “the economy.”
“In China, by contrast, the death rate was 0.33 per 100,000 and the pandemic was apparently halted in its tracks back in March.”
We have no idea how many died of Covid19 in old Cathay, and we do not know how many false positives are included in USA Covid19 death stats. These numbers are politicized both here and in China. Invoking the response of China, the draconian measures, as a positive is wrong. Do we really want to empower USA government with that kind of power?
Most “Americans” (as if there really is such a people) aka “Pindos” are too lazy and stupid to wear masks at all, or they put them on improperly, covering just their mouths with the noses still uncovered. Wearing masks in public is extremely easy and inexpensive. It is the very least they can do, and paradoxically, it is the most important thing they can do, to protect themselves and stop the pandemic, but most Americans WILL NOT DO IT !
“If 80% of Pindos Wore Masks, COVID-19 Infections Would Plummet, New Study Says”:
https://niqnaq.wordpress.com/2020/05/10/confession-i-wear-a-mask-every-time-i-go-out-and-i-feel-like-a-freak/
Anon- masks don’t do a damn thing. As this post makes clear.
“Just to recapitulate for the sake of clarity, a CoronaCold by Gates (TM) particle is ONE HUNDRED AND TWENTY-FIVE THOUSANDTHS OF A MICRON in diameter. 0.125 microns.
The pores in that Masonic Burqa of submission are 2.5 times wider for an N95 mask, up to 4800 times wider for a piece of fashion fabric.
I just grabbed a tape measure and measured myself shoulder-to-shoulder. Let’s call it 20 inches to use a round number. Let’s see what 4800 times wider than me is:
20 inches X 4800 = 96,000 inches
96,000 divided by 12 inches in a foot = 8000 feet
8000 feet divided by 5280 feet in a mile = 1.51 miles
The ONLY THING that masks do is signal SUBMISSION TO THE LIE, a loud-and-proud declaration of being contra-educated and fully subscribed to the most infantile forms of magical thinking.”
https://www.barnhardt.biz/2020/05/10/masks-do-absolutely-nothing-except-indicate-a-persons-submission-to-the-lie/
P.S. the pics of people using tampons as face masks are hilarious.
Nonsense. “Nano” virus particles ride on much larger droplets, mist and dust particles that are filtered out quite efficiently by N-95 and P-100 respirators, and even to some extent by cloth masks.
Anything to cut the viral load.
What is a pindo? Probably obvious but I am not getting it.
Randy, American soldiers and mercenaries in their helmets and loaded down with all their protective gear have been likened to the appearance of penguiins (“pindos” in Serbian) and the land from which the soldiers and mercenaries come to destroy and subjugate other countries, which we call the United States, is called “Pindostan.”
Eastern European countries certainly have their share of problems, though each varies according to it’s own personality.
That said, my personal view of these countries, based on long held relationships with those from many of these places, is that, as a whole, they are the far and away on better foundations than a country like England, Germany, France, or The United States.
In fact, I would say that the countries of The Visegrad Alliance are the only things really holding up Western Civilization, at this point, and, as such, are the only countries that could give life to the claim that there is a future for the once formidable White European Races.
Ironically, it is the countries of The Visegrad Alliance – The Czech Republic, Poland, Slovakia, and Hungary, so battered by the vicious imperialist winds of 20th century Zionism, Nazis, and then Judeo-Bolshevism, where we find the peoples, cultures, and governments with enough antibodies against the rots of the Agents of Satan & Modernity to stand on Chryst, Borders, Traditional Customs, Classical Western Culture, Marriage between Man & Woman, Language, and, yes, race – their own, in particular.
In Viktor Orban, both his person and government, this Southerner finds the model balance between classical western liberal values of free speech, freedom of assembly, the right to privacy, and freedom of religion, along with a real conservatism that seeks to advance the welfare of his own people, via those values previously listed.
The balance between a real liberalism and a real conservatism – that is Hungary today, and, with any luck, those in the rest of the West, not yet so fortunate, will not be so proud as to look for some other model.
Ivan
German National Socialists and their/our allies in places like Hungary, Romania, Ukraine fought against the bad things you mentioned.
Of all the ridiculous things pushed by post war American Conservatives , one of the worst is the lie that National Socialism /NAZIs are the same as Communist/Bolshevism .
They are really still doing it saying the worst ever Jewish money changer , cult marxist George Soros was/is a NAZI.
@Jaye…
Thank you for your reply!
I don’t know about Romania, but, Hungarians and some Galicians of Ruthenian Carpathia (today Western Ukrainian) fought with Nazi Germany against the Judeo-Bolshevism coming from the East because they were small countries that had had the shield of their security torn off them – The Austro-Hungarian Empire – by the Zio-Anglo-American Alliance after WWI.
I agree with you that German Naziism was NOT the same as the Judeo-Bolshevist Soviet Union, although, at that time, both were ravenously imperialist, and none of these small countries wanted to lose their nations.
I am also aware that over 1,000,000 non-Germanic peoples wound up serving in The Waffen SS, precisely because they were so horrified at the prospect of The the Judeo-Bolshevist Soviet Union.
In my view, Nazi Germany, which started out in 1933 as a very promising thing for The German People, did not wind up that way – most especially for those Poles, Byelorussians, Ukranians, Kashubians, Czechs, Slovaks, Serbs, and Russians who came under their sway, not to mention those Jew &, Gypsies who lived in their midst.
That is why the overwhelming majority of ‘Ukrainians’, many of whom had welcomed the Germans in 1941, had a very negative attitude about them just a few years later.
What is the conclusion here?
Though the populace of these places, and their governments, were wary of any alliance, they knew they had to align themselves with one or the other, and, as you say, they considered Nazi Germany a better choice than The Soviet Union.
That said, it was generally viewed by the majority of those small countries as an unsavoury choice.
From the general point of view of these Eastern European Peoples, whose dark fate it was to live through the 20th century, they were generally ravaged – by first Western Zionists, then German Nazis, and finally the Soviet Judeo-Bolshevists
Though most of those who lived through these times have passed on, I have not just read about these things, but, I have heard these tragedies spoken from many their own lips.
Lastly, I wholeheartedly agree with you that most Americans have a very skewed picture of that time in history, this chiefly arising from the fact that Jewry has done a good job at publicizing Nazi failures, whilst fantastically obscuring their own in The Soviet Union, during the years 1917-1953.
I agree, also, with Pope John Paul who said in his millenium address that the 20th century, though heralded as a breakthrough for Mankind, was actually the opposite – a cavalcade of horrors.
It often was that people treated each other horribly during this past century, which is a very sad thing. Whether one puts a Soviet flag, an American flag, a Union Jack, or a A Nazi German flag does not change this.
I think we can do better than the 20th century, and I most sincerely hope we do in this, the 21st.
Be well!
Had the national socialists won, the countries of the Visegrad Alliance would be in even better shape than they are now.
@Nikanbdros…
“Had the national socialists won, the countries of the Visegrad Alliance would be in even better shape than they are now.”
I guess that would depend on how these countries felt about being counties in a Greater German Reich, and, as well – whether God would like that.
Don’t rule out that these countries were largely spared because they aren’t Christ-deniers.
The Father works by quiet sleight of hand.
“God” does not care what happens here.
Oh, and they weren’t really “spared”, either. We handed them over to the Communists.
“The Czech Republic, Poland, Slovakia, and Hungary, so battered by the vicious imperialist winds of 20th century Zionism, Nazis, etc”
Only country on this list who were specifically battered by the Nazis is Poland. Czechs were not even drafted into the Wehrmacht. Poland, as much as any nation of the time, helped provoke WW2 . They were illegally occupying German territory and terrorizing the German population of that occupation, France goading them on the entire time, of course. Poland wanted war because at the end of it they would make their occupation permanent. Victor’s history says “Germany invaded Poland.” Germany, bad Germany, invaded the invaders. I like Poland today but of the era in question not so much.
@Randy…
“Only country on this list who were specifically battered by the Nazis is Poland. Czechs were not even drafted into the Wehrmacht.”
The Czechs of that era would not see it that way, Randy. No, Sir, I had a teacher who was fond to say, ‘Lost my grandfather to The Nazis and my husband to the Soviets.’
@Randy…
“Poland, as much as any nation of the time, helped provoke WW2 . They were illegally occupying German territory and terrorizing the German population of that occupation…”
Poland lists the death total from Nazi Occupation at 2,000,000, Randy. That’s two million dead – and that does not include a figure to account for all the terror and suffering they went through.
Do you believe that Poland’s actions in the late 1930s merited that?
Poland started WW2 by declaring war on Germany. More fool them. They asked for a war, and got one. What’s to argue about?
Had they simply given back what was not theirs to begin with, everyone would have been better off. The Polish dictator was an arrogant fool and they were manipulated and used by the British.
The “rich” countries didn’t want to take the economic hit of closing their borders.
True but the irony is the “rich” countries, especially the U.S. are taking a huge economic hit anyway along with the government compounding the problem by concentrating the bailouts on the financial sector. The financial sector is a vicious parasite that was advising DJT to “ride it out”, now they get a bailout.
Covid-19 is the tangential point between zero and infinity
Blind and unwavering belief in the covid19 at all times constitutes the real strength of all free men.
Jacobi Medical Complex, Bronx NY “War Zone”? May 9, 2020
The irony is that for years, Typhoid Paul pushed Hungary as the model of an ideal state. Hardly a video went by in which he didn’t praise Hungary.
But then COVID came along, and Hungary (sensibly) took draconian measures to stop it, and what was Typhoid Paul’s reaction?
Of course. A complete Afro-like libertarian chimp out that he couldn’t go to his favorite fast food outlets or what not — supposedly suddenly the ultimate expression of “muh liberty” — while completely ignoring his precious Hungary, which behaved, rightly, in an entirely anti-libertarian manner.
@Karsten..,
Excellent point about the Hungarian leadership doing what is best for Hungary, whether that is ‘libertarian’, ‘draconian’, democrat’, ‘socialist’, or ‘conservative’.
Political philosophies are important mediums and tools – but, not the end product.
One can only hope that more Western governments take the Orban government as their cue.