Michael Commane
Do you find yourself getting out of bed these mornings, asking yourself is this really happening? It’s certainly something I’m doing.
At my age I’m thinking I nearly dodged a carefree existence from birth to death. It has often crossed my mind that people of my vintage have been extraordinarily fortunate to have gone through our lives without having to suffer a war or experience a famine.
Most of us have been blessed in that respect. Yes, there have been wars across the world, there have been the ‘Troubles’ in Northern Ireland, poor people everywhere experience terrible privations, but my generation was the first in a long time that did not have to suffer the hell of war.
What must it have been like during the 1914 - 1918 and 1939 - 1945 wars for those on the front, for the millions suffering raping, bombings, shortages and rationing? The unspeakable crimes at the death camps must never be forgotten.
Most of us have been blessed in that respect. Yes, there have been wars across the world, there have been the ‘Troubles’ in Northern Ireland, poor people everywhere experience terrible privations, but my generation was the first in a long time that did not have to suffer the hell of war.
What must it have been like during the 1914 - 1918 and 1939 - 1945 wars for those on the front, for the millions suffering raping, bombings, shortages and rationing? The unspeakable crimes at the death camps must never be forgotten.
The horrendous suffering that the people living in the developing world keep experiencing is beyond our comprehension. We occasionally see it on our televisions but then we simply press the button on the zapper to another station.
Precisely in these days, 75 years ago Hitler realised that the game was up as the Soviet Army was approaching Berlin. On April 22, 1945, he told his closest cronies from his bunker in Berlin that suicide was his only recourse.
To think of the devastation and hell that he caused during his 12 years as German chancellor. Of course there were many and varied reasons why World War II happened. Is it not another reason for us to realise how fragile the world is?
Last year I read Vasily Grossman’s ‘Stalingrad’. I’m back reading the book for a second time. In these days of Covid-19 it takes on a whole new meaning. It is a story of inexplicable pain and suffering and history too.
Grossman worked as a journalist with the Red Army. After the war he fell out of favour with Stalin. The book was published in 1954 and the English translation appeared last year. It is a powerful read.
Grossman worked as a journalist with the Red Army. After the war he fell out of favour with Stalin. The book was published in 1954 and the English translation appeared last year. It is a powerful read.
It tells the story of the epic battle at Stalingrad, now called Volgograd.
Stalingrad was the first serious defeat for the German Army. It was here that the might and power of Germany was torn asunder and it was torn asunder by the sheer doggedness and genius of the Russian people.
Grossman takes the Shaposhnikov family living in Stalingrad and traces their lives in the lead up to the battle and then during the bloody months of the battle itself, which lasted from August 1942 to February 1943.
No one knows the exact number of casualties at Stalingrad but in or about two million people lost their lives, including 40,000 civilians.
Reading the story of Stalingrad it is almost impossible to comprehend the misery and pain that people suffered. The fortitude of the Russian people and how against all the odds they routed the invader has to be admired.
We have no idea what lies ahead of us. But we do know that my generation in Europe is one of the few generations in recent times that has avoided the pain and suffering that is unfortunately far too common on this planet.
Will this end in war? Trump said at one of his recent White House press conferences that the US had so much ammunition they did not know what to do with it. I heard him say it.
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At the beginning of the Cold War it was common in the West to mock the blindness of the Soviets who believed in the nonsense of Professor Trofim Lyssenko. The First Secretary of the Party, Josef Stalin, had banned the teaching of genetics and used Lyssenko to scientifically justify Marxism, but did not draw a single practical conclusion from it. Today the same insanity has reached the West. Professor Neil Ferguson asserts that statistics can predict the behavior of life. This is nonsense, but many high-ranking politicians believe it. Unfortunately, unlike the Soviets, they have drawn political consequences that are ruining their countries.
The creation of the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control
For two decades, Western politicians have been trying to use statistical knowledge about epidemics to make the right decisions to be taken in case of danger. Following the SARS outbreak in 2003, the European Union set up a European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDPC) in 2005. In the second half of 2008, this centre and the rotating French Presidency organised a symposium to examine whether schools should be closed to combat an influenza epidemic and to determine when to close them and when to reopen them. There has not yet been any talk of widespread isolation of the entire population.
The main contribution was that of Professor Neil Ferguson and Simon Cauchemez of Imperial College London. He compared statistical data on school closures in Hong Kong in 2003 and 2008, data on the teachers' strike in Israel in 2000, the impact of the zone holidays in France from 1984 to 2006, the closure of flu-infected schools in France in 1957 and the closure due to Spanish flu in some US cities and Australia in 1918. And he pointed to the inequalities and injustices associated with school closures in Britain and the US.
From that moment on the problem was upside down. Experts had observed that school closures had no significant effect on the final death toll, only on the rate of spread of the disease. Their task was to find a solution for the closure of hospital beds that were not occupied on a daily basis. Statistics no longer served the health of Europeans, but an ideology, liberal governance.
Bernard Kouchner, the French Minister of Foreign Affairs who organised this symposium, was the one who, when he was Minister of Health (1992-93, 1997-99, 2001-02), started the reorganisation of the French hospital system no longer according to medical criteria but according to a logic of profitability. In about 15 years, France has made considerable savings by closing 15% of its hospital beds, but these savings are ridiculous compared with the current costs of containment.
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by Thierry Meyssan
https://www.voltairenet.org/article209751.html
Translated with www.DeepL.com/Translator (free version)
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