Would that be the same Kevin Rudd who recently (November 2019) called for a population of 50m Australians, to stave off the "Chinese threats".

Sure, call out unnecessary racism. But, while not all pandemics start in China, emphatically this one did. And was well away, before the Wuhan clampdown. With our high reliance on China, mining/student/migration wise, we'd be the last to say so.

Not even Trump, he of the "Wuhan flu", is calling on China to change its practices before it fully rejoins the global economy.

What a pathetic plea for "globalism "

Is the WHO and it's actions throughout this crisis been an example of how "globalism " works ?

If so .. pass !

Easing borders was the main cause !

Uh oh! Racism is the very first word. Should I bother to go any further? Then “’ordinary’ people are  increasingly speaking out and protesting publicly …. No they aren’t. They are too worried about their jobs, money and, at the moment, the China virus.

“The coronavirus pandemic has ramped up nationalism, racism, sectarianism, class conflict, age-based discrimination, anti-social greed and selfishness and government surveillance and regimentation”.

Bulldust! The Chinese are rightly being blamed for the virus they inflicted on us. Lily-white, English speaking populations would be regarded in the same way if they did the same thing.

The author has had a professional interest in imperialism, nationalism and racism. He has reviewed a book by someone with a similar bent. No thanks!

Chinese flu, Chinese parasite, Wuhan virus ............ they're all Chinese to me.

ttbn just said about the poster:

"The author has had a professional interest in imperialism, nationalism and racism. He has reviewed a book by someone with a similar bent. No thanks!"

ttbn's comment makes sense given that ttbn (like most in The Forum's Old Farts Club) does not know anything about the Arts things like history, sociology, anthropology, archaeology, philosophy, etc.

Hey Ken,

Too much value on democracy and not enough value in national identity.

You can't support a position against racism and another against globalism at the same time.
I think your talking out of both sides of your mouth.

You want to keep democracy, (form of government used to rob a nations people of their national assets) but remove the national identity aspect.

Why?
Because there's no such thing as democracy in a 2 party system where one party is an 'immigrant platform'. (Labor)
In this scenario we don't have 'democracy' or more to the point 'national democracy'.
What we have is 'international democracy (courtesy of the UN) imposed upon nation states'
You want to keep the system of government in place, but remove any form of ethic patriotism that it was built upon.

It's time academics faced up to this truth.

When you promote a war on racism, what you're actually doing is promoting a war on national identity, because national identity and the right to self-determination relates directly to ethnicity.

All you're actually doing is stealing every single nation from the citizens whom they belong to and making the entire worlds western citizens global tenants in their own countries, subservient to unelected faceless global bureaucrats and laws and decisions that were never voted on by the people themselves.

Academics are too scared to raise any issue that might be considered controversial because you might get blacklisted or sidelined in a globalist world, which means your hands are tied and that you're not even capable of facing up to the real global issues in the first place.

"Chinese leaders, after asserting ‘We condemn this despicable practice’, proceeded to sow doubt about the origin of the virus and even claim it was introduced to China by American soldiers on exercise there."

It was.
How can you write this article, but be clueless about things you've referenced?
http://youtu.be/O26Lsxs6USI

I'm not sure you're fit to discuss the topics of racism, globalism or COVID-19.
Academics are often clueless narrow minded fools that can't see the trees for the leaves.
- Paid propagandists.

Armchair Critic,

Like ttbn, you have just shown yourself to be just another member of The Forum's Old Farts Club who knows absolutely nothing about the Arts things like history, sociology, anthropology, archaeology, philosophy, etc.

Nowhere has the words racism, sexism, Nazis, homophobes been so devalued as those of the globalist mentality. Globalism failed with the tower of babel, failed with the UN and will totally fail under the likes of Bill Gates and other heralded individuals. Read the end up the book.

Mr Opinion,

What you think about what I think about anything adds nothing useful. Are you now another sock puppet for SteeleRedux?

ttbn,

What I have said above has nothing to do with what I think and all to do with what I know.

Wrong Armchair Critic, it is the academics who are the problem, with their attitude that other academics world wide are their fellows, & no affinity to the poor bloody taxpayer in their own countries who pay through the nose to be denigrated by them, while keeping them in comfort.

When we finally junk the ABC we should simultaneously sack every academic who has ever been on one of their programs. Two useless, bludging birds with the stone.

Exactly! Racism isn't something we are born with but learned!

And usually from folk who personify the most ignorant attitudes only equalled in the Third Reich/Weimar Republic.

I was harangued this morning as I entered my shopping centre, by a gentleman who kept insisting we should have never become a multicultural nation and as Europeans, we would never ever have experienced this outcome.

We Europeans gave the world the plague, smallpox, chickenpox, measles, mumps and polio. With diseases like smallpox carried by us superior Europeans decimating various ethnicities! Almost entirely!?

And let's not forget the STD's we introduced to disease-free populations!

Belief in a flat world never ever made it flat and covid-19 was carried to us by returning Aussie travellers! We can speculate where it originated from, but never ever know for certain!?

[Our bats gave the world deadly Hendra! Is that because we are European?]

And entirely immaterial, just what we do about it!

From this day forward if all incoming arrivals do not cool their heels for up to a month in offshore quarantine, we will have learned nothing and sacrificed our loved ones in vain and prematurely! And possibly in greater number all up, than taken by two world wars?

Even today, now, there reside among us, folk whose only real ambition is to die the richest cadaver in the graveyard! Let's hope their ambition is realised and ASAP!

Take care and stay safe.
Alan B.

Mr. O,

Then my friend, you know very little.

As I said before the word racism has simply been hijacked by the left to shut up free speech. I have good friends who are Chinese, Malaysion, Indigenous, kiwi, African and Aussie. Still against open borders as are most of them. I actually consider it an honour when the dumbed down academics label someone like me racist as usually they have lost any rational debate. Usually they are white hating bigots who have made careers out of current 'group think'.

Ah, the ever reliable old racism, always there when all else fails.

Exactly! Racism isn't something we are born with but learned!
Alan B,
I have had my first hands-on experience with racism from a member of a well-know African-American band playing in Brisbane in the mid 70's.
I have since witnessed this dreadful trait from members of just about every race. I found it rather interesting to hear of the dislike of a literally pampered indigenous Australian group towards PNG Nationals although there are many professionals in PNG in contrast to very, very few here.
It'll be interesting if the Australian group will be asked to tighten their belts when the situation with COVID-19 forces the permanently welfare dependents to do so.

Only now the fools wake up.
Where were you when the antiglobalists were protesting the 1% 20 years ago in Seattle and Genoa etc.

Individual: Is that you or the booze talking?

The folk you critique are fellow Australians, some of who put it all on the line for divisive crap like you and Lord help us, you yourself may soon join their government-supported ranks? Hopefully!

Then we can all point the accusing figure of scorn at yet another bludger supported on the public purse like all pollies/public servants! Only more so and for life?

Get a life and see what you can do to actually help or contribute. Your kind of divisive garbage is very much yesterday's news? And there's no place for it here or now!

Unless you think the pandemic will go around you leaving your ever scornful self untouched?

And you'll never ever need help from those you so generously critique/? Good luck with that! Or hiding your real self? When it's your turn!

It's a long road that has no turnings!
Alan B.

Alan B,
Will all due respect you either missed what I was saying or you are, like most educated, utterly ignorant of the situation in an area you yourself criticised only a few days ago !

The anti-globalisation protestors referred to by mikk, like all protestors and traffic disrupting anarchists, were more interested in being anti-social than they were in a cause. They are the same people who protest and wave placards about anything from homosexuality to climate change to imagined racism. Rent-a-crowd halfwits, who achieve only contempt for themselves and put the majority of people against whatever they are raving about. There is no better way to put the majority of people against you than to go out on the streets shouting, screaming, and breaching the peace.

ttbn: Hear, hear and well said! There's no place for politics (as usual) in a pandemic!

That aside, those enterprises with the begging bowl extended? Be they our very profitable airlines or shipping lines with billion-dollar bottom lines?

Need to come bearing big bundles of equity, so the future incomes these wealthy enterprises earn carrying folk or freight can repay the requested government largesse!

Otherwise, we will again, socialise the losses and privatise the profits!

I mean, our generation paid far higher taxes some of which serviced pre ww1 borrowings! And eventually to the great, great-grandkids of the original British lenders! All of who would have rubbed their, never ever employed hands, all the way to the bank!?

As we repaid the original borrowings ten times over and beyond, may be still paying?

Take care and stay safe.
Alan B.

Well today I'm sticking up for racism.

But before you all go torches an pitchforks on me. please take note of the fine print.

Fine-Print.
I'm not supporting racism because I support denigrating other races, No.
I'm supporting racism, because if we don't recognise that ethnicity directly relates to national identity, then what we all become is bastardised political correct generic global provinces, except for Israel of course, who is exempt from this PC BS, and likely responsible for promoting it.

Under PC your whole life become primarily focused with 'hate crimes' gay rights, feminism and minorities like some sort of sick twisted alternative universe, and I'm not copping it, (well not today anyway).
They're only promoting it to remove you from your national identity.
Hey I've got a great idea, lets discuss transgender toilets and such.
Ughh.

If your Jewish it's perfectly fine to denigrate the 'non-human animals' that live next door.
Lets see how many kneecaps we can collect becaue unarmed civilians approach our fence?
Lets just go chop down their olive grove because we don't like their 'race'.

Oh and btw my criticism of Israel is not denigration of Israel on the basis of race, it's denigration on the basis of merit.
2 different things that should not be conflated.

You're all stupid muppets in one big sick joke being played upon the world.

Hey Mr Opinion,

"What I have said above has nothing to do with what I think and all to do with what I know."

- Just like the same way you knew everyone here was religious?

And as for being a member of The Forum's Old Farts Club, I'm not sure they'd have me, (I'm probably not old enough for starters) and besides I think I'm probably more in a league of my own.

Alan B, you credit Europeans with far too much. Many infectious diseases didn’t come from Europe but Africa. Leprosy, tuberculosis, small pox etc all are thought to have come from Africa.
Venereal disease was thought to be introduced into Europe by sailors returning from the New World, in particular, the Americas.
Leprosy was introduced into Australia by a chinese worker.
All races are equally opportunity disease spreaders.

Armchair Critic,

Why are you in a league of your own?

Has China come out to say sorry to the world for all of the damage it is causing with its Wuhan virus?

Will the Chinese offer to compensate countries for all of the death and destruction that its Wuhan virus is causing?

Morning Mr Opinion,

"Why are you in a league of your own?"

Because I don't follow a herd mentality in my opinions and I think for myself.

"Has China come out to say sorry to the world for all of the damage it is causing with its Wuhan virus?"

Emphasis 'it is':

There's evidence it started elsewhere.
What are they guilty of? Hosting the military games?

"Will the Chinese offer to compensate countries for all of the death and destruction that its Wuhan virus is causing?"

It has not been determined that the Chinese are responsible for the outbreak, in fact, there's evidence it stated elsewhere.
Will academics and their willingness to screw around with agents of biological warfare put their hand up instead?

Right now there's just as much chance it was released deliberately by forces within the US government than it was released either by accident or on purpose by the Chinese.
The virus was in Milan in October and November 2019.
Look at the data and look at what the Italian epidemiologists are saying.

It did not start in a fish market in Wuhan.
Even the WHO's first release on the Coronavirus stated that a significant number of the first cases could not be traced back to the Wuhan market.
It didn't start there.
Stop listening to what people say, and start listening to what the metadata says.

Aren't you a claimed academic?
Don't you people rely on evidence or do you always prefer narrative and conjecture?

Armchair Critic,

I am NOT an academic. I am an independent sociologist pursuing my interests outside of academia.

So you are saying that COVID-19 did not originate in Wuhan China. This is not what authorities around the world are saying.

Millions of people around the world watched it develop in Wuhan on their television sets each evening. Like me they all saw it starting in Wuhan. There were no TV reports showing it starting somewhere outside of China.

I think you just make things up because you want to be in a league of your own and because you have some axe to grind, principally your hatred of highly educated and qualified people - the very things you can never be yourself.

"Even the WHO's first release on the Coronavirus stated that a significant number of the first cases could not be traced back to the Wuhan market".

Even the WHO! The WHO is a disgrace. It has sucked up to the Chinese Communist Party throughout, because most of its funds come from the CCP, making WHO a slave to the CCP.

The rest of the world should withers from WHO and the UN.

All these apologies for Communist China and corrupt globalising gangs in the UN are a disgrace.

anyone trusting the WHO is very foolish. They are as trustworthy as the luvvies at Paris a couple of years ago. Zero credibility.

Is anybody thinking what I am thinking that Armchair Critic is a nom de plume for Gladys Liu?

Chinese-American and author of ‘The Coming Collapse of China’, Gordon Chang, has told NTD Global News that China has bought WHO, which says anything that China wants it to say. China’s economy is stagnant, and it will suffer long-term effects from its virus.

Reportedly the Muslim enclaves in Paris are flouting isolation and social distancing rules in their enclaves as an addition to their usual defiance of the state.

The French Interior Minister refuses to comment. I wonder why. Could a few problems be solved through their refusal to comply.? As most of these ghettos are no go areas for police, the China virus can be let rip with no consequences for anyone but people living in the ghettos. Just keep them in.

No crap about 'racism'. Islam has nothing to do with race.

Perhaps they are taking the advice of the mad mullah in Iran who advised the use of essential oil dabbed on the posterior as protection from the China virus. I suppose anyone talking through his arse like that would breathe through the same orifice, so it might work.

Big Nana: I bow to your superior knowledge on leprosy, which was well known in Jeuslehem and apparently cured by the master. And could have started from anywhere in the then known world?

No accurate records exist, just speculation like you are most generously, given to?

Venereal disease was well and truly established throughout Europe before anyone sailed to the Americas. And may well have been caused by homosexual practice, which as you know was rife in so-called Christian Clergy throughout the dark middle ages, which saw blood-spattered, sword-wielding, Bishops and higher at the head of marauding armies, putting all unbelievers to the sword or worse.

Sailors may well have returned from the Americas with STD's but spread by them and their close shipboard homosexual practises throughout extremely long sea voyages. And as in Shawshank redemption, not because they necessarily had homosexual tendencies? But in the main, those of heterosexual Bull Queers?

STD's which they shared most generously shared wherever they ventured.

I, as someone who majored in trauma management and infectious diseases, [public records,] contest your midwives (suppository of all medical wisdom) unfounded assertions on STD's etc! And the spelling mistake/pun was intended.

Y'll have a nice day now y'hear. Take care and stay safe.
Alan B.

Hey ttbn,

"Chinese-American and author of ‘The Coming Collapse of China’, Gordon Chang, has told NTD Global News that China has bought WHO, which says anything that China wants it to say."

Well the question is who nominated Tedros to be head of the WHO?
Who put a war criminal as head of such an organisation?
Assuming US has a say which obviously it does;

You want to look at all the Deep State characters who have been under the spotlight of George Webbs series.

There's people within the US government who conduct regime changes, stealing land - assymetrical warfare - for resource plays identified through military and satellite technology or to put oil pipelines through and sorts of other 'national security' interests.
These people are happy to use biological weapons to get people to move off land so they can covertly build pipelines.
They'll put gas pipelines in with offshore loading facilities and the people they're stealing it from are none the wiser.

Well, what if Tedros worked with these people before, and already used biological weapons to get people to move off areas so they could put covert oil pipelines in before?
Then he'd be these peoples friend wouldn't he?

You need to look at the people who ran these operations and the logistics for them, to figure out who supported Tedros being appointed head of WHO.

And the person who ran these operations was Peter Strzok and his father Peter Snr before him.
These people think they're above government.
http://youtu.be/dcIbVM_jwag

Armchair Critic- Thanks for your comments.

The left don't appear to value family.

I've heard it said that anthropologists know that everyone is racist. But they don't seem to go as far as to say that there is anything wrong with that.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cultural_relativism

I guess it depends on what you value.

Ayn Rand implied if you can convince people to be guilty about their money then the looters and moochers will gather around to relieve them of their guilt. In the end it won't help the looters and moochers. To live requires one to produce, stealing or begging others resources ends in death. The military is required to protect the borders. Red tape can impede survival.

Mr Opinion- Implies he understands the Liberal Arts- and Engineering apparently- though perhaps a generic form.

Canem Malum,

You are quite correct. I have three Arts degrees and have studied all the Arts things like history, anthropology, sociology, archaeology, philosophy, etc. I also have an engineering degree, which I have always regretted doing - a waste of time and money and not necessary to get a job in the engineering trade.

If you want to know what anthropologists think then I suggest you do an Arts degree and maybe become an anthropologist yourself. Getting an Arts degree is one of life's great pleasures. I use my training in the Arts things like history, anthropology, sociology, archaeology, philosophy, etc., every day to help me understand the world I live in.

It is one thing to have a vocational degree like engineering, accountancy, medicine, etc., to get a job but it is another thing to have an Arts degree which teaches one what it is to be a human being.

Mr Opinion through the chair- I have had enough exposure to modern Liberal Arts professors and academics to know that I don't trust their perspective- let alone to pay them for their instruction. Liz Coleman has an interesting contrarian perspective on Post Modern Deconstructivism. She has a dim view of those that seek to use Argumentum Ad Baculum to disenfranchise the masses of their right to their own beliefs. As Stalin said "why should we let people think, ideas are more dangerous than guns, and we don't let people have guns". Political Correctness seems to conveniently play to Communist ideology. Patrick Deneen also has an interesting perspective on liberalism vs classical liberal arts. I have enjoyed the perspective of various luminaries including Aristotle, Plato, Kuhn, Popper, Locke, Mill, Schopenhauer, Nietzsche, etc, etc. I wish there was more time. As Lauren Southern and Will Hunting loosely say there's no point in going to university for something I can get from source material- and propping up academics that seek to undermine my community and family through communism and liberalism. The view of many is that just because someone has a degree doesn't mean they are educated- they do a regime of course material designed to bring about a broad understanding of the subject matter. There seem to be a number of ways in which the university system has been subverted. Perhaps people such as Peter Singer have denigrated the standing of unversities to such an extent that they are no longer trusted to fulfill their function.

Oh no. Another Artz grad, dancing with the fairies at the bottom of the garden, has worked out how to Save the World. The new Five Deadly Sins, which have replaced the old Seven Deadly Sins, that must be consigned to purgatory by our "progressive" woke blokes are, (wait for it, wait for it) Racism (of course), Inequality (imagine that? Never heard that one before), Nationalism, Capitalism, and National Borders. Get rid of these evil concepts and the entire human race will rise into the sunlit uplands of socialism. All it takes is another five year plan. And when that fails, then another, and another, and another, and another.

Heard it all before. Socialism is just like multiculturalism. How many times does it need to fail before the supposedly intelligent academic caste ignite some neuronal activity in their sclerotic brains, and figure it out that it does not work, it has never worked, and it will never work?

As an example our friend Ken Macnab shows how racist it is to blame China for the coronavirus. This penchant of the educated left to lick the boots of every totalitarian regime is indicative to me of how this class of people have wet dreams of ruling the world and lording it over the plebs and suburbanites. Totalitarianism has great appeal to people who see themselves as the ones who will rise to the top level. The only problem for academics is that in totalitarian societies, it is the psychopaths who always shoot and stab their way to the top. And it is the academics who go to the firing squads first, after the great proletarian revolution succeeds in putting the psychopaths in power.

Get it through your head, Ken, that China is now a militaristic nationalist socialist totalitarian state. I thought that academics like you were against such political entities? The feudal Lords and Barons ruling the Chinese Communist Party are directly responsible for this present virus now plaguing the world. And calling it the "Chinese virus" is entirely appropriate. Although I personally would prefer to call it the CCP virus.