Mothers Speak about War and Terror: Going viral

Within hours of British comedian Matt Lucas spoofing PM Boris Johnson’s recent public address, Lucas had 2.8 million views and 141,000+ likes on Twitter. One viewer stated, "This is actually clearer than what Johnson said."
To date, Boris Johnson’s address has garnered 49,000+ views and jokes about Lucas' message being easier to understand.
Hmmm, Johnson's fidgeting body language, rhetoric, and presentation didn’t quite nail what he attempted to emulate: “We shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender.”

Whackjobery unchained…

Beware these discredited online vehicles of poopaganda* :

The 26-minute “documentary,” Plandemic: The Hidden Agenda Behind Covid-19 circulating online (not linking to it) “promotes a number of dangerous falsehoods, including that wearing a mask can make people sick” and that the novel coronavirus was purposefully created in a laboratory.
Anything produced by American whackajob Alex Jones, and most recently, “BREAKING! President Trump Sidelines Fauci/Birx…”

*poopaganda – newly minted , quasi-genteel term (thanks, Andy) for virulent bull-s**t “truthiness” masquerading as self-empowering info.

Whither lockdown?
The SA government has admitted to holding back information from the public on the Covid-19 pandemic, saying it is doing so to avoid panic.
What? Adults must be protected from the truth rather than be encouraged to face it and still act responsibily? Patriarchy in action!

Meanwhile, back at the ranch…

Another brief trip into the village today revealed people still jammed together in long lines waiting to access ATMs. This because of too-slow deliveries of the government-promised supplementary child-benefit payments. Anxious recipients must travel back-and-forth from home into town to check bank balances.
Addendum to yesterday’s post re official monthly child allowance:

South African President Cyril Ramaphosa recently announced a significant package of social and economic measures to address the fallout from the country’s COVID-19 lockdown. The package includes a R50 billion increase to the value of existing social grants, a new grant and delivery of food parcels to poor households. All will last for six months.

The supplementation of the grants raises the child social grant (paid to the caregivers of around 12.5 million children) to R740 per child in May 2020. From June to October 2020, child social grants will be decreased to their original amount (R440 per month) and caregivers will receive an additional R500 per month.
A payment increase per caregiver means that instead of a household with three children receiving an additional R1500 per month, they will only get an additional R500 – the same amount as a family with one child. This has been condemned by civil society groups and researchers who called for grant increases per child.
All other grants will be augmented by R250 per month for six months with a special COVID-19 Social Relief of Distress grant of R350 per month for those who are not covered by other grants or the Unemployment Insurance Fund.
The COVID-19 lockdown has clarified the gaps and insufficiencies in South Africa’s social welfare system. The initial package of relief measures was aimed at supporting households by expanding the Unemployment Insurance Fund, but as economists have shown, about 45 percent of workers are not eligible for the fund.
Informal sector workers also do not qualify for Unemployment Insurance Fund, and only one in five receives income support through the child support grant. The shortfalls leave at least 8 million people without any form of direct income support.
The grant increases, alongside the new COVID-19 grant, will provide a necessary salve to poor households especially as direct food aid is weighed down by lethargic bureaucracies and accusations of corruption. (Read more.)

Question: Social grant increases may help keep millions from starvation but what happens when the immediate Covid-19 crisis abates?