Shaming lockdown protestors is elitism
A month ago I wrote Hey Liberals, don't shame poor people for wanting to feed their families.
It took a full month, but now even a CNN anchor could smell the elitism in the shaming.
He's right. People in the media who are shaming the protestors are ALL employed, and don't have to worry about being able to feed their kids.
Many liberals have simply not wrapped their heads around the economic reality of the situation that is already beginning, during the pandemic, to lay waste to the working class. It's going to be so devastating that it will reshape politics in America for decades and the Republicans are the smart ones who are getting out ahead on this issue.
Liberals will be rightly outraged at the lack of government help, and will powerlessly demand someone do something about this. But the root problem is that millions of working people are broke and have no money coming in because they can't work.
Sure you can say the government should be preventing this from being an awful choice. Now welcome to reality! Almost no one in the working class ever expected the government to come through for them. Anyone who did expect otherwise is most likely wealthy.
It's like wagging a finger at a homeless person for not bathing. You may be right about the smell of the homeless person, but you are also so completely out of touch with their reality that you may as well not be from this planet.
No one gives a flying f*ck about homeless people nor the working class (there is a growing overlap between those two groups), except when they are doing something that wealthy people don't approve of. Like protesting.
And there will be a LOT more protests coming, because hungry people don't care if people are shaming them.
#1 According to a study that was just released by the National Bureau of Economic Research, more than 100,000 U.S. businesses have already permanently shut down during this pandemic, and that represents millions of jobs that are never coming back.
...
#6 On Thursday, we learned that the number of Americans that have filed initial claims for unemployment benefits during this pandemic has risen by another 2.9 million, and that brings the grand total for this entire crisis to 36.5 million. To put that number in perspective, at the lowest point of the Great Depression of the 1930s only about 15 million Americans were unemployed.#7 According to the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago, the real rate of unemployment in the U.S. is now 30.7 percent.
#8 According to a survey Fed officials just conducted, almost 40 percent of Americans with a household income of less than $40,000 a year say that they have lost a job during this crisis.
#9 One study has concluded that 42 percent of the job losses during this pandemic will end up being permanent.
#10 According to a professor of economics at Columbia University, the U.S. homeless population could rise by up to 45 percent by the end of this calendar year.
A 30.7% unemployment rate and a 45% rise in homelessness just this year.
Working class people are going to be in the streets with righteous anger, and if the left in this country isn't out in front of this coming class uprising (or worse yet, is wagging its finger at the protesters), then the left in America may as well be taken out back and shot, because it no longer serves a purpose.
Comments
Foreclosure crisis is going to be worse than 2008
unbelievable
They might, you know --
-- be demanding something a bit more substantive than an end to the lockdown in conditions in which the curve still hasn't been flattened. Like, say, a sufficient subsidy to keep them economically afloat until a vaccine is developed?
At any rate, as I said previously:
Nobody fkn has political conversations anymore. It's all a trading of (D) and (R) dog whistles. This is the latest dog whistle orchestra. Oooh they're shaming protesters. Look, I posted two rather constructive diaries here in the past four days, to an audience of maybe a few people.
Here are some people trying to make it work within the Democratic Party.
Here are some people who want to ditch the Dems.
There's actually something to do, folks. Choose a team, and go. What was it Fred Rogers said? "Look for the helpers."
“When there's no fight over programme, the election becomes a casting exercise. Trump's win is the unstoppable consequence of this situation.” - Jean-Luc Melanchon
I agree that the protestors so far aren't people that
you normally have sympathy for, but that's because the whole thing has been hijacked by the GOP.
In fact, what we are seeing is an exact replay of the Tea Party movement that immediately followed the 2008 crash.
I think you are having trouble seeing the forest through the trees.
There is a real opportunity here and the Left is blowing it.
You're a people-person, right?
Sure, you'd have to break quarantine to go to the protests. We had one in Medford day before yesterday. Maybe you could go down to one of those protests and ask them if they would support petitioning Congress for a better break on the subsidies? That is kind of what you're proposing, isn't it? I'm sure MoveOn would supply you with petitions. Be sure to take plenty of vitamins C and D. Do you think they'd object if you wore a mask?
Oh, and thank your lucky stars you don't live in Wisconsin.
https://www.newsweek.com/wisconsin-no-longer-home-no-longer-safe-opinion...
“When there's no fight over programme, the election becomes a casting exercise. Trump's win is the unstoppable consequence of this situation.” - Jean-Luc Melanchon
In about 6 months what I'm saying now will be common knowledge
but by then it'll be too late.
Which common knowledge?
The (D) dog whistle kind, or the (R) kind?
“When there's no fight over programme, the election becomes a casting exercise. Trump's win is the unstoppable consequence of this situation.” - Jean-Luc Melanchon
I'm going to put reminder on my calendar
The left can't join these people
Because they're protesting against what they perceive to be lefties. As you say, it's the tea party again and astroturfed just like 2010.
"Re-opening" is just a facade, an excuse for them to be as stupid as "Russia!!!" believers.
Here's a quote in a thread demanding reopening:
@gjohnsit: Just so you know.
“When there's no fight over programme, the election becomes a casting exercise. Trump's win is the unstoppable consequence of this situation.” - Jean-Luc Melanchon
Lemme repeat this
THIRTY PERCENT UNEMPLOYMENT!
I don't give a shit if they are naked and whipping themselves.
There is a political tidalwave coming, and you seem to be saying that we can't seek safety because the first hundred people, of what will be tens of millions of people, are icky.
What do you want to say --
to the guy who thinks this is all a neo-Marxist plot?
Let's think of a message now.
“When there's no fight over programme, the election becomes a casting exercise. Trump's win is the unstoppable consequence of this situation.” - Jean-Luc Melanchon
Because there is no real Left in America, the
far Right has hijacked whatever revolutionary movement may emerge. The billionaires will make sure of it, again. The script for this is 90 years old, but nothing has really changed, except there's no FDR and no New Deal Democrats anymore. And, there are no Communists who might threaten real change.
now you might mean
"no meaningful left" or somesuch, but of course there's the SEP (socialist equality part) and socialist howie hawkins, see below, but of course as some like cassiodorus point out rather eagerly, the Greens haven't made any traction for years! why is that? any meaningful amerikan social movement gets herded into the D party.
Hawkins: Key Economic Sectors to Socialize
Money, Big Banks, Power Utilities, Health Care, BigPharma, Arms Industry, Broadband
There is no real Left because there is no far Left (CPUSA,
IWW, or Socialist Party of America (Eugene Debbs Party)) and no real, militant labor unions -- e.g., United Mine Workers, the CIO, International Garment Workers -- that once served to organize and educate indoctrinate members with a working class consciousness.
McCarthyism pretty much destroyed the Old Left's influence within labor, and the New Left made few inroads, even when it tried. The American Left effectively died along with organized labor and Franklin Roosevelt. The Democratic Party was never a truly Left-wing organization, and after 1948, it actively purged its remaining progressives, and has gradually abandoned its legacy of the New Deal in favor of a mild neoliberal reformism and a strategy of accomodation and consensus with the Rockefeller-Bush wing of the GOP, which it has come to openly resemble and shares major corporate funders.
What is now called the "Left" are various identity politics movements, single-issue groups, and other middle-class satellites captured into low orbit with the Democratic Party. To call the mainstream Democratic leadership "progressive" tortures the historical meaning of the term.
As for third-parties, the U.S. political system is designed to systematically exclude and neutralize them except in odd local settings, such as Wisconsin a century ago and a few 20th Century New York mayoral races. Electoral politics is not a spring-board or even an organizing platform for potential revolutionary change.
I'm getting the feeling
that you are going to tell me that there is nothing that we can do.
To which I say "Bullsh*t"
The Tea Party punched leftists in the face once before.
I'm warning you right now that we're about to get punch again in exactly the same way.
And judging from past experience the response I'm getting is either a) we can't do anything to avoid getting punched, b) you must create a detailed, pre-tested foolproof plan to fix it before we will consider your warning, or c) we're all doomed
OK so what would you like to do?
I've made two proposals: 1) here are some people running for office you can support, who are asking for the right things. 2) you can go to their rallies and talk to them.
Is there anything I've missed?
“When there's no fight over programme, the election becomes a casting exercise. Trump's win is the unstoppable consequence of this situation.” - Jean-Luc Melanchon
Wow
You managed to hit all three of the responses:
a) we can't do anything to avoid getting punched, b) you must create a detailed, pre-tested foolproof plan to fix it before we will consider your warning, or c) we're all doomed
Congrats. You deserve some sort of prize.
Because obviously I'm saying that 1) we must get the right-wing nuts on our side, b) that we must work with whatever Fox News sends our way. There is no one on the left that will ever be interested in protesting.
Really Cas, you aren't normally like this.
What?
I said fkn NOTHING about "we can't do anything to avoid getting punched."
I said fkn NOTHING about "a detailed, pre-tested foolproof plan."
I made two CONSTRUCTIVE SUGGESTIONS.
I asked "what do you want to do?"
What about that pisses you off?
“When there's no fight over programme, the election becomes a casting exercise. Trump's win is the unstoppable consequence of this situation.” - Jean-Luc Melanchon
OK
Show me the idiots.
I responded to your comment with links to two videos of Texas anti-lockdown protests in which a dozen or so people were interviewed. No response from you so here's another shot at it - where are the idiots among the interviewees?? I'll give you the first two up front (yellow shirt guy and nurse counter protester).
I don't see these people as being unable or unwilling to converse - but if you just dismiss them up front as knuckle-dragging Trumptards then you are relieved of any obligation to engage with them, right? And get to bask in smug superiority, too.
Are you sure you're not part of the problem you claim to be decrying?
I've suggested proactive alternatives.
But feel free not to read any of the diaries I've posted on those alternatives.
As for "opening the economy," it's already been thoroughly covered, here and elsewhere, how "opening the economy" too early, as for instance what is going on in Georgia and Florida right now, will give us an economy with a pandemic. But, hey, if you're totally down with that, then I guess everyone here is too. What choice do we have?
A government that cared would, as has been suggested before, subsidize everyone sufficiently to stay at home until a COVID-19 vaccine is created. Instead what we get, everywhere, is a half-baked pseudo-stay-at-home period during which the Attorney General of the United States threatened the states with legal action if the stay-at-home period were to be "too long," and during which the subsidies for people were broadly insufficient and means-tested in a rather cruel and Nancy-Pelosi-inspired way which insured that some would get no checks even though they needed them and others would get checks too late. The end result will be that, oh yeah, maybe some people will get back to work, but those who do will often be unable to get what they need because 1) they are forced into medical bankruptcy by their COVID-19 treatments or 2) they are too sick to go anywhere or do anything. Multiply by a whole society, and you have the probable outcome for much of the eastern United States. Meanwhile I'm kept busy cleaning out vacant lots because I'm pretty sure they're going to become homeless encampments soon, for those who don't starve to death.
But the people who are being heard aren't demanding a proactive solution. Instead we have two sets of yelling voices demanding "opening the economy," or "keeping the economy closed plus blaming Trump for everything." My voice is neither of those.
Is there anyone in your interviews who is open to an actual give-and-take discussion of what COVID-19 is, and what needs to be done? I don't see such a give-and-take in the one you've posted here. Instead I see broad dismissals of the disease: "it's only as dangerous as the flu," or whatever it was that the guy at 4:33 of your posted YouTube recording said. Also, of course, your video has a lot of demands that the government respect their "Constitutional rights" by protesters who are basically demanding the right to catch the Coronavirus and spread it to others. Maybe we have such a right. I'm sure the Supreme Court will be asked to decide soon. How important is it to you?
Here's some bonus coverage, from a journalist with the Medford Mail-Tribune:
“When there's no fight over programme, the election becomes a casting exercise. Trump's win is the unstoppable consequence of this situation.” - Jean-Luc Melanchon
People need two things right now.
One is access to health care.
The other is a way to pay basic bills for things like food, rent and utilities.
It is true that the candidates you are championing cannot get into office in time to stop this crisis. It is also true that there are not enough of them, but you and they are doing what you can. These candidates are important because through their campaigns they are telling people how everyone can be helped. Their messages are crucial and need to be magnified as much as possible.
It is bizarre that Pelosi did not put the $2000 per month into her bill. Everyone in the 1% donor class knew the bill would be DOA in the Senate so Pelosi could have at least pretended to care about peasants. It would not have cost the rich folks a cent. It might have given the peasants ideas though.
Thank you for doing what you can to help others.
Lily O Lady summed it up perfectly in a comment further down the thread:
jezum crow, cass.
now you're shaming gjohnsit because he reckons electing someone in the people's party (still stuck at 59,053 pledge strong!) on edit: might take just a bit too long? or some collective monolithic 'they' should be demanding 'say, a sufficient subsidy to keep them economically afloat until a vaccine is developed?' you'd forgotten to mention that any of the fast-tracked 'in 18 months'
vaccines likely won't be safe nor effective, though....
Dear Ms. Pelosi,
Thank you for your crap House coronona stim bill, even though you've noted it has no way of passing the Senate. But yes, thank you as well for telling voters that it's just an opening gambit, and that you're willing to negotiate with Mitch McConnell if and when...
disrespectfully yours,
the permanently disenfranchised precariat
gjohnsit didn't say anything about that.
How do I know what he's reckoning?
“When there's no fight over programme, the election becomes a casting exercise. Trump's win is the unstoppable consequence of this situation.” - Jean-Luc Melanchon
apologies;
i'd left out reckons "might take to long"; i'll add it on edit.
He still didn't say anything about that.
And I'm not shaming him for anything.
“When there's no fight over programme, the election becomes a casting exercise. Trump's win is the unstoppable consequence of this situation.” - Jean-Luc Melanchon
How can you make a choice
when there is only one option?
How many decades have people been trying to work inside the democratic party to get it to change back to being the party that stood for the workers and we the people? It started long ago, but the democrats sold us out during Clinton's tenure where he decided that the DP was going to start grabbing some of the money that went to the GOP. He did this by creating the DLC with the help from the Koch brothers and others on the right.
40 years during Reagan's tenure we saw the brutal assault on unions, worker's rights and rolling back the New Deal and many other issues by the GOP and then came Clinton with his welfare reform, crime bills, bankruptcy bill, ect and since then both parties worked together to end the New Deal. Obama cut $5 billion from SNAP along with propping up the insurance companies with the ACA. He froze federal wages for two years which was an assault on social security and was willing to cut that, but McConnell refused to agree to raise taxes on the rich. Obama also reauthorized the Bush tax cuts that were supposed to expire during his tenure.
So in effect there aren't really choices to be made because both parties serve the elite. Create a new party? It's great to see more people trying to do that, but that isn't going to help people survive this current crisis.
I didn't comment in them because they didn't affect me here in Utah.
Was Humpty Dumpty pushed?
Don't know what you mean here.
If you want no part of the Democratic Party, join Our Revolution LA and work to form a new party. I said this already.
“When there's no fight over programme, the election becomes a casting exercise. Trump's win is the unstoppable consequence of this situation.” - Jean-Luc Melanchon
The shaming of demonstrators is a neoliberal
ploy like pink pussy hats. Trump, Koch, The Heritage Foundation, etc. are on the other side encouraging people to “open up” and get back to normal calling Covid19 a hoax and spurning mask wearers. Both side are manufactured propaganda.
Our government should be working for us, but doesn’t by design, the designs of the rich and powerful. It’s like Robert Reich’s example of three people in a room with ten cookies. The first guy takes nine of the cookies and says to the second guy, “That other guy is after YOUR cookie!” This whole thing is just more divide and rule. Sure we should unite, but propaganda from both sides will prevent that. And it’s very hard to talk to a guy who thinks I’m after his cookie!
"The object of persecution is persecution. The object of torture is torture. The object of power is power. Now do you begin to understand me?" ~Orwell, "1984"
No Buick ads.
What Left?
Biden? The Democrats? Even post-capitulation Sanders? Yes, the Republicans will scream bloody murder about The Left stealing Your Freedumbs, and the papers and talking heads will repeat it. Thing is, there's no real Left visible to the average American. So, yes, the protests are indeed running with a Tea Party 2.0 theme. They'll get some traction for a while, but I think version 2.0 doesn't have much of a shelf life.
More and more, it's indeed starting to appear that there will be no rapid bounce-back in regard to the economy. If the Chicago Fed is correct, and I have little reason to doubt their numbers, we're indeed in for a rough ride. Until this week, I really doubted that we'd see a protracted downturn, but it's looking more like we will. By protracted, I mean lasting at least a year.
We will probably be seeing things and hearing ideas that will seem startling at best. Doubtless, some of these ideas and actions will have echos of the 20th Century ...only with a Pepe the Frog meme involved. Others will seem far more sophisticated, yet have similar results. I'm considering obvious right-wing ploys using typical American race-baiting. After all, it works. Beyond the low bar set by Tea Party 2.0, the other right-wing party will attempt to make their moves in order to cushion the landing for their own benefactors, nearly all of whom are in the FIRE economy.
Neither the Tea Party 2.0 or the Democrats are going to be looking out for the 99%.
Tea Party 2.0 is going to have to come up with something radically better than the present Freedumb protests, and they are going to have to do it quickly. TPTB are going to open this country up come hell or high water and they're going to do it no matter the consequences to the 99%. Money definitely comes before any consideration of the populace. I suspect they actually do believe that everything is going to get back to "normal" quite soon. Why wouldn't they believe that? Their bank accounts are bursting from CARES Act money. For many of them, things may have never been better.
While the Republicans (and by their actions, the Democrats) may believe that rich people create jobs, they are about to learn that is not true. Demand creates jobs, and we are already seeing what lack of demand is doing. This is what I think will give Tea Party 2.0 such a short shelf life, barring the possibility of unforeseen outright and brazen fascism. Freedumb doesn't pay the rent or purchase groceries. Fascism has to be mentioned, as it's a distinct possibility. And don't worry, the Democrats will be right there voting with their good friends, the Republicans, to install it and codify it.
Who is there to stand up to them? Who truly stands for the 99%? What actual Leftist is there that can manage a slot on the television and be able to speak for us? Biden? Como? Pelosi? None of these are Leftists (...and I'm starting to wonder about Sanders). We know better: Those work for the same bosses as their GOP compatriots. None of them work for us, none of them give a damn about the 99%.
At 30+% unemployment, the shit is going to hit the fan sooner rather than later. I don't see the Tea Party 2.0 nor the other right-wing party having any designs made beyond a week or so. What will be the response when impromptu groups start gathering at roadsides, at courthouses, at malls ...groups of dozens, maybe swelling to hundreds. The word put out on social media - until that method is squashed. Television covering it - sensationalizing it ...at first. But, it doesn't sell Buick advertising, so that won't last long. But, if you can't drive down a major street or highway without seeing a demonstration, the lack of media coverage will come too late.
I see no leadership from the Left. Hell, I don't even see the Left. It's no accident.
It’s not just the number of people who will lose their homes
People who rent and can’t afford to pay theirs are going to be evicted from their apartments and guess who is going to be buying them up? BlackRock that’s who. Just like they did after the last time millions lost their homes and Obama let them buy them up for pennies on the dollar. BlackRock is a trillion dollar hedge fund that has its fingers in countless pies and I doubt we will ever know the extent of what they are doing. They are in charge of the biggest transfer of wealth in history.
The next phase of America's coronavirus problem is a massive housing crisis
This country is going to be in very bad trouble in a short time and I don’t think people are even aware of how bad it’s going to get. This will make the Grapes of Wrath look like a picnic because almost every program put in place after the Great Depression has been gutted by both parties. And both parties are now going to sit back and watch the fire sell that’s coming.
The people who are protesting to open the country back up don’t know that it’s not going to matter if it’s opened up tomorrow because jobs are not coming back because 40% of small businesses are not going to come back. The damage to the economy has been done already and I think that the elite shut it down just long enough to steal everything that wasn’t nailed down and now they have gotten everything they wanted they are now telling us that we have to put our lives at risk for them even though they know it’s not going to matter. This is the message that needs to be heard. We got screwed and it’s time for both sides to come together and fight our real enemies.
Smiley if you see my comment will you please repost the article that discusses this again? It’s one of the best I’ve read that covers this.
Let’s remember who we should be fighting.
Was Humpty Dumpty pushed?
Here is the article
The response to the epidemic was deliberately delayed so that they could put the country in the state it is in right now.
I can’t believe that anyone can’t believe that they would delay shutting down the country or not have any plans in place to deal with a global pandemic that has been known to be coming for a very long time. This was done so disaster capitalism could go into effect. If you don’t know what this is do a search for it.
http://www.defenddemocracy.press/we-need-a-radically-different-model-to-...
Please only uprate my comment if you read it.
Was Humpty Dumpty pushed?
Agree, read it folks.
I've read it twice now and sent the link to many peeps. It's a good one.
Thank you
It’s really good to see things laid out like this.
And now to lighten the mood..something beautiful and peaceful.
Was Humpty Dumpty pushed?
Oh yeah
The government is buying up lots of equipment that they are probably going to use against us. Joe posted the article on this in tonight’s EBs. Why? I’m sure you can guess. One unit of the national guard has been in DC for over a month and it’s been federalized which means that it’s under control of Trump.
A decade ago during Bush’s tenure every administration bought up billions of rounds of ammunition and I think it’s hollow point bullets. The FDA, SSA, IRS and even ones we haven’t heard about bought them. I can put w and 2 together and it looks like the PTB are getting ready for whatever we plan to do. The laws are in effect for whatever is coming.
Was Humpty Dumpty pushed?
Yep
Why does every Podunk police force have a Bearcat, repurposed military gear, night vision and fully automatic weapons? Why does a minor drug bust need 2 dozen cops dressed out for an assault on Fallujah? Thanks Bush2 and Obama.
Practicing for the main event?
There is a reason why our police are being trained by Israel's military. I don't know if this started under Obama or Bush, but if your cops are being trained by the military and then being dressed not as cops, but as members of the military I think more people should be asking questions.
I watch a lot of TV crime shows and most of the SWAT type cops are dressed up in military garb. Hmmm manufacturing consent? Why yes. And exactly.
Was Humpty Dumpty pushed?
I've often wondered
I can put w and 2 together and it looks like the PTB are getting ready for whatever we plan to do. The laws are in effect for whatever is coming.
Why can't we just do nothing. I've read that historically, (dunno if it were Europe or the early American "settlers") who use to just make a run for the hills, when the elites got on their backs. They refused to come back until conditions improved, which always happened because...duh.
Anyway, I think the elites got hip to this strategy and decided to take us away from our homes and never teach us how to survive on our own without their "help". (i.e grow our own food, make our own clothes, toys, candles and entertainment) But...we can all decide to do this for just a day...maybe even a week (which would really get their attention. Just do NOTHING for a day...hopefully a week. Don't buy, drive or work...see what that does. They think we will "protest" in the streets and are preparing the response of kicking our azzes, but we have to hit them in the pocketbook...the only thing they understand.
Well done is better than well said-Ben Franklin
how C99p feels right now ... I always dreamt of a bookstore
[video:https://youtu.be/rAmGsM4Dids]
[video:https://youtu.be/wViMHts3nT0]
[video:https://youtu.be/mWb-IvV5HVU]
fainting, getting up dizzy, maddening smelly.
Did I mention Gorey was not a homeless out-of-luck forced out of a job or income through masks and lockouts ? I loved the fainting lady falling from the roof-top, which is not excactly seen in the clip, but was the entry to series on german TV.
Thought so too. (I was bribed by a mystery).
https://www.euronews.com/live
Most of the protestors aren't working class.
There have been several articles recently, like here :https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2020/05/the-lockdown-protestors-are-not-... and the recent Guardian piece https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/may/18/lockdown-protests-spread.... that indicate that it is the PRIVILEGED who are protesting, not the working class. (Someone who is and has been living on the edge couldn't afford to spend the money on gas to drive to another state to protest, as per the Guardian piece). They want their servants back to do their hair and their nails, and there is also evidence that some governors want to end the lockdowns so they don't have to pay unemployment anymore, as noted particularly in Georgia.
Certainly some of the shaming is finger wagging, but there is also a component of those who are in lockdown and on the edge financially, too, and they are angry at people who are selfishly willing to make the situation worse and the lockdown drag on even longer.
I suspected as much
It certainly has the Tea Party astroturf feel to it.
But soon that won't matter, because the tsunami is coming.
This Tea Party 2.0 is politically useful for the status quo to redirect legit public outrage.
It's one reason why OWS didn't happen until 2011, when it should have happened in 2009.
What we need to do is delegitimize this Tea Party 2.0 by pushing out a different narrative. One that accounts for working class needs.
That’s what Bernie was doing until TPTB
shut him down. Again. It sounds like Our Revolution LA is trying to keep that going.
"The object of persecution is persecution. The object of torture is torture. The object of power is power. Now do you begin to understand me?" ~Orwell, "1984"
Outside of "open up protests", we building toward mass disorder
The open up protests seem more political theatre for establishment liberals to engage in class shaming. But it does seem that outside this, we are building to what I fear will be a complete breakdown of basic civic order in at least some of the major urban areas. Within a year, there will be too many people hungry and starving, no medical insurance, homelessness, and no jobs for police state forces to contain them without mass fatal violence. Urban rebellion and Kent State shootigs will rule the day.
I keep thinking what dystopian future we are headed to. What will come cannot be stopped by protests or new lawmakers at this point. The future will be forged in the 2021 and 2022 and its parents will not come out of the Enlightment but out of street gangs.
Just a point. I work in high tech, and we are now getting emails saying that the company is almost at the point of deep shit. The big companies will not go under, but they will see major cuts to the workforce. The idea seems to be in high tech that if they can keep whole they will emerge winners when the pandemic is stopped. At this point I think it is wishful thinking.
It's not shame. It's hate.
I am sure that there are exceptions, but the vast majority of the political media and message board "criticism" of anti-lockdown protests ties the protests to Donald Trump and other ideological villains. From election night 2016 until today, there is a perpetual drum beat of attacks against the "racists" and "fascists" whose only goal is to destroy everything good in the universe.
This hyperbolic rhetoric is a curious phenomenon. It is not intended to persuade racists and fascists to repent. It is not intended to further any particular policy. It is nothing more than bitching, when you get right down to it.
For the record, although my family has always been full of wing nuts, I was a Democrat until 2016 and now I am far to the "left" of Joe Biden and the Washington Generals version of the Democratic Party. All this angry rhetoric is intended to make the Dems lose, and it will probably work better than ever this year as the Party of Thomas Jefferson is now unabashedly the Voice of the Lockdown.
Not the Voice of Health or the Voice of Safety. The Dems are now the enthusiastic supporters of economic suicide. Good luck, America.
I cried when I wrote this song. Sue me if I play too long.
Left or Right doesn't really matter
if you're not in the 1% club, or the service layer just beneath them (ie the next 2-3%) you're considered completely expendable.
If you do not own a gun (weapon), then I highly suggest you purchase one and get trained properly on how to use it. The "social order" is on the brink of collapse. Get to the country side as quick as you can. Panic and desperation are soon to prevail. There is no going back to "normalcy". That ship has sailed.
If the "left" is to be "effective" they must ditch this "let's be nice" crap and get armed to the teeth. You can demand anything you want, but a demand without a credible threat that will disrupt their economic well being, well you're just pissing in the wind.
The "Conspiracy Theorist" in me thinks this shit has been planned for a long time.
C99, my refuge from an insane world. #ForceTheVote
" Time to gun up, liberal"
interesting read in NY Times... https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/15/opinion/coronavirus-democracy.html. It's becoming clearer and clearer.
one minority report from the UK:
‘This is not a natural disaster, but a manmade one’, spectator.co.uk, Lionel Shriver,
May 16, 2020, Lionel Shriver (a few outtakes)
Shaming others in general has definitely become a national
pastime over the last several years. Dems are particularly good at it since they got all that practice in 2016..... the year of the "deplorables".
I notice now that the same people...friends and relatives.... who shamed me for voting 3rd party last time are now spinning the shame in the direction of people who don't follow the coronavirus rules exactly how the critic thinks they should follow them.
"Without the right to offend, freedom of speech does not exist." Taslima Nasrin
Warren crying over spilt milk
after she voted to spill it in the first place.
Second tweet is what I am talking about, but both work.
Yes, Liz, millions of people are in dire financial straits right now, but you need to own up to the fact that you voted for the first bailout the companies that never showed that they needed money while throwing us a few crumbs. Face up to what you and your fellow dems did and then get back to us on this.
In Tense Exchange Over Bailouts, Warren Accuses Mnuchin of Putting 'Wall Street Buddies' Before US Workers
Shades of TARP part 2. I wonder how Liz voted for that bank bailout that left millions of us behind?
Was Humpty Dumpty pushed?
The Rising duo discuss Obama's legacy
Hint: Trump got elected over Hillary for some unknown reason. Hmmm....
This isn't just about Megan or Obama. They cover the same issues that we are discussing here. Basically that people from both sides are not represented by their government. More people need to hear the message they are delivering.
Was Humpty Dumpty pushed?
You want a "left", start with families.
Everyone had one, even if they were an unrelated supporters of each other. What do families need? Shelter, food, health care, education, child care, elder care, equal justice and equal rights, and a shot at a better future, plus more I'm spacing on. What does the government "of, by and for the people" do to make these things possible? Most of all in times crisis? Fawn over their donors.
No wonder people see no difference between the parties. All they see is self serving grifters who feel our pain and point to our neighbors, and hear them say "see, it's those awful people that screwed you". And Your "lot in life is your fault, you were lazy and didn't try hard enough", with a throw away " you just weren't deserving enough".