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Forging America's Future In UNITY -- If We Don't, Government And Capitalism Will
This is a mashup of two readings I've fortunately come upon. One is currently posted by Dennis Donovan's sharing of Julio Vincent's essay from medium.com https://www.democraticunderground.com/100213265536#post6... and the other is from this week's New Yorker article, "Dispatches From A Pandemic." https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/dispatches-from-a-pandemic
The ideas of these two works are too important to just file away as opinion. They offer answers for how we stay in unity in seeking out signals that keep us focused on unity in forging a better American future.
On the question of reopening. WE DECIDE. NO ONE DECIDES BUT CV AND US. Listen to experts, but constantly verify.
1.
"Don't count the days, make the days count." Muhammed Ali
So I look for how to remake this shell of a country, reading what I can find. Like this Julio Vincent article, "Prepare for the Ultimate Gaslighting" on medium.com
To buy into this essay, we have to believe that we can be aware, look for the signals, all at the same time! It can be done.
Look at the birds of North America. Enormous flocks can execute sharp turns and vortical spins with magical-feeling coordination. A thousand starlings bunch into a living fist over the trees, relax westwar, shear away from skyscrapers.
With a kind of muscular clairvoyance, each bird seems to anticipate the movements of the others. What is deciding them? What permits a thousand autonomous actors to move as one body, at these unbelievable speeds?
A recent study described how these birds are able to "manage uncertainty in consensus": Flocks ... maintain cohesion as a group in highly uncertain environments and with limited, noisy information."
We're in a secret flight, too. Externally, we are all separating from public spaces, cancelling weddings, graduations, retreating into our homes. But this surface group effort hides to many, just what we're doing together on another plane: we are responding to THIS crisis with surprising swiftness and unity.
We, too, are now soaring into formation.
With a kind of muscular clairvoyance, each bird seems to anticipate the movements of the others. What is deciding them? What permits a thousand autonomous actors to move as one body, at these unbelievable speeds?
A recent study described how these birds are able to "manage uncertainty in consensus": Flocks ... maintain cohesion as a group in highly uncertain environments and with limited, noisy information."
We're in a secret flight, too. Externally, we are all separating from public spaces, cancelling weddings, graduations, retreating into our homes. But this surface group effort hides to many, just what we're doing together on another plane: we are responding to THIS crisis with surprising swiftness and unity.
We, too, are now soaring into formation.
New Yorker "Dispatches From a Pandemic."
Unity is "joined difference" toward a mutual goal.
As we look ahead, we have to do watch for the signals, the vanguard movers, as we see what's coming. UNITY = staying away from distractions of our differences = Support. Mutual Support = UNITY.
Stay in formation in the year ahead.
Keep to flying through this IN UNITY, a communicative formation, and we all will forge a better future for each and all of us.
-------------------
2. LOOK OUT. LOOK AHEAD AT WHAT'S COMING, OKAY?
(From the Vincent essay in medium.com)
https://medium.com/@juliovincent/prepare-for-the-ultimate-gaslighting-6a8ce3f0a0e0
... The greatest misconception among us, which causes deep and painful social and political tension every day in this country, is that we somehow don’t care about each other.
--White people don’t care about the problems of black America.
-- Men don’t care about women’s rights.
-- Cops don’t care about the communities they serve.
-- Humans don’t care about the environment.
These couldn’t be further from the truth. We do care.
We just don’t have the time to do anything about it.
Maybe that’s just me. But maybe it’s you, too...
What the crisis has given us is a once-in-a-lifetime chance to see ourselves and our country in the plainest of views.
At no other time, ever in our lives, have we gotten the opportunity to see what would happen if the world simply stopped. Here it is. We’re in it....I imagine you feel like I do: devastated, depressed, and heartbroken.
And what a perfect time for Best Buy and J. Crew and Gwyneth Paltrow to help me feel normal again... if I could drink a venti blonde vanilla latte with two pumps of syrup, then this very dark feeling would go away.
You think I’m kidding, that I’m being cute, that I’m denying the very obvious benefits of having a roaring economy. You’re right. Our way of life is not ruinous. The economy is not, at its core, evil...I get it.
But its flaws have been laid bare for all to see. It doesn’t work for everyone. It’s responsible for great destruction. It is so unevenly distributed in its benefit that three men own more wealth than 150 million people.
Its intentions have been perverted and the protection it offers has disappeared. In fact, it’s been brought to its knees by one pangolin.
--White people don’t care about the problems of black America.
-- Men don’t care about women’s rights.
-- Cops don’t care about the communities they serve.
-- Humans don’t care about the environment.
These couldn’t be further from the truth. We do care.
We just don’t have the time to do anything about it.
Maybe that’s just me. But maybe it’s you, too...
What the crisis has given us is a once-in-a-lifetime chance to see ourselves and our country in the plainest of views.
At no other time, ever in our lives, have we gotten the opportunity to see what would happen if the world simply stopped. Here it is. We’re in it....I imagine you feel like I do: devastated, depressed, and heartbroken.
And what a perfect time for Best Buy and J. Crew and Gwyneth Paltrow to help me feel normal again... if I could drink a venti blonde vanilla latte with two pumps of syrup, then this very dark feeling would go away.
You think I’m kidding, that I’m being cute, that I’m denying the very obvious benefits of having a roaring economy. You’re right. Our way of life is not ruinous. The economy is not, at its core, evil...I get it.
But its flaws have been laid bare for all to see. It doesn’t work for everyone. It’s responsible for great destruction. It is so unevenly distributed in its benefit that three men own more wealth than 150 million people.
Its intentions have been perverted and the protection it offers has disappeared. In fact, it’s been brought to its knees by one pangolin.
3.
... the onslaught is coming. Get ready, my friends. What is about to be unleashed on American society will be the greatest campaign ever created to get you to feel normal again.
It will come from brands, it will come from government, it will even come from each other, and it will come from the left and from the right.
We will do anything, spend anything, believe anything, just so we can take away how horribly uncomfortable all of this feels.
And on top of that, just to turn the screw that much more, will be the only effort even greater: the all-out blitz to make you believe you never saw what you saw.
-- Don't be a statistic. Die without being counted, and without counting.
-- The air wasn’t really cleaner; those images were fake.
-- The hospitals weren’t really a war zone; those stories were hyperbole.
-- The numbers were not that high; the press is lying.
-- You didn’t see people in masks standing in the rain risking their lives to vote.
Not in America.
-- You didn’t see the leader of the free world push an unproven miracle drug like a late-night infomercial salesman. That was a crisis update.
-- You didn’t see homeless people dead on the street.
-- You didn’t see inequality.
-- You didn’t see indifference.
-- You didn’t see utter failure of leadership and systems.
But you did. And so we are about to be gaslit in a truly unprecedented way. It starts with a check for $1,200 — don’t say I never gave you anything — and then it will be so big that it will be bigly.
And it will be a one-two punch from both big business and the big white house — inextricably intertwined now more than ever and being led by, as our luck would have it, a Marketer-in-Chief.
Business and government are about to band together to knock us unconscious again. It will be funded like no other operation in our lifetimes. It will be fast. It will be furious. And it will be overwhelming. The Great American Return to Normal is coming.
... the onslaught is coming. Get ready, my friends. What is about to be unleashed on American society will be the greatest campaign ever created to get you to feel normal again.
It will come from brands, it will come from government, it will even come from each other, and it will come from the left and from the right.
We will do anything, spend anything, believe anything, just so we can take away how horribly uncomfortable all of this feels.
And on top of that, just to turn the screw that much more, will be the only effort even greater: the all-out blitz to make you believe you never saw what you saw.
-- Don't be a statistic. Die without being counted, and without counting.
-- The air wasn’t really cleaner; those images were fake.
-- The hospitals weren’t really a war zone; those stories were hyperbole.
-- The numbers were not that high; the press is lying.
-- You didn’t see people in masks standing in the rain risking their lives to vote.
Not in America.
-- You didn’t see the leader of the free world push an unproven miracle drug like a late-night infomercial salesman. That was a crisis update.
-- You didn’t see homeless people dead on the street.
-- You didn’t see inequality.
-- You didn’t see indifference.
-- You didn’t see utter failure of leadership and systems.
But you did. And so we are about to be gaslit in a truly unprecedented way. It starts with a check for $1,200 — don’t say I never gave you anything — and then it will be so big that it will be bigly.
And it will be a one-two punch from both big business and the big white house — inextricably intertwined now more than ever and being led by, as our luck would have it, a Marketer-in-Chief.
Business and government are about to band together to knock us unconscious again. It will be funded like no other operation in our lifetimes. It will be fast. It will be furious. And it will be overwhelming. The Great American Return to Normal is coming.
4.
...I beg of you: take a deep breath, ignore the deafening noise, and think deeply about what you want to put back into your life. This is our chance to define a new version of normal, a rare and truly sacred (yes, sacred) opportunity to get rid of the bullshit and to only bring back what works for us, what makes our lives richer, what makes our kids happier, what makes us truly proud. We get to Marie Kondo the shit out of it all.
We care deeply about one another. That is clear. That can be seen in every supportive Facebook post, in every meal dropped off for a neighbor, in every Zoom birthday party. We are a good people. And as a good people, we want to define — on our own terms — what this country looks like in five, ten, fifty years. This is our chance to do that, the biggest one we have ever gotten. And the best one we’ll ever get.
We can do that on a personal scale in our homes, in how we choose to spend our family time on nights and weekends, what we watch, what we listen to, what we eat, and what we choose to spend our dollars on and where.
We can do it locally in our communities, in what organizations we support, what truths we tell, and what events we attend.
And we can do it nationally in our government, in which leaders we vote in and to whom we give power. If we want cleaner air, we can make it happen.
If we want to protect our doctors and nurses from the next virus — and protect all Americans — we can make it happen.
If we want our neighbors and friends to earn a dignified income, we can make that happen.
If we want millions of kids to be able to eat if suddenly their school is closed, we can make that happen.
And, yes, if we just want to live a simpler life, we can make that happen, too.
...I beg of you: take a deep breath, ignore the deafening noise, and think deeply about what you want to put back into your life. This is our chance to define a new version of normal, a rare and truly sacred (yes, sacred) opportunity to get rid of the bullshit and to only bring back what works for us, what makes our lives richer, what makes our kids happier, what makes us truly proud. We get to Marie Kondo the shit out of it all.
We care deeply about one another. That is clear. That can be seen in every supportive Facebook post, in every meal dropped off for a neighbor, in every Zoom birthday party. We are a good people. And as a good people, we want to define — on our own terms — what this country looks like in five, ten, fifty years. This is our chance to do that, the biggest one we have ever gotten. And the best one we’ll ever get.
We can do that on a personal scale in our homes, in how we choose to spend our family time on nights and weekends, what we watch, what we listen to, what we eat, and what we choose to spend our dollars on and where.
We can do it locally in our communities, in what organizations we support, what truths we tell, and what events we attend.
And we can do it nationally in our government, in which leaders we vote in and to whom we give power. If we want cleaner air, we can make it happen.
If we want to protect our doctors and nurses from the next virus — and protect all Americans — we can make it happen.
If we want our neighbors and friends to earn a dignified income, we can make that happen.
If we want millions of kids to be able to eat if suddenly their school is closed, we can make that happen.
And, yes, if we just want to live a simpler life, we can make that happen, too.
https://medium.com/@juliovincent/prepare-for-the-ultimate-gaslighting-6a8ce3f0a0e0
5.
But only if we resist by looking toward the massive gaslighting that is about to come. It’s on its way. Look out for the vanguards and their signals. Move accordingly. In resistance. Through communications we can become, like the birds of North America, the "murmurations" of future forging.
