Californians on Beaches and Trails Called DEFIANT!

[beechnut79]

(03-24-2020, 01:16 AM)Eric the Green Wrote:

(03-23-2020, 04:00 PM)TheNomad Wrote: ... this virus is just a bad cold, and the government is going to use it to obtain yet more power.  With every Crisis, there has been a vast expansion of 'higher power'.  It certainly happened in the last Crisis.  Everything we think of as modern in America came from then... in terms of the Collective.  Where, the Personal came later with Awakening, of course.

I'm not a person that is loving this situation.  Not just because I feel interruption of MY life and those I care about, but because I inherently despise being told what to do.  I'll admit that.  Yet, it comes from my youth in the raw rebellion against powers of any kind.  I don't like them nor the idea of anyone in 'office' telling people on the ground how to live.  And I've a long-standing hate for ever-encroaching authorities who say they are doing good but just becoming personally wealthy through influence.

You say sacrifice.  You anecdoted the story of the man who wanted to DO something when told not to.  He was trying to do something... and action... to assist.  He was being told exactly what to do but didn't want to do that?  Wanted something else instead?  We are being told to sacrifice by NOT doing something.  By not doing ANYTHING.  

There was an article today, someone blasted "this is not a WAR, far from it."  Which is true.  No one believes they are battling anything.  There is no war.  By the narrative here, many of us will die................................. OR WE WON'T.  There is no real or true diagram of any of it.

We are being told, stay inside of you and/or others will die.

We need to really think about that for a moment instead of knee-jerking.

I go out every day, I get a coffee and since this, I've been driving around observing.  Going to the store when I need something.  Definitely exercising outside without fear.  I am being told by others "you go out too much" and "you are putting others at risk" and "why do you want to spread the virus".

So, you are a typical Nomad. You are just being who you are. Not unexpected, judged or blamed.

But what we've had since you guys have been around, and as we prophets have adapted to you guys and been pilloried by you guys and given in to your criticisms, is Reaganomics. We have gone way too far in the individualist direction. We need for the state to have more power. Of course, what kind of power, is the question. More power like FDR, Truman, Ike, JFK and Lyndon Johnson had? Or more power like Hitler and Stalin had? In America, perhaps we can hope the former is more likely. But paradoxically, in the Reagan era of the last 40 years, power more like Hitler had has increased despite the individualist rhetoric. So, it depends what the people decide. Keep Mussolini in power, or not?

I say, allow our knees to jerk, and embrace some groupthink for a while. Act for the good of the country, as JFK said. Go outside and shop as needed, but stay a safe distance from others for a month or so, to help yourself and others. And hope that some of this new collective action continues. After 40 years of regression into enabling concentrated wealth and rampant greed and abuse in the name of free enterprise, we need a new direction. We need progress, achieved together among progressive people.

But progress can also be a very misused word as well.  Is it really progress when the interests of Wall Street consistently trump those of Main Street, as they have for the better part of four decades? And when fertil farmland is destroyed to make room for shopping malls and office buildings, which in a way are now themselves on the wane?