Over the past year I have not written much here about the "Beer Bug", as the Youtubers call it in order to avoid censorship, nor about masks and the mandates to wear them, nor about the testing nor the shots that people are taking.
This is not because I don't have opinions or thoughts on these issues. Far from it. I have many thoughts and opinions. I just don't share them here.
This is because I know that this is a very important issue, with lots of ramifications on a personal and societal level, and mostly I feel ignorant about the important things in way that makes me reluctant to share my opinion in a way that might influence others. My opinions might be right. They might be seriously wrong. I loathe the idea of sharing ignorance.
This last point does not mean I defer to the experts that society, the government and the media proffer to us. In fact it makes me doubt them in a serious way, since I know that most of them are just as ignorant as I am. This opinion automatically catapults me into the "Camp of Suspicion" for many people. This is what I wanted to express today.
I have watched the Clown Parade in the media over the last year as it has swung wildly in telling us what the experts are supposed to want us to do. Although things keep changing, there is one constant in all this that comes from the media and there experts, and it is:
Out there in the world, and specifically in the parts of America outside the major cities, there are people who are not listening to us and that is a big problem. They are not following the directions. They are endangering everyone. by their refusal to do the right thing.
Of course we all know whom they point the finger towards. It is always the people who voted for a certain candidate in the last election. Whatever happens with this whole thing, we know one thing for sure---the responsibility for all the bad things is because of the Bad Man and his followers. It is the thesis that will predict everything.
Yesterday I got a message on Telegram, which I have begun using because of it is being used by some followers of the Bad Man whom I follow on Youtube. The message is from a high school friend who had long since made herself ostracized from the rest of the people we once knew because of her very public advocacy for what might be called Health Freedom. Although I have always been sympathetic to her cause, and supported her rights in this regard, both in behavior and expression, she has now become one of my allies in the bigger struggle going on.
I noticed that my friend, who is the wife of one of my other remaining friends from high school, was using a pine cone as her avatar. So I'll call her Pinecone as her code name. I don't think she'd care if I shared her name, because you can google her real identity and find articles she has written for the newspaper which have earned her the scorn of other people I know. But it is my practice her to be as discreet as possible
What she sent via the Telegram app was a short video by the CEO of the organization that runs Burning Man, which I used to attend (the last time being 2014). In the video, the female CEO was stating that Burning Man attendees would be required to proof of vaccination to attend this year.
I got a big laugh out of it. Burning Man began years ago as the ultimate escape of freedom, of people going out to the desert so they could drive around shooting guns out of the car windows at targets. Somewhere along the line it became the ultimate expression in Wokeness, all the while proclaiming that it has no ideology and that you can believe whatever you want, in terms of self-expression.
It is the natural progression of Burning Man. It's hardly worth saying that I have no plans to ever go back. In fact you couldn't pay me enough to go, even without a mandate for the shot in the arm. I'm glad I went because of the people I met, and the friendships it solidified (and also because it gave me an excuse to visit my Great Uncle Dick in Reno). But now it strikes me as the kind of debauchery that I would flee from at peril of my soul. The last time I was there I thought to myself "Lord, please do not choose this moment for Your Return, and find me dressed up in this silly costume in this vortex of wickedness." I should note that I always went with a Bible every time I went, sometimes thinking I was the only one who brought one. The last time I went, with Ginger, we posed as Icelanders, and put up and Icelandic flag, in part because it was sneaky way to display the Cross on our truck and turn it into an underground chapel.
But this isn't about Burning Man, this mandate. The proud matter-of-factness with which the Burning Man CEO announced her message is the kind of tone of voice that one here everywhere.
It is this: we are proud to do what we are told by authority.
And there is this added part in the tone: and we will judge with harshness anyone who doesn't obey authority in the same way we do.
This is no longer just about the disease, or the shot people are supposed to take. This is a society-wide effort to train people to do as they are told, for the good of all. Let's get everyone on board.
The underlying idea, that most people are only dimly conscious of, but with which they would agree if asked, is that if we can establish this precedent, then the sky is the limit in terms of how we can re-engineer the nation and the world for betterment of everyone, and for the Earth too. Think of what can be accomplished if people just followed the directions of authority. Think of the ills that could be eliminated. Think of the beautiful future we could achieve. We all just need to be on the same page.
The folks at the apex of the world power structure are quite open about this as a goal, although among us peons, if you point this out, you will be labeled a kook or a conspiracy theorist in the same old hackneyed way that few people even believe. The label of conspiracy theorist is just a reflexive action now. It is no longer an accusation that someone is wrong, or has a wild erroneous idea. It is the accusation that you don't have the right attitude about what is going on.
Expressing these thoughts as I have just done would make certain people I know, even remaining family members, enraged at me. How dare you! they would say. I would shrug. They need to judge me to feel good about themselves, I know. It is part of convincing themselves that they are one of the good people and that I am one of the bad people. Of course I pray for them and hold no personal animosity towards them as individuals. I still love all of them as much as I ever have.
The funniest thing is that most of them call themselves liberal. I get no end of humor thinking about that.
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