2021 – This Conversation

You can’t effectively boycott an entire state

This is a direct copy and paste from a Facebook post I made 7 September

We live our lives anyway we want in any manner regardless of whoever, but deep inside we believe that given a common threat to us all we’ll come together as one and fight to save ourselves.

COVID-19 HAS PROVEN THAT TO BE FANTASY!
This should be plenty clear by now.

So why are you calling for everyone to do this or that against Texas? No. There’s not even enough people on your side against Texas who can do this. That’s fantasy, mostly rooted in the success of civil rights movements. Beating on Texas ain’t the same beast and 2021 isn’t the sixties or Women’s Suffrage.

The only successful boycotts have been against single entities like a city bus line or a retail establishment. Even that was before half of even your parents were born. You don’t seem to understand the differences in society back then compared to now. You’re even totally lost on logistics.

Texas is a very large state with multinational corporations and brands operating there, but aren’t necessarily from there. Neither do you get the concept of conglomerates with multiple divisions and operations. Hundreds of companies are the type that can’t be boycotted from a consumer standpoint because they don’t operate in that sector.

So who are you going to pick on? Multinational commerce might feel for you, but it won’t stop for you. Airports will remain fully functional. Oil pipelines will still be open and farms and ranches of all sizes will still be doing their thing, etc.

Despite the power of the internet, communication is dysfunctional in our nation. How? Why? Because it requires us to stop our personal agendas, let down our guard and deal with people who we have isolated ourselves from. Basically, we’ve stopped communicating with each other.

I get it. In your frustration and anger you want to jump to the first idea that sounds right. You want to follow a plan from a meme somebody shared. You want to take it to them. You want to pummel some heads, but the last thing you want to do is the first thing you ought to do.

Stop. Think. Look at your options. Consider what you want to happen and all the steps and activity it takes for it to come together.

Stop looking at mass demonstrations as motivation to think “we can do it.” Those were one time events with specific locations and time frames. Yeah. We can work those kind of things out, but that’s not what you’ve got here.

Something else very important to understand. These Republican politicians and oligarchs don’t care. They’re secure in their kingdoms and matrixes. They’re comfortably confident in the continuation of their empires. Mass protests won’t work.

So where does that leave us?

I didn’t put all this out here in an attempt to discourage or antagonize. I did so hoping that you might grasp what you’re up against. You need to understand. We’re living in different times and what worked in the past won’t work now.

Again. Where does that leave us?

Calm down. Sit down. Take inventory of what resources you have access to. Think about what you personally can actually do. Consider your personal talents and how you can use them. Study what you’re up against.

Take off those old ideas, open your minds and come up with an entirely new game plan that, more than likely, has never been tried before.

The first thing we need is unity. Then communication and cooperation – a whole lot of it.

Think up a real doable plan. Don’t just go running down the street all angry with a stick in your hand.

You can do this. We can do this.

KARMA

While contemplating the fight for raising the minimum wage I noticed the juxtaposition of the problem employers are having trouble finding workers. It seems members of Congress and these companies failed to understand the significance of their opposition to raising the minimum wage. Raising the minimum wage isn’t a request.

IT’S A DEMAND

Now that people are having to return to work, they’re realizing a new bargaining power. This is what’s known in labor circles as a strike. As odd as the phrase might sound, unemployed workers are on strike for better wages.

Interesting enough is that labor strikes typically involve a labor union and planned strategies. This nationwide neo-strike is being carried out en masse by individuals not connected by union representation. Nor is it being done as an organized event.

“Karma s a word meaning the result of a person’s actions as well as the actions themselves. It is a term about the cycle of cause and effect. According to the theory of Karma, what happens to a person, happens because they caused it with their actions.”
— (simple.wikipedia .org/wiki/Karma, n.d.)

Change often gets a boost from a couple of forces colliding. What we are seeing is the collision of two forces. In order for either of these forces to function smoothly they must exist in unison with mutual benefits to each. The employer force in this equation has been operating at the expense of the employee force for too long. Change has been long overdue. The time for reckoning has come.

Interesting enough what government has failed to achieve is now being accomplished organically. For every action there is a reaction. This tsunami is the result of employers throwing employees “to the sharks.” President Biden and the members of Congress who have been on the side of the workers probably didn’t foresee this coming. Make no mistake. It was coming whether the Republican fueled force was prepared or not.

There is a word for this. Karma.

People Get Ready

People get ready. That’s the title of a song familiar to so many of us. I’m using this song title as the theme of my message, but it’s not in reference to a gospel classic. Instead I want to reflect upon what’s in store for our country with the new year and new administration.

What I love about you, my friends is your level of intellect and your ability to see things…. do I dare use that term? You know the one. See things as they are. I like that part of your character. Y’all have the ability to step back and take in the view. To observe and consider, not giving in to irrational thought. That’s why you’re not among those who currently are absorbed in a fictitious narrative of our country that’s so bazar that on many occasion we’ve been curious as to what world do they live in. People get ready.

We must prepare ourselves. We must get our minds ready for the coming year and all the events and activities that come with it. Many people are ready to rest confident that we’ve defeated the beast. Having fought the good fight so far… we’ve managed a bit of victory. Let me assure you, it’s a victory to be enjoyed only for a brief time because on the horizon we have a monumental task, the likes we have never experienced before.

I say we meaning us current residents of the United States. Our nation has faced momentous challenges before. It would be improper to state it as applying to the lifespan of our nation. I wanted to make sure that everyone understands where I’m coming from.

I’m not going to discuss our current situation and how it will affect the coming year. We’re well aware of it. However, my thoughts are towards the nature of that which is before us in respect to how our current situation will influence them. People get ready.

Like everyone else I would like to breathe a big sigh of relief and get back to a more mundane set of daily conditions. I want to say that like everyone else I’m aware that this opportunity is still far off, but I don’t feel comfortable about the “like everyone else part.” In fact you can say that I’m worried that not enough of us are aware of how far away we are from that moment of rest. That’s my motivation behind this message.

We have a number of complex issues that are on the verge of exploding with barely a moment’s notice. Feels odd to say that because it seems like we’re already drowning in exploded complex issues. Yet there’s still more to come. Kind of like those commercials trying to sell us some gadget always for the amazingly low price of $19.95 plus shipping and handling. But wait there’s more!

That more to come part is going to be a doozy, as they used to say, but we’re not really sure the amount of doozy that it will be. That’s why we must prepare ourselves. I don’t think it’s going to be as easy of a ride as some hope for or maybe think it will be. That’s not the doozy we’re looking for.

The situation is things are so potentially volatile that we aren’t sure of what to expect. It could be beyond our greatest fears or a little bit this side of insanity. We don’t know. We know the potential is there. People get ready.

We’re very much aware that a sizable portion of the citizenry of the United States is very much in opposition to our upcoming administration. So much so that they would rather fight against it than allow themselves to be governed by it. The number of citizens with such feelings are too many to not take this matter seriously.

So we’re going to need to deal with this foreboding uncertainty with a different mindset than even our mindset right now. There’s a certain phrase that can be used to describe that mindset – roll with the changes. Besides the fact that it brings my mind to a favorite song, I don’t think “rolling” is something that we’ll have much of a chance to do. So I don’t want to use that phrase; although it is along those same lines.

Expect the unexpected is what we will be facing. We won’t be able to think something is going to go a way that’s in our favor. At the same time we won’t be able to look for something that isn’t in our favor to be found in a particular place. It’s just that unpredictable. So we have to be ready for anything.

Nothing new about that. Being ready for anything. It’s kind of how we’re living now. No. It’s not because many of the things that we kind of take for granted right now are things that might change drastically. If we’re not ready to deal with it when it happens it potentially can overwhelm us. With the pandemic still a very big portion of our circumstances being overwhelmed might turn out to be deadly.

Going back to the mindset of too many of our fellow citizens, we’re looking at people who have lost their ability to think in a logically sound way. Their judgment has been compromised. Their morals, broken to the point of them not comprehending right from wrong, they’re struggling with a type of sickness. Yet they don’t think they’re sick. As a matter of fact they believe it’s others, not them, who are dealing with a form of mental sickness.

Given a set of circumstances their choices and behavior might be much different than what we’ve come to expect or understand. Again, this is a setting for danger much too problematic for us to take in stride with the normal happenings, the give and take, and the usual excitement of our days. If you’re not ready for this, chances are good that it’ll put you in a difficult conundrum. One that you may not be able to solve. People get ready.

With all of that we won’t be able to trust institutions to even be their usual untrustworthy selves… Did I just hear a bomb explode? For a moment there it seemed like someone had, perhaps, stepped on a figurative land mind and as a result things have gotten unmanageable. It’s going to take some effort to overcome such a situation. That’s not a pleasant thought.

You might be waiting for me to point out specifics about this upcoming time of uncertainty. I could try and do that, but there’s so much that can happen I would look like an uneducated fool trying to do so. What’s more important to know is that we won’t be able to rely on previous solutions to resolve the matter. That’s because, like I said before, some people just aren’t in their right minds anymore. They’ve lost that part of themselves and are greatly vulnerable to being persuaded into logic and behavior that doesn’t mesh well in a civilized society.

The most troubling aspect of that is how they’ve been conditioned to accept values that are a very dangerous threat to our society. To wit they have the mindset of potential terrorists… They’re in support of doing whatever they can to achieve their goals. They’re comfortable with creating fear and confusion, or even harming someone to achieve the outcome they desire. Yet we won’t be able to easily identify or isolate people of such intent because they’re already everywhere and they’re people whom we normally trust to be a certain way. People who are an integral part of our lives can become a threat to this entire nation.

It could be someone who you used to sit around a bar and have drinks while telling funny stories. Could be a person who you see somewhere often, but you don’t really speak to or deal with. Relatives or people you have entrusted with the care of your children, might turn out to be in that cluster.

They’re basically terrorists, or people who are very supportive of terroristic activity. We simply can’t expect certain people and institutions to be what we’re used to. That’s saying a lot because we’ve already been dealing with so many unreasonable people and institutions that no longer work over these last four years that we feel like it can’t get any worse, but it can. It can get worse.

People get ready. Ahead of us is a country, a society where our safe spaces will not be safe anymore. A society that makes the unusual usual and the usual a hoped for dream. Something as casual as going to dinner might easily become chaos with people being assaulted.

A doomsday scenario I have forecast to be sure. Hopefully, I could be very wrong, but if I’m right…. then what?

Back in 2017 I was trying to get people to understand that this man was setting up to be someone who gets people to change the United States into the type of society we typically very much oppose. They replied with typical excuses or explanations, but no one considered him a dangerous threat.

Some still don’t, but we now have a country with nearly half of its citizens believing a tremendous lie despite no real evidence. Even when people from their political tribe tasked with investigating it keep coming back saying it’s not true, what has been they’re response? Still nothing to worry about?

Ahead of us is a country that despite good changes in government is still a troubling enigma. We’re not very confident as we survey a future that has a strong possibility to be historically catastrophic. I’m pleading with you. Take this message to heart.

People get ready. They’ve changed the rules of the game that we didn’t even know we were participating in. Losing is fatal, and there are no time outs.

Peace be with you