At this point, both require magic, so maybe the plasma torches they use to try to get rid of nerve gas munitions? Dis-integration has many mechanisms.
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Itâs not really magic to shoot something into interstellar space, we did that way back in the year I was born. It might take awhile, but maybe thatâs appropriate.
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Ok. Not efficient without magic. I generally assume at least the attempt.
Davos has always been the same âconspiracyâ. Apparently the Q brigade noticed and are ramping up the confusion machine.
Naomi Klein has been following this for decades:
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Victory!
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Indeed, anyone with even a cursory knowledge of Davos speak, and the number of times it has attempted to rebrand capitalism as a slightly buggy poverty alleviation and ecological restoration program
Boy, thatâs a lot to get out of âEX-TERM-IN-Aâ⌠Oh, wait. No ârâ in there. Sorry.
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It also makes it harder to talk about the profound realignment our economies and societies desperately need, a vision a group of us laid out in the short film we released way back in October called âThe Years of Repairâ â because now all talk about how we change for the better in response to the cruelties that Covid-19 has unveiled is immediately smeared as part of the Great Reset. As the historian Quinn Slobodian recently wrote, years after âThe Shock Doctrineâ was published, âthe right was now appropriating this narrative for its own ends.â Meanwhile, the less fantastical but extremely real shock doctrine maneuvers currently waging war on public schools, hospitals, small farmers, environmental protections, civil liberties, and workersâ rights receive a fraction of the attention they deserve.
Oh, those things have been under attack sinceâŚwell, the beginning of the Industrial Revolution?
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Since rich people formed gangs to pillage without accountability, so ⌠like ⌠twelve thousand years. Thatâs not a reason to stop trying to deal with the problem though.
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One of the biggest culture-class wars going is the so-called âWar on Drugsâ. So it makes me glad that instead of the âJust Say Noâ I grew up with to see things like this:
That is the BC Center for Disease Control as weâre dealing with both the COVID pandemic and an opioid epidemic.
Donât be fooled too much â the cops will still use the WoD to hassle folks if they feel like it â but this is the kind of messaging my province has taken the last few years. Another prominent ad campaign is humanizing addicts, emphasizing that addiction is just one part of a personâs personality (versus the older â albeit still popular in some circles â âjust a junkieâ implications). Harm reduction isnât new: for years the province resisted Stephen Harperâs best attempts to shut down what was at the time the only safe-injection site in the country, but itâs only been lately that itâs become such public policy.
One big driver is the opioid crisis where suddenly âgoodâ people started finding themselves and their loved ones caught up in addiction, when beforeš it was weak-willed, poor and/or (especially) First Nations and Indigenous people (Canadaâs racist target of choice)², who middle class (white) folks had no problem locking up or dealing with punitively. When suddenly itâs Greg from work, instead of someone from the DTES, priorities change.
And then came along COVID-19. And while weâre managing better than places like the US, UK or Brazil, thatâs not a high bar. Our medical system canât handle both crises going full-bore at once. And COVID donât care. Itâs not checking your income status before sending you to the hospital. And since every BC residentÂł is covered under MSP, thereâs less people dying at home simply because they canât afford the bill. I wonât say zero, but itâs a smaller part of the calculus than in the US. Throw in an already strained court system that now has to juggle social distancing and public health measuresâŚ
And so, suddenly, to meet the operational needs of the healthcare system, thereâs been an even bigger ramp-up of government promotion of harm reduction versus criminal enforcement (I say enforcement, because the province has zero say over whether something is criminal or not, but can â especially with the help of municipalities â decide what priorities are most important). So, weâre seeing this cultural shift move hard from âNever, everâ to âNever is best, but if you must, hereâs how to do it safe-ishly.â
I say suddenly, because when I was a teen and young adult, âharm reductionâ was something only bleeding hearts and suckers were supposed to believe in, and now itâs the middle-of-the-road, somewhat conservative option. Less, I think, because we got more progressive and more because a âthemâ problem became more obviously an âUsâ problem, and progressiveness was forced upon us.
My hope is that we keep going. That criminal enforcement of illegal drug use finds a priority somewhere below having your dog off-leash at the on-leash park. That we continue the shift into thinking in terms of public health instead of punitive measures and smug superiority. That we provide supports instead of shame.
Itâs propaganda, sure. But changing the official dialogue around addiction and mental health can help close down a front in this war. There are plenty of others, but to see so public a change is encouraging. Once people get used to policies that make life better, rolling them back becomes a riskier proposition. Far more dangerous to afflict the comfortable than merely not comfort the afflicted.
In a world where people seem determined to make cruelty the point, I will take my points of hope where I can.
šNah, not really. But âthe bad thingâ always seemed to be happening to some other poor sap to be whispered about, not us.
²Of course the reality is that everyone deserves dignity, and the whole thing of us/them is an illusion â but superiority is a hell of a drug and Canadians really arenât as nice as we pretend.
ÂłLegal resident, of course. You canât just move here tomorrow and get coverage.
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Points and laughs
Yeah, I got no sympathy for this. A poor person locked out of their bank account is one thing, because we as individuals donât get much of a choice about living under capitalism where being unbanked can fuck up large parts of basic survival, but these guys made a choice. Nobody forced them to invest in Bitcoin. You donât have to have it to buy food or pay rent on a shitty apartment.
Besides, if youâre going to be so stupid as to go this route, then at least be smart enough to write your password down and store it in a safety deposit box somewhere. If youâve got the spare cash to invest in vaporcash, you can afford rent on a box.
Donât ever let anyone tell you that rich people are rich because they know how to manage money.
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No, they know how to accumulate it huge amounts so that losing a little bit doesnât hurt them.
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Or losing all of it. Connections equal leverage.
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I think you just have to be consumed with making more and more money, as vocation and avocation. No distractions.
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Thieving corporate bureaucrats rely on bullshit justifications:
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âBeing poor is expensive.â
Back before I could afford to save up a lump sum to pay my insurance each year, I was on the âmonthly payment planâ aka, a loan. Basically, the corp writes a loan including interest for that yearâs worth of insurance, and you pay it back monthly. Said interest is less than a standard credit card, but not nothing or even minimal. Which, of course, makes it harder to save up for next year, trapping poorer people in a cycle of poverty, especially when they are more likely to need a personal vehicle due to poor public transit and high housing prices that force them to live further away from work.
Basically, the equation is the Sam Vimesâ âBoots Theoryâ turned into math. It is also, incidentally, my justification for game consoles and games: a $500 console for 5 years and an $80 game played for $400 hours work out as cheaper entertainment than going to the movies regularly. I have had plenty of people who pull the âYouâre going to spend $500 on a toy and $80 on a gameâ line on me be taken aback when I explain itâs cheaper in the long run than their movies and dinners out, that the game console is also a blu-ray player and streaming services box, and is less than a decent computer that will probably still require upgrades before the 5 years is up.
I refuse to begrudge a poor person a TV and Xbox/Playstation/Switch. That may be the only source of entertainment they have, and the C/T is way cheaper than what an average, non-poor person pays without thinking about it. I have a 12 y/o 40" flat screen. It gets used a lot, almost daily. Poor people buy one cheap on Black Friday, or second hand from someone who decided to upgrade to a brand-new 8K, then use it until it dies, but still people use that as a shorthand for wasteful spending.
I know that I went a little off from the article, but itâs all part of the same vicious system.
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I remember when folks who worked at a McDâs in Detroit, specifically on E. Jefferson Ave near Belle Isle, were striking for this, and my ex-bestieâs daughters both said that no one who works in fast-food should get more than min wage, as no one who didnât have a college degree should get paid that much.
One is bi-polar and famous for not taking her meds, in her early 30s; the other quit nursing school at U of D/Mercy practically just before she wouldâve been graduated, and took a job at a âclassy barâ in Roseville. There are NO classy bars in Roseville, with perhaps Mr. Paulâs Chop House being an exception.
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