I found it interesting that mutual aid anarchists from Occupy were able to reconnect around supporting the at-risk during the spread of panic in the USA. The national mutual aid chat (unfortunately on slack) has over a thousand community organizers on it -- people who were forcefully dispersed and isolated by collaborating business and government agents worldwide last decade. These mutual aid anarchists and other supporters of aiding those at-risk from coronavjrus have had Signal groups running in most areas now, focused on distributing supplies and support to people in need whenever the need arises. I mentioned near the start of the development the value of wearing masks. During Occupy masks were worn for anonymity and safety and other reasons, and laws were passed to make it illegal in my areas. Now they are worn everywhere. It felt like some in power could have wanted to heal some of the harm caused when the Occupy movement for economic freedom was disrupted. If you're going to be e.g. surveiled for the rest of your life it's nice to be doing something you enjoy doing during it. I'd rather be deep in a cave eating bats and hiding from drones tho ;P On Mon, May 18, 2020, 3:00 AM grarpamp <grarpamp@gmail.com> wrote:
https://www.aier.org/article/the-2006-origins-of-the-lockdown-idea/
Now begins the grand effort, on display in thousands of articles and news broadcasts daily, somehow to normalize the lockdown and all its destruction of the last two months. We didn’t lock down almost the entire country in 1968/69, 1957, or 1949-1952, or even during 1918. But in a terrifying few days in March 2020, it happened to all of us, causing an avalanche of social, cultural, and economic destruction that will ring through the ages. There was nothing normal about it all. We’ll be trying to figure out what happened to us for decades hence. How did a temporary plan to preserve hospital capacity turn into two-to-three months of near-universal house arrest that ended up causing worker furloughs at 256 hospitals, a stoppage of international travel, a 40% job loss among people earning less than $40K per year, devastation of every economic sector, mass confusion and demoralization, a complete ignoring of all fundamental rights and liberties, not to mention the mass confiscation of private property with forced closures of millions of businesses? Whatever the answer, it’s got to be a bizarre tale...