On Thu, Apr 09, 2020 at 07:40:10PM +1000, Zig the N.g wrote:
Something to be grateful for - days off, a load off our shoulders, somewhat of a stasis in our respective countries, a calm and a time to contemplate.
Many years ago, weekends used to be a thing, in Australia from Saturday afternoon and through all of Sunday.
Then the large retail chains lobbied and stayed open all Saturday, then later, repeated this process for Sunday with some stores in busy metro city areas opening 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.
Our Sabbaths were thus taken from us.
We were complicit to some degree, most tacitly consenting to the oligarch's new regime, as we dutifully stepped up our hampster wheel trundling to a full 6, then eventually 7 days a week - working, schooling, shopping, working.
Most of the broader Commonwealth of nations essentially deregulated shopping hours from the early to the mid 1990s, often making this appear "ok" by having "govt. applications" and "licenses" to trade on the previously unsanctioned day(s), "most of South America by the 1980s" and throughout the '80s and '90s in most of the rest of the world.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sunday_shopping
Let's take 1990 as a benchmark and ignore the loss of Saturday afternoons, but include every Sunday of the year:
20 years is 52 weeks worth of Sundays = 1040 days
1040 days is roughly 3 years.
Now I'm not suggesting we aim to lock ourselves down for 3 years straight :)
But we can use this grant of "slow time" according to our own wisdom:
- We may do some of the indoor things we promised our children, spouse, self. We may contemplate on the wonder of life, the universe, our existence, meta awareness ("I am aware that I am aware", "I am aware that I feel ...", "I am aware that I may think a series of thoughts").
- We may contemplate the future and the type of world we might co-create with our fellow Souls - would we reclaim our "slow" days, be it a full weekend, an official sabbath, or something similar? (And note that mathematically, and also if you consider steadily roaming around the Earth from East to West only, and also depending on which calendar system you choose to use, whether your Sabbath is Saturday or Sunday is on each of these grounds alone, truly a moot point).
- Ought we have a global debt jubilee?
- How might we balance our duty of care to one another on various vectors (health/viruses, travel, speech, etc)?
- In what ways can we begin to hold our governments to account?
May your catch up sabbaths be fruitful for you and yours...
Thanks Z.g, that was great ;) Looks like some folks are putting a neurone into gear to think about these things: Is It Time For A New Direction? https://www.zerohedge.com/political/it-time-new-direction https://www.fff.org/2020/04/10/is-it-time-for-a-new-direction/ .. Let’s examine four systems under which we currently live and have lived for decades. America’s economic system This is a centrally planned and centrally managed system run by the federal government. Its central aim is to “wage war on poverty” by forcibly taking money from everyone and redistributing it to people in need, such as the elderly and the poor. It is based on massive confiscation of income and wealth by the Internal Revenue Service, in the form of income taxes and payroll taxes. America’s healthcare system This too is a centrally planned and centrally managed system run by the federal government. It is based on big, powerful central planning agencies like as the Centers for Disease Control and the FDA, as well as massive socialist programs like Medicare and Medicaid, both of which are responsible for foisting a never-ending healthcare crisis onto the American people consisting of ever-increasing healthcare costs that have bankrupted people or sent them into deep debt. America’s monetary system This too is a centrally planned and centrally managed system run by the federal government, specifically the Federal Reserve. From its beginning in 1913, its job has been to print up ever-increasing quantities of paper money to enable the federal government to fund the ever-increasing expenditures of the welfare-warfare state way of life. America’s system of empire and foreign intervention This too is a centrally planned and centrally managed system by the national-security branch of the federal government. Its job is to wreak death and destruction among foreigners and, in the process, bring ever-increasing amounts of taxpayer-funded largess to its army of well-heeled “defense” contractors, which are composed of former members of the national-security establishment. .. A different direction .. A free-market economic system Under this system, everyone keeps everything he earns — 100 percent, which enables everyone to save lots of money. No income taxation and no IRS. It’s a system based on 100 percent voluntary charity. This was America’s founding economic system for more than 100 years. It produced the wealthiest and most charitable society in history. A free-market healthcare system Under this system, the private sector and the free market are entirely responsive for healthcare. No more having to get permission from federal bureaucrats to produce test kits or anything else because the federal government will play no role whatsoever in healthcare. A total separation of healthcare and the state, just as our ancestors had the wisdom to separate church and state. This was America’s founding healthcare system and last for more than 100 years. It produced the finest healthcare system in history, one in which healthcare costs were cheap and affordable and in which doctors and hospitals treated the poor for free on a purely voluntary basis. A free-market monetary system Under this system, the free market determines the currency that is going to be used. No more Federal Reserve and no more legal-tender laws. For more than 100 years, America had the finest monetary system in history, one based on gold coins and silver coins. A free-market monetary system would improve upon that concept. A limited-government republic with a small, basic military force. No more national-security state and no more foreign military bases and foreign interventionism. No more sanctions, embargoes, invasions, occupations, wars of aggression, torture, state-sponsored assassinations, secret mass surveillance, and other destruction of civil liberties. America was founded as a limited-government republic, which lasted for more than 100 years.