NOW: I have decided to give up my "Now Page" experiment. I
wasn't touching it NEARLY as much as the label would imply
and certainly not as often as I wrote a new phlog entry. So
from now on, as needed I will preface the body of my phlog
entries with a 'NOW' section to detail any key current
activities.
main(void) /* The New Normal and Stuff */
(THIS PIECE JUST GREW WAY TO LONG. I UNDERSTAND IF YOU
DECIDE NOT TO READ IT THROUGH -Tim)
"I suppose we will get used to it. Things are looking like
this _should_ be the new normal for many months. That will
be a tough sell to people. Many still do not buy into the
risks and are making poor decisions. I am hopeful that
something can get sorted out sooner than months... but it
does not seem likely."
Sloum's 'Pandemic Log (pt 1)
This has been my perception for (maybe two weeks now?) and
it's not a hard sell at all. Though, I understand that
everyone in evolving slowly, at different rates and I feel
I'm oddly 'lucky' for this world-view at the moment. Unlike
most people who don't phlog (or blog, or keep a journal) I
have the ability to look back on my chrystalized thoughts of
past moments. I see my resolution to slightly improve my
gardening skills. I see my concerns for the Big Issue - the
Climate Melt-Down. Making stuff with LDPE bags? All these
things and more must needs take a back seat to honing my
more practical skills in earnest.
I'm well aware that I'm one of the lucky ones. While our
household income is actually below the 2009 MHI for our New
York county, I consider us positioned well. Owning a local
'non-escential' shop, my wife and I are at least temporarily
out-of-business. Having not been Employed we can not avail
ourselves of any of the safeguards for the un-employed. We
don't have employees ourselves anymore having three years
ago come to the realization that being a boss is not moral
[Anarchist Praxis is never the easy route].
We are lucky. We live on an acre I'm diligently transforming
into a smallholding [1]. We have a car yet it would only
take 1/2 day to go to town and back for supplies on foot.
The house is on-grid but has the ability to support us
off-grid confortably. I've been a bushcrafter for twenty-odd
years and we're a couple of weeks away from the fist of the
choice wild edibles. Also we're comfortable spending long
periods together so the risk of homicide during social
distanciing is rather low. :-D
I make wine. I bake all our bread. I cut my own hair... I
confess I feel a little awkward about looking into the
future contentedly while the majority is scrambling to
stave off negative impacts.
Sloum is right. His take jives with my best friend who
teaches business in Seoul who writes: "I am a little bit
afraid that we may have a new normal after this
Coronavirus." I agree. Things will change. Notably climate
efforts, our tolerance for oversight, and meatspace
shopping.
Global Warming on the Back Burner:
I'll admit to being pretty extreme when it comes to being
aware of and trying to minimize my waste contributions and
even I have found myself purchasing more single use products
in the name of 'necessity'. We've also started using our
furnace more. See, we're on a budget plan for fuel oil that
adjusts once a year whereas our electrisity is billed for
actual usage monthly. Since much of our electric is
generated by hydro in our area we prefer this cleaner source
for heat. The result is that our electric bill jumps from
~$35US in June to ~$120US in February. To keep costs down
over the next six months, we're burning more hydrocarbons.
/* This is a good place to give my best advice *
* to you for this: START ONLY MAKING MINIMUM *
* PAYMENTS to your loans and credit cards. *
* In good times it's prudent to double up but *
* you need that double mortage payment more *
* than your bank does right now. Stash it in *
* your savings for the time being. */
Ceeding More Power to the State: We're only a month into
this, but our masters have already enacted countless small
pieces of legislation to help them 'control' the crisis. Not
all of them have to do with directly protecting the most
physically vulnerable of our comrades. There are end-runs
being put in place daily concerning industry bail-outs, the
use of the military, protections for the bosses, and more.
These will not go away and no one dares reasonably challenge
even the most egregious of these invasions in such a time of
"crisis". When we add to this the efforts of the neo-KGB
agit-prop machine and the fact that phrases like
"Chinese-Virus" are being popularized by both the dim and
clever, we need ask ourselves what can we really expect from
the future. Fashism is not dead, it's just taken decades to
buff out the Nazi patina.
Going to the Shops: Why is an avowed Anarchist concerned
with this? Capitalism isn't going away - not in my lifetime
at any rate. The proper mindest and basic tenets are not
part of the Workers' world-view. Capitalism has ensured that
a life without capitalism is virtually impossible at the
moment. Money is required at the very least for taxes. Even
on Turtle Island we are not at liberty to enjoy the fruits
of a stolen land without paying yearly tribute to the state
in the form of property taxes. (There are plenty of cogent
responses to the "but who will fix the roads" thing and I'm
not doing that here. This entry has run way too long as it
is.) We MUST work for the bosses even if we have no boss. At
the least this means being "self-employed" and the way my
wife and I have chosen to do this is via shops. Our shops
are modest but generate enough business for us to live
without constant fear of empoverishment. During the COVID-19
pandemic people are shopping on-line. Understandable.
However e-retail giants are gaining vast market penetration
that they will not simply give up post-crisis. Yes. I'm
daring to say that COVID-19 will be the last nail in the
coffin of Brick & Mortar Retail. The corner shop will die of
SARS.
This turned into some monster of a Manifesto-Rant as I was
typing. It's way too long and rabmles more that I'd like but
I'm choosing to leave it here if only so I can look back on
it in a month or so and see where I was at on this day.
I hope you and all you love are well and safe my friend.
_____________________________________________________________
[1] A smallholding is a tiny subsistence farm supporting a
single family.
