{"id":99183,"date":"2021-03-30T07:50:17","date_gmt":"2021-03-30T07:50:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.radiofree.org\/?p=180258"},"modified":"2021-03-30T07:50:17","modified_gmt":"2021-03-30T07:50:17","slug":"two-degrees-of-separation-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/2021\/03\/30\/two-degrees-of-separation-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Two Degrees of Separation"},"content":{"rendered":"
Zoom Lockup!<\/strong><\/p>\n There\u2019s this Zoom thing coming round the corner, once again \u2014 Earth Day 2021. The people on the Pacific Coast, Oregon, Central Coast with no industries, winds whipping up air vortices, and air as clean as what it might be in the middle of the ocean, and yet, we have the old white folk planning for some more Zoom Doom fun.<\/p>\n And not only is this a Zoom Doom \u201csame old usual suspects yakking fest,\u201d but, in fact, some local yokel and state yokel politicians get to bullshit their way through five minutes of nonsense.<\/p>\n The rules of Zoom like the rules of Earth Day 2021 are make nice, no contrarians, and alas, no one arguing. No criticism. Keep it upbeat and positive. Yep, we got Biden back in office \u2014 [Biden Backs Revival of His Brainchild<\/a>: Plan Colombia 2.0 Set to Begin Next Month \u2014 Colombia is set to return to a massive aerial campaign of spraying Monsanto\u2019s glyphosate across the country, a plan Biden once fought hard with his Republican colleagues to enact.]<\/p>\n That\u2019s it, really, in the fake world of Google, Twitter, YouTube, Facebook, Clubhouse, Slack, and Zoom. There are a thousand major software peddlers readying the schmucks for a digital world of work, world of schooling, world of public engagement (disengagement), world of commerce, world of culture, the world of arts, music, literature, world of medicine and health care.<\/p>\n Earth Day 2021 . . . 2022 . . . 2030!<\/p>\n On the one measly day of the year for celebrating ecosystems, waves, wind, soil, beach, harbor seals, eagles, gulls, cormorants, firs, pines and grasses, the decision to take this one indoors is emblematic of the colonized minds of the, shall I say, liberal class (sic). Neoliberal or demented Democratic minds.<\/p>\n No use asking me to make an alternative earth day for Lincoln County, some gathering on the beach or along a river (we have limitless beaches and thousands of creeks and rivers). In a rural community, in a community based on retirement, and then making dollars from travelers clogging Highway 101, clogging hotels, restaurants, rest stops, you can\u2019t expect any solidarity. The fact that this school system and those white collar jobs are now Zoom Rooms\/Jobs, brought to us in the privacy of their closets or garages or fancy offices, that baseline has shifted big time since the lock down of a year ago.<\/p>\n Talk about disruptive and destructive and killer technological shifts. No plan? Right!<\/p>\n Earth Day is Indigenous People\u2019s Year<\/strong><\/p>\n Yet, on a day of earth benediction, the day of bringing some socialist political zest to the table, a day when Native Americans and First Nations should be front and center, when consumerism-commercialism should be immolated in a symbolic burning of the sales receipts around a big fire, instead we have the Visual Display Terminal (as in terminal disease terminal) as our entry point and end point. One face to the crowd on the 14 inch screen, then our three minutes of Andy Warhol fame, and then, please move on. I am not on it this year, for sure, and last year I dragged myself to the thing.<\/p>\n Again, no expletives, no anti-Americanism, no antiwar, anti-patriotism or anti-politician rhetoric or song or poem. Keep it quaint, upbeat, positive.<\/p>\n I\u2019ve been in this rodeo before \u2014 and I polemicized it too, here, at Dissident Voice<\/em>: \u201cZooming Newport\u2019s Climate Awareness Earth Day 2020\/April 21st, 2020<\/a>\u201c.<\/p>\n It is, of course, deja vu<\/em>, and that\u2019s how the lords of capital want it \u2014 triangulation, and fear and, well, push those outliers out. I have found in the past year, more of the jobs, gigs, people I interface\/associate with, and other movements I have been a part of have turned into an \u201cus (them) against them (me)\u201d sick Nazi-like defamation of truth. Any critique of the one-party duopoly, any criticism of Harris or Biden, any criticism of the reality of this hegemon, USA, sick before Trump, sick during Trump, sick after Trump, and you not only get ostracized, but penalized. Stitched on Scarlet Letter A for \u2018anarchist,\u2019 red being the underpinning of what it means to be a \u2018communist-socialist.\u2019<\/p>\n Take the money and run \u2014 that\u2019s the motto, and so, before introducing a short animated video about climate heating and those two degrees Celsius, we have a bit of Haeder banter.<\/p>\n