The Subtle or not so Subtle Messages of Lockdown
There's one word that we've been hearing a lot over this past year and a half which can really attack the psyche. It's a word that seems to be able to create division without us even realising it.
Essential
We've been classified into essential and non essential, important and not important, worthy and not worthy. This in countries where we've been trying to close the class divides, suddenly we have a new class system and once again a lot of us are at the bottom.
While in one way it's great to see acknowledgement that some workers provide way more to a functioning society than they were every given credit for, it still boils down to giving certain people more privileges than others.
These lockdowns have developed layers which cause resentment from the bottom up and unless you're exempt from them entirely, each layer still has one main thing in common and that is that you’re basically being told that your mental health is not important.
In the most privileged layer you have the “essential workers” who have to go out to the front lines and when they're done get no play time, but must head straight back home. Sometimes these homes have family waiting for them, sometimes they are empty. They do, however, get to interact with other people in real life while at work, gaining a small amount of much needed social stimulation. They also gain a position of respect under that label “essential” which tells their ego that they are more important than others and they get to continue making a living.
The next layer may not have the privilege of being called “essential”, but they can work from home, have a little bit of virtual interaction through zoom meetings and can also continue to make a living. Quite often they're the higher paid workers, too, because office work is often above basic wage, so this luxury of being able to work from home could go some way towards giving them back a little bit of feeling that they aren't entirely unworthy. Some of these stay at home workers might even enjoy the opportunity to spend more time with their family or partners, if they have them, while others will feel completely isolated.
Then you have the ones who aren't allowed to work at all. If they are in a country with a welfare system they might be able to receive a form of income at least, but not all of them qualify and the message to those particular ones is that they are so unvalued they don't even deserve to be able to feed themselves or keep a roof over their heads. We have more and more in the very latter circumstances here in Australia as the government struggles to keep paying out and tries to claw back payments “mistakenly” made and scrutinise every tax claim as we do this year's returns.
I feel like what is set in motion here is a great blame game as each layer looks enviously up at the one above and the ones who are working from home yell, “stay at home!” because they want to see the end to their own confinement and don't really understand what the bottom layer is struggling with.
Those in the coveted “essential” layer would likely rather be working at home or on welfare than having to continue their long hours without any sign of leisure time in sight, so we continue an attempt to soothe their egos with how essential they are, because if we're entirely honest, we know that their work is important to the functioning of society and us feeding ourselves. Meanwhile we resent that they aren't grateful for the fact that they at least have work when many don't.
There is a feeling of people being graded as “important”, “special”, “expendable” and then “not even useful enough to have a purpose before being expendable” and like chickens we keep each other in place with a pecking order.
Electronic-terrorism, voice to skull and neuro monitoring on Hive and Steem. You can ignore this, but your going to wish you didnt soon. This is happening whether you believe it or not. https://ecency.com/fyrstikken/@fairandbalanced/i-am-the-only-motherfucker-on-the-internet-pointing-to-a-direct-source-for-voice-to-skull-electronic-terrorism
Free the chickens!
Absolutely! The roosters too! 😆
You are totally getting it now. Proud of you for speaking up.
The penny dropped with something Alex Jones said, oddly enough. It's funny how you don't always see it to start with.
Took some way longer than you. At least you see through the lies, some still do not.
Lol..i just did a post about him... but if he's dropping pennies, all good!
He really is quite annoying, isn't he! 🤣 He can make some good points on occasion, though, if you can listen to him long enough to hear them. Normally I can't.
Each word is carefully chosen, from essential to submit on all those websites we use at home...all part of the programming
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While in one way it's great to see acknowledgement that some workers provide way more to a functioning society than they were every given credit for, it still boils down to giving certain people more privileges than others.
Funny how all authoritarianism looks the same, no matter what the difference in environment (I thought you were talking about hive...lol)
Lol! We're not all fixated on Hive. 😜
lol - tell that to the cult of hive - or rather, don't - you'll be downvoted to oblivion!
I keep picturing the security guard, walking back to his car at 9:30pm, after a long day of turning hundreds of hungry, unvaccinated people away from Woolies.
They have these ideas, up in their ivory castles; but where the rubber meets the road, our willingness to be civilised is what's really holding back chaos.
They make sure their rules get the credit; but it's only our patience and grace keeping bedlam at bay.
I feel like you are coming out.
Most of the people currently you hang out with are probably clueless and can’t help you and can’t provide any intellectual or physical support. This is true for many other clueless soul about science and technology. Choose your side :)
You've lost me. Science and technology?
I was discussing mental health and why people seem to be reaching such low points. There is a lot of talk about a "shadow pandemic of mental health" in this country at the moment.
Do you think that the messaging could have made a difference?
Is Mental health outside science and technology?
I can't say I'd connect it with technology (lobotomies excluded 😉) but I guess psychology is a science.
Our news stories refer to the huge rise in mental health calls, appointments and admissions as a "shadow pandemic." It's still a drain on the health system. Some of our states have been pretty restrictive and it's having an effect. Unfortunately, having the vaccine doesn't stop you having the same restrictions, although hope is being dangled now. Australia has been struggling to get enough vaccines, so we're rather behind in that regard.
Why nobody is reporting on the police brutality on its own citizen?
Things like this happening, I draw the line in the sand:
https://www.bitchute.com/video/ZtzErJkEdekt/?list=subscriptions
This is the true shadow pandemic.
Who do you report it to, the police?
That was from last year, when the police were still in blue. Have you seen what they're wearing now? They're like starship troupers in black. That was actually quite tame in comparison to what's happening now.
There are some inquiries happening and even MSM has picked up on some of the worst brutality. MSM reported up on a video of a 70 old woman that a cop zoned in on, pushed to the ground and sprayed capsicum foam in the face of, then another joined him in the spraying.
Then there's an inquiry into a guy filmed talking with the cops, apparently quite calmly, when one storms up from behind and body slams him into the concrete. You can hear the thud as his face hits the floor and he was unconscious in a pool of blood and urine while the others jumped in to "restrain" him.
These are likely only being addressed because they were being shared all over social media.
I've seen it don't worry, the day it was filmed. The woman was not a threat, and I can't believe I am saying that, but she should have been more weary of the people that are supposed to protect her, we are literally walking on our heads.
I watch Max Igan that is the only one reporting the insanity
https://www.bitchute.com/video/rQqpIzv1kRIm/
Australia is a training ground for the worst acts of tyranny, it's plain murder,
They are purposely hurting their own people, at that point it could just be mercenaries.
It's a good question, the only thing left to do is to tell the story to the rest of the world, because this is coming everywhere.
We have some others reporting too. I'm not sure if they've got anything off YouTube, though, so likely they're being removed. The Aussie Cossack has been getting some traction abroad. I think @buggedout knows some others.
Thanks, will check it out... I still think people need to share a little more to friends and families.
I am sure you know about Odyssey? It's like bitchute.
I have come across it.
Oh… there is no such thing called shadow pandemic.
There is a pandemic. Period.
Have you gotten your vaccine? If you can get it. End of story.
The art is not to choose a side, but to leave it open how one chooses to react at the moment of an encounter. The louder both sides shout or act superior, the less they contribute to ending enmities. In this way, one could assume that these enmities are mutually desired, no? Whereas the polarities and their extreme voices are basically nothing more than an expression that they cannot stand the fact that the centre appears to be undecided. The wisdom to speak and act at the moment of the event in such a way that no one feels like an idiot, regardless of which side they belong to, can be trained quite well at the moment, can't it?
In order to feel strong oneself, it is tempting to join a group and tell everyone else that they only need to make the same decision. In my view, however, this testifies to the all-too-human need to find security. Of course, it scratches at the stability of the individual to see oneself under a constant fire of the guiding principle "either you are for me or against me". But if one does so, one may make oneself a collaborator in a cause that, when it gets out of hand, leads to the very thing one pretends to want to pacify.
So, my answer to "choose a side" is: Nice try, Sauron - LOL
I'm going to throw the US clusterf*ck into this mess: here, "essential" workers still aren't generally afforded any respect, nor a salary decent to live on. Doctors and nurses, firefighters and paramedics, sure. But grocery workers are "essential" and they aren't even paid a living wage (usually, unless they're union, which some groceries are but not all) and suffer endless abuse from customers (which has by all accounts gotten WORSE during the pandemic with everyone's fuses being short to nonexistent). We've had grocery workers getting slapped in the face because they asked a customer to wear a mask when it was a state mandate to do so and other crazy stories like that.
So like, throw into the "make everyone hate and fight each other" mix, the US' tendency to say the nice words and make gestures that don't actually DO anything and then give workers the middle finger if they ask for, you know, enough pay to pay their rent.
In California, one city passed a law requiring hazard pay for workers during the pandemic, and Kroger (a major, nationwide grocery chain) just completely closed their two stores there rather than pay it. They have the money, they are a huge company. They just didn't want to.
Sigh. "Just be nice" is actually something positive I've been hearing and seeing a lot lately. As stressed as you are, others are stressed too and you don't know what their situation is, so better to just be courteous, surely, rather than make their life harder.
Exactly. And even if you hate covid restrictions? It's not the cashier's fault, or the receptionist, or the waitress, or whoever. I just don't understand why people punch down and take their frustrations out on those who have nothing to do with it.
It's an animal instinct to lash out when you're frightened, angry or in pain, but we have the capacity to rise above that...in theory...
Why don't you understand it? I would think it's obvious. Frustration and anger is a reason, for a start, is it not? It goes both sides, when it happens. I understand it, for the average peoples can't talk to those they think are more responsible for their personal miseries. In encounters at the groceries or doctors place or any other place you don't get to meet a politician or the boss. So you react to the nearest.
Apart from that, the vast majority behaves indifferent towards other people in the public. They neither yell at nor slap anyone. If you are a cashier or receptionist, you - if you think about it - know that it's not your fault that someone feels this or that way.
When you realize that you do not need to make yourself the long arm of the law, nor someone who joins the opposite side, you will notice that both sides exclude each other. The other, less loud, less extroverted ones don't seem to carry any weight, although that is why they carry the most weight. Choosing neither side can be a testimony to free thinking, to remain flexible in the moment of an event and encounter. One can be a nuisance, whether one abides by the rules or breaks them.
Just imagine for a minute, EVERYBODY would go along just fine with everything. Would you agree that this is an unrealistic scenario?
Hi to you,
my thoughts to your topic are:
Messages are thrown out and it's up to the individual if one takes them up or leaves them be thrown. From my point of view it's the over-identification with messaging this or that. If you think yourself you are not essential, the messages will be an insult to you. To avoid having to feel the insult, you identify with the term "essential" no matter if you are officially made a member of the essentials or not. So I think it's wise to not pick up the thrown out messages, for they will keep me busy and can lead to behave hostile towards those who easily over-identify with the message. It really is not important who determines whether I am essential or not, for no one can really tell.
If I give power to others to judge over me whether I am essential or not, I may feel that I am a victim. I admit that is a difficult task not to get heated or frustrated by the messages. But I see no other way than to not play this game, but to play another game, instead. The game of being unpredictable to all who believe in predictability. On a non conscious level, I guess, people already do that. They "mask" themselves in a metaphorical way and sail with the wind.
I think the answer is mainly directed at oneself: "Would I have more compassion for one another if the messaging was different?"
My answer is: But I have compassion, more than I usually think I have. I can wish for another messaging, yes, but I can support myself to ignore that I maybe "bad" or a "sinner" or "insane" (and project it onto others), which successfully avoids me to connect to my ability to be compassionate. When I let it happen, I (you) instantly can watch the results, right?
There are days when I am grateful to my oblivious nature so I don't generally notice when things are aimed at me. 😆
With regards giving power to the message, you are, of course, right, but for some it's easier said than done to ignore the messages and not let it get to you, especially if you're in a situation where everything seems to be saying the same to you while beating you down. I would compare it to bullying. Generally if you ignite the bullying or find ways to subvert it, it will generally go away. However, when it doesn't let up and keeps on, day in day out it starts to get to you and wear you down, no matter how upbeat you try to be. When that happens you start to believe it.
Now that is the million dollar question! I think you nailed the crux of it here. This is where watching some people can be like watching my chicken flock. They are all so desperate to feel just a little more important, even if it's just over one other. So when the most picked on flock member sees the newcomer, they delight in having someone they can finally put in their place.
Thank you, I very rarely win the million dollar pot ;-)
Lucky that chickens are chickens and people are people. Otherwise we might as well all be chickens. Although a chicken has little chance of attributing chicken-like characteristics to a human being, conversely, this happens across the entire animal kingdom, that they seem to be humans to us. HaHa!
Of course, how could I disagree with you in what you reply? Sometimes it all becomes too much. Although, I have to say from my experience, it depends on whether I get too fixated on something. The other day, while husband and I were watching funny videos, I pointed to a masked person very far in the background. And my man, "I didn't even see that." I immediately caught myself thinking, "Oh my goodness, you can't pay attention to anything else anymore!"
For me, this is becoming a real Zen exercise, because I want to learn to see the masked people as if they don't disturb me. Who knows when it will disappear from the public eye? I think I'm just torturing myself the most in the process and so I ask myself, "Okay, are you kind of into permanent torture?" Already I regret living in constant worry for the last year and a half, I could have probably spent my time a lot less worried.
That said, I'm far from my ideal: when someone really barks at me, I usually bark back. It's different online, where I can curb my impulses. I rather enjoy testing how much I succeed.
I could be the one shouting around and calling for justice, I've been without a job for many months, sacked for not wanting to wear a mask and test myself. If it was easy to swim against the current in these times, we wouldn't have such a current in the first place. But if I had been in a senior permanent position, I would have tried to have more influence on the upper and lower level. As many people are doing at the moment, rather unrecognised and without hanging it on the bell. They would gain nothing from it, rather the opposite. So everyone has their place in the world and everyone has an importance. Oh... I apologise for my tendency to monologue.
Greet the chickens :)
I love your monologues, so no apology needed. 😁