In today’s news, friend hooked me up with the “Reopen California” group so I could see what was up behind protests in Huntington Beach and Simi Valley (and Michigan).
How I went in (charging of course) was: (a) I’m looking for a -sensible- timeline for re-opening the state, given that if we get it wrong, lots of people may die, and (b) have you folks studied the 1918 Kansas flu pandemic, because you are -really- repeating history with your demands to reopen NOW.
What I learned was this: they believe there is something called the Resistance. The Resistance is trying to destroy all freedom(tm)-loving(tm) AMERICANS(tm).
There is also the government. In California they are socialist bastards who have turned the Great(tm) State(tm) into a communist third world hellhole. Their sole purpose? To shove us into our homes so we can become consumer units dependent solely on our Marxist Masters.
Businesses are fine. If they can’t weather something like this, they deserve to die.
In that group, they doxxed several members of government, called on both violent and non-violent actions against, spoke in racists dog-whistles / tolerated it when people did so, planned on both violent and non-violent protests against local and state government and also spoke loudly about how we should just up and die and get back to work.
And Trump, through his common sense, is as enlightened as Dr. Phil and both know better than the “so-called experts” who are only doing this so that the hospitals get paid without having to do the work.
There were several good people on-board. Skylar and Kino, both holding very cool conversations with me re: my initial premise. They were searching for answers, too & I appreciate them. Some others too. Neat people.
But oh boy what a group of sincerely paranoid others.
Also, the group claimed 50K members (wonder how many are bots and how many are lookie-loos) BUT only the same 100 people were showing up for the protests.
Oops. Guess they’re not as supported as they think they are.
Anyways, that’s my report. As I told them, I’m well aware of the science behind the viral spread AND the sociological impact of a shutdown like this. No easy paths forward.
I maintain it’s time to forge a new one.