Humanity stands on an edge. Look past today: the next pandemic is already known to be inevitable as long as we continue the economy as it was in 2019. Inevitable. The entire objective of the leadership / wealth class is to restart that economy.
Do we really want another of these?

2. We know for scientific certainty that if we restart the economy of 2019, climate change will destroy any semblance of today's life if the next pandemic or the one after that doesn't. These things are as close to absolute scientific fact as humankind can produce.

3. We know with scientific certainty that the only way to limit the deaths and rates of this pandemic is to bring the 2019 economy to as close to a dead halt as is possible without widespread starvation.
That's what Korea did. It worked.

4. From the public conversation that I am aware of, which is limited mostly to Twitter, @maddow, @NicolleDWallace , @washingtonpost, @Guardian, @MotherJones , and weird shit I look up on the internet, from that conversation, there is no discussion of accepting the new speed.

5. What humankind needs, all of humankind, is enough to eat, safe shelter, clean air and water, and a community of other humans to be part of. We need to start there. Right now we're failing it horribly, while creating pandemics.

6. People think that I am talking about some "going back." In point of fact, humankind writ large has never lived in the way that we need to develop if we are to survive in anything resembling a decent life.
Most people today, right now, with the pandemic, have shitty lives.

7. They can't do anything, go anywhere, or in any way except electronically can they participate in human community. We need this. Once again, I'm not some goofball, ask any real scientist, any PhD credentialed expert, we need that. And it's broken, today. Even for me.

8. I can't go to the liquor store and buy a six-pack or a bottle of whiskey, maybe some rolling papers, and lean on the counter and bullshit with the guy there. I don't even know his name, but we're friends. I miss him. I might not see him for months, but it's always there. Could

9. I'm not saying I'm picked on. I'm saying that the whole thing is broken, and I live in it just like everybody else. Donkeys are cool, but I'm actually still a human, y'know?

10. We could build a global economy based on where we are today, on serving the immediate needs of everybody, without hurting anybody but a few billionaires, and we wouldn't be taking their money away from them, we'd just quit giving them more of ours.

11. I've got twelve thousand of you, according to Twitter. Out there in the infofog that is the global infotainment and noise there are a handful of others, most better known than me, like Rupert - is it Reid? The guy with @ExtinctionR . There is @HelenaNHodge . But - this topic

12. Everyplace you look somebody is saying, "Well, yes, I know it *looks* like the whole world is getting well before our very eyes, but when we turn the machine back on it'll be worse than ever," with the assumption that WE HAVE TO TURN IT BACK ON.
Why?
It's killing us.

13. What will it take to get this taken seriously? I hate to be this way, but this really pisses me off. All. The. Science. We've got an army of especially young people going around yelling Believe the Science, and -
They're ignoring 95% of it.
I refuse to play along.

14. Science: People who walk four to five miles a day are some ridiculous percentage less likely to die next year no matter their age, other factors, nothin'.
Everybody screaming about health care.
PARK THE FUCKING CAR. You'll be way more likely to survive the next year. Science.

15. Everybody screaming, "I'm lonely, I need to be in a church of 1,000 people for Easter,"
Bullshit.
Wherever two or three are gathered.
The goal should be to see if we couldn't, like, visit the neighbors, after a couple-three weeks and neither of us are sick.
Human community.

16. Everybody is trying to keep the old economy on life support.
Think about this: We - the public, the taxpayers, the people of the United States - are giving money to billionaires right now so they can keep the cash flowing in the global machine with no output. But they can't.

17. We are in a spot right now in the United States where untold millions of our citizens and neighbors are scared shitless because they have absolutely no access to food or to shelter except by money, and that machine is broken.

18. And our entire government, all the Democrats too, are saying, "We've got to keep this money machine running so the people can eat and live under a roof," but that's the wrong approach.
Step 1: Make sure everybody eats and sleeps indoors.
They're not even talking about it.

19. I guarantee that if Jared Kushner is your landlord, you're worried about getting to keep a roof over your head.
This is serious.
I don't care if you agree that we need a local economy to provide minimal services in the long run, but we damn sure need one this week.

20. You live in a country where Walmart, often the only source of raw food to prepare in an entire region, is limiting access to their stores to a level that could be served in a country store.
Hey I have an idea.

21. The government is going to fund something. The universal, unchallenged assumption is that it ABSOLUTELY MUST FUND a continuation of the same industrial machine that spread this pandemic worldwide in, probably, about three weeks.

22. It is not an accident that the centers of infection worldwide are the centers of industrial global commerce. The technical term is "cause and effect."
Once again, how to we fight the pandemic?
Shut down the high speed economy.
What is the by-product?
Immediate ecological

23. The machine has, mostly, stopped. Instead of killing ourselves to get it restarted, we seriously need to build a usable one from here.
And nobody
no
buddy
Why can't we be included in the conversation?
Sneered at. Laughed at. Luddites.

24. Now they're saying, "Hey, it ain't so bad, flu kills so many, particulates kill so many..."
Yeah. About that.
We don't actually have to have an annual global flu pandemic either. Waving it off because the vaccine *almost always* works isn't that bright, y'know?

25. Particulates kill as many people worldwide every year as this pandemic looks like it's going to kill, although of course the final score ain't in, either.

26. And a lot of people dying of the virus are weakened by the buildup of atmospheric ashes, brake dust, and tire dust in their lungs.
We don't have to do this.

27. It appears to me that the best bet is that the machine is going to have to be maintained on life support, where public money is oxygen, until a vaccine is developed, and the best guess on that is about a year and a half minimum.

28. In a year and a half we could have - in fact, we almost have to have - a functioning local economy which provided for life's needs for all the people wherever they were.
This means right now, the government ought to be offering subsidies to farmers to plant local diets.

29. The global food trade is ridiculous. We sell soybeans to China, China sells soybeans to us. Give me a break. Raise enough soybeans for the local market, hog feed, oil, whatever, and RAISE FOOD GODDAMMIT you're supposed to be FARMS!

30. Everything wrong with the livestock industry, animal torture, vast pools of deadly poison manure, all of that, is because we have to be FAST and FEED THE WORLD and that's a lie, and
Right now. Today. It's broken.
It's broken because it is critically flawed.
Doesn't work.

31. I'm serious. My slow economy threads get ten, twenty likes (And I know you all by name, and thank you for being alive) and five retweets, but everybody knows it's not "realistic."
"People won't."
"Millions will die."
Millions are dying. Now what?
People won't?

32. I would say someone who can't leave her house would be grateful for a corner store to go to. But that's just me.
Anyway - the same old story.
Later, y'all. Donkeys are calling for supper.
--j