If your idea of liberation is the freedom to get drunk while being exposed to a deadly virus, it’s fair to say you probably don’t have a great understanding of oppression.

A thread about the mess around us...
Current events draw a line under a problem at the heart of our society which is much deeper than the national alcohol problem we perhaps should have spent a lot more time discussing - the only thing which needs repeating is: alcohol consumption has no place in a crisis situation.
You don’t drink and drive, because it affects your judgement, so it’s fair to say you can’t safely navigate a pandemic either.
Nonetheless, here we are. The ultimate population control mechanism is back in action, dulling the masses. One step up from bread and circuses.
The real problem underlined, however, is our inability to discern inconvenience from oppression. An absence of knowledge when it comes to the difference between “I want” and “I need.”

Grandparents used to tell us “I want doesn’t get." Now: I want will get you COVID19.
This is our environment, one which shapes a future now completely beyond control. Will there be more deaths? It’s highly probable. Can we mitigate this risk? It’s now near impossible. There have been conscious decisions made to restart the economy, to return to how it was before.
Brexit looms large once more too, with the likelihood of no deal now all but formally signed off.
Not that this shifts our near future landscape as much as it once did. COVID19 has shifted so many risks globally that leaving the EU without a trade deal in place no longer matters.
Britain is left in the unenviable position where it is going to have rush, and bodge, and settle because it has thrown itself headlong into the worst possible approaches to pandemic management and global trade in the worst possible moment imaginable.
Some countries will recover swiftly, others will not. Those who co-operate stand a better chance, those who chance it stand a worse chance.

There’s no point continuing to play make believe games or calculating everything we do based on the upside. It’s just rainbow chasing.
We face some well solidified risks.
Economically we are sitting in a spot worse than any encountered for generations. As the furlough scheme comes to an end the true scale of the employment mess will be revealed.
Our hand in global trade is weak – we don’t really make anything and we rely so heavily on imports that we’ll have to accept substandard food products in order to eat. Beggars, as they say, can’t be choosers. And that’s the position we’ve chosen to start from.
We’ve picked this environment. We’ve shaped it. And now we have to live in it.

Those who see oppression in not having haircut for a few months are on the cusp of discovering that there are much worse things in the world.

So, what can we practically do?
We’ve talked before about starting small, with you. Building your personal resilience and the resilience of your household so you are personally in a more secure position and less susceptible to shocks. But beyond that what can be done?
The whole point of starting there is because once you are secure, you can invest the time and effort making sure somebody else is secure. Then, together, you can make sure somebody else is secure, and so on.
This is the very start of a long road. An opportunity to rebuild.
Approaching community build from the starting point of resilience also means that politics does not need to play a central role, in turn reducing the toxicity which has blighted every day of the last few years.
Politics then becomes a thing which happens but does not impact you.
If it doesn’t directly impact you, because you are building communities with resilience at their core, what happens?
Politics loses influence.

When politics loses influence, its preservation mechanisms kick in and it adapts to the environment to make itself relevant once more.
So, in short, by starting small, then building communities which are geared towards taking care of each other no matter what happens around them, the long term effect is that politics realigns to the community in order to prevent itself from fading away.
Resilience at a person level adapts you to your environment. Resilience at a community level will eventually moderate political behaviour, rather than allowing politics to moderate community behaviour.
You hear people talking about taking back control and, really, this is the practical application of it in the way it should be used.
The power to keep politics in check has always existed in our communities. We’ve just gotten so lost in the “I want” we haven’t used that strength.
It’s partly why driving us to drink is such an effective control measure.
If you can convince people that long term goals aren’t attainable – building a politics moderating community – then you can convince them that medium term goals aren’t achievable – such as owning houses.
Once you’ve done that, you create the belief that short term goals are all that exist and moderate behaviour right the way down to “making it to payday” and then, closer still, to “getting to the pub for a night out at the end of the week.”
People trapped in short-cycle loops lose aspirations and replace them with demands for convenience.

But you can start to disconnect from this.

So, have a listen: https://twitter.com/agoodfireburns/status/1280353956586283009?s=20
Or visit the free resources at @peoptog

Peace.
You can follow @agoodfireburns.
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