Open (More or Less) Post on Covid 5
Sep. 7th, 2021 12:14 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ecosophia
The semi-open posts I've hosted here on the Covid-19 narrative, the inadequately tested experimental drugs for it, and the whole cascading mess surrounding them have continued to field a huge number of comments, so I'm opening another space for discussion. The rules are the same as before: 1. If you plan on parroting the party line of the medical industry and its paid shills, please go away. This is a place for people to talk openly, honestly, and freely about their concerns that the party line in question is dangerously flawed and that actions being pushed by the medical industry et al. are causing injury and death. It is not a place for you to dismiss those concerns. Anyone who wants to hear the official story and the arguments in favor of it can find those on hundreds of thousands of websites.
2. If you plan on insisting that the current situation is the result of a deliberate plot by some villainous group of people or other, please go away. There are tens of thousands of websites currently rehashing various conspiracy theories about the Covid-19 outbreak and the vaccines. This is not one of them. What we're exploring is the likelihood that what's going on is the product of the same arrogance, incompetence, and corruption that the medical industry and its tame politicians have displayed so abundantly in recent decades. That possibility deserves a space of its own for discussion, and that's what we're doing here.
3. If you don't believe in treating people with common courtesy, please go away. I have, and enforce, a strict courtesy policy on my blogs and online forums, and this is no exception. The sort of schoolyard bullying that takes place on so many other internet forums will get you deleted and banned here. No, I don't care if you disagree with that: my journal, my rules.
With that said, the floor is open for discussion.
Forbes article on the effects of Covid restrictions on schoolchildren.
Date: 2021-09-07 07:32 pm (UTC)https://archive.ph/9MeFZ
Re: Forbes article on the effects of Covid restrictions on schoolchildren.
Date: 2021-09-07 08:25 pm (UTC)Re: Forbes article on the effects of Covid restrictions on schoolchildren.
Date: 2021-09-07 09:14 pm (UTC)This is not directly covid related, but really nails what I've been sensing about tech over the last decade or two. It seems entirely possible that covid is being used, consciously and willfully or not, as a wedge to drive relationships and normal social interactions even further apart. I'm fairly introverted, and even I am having withdrawls with regard to human connection. There are obvious social control implications, but also it's may be a surreptitious way to unwind consumer society as we know it.
Re: Forbes article on the effects of Covid restrictions on schoolchildren.
Date: 2021-09-08 05:15 am (UTC)I'm in full agreement that some of the measures taken are resulting in dramatic changes in our society, but I've looked at it through the lens of "The Great Reset" and the hijacked "Climate Change" agendas. The "temporary" emergency of the pandemic will result in many, many more Americans tumbling down the wealth ladder to a lower standard of living.
Re: Forbes article on the effects of Covid restrictions on schoolchildren.
Date: 2021-09-07 09:28 pm (UTC)Re: Forbes article on the effects of Covid restrictions on schoolchildren.
Date: 2021-09-07 10:29 pm (UTC)The good news is that I'm starting to see more push back against this insanity. Here's a story about some high school students (also in Colorado) who staged a walk-out protest over masks. I have the sense that the tide of general public opinion is slowly starting to change on this issue, and I think it's only a matter of time before people ditch their face-diapers for good. I just hope it's sooner rather than later.
https://denver.cbslocal.com/2021/09/01/covid-face-mask-students-thunder-ridge-highlands-ranch/
Re: Forbes article on the effects of Covid restrictions on schoolchildren.
Date: 2021-09-07 11:10 pm (UTC)Re: Forbes article on the effects of Covid restrictions on schoolchildren.
Date: 2021-09-08 02:17 am (UTC)So I do think a lot of kids are going to have long term issues because of the way our society has gone totally batshale about Covid.
Re: Forbes article on the effects of Covid restrictions on schoolchildren.
Date: 2021-09-08 04:17 am (UTC)The world we live in now is this one. In this particular society we're living in now, a lot of kids don't really have a better alternative than school. All the adults work and nobody is around to homeschool (and that isn't going to change just because you think it should). The covid measures may have resulted in a growth in homeschooling, but the majority of kids still aren't going to get pulled out and homeschooled; they'll just be left in school, and be even more emotionally damaged by the masking and social distancing.
Re: Forbes article on the effects of Covid restrictions on schoolchildren.
Date: 2021-09-08 06:56 am (UTC)Why not?
This is not a criticism of your comment - I agree with it.
But I see a lot of helplessness around and I know that propaganda is working.
JMG talked more than a decade ago about the fact that in many families, one parent could quit working to cook and take care of the kids without any financial loss (given the low pay of most jobs and high cost of services). Same can apply to family or friend groups.
In my family we are homeschooling - after the abysmal experience of last year, we have the confidence we can do better.
As long as people remain atomized they are easy prey to the system. But even a small group can make a difference.
If there are other people out there doing that, please share. Even more, we need to find ways to connect our small groups
Re: Forbes article on the effects of Covid restrictions on schoolchildren.
Date: 2021-09-08 03:42 pm (UTC)Yes! Also, I hope many more doctors and nurses are pulling out of the corporate medical industrial complex and starting their own local clinics with like-minded colleagues.
Re: Forbes article on the effects of Covid restrictions on schoolchildren.
Date: 2021-09-08 04:45 pm (UTC)Well, it can change for you and your kids if you make up your mind to do it and then do it.
I don't homeschool my kids because a fairy godmother came along and waved a wand and made everything work out. My wife and I made the choice to do it and willed our lives in such away that we could. We worked very hard, and gave up things to make it happen. We're not rich and you don't have to be to homeschool In fact I don't know any rich people who homeschool they're too busy making more money. But you and I can do it if we want to. You're not helpless you know.
Re: Forbes article on the effects of Covid restrictions on schoolchildren.
Date: 2021-09-08 07:12 pm (UTC)During the whole coof thing, the number of homeschoolers has more than doubled, and I think there are several reasons for that-- a lot of them having to do with masking, random quarantines, and the ineffectiveness of online "school".
But one of the big, mostly-overlooked reason is that a lot of parents who'd perhaps thought about it before but "couldn't afford" to homeschool, suddenly had one or more parents either working from home, or unable to work at all (an erratic school schedule with random shutdowns means one parent, usually mom, has to be available to look after the kids!)-- and since there was now someone available, and they were having to eat the loss in income anyway... well, might as well finally homeschool! Now, suddenly, lots more people can afford it-- and many of them are doing it with less income, not more.
"That's not going to change" is kind of a weird thing to assume, here. I look at it more from the side of: "Things that can't go on, don't." The more interesting question is, what will replace public schools?
Public schools are a government subsidy to the middle and lower classes, that is being gradually taken away. Not explicitly. No big money is lobbying to end the school system. But the money that goes to schooling in the US has, over the past several decades, been gradually transferred from the nuts-and-bolts of paying teachers and maintaining school buildings, to admin, pensions, massive "education development" programs such as common core and the propaganda suites to make sure every American second-grader knows all the possible permutations of sexual proclivity... where does that money go? It goes to overpaid, overeducated "experts" on education, rather than to teaching reading and math to children. That's a transfer of tax revenue away from educating the children of of middle- and lower-class parents, and into the hands of the clerisy.
Eventually (and I think that's coming soon), it'll be impossible to maintain the fiction that schools have any benefit for children. And the lockdowns have already proven that their remaining benefit-- free childcare for working parents-- cannot be counted on. Stage 2 of the current Austerity push has begun: without anyone having to pass a budget cut measure, parents will increasingly be abandoning the schools, freeing up that little remaining student-funding to be shoveled into the pockets of kleptocrats higher up the food chain.
Not everyone will homeschool (probably not even most people), but eventually even people at the local level will look at the charred ruins and agree that public schooling is dead, and there's no reason to continue the farce. Like before the public schools: some kids will not get an education. Some neighborhoods and communities will organize and hire teachers and make their own schools, funding them however they can manage. There will be charity schools, private schools, parochial schools, and education co-ops. It's possible that apprenticeships will make a comeback. And I don't think it'll be all bad.
Re: Forbes article on the effects of Covid restrictions on schoolchildren.
Date: 2021-09-09 02:06 am (UTC)Well, it can change for you and your kids if you make up your mind to do it and then do it."
Er, the reason I don't homeschool my kids is because I don't have kids.
My point is that just because you can make a strong argument for homeschooling doesn't mean that the vast majority of people who are wedded to the idea of school are going to suddenly "see the light" and start homeschooling. It doesn't work that way.
First, some people really can't homeschool. This group includes the people barely be making ends meet with two people in the workforce, single parents (how does a single parent earn a living and homeschool at the same time?), and people who are themselves illiterate (yes, I realize that doesn't say much about the schooling they got, but how exactly do you homeschool if, like my childhood playmate's mother, you literally can't even read?) Second, and more importantly, a lot of people don't want to homeschool. Some just like sending their kids away to be babysat all day, and no amount of telling them that's not what's best for their kid is likely to change their minds. And many, many more people simply believe in school. They went to school, they deeply believe that school is good, and they want their kids to be in school.
I'm not making a value judgement against homeschooling. I'm just pointing out the reality as I have observed it all around me.
Maybe someday that will change, but it's going to take quite a while, possibly a whole generation.
Which doesn't help the kids stuck attending school in masks six feet apart right now, in 2021, whose parent(s) are not going to homeschool. Which was my point.
Re: Forbes article on the effects of Covid restrictions on schoolchildren.
Date: 2021-09-08 01:51 am (UTC)I think that what is being done to kids in school is child abuse. I do not want to subject my kids to it, and I do not want them to grow up thinking that kind of thing is normal or acceptable.
I figure that one of the central tasks of a parent is to turn the children into fully-functional, independent adults. School used to support that in a lot of ways, but I think now it is mostly an obstacle to it.
On a broader societal level, we are creating a generation with all of the problems that you mention, as well as cognitive/developmental disabilities. I fear that they will not be able to adequately meet the challenges that face them in the years of our civilization's decline. Things could get really ugly when the covid generation meets the war or the depression or the famine, or whatever history throws their way.
Re: Forbes article on the effects of Covid restrictions on schoolchildren.
Date: 2021-09-08 06:59 am (UTC)Especially groups that can meet in person - why is that so incredible?
JMG, I wonder if it's possible to have an open post about homeschooling? Or if there is already something out there that is usable for people that accept collapse?
Re: Forbes article on the effects of Covid restrictions on schoolchildren.
Date: 2021-09-08 06:47 am (UTC)Re: Forbes article on the effects of Covid restrictions on schoolchildren.
Date: 2021-09-09 05:04 am (UTC)Re: Forbes article on the effects of Covid restrictions on schoolchildren.
Date: 2021-09-09 11:33 am (UTC)I think that for complex reasons, our dominant culture does seems to want children to be fearful and obedient. But I don't think that (most of) the people in charge of tormenting kids with muzzles and social isolation and bizarre rules are conscious of what they are doing. I think the great majority sincerely believe it's for the greater good and that they are doing the right thing in "protecting" children.
The real question is why they have convinced themselves that this bizarre narrative is true, and the response appropriate. There is something that is driving this at a much deeper, unconscious level. The adults themselves are fearful and obedient, and not even aware of how abnormal their behavior is. It's less that most people deliberately set out to hurt kids and render them fearful and obedient, and more like we're entered a strange alternate universe where fair is foul and foul is fair and most people can't see through the fog.
Re: Forbes article on the effects of Covid restrictions on schoolchildren.
Date: 2021-09-08 10:16 am (UTC)These statements provide those who use them a quick, dismissive, almost sarcastic response to anyone speaking against the common narrative. Anyone with the slightest ounce of critical thought would immediately dismantle the statement by pointing out children don't breathe, communicate, express emotion, etc etc etc through their feet.
I see a lot of the public exchange around Covid devolving to these levels. "Horse medicine people", "my child didn't like wearing pants but they're wearing pants to school", calling skeptics anti-vaxxers. The room for reasoned debate seems long gone, any point made counter to the allowed narrative is met with condescending sound bites. It's sad.
Re: Forbes article on the effects of Covid restrictions on schoolchildren.
Date: 2021-09-08 03:54 pm (UTC)