You Never Know

You Never Know

by David Perez, OffGuardian
February 5, 2021

 

The other day I called my homie, Big Danny, and asked what he thought was gonna make all this COVID madness go away.

“A comet hitting the earth, and the human race starting all over again,” he said.

“Besides that.”

“A meteor.”

Danny and I have often spoken about Earth’s history of cosmic catastrophes, tales of lost worlds and end times shared by virtually every culture on the planet, how history works in cycles, as the Hopis, among others, have expounded. How the knowledge of the First Nations is as scientific as anything that has come afterward.

A little background before I plow ahead.

Big Danny, a boxing trainer and voracious reader, is my go-to expert on all matters social, historical, economic, and political, and anything in-between. The two of us came of age in the 60s and 70s, raised in the streets of the South Bronx, in New York City, when the ghetto-in-progress ignited on the world stage as an epicenter of mass poverty and relentless arson, where heroin flowed like an oil spill.

Yet it was also an era of deep change, of cultural pride, revolutionary thinking and action, amidst a community that had many shining moments, including the nourishing of Salsa music, and the birth of Hip-Hop.

Danny and I have grown to believe that there are multi-levels of smart: academic, political, spiritual, and intuitive. But especially street smart, that special type of knowing that combines intelligence with survival skills and a heightened sense of detecting bullshit.

Since day one, we’ve both agreed that the official COVID narrative is reeking with bullshit. And if that meant being called a “conspiracy theorist,” we accepted that as a badge of honor.

So there we were, talking about what it would take to end the “crazy-ass shit” going down. After acknowledging (yet another) possible apocalypse, we talked about the Matrix, aka the Mass Media, the corporate-owned entity that manufactures consent, and how there’s already plenty of resistance to the COVID virtual reality. It’s not about what we’re seeing and hearing, but about what we’re NOT hearing and seeing.

This led us to the familiar theme of “you never know.” How you never know what could trigger the type of resistance that changes everything; the power and potential of the seemingly insignificant.

History abounds with small acts that sparked something greater.

There’s Rosa Parks, who boarded a Montgomery, Alabama bus on December 1, 1955 and refused to obey the driver’s order to give up her seat and move to the back of the bus so a white person could sit there.

Parks was arrested for civil disobedience, and her act of defiance, and the Montgomery Bus Boycott that followed, are recognized as pivotal moments in the civil rights movement.

The Occupy Movement began with a September 2011 demonstration in Zuccotti Park, located in New York City’s Wall Street financial district. Initiated by the Canadian social and environmental group/magazine Adbusters, the Occupy Wall Street protest gave rise to a huge, global movement.

There are countless other examples of the “You never know,” and its close cousin: “Who would’ve thought!” And I’m sure readers can cite many of them.

What might permanently shatter the COVID spell? Maybe it’s already happening, a combination of mass demonstrations with a steady stream of the one’s and two’s who have said enough already: a family’s defiant walk in a park, or an unmasked elderly couple waltzing in a public space, or an individual computer programmer developing an “algorithm for liberation” that challenges the censorship of counter-narratives, and undermines the titans of Big Tech.

Maybe it’ll be the power of the Don’t Do. Don’t pay any fines. Don’t accrue any debts. Don’t take the vaccine.

Maybe the mainstream COVID narrative will die a death of a thousand pinpricks.

Hey, I get the “don’t hold your breath” or “people are too far gone” for the resistance to be meaningful and lasting. Most of the time, I feel exactly the same way, waves of despair, anger, deep pessimism, and waiting for that comet or meteor to wash everything clean.

Still, you never know.

 

David Perez is a writer, journalist, activist, and actor living in Taos, New Mexico.