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Thursday, July 22, 2010
Fear
Hello, everyone. I just dropped by to see what's been happening since I absconded, and you've all frightened me more than I can say.
Fran's Making Amends series reads as ominously as anything I've ever seen from him. The comments on that first essay have a sound like a shotgun pump being worked.
Remus, Col. Bunny, and Rachel have been "filling in the corners" around that series of essays. You really sound as if you're preparing a survival bunker -- and what the hell are Matt and I doing in suburban Southern California, if you are?
(Yes, Matt has completed RCIA, with some reservations, and has been confirmed. And yes, we've gotten married. And yes, we have a lovely home in the Valley. And yes, Matt has found a job at a gun shop in the Mojave -- it's a brutal commute, but he says he doesn't mind -- and I've rebuilt my consulting business. Satisfied?)
I need to know if Eternity Road's Co-Conspirators are serious about this impending-collapse-of-American-society-and-the-world-economy stuff. Matt has been urging me to take it seriously. He thinks we ought to have a place to run to, and be ready to run at any moment. And I keep telling myself that he thinks electric toothbrushes are the visible tip of a vast conspiracy.
You guys are my pole stars. I respect you and your thinking more than I've ever respected anyone. If you're sincere about what you foresee, please, be unambiguous about it! I mean, what if I never got the chance to wear these:
I only just bought them!
Comments
I’m somewhat irritated that I didn’t get my fair share of the credit for the doom mongering going around lately, Duyen!
Is American society headed for a disorderly collapse? I rather doubt we are headed for a 2nd civil war, but some civil unrest in the major cities is far from improbable. My main advice has always been to prepare for individual calamity, as the current economic instability makes it hard to be assured of your income month to month.
More broadly, political and economic changes are coming. I am percolating a piece on what needs to change, but suffice to say all change comes with a certain amount of disorder. Political violence is mostly alien to American culture, so bomb shelters and rocket launchers are probably not needed, but there may be a time coming when lines will be drawn and sides must be taken in the political battles that are sure to come.
That is what I would be prepared for.
Posted by on 07/22/2010 at 07:05 PMMy father is the smartest man I know. I believe that he would say two things that might be relevant in this situation:
1.) Prepare for the worst, and hope for the best.
2.) Better to have and not need than to need and not have.
That being said, I do not think, I KNOW with every ounce of my being that we are headed for something big – a change of some sort that will be irreversible and that we may or may not like. It is in the cards. You simply can’t run up the debts we’ve been running up, installing the massive bureaucracies that we’ve been installing, and creating a culture where all of the entitled members of this society of envy and greed rush to try and prey on their neighbor as much as possible before their neighbor preys on them, all while trying to slowly convert the strongest, most free nation in the world into a weak, freedomless shadow of it’s former self by begging for the political system of greed, envy, and equal sharing of a much larger portion of misery that will be available.
The question that we must ask is “what change is coming?” Will it be a quiet and slow descent into totalitarianism and socialism? Will it be a violent overthrow of a government that is fighting back against it’s own people for it’s very survival? Will it be a massive, grassroots uprising, of a non-violent nature, that convinces our government that they are headed for the torches and pitchforks stage mentioned above? Or will it be the abject failure of our current stupid policies and plans when the people whom we are indebted to stop paying our bills and call up the tab, resulting in shutdowns of all government services and total anarchy? Or, am I wrong, and the current system will just putter along in all of it’s glory for another 70 years?
Posted by on 07/22/2010 at 07:10 PMMy Dear Fetiche;
It has indeed been too long. ::bow::
I am reminded that the Sage of Butler was once so convinced of an oncoming apocalypse that he once addressed the world science fiction convention with, as he put it, Conelrad in one ear. (That was about the time he was writing Farnham’s Freehold.)
People have been predicting Kingdom Come since God was a little boy. In case you hadn’t noticed—check it out—we’re still here. A tough and ornery lot, we’re particularly hard to kill, and even harder on those who’d be our masters, when push comes to shove.
It may be human nature to assess things as they are and assume that this is how they have always been and always will be. In reality, things as-they-are are merely a set of data points on a curve. I would remind those who have been here long enough to check the change—for better and for worse—since, say, 1960. Or 1970. Or 1980. Or…
The warning that, if this goes on, (to borrow another phrase from said Sage), the end might not be pretty, does not—should not—go astray or unheeded. But it is not a bankable prediction. And, for all the times in my life disaster has been predicted as being as sure as tomorrow’s sunrise, things have never been as bad as all that.
That attitude may come from my own personal realization that, when the fit surely hits the shan, I shall likely not survive a week, but I suspect it also reflects a more realistic outlook than those who give into the sin of despair.
It also encourages me to keep trying to drag this old world, willy nilly, toward the light of liberty and prosperity.
M
Posted by Mark Alger on 07/22/2010 at 07:28 PMTransport Marcus Tullius Cicero from Rome of the first century BC to the court of Romulus Augustus in Ravenna during 476 AD and one may grasp a perspective on the changes in American society since 1940. We can no longer vote ourselves out of the mess we’re in.
Gentle folks, we may muddle through as did Argentina 1999-2001 but the times they a changing and as Mark says: “none of the predictions are bankable”. There will be blood.
ΜΟΛΩΝ ΛΑΒΕ!
Posted by ΛΕΟΝΙΔΑΣ on 07/22/2010 at 10:48 PMFetiche, Mark echoes Pres. Coolidge who said it was his experience in life that out of 10 problems you see coming down the road your way 9 generally slide into the ditch before they reach you. Even assuming that one does reach you in the best of times, it’s hard not to conclude that this one will be a humdinger. And these aren’t normal times.
Too many things seem off balance and distorted. National governments pander to enemies and pursue patriots on both sides of the Atlantic. And, no economist I, I think it’s clear that “normal” profligacy has now grown to dangerous proportions. The unfunded entitlements and debt loads are enormous and foreigners hold way too many of our chits. The notions of citizen
Posted by Col. B. Bunny on 07/23/2010 at 02:42 AMhmmm . . . ship and sovereignty are debased beyond imagining and our troops are halfway around the world when they should be home dealing with a direct threat of invasion.
An economy can only take so much regulation, taxation, offshoring, and outsourcing before it starts to slow and sputter. The fairy tales ring hollow now and we are all hungry for leaders who’ll speak clearly and truly. So far it’s the ridiculous party line that emanates from practically all media sources and no one’s buying it any more. Or, at least a great many are skeptical.
To me, public officials shuck and jive and have lost all connection
Posted by Col. B. Bunny on 07/23/2010 at 09:40 AM. . . with our founding principles. With a president who’s a foreigner in his going out and his coming in, only a fool would think that he intends to protect the national interest (as it is understood by other than simpletons and wreckers). Minority politics, feverish pursuit of a pro-Muslim agenda, and a sycophantic press ensure that we will live in one of the most bizarre worlds imaginable.
Posted by Col. B. Bunny on 07/23/2010 at 10:07 AMYou know, just looking at those boots hurt my feet
Posted by on 07/23/2010 at 11:18 AMWell, it took roughly a century for the Progressives to get this far, according to this article The Progressives’ Legacy of Bankruptcy.
If America doesn’t fall apart almost overnight, we’ll have a long haul in front of us to undo all that damage.
Posted by Russell on 07/23/2010 at 03:16 PMTo make a long story short my parents moved in with my grandparents in 1933 and lived on less then an acre with two of my uncles, three of my aunts and a handfull of cousins. My grandfather had lost his store after a couple of years of few if any cash buyers and haveing made literally hundreds if not thousands of “loans” of food from the store to customers. The depression was a big deal in our family and I remember many discussion about it when I was a kid. So much I coud tell you but one thig stood out: I asked why they didn’t do more or do more sooner or do anything to prepare better then they did. The response after a long silence (I think they figured it out themselves at that moment) was “No one knew we were in a depression. We all though it was just a recession and things would be getting better soon. The government kept telling us all of the things they were doing and they tried to instill hope and confidence but it was not true. We had to grow our own food and take care of ourselves and family”. I’m 67 and I always knew it could/would happen again. Is this “IT”?? I don’t honestly know but I know for a fact that it took my family until 1933 to begin to recognize what they were up against. Four years into the depression and they still didn’t really KNOW that this was “IT”. Do not make the mistake of waiting too long to prepare. A years supply of food (not just wheat, honey, powdered milk and salt) but all the food required to feed your (extended) family for a year. That is a MINIMUM. Two years would be better but my suggestion is that the food beyond your one year supply should be basics that will “keep” for years and years. If it gets that bad you will be glad you have it. If you only need a years supply you will eat well with your premium supply
Posted by on 07/23/2010 at 05:42 PMGWTW, that reminds me of a woman’s thoughts in Hawaii the day after Pearl Harbor. It amazed her that the milk had been delivered and that life just went on even after cataclysmic events were obvious.
Posted by Col. B. Bunny on 07/24/2010 at 07:42 PMThose shoes spoke to me. They said, “Party!” ...Damn, but I wish I had that sort of party left in me. God bless. xoxo
Posted by Deb S. on 07/25/2010 at 12:13 PMYou’ve either got to be completely insane, or insanely brave to wear ankle busters like that.
I salute you!
(Oh, and for those who like heels: Friday Footwear)
Posted by on 07/25/2010 at 02:30 PM
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