Not Really Too Bad

I want to point out one or two things to those of us that get a bit bent over the currant world events. Guys, this ain’t the end game and in spite of some things that we don’t especially agree with, its still a pretty damned good time to be here and there are certainly worse places to be.
I grew up with détente and the threat of nuclear war hanging over our heads. I watched the funeral of one of our presidents that got assassinated in <st1:City w:st="on"><st1lace w:st="on">Dallas</st1lace></st1:City> because he didn’t play along. My childhood was spent wondering if the war in <st1lace w:st="on">Asia</st1lace> would end before my draft number got selected. Sex, drugs, and rock and roll; enough said.
The film-strips shown at school taught us how to survive a nuclear bomb attack; duck and cover. We knew how to orderly evacuate to a civil defense shelter.
My father was convinced that everything wrong with this country was because of forced integration; well that, and the hippies. He didn’t have any problem with the war, hell with four boys, we should mount a platoon.
He bitched a bunch about cokes going up to a quarter each and if something wasn’t done soon, gasoline might even go to nearly a dollar a gallon! When the colored folks started rioting, burning, and looting, he put on his National Guard uniform and enforced martial law in <st1lace w:st="on"><st1:City w:st="on">Memphis</st1:City></st1lace>, just like the Governor ordered.
The whole point of this diatribe is that I live in <st1lace w:st="on"><st1:City w:st="on">Mobile</st1:City>, <st1:State w:st="on">Alabama</st1:State></st1lace>. I chose to move here from <st1lace w:st="on"><st1:City w:st="on"><st1laceType w:st="on">Ft.</st1laceType> Lauderdale</st1:City>, <st1:State w:st="on">Florida</st1:State></st1lace> and had to ask nobody for permission. I got a hearse parked in my driveway with a grim-reaper paint job; I don’t haul dead bodies, as a usual practice; I just wanted it for shits and giggles and have enough money left over after buying $3.00 a gallon gasoline and $1.25 cokes, to drive pretty much any damned thing I want too and didn’t have to ask anybody about that either.
I see some people standing on corners begging for money; this isn’t anything new. I can remember them when I was a child, they were still there. I guess some people don’t have enough personal motivation to belong in the food-chain. I support some of them because I have too but I never will like it. I think that if they cannot find a way to support themselves in this land of plenty, they should starve and become fertilizer so the rest of us can benefit. I don’t mind helping my neighbor through some hard times because I know they would do the same for me and my family. I spend a large portion of my income preparing for hard times, because I know that they often come and never when expected. I am not a doom and gloom survivalist with a armchair hard-on for the end of the world. Hell, even if the infrastructure shits the bed, I got enough skills to help my neighbors rebuild a functional community. We are armed to prevent the bums that have lived their whole lives on my tax dollar from taking what we have to rebuild with. If they want to pitch in and help, I’ll be glad to have them.
If there are laws that I don’t agree with, then I break them, as long as it hurts nobody. I try to change them, if I can and if I can’t, then so be it.
Our Republic is dying but that doesn’t mean the end of us. It doesn’t mean that life will cease to be productive and fun and filled with joy. Maybe this is a natural progression and maybe not. Maybe there will be an armed conflict before a resolution is reached and maybe not. What I do know for sure, is that I will continue to lobby and be out-spoken for the things that I believe in and will continue to enjoy a quality life, whatever or where-ever it takes me. Going Postal is not in the cards; neither is hiding in a haze of chemicals or booze.
Sure, the negatives tend to over-whelm us at times and frustrations build at our inabilities to change them within the timeline that we believe needed, but the greatest strength of man is found in his ability to adapt to his environment and to effect controls on his climate. If you allow frustrations to overwhelm you, then why play? It’s part of the game and we can’t change the rules, only the field. I have refused to allow fear to influence my life any further and so do I with frustrations and defeatism. Boys and girls, it simply is what it is; no reason to force the end-game. That will happen on its own and the winner will be the more flexible.
We have gathered here to share a wealth of opinion, resources, ideas, and strengths; sometimes we loose sight of that in the heat of the moment but that doesn’t change a valuable resource. We have a collective pool of resources shared across the globe and if we do not loose sight of this valuable tool, it will survive as well. Don’t loose hope, my friends; it really isn’t as bad as it seems.

 

well put

 

Seacowboy Quotes:

QUOTE# 1 "What I do know for sure, is that I will continue to lobby and be out-spoken for the things that I believe in and will continue to enjoy a quality life, whatever or where-ever it takes me."

~ I totally agree with ya there!

QUOTE#2 "...it really isn’t as bad as it seems."

~ Hhhmm, I think it depends on where you are coming from/your background, what you are doing/trying to accomplish in this life (some don't care as much about things 'cause they don't do much in their everyday life so there really isn't a need to be disgusted by a reality they don't have to interact with), your location (more populated more over-regulation & etc.), and last but not least many a time it feels good to say that sorta thing as it can give some a sense of "peace". I know that for me personally I'd have to agree to disagree there, 'cause from "my life experiences" that isn't my perspective.

~W~

( Who believes in FREEDOM FOR EVERYONE, even those whom I may disagree with.... Also, the world would be such a boring place if we were all the same, and don't forget that life is a short and precious journey, make wise and informed decisions, keep true to yourself/your beliefs, be happy, keep healthy, & safe. HAPPY NEW YEAR everybody~ Hopefully 2008 will be a better year for us all!)

P.S.- Yeppers, only the "most adaptable/versatile/knowledgeable" will survive... that's for sure. KNOWLEDGE (<--combined with a good work ethic/attitude) is POWER, which ='s SURVIVAL! Unless you're just a "REALLY UNLUCKY" b*stard!? LOL ha,ha,ha

 

Where would you find joy in life? Is there any other emotion that can compare with it?...Didn't think so. It's easy to get led down the trail of despair.Find what gives you joy because it will also give you strength. The only real survivors are the ones with the attitude that it will get better and they will prevail! I can't tell the number of disasters that I have worked and I would have been useless with a shit attitude. Hope does spring eternal.

 

I was so grateful to read your blog post. I disagree that things are not as bad as they seem; I think they are much worse than they seem. But, what I was grateful to read in your words was an attitude of being a good neighbor during these and the harder times that I think will come. I did not form the opinion that we were heading for a fall during the recent economic times, nor because we elected a demo for president, etc., etc. I formed this feeling about two years ago when things were going seemingly well for most of us. I am continually reminded of a concept I learned in college called "the tragedy of the commons." In mid-evil times, people lived in villages surrounding a "common" green on which everyone grazed their animals. The problem was that each person had an incentive to graze as many animals on the common green as he or she could before the neighbors' animals ate all the grass. It was a sort of "get mine before it's gone" mentality. We Americans have always had that to a point. But, at least to me, it seems to have reached a tipping point about three years ago, and the conduct of so many Americans since have been "the tragedy of the commons" on a grand scale. The corporate greed and dishonesty extended to almost every part of the economy. Politicians became completely brazen in their determination to get as much in "campaign contributions" as they could. Then, they allowed a situation to arise in which they "had" to bail out the very greedy, dishonest people who brought our economy to the brink in the first place. Then, those people just took our taxpayer dollars and paid themselves huge bonuses. Why? I think it was because they see what is coming also, and they want to grab as much as they can before it's gone. Unless and until we as a people start being willing to remove a few of our sheep from the common green for the good of the village, I'm afraid we're doomed to become just a land of roving gangs and thugs. In my opinion, our "leaders" are already in that mode. They just wear suits and use big words, instead carrying AK 47s and robbing the helpless at gunpoint. What's the difference, really? So, maybe people with an attitude like yours can form together and rebuild something good out of all this. I hope to be among you, and I deeply hope we don't have to degenerate too far before that happens.

 

I do think you are a little hard on the poor. I agree that we live in a country abound in opportunity for most of us. But, like you say, the poor have always been among us, and that is not because all of them are lazy and should become fertilizer. Some of them worked very hard all their lives only to have everything they had built taken from them and put into the hands of investment bankers and their local congressman. We are losing our middle class, and as any historian will tell you, when that happens, all hell breaks loose in a society. When most of us are working poor, we cannot truthfully say that most of us are lazy. I do feel, however, that we don't need a redistribution of wealth as in Stalinism; we need a redistribution of accountability and a new standard of honesty among our business community and our politicians. That will redistribute wealth much more fairly and effectively by allowing those who want to work to create their own opportunities without having the fruits of their labor stolen from them just to make investment bankers, board members, and their purchased politicians rich. In a very real sense, most of us have been being robbed for so long that many of us are becoming poor, not just the lazy ones.

 

Hummm doesn't seem that things are getting any better--Let's hope that in November we will actually get some "change we can believe in."