Sunday, February 20, 2011

Survivalism: American Style

You know, being interested in survival methods and gear basically marks you as a nut in the minds of most people. It took September 11, 2001 to really rattle the cage of complacent Americans. Then everything started to settle down again into the same groove and Hurricane Katrina and the levee failures in New Orleans rekindled a lot of the talk of "Emergency Kits" and "Go Bags." Then, just a horrible series of Hurricanes...well...it seemed as though people were finally going to wake up out of their American Idol slumber and get it together...but it only lasts so long.

Gone are the nightly news stories of assembling your "Go Bag" or whatever other metrosexual term they could muster for "BUG OUT BAG" and we are settling down into the old habits again.

Well, some of us are...

Having this mindset and this type of gear is slowly becoming the mark of the lunatic fringe again. Viewed as an insult once again because it now points to someone being prepared for some other eventualities like Wall Street crashing again, etc. Which is oftentimes viewed as a lack of faith in The United States itself.

Then there is the slow burn of "2012" looming on the horizon which has the capability of making the "Y2K" freakout look tame in comparison. I really wonder how badly "2012" is going to ratchet up the fear of every day, ordinary people.

As with "Y2K," I'm not concerned with "2012." I'm slightly concerned with people turning it into some sort of self-fulfilling prophecy through overactive imaginations slamming head-on into their own skittish nature.

2 comments:

Dogboy said...

You aren't just kidding about our "own skittish nature." I worry about that part of "2012" much, MUCH more than any end of some calendar from a dead culture.

Don said...

Well, without putting too fine a point on it...I know some people might consider this "racist" but it's just observing what has been going on with politics, political parties and propaganda in this country for a very long time...

Things are so screwy when it comes to race and politics in this country but when you put them together, you could get a real nightmare. I think there is going to be a real problem if President Obama doesn't win re-election. The politicians and their willing accomplices in the media will stoke a bunch of hatred and we will have all of the rhetoric resurface about Bush Vs. Gore and how the election was "stolen." There won't have to be a single "hanging chad" to cause this. The loss of the election could be so concrete that only the truly ideologically malignant and venomous would question it and I think it's going to be a problem for our country.

And things are so out of kilter and pear-shaped when it comes to this issue, I don't even like saying what I just said. I mean, the only real "free speech" we have in this country anymore is rigidly controlled by the dictates of political correctness which a smart man once referred to as, "Tyranny with manners."

On the other hand, the election might be lost and nothing might happen at all. It's a roll of the dice.