EEEEEEEBOLA!! Or, Please Pass the Popcorn

Yeah, I'm not freaking out.

I knew it was going to happen. How could it not?

"The New World Order", where travel is rampant, illegal immigrants flood our shores and our cities, everyone is mobile and busy and involved. You can make your products in deepest darkest Africa, and with an Internet webpage or even a Facebook account, you can sell anything to anyone. I can type this and hit "post" and suddenly you can read it in England, Australia, Russia, or China if you, too have Internet and the inclination. We are up each other's butts 24/7. We can order English toffee straight from England, Irish sweaters and china straight from Ireland. We can tell people off on pages that are read all over the world, we can tag or poke our kids and grandkids, we can communicate instantaneously.

So I moved to the back hills of Nebraska, because even I could see that this instantaneous and overpopulated sea of dreck and profit was going to wash over everyone, and the salt of ambition and greed would get in their eyes and blind them to the pitfalls. Friends of mine caught antibiotic-resistant tuberculosis, and invariably the first question out of the doctors' mouths was "Been around any illegal immigrants?" We are swarmed with people from all sorts of countries, carrying all sorts of diseases, and we pretend to ourselves that God is in his heaven, we have antibiotic wipes and soaps, we'll be fine, all's right with the world.

Guess where I get my food? My 60 acres. Guess where I rarely go? Places with a population over 2000. Guess Why?

Three months ago, I sent all of my children an email. It told them to pack their bug-out bags, to get paper maps and plot at least three routes to our farm, to never ever let their gas tanks get below the 1/2 full mark. To be ready to bug out, before the quarantines, the panics, the insanity ensued. To be alert and watchful.

Not because I fear the Ebola virus. But because I know that, when the shit gets even close to the fan, everyone is going to freak, to panic, to "when in trouble or in doubt, run in circles, scream and shout". Once the politicians can't lie any more, once the virus starts taking off and becoming widespread - even slightly or sporadically - suddenly, and without warning, people in power are going to freak. They are going to start demanding restrictions - on travel, on food supplies, on freedoms. This will cause the public's safety to decline rapidly. This will cause panic in the streets - because as usual the idiots will have waited until it is too late to do anything else. Suddenly trucks will stop bringing in supplies, suddenly people will be running to the hospitals for a sneeze or a fever, suddenly those who are really carrying the virus will be exposing tens, then hundreds, then thousands, running back and forth, like chickens with their heads cut off. FREAK OUT!!! Then the hysteria starts, then the looting starts, then the travel restrictions and the quarantines start, and those who never had any chance of getting sick will suddenly be throwing themselves or dragged into situations where they WILL get sick. Guaranteed. This snowball is already rolling downhill, and it is picking up all of the filth, twigs and pointy goathead-burrs of terror and misplaced power.

Me, I'm going to sit right here and watch.

Didja ever see the National Geographic's documentaries on "Earth Without People"?  Or Stephen King's "The Stand"? Yeah, they're wrong.  They make it seem like people will die off relatively peacefully, that most buildings will still be standing, that most infrastructure will remain intact. Oh, sure, there might be some trouble in the bigger cities - gangs trying to steal peoples' food and cars, trying to escape, even shooting some folks; it might be a little dangerous, but that will be brief, and the survivors will have plenty of remaining choices for their shelter and food.. This is a lie. The panic, when it begins, will be on a scale not even imagined by those who wrote abut the Black Plague, the Spanish 'Flu, or who lived through Katrina. Most cities will not be left standing; they will be huge conflagrations all across the countries, as the living try to get rid of the dead, as the looters destroy what they cannot take, as the dead and dying leave their propane heaters and gas stoves running until an errant spark flares... Dying people will be fleeing in fear, running into other dying people, causing massive wrecks and still more fires. Dying people will group together for survival, killing each other off wholesale, as they raid the remaining hospitals and grocery stores for one last drug, one last mouthful of food, before the disease or their neighbor kills them off.

 The politicians and other folks who have talked wisely about "population control" and 'thinning the herd' have literally no idea that they, too, are on the slaughter agenda. Like the kings and nobility during the plagues, they think that their money and position will save them. They are wrong. Even if they make it into the rumored safe houses and enclaves, most people cannot survive for long, locked away with a selected group or even alone. They can't stand themselves or each other for any broad length of time now; they will certainly run amok once the terror and stress of being encapsulated strikes home. The crazy comes out then, and, 2 years from now, there won't be a single survivor in those places, no matter how well equipped or supplied they are.  

Know who survives? Those who don't panic. Those who have a plan - a self-perpetuating plan - in place. Those who like being independent and don't mind being alone. Those who have prepared; who have been prepared, for months and years, for any eventuality - or none at all. Those who didn't bury themselves in the empty, mindless busywork of the cities, where nothing matters except tomorrow's paycheck and the next day's night out. Those who didn't spend half of their lives on Facebook and the other half texting their friends.

No matter how this plays out, I have a front-row seat to either the massive death and destruction of disease, or the massive hysteria and pontificating that results from the fear of it. And even if nothing happens at all - I've still got my cows, my chickens, the wood for my woodburning stove, my bullets, my guns, my already-canned garden produce and their seeds to grow more; my bees and my honey and even wax for candles. I'm comfy, thanks. Please pass the popcorn. The world is my stage, and I'm going to watch it all from right here... until the power goes out and the stage goes dark.

Thoughts on Marriage, Tigger, and Eeyore

My darling daughter married the love of her life this past November. We like him; he is smart, funny, and he really, really loves her - not the 'her' that everyone else sees, but the fiery, passionate, completely determined little girl we raised to become a fiery, passionate, intelligent woman. What drives her is a thirst for knowledge - and a determination to achieve, to become, to create. I love that in her. It's how I used to be and what I still - occasionally - strive to be.

I don't know how to tell her that marriage isn't always going to be that way.

When Mike and I were married, he was Eeyore and I was Tigger. We formed a contract about our marriage ( I had come out of an abusive marriage and was determined never to end up there again). Life was hard - we lived on $8000.00 a year, with 2 kids and one on the way. We fought and sought other jobs to keep the family moving steadily upward, both in income and in experiences. We had passionate sex, quite frequently; it was the expression not only of our love for each other, but because we rarely saw each other, due to our jobs.  Even when we worked together on the ambulance, we had passion - but we were so closely aligned that, depending on the call, one or the other would take the lead in the call, while the other supported. We didn't fight over calls, like most married emergency service workers did. We didn't have to. We knew each others' strengths and weaknesses, and the best one for the situation always took lead.

When Mike got hurt, all of that changed. His damage was not only physical, but mental and spiritual. The endless pain and the daily drugs took a toll on him that simply can't be explained. But, more than that - he had always defined himself by what he could DO. And suddenly - he couldn't do anything any more. Couldn't be a firefighter. Couldn't be a paramedic. Couldn't even hang blinds (his part-time job) or fix cars. It hurt to move. It hurt to not move. He became a mean, nasty, angry bastard, even occasionally violent.

It was daily painful for him to hear sirens and not respond; hard for him to even drive past the fire station or go to EMS base. He didn't want to be that soul-sucking guy who, unable to function, hangs around his old haunts, still trying to be a part of it all, and making everyone else distinctly uncomfortable. But yet, after 28 years in Emergency Services, he couldn't let go. It was tearing him apart.

So, yeah, part of why we moved was to give him a whole new life, away from the sound of sirens and car crashes, the smells of smoke and that copper-scented smell of blood and open guts and the occasional putrid gangrene, the cordite smell of gunshot wounds. At first he didn't want to do it - at all. He was scared of new things (always had been, which is why Tigger had to bounce him out of it). He didn't know anything about farming or farm animals, except our little backyard garden and the times we worked on Peggie's farm when she was out of town. He didn't want to let go of what was hurting him so badly.

So I made him. I forced him. I didn't give him a choice. I was hard and cold and mean and pushed him right out of his comfort zone, and into a whole new life. Those who truly know me, know what a hard-and-cold, awesomely brutal bitch I can be - and I was. On purpose. You see, to me, Tigger was a compleat asshole, always bouncing, pushing, demanding, and forcing people to go along with him... yet somehow it always turned out right, with Eeyore grumbling in the background, always looking for his tail, always seeing the dark side.

Now Mike works in all weathers, snow and ice, hail and storms, heat and tornado threats. He doesn't work long; he can't. But the animals are fed, the grass is cut, the chicken run gets built, the wood for the woodstove gets cut, all over time. He fences like a rancher, strings barbed wire like a pro. He has a lot of new tools - come-alongs, a 4-wheeler, a wood-splitter, a complete woodworking shop, etc - that most ranchers don't have, that make his job easier, and keep him able to do these things. I thrust him into a totally unfamiliar, hostile environment - and made him adapt to it. And excel at it, in spite of himself.

We haven't slept together in 8 years; mostly because we can't. I have a nice pillow-top mattress upstairs in my BR, and he has a hospital bed in his BR on the ground floor, where he sleeps in a  V  position.  There is no sex, and hasn't been for 8 years. Oh, there's occasional hugs and cuddles, but his mind and his body cannot feel those things any more. No pills and no injections or roll-ons can help with what the pain and drugs have dome to him, continue to do to him. My life is all about working to pay the bills, and planting things, growing things, and taking care of him. Yet - oddly - it is a good life now, with a lot of intellectual bantering and debate, and a lot of (partially-drug-induced) stories about cows taking over the world, subversive meaty terrorists plotting in every pasture.

This is not the marriage every girl dreams of, "growing old together", etc. This is not the Cinderella fantasy of marriage. This is two people who still remember what they committed to, and who are doing their damnedest to keep it alive, any way that they can. Sure, it would have been easier to say, "Screw this and screw YOU!" when he became not-Mike, became someone else entirely. And don't think that I didn't think about it - I'm not noble, and it was HARD to make the right choices, to do the move and everything else on faith, and believe - insist - that it would all work out OK.

How do you tell that to two fresh-faced, eager and happy people who have just started their life together? You can't. You don't dare. If they knew how agonizing it could be, they might never take that step at all. All you can do is smile happily and let them have their moments of joy - and hope that they will be strong enough to stand together when the hardships come.

Yes, I am still Tigger, bouncing happily thru life, pretending that everything will work out for the best, smiling and joking - and I am still that asshole underneath, determined to make things work out. Mike is still Eeyore, grumbly and dour, with occasional humor and smiles that peek out through the pain. Some days it's OK, and some days better than OK, and some days it's hard. But that's life. Real life, not the storybook world.

A Novel about Hardeeville? Not Happenin' - but...

When I left Hardeeville, Sal Arzillo wanted me to write about my experiences on Council and in City Government. I declined. I was planning on being too busy - and I still am. I reinvented myself and my life (not the first time, BTW); I have a whole new life now.

But this past week's election has driven people to call, email, and even PM me on Facebook. What are my thoughts on all of this? Well, my first thought was - Geez, leave me the fuck alone. What makes you think that I still give a shit? I scraped that dung off of my shoes six years ago, for Crissake. As my dear EMS partner always said "Happiness is Hardeeville in the rear-view mirror." Like the resurgence of shingles years after you've had chicken pox, the infection is still in my soul, though. I still love my friends that remain there, and want to protect and save them from what is about to be inflicted on them. But, of course I can't. It's why I finally gave up  - you cannot save people from themselves.

So here it is - in summation. Eight years ago, my BFF Rodney The Mayor and I pushed HARD for a redistricting of Hardeeville, to ensure that the locals would always have seats on the City Council. Sal Arzillo was one of the ones (Bronco Bostick and Bill Horton were among the others, and they convinced poor elderly and easily-led Brooks) who spoke out vociferously against it. They all insisted that the idea was stupid, that there was no way that the gated communities we annexed would ever get that big, they ascribed a hidden agenda to our attempts to make it fair. Basically they insisted that they wouldn't ever even entertain the thought that a Sun City or other gated community would ever have or want any representation on Council. Rodney and I simply shrugged. We saw the writing on the wall even then... that the foolish arrogant ignorance that was and is endemic to  Hardeeville was on the rise once again, and that nothing would stop it.  LOL. That's all you can really say. LOL, and shake your head.


They self-righteously used SLED to go after my 'brother', Jimmy Hubbard, who is one of the most decent, kind, and honest people I have ever had the pleasure to work with - as well as a good and sincere Christian, Shane Haynes. If Shane ever had a fault, it was trusting and believing that people were basically good and would always do the right thing. But - just as when, all those years ago, my beloved Jimmy was accused of child sexual abuse, and I made him get an attorney and fight it (including fighting his own backstabbing boss) and Jimmy was exonerated because of a lack of evidence - the damage was done, just as it was intended to be, and purely for personal gain on the backs of the innocent. The most recent newspaper stories about this trumped-up, self-serving witch hunt only illustrate the reality. 

Now the Council is made up of four representatives from those gated communities, and if you think that Bronco Bostick will survive the next mayoral election, you are sadly mistaken. Sun City and all of those gated communities - who pay the most taxes, who volunteer in the schools, who have made themselves aware of just how the city is run and where their money goes (and they proved it by 'outing' the most recently ousted Council members over their nonpayment of taxes), who not only can actually read and write and cipher, but who know how the game is played -  will put him out, just as they put the others out. Suddenly now Sal is screaming for redistricting. Go ahead and scream, Sal - you're outvoted and outmaneuvered.  

One of my callers wants to run for Council to represent the Old Town. I advised her against it. The fallout from what has been happening in Hardeeville is about to hit the fan - and she doesn't want or need to be anywhere near all of that. David Tedder, one of the most decent and smartest lawyers whom I've ever had the pleasure to work with (and that is saying a lot), refused to do something illegal for the Council, and was 'invited to leave'. Ted Felder and a host of others who threw their knowledge and expertise, as well as their hearts and souls, into the City, were 'invited to leave' as well (non-disclosure statements all around). Chief Nagy - a consummate professional, who not only led the police department with a firm and trustworthy hand, but who once helped me personally by resolving a very sticky law enforcement problem - was let go for doing his job as a professional who was not supposed to be swayed by belligerent elected officials. I am quite fond of Sam Woodward, but he has a long row to hoe and he wouldn't (at least under the most recent administration) be given the implements he needs to chop away at the roots of the problem. Expecting Sam to play dumb cop and good ol' boy, who winks at the infractions of those in power while over-enforcing against others, would have eventually been a sure invitation to ultimate disappointment.  I have nothing against Rose Dobson-Elliott; I consider her a good friend. I actually felt sorry for her when they hired her to become the sixth administrator (interim) in as many years. Things are going to be really nasty in Hardeeville for at least the next two years, with recriminations, accusations, and legitimate demands and outraged refusals. The residents are going to be looking for a scapegoat - and no one wants to be that.

I have to admit that I am chuckling over the 'latest idea' by Clementa Pinckney, proposing a redistricting of the school districts in Jasper County. So many people are up in arms, insisting that it is ridiculous, unnecessary, and that they will fight it tooth and nail. BWAHAHAHAHA! Knock yourselves out. Clementa is nothing if not observant. He too has seen the writing on the wall - first in Bluffton, now in Hardeeville, and soon to be in all of Jasper County. If you think that it feels as though, politically, you are slipping down into the increasing black gumbo beneath your feet - you're probably right. But it is a gumbo of your own determined and self-inflicted ignorance, and you deserve it. Ignore Clementa, ignore history, ignore everything that has been placed so plainly before you for the last six years - at your own peril. Wallow in your ignorance; enjoy it, scarf it down like manna - it's what you have earned, what you have demanded, after all.

The next two years will make for great newspaper copy, if nothing else. If you thought Sam Gregory's viral Facebook post (I even found it in Pennsylvania, of all places!) humiliated the citizens of Jasper County - you ain't seen nothin' yet.

Now, 'scuse me - I'm planting peas today, I have to put the queen excluder on the beehive to prep for the honey harvest in July, and I'm planning my trip to the John Wayne Birthday Celebration next weekend. A rodeo, shooting competitions, a real western-style barbeque, pie-eating contests, and free John Wayne movies all day. What's not to love? I am a real rancher now, a real Westerner - like so many before me, who scraped off the hysteria and mendacity of the East for the freedom and decency, the hard work and outright honesty, of the West.Yes, there is a real difference - sadly, most of my friends back there will never know it.
 

Ah, Mother's Day- You Reap What You Sow

Today, my nephew Joshua, who moved out here a year and a half ago, is taking me to dinner with his kids.

My own children are scattered all over the country, each doing what I raised them to do - follow their dreams. My nephew, on the other hand, came out here to get away from his ex-wife, his mother, his uncle, and all of the people who - in his words - were 'using him like an ATM machine'.

When he was 14, his mother - a completely unstable drama queen, liar, thief, and 'hurray-for-me-fuck-you' type of person, decided to leave her longtime girlfriend. She insisted that Joshua help her pack her pickup with, not only her own possessions, but hundreds of dollars' worth of valuable goods belonging to her soon-to-be-ex-girlfriend. They were caught and arrested - and Joshua's mom made him take the full rap for the thievery, because, as she said, "You'll get less jail time as a juvenile'. So she went free on bail (paid for by the ex-girlfriend) and her son went to jail for 6 weeks. Immediately afterward, she dumped Josh on us, because she 'couldn't handle him'. In other words, she had used him to the best of her selfish abilities, and now that she was flaunting herself and her obnoxiously gay lifestyle, she had no use for him any more. (I have nothing against gays - just drama queens of ANY orientation.)

This sweet kid was confused, frightened, lonely and angry. He took his anger and pain out on us - which we totally understood. We loved him anyway, and taught him right from wrong - mostly against everything he had been taught up to that point. When he left, to go live with his grandparents, he was still angry and resentful. He dropped out of school, and was dissolute, directionless, living for the moment, not understanding what or why.

But, suddenly, he had a personal epiphany. In his own words - "There I was, working as a busboy, washing dishes, and I remembered what you told me in the car when you had picked me up from cutting school (again). You said, "Do you WANT to be nothing and nobody, and wash dishes the rest of your life?" And I suddenly realized that you had been right, all along!" The kid went back to school, got a job working for the Ports Authority, cleaned up his act, got married, had two kids, and was supervising 50 employees when he was run over and crushed by a truck. After his wife (another drama queen like his Mom, also a drug addict and alcoholic) had stolen all of Josh's money, with his own mother's help, Josh's wife left him high and dry for another man, even dumping their kids on Josh, who was crippled and in need of help that no one would provide. His mother then told him that he and the kids could come live with her and her new girlfriend - and she took every last dime she could get from him, to support herself and her girlfriend. She even took out a second mortgage on her home, claiming Josh's income as her own.  Sleeping on couches, with no privacy and constant drama, poor Josh was in pain, confused, worried about his kids ever having a future. So I told him to get his ass out here and bring the kids. Packing what little they had in a battered old pickup truck, he drove out here with his children.

Now he has a brand new pickup truck, that he bought with his own money. He is renting with option to buy a house for himself and his kids. He is independent, tough, and making it on his own. His kids attend the local school - and they are fitting in to the local lifestyle of hard work, honesty, independence, and integrity.  They have a strong and stable family and home life. All we did was tell him in both word and deed that he was a good and strong, decent human being, who had a right to his own life, and to raise his children how he saw fit - without drama, without hysteria, without agony and cruelty, thievery and lies. We gave him with his children the foundation and home base from which to grow, and prove himself, and be happy.

Josh credits us with raising him and teaching him. He doesn't speak to or contact his mother nor his ex-wife in any way. They still try to wrap their tentacles around him, but he will have none of it. He is a free, independent, proud and happy father of two children who love and depend on him. Neither his Drama-queen, grasping, thieving, lying mother nor his manipulative, drug-addicted, drunken ex-wife have any hold on him any more - 1700 miles and a completely different world has put him back on his feet and made him a whole and complete man once again. We are very proud of him and all that he has done and become. We knew he had it in him - all he needed was a chance.

Yet his mother still whines "Do they ever think of me?" No, actually, they don't. "Do his kids know that I am their Granny?" No, actually, they don't. YOU did that to him, YOU made him that way. 
YOU did your damnedest to control, manipulate, steal from, use, criticize, and destroy him. YOU sit in your drama-infested world and wonder what happened, how people could hate you so much, why no one loves you or gives you the accolades that you feel that you deserve, simply by the act of giving birth.

I, on the other hand, get to have dinner, laughter, love, and an honest, decent relationship with a part of my family whom I cherish, and who cherishes me.

You reap what you sow.
Sucks, doesn't it?
 

Going Postal

Yup, I was hired by the United States Postal Service this week.

I know, WTF am I thinking, thought you were opposed to the FedGov, how the heck did they hire YOU if you are as radical as you say?

Well, bluntly, there are danged few jobs in this area.
The school district where I am employed didn't give anyone but the teachers contracts of employment this year. They are going to have to make cuts - and rather than cut a teacher who makes $50,000 a year plus full, completely paid for family benefits, they are going to cut a couple of low level staffers without benefits,  whenever they see fit, to balance the budget.

To this end they have cut the school year by 8 weeks; by both cutting off two weeks at the beginning and going to (mostly) four-day weeks throughout the year - but increased the daily hours for students to attend to 8 AM to 4 PM. This means that I get to work 4 10-hour days; one hour before school starts and one hour after. Um, Yay. I get to leave for work in the dark and come home in the dark, 4 days a week, all winter long. Also, by cutting off the days at the beginning of the school year, they've  cut me out of a whole month's pay.  Not to mention that the latest superintendent accosted me the last time I came in to tell me how much he trusted and admired me - and gave me still another job that one of his whiny, helpless, hapless (yet protected by union and tenure) teachers has refused to do for the last 3 years. About every 3 years I get a new boss - and each one is more arrogant, more misogynistic, and less cognizant of or concerned with the staff's jobs than the last.

Post office, I'll just be part-time - at first. Saturdays (3 hours) and then as a sub for the current postmistress when she's out. But next year,  due to contract negotiations with the unions, that will change, and I can work as many hours as I want. Also, from my date of hire (no matter how many hours I work in the year) it starts the clock of waiting - after a year, I'll be eligible for a mandatory week of vacation as well as medical insurance. Moreover, if I need more hours, I can sub at any PO in a 100-mile radius - or, if I'm happy with my paycheck and have things to do, I can stay home.

Let me think a moment... yeah, the school district is struggling to survive and getting ready to lay off workers and increase the burdens on those who remain, as well as kicking employees who do not have insurance to the curb so that they don't have to fund ObamaCare for them;  while the USPS will always have job openings, and are not looking to close this PO (too centrally located), and are contracted to provide, not merely vaguely promise, insurance for all employees. Not to mention I'll be making a dollar more an hour to start, with guaranteed regular raises - when it has taken me 5 years to get up to my current salary at the school district office.

There is no ideal job, no matter what the Obama-worshippers think. There will be shit work and crud to put up with. But no changing bosses every three years, no yearly threats of dismissal because of budget cuts, and no more dealing with other office workers'/teachers'/superintendents' personal problems that they drag to work with them every day, and take out on everyone else, because it's a 'helping', emotionally socialist environment, where the lower staffers are expected to put up with everyone else's angst, ennui, pretenses, delusions, and foibles. (Can't tell you how many times in the past 5 years I've had to put up with out-and-out temper tantrums from highly unprofessional  'professionals'.) No more emotional hemming and hawing, seeing and sawing, and demands that I "volunteer" my time because I am a lowly staffer and 'should work just as hard as the teachers' (who get paid for any extracurricular activity, above and beyond their salary). The new job won't be heaven. But it will be an improvement.

Vindication is a Sweet Pastry

Yeah, a lot of folks called me a Conspiracy Theorist when I told them that, thanks to the Patriot Act, there would be serious and egregious violations of the Constitution. I told them that the Bill of Rights would become the Bill of Permissions - where only certain people would have rights, especially their rights to speak freely and have their rights to privacy. I endlessly repeated Ben Franklin's quote - that those who give up their rights for security would have neither.  I was pooh-poohed and snickered at.  "That Could NEVER Happen Here - This is AMERICA!"

You may all bend over and kiss my ass now.

The only problem with being a Cassandra is that one is excoriated for what one predicts - even (and I should say, especially) when one is RIGHT.

Folks were derisive when I gave up my two cell phones for none. Didn't make much sense to have even one anyway - out here, you are lucky to hit a tower at all, much less have any bars. And 60 acres of untrammeled, non-wired peace is what I bought, on purpose.  Not to mention that I neither want nor need to be gotten in touch with constantly nor immediately. Nothing and no one is that important.

Yeah, I stay in touch with people thru FaceBook and emails, and yes, I know they are monitored, too. But - I never write anything I don't mean. Moreover, 20 years ago a group of friends and I published the list of 'FBI-words" (now, of course, they are HLS words) that the computers that recorded our transmissions would flag - and then we used the piss out of them. Damned straight. Our attitude then was "Yeah, so what? As an American I can say what I want!" Of course that is becoming less and less true - but let them come all the way out to Nowhere, Nebraska and say something, try anything. They won't. Out here I am a harmless ranting crazy old lady - and you betcherazz that's just the way I like it.

The time is fast coming, though, when people will have their income, jobs, and lives affected if they dare to raise a challenge to the omniscient, omnipotent juggernaut that we have created. "And he causes all, both small and great, rich and poor, free and bond, to receive a mark in their right hand, or in their foreheads: And that no man might buy or sell, save he that had the mark, or the name of the beast, or the number of his name. Here is wisdom. " Check out those RFID chips, that are being touted as "The easy way to pay!" and "Protecting our children from being lost!" and even mandated in the endless pages of the Obamacare legislation. If you don't want the chip, and refuse it, can you produce your own food? Make your own clothes? Provide for yourself and your family with that little half-assed garden next to your house in that restricted neighborhood? Take care of yourself medically? I'm betting not. You'll knuckle and excuse yourself, just as you have always done. You'll have to, if you want to eat.

 And if you refuse to believe Cassandra on that as well - just wait. I don't give a damn what you believe any more; not going to try to sway you or influence you at all. Because you ignored me and others like me, or insulted us and made fun of us, you are about to reap what you so derisively sowed. You won't be able to come out here and kiss my ass, though - you'll be broke, restricted, and monitored.

And you'll deserve it. 

Extrapolation

• Did you ever wonder what caused 9/11? Really, truly, no pundits involved?
  My theory is that 3 things caused 9/11 - Welfare, the "dumbing down" of our
  children, and the Drug War.
  
  Bear with me a minute.
  
  There were other factors involved, of course - the fall of Russia, the
  socialization of England, Israel getting nuclear weaponry. It wasn't all
  our fault. And no, I'm not one of those ranting conspiracy theorists who think
  that there are a group of people, Skull and Bones, whatever, that rule the world
  and make all the decisions. Committees and groups of even the most like-minded,
  single-purposed types, just aren't that bright. Sorry, but they aren't. Those that do grasp cause and effect only see it dimly, temporarily, and with skewed perspectives. Those perspectives may be altruistic, or they may be purely selfish - but they are still human
  perspectives, with human failures and perceptions. There are no 12 or 18
  people up there in the stratosphere pulling the strings.
  
  What there are, is people who have what they think is a good idea and who
  have the (limited) knowledge to push it through - a legislature, public perception,
  whatever.
  
  Welfare was a good altruistic idea... on its surface. Save all those poor people from borderline starvation, help them so that they don't have to have gardens in the backyard just to survive the winters, so that they have more than one change of clothes, so that they can have the best start for their children available. Who knew that it would destroy the pride of the poor American families, that it would encourage once-strong families to split to get more money, that it would encourage teenagers as young as 10 to breed babies (liberals shut UP I've SEEN it) so as to bring more money into the household or to gain their 'independence' from a bad family, bad neighborhood, bad community? Who knew that people would lose their pride and self confidence to the point where they would lie, cheat, just to get an extra 20 bucks a month for which they didn't have to work? Who knew that folks would give in to their baser desires - sex, drug, alcohol, food induced stupors of overindulgence - just to get more money for which they did not have to work?
  
  Welfare weakened the society rather than strengthened it. Instead of raising up an 'underclass', it diminished it, paralyzed it, set it up for failure - and ready made excuses for that failure. It created more slums, as people who were given everything and worked for nothing became demanding, insisting that more and more was due them rather than using the handout to build something better for themselves, as Welfare was intended and was believed to be able to do. People in the slums destroyed any and everything - since they did not work for their homes, their food, did not have the satisfaction of achieving from their own hard efforts, they did not feel responsible for caring for the homes in which they lived, the children that they bred to satisfy the government qualifications, the partners that they chose to help them fulfill those requirements. They stopped taking care of everything around and attached to them - including themselves. Why not? The government would always provide more. Live for today, indulge any and every whim and vice, because someone else would always pay for it.
  Always.
  
  Bear with me a little more...
  
  Next and hand-in-hand with this was the dumbing down of our educational system.
  First math facts were thrown out the windows of the schools; "close" became
  good enough. Then the accent on "dead" languages and literature, history, basic psychology and sociology were tossed out, as educators determined that memorization was far superior to phonics, that there ws too much to teach and too much to learn as time had passed, so 'feelings' rather than facts were posted as truisms in children's minds. Why teach a child to learn throughout his life, when most children could not understand the reasoning process anyway, and they needed to learn only the basics supplied to them to establish a career?

Welfare made our children disposable, and education made them further understand that achievement and success were not predicated on their own efforts, but on the mutual efforts of everyone around them. Why try to excel when that made other children who didn't try feel badly about themselves? No, everyone must be the same; receive the same trophies and rewards as well as the same punishments. From both Welfare dependent parents and their own teachers, children learned that they were no better than anyone else, and that their lives were to be nothing but a series of endless satisfactions and indulgences. With these two altruistic and helpful policies, they set children up to indulge in drugs for escapism, as well as for profit and play. For what else is a brilliant yet uneducated child to do, who is not taught self-discipline and effort will result in rewards - but rather, taught by example that rewards come whether they are earned or not? These two social policies paved the way for - the Drug War.

For if so many American children and adults had not turned to so many drugs - to either blunt their own knowledge of their inabilities and inadequacies, or to sell to others to increase their profit and thence their feelings of worth, or even to gain a power denied to them by a lack of training or ability to meet lifetime educational, achievement, and life challenges - there would have been no real need for the Drug War. In every generation; even in ancient China, there have been members of the population who gave up their lives to addiction. Previously to the Drug War, these people were basically ignored or pitied or left to indulge their own vices, away from the general population ("opium dens") or taken care of quietly by family, friends, and pharmaceutical suppliers.

The Drug War changed all that. All drugs were deemed illegal; heavy fines and exacerbated prison time was given to sellers as well as users. But where were the main suppliers of the drugs?

Afghanistan. Asia. South America. Poor areas with no real income, eking out a living with their supplying local and home-grown addicts, suddenly had a world of opportunity in America, thanks to the increasing numbers of addicts to, as well as purveyors of, drugs. When the American judicial system made the drug war a priority, it set up the drug world to no longer be a place where those who indulged could live out their lives in their own private haze - it made them criminals, it made their world a violent and vicious place, it made the mere buying of a joint or a gram of coke dangerous. It also, because of the billions involved, made cops and judges and even juries susceptible to bribes. Justice was bought and sold, crimes that were only crimes against oneself were prosecuted far more zealously as crimes against other people.

The Taliban with all of its faults and extreme punishments and ways of life banned drugs, thought they were reprehensible. The only people who remained to fight them were the people who bought and sold and provided America with its ever-increasing demand for drugs. Americans were told that the Middle Eastern states were wrong, Muslim, hated us, and were evil. The CIA - long purveyors of the trade of drugs-for-weapons, instigators of dictators and unrest for political gain and the usurping of not only individuals but whole governments and countries, worked their magic. It was the US, after all, who put Saddam Hussein in power, given guns by the CIA. We were told "Well, if WE don't sell guns to them, then Russia or China will!" Yet the whole time these diverse tribes were playing one country against another, buying guns from The Big Three, using American drug money to buy Russian and Chinese armaments as well as American armaments. The CIA encouraged hyper-fanatical regimes and governments, thinking that they 'owed allegiance' to America - and only 'finding out' much later that these peoples' only allegiance was to themselves and the proliferation of their own ideologies. (Seriously, if they didn't know they were being manipulated to begin with, how really stupid could they be?)  As with the Welfare State, those poor peoples, made rich by the CIA's machinations, grew to resent American manipulation and infiltration of their economies and lives, and 'hated Americans'. Well, duh. They attacked us over 118 times before the WTC bombings - the Lockerbie plane bombing, numerous attacks on our embassies as well as on individuals and businesses, even the first WTC bombing, which few people remember or talk about, that was 'unsuccessful' (a garage bombing that didn't take down the Tower as planned). 

These people don't want us in their countries, taking all of their resources (everything from poppy fields to oil) and trading guns for power, then kicking successive self-built regimes to the curb. But their protests and demands go unanswered and unacknowledged. When they react with violence against 'innocents' from our and other '1st world' countries, they only see it as retaliation against the murder of their own innocents, caught between the CIA, Big Business, and Big Oil, as well as the power players in their own countries - power players who would never rise to power if they had not been supplied and trained by these same first-world countries.

That's not to say that I support the Taliban, Al Qaeda, or any other terrorist organization. But I do understand them, I do 'get' them.  Even now, on self-described "Patriot" websites, people are talking about killing the invading forces from China, the terrorists from the Taliban - taking up arms and defending America from the invaders. How is this any different from the Middle Eastern countries attacking our own soldiers, sent into their countries to protect their poppy fields and empower their dictators and terrorists?