A cautionary tale from the daughter of a conspiracy theorist

[melody]

With all the doom-n-gloom going on today, I thought I'd offer another perspective. Now if you really want to live in a goth world of utter destruction, you may want to stop reading here.

My father was a right-wing John Bircher. He was a friend of Mary Kay Latourneau's father (who was a far-right neo-Nazi). He zealously worked for the George Wallace campaign, which should tell you how far gone he was. At all times through my childhood, my father had me half-convinced that the country was about to be "taken over by the Communists". He had read all of those moronic "None Dare Call it --" books and could outline his intricate theory about how we were being systematically prepared. He told me Nelson Rockefeller would be declared permanent President and suspend the Constitution -- we would then all be herded to our doom. When my father died, I can't tell you the crap I pulled out of his storage locker -- ancient MREs galore. But it gave me a good perspective. Luckily, I had discovered Robert Anton Wilson years before.

Neurology is a strange thing -- it imposes itself in the oddest ways. Someone can hold radically different political beliefs yet be prone toward identical patterns of thought. This theory of being "taken over" is very common in most cultures. We don't see it because what is being seen is seeing ... if that made sense. lol

A conspiracy theorist named Mae Brussell had similar theories. She held that the 70s recession was intended to create a 4th Reich under Reagan. Was Reagan an authoritarian and awful President? Yes. But he didn't turn into Hitler as she was promising.

I've been writing about the Bush dynasty for many years. Yes, their primary goal was to destroy our central government. They are, at their base, profoundly anti-American. They have Nazis in their background and they definitely think like fascists. I despise them. However, people who aren't sociopaths must deal with their consciences. And even the people around them will start thinking, "if they turn against their own people, they'll turn against me."

I do not expect a Fourth Reich. I do anticipate even more restrictions if Obama isn't elected President. We'll be too weak as a country for them to bother with, as we were supposed to be. We may then start putting the pieces back together.

I apologize for this bit of hope ... you may now go back to the regularly scheduled fear-mongering.

[tom_paine]

1. Very interesting post and very interesting perspective.

You are absolutely correct, it is impossible to know whether it's "for real" or not. How fast it will move and waht form it will take.

there is no doubt your is a valid point and that everyone should take stock of it and try to remember.

Having said that, a couple cliches come to mind. One is the old saw about the broken clock being right twice a day. What if this is oneof those times.

Second, it isn't as if that hasn't happened not once, not twice, but hundreds or thousands of times throughout history. It isn't always the mightiest democracy in the world going under, and everything is relative, by My God, a nation being dragged into a tyranny while extended navel-gazing, such as your post implicitly recommends, is the befudllement the Bushies througout history have used.

To name a tiny sampling from the massive pools of examples; Marcos, Pinochet, Hitler, Stalin, papa Doc, Idi Amin, and Pol pot. Just to name a very small few.

Why are we so immune if virtually every nation has undergone something like this at least once in it's history?

Indeed, yours is an interesting viewpoint and one I have considered often these last eight years. Could I be wrong, am I analyzing the evdience incorrectly, etc?

But I believe it is that very self-awareness that sets "DU Conspiracy Theorists" apart from John Birch Types and Bushies Types and all extremists types.

I don't know what to tell you. Princiipa Obstis, finem respice (resist the beginnings, foresee the ends) carries with it certain risk of sticking one's neck out to make a postulation.

OTOH, it is the only way to see the bad shit coming, because in all the examples I mentioned above it ALWAYS plays out the same way.

In the beginning, people like me raise the alarm, and peope like you tell people like me to shut upthat bullshit. It happened in the 1930s Germany, it is happening now.

That deosn't mean every time such is suspected it always comes out, but the repeat nature of the even of a nation being caputured into tyranny and all the authoritarian follwers "activated" while the calm,smooth,ironically detached Conevntional Wisdom says, "Look at those crazies. Always raising the alarm, always full of shit."

Then comes Hitler, Stalin, Pol Pot, or Caligula Caesar 20 years after the first takedown (our true Caligula, probably george P. Bush or one of his contemporaries, might take that long or longer still, though I somehow doubt it).

OOOOOOPPPPSSSSieeeeeeeeeeeeeee, says detatched calm skeptical "grown-ups" The "crazies" were right...again.

To further elaborate this, two links to authors who can explain this far better than I, for they lived through it.

http://evans-experientialism.freewebspace.com/jaspers02.htm

http://www.thirdreich.net/Thought_They_Were_Free.html

I certainly hope your calm skepticism wins the day and turns out to be the future. But I think you give the Charnel House of History and Ignorance short shrift, or believe that we Americans are exceptional and therefore rfesistant to such things.

Read the links. We are no different from ANYONE. in this regard.

Finalyy, one last question I'd like you to answer honestly. If we "Bush Conspiracy Theorists" (and how your caricature of what we believe is just that...a caricature with no basis in reality, a cardboard cutout) are just like John Birchers, then what is your honest opinion on how your dad and his John Birchers would have reacted to the notion that they might be wronng, the notion of self-awareness, and the rest of the post.

You know as well as I do they wouldn't hear me OR understand me. the very idea that they might be wrong would make them recoil and attack. It is an idea that would be literally impossible to enter their heads, no? Certainly that was the case of the John Birchers I have met in my lifetime.

Don't you see that self-awareness is the difference, and a huge difference?

[melody]

2. I'm not talking about self-awareness and I'm not telling anyone to "shut up"

In fact, as I think I said, I write about the BFEE and have for over twenty years.

Is it possible? Of course but we live at the center of an information grid without precedent. There are things that bode well for us that were not available in 1930s Germany, Stalinist Russia, Cambodia and elsewhere. Hitler, Stalin, Pol Pot, and Caligula Caesar were the great exceptions to the rule not the norm. That degree of despotism is rare in history. Some old folk like me may remember the old Soviets trying to stage a coup in Russia's glasnost period. It was in part stopped due to word getting out over the internet.

We should always be aware of authoritarianism and dictators but at the same time, we don't want to become landlocked by a dark future. These people ARE fascists, without question. Tunnel vision negativity of that order doesn't help -- it causes inertia. People are hopeless and give up. This isn't an either/or question -- we need a point in between.

There are more reasons to be optimistic than pessimistic, imho, but then I prefer to not give into despair and depression. I'm funny that way.

[tom_paine]

30. As I said before, yours is a valid and postive way of thinking

I do disagree with some of it,due to circukstance not because you are "wrong" per se or anything.

As to Hitler, Stalin, Pol Pot, and Caligula Caesar being exceptions, I very mch disagree.

If one omits the scale and scope of their montsrous crimes (and looks at "lesser" examples like Marcos and Pinochet) to simply consider the powerless, justice-less, hopeless condition of the average peasant (that's us), then such governanace is in the vast vast VAST majority of nations in history, with few exceptions, all of them after 1776.

As the original Tom Paine assessed his world at the time he wrote Common Sense (and here I paraphrase for it has been a few years since I read the full text of Common Sense, and I have no desire to rifle through my books to find the exact quote) Everywhere on Earth, in every single corner and place, human beings are oppressed and know not freedom.

And that was pretty much true of every nation and society prior to 1776, and most of them safterwards.

Justice-less powerlessness hopelessness. Legalized predation of the weak by the strong, the poor by the rich. I say this not to revel in it's pessimism but to point out the simple, unarguable truth.

Even today, at this moment, a vast majority of human beings live under Justice-less powerlessness hopelessness. Even IF we discount Imperial Amerika as on of those places :rofl: , try naming the truly free nations of the world. Gets tough after the first few.

Now try naming the Despotic Nations, even those like Imperial Amerika hwere the Emperor calls themselves President.

Again, I take no pleasure in this, and I would certainly prefer optimism, but I have to have a reason for it. Maybe if Obama is permitted to "win" this "election", I'll feel better.

Nothing like look at his "yes" vote on a $810,000,000,000 shameless theft to cool one's ardor and belief that even he will are to make even the mildest change THAT MATTERS. Oh how dearly I hope to be wrong about that, but after the bailout, the REALITY is less likely ever day.

Don't get me wrong. I volunteer for the Obama Campaign and I will almsot certainly be spending this "election" day as I have in '02, '04, and '08. Which is working from near dawn to past dusk driving, canassing, and doing GOTV.

So, aside from everything else, know we agree more than we disagree and I am right there with you trying to help Obama to the throne, if such is possible.

But I cannot deny the reality of Obama's increasingly disturbing RW turns and can only hope, like Bushler in 2000, he is lying his ass off to get in.

But a Bushler can do that, with the powerful False Reality Generating Machine the Bushies have at their disposal, able to launder any lie into Conventional Wisdom, able to obfuscate any truth, no matter how ironclad or demonstrable.

But to get back to my original point, we have a fundamental disagrement here. You believe my pointing out "inconvenient truths" to be negativity. I believe it to be not only reality but reality that everyone better hurry up and figure out quick because our desperate clinging to old nonfunctional realities is primairly what always allows the Bushes, the Hitler, the Marcos' to do what they do BECAUSE PEOPLE REFUSE TO ACKNOWLEDGE IT.

Such denial of reality, I believe, is the tyrant's best friend In the same way an alcoholic's denial is the best friend to the profits of the booze industry.

Having said that, too, let me reiterate that I am not attacking you, and that I believe your view to be as valid as mine, save that present circumstance invalidates it temporaily if we are top make an accurate assessment of what is going on in this nation and what our options are.

But we must agree to disagree. Thanks for this thread and thanks for the reply.

[OneGrassRoot]

9. K&R, with gratitude for Melody and Tom_Paine. :) n/t

[bean fidhleir]

3. And yet -- it *can* happen here. This is not a stage, and those guys aren't actors playing roles

n/t

[melody]

4. Okay, well, let's all give up hope and shoot ourselves

Yes, OF COURSE it can happen here but fascism isn't a virus that takes hold. There are people working against it ...
sorry, but there are.

[glitch]

15. People warning you aren't asking you to shoot yourself-they asking you to stay alert, keep fighting

Bit different. I think you may be taking "alarmists" the wrong way.

Your OP was very interesting, but as in everything else there are greys and colors in conspiracy theorists, not just black and white, as tom_paine implied with his self-awareness post.

The kind of person who buys every conspiracy theory uncritically is just as guilty of black/white thinking as the kind of person who scoffs at all of them.

I too think circumstances are bad but there is reason for hope, that there are a lot more people aware of the situation now than there were even 6 months ago.

We've seen their moves for 8 years now, if we hadn't given up hope before I don't think we will now. :)

[melody]

20. The "shoot myself" thing is a joke -- I make it every once in awhile

Interwoven with "we're doomed!" and "well, let's all give up".

I am fully aware (in fact, that's what I meant by non-Aristotelian thinking) of the either/or factor -- which was my point. However, people seem to be in love with personal Armageddon metaphors. They seem to need to buy into these Doomsday Scenarios. I saw it with Y2K (which I also argued against), too. We need to believe that the world is going to come to an end. Fin de siècle is always upon us, it seems. People will get just incredibly mad at me when I suggest all is not lost. It's the weirdest damned thing.

If I were going to ignore them, I certainly wouldn't be here and I wouldn't be working myself to early old age for Obama. But there really is more reason to think truly bad things won't happen. Perhaps it comes from being old enough to go through a few personal metaphors. lol

[tom_paine]

31. Binary thinking. You are better than that, melody.

Embracing their mode of binary thinking is also what the Bushies want us to do, because binary thinking is limited thinking.

You seem to think that people who point out these realities are advocating giving up hope and "shooting ourselves". That is ridiculous and overly binary. Sorry to be harsh, but it's how I see it. Kindly acknowledge that there are some grey areas, please.

If I was allowing my beliefs to pin me down and making me give up, why am I volunteering for the Obama Campaign?

Why would I do such a thing I was advocating giving up and felt no hope?

Perhaps your binary analysis is mistaken. Perhaps it IS possible to be both reality-based AND hopeful. To me, optimism is a fine thing, BUT IT MUST BE JUSTIFIED. Otherwise it is self-deception.

[melody]

38. I belong to the RNADNA, my friend

Basically, it's an anti-Aristotelian thinking group.

However, some people seem to only focus on the negative. Sometimes when they refuse to see a positive, I pop up with the only reasonable alternative to the scenario they're depicting. Shock therapy, if you will.

[tom_paine]

41. Interesting group and interesting info. Robert Anton Wilson always gives me pleasant pause to think

You seem to think I and others like me are gripped by pervasive negativity, literally unable or unwilling to see the positive.

I disagree. I know I am dying to be optimistic, but it's not that Irefuse to see it, it's that, IMO, legitimate data for such optimism simply does not yet exists in any subtantial form. That's OK, let us agree to disagree.

I will bet that we can both 100% agree that, if there is to be any hope for the future (we disagree on how much hope, I think, but little else) the only way to it is through getting Obama elected. Whatever else happens, that is Step #1. Agreed?

Apologies for suggesting you were a binary thinker. While I don't agree with you, I understand your "shock therapy" technique.

But now know that it can resemble simplistic binary thinking to people who don't know you, even in the barest cyber-sense of it (there are lots of DUers I would like to meet in person, and you're one of them...so's havocmom and the magistrate and Deep Modem Mom and atreides and Will Pitt and...too many more to name)

Peace.

P.S. I forgot how much I enjoy reading Robert Anton Wilson. I simply LOVE the idea that John Dillinger died for our sins. Hell, if you take note that he was one of the genuine "rob from the rich and give to the poor" robbers (at least i think he was...I hav done some reading on the life and death of Dillinger, but not a lot; so I am familiar with his story, but might be missing some things I need to know to give me the full picture), then consider how Hoover (who was a good bit more vile and corrupt than Dilinger in many ways) set up and basically executed Dillinger...

Who knows, maybe Dillinger DID die for our sins, and the symbols on todays houses of worship shouldn't be the cross, but the gun and FBI badge Dillinger was "crucified" on.

As I said, I forgot how like a Polynesian Feast isreading RAW. Yum! Off to devor the Main Course right now!

Thanks again for telling me about RNADNA.

:hi:

[melody]

42. I know you -- and most of us -- aren't gripped by negativity

The people who argue against my slightest suggestion that we might not be doomed, they're the ones who worry me. But they have to live with their own ulcers.

We really do need to have a big DU get-together one day.

[bean fidhleir]

32. When challenged you agree verbally that it can happen here, but your basic message is that it won't.

Not mightn't, but won't. And thus, in a sense, you're saying that it can't. I'm not so sanguine.

I found "They Thought They Were Free" intensely eye-opening. The university professor Meyer quotes describes our situation today, too:

Life is a continuing process, a flow, not a succession of acts and events at all. It has flowed to a new level, carrying you with it, without any effort on your part. On this new level you live, you have been living more comfortably every day {under the Nazis}, with new morals, new principles. You have accepted things you would not have accepted five years ago, a year ago, things that your father, even in Germany, could not have imagined.

[melody]

39. Okay, well, you're right, it's all over, we're doomed

See my comments to Tom Paine

[MissMarple]

5. Good points. The U.S. today is very different from post WWI Germany in so many ways..

The Bushies may want a fascist type dictatorship, and in some measure may actually mimic it, but it cannot be sustained. The country is too big, too diverse, and the people way too contentious. The fundies and the cultist goppers are really their only dependable audience. I doubt even Blackwater could make it work for them. They might mess up the country, but we will have it back, and we will put the pieces back together.

on edit: I misspelled "too". :eyes: Good grief!

[melody]

6. Thank you, exactly n/t

[MissMarple]

7. Happy to comment. I like your perspective. We need more of that.

That is why I gave this a fifth rec....and a kick. :)

No disrespect to Mr. Paine.

[PufPuf23]

8. RIP RAW

Conditions are not the same and have been building into a "Perfect Storm."

The slide into what we have become starting 1980 and gone steroid in December 2000 reminds me of a Philip K Dick story.

I worry most about big war.

[melody]

12. Well, you know what Bob would say

"The government can't even deliver the mail all the time, how good are they going to be at a dictatorship over 300
million people?"

[Hannah Bell]

34. they're not good at it because they don't choose to be. they purposely defunded the po.

[Mojorabbit]

10. I don't know if there is a plan out there

to take us in any particular direction but watching the propaganda work so well for both the gulf wars and how easily the nation bought it does not bode well. Being alert is a good thing.

[bluesmail]

11. Mae Brussell and her radio program every Sunday evening.

:wow: and :thumbsup: and a wink.

[melody]

13. Dialogue Conspiracy and World Watchers

And since I made poor Mae sound like a howling paranoid, I should also point out she was the first person to break the Watergate story.

[Blue Gardener]

14. Thank you

The fear-mongering around here does get to you sometimes. We need some hope.

[sicksicksick_N_tired]

16. I get really angry,...but, not totally mad (insane).

:shrug:

I appreciate the more balanced perspective.

[TheMadMonk]

17. Don't bet on it. Too many "concerned Americans" are content to...

...wait for other "concerned Americans" to pull their chestnuts from the fire.

The list of egregrious excesses has been enumerated and disected here and elsewhere countless times, but time and time again when the screaming dies down, yet another freedom has fallen by the wayside.

True journalists would, on prime time TV, dare their bosses to sack them for telling the truth. Force those bosses to chose between allowing the truth to emerge or telling "network dificulties".

True patriots would descend on Washington (and every city centre) and dare the powers that be to stop them. People here and elsewhere decry the jackbooted thug tactics of out of control police, and yet the violence (bad as it may be) said coppers deal out, it is nothing to what the unions willingly faced in the first half of the last century, or what the civil rights movement was subjected to.

Today far too many of the people of america are so fearful to risk their precious skins that they stand quietly complacent as it is stripped from their bodies one square inch at a time.

Even amongst the activists, this fear is evident, where in the past the protestors would force the "authorities" into committing some atrocity, or retreat, they turn and run when the first flash bang detonates in front of them. Someone posts a jumpy cell phone video and a handful of people watch it and beat their breasts over how bad things are, but the nation never sees.

Safe in their comfort zone, the average American is not going to be swayed into action by pictures of a handful of rubber bullet bruises that ninety five percent or more never see.

If you truly want Americans to get of their collective, fat arses comfortably ensconced in their well worn, perfectly shaped couch cushion arse grooves, you will have to force the media to show them hundreds (and thousands) of bruised and battered protestors and perhaps even dead bodies on the streets of middle America.

When it is only a small handful suffering the "consequences" of their activism, complacent and comfortable Americans can tell themselves that it's just a handful of loonies getting what they deserve. To get these people's attention, you need to make it clear to them, that the people you oppose will stop at nothing to attain their ends. That the would be conquerers of America will let nothing stand in their path to final victory.

Then and only then might those conquerors pause and take stock, is the fact that those that they want to conquer are no longer going bend over and take it without complaint. That their intended victims will push back and make it clear to future victims what price they themselves will pay in the future if they don't object now.

[peacetalksforall]

18. I think we have a major problem 'framing' what we think we are facing.

to borrow the phrase framing.

Conspiracy theorist involves two elements - a leap or call it a jump from learning one or a few facts of rumor-facts, then crying fire, and not digging in with follow through. They carry trumpets.

Situation solvers bury their heads in study and questions. The key question they ask themselves and each other is "Why in the xxxx would 'they' do that?" They seek and gather. They formulate. They carry notes.

Why a mercenary army? Are the stories about building prisons true? Are some de-commissioned army bases being converted to prisons? Are they really empty? Who got the contracts? Is there any known escalation related to training guards, wardens? In what circles does this money move? What does Congress know about it? What is the real role of the newly assigned army unit to the U.S. NorthCom?

They. They. I am always saying they.

I don't believe that Cheney is the person at the top who is the designer, motivator, operator, and enforcer.

I believe Cheney reports to 'they' and is directed by 'they'.

Acts and dictum's have accumulated that indicate we are not highly regarded by them. Are easily fooled by them. Most people know there are changes in this country. Some see it pointing, funneling, forming. Some flip it off. Dismiss it with lectures or jokes. Some fear knowing or owning thoughts. Some place a distance between themselves and the 'therefores' of deductive reasoning.

I prefer to remove blinders bought by me or provided to me. I want to see and get a view of the lay of the land. I want to listen to theories. I want to see how all the pieces fit with each other. I feel I'm invested in a life and though change is possible, I must work to some degree to learn and prove and know how to effect a stop when I and my peers have things taken from me. Like our country. And forced on me. Like knowing that our countries leaders are torturing people.

I don't take these things lightly. I can't flip them off. Where are we going and why? What's in it for us? And for them? I don't call needing to know conspiracy, but that is what it becomes when a person even asks a question and states why they are asking or references certain people's work.

The more we know the better it will fit.

[melody]

21. We should definitely seek to know more

But reactively choosing paranoia over reason is dangerous, too.

[bertman]

19. Excellent post, Melody and special thanks to Tom_Paine and TheMadMonk for added insight.

I find it laughable when people say it isn't happening here or how would the incompetent assholes control 300 million Americans.

It is happening here and the way they control 300 million is through fear and a police state, and if necessary, through military intervention or martial law.

If you have not heard of InfraGard don't feel bad. Most Americans have not. Similar to BlackWater's stealthy arrival on the scene, InfraGard ,a civilian, non-law enforcement cadre of the FBI, has been functioning under the radar. These folks have been "deputized" to protect critical infrastructure in times of "unrest".

According to an article at alternet.org these non-FBI deputies receive terror alerts even before some local law enforcement people get them. There are chapters all over the country, in every state. Just google it and see the myriad opportunities for homeland security part-time jobs that are available to the willing and, you can rest assured, the carefully screened. The link is below:

http://www.alternet.org/story/76388/?page=entire

I suspect that even if Obama is elected he will be unable to rein in these American paramilitaries.

But still, as Melody suggests, we can HOPE. But when faced with a Republican party that has shown for many years that it doesn't answer to anyone when it's in power, and now seeing a resurgent Democratic party that has acquired a recent, but distinct, distaste for protecting Americans' civil liberties, well, all bets are off for democracy.

[melody]

22. We've always had such paramilitaries. Always.

In the old days, we didn't even know about them. Now we do.

We also need to keep in mind the question of why they would do any of this. It would cost them money and gain them nothing.
These people only do things for a profit motive. Even Bush's kiddie prostitution ring was only meant to protect their
investment.

But thank you for your points and your nice words.

[bertman]

23. Melody, CONTROLLING THE POPULACE is very profitable. The Nazis confiscated the property

and personal effects of the "enemies of the state" they arrested and took to concentration camps. Hundreds of millions, if not billions, of reichsmarks.

If you can thwart your business competitors by secretly monitoring their business' financial communications and preempting their moves, you are going to be able to make more money. And with fewer competitors you make LOTS more money.

If you are the primary stockholders in the companies that make the weapons, the tear gas, the mace, the Tasers, the handcuffs, builds the camps, provides the transportation, trains the "corrections officers", runs the camps, provides food and logistical support, you can make BILLIONS.

If your pharmaceutical company is the one that makes the drugs to keep the internees and the populace docile, you make BILLIONS.

And the best part is it is COSTING US not them. Most of this is being done in our name and with our tax dollars. They just get the no-bid, no-oversight contracts.

These are facts, Melody. And right now all of the items I have mentioned are happening, with the exception of the internment camps. But, they are built, the rail lines are built and they are being guarded and staffed. For "illegal immigrants" of course.

[melody]

26. You and my dad would have gotten along well

He showed me pictures of "internment camps" and "rail lines" and "gas chambers", too.

Alright, I give up, time to kill ourselves -- the end is at hand.

[Hannah Bell]

24. Alternatively, if people had been more conspiracy-minded during the "reagan revolution," we

wouldn't be where we are today.

The evidence was there, if you were of a mind to find it.

[RFKJrNews]

25. Posted a similar Op-Ed on this question a few months ago...

...you might find this interesting:

Op-Ed: Is America A Fascist Nation?
http://rfkjrforpresident.com/2008/01/31/op-ed-is-america-a-fascist-nation/

[tomreedtoon]

27. "People who aren't sociopaths"...are we talking about the Bushes?

Because it seems to me that they have no contact with human society. They don't need to. They're rich. They probably don't talk to the help that cleans their toilets and washes their linens.

George Bush will never know what evil he's done to this country. Period. He's a drunk and a druggie and he has even less to do with the real world than his parents.

I mean, it's kind of you to think that they are actual functional human beings, but I think history has pretty conclusively proven you wrong.

[melody]

28. Of course I'm not talking about them.

I wrote an extensive piece on Bush pedagogy and how it creates sociopathy a
long time ago. While Poppy Bush surrounds himself with people on whom he has amassed dirt (his prostitution ring being one of the
engines of that "amassing"), there are also powerful people with consciences in his circle as well.

These are the people who would keep him in check. For instance, he has very powerful relatives who know all about him and
hate his guts.

Pay no attention to little George -- Poppy is the one behind the Bush curtain. He is the noon-day devil.

[Hekate]

29. Kick. Too tired to comment much, but very interesting

BTW, I noticed that thing about neurology in my mother's side of the family. Wildly passionate opinions about things -- like my uncle the right-wing retired colonel and his son the left-wing draft-dodger who ended up in Canada.

Off to bed. Thank you for interrupting the regularly scheduled fear-mongering. A sanity break is always nice.

Hekate

[Festivito]

33. Some are true or there wouldn't be laws, some are not ...

or it wouldn't be fun.

The trouble is that we do not know until we find out.

So, I leave you with a question: What is the difference between a smart man and a brilliant man?

A smart man knows half of what he hears is not true.

And the brilliant man,
he knows,...

he knows which half.

(Highlight the white space above for the rest of the joke.)

[magdalena]

35. A thousand thank yous for your sanity.

I grew up in a nearly identical situation to yours. My father, for the entirety of my 31 years, has been proselytizing the coming economic collapse and fascist takeover of America and the world. He has electrical generators, wood burning stoves, and hordes of MREs and iodine pills. All of my life he has been trying to instill his fears in to me. He encouraged me to not attend college, to work instead, lest I be plagued with debt and no finances to weather the total economic collapse. He encouraged me not to live in large metropolitan areas or I would risk being in a target for a terrorist attack. He encouraged me not live abroad or else I would not be able to return home when "IT" finally hit. Hell, he even encouraged me to not celebrate the millennial new year far away from home in New Orleans because there would be utter chaos when all our computers failed. Thankfully, I too, discovered RAW early on. I often think of how sheltered and shallow my life would have been thus far had I allowed my father's fear to control me.

Being the masochist that I sometimes am, I venture into Freeperville periodically. You are absolutely correct in your comments about identical patterns of thought. Take the extreme fear-based posts from DU and compare them to the extreme fear-based Freep posts and they are virtually indistinguishable, only the cast of characters are different.

I want to make it clear that I do not discount anyone's concerns. I admit that the situation is appearing more and more bleak with our Patriot Act and economic crisis. I personally do not believe we are going to be plagued with a Fourth Reich either, but I also do not put it beyond the realm of possibility. The key is to stay informed, stay alert, and take action where and how you feel necessary. Incessant fear and worry serves to benefit no one. I just have to keep reminding myself that my grandparents lived through the Great Depression, many wars, the "red scare", energy shortages, etc. They have lived through times where they were so poor they had nothing to eat but potatoes and old field corn for months on end. My grandfather's naval ship was blown up at sea in WWII and he spent a few days floating around on debris in the Pacific before he was finally rescued. They survived so many terrible and seemingly hopeless times that I cannot possibly imagine going through, yet in the end they lived such fulfilling, successful and happy lives.

Sorry this verbal diarrhea got a little off-track. Again, I just wanted to thank you for your rational words and very important message of hope.

[bertman]

36. Thanks for posting that, magdalena. If you take a hard look at the world you live in today

you will find that there is a lot of truth in what your father told you even if things aren't as dire as he predicted---yet. Because the economic collapse has not hit YOU doesn't mean it is not upon us. Did you read the unemployment figures for jobs lost in September? And those numbers do not include the ones lost since the Bush/Paulson "emergency" bailout plan was introduced.

I suspect that many of the folks whose once-secure jobs have become NO JOBS would agree with your father's view of the world and probably wish they had not lived in debt--as I and most of us do.

And if those jobless folks had decided to try to impress upon the current rulers of the planet what a precarious plight they are in and had gone to Minneapolis to demonstrate their dissatisfaction, they very likely came in direct contact with our not-yet-totally-Fascist Department of Homeland Security and its local law enforcement minions. Those Americans might disagree somewhat that the police are not yet acting like fascists. Because having been corralled into enclosures, maced, beaten and arrested for protesting their government's inaction and perfidy, they are beginning to see the new reality where lawful acts by demonstrators are treated as civil disturbances at best and criminality at worst. It's a fact that those of us who never publicly voice our dissatisfaction with our government are far less likely to be subjected to the overt fascism that the active "opposition" has to face.

Perhaps if you were in your 12th month of unemployment and were about to see your unemployment benefits disappear along with the home you were working so hard to pay for and the dreams you held onto until the last possible minute, you might feel a bit differently about your father's "paranoia".

Because I live in an area that is heavy on academic, medical, and research jobs, I am not as exposed to the harsh realities of our downward-sliding economy as many Americans are; however, the signs are here and the economic "slowdown" is starting to affect us too. But, by educating myself and keeping my eyes open I am staying abreast of the REALITIES of the world around me, rather than buying in to the glossy photo version that our government and corporate media would have us believe in.

The extra-scary part of this scenario is that so many of us who are NOW living comfortably are so immersed in our own pleasures, families, jobs, and other obligations that we do not have the inclination nor the time to look around us at the world beyond our neighborhoods. Like most of the world, we will not believe the ugly parts exist until we're smacked in the face by them.

magdalena, I am NOT advocating not going to college or educating yourself. I am not suggesting that you live a debt-free life; although, if I had more fiscal discipline I certainly would do that myself. You are free to live wherever you want and my guess is the likelihood of your being a target of an urban terrorist attack is very low. Your father's vision certainly has extreme aspects to it, but there is also something in it that can give you a more reality-based view of the world. It IS possible to live life fully and participate in the many wonderful opportunities that are here for all of us AND also be actively aware of and opposed to the worst aspects of our ever-increasingly fascist government.

[melody]

43. I could have written that myself word for word lol

My dad was in southern Oregon -- that was the only difference. The boogeymen change but the pathology remains the same.

Thank heavens for Robert Anton Wilson ... he led so many of us out of intellectual dungeons.

Our ancestors came through so many horrible things and not only survived but thrived. Another thing I keep asking myself is
"how much is the fear being heightened because of the internet?" I wonder what the net (if it had existed as it does now)
would have looked like in the 1970s? Would we be seeing similar doomsday speak. And yet we survived it all.

Thanks for your great post.

[El Pinko]

37. If this is "hope", I'd hate to see the "despair".

Not that I disagree with anything you've written.

[Ignis]

40. "Luckily, I had discovered Robert Anton Wilson years before."

Maybe Logic sure helps expand the cognitive frontiers, doesn't it?

I had the profound pleasure of meeting Ol' Bob a few times before he passed. He was truly an American Hero.

:patriot: