emancipation

EMANICIPATION


A few things right out the gate. One, people seriously thought I wanted to work hard on a friggin Monday morning. Can you believe the audacity? I felt like a cheap hooker in the middle of a train. So I didn’t get all the needy folks out to start my lunch on time. I’m working on less than 50 minutes, but I’ll try to get close to a thousand words. Second, I don’t care what you say, I’m going to share my non-survivalist book with you. To placate your demanding bleating, I’ll give you the final word on the “Eden” book. The ending sucked. A lot of points off for a see-sawing, incoherent end. I loved the central theme of “good people doing bad to survive” which is far more realistic than the standard “can’t we all just get along and share with our dim grasshopper brethren who is deserving in their ignorance, laziness and asshatedness” which unfortunately is standard in most post-apocalypse novels. So, kudos for breaking the mold, but shame on you for the ending. I read “Bitter Seeds” by Ian Tregillis ( Bitter Seeds ) this weekend which I got from the library. It looked goofy, British warlocks against Nazi psi-troops in an alternate WWII history. But it was very well done, the fantasy element was downplayed, and a definite page-turner. A nice mental relaxation. Along the same lines, previous I had read “Horns” by Joe Hill ( Horns: A Novel ). Another silly one, a guy turns into a demon and battles human evil. But the writing was outstanding so the premise was less important. Next up, my guest article which appeared on Creekmores blog last Friday. I haven’t gone back there to read more comments, but by Friday afternoon there was one of my loyal minions calling for calm and clear thinking and the rest of the flaming idiots screaming about how nothing else I wrote was valid because they didn’t believe in Peak Oil. How does Creekmore put up with a bunch of readers like that? I hope they pay him well. No one has to agree with everything I say ( although it would be a nice change of pace ), but don’t close your mind down and refuse to consider ideas.

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Now, with a title like emancipation ( Emancipation: How Liberating Europe's Jews from the Ghetto Led to Revolution and Renaissance ), you might think I’ve gone soft and gooey and now look at everyone with pleading doe eyes. Oh, my, can’t we all just get along? Piss on that. Lots of people are so stupid that freedom is dangerous. But I won’t digress. And you might think I wish minorities and women to be free and equal. Hey, I’m an anarchist ( The World That Never Was: A True Story of Dreamers, Schemers, Anarchists, and Secret Agents ). Unfortunately that means I have let everyone else think they are equal to me, just on principle. I would argue that women should be kept shackled to the stove while barefoot and pregnant, but that isn’t because I think they shouldn’t be equal. It is because a lot of people can’t handle making their own choices and as has been proven over the last few generations, giving women the choice means in general the family unit has suffered. I’m not acting up here, I realize I am just as guilty. I’m just like every other worker, preferring to farm out my parents to Social Security rather than taking care of them myself. And then bitching about taxes. I’m talking from a macro perspective here. A lot of times you need to force people to do the right thing, whether that is caring for children or staying married to a less than desirable mate ( another thing I’m guilty of ). Today, let’s talk about giving too many people too much freedom as resources declined.

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Back in the day, unless you were a white middle class male, your life pretty much sucked. Minorities were economically chained to the ghettos. Women were still almost considered property. Fuzzy foreigners were treated like crap for generations before being assimilated. Then they could work hard and get a “separate but equal” middle class knock off ( almost the same as the honkies but with a lot of restrictions ). I am not saying this was right. I am not saying it was desirable, except in one aspect. It kept the consumption of resources low. If only the middle class got cars and refrigerators, a lot less ore and oil was being used. Then, a funny thing happened to the American Dream ( The American Dream: A Short History of an Idea that Shaped a Nation ). It was decreed far and wide that all were to be able to participate. Regardless of gender or race or income, all people were free and equal. No more discrimination. No more separate classes. We can talk about hippy peace marches and black rioting and Mexican boycotts of grape fields and bra burnings. And how democracy finally came to this country. But, stop and think. Why did all this happen as America was de-industrializing? Why did it take a consumer economy to liberate everyone? I contend that this was all by design. To keep the economy growing, and the bankers rich, as our oil supply started running out ( hence, the end of manufacturing ), more and more consumers were needed. First the women, then American minorities. And lately the Third World populations. More workers to keep wages down as well as more and more services farmed out of the home into the market. Everything is now for sale and no one can be independent of the system.

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Now, if I were a women or a black, I would probably be quite happy with not being chattel any longer. But in their happiness, do they stop and wonder at the price of their freedom? They are no longer living and working for a husband or a farm owner, but they are no more free than they were. They are economic slaves now, and while it is a slight improvement it is still not freedom. And, in case anyone missed the main point, there are now far too many consumers of goods using depleting resources. I’m not advocating slavery. I’m not saying equality isn’t a worthy goal. I’m saying that the price we will pay for it is going to be far more than what we bargained for. As the oil runs out and the crops dry out in too hot of a climate or freeze in abnormally long winters, we will wish that a few less had shared in the diminishing bounty.

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My e-mail is jimd303@netzero.com
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Anyone can submit a guest article. No minimum word length, no writing skill necessary ( just get the idea across ). You retain copyright ( this must be your original writing ) and I’ll just use the once. I’ve yet to turn down an article, just don’t use the N Bomb or libel another that can sue me. Send by e-mail ( please, label as “guest article” so I can find it easily later ). Payment will be your removal from my enemies list.
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