It seems a shame that a mind such as mine is being wasted ( referencing the old United Negro College Fund commercials- excuse me, the old United African-American Oppressed Minority By Those Honky Mo Fo’s College Fund- “a mind is a terrible thing to waste” ) ( 1985 Leontyne Price United Negro College Fund Photo Print Ad (46942)
) but I simply can’t help myself. When confronted with such weighty issues I can’t help but ponder on them for a long while. Why, in the name of all that is holy and just and good, are people incapable of pushing a shopping cart? Is it really that friggin hard? You push the bitch. If you stop pushing, it stops. No braking mechanism is required. You barely have to steer. And yet people, by their actions, clearly are demonstrating a complete disregard in their ability to control this conveyance. Every time I go into any shopping establishment that offers a shopping cart, I’m encountering the same thing. People push their cart down the middle of the isle. If someone comes up behind them, they fail to steer to one side allowing passage. They either stop completely or they actually take up more of the aisle by going diagonal. If they are pulled over to one side they are standing right next to the cart on the other side of the aisle so that between their cart and their 293 pound ass you couldn’t squeeze a mouse fart ( Funny Mouse Fart
) through. Or, a couple has one cart each and they are strolling leisurely down the aisles side by side. Or, a parent has the spawn with them and the little darlings are scampering madly back and forth and you dare not try to pass in case one of the little sugared up welfare bastards darts in front of you and collides with your cart and then hysterics and lawyer fees ensue. I’m not one of those self important people that screech loudly on their cell phones ( Motorola T-Mobile Sidekick Slide Q700 Cell Phone With 1.3 MP Camera, QVGA Display and QWERTY Keyboard
) as they dart around looking put out because they are so busy. On my day off when I go shopping I like to take things slow and relax, trying to make the weekly shopping as pleasant as possible. Drink coffee at the Laundromat, chat with the old gal at the gas station. Look for any new deals at the dollar store. But if I just want to get into Wal-Mart and shop within forty five minutes for my 23 items, forget about it. So many asshat non-driving whorebags are in my way that it turns into a nightmare ( above and beyond the screwing the corporation is giving me ). The human race surely couldn’t have survived being this stupid without divine intervention. Thank you, Baby Jesus.*
Today’s question is, which empire will we be during our decline? I can’t remember who I was reading but a gentleman had a Canadian girlfriend years back. He went to visit her up north of the border and the Mounties ( 22859 (Lg/Xl 7 1/2) Mountie Hat Wool felt
) had no problem letting him in. When she came down to visit I guess there was more problems. Most likely, in a politically correct effort to avoid the appearance of profiling the border guards were treating middle class white gals like unemployed middle east unshaven religious fanatics. But she did comment on all the flags as reminiscent of Nazi Germany. You know, the unembarrassed pageantry. That description kind of stuck in my mind, as to foreigners I’m sure Americans appear to be little carbon copies of fascists. Our government never lost their love for that form of organization, despite the current attempt at misdirection by adopting “Czars” for the Department Of Federalization Of Corporations, or the Department Of Turning Our Fat Little Bastards Into Idealized Visions Of Aryan Athletics By Introducing Salad Bars Into Our Schools, or what new department is being materialized this week. Turning into the Forth Reich probably isn’t too far fetched for our future.*
The British Empire ( The Rise and Fall of the British Empire
)( Empire: The Rise and Demise of the British World Order and the Lessons for Global Power ) 
was failing for awhile and decided to finish off the job by going into a hundred years of debt by entering WWI. The bankers sold the country off to enter WWII ( a nice example of the dangers of going to war on a credit card ). But, essentially, despite any failings to account for other details, the British sold their assets to the Americans in return for a token pension to keep them going. I don’t see that sort of end for our empire. While our farmland will produce bountifully as long as the aquifers are full and the oil pumps, there is that nagging question of trans-ocean transport that becomes much more difficult post-petroleum ( hard to see how sailing power could transport enough food to feed China or India ). Oh, we’ll see a period of food-for-oil as a last ditch survival mechanism for the elite, starving the workers as they toil in the fields, but civil unrest will demolish that quickly. Americans have a three hundred year history of taking what they want to get richer, and few will settle peacefully for going from exploiter to exploited. I can’t envision Americans being beholden to another country to survive ( we don’t beg for oil, we steal it- we won’t easily go to the victim role ). For the same reason, I don’t see us following an Asian model empire. We won’t rise again after a collapse because we are so accustomed to theft that we will go into an all-or-nothing war in the end. Once we lose, we will not have anything left to start over again ( the habit of depleting resources doesn’t help ).*
I don’t see following the Russian model. We aren’t used to hardship to endure a down period. And we don’t have unexploited resources to start the empire again. The Soviets exploited their resources inefficiently by government. So there was plenty left over for the brief period when they let in the western private companies. We, on the other hand, have already very efficiently used up all our resources. You can’t restart an empire without energy. The Nazi’s ( The Nazis: A Warning From History
) built an empire on very little resources other than a superior education system. They didn’t have colonies to exploit as did the English, or a natural endowment of Mother Nature like we had. But Americans are not Germans. We always had resources to exploit and we have been very lazy because of it. Our educational system is just as good as the Soviets or Nazis as far as propaganda but very poor actually teaching anything. We can’t survive as did the Germans on organization and innovation. We are still ruling off our one time achievement of the atomic bomb ( which some think came from the Nazis anyway ) and the dividends of our WWII victory due to oil and steel surpluses. We are emulating their rule through technology superiority but the computer chip lead we have narrows all the time, if it already hasn’t disappeared. *
Our political rule of the populace is modeled after the Nazi’s. We will see more rallies, flag waving and everyone from dog catcher to mayors secretary decked out in fancy federal uniforms. But don’t expect anything other than a comic opera based on third world banana republic dictatorship. We’ll dress the part but never get off the parade ground. Perhaps we’ll be more like Argentina ( Argentina (EYEWITNESS TRAVEL GUIDE)
) than Germany. America is unique, but I wonder if our collapse will be anything other than the combined worse elements of all other empires collapsing? Inept leadership, inefficient war machine, wildly overoptimistic populace blinded to their own incompetence. It will be interesting to see.END
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8 comments:
Got to agree about the cart problem. I've said many times that if these people drove their cars like they drive their carts we could thin the herd.
JP in MT
One thing I don't get about writings and blogs about surviving a sudden societal collapse is the time frame issue. Historians who study collapse talk about a sudden collapse of an empire happening over several decades (e.g., 10-20 year period). Bloggers act like collapse will happen over a period of a few months or at most a few years, and seem to think that a 10-20 period is a "slow collapse".
Personally, I don't see a 10-year supply of stored food as excessive, given history. I've never understood the conventional 1-3 years (or some double this) of stores as based on anything but a Hollywood view of what a collapse would look like.
You forgot one ass aching annoyance at the grocer: The fat ass hot rodding around on their store borrowed electric ox cart. You know the one, the 675 pound turd that only gets up out of it to lunge for the 6 pound bag of the extra greasy potato chips on the top shelf, that delights you with their essence as they plop down onto the poor screaming worn out padded seat. Well at least you never see them near the healthy foods, they are usually playing bumper cars over in front of the frozen pizzas or by the ice cream freezer.
Jim:
Right on with the shopping experience. Except you forgot to add in the 350+ pound shoppers that run up and down the aisles in the little scooters. Both behind cheeks hanging over the sides of the seat.
And heaven forbid if you have the audacity to be in their way. Afterall, they may be selling out the last bag of cheetoes
The British had a very diffuse empire and were always at risk any time another major economy decided to build a navy.
Early on the Dutch consistently defeated the British until threats from their landward flank caused them to rethink the rivalry.
During one of the few times that the French were not fighting everyone else in Europe, they were able to defeat the British navy and get us our independence.
They dodged a major bullet during the Napoleonic Wars by fortunately having one of the greatest admirals to ever sail the oceans: not by being inordinately over powered.
The lull period after the Napoleonic Wars is when they gained their reputation.
But after that period, the United States, Germany, and then Japan all became at least local rivals very quickly. The British by concentrating everything against the Germans was able to stop only one of them: again, not very dominating fro a super power based on navel strength.
The Germans are a medium sized country. They new this and pretty much wanted to become one the large continental powers from the late 19th century on. A great military system put them more in the running than they deserved.
It is hard to know what to say about the USSR. Even with a completely foolish running of their country they were so large as to be a dominating world power.
The United States is a far more powerful relative to the rest of the world (as opposed to just its neighbors) than any other country has been. However, both the USSR-Russia and China shot themselves in the foot through inept economic management, and the European Community is not much better: and to tope it of the EU are pacifists.
Here is guess-prediction: made with many minutes of thought. We will continue to dominate until we get in a undeclared war with some middling power. One of their cheapo diesel submarines sinks an aircraft carrier and the paper tiger that is our surface fleet is largely demobilized and re-geared at a much smaller level as an anti-submarine force.
No dominant surface navy = end of US global dominance: regional power prevails again.
And somewhere along the line we run out of fuel and it all becomes somewhat moot.
Sadly, I see a possible future as one where essentially the Chinese decide they can be just fine with less population, about a billion less, so they encourage that billion to invade the US, South America, everywhere and anywhere they can colonize and cleanse of anyone who's not Chinese. This is why they have their "forward troops" installed, running small businesses, infiltrating school boards and gov't agencies, taking up jobs and then making sure any hiring they do involves hiring other Chinese.
Of course in any multi-racial wannabee Empire, there's "racial nepotism". I saw this in a tech company I worked for, and saw it in every other tech company I visited. One department would be all Cambodians, another all Viet, and Lord help 'em if a Chinese person got into a high position, they'd be all rid of and replaced by Chinese. If a Black guy got in, and ended up a low-level manager as his dept. grew, he'd hire other Blacks and ONLY other Blacks. This was only ill thought of if a White person ever tried giving a break to another White, in any way. The end result was, Whites became an endangered species in that company.
So you get this tribalism and constant struggle of group against group. Which is probably why the Japanese are so big on racial purity and the Germans of the mid-20th century insisted on it. Otherwise the Empire explodes.
Lord Bison, I humbly request your comments (possibly in a future article) regarding Ecc. 7:12 "For wisdom is a defence, and money is a defence: but the excellency of knowledge is, that wisdom giveth life to them that have it." Do you think that knowledge on how to survive is more important than preps to survive? If you could only choose one, which would it be.
-Novice
When people sit in the left lane and won't let you pass, what makes you think they will act any different in a shopping cart? Jim, part of the reason you are living there (and one reason I'm considering the move)is to get away from people. Imagine if you were someplace crowded. I have found that Walmart is a LOT easier to take in the 2 am to 6 am time slot. The lowlifes are pretty much home sleeping it off. The only exception is the first day of the month; welfare/WIC/etc debit cards get activated at midnight then and many of them have been running short on whatever for days.
Anon 11:28 I felt the same way about the Chinese until someone pointed out the logistics of getting them all here; i.e. the impossibility. They might have enough containerships to sneak enough troops in to take California; then again, would we care enough to fight back? As far as what you wrote on breaking up into tribes I suggest you read Civil War II.
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