Monday, August 10, 2009

Survival Concerns

Yes, I am concerned about Survival, but generally surviving environmental and/or natural events. Lately I have been reading some survival blogs on the internet, hoping for tidbits about survival I may have overlooked. However, a few of the 'survivalist' blogs are beginning to frighten me, for they seem to think only folks like themselves should survive... folks with the same narrow range of prejudices, the same religion, the same skin color... I think it's called xenophobia.

I'm having a real problem with that kind of belief system; it's the beliefs that brought about the concentration camps in WWII... the beliefs that brought the slave trade to America, let us destroy the bulk of Native Americans, the Trail of Tears, the internment of Japanese Americans during WWII... the list could go on and on, and that's just in my own country.


Now that's not to say I have no prejudices; I do have, and plenty of them! I am prejudiced against laziness, closed-minds, people who think they are owed a living just for breathing, people who milk the system our tax dollars support... then there's arrogance, greed, avarice, uncontrolled lust and gluttony, slothfulness, plus psychopaths and sociopaths.


I am not against stupidity, because that's a lack of the ability to learn, such as those who are mentally challenged. An ignorant person has the capacity to learn, and refusing to learn is just dumb in my book. So I am prejudiced against the ignorant who refuse to learn when given the opportunity.


Back to my thoughts on the Survivalist Cults... As a group, they seem to blame Government and Big Business. But who elected the government, and who bought whatever businesses were selling? Everyday we are seeing more media exposure of greed in big business, and collusion and corruption in government office.


The thing is, we are in a mess for sure... but it has been building for a very long time. Playing the Blame Game doesn't make it any better. Nor does being an ostrich and burying our heads in the sand. That's probably one reason it has become so bad... we weren't paying attention. Times were good, we had plenty of jobs, plenty of disposable income, plenty of opportunities... so who cared to look beyond the surface?


We took everything at face value, even advertising for politicians and consumer goods, with no questions. Our Values became materialistic; we judged a man's "success" by dollars. If you didn't hold a good paying job, buy a more-expensive house and car, have gold or platinum credit cards, you were a worthless human being. We accepted the advice of any man with millions of dollars as better than our own counsel and values.

We have no one to blame. What we do have is a responsibility, to ourselves, our children and our values/beliefs to do what it takes to come out of this as better people. I just hope those who hold their beliefs as "the only way to believe" don't end up the majority.

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