What’s Up?

Wow, read any newspaper, tune into just about any radio or TV program and eventually there will be something about disasters, emergencies, economic or cultural collapse or more precisely The End of The World As We Know It. These doomsday stories will cover anything and everything from bad luck, to natural, to man-made and spiritual on national to global scales. The intense wide spread coverage and discussion of these scenarios have happened repeatedly in the past, so what has us humans so wound up this time? And what is so dang different this time around? These two questions should provoke a multitude of responses. I would like to share mine and hear yours …

I see a global awakening that we humans are NOT GODS. We are not Omni portent.

We can control very little (if anything major), of what we need to survive and that especially includes global climate. So to me this battle between the Pro’s and Con’s of Global Climate Change are the results of this emerging awareness that we humans are nowhere near as important or powerful as we would like to believe we are. We humans can merely influence but not control our climate. So it really makes no never-mind if we are heading towards a Big Freeze or a Big Boil or will continue to bounce between the two – we can only prepare to survive it. Humans can only make our world less poisonous and safer but not poison or danger free.

The “civilized” world today seems to be hooked on the Greed drug. Be this for money, control or power. It is reflected in the economic, financial, business and governmental systems of today. Very few if any governments or businesses are truly attempting to implement a plethora of really helpful programs, laws or whatever that will assist their citizen’s life, yet alone the world’s human lives. They may market these programs as such but when picked apart and examined, the programs will help a few people and many more businesses and governmental entities in at least one if not more of the Greed categories of: money, power and control.

Our civilized societies seem to have no tolerance for differences of opinion and stuck on extremes instead of common sense studies and approaches to the issue at hand. Yet when I look back on history I see example after example that when we humans and our man-made civilizations centered on either extreme or the exact middle of any cause and affect issue – we almost always failed and failed drastically.

Here in the states, we (as a collective whole) appear to be money hungry. Every entity, business, governmental or individual, has this driving need to make Mega Bucks, not just bucks but Mega Bucks. This leads us to have the biggest yard, the biggest house, the most elaborate vehicle or the fanciest and most expensive clothes. We work our butts off to earn this money to achieve this Mega Mentality while at the same time our corporations and governments are working their butts off to have a Mega Slice of our hard earned money and they will use any means possible to do so to feed their Greed Addiction, sucking up power and control over each individual along the way.

How many humans want to breathe poisoned air, drink poisoned water or live or eat food from poisoned soil? It is not a crime to want safe and healthy air, land and water. Yet these Mega Addicted entities make it appear to be a crime if you are “to selfish” (their words) to save the planet or “to stupid” to see the need, while the opposite extreme says you are “greedy liars” or “lazy leaches” and calls you all kinds of other names. To top it off the two opposite extremes will willfully try to make the moderate person appear as the greediest, dumbest and laziest of them all!

Economic and financial systems are so hooked on Greed that these entities add to the problem. They want more money, but more money does not exist, so they print more money. This leads to increased costs (via prices, taxes, fees, etc.) to make more money. Money runs out again, so more money is printed and so on and so on. This is not a self-sustaining perpetual system, rather this system is doomed to fail and when it does it will do so in a very big way. Yes indeed Virginia, money makes the world go round, for now anyway.

Now add the human necessity to understand and stop the dangers of this world and we look for any and all means to predict these events so we can avoid or survive them. This too feeds the greed addiction and it almost always uses the “fear of the unknown or uncontrollable” mentality to do so.

Truth be told, no matter which extreme “they” are, the bottom line is they want our money and are trying to scare, guilt or force us into paying them. Tools of this battle of extremes are seen in the boatload of miss information and unrelated “facts”. They turn the debate between two extremes into the biggest money making scam of this century. What the hell happened to common sense and moderation?

In my lifetime, technology has enabled my own government to become even greedier. It appears to seek all the forms of greed. As a result I am very untrusting of it and I know many others are too.

These are just a few examples where extremism and the Jolly Greed Giant are influencing today’s civilizations and every human on this planet. In essence my bottom line reality is that Human Greed (in all of its forms) is the deadly foe and I must protect myself and mine from it.

Is money bad? No we need some kind of trading and bartering medium because no one human can have ALL the knowledge, skills or items necessary for life, nor do we all need the exact same things to survive. Ultimately - We need each other!

I have felt this need for self-reliance for a long time now (since the 70’s). I have worked hard, despite some detours, to achieve it. Yet never before in my life have I seen so many people, in so many countries with this same sense of urgency to be self-reliant and prepared to survive without as many outside entities as possible. Why? What’s Up now?

Some may call me crazy, others think I’m paranoid and still others think I am smart, yes I have been pigeon holed many times and you probably have too. No matter, this is me and my views and I look forward to yours.

From a 50 Something, soon to be rural homesteading Prepper