Erstwhile Urban Wanderer

February 26, 2008 – An ominous, not too distant future hangs over our heads. I find myself holding my breath, waiting for the shoes to drop, unable to move.

By Dave Eriqat

I’m not normally someone who becomes incapacitated by fear. Whenever I have to address something that frightens me, I do so without hesitation and usually discover that the object of my fright is not as frightening as I feared.

For the last few years, however, I’ve been increasingly incapacitated by my growing fear about the rapidly approaching future. What scares the hell out of me? Total economic collapse, for one, which will make the Great Depression of the 1930s seem like a picnic in the park.

The Great Depression was largely a psychological crisis. It began as a financial crisis, borne of shattered confidence in the system. Fundamentally, the economy was strong, the nation was rich in natural resources, it possessed a vibrant and skilled workforce and a strong industrial and agricultural base. All that was needed to overcome the malaise of the 1930s was a strong leader who could constructively direct peoples’ energy. While I don’t care for most of FDR’s policies, he did successfully direct people toward constructive endeavors that eventually pulled the nation out of its slump. Unfortunately, part of that economic revival came at the expense of World War II, a lesson that may enjoy a nefarious reprise.

Today, however, we are facing nearly the opposite type of crisis from that of the 1930s. Our economy today is a sham, a Potemkin economy. Our industrial base is nearly gone – percentage-wise we’ve lost two-thirds of our manufacturing jobs since 1960 alone; our agricultural base is not doing much better; our ability to put food on the table is in serious jeopardy; fisheries are depleted; two of our most important natural resources, oil and natural gas, are severely depleted and we import more than half of the oil we use; our workforce is unskilled at anything useful – what good are lawyers, real estate agents, and retail clerks in a crisis that threatens our very survival?; all our financial systems and markets are thoroughly corrupt, and so are all our political systems; and we’ve destroyed all the goodwill that the rest of the world once harbored for us. Yet, despite the underlying rot that has eaten away the entire foundation of our society, the powers-that-be have successfully created a facade of prosperity and normalcy, and most worrisome of all, the populace – at least 95% of them – are eager to lap up such pablum. The crisis we face today is real, not psychological, and once the coming economic collapse is forthrightly acknowledged, we won’t have the means to recover from it.

I’ve seen this coming for years and as my apprehension has grown, I’ve made more and more radical adjustments to my lifestyle in an attempt to weather the coming storm. I sold my expensive and indebted suburban house and bought a cheap house in a distant rural area; I liquidated all my assets that are likely to depreciate; I paid off all my debts; I even eliminated my dependence on a high-paying job by cutting my cost of living to the bone. But despite being better prepared than 95% of Americans, I fear it’s not enough.

What I fear more than anything is that the powers-that-be have allowed the problems to fester for so long while looting the economy and maintaining this facade of normalcy, that when the collapse comes, it’s going to come swiftly and crushingly, and the powers-that-be will react crazily, but with the full support of a bewildered, desperate populace that didn’t appreciate the magnitude of what was coming. The likely reactions of the powers-that-be will include the imposition of martial law, rationing of food and energy, confiscation of assets, banking restrictions, forced labor, and perhaps a phony terrorist attack and World War III, the latter two serving mainly to divert peoples’ attention away from the various economic crises. None of these measures will get the nation out of the depression – these are coping mechanisms that the powers-that-be will probably attempt to maintain indefinitely, which is a pretty grim thought. The only sensible way to get out of the next depression will be to free people to find their own solutions in smaller, autonomous, sustainable communities, but the powers-that-be will fight like crazy to prevent that because it would mean a loss of their control over the social hierarchy.

The rest of the world will suffer the same crises, though most nations will not suffer as severely as will the United States. For varying reasons, the rest of the world is in a better position to recover from the crises than the United States, and it will. The rest of the world will recover more quickly and will more or less abandon the United States, which will steadily devolve in the years following the onset of collapse, until it eventually starts breaking up into autonomous regions. Of course, such a breakup will be violently resisted by those in power.

I feel like a passenger on a ship that’s just slammed into an iceberg, in the middle of the ocean, and has only enough lifeboats for the rich first class passengers to escape in. No matter how well prepared one is in such a situation – short of having their own lifeboat – they’re doomed. Such a realization certainly takes the zest out of life. What’s the point of working, saving money, and planning for the future when the future will largely be reduced to eking out a basic subsistence amid government oppression and civilian chaos? One might as well enjoy life now, while they still can. Perhaps that explains why people don’t seem to be concerned about spending tons of money they don’t have. Maybe their subconscious minds have recognized the pointlessness of being responsible and have thus directed their bodies to live it up before the big collapse.

We face a grim future here in the United States, yet the vast majority of Americans can’t or won’t see it. They seem almost willfully ignorant, content to absorb their mind numbing doses of pharmaceuticals and television, stuff their faces with junk food, wash it down with gasoline for their ever higher horsepower cars, displace their own meaningful thoughts with government propaganda, and be treated like children or sheep by the government when the time comes. When will this dire future arrive? All too soon – probably in a matter of months. For me it’s as if while gazing at the heavens through my telescope one night I spotted a huge asteroid in space, hurtling toward the planet, and realized that in mere months it would collide with devastating consequences.

Myself, I am at a loss for what to do. There is really no answer. I’ve made all the preparations I can make, which I repeat, is more than what 95% of the people have done, but I now fear my efforts won’t make any difference. Today I find myself paralyzed with fear.

February 14, 2008 – People are acting more and more uncivil, angry, depraved, irrational and erratic. What’s driving it?

By Dave Eriqat

I’m sensing these days that the world, and especially the United States, has become utterly depraved. It’s as if we collectively understand that something is seriously wrong with the world we live in, but haven’t a clue what to do about it. So everybody is reacting, or more precisely, lashing out against whatever or whoever is handy.

In just the last few days I’ve observed the following:

• In Utah, after watching a movie, a man demanded that another man reimburse him for the price of the movie ticket because the second man was talking during the previews, but not during the film! When the talker refused to pay – the complainant should have taken the issue up with the theatre management anyway – the complainant pulled out a police badge and proceeded to assault and then arrest the talker! The cop also assaulted the talker’s girlfriend when she attempted to intervene, throwing her down the stairs.

• In Florida a cop was suspended for dumping a quadriplegic man out of his wheelchair and onto the floor! The reason? The insolent man refused to stand up when ordered to do so!

• In Baltimore a cop assaulted a 14 year old kid for “disrespecting” him.

• In England a man was arrested while waiting for a bus because a passerby thought his MP3 player was a gun. The police arrested the man, fingerprinted him, photographed him, took a sample of his DNA, and created a permanent police record for him, which stated that he had been arrested on suspicion of carrying a concealed weapon! The poor fellow is now a criminal for life as far as the police are concerned, because in the eyes of the police suspicion is the same as guilt. (In truth, I believe the arrest is really part of a program to populate a biometric database containing information for all citizens, all of whom the government now views as criminals.)

• Yesterday I heard a United States Marine Corps officer on the radio – a radio station that airs Rush Limbaugh in its next program – openly and clearly invite Al Qaeda to attack the peace group known as Code Pink. I mean, this was a terrorist threat, clearly worded, broadcast on the radio, uttered by a member of the military, which is supposedly embroiled in a “war on terror.” Both the radio host and the Marine Corps guest talked about Code Pink as if it were a lethal enemy, deserving execution. I mean, you could practically see the foam around the mouths of these people on the air.

In addition, we see a presidential front runner, McCain, salivating over the prospect of more war, including bombing Iran. And he’s the leading Republican candidate! We see another front runner, Hillary, openly threatening to garnish our wages if we refuse to enrich her corporate pals by buying their health insurance, as if lack of health insurance is the problem with our health care system. Hello?! The problem with our health care system is that it’s a for-profit, business monopoly, protected by the government. Hillary’s proposal is just going to entrench and amplify the problems with the present system. And she’s arguably the leading Democratic candidate! The other potential Democratic candidate, Obama, advocates what will effectively be a world tax, ostensibly to help the poor, administered by the U.N. Oh yeah, that’s going to work out well. The corrupt United Nations getting its hands on billions of dollars of extra revenue, which will come directly our of our paychecks.

The people who work for the government – in law enforcement, the military, political offices, and even the courts – see themselves as separate from the “civilians.” They see themselves as superior and are utterly contemptuous of the civilians who they supposedly “serve” and whose labor pays their salaries. The people in government are stridently seeking total control over the lives of the populace. They seek to build a complete biometric record of every human being on the planet and use that data to control our travel, work, finances, and even our eating habits. And these people think this intrusive endeavor is not only reasonable, but somehow beneficial to our society!

Meanwhile, while some big businesses are reporting record profits, others are reporting record losses, and still others are brazenly begging the government for a handout, which the government seems heartily amenable to.

One smells desperation and fear everywhere, but especially among those in power.