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September 15, 1999

Get ready for Y2K

Iwas in a gun shop the other day, buying some shotgun shells, when I saw a small sign. It was just a hand-lettered cardboard sign near the shotgun and rifle shells.

``Get your Y2K ammo,'' the sign said.

I guess I must be taking this Y2K problem too lightly. I hadn't planned to buy any ``Y2K ammo.''

I'm not saying there won't be any computer-related glitches associated with the coming of the new millennium. I'm expecting some minor confusion among some companies that may not have exterminated all their Y2K bugs. But I'm not anticipating widespread chaos as a result of Y2K problems.

I guess I wasn't figuring on having to defend my flashlights and my bottled water and my wood pile with gunfire. I'm thinking if we do experience some Y2K problems, it would be a chance for neighbors to pull together and help each other out. Sort of like during a blizzard.

Apparently, however, not everyone feels that way. I did a little Internet surfing of Y2K sites just to see what I was missing. Here's one bulletin board entry predicting what Y2K failures will bring:

``If all goes down the tubes... this is what CAN happen,'' the correspondent wrote. ``In the first three months you could see complete disruption of all commerce. Complete lawlessness. Lots of death due to starvation, plagues and violence. That should be for the first three months. After that, the situation should stabilize somewhat. Don't necessarily expect everything to be OK, though. At this time you can kinda figure there will be two separate groups... the good and the bad. The good will have to try to group together in a way to protect themselves. This may include finding a good protected area in either the country or in town and further strengthening it by demolishing the houses and buildings around it to create a free-fire zone.''

Well. I'm sure glad it will be the good guys who are demolishing houses and buildings to create those free-fire zones. I sure wouldn't want any bad guys doing things like that.

Another wrote:

``The worst of all worlds results in major power failures for extended periods with food riots and violence in all major population areas of the US and many parts of the world. Martial law; the suspension of all sovereign rights as defined in the Constitution; the suspension of the Constitution; the use of foreign UN troops in the US to control certain geographical areas; summary trials and executions; detention or concentration camps; the establishment of a non-democratic, non-representative form of government; generally the end of life as we know it today.''

My.

And here I was thinking of going winter camping over the New Year's weekend.

http://www.duluthnews.com/today/dnt/local/sam.htm

-- Homer Beanfang (Bats@inbellfry.com), September 16, 1999

Answers

Food riots happen. UN troops do enter other countries. Wars break out. Famine and epidemics occur. Blackouts and brownouts happen, too. One has only to read the headlines to know these are true. To the extent that these events are undeniable, it would be foolish to say that they could never happen in the USA or western Europe.

But it is a separate question whether Y2K will be disruptive enough to cause these events. I think that disruptions of that magnitude are *highly* unlikely in the USA.

I further find that those whose minds run to developing elaborate scenarios of disaster, who imagine demolishing buildings to establish free-fire zones for embattled good guys, are also those who feel the most alienated from current society. Often their alienation is well-founded. I just wish they could imagine ways to fix what is there, rather than just a myriad of ways to demolish it.

If the percentage of these disaffected folks ever rises high enough in the general population, we won't need Y2K to spark these scenarios. They will arise spontaneously, like fire from oily rags. TPTB have clamped down pretty hard on social activism since the 1970s. They have put the makers of the laws back into their hip pockets. They use the polarization of group against group as a tool to keep the body politic as fragmented and powerless as possible. The news we get is so contrived to create chaos instead of thought, that we have become like a bunch of panicky folks charging around in a pitch black room, crashing into one another and cursing furiously.

I fear that TPTB have forgotten that such an imbalance is always redressed one way or another, and that by sowing the wind they will reap the whirlwind.

I DON'T WANT THAT! That is why I work against the spread of ideas that drive people into opposing armed camps. The militia movement is just one shining example of the misguidance of anger into politically sterile channels. Most of the USA is politically sterile today. We no longer know how to come together and produce agreement and effective action. That must be changed, or all that ammo will start flying and we'll all regret it.

-- Brian McLaughlin (brianm@ims.com), September 16, 1999.

Homer-

I wasn't real clear on the the point of your message but it's important for many people who are trending for treating Y2k and it's possible fallout lightly is that there are many potential problems we face due to the "domino effect" of any disruption to our normal living patterns. For example, many of our larger cities now resemble third world cities in that many of the residents speak no English, have no real skills and are almost totally dependent on gov't supplied social services to survive. In the event of any problems that prevent gov't. at any level from supplying $,food, shelter,etc. to these people it's real obvious that they will not be in a good mood & the resultant looting, riots, etc. will not be far behind.

Coupled with the fact that we are already in a presidentially declared "state of emeregency", it's imperative that all the ramifications of this status are understood. If our troops are spread out around the world doing community policing under the PRECEDENTS established by by King Bill in Kosovo, Bosnia,etc. then I guarantee you he'll acquiesce to the calls from the int'l. community for U.N. troops in America. We need to understand more clearly the times in which we live in or we'll continue to wander around in a stupor wondering what's happened to our great country.

As for the people in these inner cities that could provide the social chaos so desired by the NWO crowd please remember.................. PEOPLE WITH NOTHING TO LOSE...HAVE NOTHING TO LOSE!

-- saveamerica (jb40@hotmail.net), September 16, 1999.

'I fear that TPTB have forgotten that such an imbalance is always redressed one way or another, and that by sowing the wind they will reap the whirlwind.'

Brian, I saw a documentary on China and Chairman Mao (PBS) last week. I had never really read a great deal about the Chairman and it was a real education. His modus operandi was to sow the wind every 5-10 years creating a new revolution in which whoever was in power (i.e., the haves) would fall to disfavor and of course the young were always whipped up into a finely pitched fever of reform. Struggle...as it was called. He managed to stay at the center of the whirlwind and so escaped what he had sown. He led his people out of starvation and back into it.

I was intrigued with the psychology of it all, and how easily the people could be turned. One woman noting an event in her youth when her group had gone to 'struggle' against a local industrialist in their village, said she arrived late after the group had already murdered the man. She wonders now would she have gone along with the group? She said it was the question that haunted her.

-- Shelia (Shelia@active-stream.com), September 16, 1999.

>> He managed to stay at the center of the whirlwind and so escaped what he had sown. <<

Yes. But he was the *only* one with that privelege. Even his closest associates would be purged. The same was true of Stalin.

>> I was intrigued with the psychology of it all, and how easily the people could be turned. <<

This becomes easier to understand when you know how completely Mao controlled the Chinese Communist Party, and how completely the party controlled the people. Every speck of information that was published or broadcast was scrutinized for its political purity. The smallest amount of deviation was not tolerated.

Today the same apparatus exists in China, but the aims of the leadership have changed, so the whip is applied much more gently.

-- Brian McLaughlin (brianm@ims.com), September 16, 1999.

Last week I actually managed to get my wife into Wal-Mart. As we were walking in I pointed to a scruffy-looking man and said "you see that guy, he's going to the gun section." Now, you have to understand, my wife's very anti-gun and doesn't even like to talk about guns. I managed to talk her into walking over to the gun section because I wanted to get some hunting arrows. When we got there they guy I had pointed out earlier was there buying a gun.

My wife purchased a Remington 7400 30.06 on the spot. She said if people like that were buying guns SHE wanted a gun too!

Of course, I'll teach her the correct way to handle/shoot it.

I'm so relieved my wife gets it!

Hope for the best, PLAN for the worst!

-- Tuan Cu Mhara (Strider X6@aol.com), September 17, 1999.

Addendum to my first post:

I hope I run into that guy again..........I want to thank him and buy him a beer!

-- Tuan Cu Mhara (Strider X6@aol.com), September 17, 1999.

"I was intrigued with the psychology of it all, and how easily the people could be turned."

Kinda like how people can be made to ignore the fact that companies and countries are spending millions and billions of dollars/yen/whatever and can be made to believe instead the idea that Y2K is a hoax and hype. Kinda like how people who can be pursuaded to part with hundreds or thousands of dollars for insurance of various types to protect against a whole slew of different disaster scenarios, can be made to think that preparations for the uncertainties of Y2K are the actions of the lunatic fringe.

-- Linda (lwmb@psln.com), September 18, 1999.