What the gov't hoped to achieve by saying don't worry. I finally understand their strategy!

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Its quite simple. By saying Don't Worry, those who are sitting on the fence, who are basically broke, or who have a littttle bit of savings, but would RATHER NOT spend it on beans, rice and batteries, rationalize not doing anything because (you guessed it) the gov't says don't worry. That's it, folks. Play on the doubts. Works every time. BASTARDS!

-- Timemachine (tick@tock.clock), December 06, 1999

Answers

What the government hoped to achieve was a wholly unprepared public majority. I suppose the pollies think the government is going to be the tit these people will suck from when they run out of food in their pantries and the grocery stores are empty.

This was an unfathomably horrid strategy which, in hindsight, will be seen to be nothing but totally and completely reprehensible.

Heads will roll, that is if we are lucky.

Oh, crapola, I forgot. They are going to blame it on terrorism.

-- OR (orwelliator@biosys.net), December 06, 1999.


The government is basically reflecting back to us our own collective resistance to face the truth. If we really wanted the truth, as a whole country, they would give it to us. The problem is that Joe Sixpack doesn't **want** to be troubled by anything that shakes him out of NFL/beer/pretzels/BarbiDollModels consciousness.

The other problem is Joe's loving wife, Josephine Mall Maven, doesn't **want** to deal with anything other than Xmas/FaLaLa/PokemonForWhiningBrat consciousness.

-- paul leblanc (bronyaur@gis.net), December 06, 1999.


You can't HANDLE the truth!

-- Pearlie Sweetcake (storestuff@home.now), December 07, 1999.

paul leblanc,

I find your answer to be incredibly elitist...AND I AGREE WITH YOU TOTALLY!!!

John Ludi, the Happy Misanthrope.

-- Ludi (ludi@rollin.com), December 07, 1999.


Ludi and Paul. Totally self serving point of view (ie) the government knows better and will make the decision for it's people. Socialist to the max.

I beg to differ. Let's start with the fact that CNN is no longer number one, losing viewership to Fox news network with shows like Hardball, Hannity and Colmes, Matt Drudge (no longer).

This speaks volumes for what the sheeple want to hear. The recent New York Post poll on the most evil people of the millenium also speaks volumes for what the *are* hearing, in spite of mainstream media garbage.

The collective idiot public IS waking up, albeit slowly.

Watch out. It only took 10% of the populace to incite the American Revolution.

-- OR (orwelliator@bioysys.net), December 07, 1999.



Answer to Paul: Yup.

-- Dave (aaa@aaa.com), December 07, 1999.

I doubt that the government hoped to achieve anything at all. The simplest answer is usually the correct one, and in this case I think the average civil servant simply didn't get it. Like 95% of the public, 95% of the government workers and elected people thought that Y2k was either a business ploy by consultants or a funny story about apocalyptic survivalists in the woods.

So they pooh-poohed it, along with everyone else. But when a private individual finally catches on, they can quietly begin prepping. When a governor catches on, their pooh-poohs are already in the public record and you don't dare change course. So they resist any change to the message until it's too late.

There are probably evil people in government, but mostly I'd put this down to simple incompetence.

-- bw (home@puget.sound), December 07, 1999.


IMHO, all you realy need to do is to imagine what kind of message would be required in order for the government to encourage preparedness, then look to see whose ox is gored if people respond to that message. Politicians always do this exercise before making a move. That is how they get ahead.

By telling people to spend money in advance on basic necessities, that money would be siphoned away from conveniences and luxuries. All the makers, importers, and retailers of non-essential goods and services would be furious! The makers of basic necessities might be gratified at first, until they thought ahead and realized that their markets would certainly shrink in 2000 and they'd be left no better off in the end.

Or how about telling people to pay down debt? Let alone telling them to remove money from the banking system? Unthinkable! The banks would be furious! Apoplectic!

And, what if the government tells the general population 20 months in advance that it must prepare and then the remediation succeeds? They not only make a lot of business owners furious, but they also look foolish and lose credibility. Think *swine flu vaccine*.

Absolutely, the "strategy" in terms of Y2K has been to play it safe, as safety is understood in politics: don't rock the boat. Koskinen is doing about as much as can be done, given that his mission is to cover his bosses' arses. A Republican administration would have done much the same. Think *whip inflation now*.

If the consensus behind closed doors were that the USA is doomed to go Infomagic, then this cynical strategy could only be called criminal behavior. But, I believe the consensus in Washington, D.C., even in the corrodors of power, is that the worst we'll get is a Y2K recession, and maybe we'll get off with a BITR.

I think the main, if not the ONLY reason for this consensus, is that it would be too politically painful to be a GI. Politicians as a profession are tailor-made DWGIs. The DWGI attitude fits them like a glove.

-- Brian McLaughlin (brianm@ims.com), December 07, 1999.


If all the problems threatend by the y2k enthusiasts are true there will be no power, no transportation, no communication, and little or no food supply.

If there is any government at all it will be small bands of government scattered with no authority or direction. (much as it is now, hehe). Trying to immitate a semblence of authority amongst themselves without any structure. Money as we know it will have no value, Military groups will abound with weapons in places that have food. As for all the world the same circumstances will have a similar fate.

Small groups will clash constantly over remaining resources and pilfering will probably abound. Many people will suffer and die foolishly over lack of patience or understanding.

ARE YOU SCARED AND READY TO PANIC YET !!

Sounds like a great adventure to me !

-- Dean Shirley (dshirley@netzero.net), December 09, 1999.


Good answers, Paul and Brian. My WAG on this Q, FWIW.....

The Powers That Be have a plan, a plan to keep everything running as smoothly as possible. Just like it normally does, more of the same. They recognised Y2k as being a SERIOUS threat to the current way of things, and they devised a plan. The plan involved Public behaviour remaining essentially the same - anything else would upset the applecart, if it got a run on. the plan was founded upon getting as much of everything fixed as possible, and cross your fingers. I'm sure that quite a few people involved in this plan could see early on that it was heading for the crapper...still, they double-crossed their fingers and hoped it'd be sweet. It might've occured to them that this plan could potentially be disasterous for the population, ...better to take a gamble with the unknown than, by your own actions, ensure the disaster you do know, (ie bankruns, market collapse, social upheaval etc). Anywho, after the plan was formulated, it was up to each operator to try and uphold his part of the plan, not fuss over the obvious failures of the other integral parts. The plan proceeds, leaving those who understand it shaking their heads.

-- number six (!@!.com), December 09, 1999.



Good morning starshine, The Earth says hellooooo!

-- number six (!@!.com), December 09, 1999.

Agree completely with Number Six. The plan, if you can call it that, is definitely low key, no shouting, keep everybody calm and cross fingers. I've tried to imagine how I would have handle it had I been a leading politician - probably not much different. I would reason that if it goes Infomagic, then pointing fingers won't be a priority issue for people. If it is less than Infomagic but pretty serious (lots of deaths), then yeah, an election might be lost, a few heads would roll big time, but this is par for the course in political life. If it is BITR then it'll be relief, congrats all round and into the election campaigns. Any other more proactive option would almost certainly have undermined confidence in the politio/economic system and very probably have precipitated a crises that could not be managed or controlled. It's also arguable that had the TPTB delivered a GI message say one year ago, it would have been listened to politely for a week or so, then it would have been forgotten about and swallowed up by the ongoing real world TEOTWAWKIs (Kosovo, Chechyna) as opposed to the speculative world of Y2K. And honestly do you really think more than a few people would have followed the advice to prep on the basis of the litany of 'may', 'might', 'could', 'potential' discourse on Y2K. Look how many people pay attention to the FEMA warnings on preparing for regular weather emergencies, very few.

-- flkjlfkj (adadf@lkjlkj.com), December 09, 1999.

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