First, let me say that ANYONE can find a list of quotes from angry, perhaps even unbalanced people (all from the same group). Posting them together certainly makes the group look dangerous and irrational as a whole. I guarantee you, I could come up with a list of quotes from "Pollys" that are just as mean-spirited, selfish and unbalanced sounding as the "Doomers" you have quoted. Accumulating the worst of a group and presenting it as "the group philosophy" is in fact, exactly how our government discredits groups that it finds detrimental to it's own causes.

Take the Oklahoma bombing for instance. The government agencies involved from the State Dept. to the FBI made absolutely sure that the populous of the U.S. would equate Timothy McVeigh with Militia. Over and over we heard this man's name mentioned in the same breath as "militia". And, because of it, most uninformed people (the category most people actually fit into)...think Timothy McVeigh was a big Militia leader. The fact is, he went to, and was kicked out of ONE Militia meeting because his thoughts were too radical and violent.

The government has also used this strategy in order to lead the citizens of this country to believe that gun control will bring about a safer society. When, they full-well know through the statistics available from countries that have already enacted gun control (like Australia)..that gun control only disarms the victim. It's a fact: crime goes up considerably in areas where the bad guys know the victim is helpless. Our government has chosen to put forth a strict gun control agenda and they will omit information, and feed thier tainted, fear-filled data to the unsuspecting citizen groups that rally for their cause, as a primary (and very effective) way to promote their position. That is how it's done in a Democracy.

The people that I have met through groups like this who studied the Y2K issue, are by a huge majority, intelligent, generous, good-hearted men and woman who were concerned not just about themselves, but about their family, friends, community and their country. The joke of it is, we all worrie about the "Pollys" the most.

Frankly, it amuses me greatly that Pollys (the absolutely most un-informed group there is when it comes to Y2K)...are now smirking and gloating as if they were "right". Right about what? You have to read up on a subject to be informed enough to form an intelligent opinion. Pollys are actually gloating because they were lazy and did nothing and now they think "Great, we got by with it; we didn't waste our time working on Y2K and nothing happened". I hardly think being lucky about being lazy qualifies you to gloat. Now, if you would like to show me the reports and data you have accumulated that brought you to the conclusion that Y2K would be a non-event, I would be happy to discuss the subject with you based on my own findings.

Bear this in mind. The reason this country is so "Polly-filled" and relieved is because three things stayed on during the rollover: Lights, Heat and Water. But, the reason they stayed on is NOT because everything worked out hunky dory. They stayed on because the agencies of our government and the big business' made this arrangement....Business' would shut down all their power sucking factories and computers. Therefore, the power plants could be told to cut back output to the 30% to 50% range (and they did). That way, when we lost the three Nukes that were taken off line; no one even noticed. The neighboring utilities had plenty of capacity to pick up the slack. It was a brilliant idea and we should commend them for instituting it. The only problem is, they have not been honest in their reporting of how it all went down; so now the sheeple and the Polly's think Y2K was a non-event; and that's dangerous.

-- meg davis (meg9999@aol.com), January 04, 2000

Answers

Do you like to mudwrestle?

-- King of Spain (madrid@aol.cum), January 04, 2000.

Admit when your wrong and move on. I suggest you all seek treatment for your paranoid delusions. The sattelites aren't reading your thoughts, UN concentration camps don't exist, and Captain Crunch isn't stalking you.

We "pollies" (read normal, educated, people) have more to fear from the psychos worried that "the guvment is gonna try ta take muh guns" than we ever will any conspiracy or computer glich.

-- Harold Turner (hpt5131@mail.com), January 04, 2000.

Hey guys this is beginning to have the same sounds that were echoed prior to the great civil war between the states. We are bickering among ourselves. This is not the sound we want the world to hear. Do not let the shadow government of the world gloat over there goal of having us fighting among ourselves. Our nation is made up of great people, do not destroy it by fighting among ourselves over such a trivial matter, and it is trivial. Investing in preps is not a reason to hate each other, calling each other vulgar names, inciting hate. Is this not what our enemies want? We have overcome to some extent the racial problem of segregation, let us not bring on another equally obsene problem of segregation over such a matter as this.

-- Notforlong (Fsur439@aol.com), January 04, 2000.

Hey Meg:

I did read up on Y2K. I just thought the hype was hype. Computer systems fail every day. Most Y2K hype assumes a ridiculous low-probability extreme result of a failure. I did educate myself; made an educated decision, and did...nothing. Those who did a little were prudent. Those who did a lot were wrong, or gullible. And boy, are they having trouble admitting it. OK with me; I don't care. But I've had to live with panic-stricken people for two or three years, and it is nice to have my time in the sun. Don't worry though; some other crisis will come along and nail me. Life is like that. I'll get my comeuppance. It just won't be Y2K-related.

-- Jim Thompson (jimthompsonmd@attglobal.net), January 04, 2000.

We "pollies" (read normal, educated, people)...

'normal' people normally have better things to do than hang around forums for the sole purpse of abusing and mocking people with whom they disagree.

And 'educated' people can normally spell 'sattelites' correctly...

-- John Whitley (jwhitley@inforamp.net), January 04, 2000.

I found just one thing to agree with in your post, Meg. Extremists at both ends of the debate have devolved into mindless attacks. As for the rest of your post, it is rather silly. I can assure you Peter de Jager and Ed Yardeni "read up" on Y2K enough to be informed. Nor do I consider them lazy... yet they both were attacked as "pollies" on this forum. As for doing research, I suggest there was yeoman work done on both sides. A number of regular posters, both on TB 2000 and Debunker, read beyond the Y2Knewswire-type pablum and provided excellent data. You can find this rather easily, Meg, by doing a little research of your own. There are reams of data that suggested we would survive Y2K... but some pessimists could never accept "marginal" sources like the FDIC, NERC, API, etc.

If you open your eyes, Meg, and look around you'll see a country running... not a live version of "The Postman." Despite dire predictions from a handful of extremists, the iron triangle stayed up because the Y2K problems were not severe enough to shut them down. Your comments about a meta-arrangement between "business" and "gov't" is utter nonsense. Most businesses took a well-deserved break over the rollover weekend... and they all are back to work today. The glitches that are appearing seem minor. And three nuclear power plants provide only a tiny fraction of the power for North America.

Wake up, Meg... it's all been a bad dream.

-- Ken Decker (kcdecker@worldnet.att.net), January 04, 2000.

Harold; I admire your willingness to identify yourself with your insults. It is honorable, but perhaps naieve. In a different thread I mentioned that we pass thru three stages on this medium. We start out identifying ourselves, get burnt, go anonymous, misbehave, go public again and grow up.

When you have grown up. Post more. In the mean time, your late showing to this forum indicates that you hid in a closet until you thought you had enough support for your name calling that you could easily handle the heat.

Where one man has been likened to the first dog in a pack that bites, motivated by the desire to say, "It was I who took him down. It was me... me... me...". I like your behavior more to the last dog that bites. That one is saying, "ME TOO... ME TOO...".

Get a life or contribute something other than insult even I am capable of that.

-- Michael Erskine (Osiris@urbanna.net), January 04, 2000.

Ken; How are the markets shaping up today?

-- Michael Erskine (Osiris@urbanna.net), January 04, 2000.

Michael,

I agree with you about Harold. And if only he'd channel all that anger into something constructive...

-- eve (123@4567.com), January 04, 2000.

Meg,

I can't speak for the people on this forum, on either side of the issue. I don't "know" them and don't know what they did with all their free time, over the last year or so.

However, most people that I know in the, shall we call it, "real" world were not prepped. They did not refuse to prep on any real info, they simply based their decision on hunches, and the self-reported data heard on the TV news (And even that, they did pay attention to, with any real enthusiasm). I know two people who did any kind of preps, at all, and they prepped based on the same thing - hunches and second or third hand info. From the experiences I have had, it seems that most people went into this as if it were a big horse race: Play a hunch and see if you can back a winner. As late as early December, I was encoutering people who had already come to a decision aboutwhether Y2K was something to be concernec about, who had no idea who John Koskinen is and couldn't tell you if the IEEE was a professional organization or just the latest Islamic terrorist group. And I'm sorry to say that this included the two people that I know who bought some preps.

I would imagine, if you subtract the people who never did any real research of their own (and I'm being generous in my definition. By research I mean anyone who ever bothered to go beyond their chosen forum to look at information), on this, or any other forum, you would have a pretty small number. That being said, though, I would still hazard a bet, that the number of informed people here, was greater than the number of informed people on the polly boards, by the simple logic that fear is a pretty powerful motivator. Time may show that we got a hold of some wrong info, or misconstrued some of it, but we still had a larger number of people who weren't just playing hunches.

I hear ya, Meg. It's one thing to take your lumps from someone who did their own research and arrived at a different conclusion, but it's getting pretty irritating to be made fun of, by people who just made some lucky guesses.

-- Bokonon (bok0non@my-Deja.com), January 04, 2000.

I've gotta weigh in as an unqualified doomer:

Y2K ain't the only game in town. Does anyone really buy into the Phillips slogan of 'things are getting better'? Does anyone doubt the government admissions that there are backpack sized nukes floating around in the hands of radical revenge groups? Ever hear of anthrax, sarin gas (sp) or other bio/chem agents? Does anyone really think, deep down, that things will be peachy for another 30- 40 years? Not this Kook!

The Kook klan is super prepared for anything. It don't garantee survival, but it's better than nothing. It sometimes amazes/amuses me how many people think that preparing for Y2K was a wasted effort. Many more people have awakened to other threats. The more people aware, the better. Maybe a better chance of avoiding some of these threats.

I have a normal life: professional, degreed, financially secure (IF things continue on as is) and quite happy. The neighbors don't have a clue that the Kooks are ready to survive WWIII, and maybe save their polly hides to boot. (And I will try to save them.) They float along, blissfully believing everything the boob toob tells them, trusting every public official, sympathizing with the Prez, all the while unawares that people like me are planning on saving their lives when the hammer falls, and will be trying to rebuild afterwards.

If ya wanna sell your preps CHEAP, send me an e-mail. We'll talk! Just don't come-a-knocking when the world starts-a-rocking.

Said My Piece Kook

-- Y2Kook (Y2Kook@usa.net), January 04, 2000.

Michael,

The Dow is down to 11,166.08 at the time of this writing, but what is your point?

Personally, I'd like to see the Dow below 10,000 by the end of 1Q and 9000 by 2Q. If this happens, I'm sure the extreme doomers will be trumpeting the "end of the world." For the rest of us, a correction will simply bring the equity markets closer to sane valuations.

-- Ken Decker (kcdecker@worldnet.att.net), January 04, 2000.

KOOK! Are you my long lost twin?!?!?!?! };-]

I've been a 'survivalist' for years...long before Y2K and desktop computers were 'The Thing'. I've listened to my family give me crap for years. [I have no freinds, allows me to make decisions without remorse...] And, yes, so far they've been right. Nothing has happened. But...if it does, I'll be ready...and whadda ya know? I'm even prepped to help my family and neighbors..all are pollies.

What can I say? gotta have SOMEONE to dig and clean latrines! ;)

O-BTW- My gas mask got in yesterday...I'm soooooo happy! Left the filter off and slept in it last night! ~GGGG~

-- Satanta (EventHoriz@n.com), January 04, 2000.

Satanta,

Re your new gas mask: LOL!! Whatta visual!

-- eve (123@4567.com), January 05, 2000.