So my "best friend" called me today to gloat about the debate.

[Ilsa]

She thinks RMoney "whipped Obama's butt" even though she didn't see the debate. I told her it probably doesn't matter, that most people have their minds made up. She tends to be competitive and leans toward bullying sometimes, which is when I cut her loose until she settles down.

She's also gone full-prepper mode. No telling how much ammo she has stored. She has enough food stored to last years. She's expecting the economy to crash full-scale under Obama. I believe in keeping food and supplies stored, but not like her. I wonder if she's ever considered that her LDS candidate might do that intentionally to clear out non-LDS people?

Does anyone else think our society is about to crumble to the point where we'll be fighting each other over food?

[thelordofhell]

1. LDS mandates that you keep a years worth of food in storage

[madaboutharry]

2. Why are you friends with this person?

She sounds like she has "issues."

[Ilsa]

7. She does, and she doesn't realize how pushy she gets.

And she doesn't realize how fortunate her life has been, for herself and her grown children. I've talked to her about how not everyone is a member of the lucky sperm club, as Thom Hartmann likes to call it. (we are middle class and have a disabled child). More and more, she's turning into a social Darwinist and my opinion about who we should be as a country hasn't seemed to have an impact on her.
We are getting close to the end of a 25+ year friendship if she keeps up her extremism.

[Chuckyoufarly]

20. You cant change stupid.

She is not going to change. Once they start prepping this means that they have already made a wild wrong turn.
Anything more than a couple of weeks food will eventually go to waste. If something real bad happens the government will pass out MREs.

Remember after "Y2K" All the food that went to waste.. That money could have been spent on fighting aids in Africa or any number of things. It all ended up in dumpsters.

You need to shed her. I always worry about people who have no experience with guns running out and buying a gun, loading it and accidentally killing themselves or others.

Shed her.

[Ilsa]

27. Actually, she is received "Expert" rating in the military

And is even better now with several weapons.

[marlakay]

28. It's hard

I had a best friend for 30 years and though we still get in touch once a year when I go back to that city our friendship changed as we did. It was hard after all we had been through together but sometimes things change.

Also when Obama wins you will have the final word.

[ejpoeta]

3. my brother thinks everything's going to shit and has taken to storing. he watches

glen beck. My husband used to work with him and says he can't hardly talk to him anymore because he's done gone crazy with this stuff. Every family function he starts it. So I would believe it.

[riverwalker]

4. I could never be a survivalist-type

to be honest, if the world became that horrid, I wouldn't want to be here in it. I would give away all my food and water, go on a long walk about and wait for the end.

[Hoyt]

21. I'm with you. I'm not going to sleep with one eye opened or shoot my neighbor to protect food.

Unfortunately, the right wingers are callous enough to shoot their neighbors, and even some Dems are arming up as well.

[Frank Cannon]

31. I'll join both of you.

No way do I want to live in some crazy Mad Max dystopia. But it seems like a lot of right wingers are just itching for that. They can't wait to start using that stockpile of ammo.

[aquart]

5. Yes, but that's a climate change thing and hoarding won't much help.

I'd go for the victory garden instead.

[southernyankeebelle]

6. Well I wonder where the rich will get the people to wait on them when the lower middle class and

working poor don't have that kind of money to spend on food for a year supplies. It's kind of hard when you are living from payday to payday.

[Ilsa]

10. She doesn't understand that.

And she doesn't realize that the prepper industry is growing in response to perceived demand, not actual need.
She's pretty independent and self-sufficient, not like Queen Ann.

[progressivebydesign]

8. Sorry.. but WHY is that person your "Friend?" they sound unstable and idiotic. nt

[Ilsa]

17. I can avoid her for the next 30 days.

If she keeps it up beyond that time, then I'll have to dismiss her as my friend. I don't need her putting pressure on me and I don't have time for her crap. I hate that such a long relationship ends up trashed over her idealism and politics.

[jackbenimble]

29. I will probably lose a good friend too.

Not so much because she will vote for romney, but because she will vote for todd akin. Its a shame because I really think she is a great person but now every time I even think of her it makes my blood boil to think she is making excuses for his words and his actions. This is a person who was a single parent and although she worked she could not afford to put herself through school and raise her kid so she took government funds to get several college degrees. Now she is doing incredibly well and I'm proud of her for that, she worked really hard. But she didn't do it by herself, and yet she would support two people who wouldn't have given her the chance to pull herself out of poverty. It's maddening.

[patrice]

9. Look at what is going on in the world; the consequences of Financial Toxicity are still producing

shockwaves in economies all over earth and that does affect us. The USA has more and better resources than a lot of countries to deal with much of what is still happening, not just from the Derivative Crash of '08 but also from about 30 years of progressively more and more toxic de-regulation of banks and investments. Downward pressure on US wages is REAL and powerful, much of that is coming from multi-national corporations and financial relationships. There are a variety of things that can happen, some of which will be determined by the assumptions of a given president. Imagine the assumptions of a man like Mitt Rongny, with his extensive involvement in FOREIGN finances, compared to the assumptions of a man like Barack Obama, who will decide current and coming questions more in terms of American finances and the needs of the American people for jobs, with the best wages possible, and American investments in its own infrastructures and community resources.

[Blue Meany]

11. I do think things are headed towards collapse, and don't see many signs that things

will turn around. But hording food--beyond a couple of weeks for local emergencies--doesn't make sense to me. Someone with more guns than you will come and take it away, and, anyway I wouldn't be willing to fight to protect my food from hungry people. Better to develop the capacity to grow your own food and works towards local, resillient economies. Re-localisation of economies is what happens after complex ecnomies collapse, so we may as well start preparing.

[Glitterati]

12. I think it's time

to start stocking up new friends instead of food.

[Ilsa]

25. That's a work-in-progress as I am

New to this area where my family resides now. But yes, I am working on developing some new friendships so I can discard this one if it becomes too toxic for my patience (and I am usually very patient).

[HockeyMom]

13. My Republican husband will probably too

I have an answer for him. "I am the 47% who will never change their mind".

[PDJane]

14. I'm going to point out something here, something to keep in mind.

If the economy goes south, it won't matter. It won't matter how much food you have, it won't matter how much water you have, it won't matter how and where you've stored this stuff. It really won't matter how much money you have.

Civilization is necessary for money to have any meaning at all. Governments are necessary for currency to have value. And, when civilizations go south, it happens very, very quickly. It then takes time and a consensus to get the thing working again. This is a fact of life; when Rome failed, it failed quickly. And that failure had nothing to do with morality; it was the rapaciousness of those at the top, and the failure to provide even a sustenance living for those at the bottom that made it fall!

When it fails, humans revert to tribal associations, usually with a loose 'king' at the top. That king has to watch his back, too; he must employ tasters along with other servants, and he learns not to trust. Moreover, if the US intends to go on being the biggest, baddest, most repressive bully in the world, there may be a holocaust sooner rather than later.

Am I pessimistic? I don't think so. Students of history get to be realists.

Do I think things will go to hell under Obama? Not as fast as it will under the delusional Mitt Romney, but I think that repression of dissenting opinions will only go so far. We can't stockpile enough to cushion us from climate change. There are things we can do, but this kind of hoarding, along with the attitudes that start it, may make life more difficult in the long run.

[Ilsa]

26. I agree completely with what you have laid out.

And RMoney scares me from the standpoint that he would try to make it happen to benefit his rich friends and family and declare everyone else "serfs" or expendable.

[Chuckyoufarly]

15. food fight

It is sad when folks pile on like that. Obama had a tough night but he held up his end. I just cant understand why they can not see through romneys bullshit.

As far as fighting for food?

I doubt it but we all should have a plan and a few supplies

[n2doc]

16. If Rmoney has to lie to win, then he has lost

And I think people who are waiting for the 'collapse' are going to be waiting a long, long time. The rest of us will work together to keep this country going through whatever difficult times lie ahead, and they can sit in their basements, gun pointed at the door, waiting for the black helicopters to show up...

[kurt_cagle]

18. Common prepper meme

I think we're in for a long slow decline as global oil product peaks and drops, and the current recession without end is the prelude to that. However, most of the people who share that viewpoint are shifting over to older (non-electrical) skillsets and trades, and are generally trying to strengthen, rather than weaken, their community bonds. The preppers, by and large, are flat-out crazy ... they are the twenty-first century of the guy who builds the nuclear bomb shelter in their back yard. They are preparing for the zombie apocalypse, figure that gold will be the only currency of any worth, and are in general convinced that they'll survive if only they stockpile dozens of rifles and thousands of rounds of ammunition.

Personally, should a collapse happen, these people will generally be avoided as much as possible, and even as people begin to rebuild (as they always do) the severe preppers will continue to sit in their bunkers, waiting behind the slit in the front door for the zombies to show up. Eventually, I think most of them will end up shooting themselves.

[PDJane]

24. Without a government, food will be the only currency of worth.

[Fumesucker]

32. Not entirely true..

Energy will be worth quite a lot too.

Even if only to cook food.

[patrice]

19. Ask your friend if s/he has any idea of the over-all size of the financial LOSSES that the USA is

dealing with from the decades of financial CORRUPTION that caused the crises that we are still dealing with.

Because all of those losses were in PRIVATE extremely complex business contracts for financial instruments known as derivatives and other kinds of PRIVATE financial arrangement, you don't see very many estimates of the over-all size of US losses, but I have heard figures from $100 trillion to $700 trillion, astronomical practically meaningless in size relative to the GDP of the USA or even of Earth in any given year. Google some of these topics and you'll see how hard it is to get good information; that's because like so much else, Rongny and the rest of the 1% don't want us to know.

How did this happen? Take what is described in the following article and multiply it by every member of the top 1-5% of incomes in the USA; that's how it happened:

http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/greed-and-debt-the-true-story-of-mitt-romney-and-bain-capital-20120829

One of the reasons this is an important article is that is shows how, for all of the screaming about DEBT we hear from Republicans and people like your friend, MONEY IS DEBT and it's been that way for a very very long time, because of the fractional reserve lending that fueled the Vampire Capitalism described in Taibbi's article linked above.

[Care Acutely]

22. Jeez. Sounds like you need a new bestie.

Time to let that one go. Seriously. An unhinged nutcase bully is not your friend. More like a predator that uses mimicry to lure you in close enough to strike.

[bongbong]

23. Let her be a "prepper"

The scenario so fantasized about by Preppers is a desire by racist low- and mid-income losers to get even with all those Cadillac-driving, steak-eating welfare "thugs", and anybody else they hate (i.e, Liberals, feminazis, etc etc etc).

Watch an episode of that new NBC series Revolution for the reality of what will happen if their apocalypse occurs. Gangs will form, and I don't care how much of a Rambo wannabe a prepper is or how big their bunkers & guns are, they will be a victim. In fact they'll be the first victims as the gangs will be looking for food & weapon caches.

[just1voice]

30. We're definitely headed for a collapse of corrupt banks, things will be much better

without them. The U.S. will then easily return to a more regulated democratic society that is inclusive rather than exclusive by design.

Your "friend" sounds like a classic domestic terrorism suspect, blaming others for their own problems, paranoid and possibly delusional.

[JI7]

33. if i had a good friend who was a Republican i would never gloat to them in this way

unless we had a certain understanding and type of relationship where we teased each other regularly about it. and i'm too serious about politics to be that way about serious things, especially as we get closer to election and the thought of republicans winning.

so if i had a republican friend i probably woudln't discuss politics, but i certainly wouldn't gloat to them if i wouldn't want the same done to me.

[stlsaxman]

34. Remind her of what Napoleon Bonaparte said-

"Never interrupt your enemy when they're making a mistake."