When the US explodes -- what then?

[nashville_brook]

I love the thread last night:
This Country Is About To Explode
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=104&topic_id=3641885&mesg_id=3641885&page=

I especially love what The Watcher says here:

"But I am starting to wonder if the unraveling of Civilization itself and the unpredictability of the consequences of such is going to throw and interesting wrench in things."

I think The Watcher is completely correct in reading the current vibe as one of increasing instability and panic. I feel it too as I'm online reading and writing.

But when I'm out in the world (i.e. Nashville) I see people getting their kids to school, going to work, shopping at the grocery store and otherwise doing the stuff that life demands.

So what's it gonna look like when people start getting "uncivilized?" What will this mean in real terms? Are we worried about vigilantes taking over neighborhoods street by street? Are we predicting the use of concentration camps for outspoken bloggers? Will there be martial law? Helicopters? Riots?

I predicted riots if the Bushies stole the 2004 election. I was obviously wrong. We had other things to do. What were those things? Could it have been: getting the kids to school; getting to work; participating in the details of life as you must everyday?

In Germany when Hitler was rising to power, life went on for everyone not affected by the clampdowns, imprisonments and deaths. They were happy for an improved economy and the "strength" of the Fatherland. Even the Jews in the Concentration Camps reported a sense of "life going on." Normalcy expands to fit your condition.

So, again, what's it gonna look like when the US explodes?

Will there illegal imprisonments?
Will there be illegal wars?
Will there be fake terrorist attacks?
Will the media become nothing more than a propaganda tool?
Will elections be stolen openly?
Will there be purges from the churches?

Might we already have exploded?

And what has changed? The kids still need to get to school. We still have to bring home enough money to pay the mortgage and put food on the table. We might desperately need to take our country back -- but what would that mean to busy parents, somnambulant students, and the rest of us working stiffs?

How might we bring this desire into our experience? How might we give it form and make it real?

I don't think there is any way to predict this with certainty, but I think it is possible to imagine what we need to do as things get more weird and dangerous.

Following Maslow, we will need to account for our basic needs -- safety and security, i.e. getting the kids to school; going to work; feeding the family. Given this, I believe ANY ACTION required to take back the country will have to focus on this stuff. So, imagine how Bush is impacting these things. What are your neighborhood schools going thru right now? What are things like at work? Do you talk to your co-workers about democracy in the workplace? Fair treatment of parents needing to take care of kids? Salary issues? Do you know your neighbors? Can you walk to a store? or a restaurant? If you lost one income, would you have to declare bankruptcy? Do you have a support system of friends and family you can lean on for child care; or even sharing expenses should things get financially rough?

Going back to the original post -- I don't believe Civilization will "break-down." I think it might just "break-together."

We are horribly alienated in our everyday lives. We have to drive to do anything. By and large, we need two incomes to make ends meet. We are consumed in our consumerism. What if all this changed. What if something forced a change?

If we direct our energy to living less alienated lives;
If we really knew our neighbors;
If we had STRONG support systems for our families;
If we get off the damn hamster wheel of consuming, working, consuming;
If we RECONNECT to REAL LIVES... what would THAT look like?

And what if an exploding country FORCED us to do this? How ironic would that be?

I'll tell you how ironic -- it's the kind of irony history is full of -- dictators can't predict how their actions will play out thru the last moves. We are creatures of intelligence and humanity. We have the flag. It has not touched the ground.

Take a moment and reflect on the East Waynesville Baptist Church fiasco. The Christo-Fascist dictators at the Southern Baptist Convention thought they could test the water by sending one of their most rabid dogs up to the hills of Western North Carolina. You KNOW they expected to get away with it and USE it as a model for other churches. But we stepped-in and guess what? We won a big one for freedom of worship and separation of church and state. Don't you think that's huge?

We did it by refusing to be alienated -- even from the mountains of NC. Don't you see how they expected alienation to work against us here? Using our network we got people up to the church and spread the word. We called and emailed and actually FIXED something that was broken. We did it thru our connection. Our connection as human beings -- otherwise known as Civilization.

That is exactly how we will RE-Civilize -- how we will fall together. We will not fall down.

[NorCalDem]

1. Good perspective

Makes me feel a little optimistic about our chances.

[nashville_brook]

2. thanks, i'm getting creamed in GD

this is my attempt to quell the pseudo-thinking going on about crisis and transformation. if we let ourselves believe that our true nature in one of competition (instead of cooperation) then we become essentially of freeper-mind. in fact -- that was one of the questions on the NPR political views survey that separated the far left from the far right -- do you think existence is basically one of scarcity or plenty. if you say, plenty -- that ratchets up your leftiness.

and too -- having been thru hurricanes, where "crisis" isn't abstract -- people don't behave like animals. they really don't. people go out of their way to help each other because it is a survival strategy. it's in our nature.

[aneerkoinos]

3. Bread and circuses and - gazoline

US infrastructure is slowly eroding, as are the ecological and economical fundaments the country was build on.

Gas prizes so high plus no functional public transpor that commuting to the crappy macjob becomes hinderingly expensive and suburbian home worthless, plus blackouts in the middle of favourite Reality TV show is the tipping point, I guess, when riots and looting slowly begin on serious scale and gun toting survivalists start take to the hils and fortify on top of their stash of cans of beans and spam. Not long after the US population will take a nose dive, as famine and disease spread when the long over-stretched social services finally crumble.

Many things going on at the same time, of course, as they say brings out the worst and the best, there are allready people working on community based solutions, study groups etc. for community scale food and energy, but overall prognosis is not very good: society based on consumerist individualism and competition, ie. greed and pride, will find it difficult to work together inclusively instead of exclusively, when most needed.

[DinahMoeHum]

4. Keep your options open, make sure you have a "Plan B". . .

and make sure you have friends on every side.

:shrug:

[nashville_brook]

5. that's the most rational thing anyone has said RE this post

(see x-post in GD) by predicting doomsday, it gets everyone off the hook from having to take this seriously. as if it's black and white.

it's not -- that's why you want friends where you live. you want a Plan B. you want to weigh your options and have options. for example, it might be a good idea to have some gun-toting friends if things are going to get as bad as people expect.