Photos of the two rabbit skin blankets we made.   The first is the Indian style construction, taking 500 hrs to complete.  The second is a patch work quilt taking maybe 50 hours to complete.  

LIVING A LIFE OF CONSEQUENCES   

from Murph

Recently, SATS referred back to a posting he had written back in the day of Cyclon's blog. This was back in 2007. My goodness, that was 7 years ago. To refresh memory a bit, Cyclone's blog (the Real Deal) began in 2005 and Troutclan campfire began in 2007, spun off from the Real Deal. I go back and skim over the what was being written and discussed from 2005 to 2007 and notice that the disappointment and belligerence over the Bush administrations actions were now transferred to the present Obama administration. For all practical purposes, same bitches and complaints. With all our rants and discussion, sure changed things didn't it? LOL. Sure points out our collective influence in the present situation, ie, none. However, venting in print serves a purpose and perhaps disseminates information to some folks that would otherwise not ever see it.

The same analysis can be said of other blog sites that are no longer active. Mike Rupperts and Survival Acres are two that come immediately to mind. For Freeacre and I, Rupperts writing was very influential for us. So far, Ruppers predictions and revelation have show themselves to be pretty much right on, although the timing of some of the predictions was a bit off. Freeacre and I took to heart what Ruppert wrote and took action on that information. I shudder to think what would have been the consequences to us if we had not done so. It has turned out, in retrospect, to be the best decisions we could have made. So blogs do serve a function, at least for some folks.

On a broader perspective, our personal lives are always a matter of consequences for our decisions moment to moment. The disturbing aspect for me is that so many people are loath to recognize that this is how things work. We all have had the experience of consequences (usually unanticipated) of our actions and decisions. For most of us, the consequences are most of the time, not a serious handicap, and a great deal of the time not recognized until after the fact. It's those instances of negative consequences on our lives that will stick out and encourage us to think in terms of; “if only I had made a different decision”. In a far more primitive living arrangement, that can be fatal. Only in our advanced social systems are negative consequences often ameliorated to non lethal events of inconsequential or recoverable events. It disturbs me that so many folks I observe do not recognize this relationship, having the expectation that their decisions will have no serious negative consequences. I think most of us strive to eliminate the negative consequences to our decisions. Some folks are more successful than others. I would surmise that reduction of individual consequences is one purpose of how societies organize themselves. We might want to take a look at who benefits the most from these policies.

The big social problems I see today is that those folks with power and influence have, in the last number of decades, managed to by-pass most of the consequences for their actions. This is done by controlling the political and economic processes that operate in our society. However, the consequences from the thievery and manipulation will have consequences that appear to me to be extremely serious. It is showing up in scarcity of resources and adulteration of the environment, the deterioration of infrastructure and general deterioration of living conditions for most of society. In every society with a hierarchy of control, keep in mind that it is the decision by the public on who to give this control to that determines outcomes. In this country, we have been voting into this power structure folks that do not have our well being in mind and have been doing this from the beginning. The primary concern is immediate benefit and  supposedly advocating some ideology that never serves our overall benefit. I think I have lost all hope of most folks recognizing the deficiencies of this decision making process.

I have written multiple times concerning the consequences of social decisions and urged a return to more individual responsibility for our actions. I'm an old duffer with a serious cynical attitude and realization that what I have advocated, spoken of and written about has not been taken seriously by more than a handful of folks. I find that true for all of the folks that have been warning us for years concerning the consequences of of our decisions. And, maybe all the warnings put out there are just more shit to deal with. But, we took seriously one particular warning and benefited by that.

With all of the serious problems that we are exposed to in this tired old world, we are continually distracted by the emergency of the day and the lie of the day. I suppose that has been true every since people have been organizing themselves into societies and civilizations. That realization does not make the present any more palatable to me and I also suppose that is true for most of the folks that bother to read missives such as this. I also realize that any suggestions I make as to what to do about our present situation cannot possibly be taken seriously by more than a few folks, just too much to lose. It is apparent that the wealthy and powerful flat out don't care, they have a whole other agenda in mind. In a practical sense, we are in a giant catch 22 situation. Damned if we do and damned if we don't.

The premier of the doomer sites has finally signed off stating that we are all doomed anyway and any more effort to warn folks of impending disaster for all of us is a waste of effort. That was Survival Acres by the way. Only time will tell if his assessment turns out to be right. Many other doomer sites with not so quite an extreme vision just keep on insisting that things are going to shit or worse. So for the most part, we take it all in and continual to try and operate, bitching and hollering all the while. We may very well be seeing the future with some reasonable accuracy, but it's the timing thing that throws us off. If it doesn't happen in the time frame laid out, does that mean it won't happen? I suspect that for most folks, it's a matter of expectations that we will just keep muddling through until it doesn't work anymore.

Wherever we are going to, we will keep on going till it stops.