On This Day Pre-Y2K
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January 12, 2000 Permalink
I wonder: If the government and corporations had an unassailable record --and reputation-- of honesty would so many of us have refused to take them at their word for all those many months we were preparing for Y2K crashes?
One thing I do believe is that everyone has a “thesis” about how life is, about what the meaning of life is. And we all spend a lot of time gathering “facts” to support our thesis. For most people this is an unconscious process, and most people are unconsious, i.e. living lives on automatic pilot and/or unable to question basic assumptions of the culture and lifestyle.
I can certainly see how I chose the Y2K “facts” to support my life/thesis, and wishes for a “better world.” Part of my belief system is that the business of government is to lie to citizens and make life miserable for those who go too far in disagreeing with the party line. My “facts” include what I’ve written in my essay on organized crime.
Part of my belief system is that corporations do not have the best interests of common citizens at heart, because of the greed factor. My facts include the offenses of PG&E, as outlined in my essay, “Connecting With PG&E.”
Who in their right mind would blame me, or the millions of people like me with similiar thoughts, for thinking so suspciously of those entities?
We have good cause for mistrust.
But what it is beginning to look like to me is that I have been hoodwinked back to a really basic question: What, or who, then, can I trust?
My mistrust has profound psychological roots. I was sexually molested as a child. I have a friend who grew up in Europe as the war was ending, and survived the “hunger winter” after Germany was defeated. The symbology of his life, the manifestations of his mistrust, resembles that of my own life.
What do we “doomers” have in common? Why do some of us learn to not accept the candy from the stranger, the soothing words: Trust me. Last night my daughter told me about the “furby party” she was going to have in her first grade classroom. This morning I talked to her teacher about it, because my wife and I thought a furby party with thirty dollar toys an odd classroom excercise.
Furbies are the rage, I was told. The teacher agreed to let the kids have a party as a way of getting the furby mania out and done with. Like Pokemon.
We agreed, the teacher and I, that the “thing” culture was pretty scary, and disturbing.
—johno, Time Bomb 2000 Forums (LUSENET), 01/12/00
