The Thin Line Between Civilization and Anarchy

I’ve been trying to keep informed about the post-Katrina stabilization and rescue efforts, and find out about immediate opportunities to get into the area, and have noticed something. Several private contractor companies, the kind who provide private security contractors in Iraq, have gotten or are in the process of acquiring contracts to go to New Orleans and similarly affected areas to provide armed security and medical response. They are paying in the neighborhood of $400 a day for those with the qualifications they are looking for (all too high speed, low drag for me to qualify).
High-risk employment Private Security/Military Contractors operating on American soil, and actually needed! on our soil too. I wish I could say I never though I would see the day. Unfortunately, I’ve known we would see the day for a long time now.
What I didn’t know, what I couldn’t guess, is just how easily it would come. How easily the framework of our society can come crumbling down. How fine the line between Civilization and Anarchy actually is.
The armed gangs, the looters, the general pandemonium, chaos and merciless anarchy that has risen up in New Orleans in the wake of Hurricane Katrina is nothing short of phenomenal. The people who need assistance are the biggest threat to those trying to assist right now. And relatively, it took very little doing. It took one big storm, a lot of wind, and a lot more water to send a large American city from functional and stable into a tailspin of uncontrollable unrest.
And the people doing it all? They want this. The looters, rioters, rapists, murderers, they want to live like this, and act like this. If they didn’t, they wouldn’t be.
I’ve already seen media personalities, and various supposed experts and important people (I.E. Jesse Jackson, a most self-aggrandized lying blowhard) jumping up and down and crying out that this is a race issue, that its an issue of the haves vs. the have nots (the proletariat vs. the bourgeoisie, to use a term from another era), of the oppressed vs. the oppressors, poor vs. rich.
Simply put, that’s not what its about at all. It’s about animals acting like animals (and to anyone getting ready to say I am picking on blacks, calling them animals, I’d ask you to keep your ideas to yourself – I’m talking about all races, creeds and colors who act that way).
I’ve heard people say that since the average poor family in Nawlins makes less than $10,000 a year they didn’t have the money or resources to evacuate (bug out) when the hurricane was bearing down on them. Fuck that nonsense. I grew up and have lived most of my life (still being a young man) in a family that made less than $6,000 a year on average. We always had a vehicle (maybe not the best vehicle, but we’ve always had one), we always had suitcases (and if that failed we always had plastic bags), we always had shoes. That’s all you need to leave an area and take your shit with you.
This isn’t an issue of the poor and oppressed being left behind to die by the rich. This is a case of a bunch of people too stupid to listen to reason finally having to pay the price for their stupidity. Most stupidity in this day and age carries a relatively small price, but the piper will always have to be paid in the end.
This isn’t a case of active, or even passive, racism. This isn’t the proletariat suffering at the callous and cruel hands of the bourgeoisie. This is the stupid suffering at their own hands, and then getting sand in their cunts about it.
In this day and age when our children are taught entitlement instead of responsibility and self-dependence not one of us should be surprised that the situation in New Orleans has degraded as far, and as quickly, as it has.
The continual allowance for stupidity: the continual passing of kids through grades when they wont do the work; the continual mediocritization of everyone in the schools and workforce so that there is “equal opportunity” for the stupid (meaning the intelligent have to be forced lower) and we have “no child left behind” (even if they deserve it); the continual dumbing down of entertainment and information all across the board so that the stupid wont feel left out – all of this teaches everyone that “no matter what, you are entitled. You can be as stupid as you want, act as badly as you want, and you are still entitled to all the same things as those who are willing to learn, willing to be intelligent, and willing to work for what they have”. And all of these things are directly responsible for what we are seeing today in New Orleans.
Any other reason or explanation is simply bullshit. The stupid/willfully ignorant, lazy, ne’er-do-wells of New Orleans (and the rest of the country) have been told for the last thirty years that they are entitled to whatever they want without having to make any effort, without having to be anything but stupid, lazy and ne’er-do-well, and until now our society has been stupid enough to support that belief. Now, now that something truly awful happened and the stupid, lazy and ne’er-do-well actually had to work to come out good, those who still felt entitled are pissed and acting like the shit-heads they are, taking their aggression out on the world around. They have been told they are entitled, so now they are damn well going to act like it and take what they want, do what they want. Simply put, they are acting like little girls with sand in their cunts.
Fuck ‘em, I hope they all get shot.

The Road to Hell

My state Department of Health put out a call this afternoon for medical and rescue personnel willing to volunteer for deployment to assist operations in the gulf coast. They are looking for both people to deploy to New Orleans and other areas in the path of hurricane Katrina, and for people to deploy yo hospitals in neighboring states recieving patients from the devastated areas.
I signed up, put my name and info into their registry. I'd like to go to where the damage actually is, but we'll see what comes up.
I think I'll make some calls tomorrow anyway, see if there are any Red Cross groups, or church rescue groups, from this area getting mobilized to go down there.

I know I am needed at home, my 91 year old grandmother just broke her wrist yesterday and I was on scene to dress her wounds and splint the wrist for the two hour trip to the hospital. But, I also know that everyone else is capable of taking care of things at the ranch for a couple weeks, and I feel totally useless and purposless sitting here watching Mississippi and Lousiana fall apart on the television.
I want to be there - I want to be "in the shit" - I want to help.

As bad as I want to go down, I also know that I have no idea what I'll be getting myself into, but that I need to be prepared for more than a campout. If I go down the first thing I'm going to buy is some body armor. I'll worry about expanding my medical kit, and maybe getting a good equipment vest, after I've got kevlar wrapped around me. Probably after I stock up on ammunition too. I think I know which one of my rifles will fit easiest into my duffel bag.

"Well I'm standing by a river
But the water doesn't flow
It boils with every poison you can think of
And I'm underneath the streetlight
But the light of joy I know
Scared beyond belief way down in the shadows
And the perverted fear of violence
Chokes the smile on every face
And common sense is ringing out the bell
This ain't no technological breakdown
Oh no, this is the road to hell" The Road To Hell - Chris Rea

Illusion and Magic

"The magician seemed to promise that something torn to bits might be mended without a seam, that what had vanished might reappear, that a scattered handful of doves or dust might be reunited by a word, that a paper rose consumed by fire would be made to bloom from a pile of ash. But everyone knew that it was only an illusion. The true magic of this broken world lay in the ability of the things it contained to vanish, to become so thoroughly lost, that they might not have existed in the first place." Kavalier and Clay
Found this while reading Kiss on Wet Glass earlier - very cool.

A Sioux Story

The Creator gathered all of Creation and told them, "I want to hide something from the humans until they are ready for it. It is the realization that they create their own reality."

The eagle said, "Give it to me, I will take it to the moon."

The Creator said, "No. One day they will go there and find it."

The salmon said, "I will bury it on the bottom of the ocean."

"No. They will go there too."

The buffalo said, "I will bury it on the Great Plains."

The Creator said, "They will cut into the skin of the Earth and find it even there."

Grandmother Mole, who lives in the breast of Mother Earth, and who has no physical eyes but sees with spiritual eyes, said, "Put it inside of them."

And the Creator said, "It is done."

Philosophy

Philosophy can be loosely defined as a system of values by which one lives. In the dictionary this definition actually comes last in a list of other definitions, but it seems to be the one most people use when they say things like "My philosophy of life is..." or "The [insert religion here] philosophy is....".
The problem with this lies within the attitude of most that an entire "philosophy" must be accepted in whole, or not at all. For example to accept the philosophy of "Great Book X" means you must also accept something you may find disagreeable on page 359, in the 18th paragraph of the 16th chapter.
Personally, I find this to be nonsense. Never have I encountered a complete document espousing a potential philosophy that, in its whole, did not contain at least something I found disagreeable or simply useless, if not outright offensive. But, very rarely have I encountered a complete document espousing a potential philosophy from which I could not take things that strengthened me in some fashion.
As I get older this collection of “values”(although I find it is more than values alone) becomes my “philosophy”. It is the guidebook not only by which I live and act, but the guidebook by which I teach and learn, and the guidebook by which I believe in the things I believe in. Very often I find the same “values”, or a take on them with more depth and clarity, across multiple disciplines and philosophies.
Those who’ve read back in my blog a little will recall posts I have made quoting from a variety of philosophies, from Eastern to Western, Taoist to Christian. All of these parts are parcel to my belief, my way, my tao. I beg, borrow and steal from all sources to bring myself closer to the source – and I feel great strength for that. This accumulation of philosophy is without compromise – because there is no way to be true to a belief/philosophy/way if you have to compromise yourself to do it.
An old Native American story, from the Sioux I believe, tells that when the world was created, and the creator was seeking to hide complete knowledge from man, all the counsels of the creator, the other animals, offered suggestions such as the moon, or the ocean bottom, and all were met with the answer “No, for they will someday go there”. And so it was hidden within our hearts. This is the origin of our greatest journey, that within ourselves: where the truth of ourselves is the truth of the universe and the Creator. This is also why our heart is our compass. If we compromise to fit the ideals of a philosophy, if we bend that compass needle by force, we are compromising ourselves, and our truth. I know far too many people who do that. Far too many who claim a philosophy, a faith, a religion, but are not true to it or to themselves. I can honestly, and proudly, say I am not one of them. I am an amalgamation – the magnetism of my compass pointing to the purest steel – and I am true, and strong.

Full of Hope and Promise

Cool days, after the rain
When everything smells so clean and new
Full of hope and promise

It rained yesterday afternoon, and when I got home last night the air was cool and hung heavy with the smells of wet earth, plants and the crisp cool cleanness of it all.
Clouds sat low across the western horizon, like heavy lids pulled back on the clear starshot sky above. Lighting burst and shattered deep inside those dark lids, providing a backdrop for the stars above.
I sat outside for a good while, smoking my last cigar, and just enjoying the darkness and cool. It was nice.

"My indian name in nanatache, it means he who lost his American Express card and doesnt give a fuck..."

Okay, so the above quote I used is a line from the movie Down and Out in Beverly Hills, and is quite funny but I want to talk about something I find appalling, actually... that was just a better title, and still slightly in context, than my original one ("I am Choking Chicken, Hear me Roar" which is a product of my own diseased grey matter...)

There is a show on ABC right now called Brat Camp - its a reality show, following this group of problem kids while they go through this program thats sort of a cross between Scared Straight and a Tom Brown course (for those who dont know Tom Brown is a wilderness survival expert with some decidedly odd "native american"-esque stuff in his courses and beliefs).
They take these kids out and through a series of essentially trust and character building exercises built around a wilderness survival theme teach them to be better people.
Now, as that is said above I think its a great idea - very few things can bring people togather with their self better than A. being in the wilderness, and B. having to essentially fend for themselves in that wildnerness, and few things inspire confidence in one's self better than being able to take simple materials and build a fire in the rain.
But, the entire thing is tainted with this quasi-Native American theme crap like some bad vacation resort. The counselors all go by these names like "Strong Elk" or "Boulder", instead of their real names and the camp name is even something like Sage Burning or something. The kids go through these weirdo "ceremonies' where they do TV indian things, and earn names like "Timid Moose" or something.
Now I understand, to a degree, the point of things like this - but as someone who has seen it from the inside, and the outside, I think its bullshit.

First of all the names - If people need to find strength within themselves to become stronger, better people, then the idea that making them earn a new name like Bold Eagle will accomplish this is insane. People who have these kinds of problems continually, regularly, look outside themselves for strength from things that do not actually provide it, surrogates to support and carry them. A name, other than your own name, is nothing but that kind of surrogate. It creates just another kind of dependency for these kids, and helps nothing.
Six months after they leave the camp, unless they obsessively hang onto and use that name (which gets into other psychological problems suddenly exarcerbated by this crippling "naming"), the name will cease to have meaning for them and suddenly their strength will be gone, and they will turn back to Drugs, Lying, Stealing, Acting Out as sources for strength and support they cannot find internally.
This is not a solution. It is a travesty. It is crippling. I know, I've been there. And it is a mistake to use this as a therapy method, absolutely.
I'd love to see a wilderness survival themed school/camp for kids with these problems that taught them that *insert their name here* was strong, and capable and better, etc. while providing them with outlets for emotion, and some truly valuable knowledge not just of wildnerness survival but of other things - without this crippling, bullshit, quasi-native american new-agey sounding faux naming, ritual, crap that is nothing, nothing, but another way of creating dependency on outside forces.