An event at my grocery store.

Originally posted by gaslaugh123
reply to post by GideonHM

 

It may have been long but I enjoyed every word. I sensed an acceptance of what may actually happen (I believe now it is a given). You have a very good grasp of reality as it is and not as many pretend it to be and I do not blame them. Whatever you believe is your business and again I will respect that. No more harsh and basically worthless comments when spoken out of hate instead of concern for all.

Thanks!
One of my dearest friends told this once after I was stressed and was talking about how I hate people and society because of what is currently going on in the world. She was heartbroken and chastised me in the same expression, and told me "Whatever you do, don't hate them. Pity them." I understood, and I quickly calmed down, and we went about our day.

Anger doesn't solve things nearly as well as a clear, rational, thinking mind. Sometimes anger is just the thing to snap us out of this toxic complacency, but overdone you will burn the barn to kill a nest of black widows. What a waste. The big dogs in charge need to be restrained, and have their noses rubbed into the nasty, foul mess they spread EVERYWHERE.

They aren't acting in our best interests, our leaders are just acting. Anger will never take us beyond our current state without competence, love, and understanding. Not to mention hard work and determination.

reply to post by king9072


Living on cash is worthless. Our governments are bankrupt. Your money means nothing once no one will take it. You have to see outside of capitalism. No other way, if society collapses.

I wouldn't call this "a wake up call."

I'd call it annoyed shoppers who wanted their food...it happens.

reply to post by GorehoundLarry


I don't believe you. Prove your point please. I want to see you rationalize this, and I honestly don't think you understand. You may well just prove my point, or maybe not, your reaction will tell.

[edit on 10-8-2009 by GideonHM]

awesome thread OP.

i love situations where society degrades into a 3rd grade playground in a matter of minutes over something so trite.

it would be good for these things to happen more often so people will be a bit more ready, AND ready to help others, not fight others.

when that day DOES hit, i'm breaking out my video camera and making a documentary of "the situation". (i always carry a flip video everywhere i go)

Here's that Twilight Zone episode some of you were talking about, The Monsters Are Due On Maple Street:

I came home last week and found my room mates all setting outside. The power was out I was told and had been for a couple of hours. They were all grouchy and unhappy that they had no access to entertainment.

I asked around as to how far the out age extended and found it to be only a couple of blocks.

"Did anybody call the power company and report the outage",I asked?
No answer.I went into the house and found the billing information.

I brought it outside and handed it to the guy with the cell phone and told him to call them and be sure they knew we were with out service.

Fifteen minutes later the power was restored to the neighborhood and we were all inside enjoying the modern convenience of electricity.

Don't assume anything.

TeddiRevolution:

That is one frightening situation! I live on the Mississippi Gulf Coast and work as a manager in a private owned convenience store. New owners took over the store on July 1st 2005 and Katrina struck Mississippi on August 29th 2005. We had a generator to run the gas pumps after the storm and people were lining up as far as you could see to get gas at our store. Then the police came and shut down our pumps. People had been waiting in line for some time to get gas and they became very angry. One lady was in the road in her car and she got out of her vehicle and was spewing anger at the police. I thought we were going to have a riot. The police shut down the pumps because they needed the gas for their vehicles and emergency vehicles. Then FEMA stepped in and donated gas to our store. We wound up having to get a bigger gererator since the smaller one kept kicking off. We had U.S. Martials guarding our gas pumps 24/7.

It was like a war zone around here...helicopters flying continuously overhead...razor wire rolled out near the railroad tracks ( to keep out looters) which lead to the beach where the highest concentration of damage occured, U.S. Martials buzzing at every turn, National Guardsmen
stationed and patroling everywhere.

At night it was so pitch black you couldn't see your hand one foot from your face. You could see every star in the sky because ther was no light reflection other than the moon. I slept on the couch near our front door for awhile in case I heard looters trying to break in our home. I wouldn't hardly doze for a few minutes before I'd jolt awake and listen to the sounds outside...keen to any abnormal sound.

A crisis can make people do things they wouldn't normally do and unless you've been in that particular situation you can never know truely how you'd react.

[edit on 10-8-2009 by Lois]

I use to bag food at a grocery store and being as i am living in tornado alley, there have being penetly of times i was at work and the power went out, but nothing like what you told of happened. When the power did go out everyone remained calm until it did come back on-line

Welcome to "The Matrix" where just one errant program can throw the entire system into a tizzy! Sadly, humans have become so reliant on modern conveniences that when they are removed they become lost. Their fears take over and they begin to lash out at others. I saw this firsthand during the great blackout of 2003. I cannot stress the importance of challenging yourselves to learn to live off the grid. To assume that the grid will always be there for you is simply foolish. The infrastructure is already overworked and aging and the economic model (House of cards) may not be able to sustain it for much longer. Be prepared!!!

I didn't read the entire thread, so sorry if it's been mentioned, but;

Moral of the story: Banks have you by the balls (can we say balls?)

Imagine a martial law situation where all it would take would be the three credit card companies to accommodate a few public freezes or spending limits or regulate purchases by time of day... I mean, talk about all ya gotta do is flip the switch, literally...

We need banks as much as we need Mcdonalds....

This is not surprising, (my mind went to the Twilight Zone episode as well) but also consider the context. I have observed time and again that when people are shopping, their brains tend to exit their skulls, metaphorically speaking. When it comes to parting with money and being in a rush, people get very irritable and miss blindingly obvious things they would not necessarily miss in other scenarios.

There are all manner of issues related to retail shopping that are ripe for sociological and psychological analysis. Ideally this research would lead to smarter consumers, but in reality I think it just provides corporations with more data on how to best get people to part with their money.

Given that this is the case, when things go wrong in a store, people turn from friendly to abusive very quickly. We are creatures of emotion, which often works at odds with rationality. I think most people here realize this. This is neither good or bad, but simply reality. But again, consider the context - this was a minor, temporary crisis in one enclosed location which, as I have said, is not conducive to intellectual alertness and rationality. This is also incidentally why capitalism doesn't work, but I digress. In a true crisis of larger magnitude, history has shown us plenty of examples of people coming together and supporting one another in the face of adversity. Granted, there are plenty of panicked people in emergencies as well. But I'd like to think that if a calamity of global or societal importance were to arise, people might be able to put aside their base concerns and take in the larger picture.

Let's just hope this theory isn't tested.

Last summer Hurricane Ike knocked out power in my area for close to three weeks. Gas was dried up before the storm hit and grocery shelves emptied. Cell phones were close to useless, landlines down, there was little communication and no information sources. Everyone congregated in each others yards, crazy rumors about there being enormous death tolls and that it might be 6 to 8 weeks before there is power began to circulate. No one thought it was going to be as bad as it was, so even if you planned ahead, it likely wasn't enough. Soon rumors about the possibility that there was gas at certain stations spread and people would jam the streets around that station. 9 times out of 10 the station hadn't received any gas, just hopeful a truck might make it. People waited anyway for hours on end, because their place in line was now a commodity. Police were telling them that they should leave, because it was uncertain when there would be gas. People who were within 50 cars of a pump still wouldn't budge. Water was now scarce too, it was understood that the tap water was unsafe to drink. People were panicky for the first several days.

Very few people bothered to withdraw enough money and without any hard currency you were S.O.L. It didn't take long for the division of the haves and have nots to develop. We all quickly realized how quickly the system can crumble and saw the potential for lawlessness. So many were so helpless all they could do was whine. It was my glimpse to what might be and it sucked even though I was living the highlife with my generators that kept my fully stocked refrigerator running, TV on, radio loud and fans blowing. Then again I'm ready for the Apocalypse, Hurricane Ike was a tester.

Sounds like something out of an Alfred Hitchcock movie or My favorite guy, Rod Serling.

There is a short story contest going on right now that this story f embelished upon abit would make a fine entry, and you will get writers status which you deserve.

[atsimg]http://files.abovetopsecret.com/images/member/90373e83ff19.jpg[/atsimg]

en.wikipedia.org...

"The Monsters Are Due on Maple Street" is an episode of the American television anthology series The Twilight Zone. Originally aired when memories of the Second Red Scare were still fresh in the minds of viewers, the episode is often presented commercial-free as part of the Cable in the Classroom series, to teach kids about the dangers of prejudice and hysteria. The question of whether the monsters of the title are the suspected aliens or the prejudiced residents of Maple Street is open to interpretation.

[edit on 10-8-2009 by antar]

reply to post by Astrithr


Now thats just amazing, simply amazing I just posted about the same line of thoughts, wow!

reply to post by TeddiRevolution
Very interesting story and truely a wake up call.

Now here is a site link and these folks talk about just such a thing - mainly about being ready to be self-sufficient in case "something major happens". I was on this site right before surfing on over to ATS and caught your story.

When many people get scared they go into survival mode.

Some become heros and show their courage and humanity and some become scared primitive animals.

That link below always has good articles - it's called Backwoods Magazine.

from: www.backwoodshome.com...

Preparing for civil unrest

By Claire Wolfe
The most remarkable thing about civil unrest is that there hasn't been more of it.

Politicians are making a hash of this country—and much of the rest of the civilized world. We know it. They know it. They know we know it. But we don't feel we can do anything much to stop them.

That right there is the pre-condition for civil unrest—when people are frustrated and politicians are nervous.

Worse, that was how things stood before last fall's crash. Before pols on both left and right launched the biggest mass transfer of wealth in history—transferring our wealth (what we had left of it!) to their friends on Wall Street and in the banking industry. In other words, that's how things were before things got bad!

Now everybody's talking about the ongoing catastrophe (even if we are in a momentarily sunny mood). But almost nobody is talking about the logical—maybe even inevitable—consequences of cynical or desperate politicians abusing an already fed-up populace: civil unrest.

I mean people taking to the streets. Or mass resistance. Or crackdowns because the government fears we might do something to upset its apple cart. It's going to happen. Somewhere. At some time. It's going to.

One of the few VIPs to mention the matter openly was Zbigniew Brzezinski, former National Security Advisor and the ultimate insider's insider. He commented on the millions of unemployed or soon-to-be-unemployed and the "...public awareness of this extraordinary wealth that was transferred to a few individuals at levels without historical precedent in America." He told "Morning Joe" Scarborough, "Hell, there could be even riots." I'd say that's an understatement.

If something were to happen, something say like a small solar flare that wasn't enough to fry us but "affected our computers and other electrical appliances, things might get a little dicey.

This was a simple power outage. I can hardly wait for 2012 and the possiblity of a polar shift.

I lived on a farm and know how to grow veggies. I don't know if I could ever kill another being (animal) however for food

Good post and thank you for sharing.


[edit on 10-8-2009 by ofhumandescent]

It is EXACTLY those scenarios that made me leave the city as soon as I had my son.....

I grew up in a small town where we go to the grocery store in our PJ's, and sing and dance in the isles, litterally!

the I went to the city, and well, it is parctically that bad ALREADY on a good day! let alone what it would be like in an outage!

I remeber feeling like a burden, being rushed around and bullied by the entire store on even a sunday night late night shop...terrible!

Where we are, the locals stick together. The few jerks that have moved here from the city get outted pretty fast for being aggressive or macho bullies I tell ya.

We definatly have more than 3 months of food at all times, plus food growing in the house and even the camper year round incase we had to take off..fortunatly we are isolated and you can only get here by boat or ferry, which is a good way to keep the good in, and the bad out.

I say it keeps the good in, because we are used to only HAVING each other..people know better than to burn bridges and isolate themselves in such a small isolated community...... you can either be part of the fun, cook outs and parties, or sit alone rotting.

There is also a lot of the chicken littleness in my life.... I am fully prepared, but the mooch, or ungratful bum who is a slob or just plain unthankful won't be getting any of my help, but the guy down the street who helped me do the simplest thing like putting a tarp over my camper will have my help....... my seeds will be worth a lot in a long term outage etc, and people have shown their colours enough with me that I know who will get turned away and who won't...

I am a single mother, the LAST person you would think people would be going to for help, but I have helped most now, and know who will appreciate me and who will take me for granted.... and well, tuff for them now is all I have to say.

Anyhoo, I guess my point is, get prepared and get outta the cities while you still have a small window.

I left everything behind MANY times already...it is not the end of the world. You would be suprised how much better it can be to open the NEW door when the old one closes.

[edit on 10-8-2009 by mellisamouse]

Originally posted by poedxsoldiervet
reply to post by Cole DeSteele

 

Now I am interested in what happen fully durning Katrina, after what 4 years? We still hear rumors of things, I would like to hear first hand accounts.

I live on the Mississippi Gulf Coast and although the cleanup has mostly been accomplished, there are still problems. In my town, local city officials don't want any FEMA cottages to remain in the city limits. Many people still haven't rebuilt on their vacant properties. Some of this is due to their insurance companies not paying for their loss. The city put a notice in our local paper to the former residents of these vacant lots to clean up their property or the city would bill them for the service and possibly put a lein on their property. Now I agree with billing them for the clean up, but to put a lein on their property is adding insult to injury. I assume some of these residents may have been elderly and don't have the money to hire someone to do the job, many may have not seen the notice in the paper because they moved far enough away and wouldn't have the ad in the paper where they are located.

These people lost EVERYTHING and for the city to threaten these unfortunate people with a lein on their property is the lowest, most cruel act they could enforce.

As for the FEMA cottages...they are absolutely adorable...and I would be proud to have one parked next door to me. I have lived in the same mobile home since 1980 and it needs work...I would love to have one of these FEMA cottages to live in because it would be an improvement over my 29 year old 14 X 70 mobile home. I live in the county where mobile homes are allowed, but they aren't in the city limits. The only exception would be if one has been in the city limits before the law was enacted and it remained under the grandfather clause.





[edit on 10-8-2009 by Lois]

reply to post by desertdreamer


AMEN! And put the "Worldwide Catastrophe" icing on the cake. TOTAL & COMPLETE MELTDOWN.

that my friend is how america will fall. not for the terrorist not the taliban not for storms that may create havoc in the land but a simple calculating glitch. boom panic starts... i cant swipe my card, i cant buy my food , i cant do anything without electricity. HYSTERIA WILL KILL AMERICA!!! wake up, what you have now will be gone in 60 seconds.