Requesting input from older members...

...a question I've struggled with over the last few years, is whether things are getting progressively worse over time, or if I'm just learning more about the nature of the threat as I get older and do more research. I'm only 25, and didn't really "wake up" until I was 18 or 19, so it's tough for me to tell... can any of you old geezers out there provide any input?

old geezers?????
lmao
hadn't heard that one in a while, hahahaha

as far as ur question goes

I think it's a lil of both.

The older we get the more knowledge
we seek

and the more we seek
the more we find

best wishes

can you be a little more specific... there are agreat many areas that are going down hill... but there are people here that are pretty damn smart and there is a potential for a lot of good info... but some specifics would help all interested...

personally... I would say we are sinking fast... The russians went into this same thing but they were far more prepared for the collapse than we are.

some folks do not like Dmitry Orlov.. but he ought to at least be read about.

here are a couple of links that are pretty good to read..

fora.tv...

www.organicconsumers.org...

I am 40, not an old geezer, but I have been a pretty hungry reader of all things since the mid 80s.

I can't say if things are getting worse or if they are just more apparent to the average man, of which I am one.

The internet, cell phones, talk radio, 24 hour cable and the like have made the world a smaller and faster-paced placed. It is odd, but growing up, you had ABC, NBC, and CBS. Local news in the morning, national news at night. The news was pretty much the same on each channel. About one hour a day of news. Then you had monthly magazines. You could get opinions, but they were not as loud, omnipresent, and varied as they are today.

Today, we have access to just about every point of view from individuals all over the globe so long as you can afford a computer and an internet connection, or score it for free. I can find a dozen or so media stops somewhere where the sky is falling and the world is stopping tomorrow if I so chose.

Are things worse? I dunno. I think the cold war and the Cuban missile crisis was pretty darn intense. Then Vietnam, watergate, JKF, and on and on. Not to mention WWII.

Maybe things are as same as they always were. You just know more faster and from a whole host of places almost in real time. It can eat you up if you let it.

reply to post by Jack Squat


Well in my day youngster , the Goverment knew it's Place . Like me though in my Old Age , they seemed to have forgotten that .........

I think that things are getting progressively worse. We are living in a fast paced, chaotic and confusing world where power and greed are more important than human lives. Our food is filled with chemicals or are genetically engineered. Our world is filled with garbage and pollution. I am 51 and have seen and learned of much corruption.

We must hold on to hope and fight for change, for the betterment of mankind. This world is for everyone, not just the rich, powerful and greedy. Look inside and see what is really important. Live your life with love and compassion and do the best that you can.

Originally posted by Jack Squat
...a question I've struggled with over the last few years, is whether things are getting progressively worse over time, or if I'm just learning more about the nature of the threat as I get older and do more research. I'm only 25, and didn't really "wake up" until I was 18 or 19, so it's tough for me to tell... can any of you old geezers out there provide any input?

What things?
In what way?
What threat?
What do you mean 'wake up'?

I'm an old geezer, but unless you be more specific, I have no idea what you're talking about.

Thanks for the responses fellas, the "old geezer" comment was just me poking fun, I very much respect my elders (the ones who deserve it, that is).

For those asking for me to be more specific, I suppose I was mostly referring to the way those in power treat the pedestrians... the level of brainwashing and social engineering going on... government secrecy... I dunno, all of the above.

Originally posted by Jack Squat
I suppose I was mostly referring to the way those in power treat the pedestrians... the level of brainwashing and social engineering going on... government secrecy... I dunno, all of the above.

Names, tools change ... but it's always been like this.

Some interesting reading if you're up to it: www.constitution.org...

So not so new.

edit: sorry fixed wrong linkie


[edit on 26 Mar 2010 by schrodingers dog]

It is getting worse, no question.

All categories...

A more depressing future than the world has never known.

Welcome to the new dark age.

reply to post by Jack Squat


in response to the whipper-snapper from the gums of a geezer,

as the song says ♫ ♫ Same as it ever was ♫ ♫ - ♫ ♫...as the days go by ♫ ♫ Same as it ever was ♫ ♫ ♫ ♫ etc etc etc

the rule or law we follow is called 'entropy'. that's when a closed system
deterioriates upon itself... in human history the drumbeats of war was the
outside force that kept the status-quo going...
our present predicament with foreign conflicts, economic raping, PC morality, lack of unity, are all signs of the 'system' collapsing as in entropy

of course, one could say that 'time' itself is actually speeding up as in the Time-Wave Zero scenario that accompanies 2012 (or so its said)
ans all the negative events which were once, few-and-far-between, are just more noticible when grouped together in this compressed end-time era.

Jack (OP) --- did you see the news article yesterday ?

Stated that the older generations have a much more positive approach to life

The article was based on recent research conducted in the US

( If I remember, I'll try to post a link to it later. Would have posted it in its own thread, but figured it would be a waste of bandwidth in the current political climate and discussions devoted to same )

To answer your question, I can't help referring to my own parents' and grandparents' time .. and even before that, to the mid-1800s

When I was young, newspapers (which were held in far greater regard than now) were advising that by the 1970s, it would be a case of 'standing room only' on this planet. And to emphasise how bad it would be, the article (citing experts of the day) was accompanied by a graphic illustration, showing thousands of people crammed together, their faces upthrust to capture some of that rare air, which apparently was going to be in such shortage. I remember it as thousands of humans standing like sunflowers, their faces uptilted

It was a pretty frightening prediction and my sense of preservation kicked in to the point I mentioned the article to my father and suggested a way of preventing it was to kill everyone over the age of 45. That seemed reasonable to me. After all, to a young person, 45 seems 'over the hill'. People of 45 have had a life. Not much to follow apart from grey hair and dotage. Best to eliminate them to make room for the young. My father just nodded and told me ok ... and to let him know if I still felt the same way when I turned 45

Well as we know, the 'experts' prediction didn't eventuate in 1975 and today, it sounds absurd. Just as a lot of the current gloom and doom will sound absurd to today's young ATS-ers, in a few decades

Back in the 1970's, Nostradamus featured in a flurry of alarmist television documentaries. People put a lot more credence in the pronouncements of television then. And we were being advised that Armageddon was nigh, etc. Nostradamus' predictions were being deciphered to 'mean this and say that', etc. Again, it was pretty frightening, to the point a Sydney grandmother killed her two adored grandchildren and then herself, to spare them the predicted hell on earth

But back in my parents' day, ordinary childhood and other diseases decimated populations. Not even penicillin then. People and particularly children were laid waste by scarlet fever, whooping cough, even measles. Very few had electric washing machines or vaccuum cleaners or wall to wall carpets or other modern conveniences to make it easier to effectively clean a home and eradicate 'germs'

Then you could research the lives of those between and during the World Wars and the during the Great Depression and the dust-bowl devastations. People lived with imminent death, starvation, misery and poverty. Crime was rife. Wages were low. Food was scarce. Cothing was patched and mended and handed down. Only the rich had motor vehicles. Many families watched their loved-ones die for lack of money to pay for doctors and hospitals or even medicines

Europe was soaked in blood. Families were divided and sometime separated for life. People queued for the chance to buy a piece of horsemeat. There was food-rationing even long after WW1, for example, in the UK. One egg per week and a couple of ounces of butter per person and once purchased, a stamp was applied to a book without which you could not buy foods etc., to prevent people from buying more than their allowance per week. Children had rickets from lack of vitamins. No birth control methods. Unbelievably primitive and painful treatments for sexually transmitted diseases (which were rife as result of fighting forces contracting such diseases on tour overseas)

Discipline in schools then was unrestrained and frequently and enthusiastically administered as a matter of course, as it was in the armed forces, on the street, in homes, etc. Police and neighbours were given a pat on the back for administering physical beatings. Women were paid a fraction of hte male wage, if they were able to land a job that didn't consist of housework (their own and for others). Dress standards were far stricter and even the low-paid worker was expected to maintain those standards. Women were required to wear hats and gloves and stockings, wear petticoats beneath their outer-clothing, carry lace-trimmed handkerchiefs as a matter of course. These were all expensive items in the days before mass-produced asian imports

If you didn't possess the money or brains to attend university, then of course, you didn't even consider it. Poor families expected their older children to take any job offered as soon as they were of minimum legal working-age. No matter that those children possessed skills and talents -- poor families couldn't afford to indulge them and they were put to work as assistant rat-catchers, plumbers and butchers apprentices. Girls were put to work as maids and cleaners or shop-work and of course this generally determined their future -- determined the type of person they would marry, the areas in which they would live

The working-week was considerably longer and harder then. Attending church on Sundays was expected of most. And helping out at home was taken for granted -- hand-washing clothing and floors, hand-beating carpets which first had to be dragged outide and beaten hard and long with whicker bats. No sweet-smelling washing powders or fluffy rinses, no modern shampoos, little variety in make-up, few packaged goods, etc.

And always the threat of wars, of diseases and pandemics and the attendant sufferings and deaths -- of strikes that could put families literally out on the streets, etc.

The further we go back in history, the harsher life was for the ordinary person. Yet wars and threat of wars, diseases, financial hardships etc. ermained constant

And of course, throughout our history, have been prophecies of 'end times', of the wrath of God, of consuming hellish fires, of punishments, of devils and demons and the lamentations of millions

Through it all, people worked, fell in love, married and raised families. They lost loved-ones in wars and had to pull themselves up by their bootstaps to rebuild bombed and destroyed communities, save to rebuild their churches and schools, give hope to the young, minister to the old and poor

Guess to each of them, at the time, the world seemed to be falling apart with grim futures staring them in the face. Just like now

Those poor widows and children, for example, who trudged miles by foot to the carnage left by the most recent bloodbath, in order to search through the hacked and crow-devoured corpses, in order to find their husband, son, brother, father. Then after they'd buried them by hand, they had to face lives of unimaginable misery without breadwinners in a time of nil female-employment and when welfare or other assistance hadn't even been heard of

We don't have it so bad in comparison, do we ? Maybe it just seems as if we do

Thanks so much for your contribution Dock... and no, I missed the article you spoke of.

If things were indeed worse "back in the day", or have always been the same; is that to say that the majority of the fear and paranoia many of us feel on a day to day basis is unwarranted?

[edit on 26-3-2010 by Jack Squat]

reply to post by Jack Squat


yep, it's growing and has been since 1960...what is it exactly, EVIL just as written in scriptures,,,it's good vs. evil and evil will increase till the end when God will prove his plan. He promises that the mind has not imagined how great the good things He has for us are.

[edit on 26-3-2010 by GBP/JPY]

Well from where I sit ,things are getting worse .

I used to get my water from a natural spring ,just dipped it out.

And though information is moving faster,I think people are less informed (and are ok with it). The news is , in general not news ,it is more info-tainment.

Don't get me wrong I'm glad I'm not in 1950's - 1960's Mississippi ....But a kid could be a kid.

Teachers cared , cops took you home instead of looking for a felony, men wore hats and shoes ( not caps and felony shoes [ sneakers] ) , a 19 year old had no
friends under 17, children mostly respected adults (who knew how to set boundaries for them), hell ,even thieves were just thieves .

We are a free people who seems to forget that responsibility is a part of that freedom. And sometimes being responsible is not fun but tough...... and no one wants the job.

Greed keeps our true talent in the private sector. What I see are a bunch of youngsters who want everything now, house ,car, 6week vacation, 200k+/yr.
and have no time to wait. No time in grade and marginal talent.....so we pay.

People forget that most of the engineers were not college grads , they worked their way to that position. Not I am not saying that college is not important ,I know is,But we are missing the real world input into the learning.

Everybody thinks their kid is smart ( I may not be able to explain stupid but I know it when I am ...err ...I see it).I see a lot of not so smart kids (and Parents). We are not explaining that skills are arts themselves. Fewer and fewer mentors ,not adult friend but mentors. The '60's is when it started, the '70's, and '80's did us in.

I think we are heading for an "idiocracy", well, maybe more towards a nobles and serfs type system again ( this system is still in place in many places around the world in one from or another). Remember that our education system WAS needed for the industrial revolution to continue .

Today we are post industrial (sad that some do not see that fact), and some act as if it we can stay on that track but we just cannot. We are seeing the result of our burn out (poor planning ).

Not a rant, just things I notice in passing...I'll quit now .... last one here please turn off the lights.

I`m 54, and from what I have seen over my many many many loooooong years.......is, those that are in power, are more open as to their blatant use of that power and greed as they were when I was younger. We were under just as much control as far as our use of our rights back then, as we are now, and yes, it is getting worse as time goes by. The reason people didn`t do much about it back then, was because peoples awareness, and preceptions were not as great, but, they have grown by leaps and bounds in the last 10-20 years. The reason those who are in power are more blatant, is because they have believed their own lies that they have everyone under control.

To a degree, they have cut their own throats by being so blatant, when there are so many who are not asleep in this world to see this going on. They haven`t noticed the growth in human awareness and preception over the years, because they have been so wrapped up in their own little realities. They also realize this now, but their own egos will not allow them to stop what they are doing. It will be their own egos that will bring them down in the end.

I'm 43, and the cops are a LOT worse.
I can remember a time that cops would joke and cut up with teenagers. If they caught us with pot, or caught us drinking and underage - they'd take it away from us. Worst case, they'd take us home and tell our folks. What they didnt' do was ruin our lives for it. (Now if we were drinking and driving, that was a no-go and they'd be pretty letter of the law with that.)

The economy is worse. People did not have the DEBT that they have now. Somehow they had about the same things though, although most people had smaller homes and that was ok. It was normal. If your folks had a big house, like 2 stories, oh man, you must be rich!

My dad is 74 and he says it is much, much worse. He says it is the greed. He says that after WWII that America was a wonderful place to live. He said you were really free then, and that people helped each other. He said people tended to be more decent towards helping others out. He worked his tail off for a guy with a business, who's son died, and the guy helped him learn everything and helped him with taking over the business.

I remember we had a small country store. We had credit there, and as long as folks paid their bills we let them have credit in the store - NO interest. We didn't send out bills, just if someone came in, and wanted credit, we'd pull their slip, and see if they'd been paying or what. Everyone knew everyone, and decisions were made on that sort of thing.

I can remember delivering groceries to some of the older senior citizens, and checking on them in the process.

Now this was basically just a small convenience/gas station. What BP or Texaco does THAT these days?

I have pondered your question before....
are there really more murders rapes government cover ups now than when I was a kid???

Well when I was younger we all new bad things happen someone always had a story to tell... but that was always second hand word of mouth...

today we had satellite feeds tweeter news beamed to my cell phone all in living color live from all corner's of the world instantly delivered 30 second sound bites...

So is it worse? I don't know, it might even be better... What we have now that we didn't is all this media coverage constantly bombarding us with announcers telling us how bad it is...

I'll tell you one thing that's most certainly changed... respect for other's is gone

[edit on 26-3-2010 by DaddyBare]

I think it is perception and life experience...as an old "geezer" I remember

a war that many did not want, that dragged on for almost 8 years in various forms of intensity, social chaos..people marching on Washington,DC by the hundreds of thousands, race riots and protests as entire sections of cities became war zones, assassination of a president, pres candiddates, social activists, racists groups killing activists,

the government forcing an unpopular idea...integration, the threat of civil strife and states rights by activating Nat'l Guard units against Feds, corruption of a Vice Pres Agnew, and Watergate...

gaslines, stagflation, inflation, my parents rotating weeks off to avoid being laid off, drugs...the seemingly imminent breakdown of society, threat of nuclear war over Cuba, conflict with USSR and pawn states in S.America and Africa, the Six Day War and the Yom Kippur war...imminent destruction of Israel...

all of these things and more in only about 10 years...1962-1972

I remember everyone was waiting for "the end of the world"

Things are bad, will be again... you have to be strong, fluid and willing to adapt, smart...proactive, look ahead and see the big picture...learn from your mistakes...learn from those that came before you...read history to get a clear perspective....

to our young...these will be the good ol' days.

Growing up when I was a kid, we didn't have computers, cd's, dvd's, cell phones, etc etc. We spent much of our time playing or hanging out with friends outdoors. We had quality conversations, we explored the world around us, we were kind and respectful and yes helped each other.

I think the youth of today should get more in touch with nature and take breaks away from their electronic worlds and doom and gloom news. Breath deep the fresh air, feel the warmth of the sun, walk barefoot in the grass. Feel inspired and renewed with hope. Maybe one of you will be president one day or in a position of power where you will make a huge difference in the lives of the many. My love and hope are with you and our future. You ARE our future.