Lies & Trust

greenspun.com : LUSENET : TimeBomb 2000 (Y2000) : One Thread

This is on my website. Don't have a lot of time to browse, so apologies if this idea has been covered. -------------------- One of the main things that occured to me was why everyone was shocked that everything worked, and that the self-reporting was, apparently, accurate. That the self-reporting was accurate --truthful-- suprised even John Koskinen. I believe he said as much on a television interview right after the Big Day.

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.

I have run out of time at this moment to process this idea further, but this is all deeply connected to what has happened (or not-happened).

-- johno (jobriy2k@yahoo.com), January 12, 2000

Answers

If many of have some mistrust of government statements, it may well be because of false statement and unlawful actions taken by that government during the previous years. Recent (not Y2K related) revelations have not decreased the level of mistrust...

-- Mad Monk (madmonk@hawaiian.net), January 12, 2000.

It might be cuz us doomers can see the whole world is like an overstuffed glutton, and Y2K wuz like a big Correctol tablet.

Kook

-- Y2Kook (Y2Kook@usa.net), January 12, 2000.


--good 1 kook!

-- itain'twhytookay (lotsaglitches@lastcouplaweeks.noproblem.fixed), January 12, 2000.

Slowly, but surely, information is de-classified. Usually, way to late to get our dander up, always ancient history, 10 thru 30 years in the past.

If I'm not mistaken, we're due some info from the Warren Commision files sometime in another decade or so.....

Earlier today I posted a little snippet from an e-mail I received, I guess, what it shows more than anything, is if you give it enough time, they forget and go on with their lives. So many folks expect things to remain "status quo", it has always been that way in their experience.

How could they "think" anything else, nothing to compare it to, in their lifetime. At least, so far.

-- Michael (michaelteever@buffalo.com), January 12, 2000.


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