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  • From: Clansgian AT wmconnect.com
  • To: homestead AT lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: [Homestead] Get surreal.
  • Date: Thu, 17 Feb 2005 21:44:01 EST

In a message dated 2/17/2005 8:32:23 PM Eastern Standard Time,
lurine AT softcom.net writes:


> Nah, James, your problem, or at least one of them, is due to the Round Up
> fumes you insist aren't harmful or maybe you're making your martinis from
> them?
>
If I compare the data about the results of an idle life or the results of
daily consumption of RoundUp, I'd certainly have to take the latter.

> So, James, how come your kids aren't going to public school? I mean, you do
> rant, rave and harp on about "one-size-fits-all" with everything else on
> earth so logically then public schooling should fit all.

Lynda, you confuse 'one-size-fits-all' with counter indicating the presently
popular 'one-size-big-enough-for-six-people'. The Bozos that go on about
this
probably really don't know any better and really can't think any farther. Do
you really want to be included in such company? It comes from a thorough
public school indoctrination which conditions people to view anything said
about anything (not necessarily said about them) as telling them what to do
or
what to think. They are indoctrinated to fear it and react to it. So when
someone points out, for example as TVO's article did, that high cholesterol
is most
often a result of diet choices, they clutch their garments about them and
say, "You can't say that, it's like you're saying that I'm bad because I have
high cholesterol. Therefore you are obligated to pretend as though it isn't
true, diet doesn't affect cholesterol - ever, for anyone!!" This gut
reaction
works well to cause people to do what government and industry tells them to
do.
We don't watch much TV and don't listen to radio much except for following
the occasional local news story. When you're away from advertisement,
especially the moronic advertising on radio and TV, and you then hear it
again after a
hiatus, you can't help but think "Who is idiotic enough to be influenced by
this drivel??" The answer is, those who have had the complete dose of
indoctrination from public shcooling. Its main purpose is to condition a
person to
react to such ridiculous stimuli. Buy this, vote for this, what other people
think about you is life and death, etc. The indocrinated people have taken
this exhortation to heart: "Get surreal!" Pointing out that a farm CAN be
run
without borrowing money is seen as saying that they are evil or stupid
because
they are in debt. Discussing the healthful effects of good diet and exercise
(as in the present case) cannot be done because there might be one person in
10,000 for whom diet nor exercise would imporve their condition [so you can't
discuss it at all].

Fortunately some people have avoided this indoctrination (for example, the
homeschooled) and some come to shake their heads to clear it of the
surrealism
and get a good view of reality. You'll find that a useful guide: whether
the
person is dealing with reality or not. Imagined illnesses, imagined business
enterprises that some how don't ever seem to pan out, alternate energy
systems
that are contrary to physics, all my problems are because Bush is in office
and someone just like Bush is managing the local WalMart and that's why they
wouldn't give me a job, etc. etc.

Wandering about in a surreal headspace is very useful to people who aim to
exploit you.

But I suppose I digress ... concerning my children going to public school ...
it's not 'one-size-fits-all' - rather it's
'one-size-that-doesn't-fit-anyone'. And so the public school question is
still apropos - Which of us acts as
if we were still under the indoctrinal conditioning of PS?

But for the 'rant and rave' and 'one size fits all' blathering, maybe you
could explain this one to me. Do you recall a character in Al Capp's Li'l
Abner
comic strip called "Joe Btfspkl"?? He was the one who always had a dark
cloud over his head and wherever he went disasters took place. Through
various
connections I've kept up from time to time with what's going on with various
of
the people who like you would blather about "you're telling me what to do",
"you're saying one size fits all", "you rant and rave", etc. .... it's going
on
now more than ten years that many of these people have reported what's going
on with them and yet they never seem to get a break. Always in debt, always
sick, always can't get a job or lose a job, always broke, have to sell off
their livestock, have to mortgage their property, this project went sour,
that
plan didn't work. They appear just like Joe Btfspkl with a black cloud over
them
to the point that (in many cases) in ten years nothing has gone right for
them. Now, I would have to say that this is not the case with us. We've
takens
some pretty good knocks on the chin in our homesteading life but every year
has seens us just a little farther ahead, or as the poet put it "Let us act
that
each tomorrow find us farther than today." And private correspondence with
a number of homesteaders on this list and on others tells me we are very far
from alone, many people are succeeding at homesteading. Now, Lynda, if it is
all just a random toss of the dice, and as so many of the blatherers have
said, we are just lucky and think that "one size fits all"; how is it that
*randomly* they never seem to get a break and yet *randomly* the sun shines
perpetually on us??

Or is it just possible that it is our choices and their choices that make the
difference?

James





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