Tag Archives: History

White Trash Repairs: Throwing Down the Gauntlet

In some ways we’re a lot like the US Government out here.  Particularly when it’s manifested in the ‘May-your-flock-increase’ syndrome. 

It couldn’t have been more than three, maybe four years ago I was building Battlestar Gallinica, letting those silky hens crank out chicks and doing it on autopilot.  Never stopping to consider that I already had a flock of chickens more numerous than my needs.  Never stopping to wonder just how big a flock of chickens needed to be. 

Oblivious to the fact that forces of history were at work, driving up the future cost of chicken feed, unravelling the warp and weave of whatever blanket I must have thought was wrapped around the coming years.

I suppose my habits of thinking were just too pleasurable to allow seemingly obvious factors to slow me down.  Somewhat like the US Super-Power habit of thinking and all the militarism of the Cold War when the Rooskies packed up their tents, went home and the Berlin Wall went down.

The obvious thing to do was let things settle a bit to make sure it wasn’t an illusion, then bring all that military and equipment home, mothball it, and reduce, downsize, try to let the nightmare of the 20th Century fade into history where it belonged.

But I had a growing flock to keep me occupied, and the US Super-Power had a huge military lying around needed something to occupy it.  The only alternative the US Government had was to indulge in an endless series of military adventures to justify continuing bankrupting itself keeping on keeping on.

Whereas, I had silky hens brightening my day every time I turned around, hatching out chicks to watch survive and mature, beginning and ending on this piece of land.

What I needed was some heavy thinking in my agenda, taking into account that nothing lasts forever and that a flock of chickens is as much a responsibility in my reality as the health, jobs, production and manufacturing, and generally peaceful well-being of the country was to the people in it when the Cold War ended.

So here I am with a lot of chickens dear to me I’ve got to figure out how to deal with, Battlestar Gallinica sitting out there idle, and a half-built woodshed that’s nothing more than a reminder of my own unclear vision of reality.

And here’s the country I live in, sacrificed everything, a leading edge Space Program, a thriving economy of employed people, industry, innovation, hope, in favor of bankrupting itself for cheap and easy coincident with the pride of remaining the strongest military power on earth.

Battlestar Gallinica can be manufactured a lot more easily and cheaply in China if it’s needed.  So long as we can keep those boys and girls wearing Nazi helmets and cammy occupying foreign soil somewhere, we’re still good.

Maybe it still isn’t too late to take a second look at the ‘may your flock increase’ habit of thinking.

Old Jules

Today on Ask Old Jules:   Roots of the Civil War?

Old Jules, what were the true roots of the Civil war?