Translate

Tuesday, April 05, 2011

Ignore the people at your own peril

Most people know this in their own way. Whether it is in business, the military, political governing, or dealing with your relatives, the principle is pretty much the same. Just listen to them, and they will pretty much tell you what you probably want to know to get your mission or goal accomplished.

There are many famous lines that say this well. One is about relatives. It goes: "we can pick our friends but not our relatives". Another is about customers: "the customer is always right".

This post, and poster, chooses to focus on USA ideas. Of course one can expand it to many other places in the world where people ignored have been set off to demonstrate or even revolt against their status quo. The obvious area reported these days is the middle east, but the idea really does cover the world and all it various circumstances.

One common theme everywhere, I think, is that people want to be warm and fed, have dignity, and take care of their families. There are, again I think, about a zillion ways this gets expressed around the world.

Here in the USA I think it gets expressed mostly through the vote and at all levels: school board, city, county, state, and federal. Now if that is not possible for whatever reasons, then things like the Civil War occur; or otherwise called many other names to include the War of Northern Aggression, the War of the Rebellion, and the War Between the States.

The point is that ignored people will act in their own way where ever they live.

What worries me, and that is the correct term, then concerns and imagination takes hold, or at least comes into play. And our imagination is often our worse enemy. But it happens, and should be recognized by anyone with experience as a factor to be reckoned with, especially if they are in charge whereever.

So what worries me is thinking we have light weights in charge at too many levels. Let me define lightweights: "lacking experience though well intentioned". The obvious follow on to this idea is: what will they do when times get really hard? Like most, I think again, I hope for the best, and expect the worst.

What might the worst look like in the USA. Only your imagination really counts. Mine is going cold and hungry next winter, and having no expectation things will get better. Said another way, one can lose hope and faith in the ability of our present elected leaders at all levels. Another expression is trust and confidence. Things will get really tough when people start dying in large numbers, and communications suffers along with energy blackouts, or at least rolling blackouts. Like it or not, we are dependent on public electricity, which has only been around for about 100 years.

Having followed that logic line, then what happens when the present lightweights who hold the reigns of governments do their responses, which I suspect may include imposing some kind of martial law to rule. And what do we the people do to survive in our own local way?

Will it include demonstrations, revolts, tribal rule, religious rule, or some kind of royalty? I don't know. I imagine it depends on where you live and your customs.

And all I want to do is be warm, and able to eat, have dignity, and take care of my family.

Like the title says, ignore the people at your own peril.

No comments: