In order for a society to function, there has to be a certain level
of trust. Each day when we leave our homes, we take for granted that
most people are not going to attack us for no reason, that there will
only be isolated incidents of theft in our community and that rioting
and violence are not going to erupt in the streets. Whether we realize
it or not, we depend on the fact that the vast majority of the people
around us are going to act in a civilized manner.
Unfortunately, the thin veneer of civilization that we all take for
granted is starting to disappear. When I was growing up, I was taught
that challenging times reveal our true character. There are many
that believe that the declining economy is causing a lot of the chaos
that we are now witnessing, but perhaps what is going on is that these
challenging economic times are simply revealing the character that has
been there all along.
For decades, a "false prosperity" that was fueled by
unprecedented amounts of debt has masked a lot of the internal rot
that has taken hold in America. But now that our prosperity is
crumbling, our lack of values is becoming startlingly clear.
Greed, corruption and extreme self-centeredness have deeply infected
our society. We see this
on Wall Street and
in Congress, and we see this among those that are trying to survive
on the mean streets of our largest cities.
Our nation is breaking down on every level. If by some miracle we
were able to fix our economy, that would mask our problems for a while,
but it would not solve them.
Unfortunately, as I write about nearly every day, there are a whole
host of indications that our economy is about to get even worse. When
it does, millions of Americans will become even more desperate, and as
we are now seeing all over this country, desperate people do desperate
things.
The following are 22 signs that the thin veneer of civilization that
we all take for granted is starting to disappear....
#1 In Detroit, 100 bus drivers recently refused to
drive their routes out of fear for their own personal safety. An
article
posted on the website of the CBS affiliate in Detroit is quoting the
head of the bus drivers union, Henry Gaffney, as saying that the drivers
are "scared for their lives"....
“Our drivers are scared, they’re scared for their lives. This
has been an ongoing situation about security. I think yesterday kind
of just topped it off, when one of my drivers was beat up by some
teenagers down in the middle of Rosa Parks and it took the police
almost 30 minutes to get there, in downtown Detroit,” said Gaffney.
#2 In Wilmington, Delaware recently, a man offered
to help someone carry a television down the street, but quickly realized
that it was his own television which had just been stolen out of his
house....
A Wilmington resident who stopped home for lunch about noon
today saw a man carrying a flat screen TV down the street and asked
the man if he needed help.
He then recognized the television as his own, looked up and
saw the door to his home ajar, said Master Sgt. Adam Ringle.
#3 Shocking video has surfaced of a young thug
walking up to a defenseless elderly man in a Chicago subway station and
knocking him out cold. In
the video, the friends of the young man are cheering him on and
laughing at how easy it was to knock the old man out cold.
#4 Beating up old people for no reason seems to be
catching on all over the country. Just check out the following report
from a recent article
posted on philly.com....
AN 84-YEAR-OLD ex-university official savagely attacked by
four young punks during a walk in Wissahickon Valley Park earlier
this week theorizes that the beating he endured was a cruel game of
"get the old geezer."
Jim Shea, a former vice president of university relations for
Temple, from 1968 to 1983, walks up to five miles on Forbidden
Drive, in Fairmount Park, three times a week, but that type of
stamina wasn't enough to stave off the lowlifes who not only beat
him bloody, but dealt a blow to one of the things he holds most dear
- his pride.
#5 All over the United States, police are wailing on
Occupy Wall Street protesters with clubs and liberally using pepper
spray on them. Whatever you may think of the Occupy Wall Street
protests, the reality is that this is not a sign that things are
becoming "more stable" in America. You can see video of one very
disturbing confrontation
right here.
#6 Clashes between police and protesters in Oakland,
California recently became so violent that at one point the streets of
Oakland
resembled a war zone.
#7 Unfortunately, as the American people become
increasingly frustrated with out system many of them are actually
starting to consider violence as a solution. According to one recent
survey,
31 percent of all Occupy Wall Street protesters "would support
violence to advance their agenda".
#8 In New York recently, a confrontation between two
female customers and a frustrated cashier ended with the cashier beating
the living daylights out of them with a metal rod. The following is how
a local CBS affiliate in New York described this incident....
It appeared to have started when two female customers argued
and yelled obscenities at the cashier when he questioned a $50 bill
they gave him.
One of the female customers then slapped the cashier. A woman
is then seen jumping over the counter while the other woman goes
behind the register.
That’s when the cashier can be seen on the video disappearing
into the back of the fast-food restaurant. He comes back with a
metal rod and begins hitting the women.
You can see video of this violent confrontation
right here.
#9 These days, many Americans are so "on edge"
that just about anything will make them snap. For example, a
60-year-old woman in New Mexico recently
repeatedly stabbed her boyfriend because she thought that he was
cheating during a game of Monopoly.
#10 If you thought that the above example was crazy,
just check out what one man down in Georgia did recently. He actually
firebombed a Taco Bell because they did not put enough meat in his
Chalupa.
#11 In Cleveland last week, a 49-year-old man was
sent to the hospital after a poll monitor working for the Cuyahoga
County Board of Elections
tried to bite his nose off.
#12 Not only do TSA agents make us feel like
dehumanized cattle as we go through airport security, some of them are
evening making fun of us at the same time. For example, one TSA agent
recently scribbled “GET
YOUR FREAK ON GIRL” on a TSA inspection notice after discovering a
sex toy in the luggage of one female traveler.
#13 Identity theft is rising to very alarming levels
all over the United States. For example, a recent article in
the Palm Beach Post described what has been going on down in Florida
this year....
In the first half of this year, the Federal Trade Commission
received more than 20,000 complaints from Floridians whose
identities had been stolen -- nearly as many as in all of 2010. More
than half of those reporting their Social Security numbers or other
personal information had been ripped off and used to commit fraud or
theft were in South Florida, with heavy concentrations in parts of
Fort Lauderdale, Hollywood and Hallandale Beach.
"That kind of increase is really shocking,'' said Vance Luce,
deputy special agent in charge of the U.S. Secret Service in South
Florida, which investigates identity theft and financial crimes.
"The fact that it's on the upturn doesn't surprise me at all, but
that's pretty alarming.''
#14 In the Seattle area, an elderly couple in their
eighties was recently brutally attacked by a 31-year-old man armed with
a crossbow and a hatchet. The following description of this brutal
crime
comes from King 5 News....
Prosecutors say 31-year-old John Chase was walking down the
highway when he saw Ralph Aldrich, 88, in his back yard. Detectives
say Chase shot and killed Aldrich with a crossbow and then went
inside the home and repeatedly hit 83-year-old June Aldrich with a
hatchet.
#15 As America falls apart, more of us than ever are
taking medication for depression. At this point,
more than 1 out of every 10 Americans over the age of 12 is taking
prescription antidepressants.
#16 In some areas of the country, people have been
literally tearing apart their own cities in an attempt to find things to
sell. I recently discussed this phenomenon on
The American Dream Blog....
In Fresno, California the damage caused by thieves stealing
copper wire from city street lights is costing the city about
$50,000 a month. So far, about
2,500 street lights have been stripped of their wiring.
#17 As people become more desperate, we are starting
to see some truly bizarre crimes in many parts of the nation. In
northern Alabama, one team of crooks
has been using a forklift to pull entire ATM machines out of the
ground.
#18 Most Americans don't realize this, but all over
the U.S. livestock is being stolen from ranchers in unprecedented
numbers. The following is from
a recent Associated Press article....
While the brazenness may be unusual, the theft isn't. High
beef prices have made cattle attractive as a quick score for people
struggling in the sluggish economy, and other livestock are being
taken too. Six thousand lambs were stolen from a feedlot in Texas,
and nearly 1,000 hogs have been stolen in recent weeks from farms in
Iowa and Minnesota. The thefts add up to millions of dollars in
losses for U.S. ranches.
Authorities say today's thieves are sophisticated compared to
the horseback bandits of the rugged Old West. They pull up livestock
trailers in the middle of the night and know how to coax the animals
inside. Investigators suspect it's then a quick trip across state
lines to sell the animals at auction barns.
#19 At this point, thieves are becoming so bold that
they will steal literally anything that they are able to cart away. For
example, in the San Francisco area a while back thieves actually stole a
copper bell
that weighs 2.7 tons.
#20 According to the FBI, the number of gang members
in the United States has increased
by a staggering 40 percent since 2009. Right now, there are 1.4
million gang members terrorizing citizens on the streets of America.
#21 Down in Miami, thieves have become so bold that
they have actually been
breaking into parked police cruisers and stealing guns and ammo out
of them. Many of those guns undoubtedly are ending up in the hands of
gangs members.
#22 Be careful who you befriend online. They might
just hold you captive and use you as part of a Satanic sex ritual. The
following description of an incident that recently happened in Milwaukee
comes from
thesmokinggun.com....
Two young Milwaukee women were arrested this week after an
18-year-old Arizona man--who traveled to Wisconsin by bus after
meeting one of the suspects online--told cops that he was held
captive in the duo’s apartment for two days and slashed and stabbed
more than 300 times as part of an apparent satanic sex ritual.
Anger and frustration are growing to unprecedented levels in this
country, and all of this anger and frustration is manifesting in
thousands of different ways.
As I have written about previously, the rioting, the crime and the
violence that we are seeing now
is only just the beginning of what is coming.
Unless a miracle happens, our country is going to keep heading down
the road toward societal collapse. For even more examples that show
that our country is starting to come apart at the seams, please see the
following articles that I have authored previously....
-"18
Signs The Collapse Of Society Is Accelerating"
-"12
More Signs That Society Is Collapsing"
It won't happen all at once, but unless our nation changes direction
dramatically, we will see things get progressively worse and worse.
Instead of teaching our children to love and care for one another, we
have taught them to be incredibly self-involved. Today, way too many
Americans deeply love themselves, deeply love money and are deeply
addicted to entertainment. Each new generation seems to be even more
prideful, even more arrogant and even more violent. As a nation, we are
losing our empathy for others, our compassion for the needy and our
respect for the elderly. Our family units are breaking down and
thousands of our communities are being transformed into hellholes.
What in the world is happening to America?
Posted with permission from Michael @
The Economic Collapse
|
"Though the fig tree may not blossom, nor fruit be on the vines...
Yet I will rejoice in the Lord,
I will joy in the God of my salvation.
The Lord God is my strength...."
Habakkuk 3:17-18 |
