Lew, I grew up in Amish country. They were the finest, most helpful, hard-working men and women I knew.
One comment to this sick, sickening story caught my eye:
“I like the guy in the lower left — looking right at the camera. I just wonder if he’s thinking something like, ‘You tire me with your tyranny. But I’m not worried, because within a couple of years, you’re going to be coming to me, from a desolate wasteland ruined by your banksters and politicians, begging for me to teach you how to survive.’”
Alas, that scenario might not ring true. My friend and hay farmer, a wonderful, generous giant of a man known to all as “Junior,” hired dozens of local folks who had no other means and gave them honest work. He told me before he died, “These folks have no savings. If things go bad and they have nothing, they’re gonna run in gangs.”
It’s quite possible that they, and those fleeing the chaotic cities, will not be “begging.” They’ll be gunning, and running in gangs. In the last depression the self-reliant, self-respecting hobo would come to the kitchen door and offer to chop wood for some breakfast. Not this depression, not this time.
11:42 am on September 18, 2011