The Oil Drum

101 comments on Energizing America V [UPDATED: Full draft now available]

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Essex Land Rover Man on May 18, 2006 - 7:19am

One of my problems with having a positive outlook is reading the local and national papers to get a feel on how society is behaving. If everyone were like you and the majority of TODers i.e. fairly well educated, willing to make a small or large sacrifice for the common good, conserve energy etc then I would be far more positive about the overall outcome. Unfortunately, you only have to read the local papers about how many hooligans and street thugs there are around.

Americans might not realise this, but this is World Cup year and unfortunately for the Germans, England is in it. England has a bad reputation when it comes to fan violence and drunkenness. About one mile to the north of my local town, is an area of pubs where football "fans" drink and watch England play in international competitions in the pubs. Afterwards, whomever wins, the fans fight amongst themselves and anybody else in the area and smash up property either to celebrate England winning or England losing - it doesn't seem to make a difference. This is very common all over England. Scotland and Wales's fans are very much better behaved than the English savages sorry "fans"- I can't think of a better description at the moment. It is this type of person (unfortunately very common in England) that makes me feel that things will be worse than they really need to. If they can't cope with dealing with a football match, how the hell will they cope with someone telling them to cut back a little on driving or not driving at all?

England is becoming quite a savage society nowadays and this is when England is fairly rich and well off compared to most countries. When TSHTF, how bad will things then get? These savages/people are far more likely to respond violently to any polite request to conserve or cut down on usage.

Schools are now just beginning to install metal detectors for knives etc. It is only one or two schools on a temporary basis for a day at the moment, but in a few years time, my guess is more and more schools will have them and for longer temporary periods. I guess Americans used to New York schools would say it has been standard policy over in the US for a decade or two now, but as America leads, so Britain follows.

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Mike Hearn on May 18, 2006 - 4:24pm

Psychologists have shown that people invariably overestimate how dangerous the world outside is, often by a factor of 10 or more - this is almost entirely due to the bias towards bad news in the mainstream media.

I'm with Jack on this one - optimisim is the only rational way forward, anything else is just wasted mental energy.

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Essex Land Rover Man on May 19, 2006 - 4:40am

As I have driven through "fans" celebrating England winning as they swarmed all over the streets and seen the results to the shops the morning afterwards in my home town, I am afraid I don't believe you. To say all English fans behave like this is not true, but for a significant minority it is. England has a short history of drinking to excess and violent behaviour. You only have to read reports from the 17th century onwards and see Hoggarth's Gin Lane to realise the English are only carrying on its traditions. Drunk for 1d and dead drunk for 2d used to be the on signs outside grog shops as whole families marched into them to get their money's worth.

What has not been reported in the local press is behaviour near the main post office. Old age pensioners draw their money out; someone watches them leave the Post Office and then mugs the old lady in an underpass or down a side street where nobody is around. This is only very local knowledge to the police and surrounding shops and shop workers. Not many people know about this. Also there is the amount of thievery going on in stealing purses and wallets. The thief then goes into one of several clothes shops and puts the emptied purse/wallet into a coat for sale. Shop assistants find about 5 purses/wallets per week per shop as people buy the coat and discover the purse/wallet at the payout counter. This is only known to shop workers, the general public knows very little about it. I only know because I talk a lot to a couple of shop assistants about our football teams. So I would say media reporting of crime is greatly under reported. Murders obviously make big news and are fairly rare, but general crime is extremely common in England.