Hi Hugh,
I think it’s necessary to add a #10 to R.B.’s factors for experiencing pessimism:
10. A lot of people out there are waiting for some trigger event that will signal the start of a collapse. In reality, it has already occurred. That event has been the collapse of our government. We no longer have a government that upholds the rule of law. We are seeing epic lawlessness displayed by all of the government institutions. Our representatives and senators are truly ineffective against the growing power of a very, very small group of individuals who have control over very, very large government organizations. The DOJ has been completely corrupted at all levels. The NSA has taken what could be considered the culmination of human technology, the Computer Age, along with the once noble ability to find the “bad guys” out there and has churned it into a cesspool of corrupt political motives, blackmail, extortion, etc., etc., etc., that puts the East German Stasi to shame.
We are seeing one manufactured crisis after another. They are deadly, and someone is spending billions to get this all accomplished. The data coming in from all over the world which debunks the propaganda, the lies, lies, and more lies is constantly attacked by the NSA by scrubbing the data from the Internet and attacking/hacking truth sites. We see data, links, and evidence constantly tampered with by those that control the workings of the Internet. We now know that the high tech companies have been strong armed into engineering back doors into everything electronic for the purpose of NSA access. They CAN get into your computer. The only way to stop them would be to nuke them out of their caverns and have hi-tech companies rebuild the Internet with technology that would never allow this type of single-point control again. I don’t see that happening.
If you take a stand and expose political corruption, your computer is hacked, and your electronic communications are interfered with (trust me on this one). I believe we are at a point of no return. There is no curing the disease this country is infected with. It is too strong, too inaccessible, and too widespread. A country simply cannot exist under these circumstances. You cannot maintain a lawful country under an unlawful government. The citizens are SLOWLY waking up, and I believe this is why we are seeing an increase in events to create an environment where the government can clamp down and why we see a government hell-bent on building a domestic military and staging for an internal war.
THAT, and the ensuing fallout, is what I am preparing for. – P.B.