In war college military leaders are taught that the leading elements must not outrun their supply train. The resultant troops without food and guns without ammo are doomed to failure.
I am also reminded of a famous World War I lesson from Corporal, later Sergeant York:
I teched off the sixth man first; then the fifth; then the fourth; and so on. That’s the way we shoot wild turkeys at home. You see we don’t want the front ones to know that we’re getting the back ones, and then they keep on coming until we get them all. Of course , I hadn’t time to think of that. I guess I jes naturally did it. I knowed, too, that if the front ones wavered, or if I stopped them the rear ones would drop down and pump a volley into me and get me.
These two bits come to my mind because once again I realize I got too far ahead of my community in preparing for environmental changes that I see coming, and either they don’t, or they are not yet ready to prioritize gearing up for theoretical changes when day-to-day normalcy keeps on coming day after day, week after week.
I am alert enough to realize that the column is not behind me; that I am forging ahead in my chosen direction alone. It would be foolish of me to continue in that direction as if I were part of a team. I am not keen on being that foolish.
Withdraw, fall-back, or more accurately, change tactics.
This has happened to me many times since I launched myself into activism.
The last two decades of the 20th century had me developing a rural homestead in response to the urban decay apparent in my home town and county. That failed because my retreat was located in the severely decaying state of California.
I started over in Idaho where I spent the first 13 years of this century championing, attempting to help achieve a political solution to the destructive direction set by the Democrats and Republicans locally and nationally. I did many things right, and occasionally had some successes, but finally recognized the team was far too small for a political solution to answer.
Try again, but this time in The Bitterroot where independence, self-reliance and personal responsibility are much more common. I tested the political waters but found them too shallow to get anything but my feet wet. Several other community organizing ideas with foundations like neighborhood watch or various aspects of two-way radio communications also turned out to be insufficiently attractive.
Bitterroot community preparedness
Stone Soup Kitchen Project
Bitterroot Posse
two-way radios
On May 30th this year I wrote and published Is rural Montana THE ANSWER?.
As I said then,
I am either the wrong guy or my timing is not right.
I’m pretty sure I’m in the right place.
I will now add “or I have not yet come upon an agreeable direction for our efforts.”
Some undoubtedly see me as a wild-eyed crackpot while others want me to shut up and get out of sight before I draw fire our direction. I do recognize that nearly everyone who suspects a police state might be coming our way takes what they see as the safe position of hiding to the best of their understanding and abilities, while I mount the highest position I can to shout warnings and rallying cries at the top of my lungs. While it might seem like I am choosing danger over safety I explain if we all curl up in our foxholes for safety, we are easy, zero-resistance targets who die in those “safe spaces” one after another.
Okay. I’ll do what I can by myself while awaiting the right guy, the right direction and the right time, or some workable combination of those elements.
I suppose, judging from my history, I’ll try some other idea or resurrect one of my old ones next time I suspect the human environment around me might be open to it.
Winners get up one more time than they are knocked down.
– Ted –
