Here’s the Introduction to Skip Freedman’s First Book “Gypsies of the New Millennium”
Introduction
“I think it’s time we stop, children, what’s that sound? Everybody look what’s going down.”
– Buffalo Springfield, For What It’s Worth
It doesn’t take a whole lot of observation to notice that things aren’t going particularly well in the world today. Constantly occurring disasters (both natural and man-made), global monetary manipulation and outright theft, police oppression, corporate greed, government surveillance, and numerous wars around the globe combine nicely to make a planet that’s always just on the leading edge of complete chaos. Society seems to be slowly unraveling almost on a daily basis. So what can a person do about it? Probably not a whole lot, in the big scheme of things. What you can do is to give yourself a fighting chance for survival regardless of the conditions around you, and have a little fun while you’re riding out the storm. You can even go so far as to use the system against itself. That’s the purpose of Gypsies of the New Millennium, self-empowering of the individual to facilitate resistance against organized oppression.
The problem with the system is that it’s just simply broken. It’s been commandeered by various high-level people who have manipulated situations to create a climate of constant fear, where people will react emotionally and voluntarily surrender their personal freedoms for the illusion of safety – that’s the global picture. It’s becoming what governments have aspired to since their creation: absolute control. But fortunately it never lasts, because people will eventually resent tyranny. It’s unnatural to the human condition to be enslaved and exploited by anal-retentive psychopaths always trying to completely control your every action. All oppressive empires eventually crumble: the Romans, Spaniards, Nazis, Russians and the British Empire were all either destroyed, absorbed by other peoples, or diluted to the point of being harmless. So don’t worry, their downfall is a sociological inevitability. The main thing is for you to survive the long haul.
You might ask, how could things manage to get this way? The main point to realize here is that their control over you has only worked through your consent – you give them the power. And, as the saying goes, power corrupts. But the whole thing is really just an artificial construct. Simply put: authority is only a concept. It sounds pretty arbitrary, but once you see this and realize the implications of it, then everything starts becoming clear. Nobody has the right to tell you what to do, unless you allow them to. Period. Once you’ve established your mental autonomy, then it’s natural to start looking at both global and local events for what they really are, and not what they’re made to appear to be. The world can take on a whole new look; there are possibilities you hadn’t imagined before, and things aren’t quite as hopeless as they used to be. Bottom line is that you don’t always have to be a victim of the system – you can fight back. And that’s always a lot easier (and safer) by dropping out and becoming nomadic. Freedom always beats self-imposed slavery.
So why exactly would a person choose the nomadic way of life instead of the safe conventional one? Just take a good look around you, read a newspaper or watch the evening news on TV. Home foreclosures are increasing monthly. Jobs are scarce because work is outsourced offshore and there’s no industry left in this country. You might find the people around you repugnant or dislike the area you live in. Maybe you just want to get a long overdue sense of adventure back into your life. You might even be pursued by some persistent hoodlums (with or without uniforms). Another good reason might be simply waking up some morning and finding you have no job or a place to live. Let’s face it, sometime life sucks – but living doesn’t have to. All you need is the necessary information and the will to use it.
The biggest obstacle to living the nomadic lifestyle is simply a person’s own mindset. It takes great courage to walk away from what appears to be a secure situation and venture out into the unknown. And not everyone has what it takes to do this. To see if you qualify, ask yourself these questions and give yourself some good, hard honest answers:
Am I able to survive without a conventional place to live?
Can I sustain myself without the apparent security of a regular job?
Will I survive emotionally without a social-support network of friends and/or relatives?
Is it possible to live without things like my big comfy chair, 900-channel cable TV and other household niceties?
Should I go against the wishes of society and not be just another mindless consumer?
If you honestly answered ‘no’ to all or most of these questions, stop now. Save yourself some problems and give this book to someone who could really use it. Simply go back to the herd and relax until it all just hits the fan. You won’t feel a thing. But if you think you have the right stuff and are ready to spit in the face of the system, then read on….