The Monsters are Due on Maple Street

If it wasn't for the inherent danger those people could have been in, this would be extremely funny. It read like a plot for a B-Grade comedy reimagining of Deliverance

I guess in a country where widespread paranoia is the norm, things like this are bound to happen.
 
The closing narration of Monsters:

The tools of conquest do not necessarily come with bombs and explosions and fallout. There are weapons that are simply thoughts, attitudes, prejudices...to be found only in the minds of men. For the record, prejudices can kill...and suspicion can destroy...and a thoughtless, frightened search for a scapegoat has a fallout all of its own—for the children and the children yet unborn. And the pity of it is that these things cannot be confined to the Twilight Zone.
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Good story!
I just took a Google Maps ride through Forks, Clallam County. :)
 
This is the truth of Western Washington, and I'm sure, of many other states here. Once you step outside of the urban area, you find yourself in a completely different world.

I think a lot of it is due to the constant stoking of fear & hatred by talk radio hosts and Fox News, and their claims that cities are seething masses of violent anarchists and communists that want to burn, steal and rape their way through middle America.

And yes, there are leftists that would have you believe that every middle American is a gun-worshiping white supremacist, but they don't have the coverage that Fox and talk radio do.

Places like Forks have been left behind by globalization and regulations against deforestation. They're suffering the way the Rust Belt and the mining towns are, and they're terrified.

I just spent the morning helping my sister come to terms with some of her delusional thinking since her brain injury last spring. It would be nice if someone could help people in small towns do the same. The problem is that their sources have told them not to believe any other sources, so round and round it goes. At this point, I don't know if there *is* a way to mend the country.
 
When black people think they can camp with out consequence. They really should know better than to go to areas like that.
 
dudalb said:
There have been a few good episodes in the new Twilight Zone series, but still can't compare with the original.
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Episodes of the new Twilight Zone series are stacking up on my PVR. I'll get to them shortly. Part of the reason I have not watched so far is that I just don't want to be disappointed. :(
 
deadrose said:
This is the truth of Western Washington, and I'm sure, of many other states here. Once you step outside of the urban area, you find yourself in a completely different world.

I think a lot of it is due to the constant stoking of fear & hatred by talk radio hosts and Fox News, and their claims that cities are seething masses of violent anarchists and communists that want to burn, steal and rape their way through middle America.

And yes, there are leftists that would have you believe that every middle American is a gun-worshiping white supremacist, but they don't have the coverage that Fox and talk radio do.

Places like Forks have been left behind by globalization and regulations against deforestation. They're suffering the way the Rust Belt and the mining towns are, and they're terrified.

I just spent the morning helping my sister come to terms with some of her delusional thinking since her brain injury last spring. It would be nice if someone could help people in small towns do the same. The problem is that their sources have told them not to believe any other sources, so round and round it goes. At this point, I don't know if there *is* a way to mend the country.
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I really don't think that it is correct to look at this as a recent development in North West US. I spent time in Eastern Washington State in the 1970s. It was like going back in time to the dark ages.
Racism was fully and completely de rigeur and all the highway signs were filled with bullet holes. Individualism and dislike of the government was also quite evident in obnoxious bumper stickers and general conversation in the student bars in and around Spokane. The regular bars were much worse. Restaurants didn't have signs - but there were still many where people of color were "expected" to sit and they were required to treat whites with great deference or have violence visited upon them. Baptist churches were certainly bastions of racism and most were proud to state they were white only.
Having Canadian plates on my car made me an object of suspicion and rudeness bordering on hate.
Those people did not all die or go away or obtain sudden enlightenment.
In my visits back there I found nothing had changed much except the churches no longer bragged about being segregated and the trendy bars and restaurants were fully integrated. However, my black friends told me it wasn't hard to find bars and eating establishments that were still unofficially segregated or had seating "arrangements".

Coeur d'Alene, Idaho has also been always known as a hotspot for white supremacist groups and when I was a cop in British Columbia we were well aware of their attempts to actively recruit north of the border. In talking with my friends who are still active in law enforcement I have found that that has not changed over the years.

The interest of the media comes and goes - but the racist hatred and anti-government stances in that part of the world have not changed for a century or two.
 
Eastern WA has been that way forever, I know, I grew up there. What's different now is the constant fear. Before that, city people were just written off as foolish, spoiled, the sort of people who would starve to death if they had to depend on their own skills. They saved their real fear and anger for all those people with different skin tones, except when they depended on them at harvest time.

Now it's not just a matter of skin tone, it's *all* city people, *all* politicians (except their hometown sorts, and Trump) and anyone with political views to the left of Genghis Khan. And it's constantly fed by media screaming about the insane crime rate (up until this past 4 years it was insanely low by historical numbers) and lying their heads off (with the repeated court defense that nobody's supposed to take them seriously, it's all just entertainment).

The movie "Network" wasn't supposed to be a playbook for the media, but here we are.
 
Give them what they want. Put up a border wall 30 foot high around them. Shut the gates in that wall. Let out only those people who apply and leave all their guns at the gates. The rest can stay in their special little world, and eat each other or starve. Treat it like a wild game reserve.
 
Norman Alexander said:
Give them what they want. Put up a border wall 30 foot high around them. Shut the gates in that wall. Let out only those people who apply and leave all their guns at the gates. The rest can stay in their special little world, and eat each other or starve. Treat it like a wild game reserve.
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Sounds like Heinlein's Coventry_(short_story)WP
 
It's tempting, sometimes. Eastern Washington has talked repeatedly about becoming a separate state. It's not something we'd welcome until we have actual proportionate representation, but at the same time, it would be interesting to see how they'd get by without the massive tax support they get from the Puget Sound area, not to mention our ports.
 
Gord_in_Toronto said:
You did not have to read the whole thing. I can afford to give you a credit note for 30 seconds. ;)
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:)

Apologies.

That was a tad harsh and was genuinely interested, but I guess it is one of those you have to live there things to get it.
 
cullennz said:
:)

Apologies.

That was a tad harsh and was genuinely interested, but I guess it is one of those you have to live there things to get it.
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Cullennz, so true.

We really don't have an analog for this situation in our country. Ponsonby on a Friday night in the 1970s (without the guns) would be the nearest I can think of. If you are old enough you might remember the old joke about the fastest thing in Auckland.... a cop riding his bike home through Ponsonby after work.
 
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