Tribes, still major challenges to third world countries, countries with borders usually surveyed by some greater nation bent upon making their lives better than they were... the ones that brought trade, weapons, languages and foreign cultures to 'civilize the natives, or kill them off'. China, in their own idea of perfection, continues to call and think of themselves as the Central Kingdom and gather more tribes under their protection.
In the uneducated of America, families, clans and tribes are still very critical for our self image. Everyone has a favorite sports team - college or professional. But no one is voting based on that tribe are they? But then the smart people decide that they can control the American tribes by keeping them in bondage - to start with by making them fear their neighbors. You don't really know what is happening in that home next door, do you? One of my siblings thinks you might have a tank, but since he is an outgoing guy, he likely will try to talk you out of running it around without some kind of permission. He does believe in Democrats, the law and whatever fool notion suits his fancy. He has a good heart so I am not worried about his neighbor, the tank, nor his fool notions. He has no power, I did say he believes Democrats.
Anyway, as I was growing up, American, with a mother that spoke two languages and had lived a long time in Uruguay that was just learning how different America was from her American parents and what they had exposed her to... they had protected her, a bit. She knew all the slang, foul language, curses and nasty stuff in Spanish, but had no idea about English, until she met American college girls with bad mouths and attitudes attempting to put her in her place. Children, behave and play nice.
I moved often enough as a child that I started to feel being the new kid was my role in life, that probably hardened me and I wasn't shy about fighting to get over it. Still, I could make friends and have as much success as everyone else does in maintaining level headed poise. All illusion, I was a loner more than a joiner, quiet more than vocal, boy on the edge of the room, crowd, neighborhood.
Don't know how it happened, I just don't care much about race - the human race is fine, but all the degrees of purity don't match my idea of what is... I like people; nice people, happy people and hard working people. They come in all sizes, shapes and situations. If I catch a phrase or word or accent I can't identify, I may ask where you come from - but it is just to increase my knowledge not as something I need to control or worry over. I had a real marksman one day on the range and I asked if he shot much, he said 'right much' and I knew where he came from and why he shot so well. Buford, imagine remembering his name after so many years.
I grew up American, and before it was real important, knew that I wasn't going to get everything the other children had in wealthier families, cause we were middle class - before it became a dishonor to be just one of the multitude. Somewhere about college age I got to be an honorary WASP, White Anglo-Saxon Protestant, but that was because some one else wanted to control me and my actions, I was never going to be anything but one of the Dungey boys, like my cousins and my father and uncle. That was plenty unique enough for me.
Anyway, I have enough racial and cultural friction and charms around me that I know all those thinking that nothing will ever change, haven't been paying attention - everything changes mostly for the better.
I was trying to figure out why, the America I grew up in had changed so badly with all the technology and scientific advances. We got soft, and worse, our cultural leadership decided we only wanted sex drugs and rock and roll.... which is another myth. But I think I isolated the corruption, they powers of media introduced pornography into everyone's entertainment menu.. when I was a teenager - adult books were prohibited, badly written, full of grammatical errors and spelling mistakes and not well edited - not worth the cover price. But the industry started to clean it up, make it literate and something one could talk about over Kinsey and coffee. It bled into major movies in little ways as they lowered the standards by slapping a rating on the movie to protect the public, or was that to promote the movie as 'risque'? Edgy. I realized they had done that with the guns violence, the murder rates in novels, television and movies. No wonder everyone thinks guns are terrible, they have consumed so much pornographic violence, seen as normal, they are starting to believe everyone is doing it.
Honest, most of us aren't doing it, aren't going to do it, and are not looking for it when it raises up and hiss's at us with opportunity. I am still hoping they are going to sing more traditional hymns in the church I attend, at least the prayers haven't been sexed up. Ya'll continue to be your best out there, we are so running out of time, and civilization is the opportunity of good folks at liberty to love each other and the Lord, every day in every way.
I had so much fun with the crew instructing the Civil Air Patrol cadets, all 21 of them, although I only really worked with eleven of them on the right bay. They looked mature and professional in the woodland camouflage uniforms I had stopped wearing in 1995, with shiny cadet ranks insignia on their collars. Well spoken and polite I could almost forget they were only youth, and since there was no obvious horse play and they were paying attention.
Only one AQT (Appleseed Qualification Test) on the first day, and one on the second day, the last half of the second day was spent shooting for their NRA score on their discipline. They can wear what they earn on their CAP uniforms. As one young cadet told me, this was only her third day of shooting a firearm, glad she was training with us, a very good start. A few had been shooting longer and more often, but this was a good opportunity to advance the marksmanship and firearms safety.
