I first came to Dickinson in the Spring of 2011 to work in the oil field.  I worked in the oil field in southwest Texas in 2012.  In the Spring of 2013, I returned to Dickinson, and I have been here since then.

In the five years that I have lived in Dickinson, I found that most of the local people were unfriendly, not helpful, uncooperative, hostile, hateful, mean, and undermining, especially at work.

One of the things that I observed, was that when people needed help in Dickinson, the local people looked at this as the opportunity to withhold help, so that someone else would fail.  It appeared that the local people took satisfaction and gratification in someone else failing.

I tried to understand why this was, that people were uncooperative and not helpful to others in Dickinson, and enjoyed seeing other people fail.  I began to realize that one of the reasons for this was that historically, no one had the chance or opportunity to get ahead in Dickinson.

The only opportunity for people in Dickinson to do better than someone else, was not through advancement at work, earning more money, receiving higher education, receiving technical certification, applying ingenuity, or implementing innovation, because there was very little of that, it was only through someone else failing that a person could feel like they were successful.

The reason that historically no one could get ahead in Dickinson, was because from the time of the first settlers in the 1890s, up until 1970, Dickinson operated like a Feudal Society, with a Caste System, like there used to be in villages in Europe.

The first settlers in Dickinson were Ukranian and German Catholics, that came from villages where there was Feudalism and a Caste System.

For those of you who don’t know, the Feudalism that I am talking about, is where local people’s lives are not governed by National leaders, directives, policies, or laws, but by local landowners called Lords, who direct local people’s lives like they were practically slaves or livestock.

The Caste System that I am talking about, is where someone like a Lord, decides for another person, what job, education, housing, economic opportunity, and social opportunity that person will have.

From the 1890s through 1970 , Feudalism and the Caste System did occur, where certain prominent landowners in Dickinson, had a great amount of control over ordinary people’s lives in Dickinson: Where a person could work, not work, how much money they could make, economic opportuinity they could have and not have, educational opportunity they could have and not have, social opportunity they could have and not have.

Of course, one of the ways that you control people, is to limit their education and awareness.  You keep people in the dark as far as the possibilities in life, their possibilities, what they are capable of, what they might achieve.  One of the facilitators of keeping people under control in Dickinson, was the Catholic Church.

The Catholic Church teaches, that the Pope is the highest authority on Earth. That what the Pope instructs, will be handed down through the Cardinals, Bishops, Arch Bishops, and Priests, to you, the servants of God.  You need the Catholic Church, and the Pope, to tell you what to do and how to live.

The Catholic Church was not about to teach, that you don’t need the Pope, the Catholic Church, and the Priests, you can just read and understand the Bible on your own.  The Catholic Church did not want people to receive enough education to realize that they could read, understand, and interpret the Bible on their own.  They wanted people to live under the illusion, that they require other people to tell them what to do.

In the 1970s, there was greater access to information than there had ever been before in Dickinson. Throughout the United States, people had been protesting the Vietnam War, there was the Hippie movement that was a rebellion against control, with music concerts, drug use, free sex.  Young people in Dickinson did not want to go along with things the way that they had been going.

In approximately 1978, the second Oil Boom in Dickinson occurred.  People quit their ordinary low-paying jobs in Dickinson to work in the oil field where they could make four times as much money as they had been making.  In the late 1970s in Dickinson, this was the first time that the control of certain prominent landowners in Dickinson was broken.  Many local people began making so much money, that they could do what they wanted, and could not be controlled.

This economic freedom which allowed local people in Dickinson to do what they wanted, only lasted as long as this second Oil Boom, which ended in about 1983.  Once jobs became scarce, they also became low paying.  Most of the people in Dickinson had to go right back to the way things were before the second Oil Boom.

Now that this third Oil Boom is over, that lasted from about 2007 through 2014, I see that the same oppressors and their facilitators want to take Dickinson back to Feudalism and the Caste System again.

One of the things that is happening, is that out of state workers are being encouraged to leave Dickinson.