With the recent FBI warning about "Sovereign Man" or "Sovereign Citizen" movements in the news, the mainstream media (sometimes looking for a boogeyman) has taken notice and recently published an article titled "Sovereign Citizens: Radicals Next Door" on ABC News.
The FBI warning was concerned about "case law" and other defense strategies concerning "legalities and issues" of engaging federal law enforcement officers with deadly force when said officers are making "illegal arrests".
Yes, I guess there are people dumb enough to think that they can justify shooting it out with federal officers based on the premise that they are
"sovereign citizens" not subject to the laws of the United States.
Most of the rest of us consider the "Sovereign Man/Sovereign Citizen" movement to be on the fringe, and unfortunately mainstream America can lump otherwise lawful and rational thinking Survivalists into the same category.
The sovereign citizen movement is a loose network of individual and groups who are classified as an "extremist anti-government group" by the Federal Bureau of Investigation, as people associated with this movement take a position that they are answerable only to common law and are not subject to any statutes or proceedings at the federal, state or municipal levels. Additionally, "Sovereigns" do not recognize U.S. currency.
UrbanMan's Note: We all may be "not recognizing" U.S. currency soon if the economy keeps heading for the cliff. Everybody have a decent supply of Gold and/or Silver?
By some accounts there are thought to be 100,000 Americans as "hard-core sovereign movement supporters" and another 200,000 are on the fringe of the sovereign movement, although this figure comes from the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) which is a well known liberal group. And by definition, liberals tend not to see the value in individual responsibility, which of course is the very basis for us Survivalists prepping for the collapse.
Glenn Beck addresses some of the issues of the Government views on "Sovereign Citizens" in the video below:
Thursday, March 29, 2012
Sunday, March 25, 2012
Survival Threat: Racial Violence
As preppers were are concerned with the ramifications of a collapse as it pertains to our security and survival. We all intuitively know that any large scale collapse, be it a economic collapse, hyper inflation, terrorist attack with nuclear or biological weapons, disease pandemic and/or large scale natural disasters from which the resulting chaos would eventually pit every "have not" citizen against citizens who "have". This is a flashpoint that could occur with very little prompting and the threats could be along social-economic groups versus another segment of the population,….it could be one community against the other,…..criminal or bandit elements against law abiding groups,……or it could be along racial lines.
Be advised that I am NOT one of the believers that a race war is inevitable. I do think however, that large scale racial violence, short of what we would think of as a war, is probable if the economy tanks or any other survival stressors occur. I also think a race war or violence between racial groups is much more likely from an economic level or fueled by the collapse based on racial tensions underlying on a thin surface.
We have current examples of this thin surface with the fatal shooting of a young black teenager by a man called George Zimmerman. Rest assured that there will be no assumption of guilt or innocence in this article, but the observations of potential race on race violence created or pushed by perceptions.
In case you have been away, like up in the Artic, this past week, a light skinned Hispanic male, with an anglo name (Zimmerman) reportedly pursued then shot to death a black teenager in the Florida town of Sanford who was in Zimmerman's neighborhood. It is perceived that Zimmerman uttered a racial epithet under his breath while on the phone to 911 and the perception from the black community and others is that this was a racially motivated shooting with Zimmerman pre-disposing a black teenager to criminal acts in his neighborhood.
While I don’t want to get into the details of the shooting or the investigation, I do want to expose the threat of race on race violence as the local and national black community is outraged, and threats to Zimmerman have been made. Al Sharpton has led media events orienting this shooting as racial motivating and has either, accidentally or purposefully, fueled resentment and retaliation talk. Barack Obama has also talked about this incident on his campagin tours.
In fact, the New Black Liberation Militia (NBLM), a group in the mold of the old Black Panthers, led by a man named Prince Najee Muhammad, say they intend to march into Florida and make a “citizens arrest” on Zimmerman.
I think for through our lifetimes, no matter how long or short they will be, that there is a large threat of violence along racial lines occuring, especially during anytype of collapse where the scramble for survival will be significant and perhaps accelerated by the political expediency of using class warfare and pitting the "haves" and "have nots" against each other as this perception of unfairness keeps that socio-economic-racial anger right below the surface.
Be advised that I am NOT one of the believers that a race war is inevitable. I do think however, that large scale racial violence, short of what we would think of as a war, is probable if the economy tanks or any other survival stressors occur. I also think a race war or violence between racial groups is much more likely from an economic level or fueled by the collapse based on racial tensions underlying on a thin surface.
We have current examples of this thin surface with the fatal shooting of a young black teenager by a man called George Zimmerman. Rest assured that there will be no assumption of guilt or innocence in this article, but the observations of potential race on race violence created or pushed by perceptions.
In case you have been away, like up in the Artic, this past week, a light skinned Hispanic male, with an anglo name (Zimmerman) reportedly pursued then shot to death a black teenager in the Florida town of Sanford who was in Zimmerman's neighborhood. It is perceived that Zimmerman uttered a racial epithet under his breath while on the phone to 911 and the perception from the black community and others is that this was a racially motivated shooting with Zimmerman pre-disposing a black teenager to criminal acts in his neighborhood.
While I don’t want to get into the details of the shooting or the investigation, I do want to expose the threat of race on race violence as the local and national black community is outraged, and threats to Zimmerman have been made. Al Sharpton has led media events orienting this shooting as racial motivating and has either, accidentally or purposefully, fueled resentment and retaliation talk. Barack Obama has also talked about this incident on his campagin tours.
I think for through our lifetimes, no matter how long or short they will be, that there is a large threat of violence along racial lines occuring, especially during anytype of collapse where the scramble for survival will be significant and perhaps accelerated by the political expediency of using class warfare and pitting the "haves" and "have nots" against each other as this perception of unfairness keeps that socio-economic-racial anger right below the surface.
Wednesday, March 21, 2012
Insurance Guys Planning and Prep
I received this e-mail: "Urbanman, Just wanted to drop a short note to you. My best friend and I have an insurance business. It’s just us, two desks, small office. We do a lot of our business over the phone or on-line. This makes for time to discuss our planning and preps and time to research sites on the internet. We also have an information age network marketing business which we can also run simultaneously with our main insurance business. We have thought about closing down our office to save rent and utilities and think the savings would probably make up for the loss of the walk in traffic, but decided against it for now. We had some plumbing problems which required the taking down of a cinderblock wall in the back. We made a deal with the leaser for us to do the repair work. We turned the wall into a hidden storage of food and supplies. Not a ton of it, but probably two month’s worth for four people. Our wives are pretty close but not necessarily into prepping like we are. We have taken them to the range to train them, but it is a pain in the ass to get them to shoot anything other than handguns. Shotguns? Fageddabouit. Here’s the scoop. We shoot paintball and took our wives to watch one day. They wanted to try it and now they LOVE it. The shooting training that we wanted to do with them with real guns but couldn’t we are now doing with paintball. We are teaching them how to work as a team and use the obstacles. Sometimes it’s boys versus girls. I know it’s paintball but I think we are getting our wives better prepped maybe other guys are having problems getting their wives or girlfriends involved as this may be a way."
UrbanMan comments: Good for you guys making it as small businessmen in several different endeavors. Wouldn’t it be great to have a larger company, say 30 to 40 workers who all thought alike and prepped? That’s a ready made SHTF Task Force.
As you found out the real benefit is the time you have to plan and control over your lives....being your own bosses. Also, great thinking out the walled cache site. It would be interesting to know how your office fits into your Surviving the Collapse plan such as being a tentative safe site or dedicated Bug Out location, or simply if your cache supports your ability to remain in place if/when a hostile environment makes it impossible to go home.
Cool beans on getting your wives involved in paintball. I have only done a very small amount of it, but can see how it may be attractive to participate, especially for your wives who can now play with their men. Since you have the chance of getting hit with a stinging paint ball, learning to use cover and learning coordinate team oriented fire and maneuver are necessary skill sets for surviving the collapse.
I have always suggested for guys who wives did not like shooting big bore guns, was to try and get them involved with events like rimfire competition. This would teach firearms safety and core weapons handling competencies as well as basic marksmanship.
Good luck to you and your families.
UrbanMan comments: Good for you guys making it as small businessmen in several different endeavors. Wouldn’t it be great to have a larger company, say 30 to 40 workers who all thought alike and prepped? That’s a ready made SHTF Task Force.
As you found out the real benefit is the time you have to plan and control over your lives....being your own bosses. Also, great thinking out the walled cache site. It would be interesting to know how your office fits into your Surviving the Collapse plan such as being a tentative safe site or dedicated Bug Out location, or simply if your cache supports your ability to remain in place if/when a hostile environment makes it impossible to go home.
Cool beans on getting your wives involved in paintball. I have only done a very small amount of it, but can see how it may be attractive to participate, especially for your wives who can now play with their men. Since you have the chance of getting hit with a stinging paint ball, learning to use cover and learning coordinate team oriented fire and maneuver are necessary skill sets for surviving the collapse.
I have always suggested for guys who wives did not like shooting big bore guns, was to try and get them involved with events like rimfire competition. This would teach firearms safety and core weapons handling competencies as well as basic marksmanship.
Good luck to you and your families.
Sunday, March 18, 2012
The Cost of Preparing for Doomsday
The cost of preparing for doomsday.
With the Walking Dead – SHTF Zombie television series, as well as the Doomsday Prepper and Doomsday Bunkers reality television series, not to mention several on-line news articles, it seems that Survival Prepping is in the news quite a bit lately. Additionally, the reality television series “Wife Swap” had a suburban family swapping their soccer mom wife for a preppers wife. Pretty damn funny, watching the prepper’s wife chewing on the suburbanites about their lack of prep or planning for the collapse and making this clueless family do radiation and gas maks drills.
Then there is the recent article on CNN Money, posted on the on-line Yahoo! Finance site titled “The Cost of Preparing for Doomsday”, by Blake Ellis of CNN Money.com
The Cost of Preparing for Doomsday. The cost of preparing for doomsday isn't cheap.
First you have to stock up on the appropriate gear, ammunition, food and shelter to survive a nuclear meltdown, asteroid, earthquake, solar flare or some other catastrophe. Then there's acquiring the materials you'll need to rebuild a community after the dust settles.
The bottom line: Some self-described "preppers" are plunking down hundreds of thousands of dollars.
So far, Patrick Geryl estimates he's already spent more than $130,000 on his survival preparations. Author of "How to Survive 2012" and eight other books about a catastrophe destined to occur this year, Geryl believes that a shift in the Earth's poles is going to result in solar flares, volcanic eruptions and earthquakes that will throw the world into a nuclear meltdown. The dreaded event will occur on December 21, when the Mayan calendar allegedly ends, he said.
Geryl plans to survive the turmoil in a small wooden bunker far from the nuclear radiation in South Africa, where he can live off the grid for about a year and rebuild a community with other survivors.
In order to do so, he has spent years stocking up on nearly 100 survival essentials, including guns and ammunition, water purification tablets, waterproof matches, a drafting table for charting stars in the sky - even condoms to use for carrying water.
Books with survival tips, like a guide to edible plants, herbs and mushrooms, are also crucial, because he won't have access to the internet when disaster strikes, he said. He's still accumulating all of the necessities he'll need and is constantly adding more items to the list.
To get to South Africa from his home in Belgium during a worldwide catastrophe is another issue. Geryl said he is currently considering sailing there in an "unsinkable yacht," which is made by a company called Etap in Belgium . However, he said the yachts, which have double walls and are insulated with foam so that they are supposedly unable to capsize, cost more than $100,000, so he doesn't know if he'll be able to afford one.
Robert Bast, 46, is a prepper who works in Internet marketing during the day and runs an online community called Survive2012.com when he's off the clock. Bast, who lives in Melbourne, Australia, with his wife and three children, has spent more than $350,000 preparing for "the end of the world as we know it."
The end of the world, he says, could come at any time and result from any type of disaster. "What is certain is that in my lifetime, there is a strong likelihood that there will be a catastrophe of some kind -- the sun destroying power grids, a flu pandemic that kills millions, an asteroid or meteor or comet striking earth or a magnetic pole shift," said Bast.
Bast has spent about $5,000 on stockpiles of food and water, and $11,000 on equipment including gas cookers, generators, batteries, water purifiers and solar power. He also purchased roughly an acre of land that's a 75-minute drive from Melbourne and 1,500 feet above sea level (in order to stay high and dry in case of a flood or tsunami). He has built a house there, as well as a bunker to serve as his "safe spot" in the event of an emergency. Together, the land, buildings and bunker have cost him a total of about $330,000.
He's also spent $10,000 on an 8-year old Toyota HiLux pickup truck to drive to his safe spot. To afford all of this, Bast has been saving money from his job for years. He has a mortgage on his primary residence, and he took out a second mortgage for the home he built as his safe house.
Phil Burns, a co-founder of the American Preppers Network and the subject of "Meet the Preppers" on Animal Planet, is preparing for all types of disaster scenarios.
Among the more ominous: A natural disaster or economic collapse that causes mass starvation, causing people to become so desperate for food and shelter that they lose their minds and resort to violence. In the preparedness world, these people are often referred to as "zombies."
How to survive a zombie apocalypse
To ensure his survival in the event of a disaster like this, Burns, 38, has been prepping for years. He now has a year's worth of food in storage, including 4,000 pounds of wheat, beans and rice that cost about $5,000. He even has 20 bottles of different food flavorings, so that "one day I could have vanilla rice and the next I could have orange rice -- because just plain rice gets old."
He also has an RV and trailer to use as a "bug out vehicle" to get to his "bug out location,"which is a fully-stocked 40-acre retreat tucked away in the mountains of Idaho.
To protect himself from any attackers and to be able to hunt for food as a family, he has purchased several guns for each of his eight children (who learned how to shoot at age 4). Burns declined to disclose the number of guns he and his wife have, nor how much money they have spent on them.
While Burns has spent a pretty penny on his own preparations - about $20,000 on food and guns alone -- he says that preparedness is a lifestyle and doesn't believe everyone should start spending huge amounts of money getting ready for the end of the world.
Financial apocalypse 2012
Instead, Burns advises beginning preppers to start by setting aside up to 20% of their income for preparations - whether it goes toward supplies, emergency training classes or shelter.
Anyone can become a prepper if they are willing to dedicate the energy and resources to it, he said. "A lot of people say preppers are paranoid, scared, pessimistic, always believing that there's going to be a disaster," said Burns. "But if you look at it with open eyes, we're actually optimists - we're saying,
'I don't care what you throw at me, I can survive it.'"
The article ends with this: Are you concerned that a disaster is imminent? What are you doing to prepare? E-mail blake.ellis@turner.com for the chance to be included in an upcoming story on CNN Money.
UrbanMan’s comments: Now what prepper wants the publicity? Whether it’s on television or as part of a CNN Money article?
With the Walking Dead – SHTF Zombie television series, as well as the Doomsday Prepper and Doomsday Bunkers reality television series, not to mention several on-line news articles, it seems that Survival Prepping is in the news quite a bit lately. Additionally, the reality television series “Wife Swap” had a suburban family swapping their soccer mom wife for a preppers wife. Pretty damn funny, watching the prepper’s wife chewing on the suburbanites about their lack of prep or planning for the collapse and making this clueless family do radiation and gas maks drills.
Then there is the recent article on CNN Money, posted on the on-line Yahoo! Finance site titled “The Cost of Preparing for Doomsday”, by Blake Ellis of CNN Money.com
The Cost of Preparing for Doomsday. The cost of preparing for doomsday isn't cheap.
First you have to stock up on the appropriate gear, ammunition, food and shelter to survive a nuclear meltdown, asteroid, earthquake, solar flare or some other catastrophe. Then there's acquiring the materials you'll need to rebuild a community after the dust settles.
The bottom line: Some self-described "preppers" are plunking down hundreds of thousands of dollars.
So far, Patrick Geryl estimates he's already spent more than $130,000 on his survival preparations. Author of "How to Survive 2012" and eight other books about a catastrophe destined to occur this year, Geryl believes that a shift in the Earth's poles is going to result in solar flares, volcanic eruptions and earthquakes that will throw the world into a nuclear meltdown. The dreaded event will occur on December 21, when the Mayan calendar allegedly ends, he said.
Geryl plans to survive the turmoil in a small wooden bunker far from the nuclear radiation in South Africa, where he can live off the grid for about a year and rebuild a community with other survivors.
In order to do so, he has spent years stocking up on nearly 100 survival essentials, including guns and ammunition, water purification tablets, waterproof matches, a drafting table for charting stars in the sky - even condoms to use for carrying water.
Books with survival tips, like a guide to edible plants, herbs and mushrooms, are also crucial, because he won't have access to the internet when disaster strikes, he said. He's still accumulating all of the necessities he'll need and is constantly adding more items to the list.
To get to South Africa from his home in Belgium during a worldwide catastrophe is another issue. Geryl said he is currently considering sailing there in an "unsinkable yacht," which is made by a company called Etap in Belgium . However, he said the yachts, which have double walls and are insulated with foam so that they are supposedly unable to capsize, cost more than $100,000, so he doesn't know if he'll be able to afford one.
Robert Bast, 46, is a prepper who works in Internet marketing during the day and runs an online community called Survive2012.com when he's off the clock. Bast, who lives in Melbourne, Australia, with his wife and three children, has spent more than $350,000 preparing for "the end of the world as we know it."
The end of the world, he says, could come at any time and result from any type of disaster. "What is certain is that in my lifetime, there is a strong likelihood that there will be a catastrophe of some kind -- the sun destroying power grids, a flu pandemic that kills millions, an asteroid or meteor or comet striking earth or a magnetic pole shift," said Bast.
Bast has spent about $5,000 on stockpiles of food and water, and $11,000 on equipment including gas cookers, generators, batteries, water purifiers and solar power. He also purchased roughly an acre of land that's a 75-minute drive from Melbourne and 1,500 feet above sea level (in order to stay high and dry in case of a flood or tsunami). He has built a house there, as well as a bunker to serve as his "safe spot" in the event of an emergency. Together, the land, buildings and bunker have cost him a total of about $330,000.
He's also spent $10,000 on an 8-year old Toyota HiLux pickup truck to drive to his safe spot. To afford all of this, Bast has been saving money from his job for years. He has a mortgage on his primary residence, and he took out a second mortgage for the home he built as his safe house.
Phil Burns, a co-founder of the American Preppers Network and the subject of "Meet the Preppers" on Animal Planet, is preparing for all types of disaster scenarios.
Among the more ominous: A natural disaster or economic collapse that causes mass starvation, causing people to become so desperate for food and shelter that they lose their minds and resort to violence. In the preparedness world, these people are often referred to as "zombies."
How to survive a zombie apocalypse
To ensure his survival in the event of a disaster like this, Burns, 38, has been prepping for years. He now has a year's worth of food in storage, including 4,000 pounds of wheat, beans and rice that cost about $5,000. He even has 20 bottles of different food flavorings, so that "one day I could have vanilla rice and the next I could have orange rice -- because just plain rice gets old."
He also has an RV and trailer to use as a "bug out vehicle" to get to his "bug out location,"which is a fully-stocked 40-acre retreat tucked away in the mountains of Idaho.
To protect himself from any attackers and to be able to hunt for food as a family, he has purchased several guns for each of his eight children (who learned how to shoot at age 4). Burns declined to disclose the number of guns he and his wife have, nor how much money they have spent on them.
While Burns has spent a pretty penny on his own preparations - about $20,000 on food and guns alone -- he says that preparedness is a lifestyle and doesn't believe everyone should start spending huge amounts of money getting ready for the end of the world.
Financial apocalypse 2012
Instead, Burns advises beginning preppers to start by setting aside up to 20% of their income for preparations - whether it goes toward supplies, emergency training classes or shelter.
Anyone can become a prepper if they are willing to dedicate the energy and resources to it, he said. "A lot of people say preppers are paranoid, scared, pessimistic, always believing that there's going to be a disaster," said Burns. "But if you look at it with open eyes, we're actually optimists - we're saying,
'I don't care what you throw at me, I can survive it.'"
The article ends with this: Are you concerned that a disaster is imminent? What are you doing to prepare? E-mail blake.ellis@turner.com for the chance to be included in an upcoming story on CNN Money.
UrbanMan’s comments: Now what prepper wants the publicity? Whether it’s on television or as part of a CNN Money article?
Thursday, March 15, 2012
Economic 9-11
The Blaze posted an article on 28 February 2012, titled: "Buy a Gun & Keep Your Powder Dry: Economists Warn of Looming Economic 9/11", with economic collapse warnings from three noted economists: Harry Dent, Robert Prechte, & Gerald Celente. Click on the link to read the original, full article, otherwise what these three advise us is as follows:
Harry Dent, author of “The Great Crash Ahead,” believes that the global debt bubble is going to burst and when it does, there will be a massive market crash. Dent previously predicted a collapse in 2012 but has since modified it as the global central banks have been pumping the markets with so much money, stocks have been given a temporary boost. But Dent warns that as soon as the short-lived boost comes to an end, the crash will be hard. “This will be a repeat of 2008-09, only bigger, when it finally hits,” Dent says.
Gerald Celente, a market analyst at the Trends Research Institute, believes Americans should brace themselves for what he calls an “economic 9/11.” He blames the inability of policymakers to solve the world’s financial and economic woes. Once the meltdown hits, he says, it will lead to social upheaval, anti-government sentiment, a devalued U.S. dollar, and skyrocketing unemployment.
Celente won‘t rule out another financial panic that could spark enough fear to cause a run on the nation’s banks by depositors, which could cause the invoke ‘economic martial law’ and call a ‘bank holiday’ and close banks as it did during the Great Depression.
He has been warning of economic disaster for years, believes that the national debt and “income inequality” has put the U.S. in a very dangerous place. Celente says that bank runs, brought about by social unrest, will wreak severe economic havoc as well as could easily transform into real violence. He believes the markets will be turned upside down by not only the eurozone crisis but also by an increase in oil prices due to the standoff between Iran and the West.
“2012 is when many of the long-simmering socioeconomic and political trends that we have been forecasting and tracking will climax,” Celente wrote in his “Top 12 Trends 2012” newsletter.
“When money stops flowing to the man on the street, blood starts flowing in the street,” he added in an interview.
Celente advises investors to buy gold – it won’t lose its purchasing power when the dollar tanks. Also, he says, buy a gun to protect yourself from marauders in search of food and money. He also advises people to plan a getaway to places with “more stable finances and governments.”
Robert Prechter, author of “Conquer the Crash,” is being described as “still bearish.” Because he believes there is a frightening amount of similarities between today’s economy and the one preceding the Great Depression, he warns that America should brace for “1930s-style deflation.” “The economic recovery has been weak, so the next downturn should generate bad news in a big way,” Prechter said
Prechter’s advice? Simple: keep your powder dry and buy when the economy starts to get out of hand.
Particular troubling to me is the common theme of a societal collapse and violence. With 46.5 millon Americans already dependent upon the U.S. Government for subsistence, what would America look like with 100 million hungry people, either not getting checks or getting checks that would not begin to feed their families because of hyper inflation or the unavailbility of products?
Harry Dent, author of “The Great Crash Ahead,” believes that the global debt bubble is going to burst and when it does, there will be a massive market crash. Dent previously predicted a collapse in 2012 but has since modified it as the global central banks have been pumping the markets with so much money, stocks have been given a temporary boost. But Dent warns that as soon as the short-lived boost comes to an end, the crash will be hard. “This will be a repeat of 2008-09, only bigger, when it finally hits,” Dent says.
Gerald Celente, a market analyst at the Trends Research Institute, believes Americans should brace themselves for what he calls an “economic 9/11.” He blames the inability of policymakers to solve the world’s financial and economic woes. Once the meltdown hits, he says, it will lead to social upheaval, anti-government sentiment, a devalued U.S. dollar, and skyrocketing unemployment.
Celente won‘t rule out another financial panic that could spark enough fear to cause a run on the nation’s banks by depositors, which could cause the invoke ‘economic martial law’ and call a ‘bank holiday’ and close banks as it did during the Great Depression.
He has been warning of economic disaster for years, believes that the national debt and “income inequality” has put the U.S. in a very dangerous place. Celente says that bank runs, brought about by social unrest, will wreak severe economic havoc as well as could easily transform into real violence. He believes the markets will be turned upside down by not only the eurozone crisis but also by an increase in oil prices due to the standoff between Iran and the West.
“2012 is when many of the long-simmering socioeconomic and political trends that we have been forecasting and tracking will climax,” Celente wrote in his “Top 12 Trends 2012” newsletter.
“When money stops flowing to the man on the street, blood starts flowing in the street,” he added in an interview.
Celente advises investors to buy gold – it won’t lose its purchasing power when the dollar tanks. Also, he says, buy a gun to protect yourself from marauders in search of food and money. He also advises people to plan a getaway to places with “more stable finances and governments.”
Robert Prechter, author of “Conquer the Crash,” is being described as “still bearish.” Because he believes there is a frightening amount of similarities between today’s economy and the one preceding the Great Depression, he warns that America should brace for “1930s-style deflation.” “The economic recovery has been weak, so the next downturn should generate bad news in a big way,” Prechter said
Prechter’s advice? Simple: keep your powder dry and buy when the economy starts to get out of hand.
Particular troubling to me is the common theme of a societal collapse and violence. With 46.5 millon Americans already dependent upon the U.S. Government for subsistence, what would America look like with 100 million hungry people, either not getting checks or getting checks that would not begin to feed their families because of hyper inflation or the unavailbility of products?
Sunday, March 11, 2012
Survival: Mountain Man Style
While I heavily believe everyone should have wilderness survival skills, I am not relying on these to survive the collapse. They are a last ditch tool kit. The whole idea behind SHTF preparation, in my mind, is to not only survive a collapse, but to do so with a quality of life - not living in a dug out on the side of a mountain,....having cold camps,.....relying traps, snares, fishing and edible plants for sustainment.
However and again, you should at least a modicum of these skills. What would happen if you found yourself running for your life and you had to drop kit to get away? Or you were taken captive by some thugs then escaped with nothing on your back?
In any case, it is possible to survive even pro-longed periods in a wilderness. Remember the newspapers from decades past where Japanese soldiers were found on islands 30 years past the end of World War II? These soldiers, some in their 60's and older, not only survived but they evaded the detection of their presence for several decades.
There is a recent, and on-going, example of someone surviving and evading capture. This time not the jungles of New Guinea but in remote Utah wilderness. It should be clear that his individual is a criminal, it is also clear that his survival skill sets are pretty robust.
It seems like this modern day mountain man in the wilderness areas of Southern Utah, is robbing cabins and eluding authorities. This is an example of someone surviving in the wilds, albeit with assistance from what he can scavenge and steal, that no doubt will fuel some people prepping for SHTF to believe it is a viable plan for them as well. While there is no doubt everyone needs to have wilderness fieldcraft and survival skills, living like this apparent fugitive does in the story below presents little attraction to me. I think the whole prepping for TEOTWAWKI is planning and preparing an existence with a quality of life. Anyay, the authorities have an idea of who this individual is and some actual pictures taken from hidden game cameras that provide a pretty good quality side profile of this "mountain man". Which proves the validity of owning gamera cameras,...I have several and have written about their use to surrepititiously place to record what kind of activity, two or four legged or even vehicle, may be occuring in a specific area.
The summary of the news article on this individual: Troy James Knapp is a wanted man, a survivalist, modern day mountain man and recluse that authorities say is responsible burglaries in the remote southern Utah wilderness. He is armed and considered dangerous and has been on the loose for more than five years. Until recently he has been virtual ghost in the woods, until his image was take on a game camera and authorities have now identified him. See picture from game camera.
He has been tracked across hundreds of square miles of wilderness near Zion National Park in Utah but Knapp has always been able to elude capture. His camps, along with guns and supplies he has stolen from cabins, have been discovered but yet he still is on the loose.
In this undated photo provided by the Iron County Sheriff's Office in January, a man is seen walking past a cabin in the remote southern Utah wildness near Zion National Park. Authorities believe the man in the photo, captured by a motion-triggered surveillance camera sometime in December, is a suspect responsible for more than two dozen cabin burglaries over the past five years.
Now that authorities believe they know who he is, they're honing in on everyone who knows him. According to court records, detectives are tracking telephone calls to his family members in Moscow, Idaho, trying to determine if he is using a cellphone.
Investigators say family members have had little contact with Knapp, an ex-convict they believe is still roaming somewhere across roughly 1,000 square miles of wilderness.
He is believed to have set off on a solitary life some nine years ago after his release from a California prison.
His family, originally from Michigan, has offered little help -- "the ones that will acknowledge having anything to do with him," Supervisory Deputy U.S. Marshal Michael Wingert told The Associated Press. "He's just kind of out there on his own. I don't know if he's fed up with civilization."
A recent court order allows marshals and sheriff's detectives to track calls made to and by a couple in their 60s -- Bruce and Barbara Knapp of Moscow, who are relatives of the 44-year-old fugitive. The Knapps haven't returned repeated telephone calls from the AP. No one answered the door at their home Wednesday.
Detectives in Utah's Iron and Kane counties announced late Tuesday that Troy Knapp was their long-sought suspect in dozens of cabin burglaries, aided by recent surveillance photos captured of him outside one cabin and fingerprints lifted from another that authorities say finally were matched to him in January.
A Kane County arrest warrant charges Knapp with three burglaries and a weapons charge. Knapp has a lengthy criminal record that includes assault with a dangerous weapon, Kane County prosecutor Robert Van Dyke said Wednesday. He did not elaborate.
As a teenager, Knapp was convicted in Michigan of breaking and entering, passing bad checks and unlawful flight from authorities, according to court records in Kalamazoo County.
The Utah arrest warrant says Knapp was charged with theft in 2000 in California. Court records indicate he pleaded guilty to burglary and was sentenced to two years in prison.
Utah authorities are calling Knapp armed and "possibly dangerous if cornered." He is using remote cabins for sustenance and warmth during winter -- "burning up all their firewood, eating all their food," Iron County Detective Jody Edwards has said.
In summer, the suspect retreats to makeshift camps deep in the forest. "This guy is probably about as true a survivalist as Davy Crockett," Wingert said.
Knapp "dropped off everybody's radar in 2003 and nobody has heard from him since," he added. "He just dropped off the face of the earth."
"That's wonderful that they know him," cabin owner Bruce Stucki said Tuesday. "Now they need to get him in custody." While there have been no violent confrontations, detectives have called him a time bomb. Over the years, he has left some cabins tidy and clean, while others he has practically destroyed, even defecating in a pan on the floor in one home.
Lately, he has been leaving the cabins in disarray and riddled with bullets after defacing religious icons, and a recent note left behind in one cabin warned, "Get off my mountain."
In a Jan. 27 court filing, Kane County authorities said Knapp had left behind even more threatening notes aimed at law enforcement. "Hey Sheriff ... Gonna put you in the ground!" one note said.
From the beginning, the suspect's lore grew, leading to theories that he might have been two separate men on the FBI's most-wanted list or possibly a castaway from the nearby compounds of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, the polygamous sect run by jailed leader Warren Jeffs.
They now have a name, but the man remains in the mist. "He's scaring the daylights out of cabin owners. Now everyone's packing guns," said Jud Hendrickson, a 62-year-old mortgage adviser from nearby St. George who keeps a trailer in the area. "We feel like we're being subject to terrorism by this guy."
However and again, you should at least a modicum of these skills. What would happen if you found yourself running for your life and you had to drop kit to get away? Or you were taken captive by some thugs then escaped with nothing on your back?
In any case, it is possible to survive even pro-longed periods in a wilderness. Remember the newspapers from decades past where Japanese soldiers were found on islands 30 years past the end of World War II? These soldiers, some in their 60's and older, not only survived but they evaded the detection of their presence for several decades.
There is a recent, and on-going, example of someone surviving and evading capture. This time not the jungles of New Guinea but in remote Utah wilderness. It should be clear that his individual is a criminal, it is also clear that his survival skill sets are pretty robust.
It seems like this modern day mountain man in the wilderness areas of Southern Utah, is robbing cabins and eluding authorities. This is an example of someone surviving in the wilds, albeit with assistance from what he can scavenge and steal, that no doubt will fuel some people prepping for SHTF to believe it is a viable plan for them as well. While there is no doubt everyone needs to have wilderness fieldcraft and survival skills, living like this apparent fugitive does in the story below presents little attraction to me. I think the whole prepping for TEOTWAWKI is planning and preparing an existence with a quality of life. Anyay, the authorities have an idea of who this individual is and some actual pictures taken from hidden game cameras that provide a pretty good quality side profile of this "mountain man". Which proves the validity of owning gamera cameras,...I have several and have written about their use to surrepititiously place to record what kind of activity, two or four legged or even vehicle, may be occuring in a specific area.
He has been tracked across hundreds of square miles of wilderness near Zion National Park in Utah but Knapp has always been able to elude capture. His camps, along with guns and supplies he has stolen from cabins, have been discovered but yet he still is on the loose.
In this undated photo provided by the Iron County Sheriff's Office in January, a man is seen walking past a cabin in the remote southern Utah wildness near Zion National Park. Authorities believe the man in the photo, captured by a motion-triggered surveillance camera sometime in December, is a suspect responsible for more than two dozen cabin burglaries over the past five years.
Now that authorities believe they know who he is, they're honing in on everyone who knows him. According to court records, detectives are tracking telephone calls to his family members in Moscow, Idaho, trying to determine if he is using a cellphone.
Investigators say family members have had little contact with Knapp, an ex-convict they believe is still roaming somewhere across roughly 1,000 square miles of wilderness.
He is believed to have set off on a solitary life some nine years ago after his release from a California prison.
His family, originally from Michigan, has offered little help -- "the ones that will acknowledge having anything to do with him," Supervisory Deputy U.S. Marshal Michael Wingert told The Associated Press. "He's just kind of out there on his own. I don't know if he's fed up with civilization."
A recent court order allows marshals and sheriff's detectives to track calls made to and by a couple in their 60s -- Bruce and Barbara Knapp of Moscow, who are relatives of the 44-year-old fugitive. The Knapps haven't returned repeated telephone calls from the AP. No one answered the door at their home Wednesday.
Detectives in Utah's Iron and Kane counties announced late Tuesday that Troy Knapp was their long-sought suspect in dozens of cabin burglaries, aided by recent surveillance photos captured of him outside one cabin and fingerprints lifted from another that authorities say finally were matched to him in January.
A Kane County arrest warrant charges Knapp with three burglaries and a weapons charge. Knapp has a lengthy criminal record that includes assault with a dangerous weapon, Kane County prosecutor Robert Van Dyke said Wednesday. He did not elaborate.
As a teenager, Knapp was convicted in Michigan of breaking and entering, passing bad checks and unlawful flight from authorities, according to court records in Kalamazoo County.
The Utah arrest warrant says Knapp was charged with theft in 2000 in California. Court records indicate he pleaded guilty to burglary and was sentenced to two years in prison.
Utah authorities are calling Knapp armed and "possibly dangerous if cornered." He is using remote cabins for sustenance and warmth during winter -- "burning up all their firewood, eating all their food," Iron County Detective Jody Edwards has said.
In summer, the suspect retreats to makeshift camps deep in the forest. "This guy is probably about as true a survivalist as Davy Crockett," Wingert said.
Knapp "dropped off everybody's radar in 2003 and nobody has heard from him since," he added. "He just dropped off the face of the earth."
"That's wonderful that they know him," cabin owner Bruce Stucki said Tuesday. "Now they need to get him in custody." While there have been no violent confrontations, detectives have called him a time bomb. Over the years, he has left some cabins tidy and clean, while others he has practically destroyed, even defecating in a pan on the floor in one home.
Lately, he has been leaving the cabins in disarray and riddled with bullets after defacing religious icons, and a recent note left behind in one cabin warned, "Get off my mountain."
In a Jan. 27 court filing, Kane County authorities said Knapp had left behind even more threatening notes aimed at law enforcement. "Hey Sheriff ... Gonna put you in the ground!" one note said.
From the beginning, the suspect's lore grew, leading to theories that he might have been two separate men on the FBI's most-wanted list or possibly a castaway from the nearby compounds of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, the polygamous sect run by jailed leader Warren Jeffs.
They now have a name, but the man remains in the mist. "He's scaring the daylights out of cabin owners. Now everyone's packing guns," said Jud Hendrickson, a 62-year-old mortgage adviser from nearby St. George who keeps a trailer in the area. "We feel like we're being subject to terrorism by this guy."
Wednesday, March 7, 2012
The short article states:
"Things happen quickly sometimes — look at Libya , look at Egypt , look at those situations," Miller told the Star-Tribune. "We wouldn't have time to meet as a legislature or even in a special session to do anything to respond."
Miller's bill seeks to create a state-run continuity force that would study and prepare Wyoming for potential national or worldwide catastrophes. One specific component of the bill calls for the state to look into the possibility of issuing its own currency in the event the U.S. dollar collapses.
"If we continue down this course, this is the way any society ends up — with a valueless currency," Miller told the Star-Tribune.
Miller's original bill would have appropriated $32,000 for the task force, but the state's Joint Appropriations Committee has already cut the number in half. Six other states have attempted a similar currency creation effort in recent years — and all have failed. While Miller's bill may sound a bit extreme, there have been genuine concerns about the devaluation of U.S. currency in recent years. Last year, the International Monetary Fund predicted that China 's economy would overtake that of the U.S. in five years.
But there have been accusations that certain businesses are preying on fears of economic insecurity by plugging cash for gold programs, resulting in individuals selling their precious metals for less than market value.
The Star-Tribune notes that Wyoming 's Department of Homeland Security already has a statewide crisis management plan, but it does not include the so-called doomsday scenario. Miller's bill calls for coordination between Wyoming 's Homeland Security along with the state attorney general and National Guard adjutant general.
The doomsday bill is sure to inspire criticism and even ridicule from some corners, but Miller says his priority is Wyoming . "I don't represent people in Illinois or New Jersey ," he said. "I represent people in Wyoming . And I want them to be protected from any catastrophic events that may beset the rest of the country."
UrbanMan’s comments: I would think that rather than worrying about establishing another fiat currency, the commerce of using gold and silver plus barter will take care of most of the problems. It would behoove the Wyoming State government to put some of their surplus cash into physical gold and silver.
Another thing would be the preparation for refugee traffic by other states mainly on the Interstate highways and not necessarily coming from adjacent states but through these adjacent states. Interstate 80 from Utah; Interstate 25 from Colorado; I-80 from Nebraska; I-90 from South Dakota; and I-25 from Montana are the main lines of communications of high speed avenues of approach.
Some pre-SHTF coordination meetings with a like minded state legislators and possibly tentative support agreements with Montana , South and North Dakota and Nebraska as well as probably Utah and Colorado , could determine what type of mutual support not only in commerce but in security and defense would be possibly.
While Wyoming has several coal fired electrical plants as well as a smaller garbage fueled plants. Wyoming coal mines are the most productive and numerous in the nation. There are five in-Wyoming or adjacent Hydroelectric plants generating a total of 600,000 plus kilowatt hours.
The state is pretty well situated with water having 22 reservoirs for personal, agricultural and industrial use from any where from 20,000 acre feet of water up to around 300,000 acre feet of water.
So all in all, Wyoming is sitting pretty with resources. The planning aspects of how to manage and protect the state will be huge in the event of a societal or economic collapse.
Monday, March 5, 2012
Collapse in Europe Begins with Greece
There are several reason why the financial situation in Europe impact on the United States: U.S. banks hold alot of European debt and the burden of a large national debt coupled with runaway government spending on basically itself spells hard times to come. Not necessarily a economic collapse, but a spiraling down of the standard of living and quality of life until there is no reversing it. The video below, although tounge in cheek, explains pretty well what is happening in Greece which of course is a model of what and where the U.S. could be very soon.
Friday, March 2, 2012
Bugging Out? To Where?
UrbanMan’s reply: As far as history of someone bugging out to a rural location, going blind into an area they do not know anyone nor own property,….I have no idea. I would assume there are several cases of people getting stranded and surviving for a short term until recovered. Or the example of criminals hiding out in rural or remote America . But the whole basis for surviving a collapse, and I mean a bonafide collapse where infrastructure including the food supply, monetary system and security mechanisms are highly degraded or totally gone, is planning......again the foundation for your survival is planning.
Planning begets Preparation. More succintly, Planning identifies the Preparation you need and will help identify essential preps, implied preps and secondary preps. Preparation without planning will most likely be a hit and miss affair.
Planning starts with information. Much like the military developing the battlefield through use of all means of intelligence, the survivalist planner should as well,....
In your case, not having a location to Bug Out to, surely you could approach this problem by identify possible locations based on basic needs:
* A location that it is feasible for you to get to by vehicle and by foot if vehicle transit is no longer an options,.e.g..lack of fuel, threat picture, mechanical problems, etc.
* A location probably devoid of large population centers and not an attractive target for armed gangs.
* Offers cover and concealment, maybe ideally next to large parks or forests where contingency safety is available and possibly animals for food procurement.
* Full year round, natural water source. Running river and streams. ...and lakes possibly. May also offer the chance to procure fish for supplemental food.
My assumption is that you cannot just pick a remote area, totally devoid of population, unless you have the resources (time, money and capability) to prepare a site like this. Most long term survival is simply going to require access to other people,…their skills and resources,….think larger team effort.
From your location in Southern California,.....Northern Minnesota would not be a good choice. Unless you move there pre-collapse. But certainly there are areas on the CA-NV border, and in western and northern Nevada and Arizona that may work for you and be realistic to get to. The idea is to Bug Out before the situation gets bad enough to expotenially increase your safety and security concerns.
You could do some weekend trips to possible locations to scout them out, just like you would if you were moving there for a job. Maybe make contact with locals, use the cover story that you are thinking about re-locating there….get a feel for the population. You probably wouldn't want to move to, say, a high percentage Mormon area if you worship animal Gods,....nor to a Southern Baptist enclave if you are a Muslim.
Making contact, and multiple contact on subsequent trips, with the locals would also serve to diminsh your standing as a stranger. During a collapse, small rural communities are going to see refugees to some degree and may not so inclined to accept strangers….especially when the density of strangers starts to change the dynamics of the community.
In fact, there is a movement towards rural living and not just from the survivalist perspective. Many people are re-locating to rural America , either through early retirement and life style downsizing or through having businesses such as inter based business where location does not inhibit it’s operation. A article just came out recently about some of the fastest growing rural areas:
Your visits to potential Bug Out locations serve also a route reconnaissance, developing alternative routes and noting danger spots such as choke points or terain that can be affected by bad weather.
If you find a location that you think you can Bug Out to, the next step is to procure maps such as available from US Forest Service, Bureau of Land Management or many on-line sources. You should rehearse movement and routes to the site, and you may even do preps such as cache emplacement.
I have an acquaintance who lives outside of New York City. He and his wife head into the Adirondack Mountains on vacation to hike and just get away for awhile. They have went out of their way to make and keep contact with many of the locals as their plan is to re-locate (Bug Out) to there as they are becoming less and less strangers and more and more like friends of the locals. The hope to capitalize on this as well as use their Survival skills and resources to secure a place in that community.
Hope this gives you some thoughts. Good luck and prepare well.
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