Chapter 29: Expanding Knowledge Through Reading

Taking the advice from my Survivalist friends, I have been reading several good books on prepping and survival. Although most are fiction, they are written in such as way that the scenarios can actually take place or are taken from real events.

I recently read Liberators from James Wesley Rawles and found it to be riveting.

What I Learned From Rawles' "Liberators"

James Wesley, Rawles (really have no idea why the comma is before his last name) is the pre-eminscent author of Survival Prepper Books. His series of "Patriots", "Survivors", "Founders", "Expatriates", and the latest, "Liberators", are all educational as well as entertaining. If you simply read these books to get ideas on how to prepare, they are worth it.

This is what I have learned or think I have learned from the latest book "Liberators". I won't go into the story line so I won’t ruin it for some of you who haven't read it.

Precious Metals. I need more "junk silver". I has a decent amount of one ounce Silver rounds and a few ounces of Gold, but minimal junk silver. Junk Silver is older U.S. coinage which contain some percentage of silver. Some of these may have a collectible or numismatic value greater than the value of the silver content. But the idea for preppers is to have some on hand in order to purchase goods, material and services when fiat currency is in free fall or no longer accepted at all. These "junk silver" coins are:

Dollars:

Morgan (1878–1921) -- 90-percent silver
Peace (1921–1928 and 1934–1935) -- 90-percent silver

Half-Dollars:

Liberty Head "Barber" (1892–1915) -- 90-percent silver
Walking Liberty (1916–1947) -- 90-percent silver
Franklin (1948–1963) -- 90-percent silver
Kennedy (1964) -- 90-percent silver
Kennedy (1965–1970) -- 40-percent silver

Quarters:

Liberty Head "Barber" (1892–1916) -- 90-percent silver
Standing Liberty (1916–1930) -- 90-percent silver
Washington (1932, 1934–1964) -- 90-percent silver

Dimes:

Liberty Head "Barber" (1892–1916) -- 90-percent silver
Winged Liberty Head "Mercury" (1916–1945) -- 90-percent silver
Roosevelt (1946–1964) -- 90-percent silver

Nickels:

Jefferson "Wartime" (1942 (partial)-1945) -- 35-percent silver

Manuals and Books on digits. 

I have a decent amount of books on thumb drives and can be opened and viewed on a computer,..e.g..laptop, pda, tablet, nook or kindle. I am lacking military manuals. I have some, but since many are free for downloading, I am going to secure many of these onto thumb drives. 

I am just going to re-dedicated myself to storing more as those 16 and 32 gb thumb drive can contain a lot! I need to store some more thumb drives even the very small ones, no bigger than a finger nail, that are easy to conceal. You never know when you need to conceal digital information through hostile people at check points.Some of the books and manuals I'm going to download (already have started) are:

FM 1-02, OPERATIONAL TERMS AND GRAPHICS
FM 2-0, INTELLIGENCE OPERATIONS
FM 2-19.4, BRIGADE COMBAT TEAM INTELLIGENCE OPERATIONS
FM 2-22.2, COUNTERINTELLIGENCE
FM 2-22.3, HUMAN INTELLIGENCE COLLECTOR OPERATIONS
FM 2-91.4 3/20/2008 INTELLIGENCE SUPPORT TO URBAN OPERATIONS
FM 2-91.6 10/10/2007 SOLDIER SURVEILLANCE AND RECONNAISSANCE FUNDAMENTALS
FM 3-05.70 5/17/2002 SURVIVAL
FM 3-11.4 6/2/2003 MULTISERVICE TACTICS, TECHNIQUES, AND PROCEDURES FOR NUCLEAR, BIOLOGICAL, AND CHEMICAL (NBC) PROTECTION
FM 3-11.5 4/4/2006 MULTISERVICE TACTICS, TECHNIQUES, AND PROCEDURES FOR CHEMICAL, BIOLOGICAL, RADIOLOGICAL, AND NUCLEAR DECONTAMINATION
FM 3-11.9 1/10/2005 POTENTIAL MILITARY CHEMICAL/BIOLOGICAL AGENTS AND COMPOUNDS
FM 3-22.9 8/12/2008 RIFLE MARKSMANSHIP, M16-/M4-SERIES WEAPONS
FM 3-24.2 4/21/2009 TACTICS IN COUNTERINSURGENCY
FM 3-34.214 7/11/2007 EXPLOSIVES AND DEMOLITIONS
FM 3-75 5/23/2012 RANGER OPERATIONS
FM 3-90-2 3/22/2013 RECONNAISSANCE, SECURITY, AND TACTICAL ENABLING TASKS
FM 4-25.11 12/23/2002 FIRST AID
FM 6-02.53 8/5/2009 TACTICAL RADIO OPERATIONS
FM 21-10 6/21/2000 FIELD HYGIENE AND SANITATION
TC 2-22.7 2/18/2011 GEOSPATIAL INTELLIGENCE HANDBOOK
TC 2-22.82 3/21/2011 BIOMETRICS-ENABLED INTELLIGENCE
TC 3-22.10 9/30/2013 SNIPER TRAINING AND OPERATIONS
FM 31-21, GUERILLA WARFARE
ST 31-91B, ARMY SPECIAL FORCES MEDICAL HANDBOOK

Caches. I've got to plan to have better cache material on hand and to upgrade the one Bug Out support cache I have emplaced. A roll of thick mil plastic, some pre-cut section of PVC with caps ought to do. I have many surplus GI ammunition cans on hand and I'll be on the lookout for more if they are cheap, but it push comes to Crunch, I'll be okay with what I have.

I have been getting some food grade feed buckets that contains some type of livestock feed from a friend of mine. It's been about 6 months since I last talked to him, so I'll make a mental not to drop him an e-mail and see if he has any more buckets to give away. These can be used for caches as well, but my biggest use is to storage. 

Plus, I have several 3 to 5 day food buckets ready, full of diverse food items, coffee, rice, beans, honey, peanut butter, hard crackers, bullion cubes, etc. So I don't have to unpack bulk storage items during movement. Besides these buckets work well as seats or small tables and the contents can be emptied to collect water in.

Gear. I need to up my cold weather gear. I have the sleeping bags, ground cloths, long underwear, gloves, hats, neck gaiters but I am lacking in heavier coats and tentage. During a significant enough collapse, you may face a long movement in order to get somewhere safe.

Safes places on your bug out route will likely be remote areas that don't offer much shelter. Cold camps,e.g. without a fire, will possibly be the norm and un-survivalable without decent cold weather clothing.

Ethics. Rawles, based on his pretty deep Christian beliefs, infuses his novels and characters with this belief. Makes for interesting ethical dilemmas. How you treat any refugees who are in need. How you feel about killing - about killing people who would kill you if they had the chance; or killing people who needed killing, but you could avoid killing.

What about lying? Is it okay to lie, perhaps imparting a cover story, to authorities?

Basically, the questions of ethics has to be raised within any survival group to find out what individuals beliefs are and what the group norms and procedures will be. Certainly, these may change after the onset of any collapse and the degree and type of threats facing the groups, but this needs to be an area of concern for any group. And it's not simply all having the same religion.

I have many deeply Christian friends, and I would venture that the spread of acceptable ethics are pretty wide between these individuals.

Anyway, while I enjoy the Rawles' novels and the series of novels from A. American (the Home series) and Joe Nobody (the Holding Their Own series), I always read the book from the perspective of placing myself in the character's positions and scenarios and think what would I have done.

It turned out to be a good exercise as I was able to develop the list above on where I should get better in my preps.

Civil Unrest Coming Soon to a Neighborhood Near You

Economist: Financial Collapse Will Cause Civil Unrest to Erupt in America by 2016

 

Rampant corruption combined with economic woes to spark "revolution".  Economist Martin Armstrong is predicting that rising resentment against the status quo as a result of economic inequality is likely to cause a serious political uprising before 2016.

 

“It looks more and more like a serious political uprising will erupt by 2016 once the economy turns down. That is the magic ingredient. Turn the economy down and you get civil unrest and revolution,” writes Armstrong.

 

In making the forecast, the economist cites the case of 90-year-old World War 2 veteran Arnold Abbott, who is being targeted by authorities in Fort Lauderdale for defying a newly passed city ordinance that criminalizes feeding the homeless, an example says Armstrong of how “laws in the USA have simply gone nuts.”
 

Armstrong, who correctly predicted the 1987 Black Monday crash as well as the 1998 Russian financial collapse, asserts that the downfall of the system will be its inability to gauge the anger that Americans currently feel towards their government.

 

“You just cannot make up this stuff. And the Democrats cannot figure out that the people are getting pissed-off at who is ever in office? And what about the police?” asks Armstrong. “Is this just turning into thugs with badges who just enforce whatever law some nut-job politician writes? What if they passed a Herod type law to curb population and decree that everyone must kill their first-born. When does reason ever return to the police force these days? They no longer protect the people – they protect the politicians against the people.”

 

As we reported back in August, the U.S. Army is preparing for civil unrest in the United States. A 132-page document entitled U.S. Army Techniques Publication 3-39.33: Civil Disturbances outlines how troops may be required to deal with “unruly and violent crowds” where it is “necessary to quell riots and restore public order.”

 

Riots which rocked Ferguson, Missouri earlier this year and threaten to reignite should Officer Darren Wilson be acquitted illustrate how single events can spark sustained social unrest.

 

However, more widespread dislocation is only likely to occur in the aftermath of an economic collapse which impacts a huge number of Americans. As we have seen in numerous countries across Europe, including in Belgium just today, crippling austerity measures combined with anemic economic growth have set the stage for violent unrest.

 

In a February 2013 article entitled Why the Banking Elite Want Riots in America, we outlined why the political class is perfectly content to engineer and exploit social unrest as a means of paving the way for the IMF to engage in its tried and tested method of asset stripping and looting a nation.

 

With polls showing some 74% of Americans are already angry or dissatisfied with the government, further economic hardship could prove to be the straw that breaks the camel’s back. 

[source: Paul Johnson, InfoWars.com]

Urban Man reply:  I believe this article hits it on the head. Just look how people reacted on "black Friday" sales at the local shopping malls.

Urban Man

This Is Where WWIII Will Start, Says An Expert? You Decide!

Dooms Day Clock is 3 Minutes Before Midnight

The Doomsday clock is now just 3 minutes from midnight - should the rise of conflicts across the Middle East and Ukraine serve as a warning sign that something much more dangerous is approaching?

 

According to Jim Rickards, the CIA's Asymmetric Warfare Adviser, the answer is yes.

 

In a startling interview he reveals that all 16 U.S. Intelligence Agencies have begun to prepare for World War III.

 

Making matters worse, his colleagues believe it could begin within the next 6 months.

 

However, the ground zero location for this global conflict is what makes his interview a must-see for every American.

Take a few moments to watch it below and decide for yourself.

[source: Monday Morning Staff Reports]

 

Urban Man