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Showing posts with label Surviving the collapse. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Surviving the collapse. Show all posts

Tuesday, February 17, 2015

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.


Tuesday, November 18, 2014

Survival Chronicles of Jim - Chapter 27 (Preparing for a Pandemic)



From Urban Man: I continue to receive e-mails asking about Jim and by now you know that Jim is real, just has a different name for the articles that chronicle his journey into the world of prepping as an OPSEC measure. I'm sure you all understand. 

From Jim: Dear Urban Man, I have instituted your vehicle preps - meaning the additional stored water, rifle, cammo netting's and enhanced get home bag in my vehicle.  And actually outfitted my son's vehicle in an alike manner. But I see my traveling for work, or at least the longer trips, to start falling off significantly. I have reduced advertising for my computer services and have even turned down one contract last week. It won't be too long before I stop doing that work altogether, move back to my original city, and rely on my home based business which more than sufficient income for me to live just fine. And I also have my rental properties. Now, I have to stop my routine vacation trips! Went to Cancun a few months ago. But you know that as you called me an idiot for traveling into Mexico. 

One of my rentals is a duplex. I had lived in one of the units until I moved to a larger city to pursue some database contracts. None of my renters knew I owned the properties as I used a friend of mine's husband, who is a handyman, to be my property management. In fact, he is now fully engaged in prepping himself (his wife is still leery) and with his general handyman skills and mechanical knowledge, he is a key part of my survival group - once I move back to that city. 

We talked about medical supplies and material and I can see that I am deficient in that category. I will start purchasing bandages, gauze, medical tape, hydrogen peroxide, Isopropyl alcohol, stethoscopes, blood pressure cuffs, thermometers, face masks, latex and rubber gloves, 3 mil large black trash bags (for contaminated waste) and some vinyl rain suits for protection against infected people, as well as buying some of the military style trauma packs that you sent me links to. Buying cases of the 4 oz Purell Hand Sanitizer and the 2 Liter pump containers is a good idea too. I will ensure all people in my survival team will carry a 4 oz container of Purell as well as a face mask and latex gloves as a matter of standard procedures. 

I will also start thinking about the security procedures you said I must have when encountering "strap hangers" who will inevitably find me and my group once the collapse hits. I will ensure we can engage these people from protective positions both from firearms but also for infection protection. I will be prepared to rig some kind of decontamination station for me and my people after any contact is made.

I know that with all the recent news about Ebola and the recommended 21 day quarantine process (some say 42 day isolation process) that we will need to implement against any late arising symptoms. I will plan on segregating any people we take in and ensure a separation from new people and my team until we can determine they are disease free. And like you said, this added time will give me a chance to assess these people more closely for their value to potential problems they may create. 

I don't want to sound like a bleeding heart that will expose my security willy-nilly to any people needing help. I will be cautious. But until we bug out to our remote site I can't help but think that even though I am off the main refugee routes out of the city, I know I will get approached by people wanting, even demanding help. I will be very selective in accepting strap hangers. Due to their recent Ebola outbreak, and who knows what may crop up in the future, any people that have ANY symptoms of Ebola or other diseases such as nausea and vomiting; diarrhea; red eyes; any rashes; coughing; bleeding; and sores just won't be accepted. Anybody that I have to detain will be detained from a safety zone of at least 10 feet and no one will be handled without basic protective gear. 

I know that people I turn away may/will become enemies and threats. I intend to minimize that through a low profile but ultimately be prepared to defend ourselves.....against all threats.

Wednesday, November 12, 2014

Survival Chronicles of Jim - Chapter 26 (Practicing The Routine)


From Urban Man: I have received a few e-mails asking about what happened to Jim from the Survival Chronicles of Jim Chapters. Others ask if Jim is real. Oh yeah, Jim is real. Jim is not his real name, but we all have our secrets. Jim was working for friends of mine as a computer tech on contract and as he contract expired he now is working out of his house as a systems developer or some such computer gobbleygook but it requires him to travel 3.5 hours one way a couple days a week with a one or two night stay over in a hotel. I sent Jim the book "Going Home" by A. American, a good read by the way, so he could see some situations for war gaming if he had to make it back home.I asked Jim to send me an e-mail with my intent of publishing it on this site.

Urban Man,

All set up in my routine now. Still have rental houses to manage from afar and my other home based business, but my software and database work for a major company requiring me to travel 3 1/2 hours by car and staying overnight and sometimes several nights during the week. At least my car is a business expense and tax deductible, not to mention a rolling survival platform, or at least I started developing this concept.

I carry the large bag with rollers and backpack straps (Urban Man's note: a FPG deployment bag) that you gave me. This is my Get Home Bag, a la the "Going Home" novel you sent me. I know you told me to think about keeping my SKS in my vehicle with me, and although I keep all my accessories for this rifle in my Get Home bag, I have yet to take the gun on any of my work trips. Maybe it's an idea I have to get used to. At least I have my Walther pistol. In my Get Home bag I have these items:
Load Bearing Molle Vest with Camel-Bak with mag pouches for my SKS ammunition. I have the conversion kit for the SKS to use those banana magazines, with the the metal lip extension so it locks into place, but have not converted it yet.
  • Silva Compass 
  • Spare Fire Starting Kit 
  • Green Fleece 
  • Gortex Rain Suit 
  • Snugpak Sleeping Bag 
  • 8 civilian type versions of military meals 
  • Pack of assorted nut snacks and granola bars 
  • 6 packets of instant soup and a tube of bullion cubes 
  • Trauma Medical Kit 
  • 2 camouflage ponchos 
  • Hammock net that I can use to thread plants into for a camouflage or an impromptu fishing net 
  • Small butane stove with one fuel cartridge with cooking pot 
  • 40 feet of green para-cord 
  • A Small Fishing Kit* 
  • Firearms Cleaning Kit 
  • Field cap 
  • Aviators gloves 
  • Empty five quarter canteen so I have extra water carrying capacity 
  • Wire saw 

* The fishing kit was an adventure. Not knowing anything, I went into a Sporting Goods chain store and was looking around, not knowing what to get. One of the sales guys helped me but when he asked what I was looking for, I had to tell him "Basically, an small adventure fishing kit in case I have to survive something like a plane crash in a remote area." He looked at me like I was an idiot, but I ended up buying hooks, lead weight, fishing line, and a couple of small, multi-colored lures. I learned that there is a whole culture behind fishing.

I carry that soft computer case you gave me with the molle webbing attachment as my urban Bug Out Bag. I only really have to carry a laptop, x drives, a couple of software discs, and some cables so I have plenty of room for the three boxes of SKS ammunition and my little Walther .22 pistol. I used the extra ammunition pouches attached to the outside of this case to carry bottled water in. Usually I leave the pistol and the ammunition inside my vehicle when I am in a building. I have my little fire starting kit in a zip lock bag, several bags of nuts and a couple nutrition bars, a folding knife and a "AA" Pelican flashlight and extra batteries. I carry 6 one ounce Silver rounds and a roll of old quarters for their silver melt value. Not to mention I rarely travel without several hundred dollars in cash.

Taking your advice I have driven different routes from my house to my work site. On the route that minimizes the high traffic areas and the interstate segments, it will take me an additional 45- 60 minutes of driving time because of all the slowdowns, speed traps, small communities and single lane roads. Like you said this longer driving route will probably become my primary way to get home in any major collapse event due to the most lower chance of traffic jams and refugees.

I haven't bought a suitable map yet nor have I re-conned the best places to lay up whether I was traveling home by vehicle, bicycle or on foot. I'm dating a woman in my home city. While she has a key to my house, I haven't really briefed her on my preparations. She has seen the water dispenser with ten full 5 gallon bottles of water lined up and she said something to the effect that "Gee, you're not going to run out of water soon!"

Urban Man's Comment: After receiving this from Jim, I advised Jim to ensure he carried water with him, other than his bottled drinking water, during his business trips. A five gallon water jug or the equivalent in one gallon containers can be loaded and unloaded for these weekly trips without too much butt pain to ensure at any point during his transit he has water. If he can stay with his vehicle ad make it home, great. But if he is forced to dump his vehicle, he would have the water to fill his water containers and begin the walk (worst case) home. I also advised Jim to store a camouflage net for his vehicle in case he had to pull off his route and hole up because of traffickability issues of threat.

My last advice for Jim is to take the alternate route a few times and stop in these small communities to get the feeling from the population and perhaps make his face known - may come in handy if that becomes his Going Home route....and Jim, take your rifle with you!

Urban Man

Wednesday, April 16, 2014

Disaster,.....Collapse,.......Dealing With It

An article by Bob Rinear, titled "Disaster - Dealing With It, published on the International Forecaster. Pretty good article from a financial analyst. The value in an article like this is for the survival-collapse preparation aspect to be coming from a financial guy as opposed to some guy in camouflage fatigues. In this way it is much more palatable to the average guy.

Disaster.   It is a word used to describe a multitude of situations, such as an airplane crash, a mudslide, a hurricane, a mass shooting, biological hazards, Earthquakes, Volcano’s, drought, floods, Tidal waves, Industrial accidents… the list goes on and on. Interestingly if you scan the “response” web sites, you never see anything about a disaster as being economic in nature. Yet I assure you, the proper economic “implosion” will be a disaster just as threatening if not more so, then most of the other items listed.

I don’t know how many of you have come through a situation such as Hurricane Katrina or more recently “Super storm” Sandy. But if you did, you know what a physical disaster can do. When Sandy hit landfall in New Jersey, it just happened to “ground zero” in the Little Egg Harbor Inlet, which was just 3 miles straight across the bay from my house. Our little town was completely devastated. Dozens of homes simply gone, hundreds ruined beyond repair. The following two weeks were not easy to deal with. No power, no water, no cell phones, no gas stations…it was tough. It was the first week of November. It was cold. Thousands were homeless. It is something I shall never forget.

Yet we also knew that if you could just get inland a few miles, things were okay. There was food and water and “heat” and for the most part “normalcy”. The storm was a localized event. Help was just a little ways away. Now compare that to a nationwide situation and you come to an ugly conclusion. There’s no place to run. Every place is in the same boat as you. Help isn’t on the way.

Let suppose we do get some form of economic implosion that takes down the economic infrastructure. A few weeks of no banks, no credit cards working, no ATM’s, no way to buy anything…. And it’s nation wide. It isn’t localized. How well would you fare? In the past several issues we’ve discussed the idea of having cash on hand. We’ve discussed having some gold and silver on hand. But what about hard goods? What about protecting yourself? What about basic survival implements? Here’s my guess…..most of you don’t have any plan, and I understand that. We’ve all given up the idea of self sufficiency in this “reliant on others” economy. We rely on the gas company and electric company and banking company and grocery company, etc etc. Well, my Sandy experience taught me in real terms that when we rely on these things, and they aren’t functioning…things go to hell in a handbasket quickly.

The “good part” of an economically based disaster, if anything at that point could be considered good is that even if there’s no food, water or electric, you should still have a place of residence. It isn’t like a tsunami that knocked down your home or apartment.

So, a large part of the equation you don’t have to worry about because you still have shelter. But, here’s the question. How well can you live in that shelter? Will you have heat? Food? Water? Medicine? Then there’s a more disturbing question. If someone that doesn’t have food or water decides they want to come take yours… can you stop them?

You have to decide for yourself as to what level of prepared you’re willing to do based on the size and scope of an emergency. I personally think that every person that lives in a detached stand alone home should have some basics of survival, which includes some water storage, some fuel for a generator, something to cook on such as a propane grill, or a campstove, matches, flashlights, candles, first aid kit, LifeStraw water filter, Inverter, canned goods, dry goods, etc etc. These are just the bare necessities to get past say a storm outage or what have you. From there however, the options are quite limitless.

Let us imagine that we get a derivative cascade that ripples around the globe, so banks shut down to stop the hemmorage, and commerce ceases for a while. With “luck” the government will force electric and water companies to continue to provide, so for at least a time we could all have electric and water and the biggest concern would be food.

Do you at least have enough “in home” to get you past say 3 weeks of no grocery store, or no way to pay? Probably not. You’ll need to fix that and it’s easy. Between canned goods and dry goods, it is simple to stock up 3 weeks worth of enough edibles to get you by. Store it properly and resist the urge to use it in your weekly food preparation and you’re gold.

On the other hand, a true Mad Max scenario, where the grid is attacked, the banks shut down, and no relief in sight for months, is a whole different animal. Very few are prepared for anything even remotely close to that situation and that includes me. While I understand the chances that it could happen, I have consciously decided to avoid it in my mind. I don’t want to go there. That could end up being a very bad choice on my part, but again I simply wish not to allow a worst case scenario in my head. For right or wrong, it is where I stand. I want to be prepared for a bad scenario that lasts up to a few months. Not a whole new lifetime of trouble.

The one thing I do want to stress however is this: History shows us that the people who have not prepared, will seek out those who have prepared and try and take it. On any given day in any state in any city, there’s armed robberies, car thefts, purse snatches, murders, you name it. This is while everything is running, EBT cards are being charged up, the stores have food, the lights are on, etc etc. You can only imagine how much escalation there’d be concerning assault and robbery if things got ugly for a while.

You can look on line and find tons and tons of articles concerning how to prepare for an emergency. There’s tens of thousands of them discussing the things we just talked about such as stocking flashlights and water. But the field narrows considerably when you’re talking about personal protection, and home defense in a bad situation.

Main stream media doesn’t talk about such things, they aren’t allowed and besides the main stream medial doesn’t think you should have the ability to defend yourself in the first place.

I tend to think however that taking care of your immediate family is the most important thing you can do. If someone is going to try and harm me or my wife because we have prepared a bit for a bad situation and they didn’t and therefore they want to take ours, there’s going to be a problem. But trust me on this one folks, this opens a big can of worms, a can you probably never thought about.

Suppose something pretty big hits. Judging by the severity you figure that it could take a month or two before we get even close to barely back to normal. In the first week not too much goes on, people seem to be “okay” but have that panicked look. A few days later you “feel” that more folks are having problems. Then you get that first knock on the door. It’s a neighbor from 4 houses down. They want to know if you’ve got any food around because their 10 year old is getting hungry. First question is… how did they assume you had food? Right there is a MAJOR MISTAKE folks. You cannot allow anyone to know that you have prepared.

The second word gets out that you have food and/or water or what have you, people will flock to your house. At first it would be civil, asking for a hand out. But eventually “they’d come”. The people who left civility behind and will take what they can through any means they have. So, believe it or not, one of the single most important things I can say to you all is this. Don’t let anyone suspect you’ve got “stuff”. If your neighbors are already out of food because they didn’t stock up and their pantry’s empty, don’t make the mistake of cooking up a couple freeze dried steaks on the grill. They’re going to come. They’re going to beg. And what are you going to do? Even if you hand out a little because they’re “friends”, they’ll be back for more. They’ll tell their friends.

Then what?

You don’t want to fall into that mess. So while I can imagine that the first thing you thought of when I mentioned personal home defense was that I’d instantly jump on the gun situation and what to buy and what kind of ammo, and how to set a perimeter…..you’re wrong. The very first line of defense is to ACT LIKE EVERYONE ELSE. You want to look hungry. You want to complain, and act nervous. You want to act scared.

If you study real world survival, in the hell holes around the globe, one thing stands out, but no one seems to notice. The people that get robbed, beaten, broken into, ravaged, etc.. are the people that display that they are different from the starving masses. Mobs don’t’ attack themselves. They attack those they perceive to “have” things. It is the number one mistake and it ALWAYS leads to big problems.

So, here’s job one in protecting your home and your family in a serious multi week, or couple month long disaster situation. Keep the secret. Your food should be stored in the dark, never displayed. Prepare it indoors with shades closed. Every instance of eating or drinking should be done behind closed doors. You should interact with the neighbors as much as everyone else does, but make sure they understand that you’re in the same boat as them. You have no food, you have no water, you’re hungry and worried too.

The underground communications network is quite effective. Even if the people nearest you would “never” do anything wrong, they talk to people who talk to people who talk to people. Somewhere down the line, someone will learn that you’ve got stuff. The message you want sent down the line is that “no one on Smith Street has squat, they’re all looking too”.

As long as you appear to be in the same ugly boat as everyone else, you’ve cut your chances of being a target by well over 50%. That’s a great risk reduction in any investment, And it is one that you need to seriously focus on. Remember last week we were discussing having a few grand in cash “on hand”? Well don’t let it slip that you don’t care that the ATM’s are down, because you’ve got some money “stored up”. Big mistake.

Someone will come looking for it. Don’t show off your half a garage full of food stuffs to your neighbor Tom. Tom’s a great guy and all, but Tom told Joe at work about you and how well you’ve prepared for a rainy day. Tom was really impressed. But, Joe however is out on a work release program for theft. Joe now knows where you live. See my point?

This holds true for EVERYTHING folks. Guns, ammo, food, water, money, silver, gold, Medicine, prescription drugs, the whole gambit. Do NOT let people know about any of it. In the “good times” we like to share with people, we’re the social media generation.

We like to express our good fortune. Well, telling 10 people at the water cooler that you’ve got a “fine collection of weapons” because your proud of your collection, just insures that one day you’ll come home and they’re gone. Imagine how fast they’d be coming for them in a disaster period?

In the good times we all like to show off our homes. We make it nice and pretty, and keep the shrubs trimmed and lawn cut. But in dark times, the house that doesn’t get robbed or invaded is the one with an overgrown lawn, a knocked down bird fountain, and a hand painted sign in the yard that says “will work for food”. I’m sure you understand my point. Do not draw attention to yourself. Not your home, not your mannerisms. Blend in; look worse off than those with bad intentions.

That is the first step in surviving a bad time if indeed you have no place to “bug out” to and have to stay where you are. I’ll sprinkle in some more home defense/personal defense articles as we work our way through this crazy economy.

Monday, February 17, 2014

Does Gun Control Predict the Collapse? Precursor to Martial Law?

I have had a back and forth between two friends of mine, the topic being Federal and State gun control efforts which my two friends stridently believe are an intentional precursor to Governmental preparations for the impending collapse which the Federal Government knows they cannot stop.

While I understand that gun registration is the obvious and mandatory first step to any gun confiscation, and that any Martial Law imposition would be much less effective with an armed civilian population, I don't see the failed gun registration in Connecticut as a joint liberal state-federal government test case for national registration and eventual confiscation. Nor being done because the federal government knows it cannot stop the economic collapse from happening and is preparing for martial law.

Who in their right mind would just let an economic collapse happen? And I say this believing an economic collapse is much more likely now, then it was last year, or the year before, but not due to a conspiracy but to a choke hold on ideology and incompetence of our governmental institutions.

To be sure, any gun control efforts are unconstitutional and if given a foot hold will diminish not only our unalienable rights, but our ability to protect ourselves from the tenuous environment of today's world through the vastly increased dangers of an economic or societal collapse.

I think gun control efforts are a product of the age old liberal way of thinking that they know better than the rest of us what is best for us. And I am grateful that the citizens of the very liberal state of Connecticut are pushing back against unlawful registration.

The Blaze reports that Officials in Connecticut are stunned by what could be a Massive, State-Wide Act of ‘Civil Disobedience’ by Gun Owners:

On Jan. 1, 2014, tens of thousands of defiant gun owners seemingly made the choice not to register their semi-automatic rifles with the state of Connecticut as required by a hastily-passed gun control law. By possessing unregistered so-called “assault rifles,” they all technically became guilty of committing Class D felonies overnight.

Police had received 47,916 applications for “assault weapons certificates” and 21,000 incomplete applications as of Dec. 31, Lt. Paul Vance told The Courant.

At roughly 50,000 applications, officials estimate that as little as 15 percent of the covered semi-automatic rifles have actually been registered with the state. “No one has anything close to definitive figures, but the most conservative estimates place the number of unregistered assault weapons well above 50,000, and perhaps as high as 350,000,” the report states.

Needless to say, officials and some lawmakers are stunned.

Due to the new gun control bill passed in April, likely at least 20,000 individual people — possibly as many as 100,000 — are now in direct violation of the law for refusing to register their guns. As we noted above, that act is now a Class D Felony.

Then Mike Vanderboegh of Sipsey Street Irregulars writes a well written letter concerning the effects of unconstitutional governmental efforts to restrict gun ownership:


15 February 2014

To the men and women of the Connecticut State Police and the Department of Emergency Services and Public Protection:

My name is Mike Vanderboegh. Few of you will know who I am, or even will have heard of the Three Percent movement that I founded, though we have been denounced on the national stage by that paragon of moral virtue, Bill Clinton. Three Percenters are uncompromising firearm owners who have stated very plainly for years that we will obey no further encroachments on our Second Amendment rights.

Some of you, if you read this carelessly, may feel that it is a threat. It is not. Three Percenters also believe that to take the first shot in a conflict over principle is to surrender the moral high ground to the enemy. We condemn so-called collateral damage and terrorism such as that represented by the Oklahoma City Bombing and the Waco massacre. We are very aware that if you seek to defeat evil it is vital not to become the evil you claim to oppose. Thus, though this letter is certainly intended to deal with an uncomfortable subject, it is not a threat to anyone. However, it is important for everyone to understand that while we promise not to take the first shot over principle, we make no such promise if attacked, whether by common criminals or by the designated representatives of a criminal government grown arrogant and tyrannical and acting out an unconstitutional agenda under color of law.

If we have any model, it is that of the Founding generation. The threat to public order and safety, unfortunately, comes from the current leaders of your state government who unthinkingly determined to victimize hitherto law-abiding citizens with a tyrannical law. They are the ones who first promised violence on the part of the state if your citizens did not comply with their unconstitutional diktat. Now, having made the threat (and placed the bet that you folks of the Connecticut State Police will meekly and obediently carry it out) they can hardly complain that others take them seriously and try by every means, including this letter, to avoid conflict.

Some of you are already working a major case on me, trying to figure out how I may be arrested for violating Conn. P.A. 13-3, which bears the wildly dishonest title of "An Act Concerning Gun Violence Prevention and Children's Safety." (What part of "protecting children" is accomplished by sparking a civil war?) Not only have I personally violated this unconstitutional and tyrannical act by smuggling and by the encouragement of smuggling, defiance and non-compliance on the part of your state's citizens, but I have further irritated your wannabe tyrant bosses by sending them standard capacity magazines in my "Toys for Totalitarians" program. I further have annoyed them by pointing out -- and seeking more evidence of -- the existence of Mike Lawlor's KGB file (as well as his FBI and CIA counter-intelligence files).

In short, I have made myself a nuisance to your bosses in just about every way I could think of. However, their discomfiture reminds me of the wisdom of that great American philosopher of the late 20th Century, Frank Zappa, who said, "Do you love it? Do you hate it? There it is, the way you made it." Whether you will be able to make a case on me that sticks is, of course, problematic for a number of reasons which I will detail to you in the letter below. I have already done so to your bosses and include the links in this email so that you may easily access them.

But even if you are not working on my case you will want to pay attention to this letter, because tyrannical politicians in your state have been writing checks with their mouths that they expect you to cash with your blood. We have moved, thanks to them, into a very dangerous undiscovered country. Connecticut is now in a state of cold civil war, one that can flash to bloody conflict in an instant if someone, anyone, does something stupid. So please pay attention, for Malloy and Co. have put all your asses on the line and are counting on your supine obedience to the enforcement of their unconstitutional diktat.

I apparently first came to your attention with this speech on the steps of your state capitol on 20 April 2013. It was very well received by the audience but virtually ignored by the lapdog press of your state. If I may, I'd like to quote some of the more salient points of it that involve you.

"An unconstitutional law is void." It has no effect. So says American Jurisprudence, the standard legal text. And that's been upheld by centuries of American law. An unconstitutional law is VOID. Now that is certainly true. But the tricky part is how do we make that point when the local, state and federal executive and legislative branches as well as the courts are in the hands of the domestic enemies of the Constitution. Everyone who is currently trying to take away your right to arms starts out by saying "I support the 2nd Amendment." Let me tell you a home truth that we know down in Alabama -- Barack Obama supports the 2nd Amendment just about as much as Adolf Hitler appreciated Jewish culture, or Joseph Stalin believed in individual liberty. Believe what politicians do, not what they say. Because the lie is the attendant of every evil.

Before this year no one thought that other firearms and related items would ever be banned -- but they were, they have been. No one thought that the authorities of your state would pass laws making criminals out of the previously law-abiding -- but they did. If they catch you violating their unconstitutional laws, they will -- when they please -- send armed men to work their will upon you. And people -- innocent of any crime save the one these tyrants created -- will die resisting them.

You begin to see, perhaps, how you fit into this. YOU are the "armed men" that Malloy and Company will send "to work their will" upon the previously law-abiding. In other words, this law takes men and women who are your natural allies in support of legitimate law enforcement and makes enemies of the state of them, and bully boy political police of you. So you all have a very real stake in what happens next. But let me continue:

The Founders knew how to answer such tyranny. When Captain John Parker -- one of the three percent of American colonists who actively took the field against the King during the Revolution -- mustered his Minutemen on Lexington Green, it was in a demonstration of ARMED civil disobedience. . . The colonists knew what to do and they did it, regardless of the risk -- regardless of all the King's ministers and the King's soldiery. They defied the King. They resisted his edicts. They evaded his laws and they smuggled. Lord above, did they smuggle.

Now we find ourselves in a similar situation. The new King Barack and his minions have determined to disarm us. We must determine to resist them. No one wants a new civil war (except, apparently, the anti-constitutional tyrants who passed these laws and the media toadies who cheer them on) but one is staring us in the face. Let me repeat that, a civil war is staring us in the face. To think otherwise is to whistle past the graveyard of our own history. We must, if we wish to avoid armed conflict, get this message across to the collectivists who have declared their appetites for our liberty, our property and our lives -- WHEN DEMOCRACY TURNS TO TYRANNY, THE ARMED CITIZEN STILL GETS TO VOTE.

Just like King George, such people will not care, nor modify their behavior, by what you say, no matter how loudly or in what numbers you say it. They will only pay attention to what you DO. So defy them. Resist their laws. Evade them. Smuggle in what they command you not to have. Only by our ACTS will they be impressed. Then, if they mean to have a civil war, they will at least have been informed of the unintended consequences of their tyrannical actions. Again I say -- Defy. Resist. Evade. Smuggle. If you wish to stay free and to pass down that freedom to your children's children you can do no less than to become the lawbreakers that they have unconstitutionally made of you. Accept that fact. Embrace it. And resolve to be the very best, most successful lawbreakers you can be.

Well, I guess at least some of my audience that day took my message to heart. As Connecticut newspapers have finally begun reporting -- "Untold Thousands Flout Gun Registration Law" -- and national commentators are at last noticing, my advice to defy, resist and evade this intolerable act is well on the way. The smuggling, as modest as it is, I can assure is also happening. This law is not only dangerous it is unenforceable by just about any standard you care to judge it by. Let's just look at the numbers mentioned in the Courant story.

By the end of 2013, state police had received 47,916 applications for assault weapons certificates, Lt. Paul Vance said. An additional 2,100 that were incomplete could still come in.

That 50,000 figure could be as little as 15 percent of the rifles classified as assault weapons owned by Connecticut residents, according to estimates by people in the industry, including the Newtown-based National Shooting Sports Foundation. No one has anything close to definitive figures, but the most conservative estimates place the number of unregistered assault weapons well above 50,000, and perhaps as high as 350,000.

And that means as of Jan. 1, Connecticut has very likely created tens of thousands of newly minted criminals — perhaps 100,000 people, almost certainly at least 20,000 — who have broken no other laws. By owning unregistered guns defined as assault weapons, all of them are committing Class D felonies.

"I honestly thought from my own standpoint that the vast majority would register," said Sen. Tony Guglielmo, R-Stafford, the ranking GOP senator on the legislature's public safety committee. "If you pass laws that people have no respect for and they don't follow them, then you have a real problem."

This blithering idiot of a state senator is, as I warned Mike Lawlor the other day, extrapolating. It is a very dangerous thing, extrapolation, especially when you are trying to predict the actions of an enemy you made yourself whom you barely recognize let alone understand. I told Lawlor:

You, you silly sod, are extrapolating from your own cowardice. Just because you wouldn't risk death for your principles, doesn't mean there aren't folks who most certainly will. And, not to put too fine a point on it, but folks who are willing to die for their principles are most often willing to kill in righteous self-defense of them as well. You may be ignorant of such people and their ways. You may think that they are insane. But surely even you cannot be so clueless that, insane or not from your point-of-view, such people DO exist and in numbers unknown. This is the undiscovered country that you and your tyrannical ilk have blundered into, like clueless kindergarteners gaily (no pun intended) tap-dancing in a well-marked mine field.

The Founders marked the mine field. Is it our fault or yours that you have blithely ignored the warnings? If I were a Connecticut state policeman I would be wondering if the orders of a possible KGB mole throwback were worth the terminal inability to collect my pension. Of course, you may be thinking that you can hide behind that "thin blue line." Bill Clinton's rules of engagement say otherwise.

The odds are, and it gives me no particular satisfaction to say it, is that someone is going to get killed over your unconstitutional misadventures in Connecticut. And if not Connecticut, then New York, or Maryland, or California or Colorado. And once the civil war you all apparently seek is kicked off, it would not be -- it could not be -- confined to one state.

This is not a threat, of course. Not the personal, actionable threat that you may claim. It ranks right along with -- no, that's wrong, IT IS EXACTLY LIKE -- an ex-con meeting me in the street and pointing to my neighbor's house saying, "Tonight I am going to break in there, kill that man, rape his wife and daughters and steal everything that he is, has, or may become." I warn him, "If you try to do that, he will kill you first. He may not look like much, but I know him to be vigilant and perfectly capable of blowing your head off." That is not a threat from me. It is simply good manners. Consider this letter in the same vein. I am trying to save you from yourself.

For, like that common criminal, you have announced by your unconstitutional law and your public statements in favor of its rigorous enforcement that you have a tyrannical appetite for your neighbors' liberty, property and lives. It doesn't take a crystal ball to see that this policy, if carried to your announced conclusion, will not end well for anybody, but especially for you.

Now let's examine those numbers in the Courant story. You know the size of the Connecticut Department of Emergency Services and Public Protection. Wikipedia tells us that "CSP currently has approximately 1,248 troopers, and is headquartered in Middletown, Connecticut. It is responsible for protecting the Governor of Connecticut, Lieutenant Governor of Connecticut, and their families." There are but 1,212 email addresses listed on the state website to which this email is going, which presumably includes everyone including secretaries, receptionists, file clerks, technicians, etc. Now, how many shooters for raid parties you may find among that one thousand, two hundred and forty eight that Wikipedia cites, or whatever number will be on the payroll when something stupid happens, only you know for sure. I'll let you do the counting.

They are daunting odds in any case, and as you will see, they get more daunting as we go down this road that Malloy and Company have arranged for you. (By the way, don't forget to subtract those on the Green Zone protective details, for your political masters will certainly see their survival as your mission number one.) So, how many folks would your superiors be interested in seeing you work their will upon? And of these, how many will fight regardless of cost?

Let's assume that there are 100,000 non-compliant owners of military pattern semi-automatic rifles in your state. I think it is a larger number but 100,000 has a nice round ring to it. Let us then apply the rule of three percent to that number -- not to the entire population of your state, not even to the number of firearm owners, but just to that much smaller demonstrated number of resistors. That leaves you with at least 3,000 men and women who will shoot you if you try to enforce this intolerable act upon them. Of course you will have to come prepared to shoot them. That's a given. They know this. So please understand: THEY. WILL. SHOOT. YOU. (In what they believe is righteous self defense.)

Now, if any of them follow Bill Clinton's rules of engagement and utilize the principles of 4th Generation Warfare, after the first shots are fired by your raid parties, they will not be home when you come to call. These people will be targeting, according to the 4GW that many of them learned while serving in Iraq and Afghanistan, the war makers who sent you. This gets back to that "when democracy turns to tyranny, the armed citizenry still gets to vote." One ballot, or bullet, at a time.

This is all hypothetical, of course, based upon the tyrants' appetites for these hitherto law-abiding citizens' liberty, property and lives as well as upon your own willingness to enforce their unconstitutional diktat. And here's where you can do something about it. The first thing you have to realize is that the people you will be targeting do not view you as the enemy. Indeed, you are NOT their enemy, unless you choose to be one.

Again, an unconstitutional law is null and void. Of course you may if you like cling to the slim fact that a single black-robed bandit has ruled the Intolerable Act as constitutional in Shew vs. Malloy, but that will not matter to those three percent of the resistors -- your fellow citizens -- whom you target. They no longer expect a fair trial in your state in any case, which leaves them, if they wish to defend their liberty, property and lives, only the recourse of an unfair firefight. So to cite Shew vs. Malloy at the point of a state-issued firearm to such people is, well, betting your life on a very slender reed.

Thus, my kindly advice to you, just as it was to Lawlor, is to not go down that road. You are not the enemy of the people of Connecticut, not yet. The politicians who jammed this law down the peoples' throats are plainly flummoxed by the resistance it has engendered. In the absence of a definitive U.S. Supreme Court decision do you really want to risk not being able to draw your pension over some politician's insatiable appetite for power?

There are many ways you can refuse to get caught up in this. Passive resistance, looking the other way, up to and including outright refusal to execute what is a tyrannical law that a higher court may yet find unconstitutional and therefore null and void. Do you really want to have to kill someone enforcing THAT? Just because you were ordered to do so? After Nuremberg, that defense no longer obtains. (You may say, "Well, I'm just a secretary, a clerk, you can't blame me for anything." Kindly recall from Nuremberg one other lesson: raid parties cannot break down doors unless someone like you prepares the list in advance. In fact, you have at your keyboard and in your databases more raw, naked power than any kick-in-the-door trooper. And with that power comes moral responsibility. Adolf Eichmann didn't personally kill anyone. But he darn sure made up the lists and saw to it that trains ran on time. When the first Connecticut citizen (or, God forbid, his family) is killed as a result of your list-making, do you think that because you didn't pull the trigger that gives you a moral pass?)

So I call on you all, in your own best interest and that of your state, to refuse to enforce this unconstitutional law. There are a number of Three Percenters within the Connecticut state government, especially its law enforcement arms. I know that there have been many discussions around water-coolers and off state premises about the dangers that this puts CT law enforcement officers in and what officers should do if ordered to execute raids on the previously law-abiding.

You have it within your power to refuse to initiate hostilities in an American civil war that would, by its very nature, be ghastly beyond belief and would unleash hatreds and passions that would take generations to get over, if then.

Please, I beg you to understand, you are not the enemy, you are not an occupying force -- unless you choose to violate the oath that each of you swore to preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States against ALL enemies, foreign and domestic. For their part, the men and women who will be targeted by your raids took an identical oath. Can you think of anything more tragic than brother killing brother over some politician's tyrannical appetite?

I can't. The future -- yours, mine, our children's, that of the citizens of Connecticut and indeed of the entire country -- is in YOUR hands.

At the very least, by your refusal you can give the courts time to work before proceeding into an unnecessary civil war against your own friends and neighbors on the orders of a self-anointed elite who frankly don't give a shit about you, your life, your future or that of your family. They wouldn't pass these laws if they thought that they would have to risk the potential bullet that their actions have put you in the path of. They count on you to take that bullet, in service of their power and their lies. Fool them. Just say no to tyranny. You are not the enemy. Don't act like one.

Sincerely,

Mike Vanderboegh

The alleged leader of a merry band of Three Percenters
PO Box 926
Pinson AL 35126

Saturday, October 12, 2013

Surviving Home Replicates Likely Collapse


While I finished the book "Surviving Home" over a month ago I didn't get motivated to write about it until I received notice that the third book "Escaping Home" in this excellent series by A. American was available for pre-order. The first book, "Going Home", was a story about a man who found himself several hundred miles away from his family when EMP shut everything down and chronicled his journey trying to get back to his family and community.

Morgan Carter, the main character in this series, is a prepper, married and has a couple children. He was prepared with his Bug Out or Get Home bag, so he was prepared to walk and survive the 250 miles back to his prepared home.

I found the first book pretty realistic on how I envision the collapse environment with the story of Morgan encountering people who "go ugly early" in their attempts to better themselves and their situation through robbery, depredations and control. I had previously wrote a short review on A. American's first book.

The second book, Surviving Home, took up with the main character, Morgan Carter, back in the community and facing several realistic situations:

An unprepared community. One of the many faults with the suburban or community Bug In plan is that many, if not most, of your neighbors will be unprepared for the collapse. Many of these will be burdens on the few that are prepared. Many will resist any leaders stepping up; Many will turn on you because you have prepared and they have not.

Entitiliest community members. Many neighbors, in both A. American's excellent book and what I believe reality would be, will think that they are owed a share of another's foresight to prep. Surviving Home has some realistic scenarios, and dialog between characters, reverting to immoral behavior when faced with starvation. With that fear to imminent starvation and you have a volcanic situation.

Lack of organization. While many communities will not have an existing or "live in" organized law enforcement entity which could generate a basis for organized security, Surviving Home's story line did, although this character was a weak link for organizing a community security plan which of course would normally include procedures, training, and defensive measures. Not only is a sound security plan a requirement but organizing the community for the long haul which include food, fuel, and material procurement,..... water procurement, filtering, sterilization and storage and even short and long range procurement, reconnaissance and security patrols. A solid leader would have utilized all existing community member skills to the upmost. But then again, I say that "Surviving Home" was realistic and it was.

A. Americans novels also have a twist where the main character's is aided by some ex-soldiers now working for the Military to keep Homeland Security from running amok and turning this country into a facist state.  Good story all will enjoy - look for the lessons. 

We, preppers in general, read Survivalist novels such as the "Going Home, Surviving Home and Escaping Home" as well as the well known series of books written by James Wesley, Rawles for several reasons,......they are entertaining,....we pickup situations and tips that we didn't plan for or even think about. So it helps if they are realistic, as well as entertaining. A. American's series is my favorite survivalist series and this includes the ones by Rawles, Joe Nobody and Crawford.


Saturday, October 5, 2013

Five Stages of Collapse

I have been hearing the term "Five Stages of Collapse" from a couple different sources, so I decided to look it up and see what people were referring to.  I found references to the 5 stages of collapse from this article from the Market Oracle in the United Kingdom.  Yep, the same United Kingdom who faces many of the same problems we in the U.S. face,......devalued fiat currency, growing radical muslim population, growing poverty population, encroachment of governmental powers. But the U.K. has worse issues than us with their restrictive gun control laws and the physical footprint of living on an island greatly reduces mobility and Bug Out planning.

We are witnessing the beginning stages of political collapse. The government and its leaders are being discredited on a daily basis. The mismanagement of fiscal policy, foreign policy and domestic policy, along with the revelations of the NSA conducting mass surveillance against all Americans has led critical thinking Americans to question the legitimacy of the politicians running the show on behalf of the bankers, corporations and arms dealers. The Gestapo like tactics used by the government in Boston was an early warning sign of what is to come. Government entitlement promises will vaporize, as they did in Detroit, with pension promises worth only ten cents on the dollar.

Total social and cultural collapse could resemble the chaotic civil war scenarios playing out in Libya and Syria. The best case scenario would be for a collapse similar to the Soviet Union’s relatively peaceful disintegration into impotent republics. I don’t believe we’ll be this fortunate. The most powerful military empire in world history will not fade away. It will go out in a blaze of glory with a currency collapse, hyper-inflation, and war on a grand scale.

The day of reckoning for a century of putting our faith in the wrong people with wrong ideas and evil intentions is upon us. Dmitry Orlov provides a blueprint for the collapse in his book – The Five Stages of Collapse – Survivors’ Toolkit:

Stage 1: Financial Collapse. Faith in “business as usual” is lost. The future is no longer assumed to resemble the past in any way that allows risk to be assessed and financial assets to be guaranteed. Financial institutions become insolvent; savings wiped out and access to capital is lost.

Stage 2: Commercial Collapse. Faith that “the market shall provide” is lost. Money is devalued and/or becomes scarce, commodities are hoarded, import and retail chains break down and widespread shortages of survival necessities become the norm.

Stage 3: Political Collapse. Faith that “the government will take care of you” is lost. As official attempts to mitigate widespread loss of access to commercial sources of survival necessities fail to make a difference, the political establishment loses legitimacy and relevance.

Stage 4: Social Collapse. Faith that “your people will take care of you” is lost, as social institutions, be they charities or other groups that rush to fill the power vacuum, run out of resources or fail through internal conflict.

Stage 5: Cultural Collapse. Faith in the goodness of humanity is lost. People lose their capacity for “kindness, generosity, consideration, affection, honesty, hospitality, compassion, charity.” Families disband and compete as individuals for scarce resources. The new motto becomes “May you die today so that I can die tomorrow.”

The collapse is occurring in fits and starts. The stages of collapse do not necessarily have to occur in order. You can recognize various elements of the first three stages in the United States today. Stage 1 commenced in September 2008 when this Crisis period was catalyzed by the disintegration of the worldwide financial system caused by Wall Street intentionally creating the largest control fraud in world history, with easy money provided by Greenspan/Bernanke, fraudulent mortgage products, fake appraisals, bribing rating agencies to provide AAA ratings to derivatives filled with feces, and having their puppets in the media and political arena provide the propaganda to herd the sheep into the slaughterhouse.

The American people neglected their civic duty to elect leaders who would tell them the truth and represent current and future generations equally. They have neglected the increasing lawlessness of Wall Street, K Street and the corporate suite. The American people have lived in denial about their responsibility for their own financial well-being, willingly delegating it to a government of math challenged politicians who promised trillions more than they could ever deliver. The American people have delayed tackling the dire issues confronting our nation, including: $200 trillion of unfunded liabilities, the military industrial complex creating wars across the globe, militarization of our local police forces, domestic spying on every citizen, allowing mega-corporations and the financial elite to turn our nation from savings based production to debt based consumption, and allowing corporations, the military industrial complex, Wall Street, and shadowy billionaires to pick and control our elected officials. The civic fabric of the country is being torn at the points of extreme vulnerability.

“At home and abroad, these events will reflect the tearing of the civic fabric at points of extreme vulnerability – problem areas where, during the Unraveling, America will have neglected, denied, or delayed needed action. Anger at “mistakes we made” will translate into calls for action, regardless of the heightened public risk. It is unlikely that the catalyst will worsen into a full-fledged catastrophe, since the nation will probably find a way to avert the initial danger and stabilize the situation for a while. Yet even if dire consequences are temporarily averted, America will have entered the Fourth Turning.” - The Fourth Turning – Strauss & Howe – 1997

Our Brave New World controllers (bankers, politicians, corporate titans, media moguls, shadowy billionaires) were able to avert a full-fledged catastrophe in the fall of 2008 and spring of 2009 which would have put an end to their reign of destruction. To accept the rightful consequences of their foul actions was intolerable to these obscenely wealthy, despicable men. Their loathsome and vile solutions to a crisis they created have done nothing to relieve the pain and suffering of the average person, while further enriching them, as they continue to gorge on the dying carcass of a once thriving nation. Despite overwhelming public outrage, Congress did as they were instructed by their Wall Street masters and handed over $700 billion of taxpayer funds into Wall Street vaults, under the false threat of systematic collapse. The $800 billion of pork stimulus was injected directly into the veins of corporate campaign contributors. The $3 billion Cash for Clunkers scheme resulted in pumping taxpayer dollars into the government owned union car companies, while driving up the prices of used cars and hurting lower income folks.

Ben Bernanke has peddled the false paradigm of quantitative easing (code for printing money and airlifting it to Wall Street) as benefitting Main Street. Nothing could be further from the truth. He bought $1.3 trillion of toxic mortgage backed securities from his Wall Street owners. He has pumped a total of $2.8 trillion into the hands of Wall Street since September 2008, and is singlehandedly generating $5 billion of risk free profits for these deadbeats by paying them .25% on their reserves. Drug dealer Ben continues to pump $2.8 billion per day into the veins of Wall Street addicts and any hint of tapering the heroin causes the addicts to flail about. Ben should be so proud. He should hang a Mission Accomplished banner whenever he gives a speech. Bank profits reached an all-time record in the 2nd quarter, at $42.2 billion, with 80% of those profits going to the 2% Too Big To Trust Wall Street Mega-Goliath Banks. It’s enough to make a soon to retire, and take a Wall Street job, central banker smile.

“The money rate can, indeed, be kept artificially low only by continuous new injections of currency or bank credit in place of real savings. This can create the illusion of more capital just as the addition of water can create the illusion of more milk. But it is a policy of continuous inflation. It is obviously a process involving cumulative danger. The money rate will rise and a crisis will develop if the inflation is reversed, or merely brought to a halt, or even continued at a diminished rate. Cheap money policies, in short, eventually bring about far more violent oscillations in business than those they are designed to remedy or prevent.” – Henry Hazlitt – 1946

Any serious minded person knew Wall Street had too much power, too much control, and too much influence in 2008 when they crashed our economic system. When something is too big to fail because it will create systematic collapse, you make it smaller. Instead we have allowed our sociopathic rulers to allow these parasitic institutions to get even larger. Just 12 mega-banks control 70% of all the banking assets in the country, with 90% controlled by the top 86 banks. There are approximately 8,000 financial institutions in this country. Wall Street will be congratulating themselves with record compensation of $127 billion and record bonuses of $23 billion for a job well done. It is dangerous work making journal entries relieving loan loss reserves, committing foreclosure fraud, marking your assets to unicorn, making deposits at the Fed, and counting on the Bernanke Put to keep stocks rising. During a supposed recovery from 2009 to 2011, average real income per household grew pitifully by 1.7%, but all the gains accrued to Bernanke’s minions. Top 1% incomes grew by 11.2% while bottom 99% incomes shrunk by 0.4%. Therefore, the top 1% captured 121% of the income gains in the first two years of the recovery. This warped trend has only accelerated since 2011.

When the financial collapse reaches its crescendo, the just in time supply chain, that keeps cheese doodles and cheese whiz on your grocery store shelves, Chinese produced iGadgets in your local Wal-Mart Supercenter, and gasoline flowing out of gas station hoses into your leased Cadillac Escalade, will break down rapidly. The strain of $110 oil is already evident. The fireworks will really get going when ATM machines run dry and the EBT cards stop functioning. Within a week riots and panic will engulf the country.

“At some point we are bound to hear, from across two oceans, the shocking words “Your money is no good here.” Fast forward to a week later: banks are closed, ATMs are out of cash, supermarket shelves are bare and gas stations are starting to run out of fuel. And then something happens: the government announces they have formed a crisis task force, and will nationalize, recapitalize and reopen banks, restoring confidence. The banks reopen, under heavy guard, and thousands of people get arrested for attempting to withdraw their savings. Banks close, riots begin. Next, the government decides that, to jump-start commerce, it will honor deposit guarantees and simply hand out cash. They print and arrange for the cash to be handed out. Now everyone has plenty of cash, but there is still no food in the supermarkets or gasoline at the gas stations because by now the international supply chains have broken down and the delivery pipelines are empty.” – Dmitry Orlov – The Five Stages of Collapse

Tuesday, June 25, 2013

Survival Chronicles of Jim - Chapter 26

From UrbanMan: I have received a few e-mail asking about what happended to Jim from the Survival Chronicles of Jim Chapters. Others ask if Jim is real. Oh yeah, Jim is really. Jim is not his real name, but we all have our secrets. Jim was working for friends of mine as a computer tech on contract and as he contract expired he now is working out of his house as a systems developer or some such computer gobbleygook but it requires him to travel 3.5 hours one way a couple days a week with a one or two night stayover in a hotel. I sent Jim the book "Going Home" by A. American, a good read by the way, so he could see some situations for wargamming if he had to make it back home.I asked Jim to send me an e-mail with my intent of publishing it on this site.

UrbanMan,

All set up in my routine now. Still have rental houses to manage from afar and my other home based business, but my software and database work for a major company requiring me to travel 3 1/2 hours by car and staying overnight and sometimes several nights during the week. At least my car is a business expense and tax deductible!.....not to mention a rolling survival platform, or at least I started developing this concept.

I carry the large bag with rollers and backpack straps (UrbanMan's note: a FPG deployment bag) that you gave me. This is my Get Home Bag, a la the "Going Home" novel you sent me. I know you told me to think about keeping my SKS in my vehicle with me, and although I keep all my accessories for this rifle in my Get Home bag, I have yet to take the gun on any of my work trips. Maybe it's an idea I have to get used to. At least I have my Walther pistol. In my Get Home bag I have these items:

  • Load Bearing Molle Vest with Camel-Bak with mag pouches for my SKS ammunition. I have the conversion kit for the SKS to use those banana magazines, with the the metal lip extension so it locks into place, but have not converted it yet.
  • Silva Compass
  • Spare Fire Starting Kit
  • Green Fleece
  • Gortex Rain Suit
  • Snugpak Sleeping Bag
  • 8 civilian type versions of military meals
  • Pack of assorted nut snacks and granola bars
  • 6 packets of instant soup and a tube of bullion cubes
  • Trauma Medical Kit
  • 2 camouflage ponchos
  • Hammock net that I can use to thread plants into for a camoufalge or an impromtu fishing net
  • Small butane stove with one fuel cartridge with cooking pot
  • 40 feet of green para-cord
  • A Small Fishing Kit*
  • Firearms Cleaning Kit
  • Field cap
  • Aviators gloves
  • Empty five quarter canteen so I have extra water carrying capacity
  • Wire saw
* The fishing kit was an adventure. Not knowing anything, I went into a Sporting Goods chain store and was looking around, not knowing what to get. One of the sales guys helped me but when he asked what I was looking for, I had to tell him "Basically, an small adventure fishing kit in case I have to survive something like a plane crash in a remote area." He looked at me like I was an idiot, but I ended up buying hooks, lead weight, fishing line, and a couple of small, multi-colored lures. I learned that there is a whole culture behind fishing.

I carry that soft computer case you gave me with the molle webbing attachment as my urban Bug Out Bag. I only really have to carry a laptop, x drives, a couple of software discs, and some cables so I have plenty of room for the three boxes of SKS ammunition and my little Walther .22 pistol. I used the extra ammunition pouches attached to the outside of this case to carry bottled water in. Usually I leave the pistol and the ammunition inside my vehicle when I am in a building. I have my little fire starting kit in a zip lock bag, several bags of nuts and a couple nutrition bars, a folding knife and a "AA" Pelican flashlight and extra batteries. I carry 6 one ounce Silver rounds and a roll of old quarters for their silver melt value. Not to mention I rarely travel without several hundred dollars in cash.

Taking your advice I have driven different routes from my house to my work site. On the route that minimizes the high traffic areas and the interstate segments, it will take me an additional 45- 60 minutes of driving time because of all the slowdowns, speed traps, small communities and single lane roads. Like you said this longer driving route will probably become my primary way to get home in any major collapse event due to the most lower chance of traffic jams and refugees.

I haven't bought a suitable map yet nor have I reconned the best places to lay up whether I was traveling home by vehicle, bicycle or on foot. I'm dating a woman in my home city. While she has a key to my house, I haven't really briefed her on my preparations. She has seen the water dispenser with ten full 5 gallon bottles of water lined up and she said something to the effect that "Gee, you're not going to run out of water soon!"  

UrbanMan's Comment:  After recieving this from Jim, I advised Jim to ensure he carried water with him, other than his bottled drinking water, during his business trips.  A five gallon water jug or the equivilent in one gallon containers can be loaded and un-loaded for these weekly trips without too much butt pain to ensure at any point during his transit he has water.  If he can stay with his vehicle ad make it home, great.  But if he is forced to dump his vehicle, he would have the water to fill his water containers and begin the walk (worst case) home.  I also advised Jim to store a camouflage net for his vehicle in case he had to pull off his route and hole up because of traffickability issues of threat.  

My last advice for Jim is to take the alternate route a few times and stop in these small communities to get the feeling from the population and perhaps make his face known - may come in handy if that becomes his Going Home route....and Jim, take your rifle with you!  

  

Friday, June 14, 2013

Prepared to Survive: Urban Grown Food Supply

UrbanMan's note:  I have previously written about urban farming where there is a trend for urban situated dwellers to have gardens to supplement their food supply.  Everyone in America should be doing this no matter where they are at.  Of course, remaining in a city during the collapse is a very risky proposition, but there are no doubt many people who have basically no choice, and while growing vegetables and such in an urban environment would take some effort and a continuing water supply - it is doable for those who have no choice and offers a small effort to alleviate the growing trend of U.S. based small farms disappearing.   

Urban Grown Food Supply from a BBC article, "Can city farms feed a hungry world?",

There will be billions more hungry people in 2050. Growing our food on vertical farms or under radical new lighting systems may be key to ensuring they have enough to eat.

Challenges for the cities of 2050

What’s for dinner? For that matter, what’s to eat, full stop? In a few decades time, that second question may become pressing. Mankind’s awareness of our food supplies has been heightened by massive crop failures due to millennial level floods, protracted droughts, and numerous food-borne disease outbreaks caused by microbes such as salmonella, E. coli strain 0157, toxoplasma and listeria. Consumers the world over now demand to know where their food comes from and how it is produced.

As if that were not enough to keep us up at all hours of the night, larger issues loom in the near future as our population continues to expand, placing greater pressure on the world’s agricultural industries to meet demands. As a species, we need to know whether modern farming is sustainable and compatible with the rest of the natural world, or is it causing irreparable damage to the environment that will eventually turn today’s serious problem of today into a food crisis of epic proportions in the near future?

To answer some of these questions, it’s important to recall how things got this way to begin with. In the beginning of the modern era of humankind, around 10,000 years ago, most of our earliest cities were located close to agricultural land. Cities needed crops.

In the Middle East, for example, einkorn wheat was first successfully cultivated around 11,000 years ago in the south-eastern part of what is now Turkey. Farming then rapidly spread through the whole of that region. It had many advantages, including the fact that when wheat yields exceeded demand, its grain could be stored without losing any nutritional value. These early cities – Ur, Nineveh, Jericho, Babylon – became established next to their farmland, and for a time flourished in concert with the fields that provided their sustenance. Yet despite the invention of farming, eventually all of these early cities fell into disrepair, their decaying fortified walls and crumbling buildings blending seamlessly back into the harsh, arid landscapes which gave rise to them.

The cause? Desertification. Drier weather patterns caused the failure of this single crop their civilisation depended upon – a mono-crop dependent upon a constant source of water to survive. It was irrigation which allowed such large amounts of wheat to be grown – but falling water levels brought the Middle East’s first agricultural revolution to an end. Only Egypt survived in the long term, thanks to the Nile River.

Today’s cities are at risk from a different set of issues. If trends in urbanisation continue at their current rates, cities could evolve into places where intolerable numbers of people may have to live, and who are forced to live well below the poverty limit, threatening to overwhelm sanitation systems and housing. Food and drinking water would be even scarcer than in many of today’s developing cities.

But this doesn’t have to happen. Most urban centres are experiencing a re-birth of their direct connections to agriculture. Within just the past 10 years, an increasing interest in city farming has been paralleled by the creation of the slow food and locallly sourced, or "locavore" movements, a foundation for the rise of urban farming initiatives.

Bright lights, big city

Included in the mix of successful city-based agricultural projects are rooftop gardens, rooftop greenhouses (both low tech and hydroponic), above-ground planting beds, the use of empty lots as farmland, and vertical farms that occupy tall buildings and abandoned warehouses. Collectively, these examples show the validity of growing food in the city. Not only could be they be carried out efficiently – such as rooftop greenhouses giving much higher yields than outdoor farms – but they could also operate without the pollution associated with outdoor farming.

Already, we have large-scale indoor farms such as EuroFresh Farms in Willcox, Arizona (318 acres (1.3 square km) of one-storey-high hydroponic greenhouses), supplying fresh tomatoes and cucumbers, and FarmedHere in Bedford Park, Illinois, a 90,000 square-foot (8,360 square metre) empty warehouse several storeys tall that was converted into an indoor farm producing tilapia (freshwater fish), a variety of leafy green vegetables, and several value-added products. Indoor farms (controlled environment agriculture or CEA) will undoubtedly replace most outdoor urban agricultural initiatives as the advantages of farming within protected environments become more widely accepted.

Judging by current trends in the development of advanced technologies, city-based CEA appears to have a bright future, as newer strategies emerge enabling indoor farming to be carried with increasing efficiency. Grow lights, for instance, have evolved from ordinary fluorescent light fixtures – expensive to operate – into a series of light-emitting diode (LED) lighting schemes. These LED lights can be adapted to emit light spectra at two dominant wavelengths (red 680nm; blue 460nm) tailored for growing green plants. The benefits of LED grow lights are obvious when compared to other outdated lighting schemes: LEDs cost less to run, and produce greater yields of most commercial crops, such as leafy greens and tomatoes. In early 2013, Phillips in the Netherlands announced it had invented an LED light with energy efficiency 150% greater than existing LED grow lights. This new development promises to significantly reduce energy costs involved in growing such crops.

Although most current vertical farming operations have chosen to specialise in cash crops consisting of leafy green vegetables (easy to grow and much in demand), in the near future, consumers are likely to ask for a wider variety of vegetables and fruits grown without pesticides, herbicides and other harmful chemical contaminants. At that point, vertical farming in tall buildings will replace less productive single-story greenhouses as the source of all city-grown produce. Some form of vertical farming now exists in Japan, Korea, Singapore, the United States, and Canada. New vertical farms are planned for a number of cities in the United States (Milwaukee, Memphis and Jackson Hole in Wyoming), and Linköping, Sweden.

Urban agriculture has the potential to become so pervasive within our cities that by the year 2050 they may be able to provide its citizens with up to 50% of the food they consume. In doing so, ecosystems that were fragmented in favour of farmland could be allowed to regain most of their ecological functions, creating a much healthier planet for all creatures great and small.

UrbanMan's note:  I ran across this other site that is just standing up and proposes to map out urban sources of food, which also brings to light the basic survival skill of recongizing edible (and poisonous) plants and fruits.  

Mapping the Urban Harvest, checki it out at FallingFruit.org


Falling Fruit is a celebration of the overlooked culinary bounty of our city streets. By quantifying this resource on a map, we hope to facilitate intimate connections between people, food, and the natural organisms growing in our neighborhoods. Not just a free lunch! Foraging in the 21st century is an opportunity for urban exploration, to fight the scourge of stained sidewalks, and to reconnect with the botanical origins of food.

Our map of urban edibles is not the first of its kind, but we aspire to be the most comprehensive, bringing together the maps of foragers from all across the internet. We are also including edible species found in municipal tree inventories - databases of street (and sometimes private) trees used by many cities, universities, and other institutions to manage the urban forest. This already amounts to 554 different types of edibles (most, but not all, are plant species) distributed over 570,559 locations. Beyond the cultivated and commonplace to the exotic flavors of foreign plants and the long-forgotten culinary uses of native plants, foraging in your neighborhood is a journey through time and across cultures.

The map is open for anyone to edit, the entire database can be downloaded with just one click, and our code is open-source. We created Falling Fruit driven by our passion for food and the environment.

Wednesday, June 5, 2013

Neighborhood Gardens and Survival Growing




Someone one sent me the poster (at top left above) depicting the differences in urban living between the U.S. and Switzerland. But there is a glimmer of hope for the U.S., between the bad news of drought and other natural disasters affecting our agricultural capability as well as the propensity of smaller farms to  be sold off to either larger farms or suburban development groups,...... there is a growing urban/suburban gardening/farming movement that is good for many reasons......

1 -  Growing your own vegetab;es will teach and provide growing experience to people who otherwise would not get it.  This increases these people's chances of long term surival in a decayed society if they can make it to the point where they can grow crops for survival and bartering.

2 -  The more people in the inner cities growing crops are less people that are shooting and looting.  Seriously, imagine some overall shithole like Detroit where large city blocks can be converted to urban farms and inner city youths diverted from criminal enterprises to something that actually has some value.  I know, it's a pipedream - much more money in drugs, but nonetheless one can hope.

My survival group....and again, we are a loose knit group, sharing information, support and planning, with the overall plan to consoldiate when the need arises.....anyway, my survival group took a hit the other day when we found out we are losing out most experienced and talented grower.   One of our eight families, who plan on bugging in together in one of two suburban locations, is now moving. The good news is that they will be moving to a farm located on the edge of suburban sprawl but they do have a decent moving body of water and two ponds on the property. This will be an option for Bug Out for the remaining seven families as it is within one long day's unencumbered movement via vehicles and possible movement by foot within one week. However the bad news is that the majority of our vegetable - farming growing expertise is leaving with this family. We all probably know someone who we say has a "green thumb" and their counsel is valuable to address all manner of issues relating to growing food. 

Two of our member families,...and one is me,...had started and lost iterations of vegetables already this year. The only good thing is that the year is early enough to re-plant but we move our timeline for harvest back a month.....maybe six weeks.   If this was a SHTF situation and we needed those vegetables to eat then we would be up shit creek without the proverbial paddle. But I guess that's what we stock bulk, canned and survival foods for the hard times.

In the e-mails I receive relating to growing our own food for survival, I received a tip from a reader who used a home improvment chain store gift card to purchase several rolls of various types of small mesh fencing both for his or his neighbors future growing needs or for barter.

While I have four rolls of common barb wire fencing stored away, I made a mental note to do the same as this mesh fencing is not only useful for fencing in gardens and protecting them from varments, it is useful to create obstacles that can be use to slow up or deny entry and/or force channelization for defensive purposes, or even create holding areas for livestock.

Back to growing food,...................the ability to grow your own food is going to be not only a huge asset but most likely the difference between survival or not.  The below article, entitled "America the Vulnerable - History warns we're sleepwalking towards collapse", by James H. Kunstler was published on Peal Prosperity.


Food production system in the Soviet Union had been so direly mismanaged for so long – most of the 20th century – that a whole counter-system of work-arounds had been established in the form of nearly universal household gardening. Even families who lived in the ghastly Modernist apartment slabs of Moscow had access to garden plots in the vast un-suburbanized Russian countryside, and they could get there on public trains and buses. The more privileged had dachas ranging from humble shacks to fancy villas, each with a garden. The Russian people were used to the necessity of growing their own food and had the skills for preserving it to offset the idiocy of the official distribution system in which citizens wasted whole days waiting on line for a cabbage, only to be told they had run out.

When the Soviet system collapsed, the effect on society was far less than catastrophic, perhaps even salutary, because a large cohort of people with an interest in growing food, who formerly only pretended to work in dismal bureaucratic jobs, were now available to reoccupy and reactivate the de-collectivized farming sector that had been a drag on the Russian economy for generations.  After a period of adjustment, one thing was self-evident: no more lines at the Russian grocery stores.

By contrast, in the U.S., even farmers don’t have kitchen gardens. This is not a myth. I live in an agricultural backwater of upstate New York where dairy farming modeled on industrial agri-biz reigned for decades (it’s in steep decline now), and as a rule, the farmers do not grow gardens.

When even farmers don’t grow any of their own food, you can bet that a lot of knowledge has already been lost. American supermarkets operate on a three-day resupply cycle. The system is much more fragile than most Americans probably suppose. My guess is that few even think about it. The resupply system has never failed, except briefly, in localities hit by natural disasters. However, a financial crisis could cripple the food distribution system of the entire nation. Truckers who don’t get paid won’t deliver. Trouble in the Middle East oil nations could provoke an oil crisis – something we haven’t experienced since the 1970s.  There are many ways for this complex system to fail – the point being that when it does, there will be no backup, as was the case in the former Soviet Union.

Saturday, April 6, 2013

The Coming Collapse - A Marxist Plan?

From my sources, General Boykin is a widely respected retired Army General. When he talks people need to listen. While I am not convinced there is a plan or a conspiracy to take this country into Marxism, I do think that the direction this country is heading is on a direct azimuth to a economic collapse.

3-Star retired Army Green Beret General William G. Boykin laid out a step-by-step plan, that was posted on RedFlagNews, he says is the model of how Fidel Castro instituted Marxism in Cuba, Mao Zedong in China, Stalin in Russia and Hugo Chavez in Venzeula:

1.  Nationalize major sectors of the economy

2.  Redistribute wealth

3.  Discredit opposition

4.  Censors opposing viewpoints

5.  Control gun ownership

6.  Develop a constabulary force to control civilian population

The surge of bullet-buying confirmed by the federal government purchase estimates run into the billions of bullets,  even as the U.S. military scrimps to find training ammo is raising lots of questions about the government’s so-far unexplained actions.

But a video that has been around since last year is being forwarded across the Internet as an explanation.

The six minutes recorded by Lt. Gen. William G. “Jerry” Boykin, retired, warns that America is well along the pathway that other societies have used to bludgeon and beat their populations into submission to socialism. Even to the point of establishing a “constabulary force” to control the people.

Maybe those bullets do have a destination.

Boykin now is executive vice president of Family Research Council. But during his military career, he was one of the original members of the U.S. Army’s Delta Force. He ultimately commanded those elite warriors in combat operations. Later, Boykin commanded all the Army’s Green Berets as well as the Special Warfare Center and School.

In all, Lt. Gen. Boykin spent 36 years in the army, serving his last four years as the Deputy Undersecretary of Defense for Intelligence.

On the video, Boykin explains simply that he knows the standard process for creating a socialist or Marxist state because he studied it as a military officer.

His concern is that the six steps “done in every Marxist insurgency” now “are being done in America today.” He lists them:

1. nationalize major sections of the economy (the corporate bailouts),

2. redistribute wealth (the man appointed to head Medicare said health care is “nothing but a redistribution of wealth”),

3. discredit opposition (Boykin said he’s “never been so angry” as when the Obama administration called returning vets, pro-lifers and others a terror threat),

4. censorship (since old guard media already was in line, Obama’s censorship has been through “hate crimes” legislation aimed at Christian pastors and others),

5. gun control (see Washington’s present agenda), and

6. a constabulary force.

That would be “a force that can control the population,” Boykin warned.

To those who say that isn’t present in the U.S., he responds, “Let me remind you that prior to the election (in 2008) the president stood up and said if elected he would want a national civilian security force as large as and well-funded as the military.”

WND reported on Obama’s demands at the time for a “civilian national security force.”

What Obama actually said was: “We cannot continue to rely on our military in order to achieve the national security objectives that we’ve set,” he said. “We’ve got to have a civilian national security force that’s just as powerful, just as strong, just as well-funded.”