Sheeple: Why You Should Feel Sorry For Them

It is often said there only two kinds of people in this world: those who know, and those who don’t. I would expand on this and say that there are actually three kinds of people: those who know, those who don’t know, and those who don’t care to know. Members of the last group are the kind of people I would characterize as “sheeple.”

Sheeple are members of a culture or society who are not necessarily oblivious to the reality of their surroundings; they may have been exposed to valuable truths on numerous occasions. However, when confronted with facts contrary to their conditioned viewpoint, they become aggressive and antagonistic in their behavior, seeking to dismiss and attack the truth by attacking the messenger and denying reason.  Sheeple exist on both sides of America’s false political paradigm, and they exist in all social “classes”.  In fact, the “professional class” and the hierarchy of academia are rampant breeding grounds for sheeple; who I sometimes refer to as “intellectual idiots”.  Doctors and lawyers, scientists and politicians are all just as prone to the sheeple plague as anyone else; the only difference is that they have a bureaucratic apparatus behind them which gives them a false sense of importance.  All they have to do is tow the establishment line, and promote the establishment view.

Of course the common argument made by sheeple is that EVERYONE thinks everyone else is blind to the truth, which in their minds, somehow vindicates their behavior.  However, the characteristic that absolutely defines a sheeple is not necessarily a lack of knowledge, but an unwillingness to consider or embrace obvious logic or truth in order to protect their egos and biases from harm.  A sheeple’s mindset is driven by self centered motives.

So-called mainstream media outlets go out of their way to reinforce this aggressive mindset by establishing the illusion that sheeple are the “majority” and that the majority perception (which has been constructed by the MSM) is the only correct perception.

Many liberty movement activists have noted recently that there has been a surge in media propaganda aimed at painting the survival, preparedness and liberty cultures as “fringe,” “reactionary,” “extremist,” “conspiracy-minded,” etc. National Geographic’s television show “Doomsday Preppers” appears to have been designed specifically to seek out the worst possible representatives of the movement and parade their failings like a carnival sideshow. Rarely do they give focus to the logical arguments regarding why their subjects become preppers, nor do they normally choose subjects who can explain as much in a coherent manner. This is a very similar tactic used by the establishment media at large-scale protests; they generally attempt to interview the least-eloquent and easiest-to-ridicule person present and make that person a momentary mascot for the entire group and the philosophy they hold dear.

The goal is to give sheeple comfort that they are “normal” and that anyone who steps outside the bounds of the mainstream is “abnormal” and a welcome target for the collective.

It would appear that the life of a sheeple is a life of relative bliss. The whole of the establishment machine seems engineered to make them happy and the rest of us miserable. But is a sheeple’s existence the ideal? Are they actually happy in their ignorance? Are they truly safe within the confines of the system? Here a just a few reasons why you should feel sorry for them.

Sheeple Are Nothing Without The Collective

A sheeple gathers his entire identity from the group. He acts the way he believes the group wants him to act. He thinks the way he believes the group wants him to think. All of his “ideas” are notions pre-approved by the mainstream. All of his arguments and talking points are positions he heard from the media, or academia, and he has never formed an original opinion in his life. Without the group telling him what to do, the average sheeple is lost and disoriented. When cast into a crisis situation requiring individual initiative, he panics or becomes apathetic, waiting for the system to come and save him rather than taking care of himself. Sheeple are so dependent on others for every aspect of their personality and their survival that when faced with disaster, they are the most likely people to curl up and die.

Sheeple Crave Constant Approval From Others

Sheeple are not only reliant on the collective for their identity and their survival; they also need a steady supplement of approval from others in order to function day to day. When a sheeple leaves his home, he is worried about how his appearance is perceived, how his attitude is perceived, how his lifestyle is perceived and how his opinions are perceived. Everything he does from the moment his day begins revolves around ensuring that the collective approves of him. Even his acts of “rebellion” are often merely approved forms of superficial “individualism” reliant on style rather than substance. This approval becomes a kind of emotional drug to which the sheeple is addicted. He will never make waves among the herd or stand out against any aspect of the herd worldview, because their approval sustains and cements his very existence. To take collective approval away from him would be like cutting off a heroin junky’s supplier. To be shunned by the group would destroy him psychologically.

Sheeple Are Incapable Of Original Creativity

Because sheeple spend most of their waking moments trying to appease the collective, they rarely, if ever, have the energy or inclination to create something of their own. Sheeple do not make astonishing works of art. They do not achieve scientific discovery. They do not make history through philosophical or ideological innovation.  Instead, they regurgitate the words of others and hijack ideas from greater minds.  They remain constant spectators in life, watching change from the bleachers, caught in the tides of time and tossed about like congealed satellites of Pacific Ocean garbage from the after-wash of Fukushima. The destiny of the common sheeple is entirely determined by the outcome of wars and restorations waged by small groups of aware individuals — some of them good, some of them evil.

Sheeple Have No Passion

If you draw all of your beliefs from what the collective deems acceptable, then it is difficult, if not impossible, to become legitimately passionate about them. Sheeple have little to no personal connection to their ideals or principles; so they become mutable, empty and uninspired. They tend to turn toward cynicism as a way to compensate, making fun of everything, especially those who ARE passionate about something. The only ideal that they will fight for is the collective itself, because who they are is so intertwined with the survival of the system. To threaten the concept of the collective is to threaten the sheeple’s existence by extension.

Sheeple Are Useless

The average sheeple does not learn how to be self-reliant because it is considered “abnormal” by the mainstream to be self-reliant. The collective and the state are the provider. They are mother and father. Sheeple have full faith that the system will protect them from any and all harm. When violence erupts, they cower and hide instead of defending themselves and others. When large-scale catastrophe strikes, they either sit idle waiting for the state to save them or they join yet another irrational mob. They do not take proactive measures, because they never felt the need to learn how.

Consider this: Why do the mainstream and the people subject to it care if others prepare for disaster or end their dependency on the establishment? Why are they so desperate to attack those of us who find our own path? If the system is so effective and the collective so correct in its methodology, then individualists are hurting only themselves by walking away, right? But for the sheeple, successfully self-reliant individuals become a constant reminder of their own inadequacies. They feel that if they cannot survive without the system, NO ONE can survive without the system; and they will make sure that individualists never prove otherwise. “You didn’t build that” becomes the sheeple motto, as they scratch and scrape like spoiled children, trying to dismantle the momentum of independent movements and ventures in non-participation.

Sheeple Are Easily Forgotten

To live a life of endless acceptance is to live a life of meaningless obscurity. When one arrives at his deathbed, does he want to reflect on all of his regrets or all of his accomplishments? Most of us would rather find joy than sadness when looking back over our past. For sheeple, though, this will not be possible — for what have they ever done besides conform? What will they have left behind except a world worse off than when they were born? What will they have accomplished, but more pain and struggle for future generations? In the end, what have their lives really been worth?

I cannot imagine a torture more vicious and terrifying than to realize in the face of one’s final days that one wasted his entire life trying to please the plethora of idiots around him, instead of educating them and himself and molding tomorrow for the better. I cannot imagine a punishment more severe than to spend the majority of one’s years as a slave without even knowing it. I cannot imagine an existence more deserving of pity and remorse than that of the sheeple.

Source: Brandon Smith | Alt-Market

The U.S. Debt Ceiling Has Been Suspended

When is a debt ceiling not a ceiling? When it has been removed. That is the solution that was enacted on Wednesday night to fund the government for the next 90 days. This will last from Oct. 17, 2013 until Feb. 7, 2014. This has some very dangerous implications for Americans. It means as of right now there is no debt ceiling and the federals can spend as much as they like. With all of the previous spending by DHS, and the impending economic crash that we face in the near future, it is terrifying to think what the federals might buy in the next 90 days that they can use against American citizens.

With this scenario in place the writing is on the wall and foreigners can read it well even if Americans cannot. The dumping of treasuries will likely increase substantially over the next few months as the collapse becomes evident to everyone but Americans. This is the end game and most people don’t even know they are in it.

With the debt ceiling removed even temporarily, the government has the ability to overspend and when the ceiling is reinstated in 90 days any new debt over the current limit will not be debatable. The limit will automatically have to be raised to that amount. That is why President Obama answered “no” when asked if there would be a renewed debt debate next year. He knows he can bypass it. When the time comes for the House to raise the debt limit they will either have to raise it to encompass the additional spending or not raise it and possibly trigger a default. Either way the Democrats can blame the Republicans for the additional debt increase or a default.

It could go something like this. The government decides how much extra money they will need until after the elections next year and borrow it now. The money is dispersed into the usual slush funds until needed to avoid any new debt debates before the election. The Republicans will lose the ability to stop uncontrolled government growth next year and the Democrats will deprive them of any debt debates before Nov. This will give the Democrats a big edge in the elections and could allow them to take some seats in the house. Not that changing from one party to the other will change anything, it will just determine how fast we collapse.

By this time next year I suspect the Petrodollar will be on life support if not completely dead and high inflation will be rearing its’ ugly head. The governments answer to this will be price controls which will lead to shortages. Then things go downhill fast from there. That’s if we actually make it to next fall without a serious incident in the U.S. before then.

These are truly perilous times for the U.S. and everyone should prepare as they deem appropriate. The west line has shifted and we are now on the trailing edge of history. If we are to survive as a nation and prosper again we must learn to operate with a smaller more efficient economy as others before us have done. This will entail a smaller more localized economy with more small producers and a stable medium of exchange. The only alternative is to become a failed third world nation with no future.

When you ask someone why they climbed the mountain some will say, because it’s there. I wanted to know if I could do it. It is the same drive that makes people want to win at sports.

Why do preppers prep? What is the point? If something so catastrophic happens that the world is drastically changed or destroyed, why would we want to survive to live anymore?

Dieing is easy. All you have to do is give up and quit. It’s living that is so hard. One of the hardest things a person can do is to wake up in the morning and get out of bed when they know the world is stacked against them. So why do it?

There are three types of people in the world. Those that can do, those that are afraid to do, and those that don’t know what they should do.

I’m the kind of person that will take the time to hammer out a bent piece of metal even if I don’t need it and could easily go buy another one. I like a challenge and I like the feeling of accomplishment when I succeed.

Last year I was working on one of my vehicles when it bent some of the pushrods almost into an S. I could have run down to the parts store and bought new ones but being the cheapskate that I am and loving a challenge, I decided to try to straighten them out. I managed to straighten out 3 but had to buy one new one that was too far gone. They were not expensive but I saw it as a challenge.

About 20 years ago we had a bad winter storm that left several inches of ice on the road. I had to drive 15 miles on these icy roads to get home. About 2 miles from home I rounded a turn and the truck began to slide. My small Chevy 4×4 slid sideways and the front end dropped into a deep ditch until the chassis was touching the ground. I could push up the opposite side of the ditchbank a few inches but could not get enough traction to back out.

A short time later a neighbor came by and a couple of guys tried to help push it out with no success. They said I would need to call a tow truck and offered me a ride. I declined and said I would keep trying. A few minutes after they left I finally stopped and analyzed my situation a little more. I knew I needed to get the front end up and get some traction, but how. I then went into the woods and found a few small logs and threw them behind the wheels. I pushed up the opposite bank a few inches allowing the logs to roll into the bottom of the ditch. When I rolled back the truck pulled itself out of the ditch with little effort.

The point of this story is that I decided I would get it out and would not stop until I had exhausted every possible idea. You don’t know what you are capable of unless you try.

I think preppers are willing to go to extremes and prepare not because they fear death or hardship but because they are willing to explore their absolute limits. They want to know if they are capable of overcoming the obstacle just because it’s there and they have more fear of walking away not knowing than of trying and failing. Some in business might call it the drive to succeed and others might call it the drive to win.

Everyone has their limits and some will prevail when others fail but in the end, the act of trying and not giving up is what’s important. That is what prepping is about to me. If I see a potential obstacle in my future I will try to prepare to overcome it then move on but if I fail and the worst happens I will have a clear conscience. That is what prepping is. Being prepared to face a challenge and giving yourself every chance to overcome it.

When people ridicule those that see potential danger and prepare to overcome it, it is like someone looking at Mt. Everest and saying, oh it’s just a little hill no different than all the others we have crossed, and then they proceed to walk up it with no supplies or equipment. Experience is a virtue that preppers relish and others simply scoff at, at their own peril. To a prepper, the future is a Mt. Everest with no visible top that they are prepared to climb.

Why do people prep for catastrophic situations? Because it’s there.

Source: Project Chesapeake

3 Simple Steps To Buying Your First Gun

With the recent hysteria in the firearms industry, a lot of people are finding themselves buying their first guns. Most of these people have fired a gun before, but more than likely they always put actually buying one on the back burner. Some are completely new to the gun and ammo world and are feeling lost about what gun to buy, what ammo to buy, how much ammo do I need, and how much money should I spend? It’s completely understandable; a lot of gun rights supporters grew up in homes with guns, and therefore have always been around them, so these questions may fall on deaf ears. When taking an outside look in, guns and ammo can really be a confusing matter for a newbie.

Step One: The Importance of Comfort

The first and most often asked question is what is the best first gun to buy? Right now there are so many articles, blogs and YouTube videos out there that all have their opinion on what your first gun should be. The majority of these people giving the advice come to the consensus that the first weapon you should own is something you’re comfortable firing.  This is a very good point, and I agree to an extent. If you’re not comfortable shooting the gun you purchased, then you won’t train with it.

I also disagree, and I’ll tell you why, but first humor me. The most comfortable weapon I’ve ever fired is a tie between a Kimber Ultra Carry 2 in .45 ACP and a Ruger 10/22. Kimber is known for their excellent 1911s, and this one is no different: beautiful, smooth trigger, manageable recoil, amazing ergonomics, and lightweight enough to carry concealed. The Ruger 10/22 is the king of .22s: a pretty much accepted fact. It’s the plinker’s gun of choice. No recoil, lightweight, reliable, and great ergonomics. The Kimber cost a grand though, and the Ruger 10/22 is a great weapon, but not the best for self-defense.

So I can’t afford the Kimber and I don’t want to risk my life with a Ruger 10/22—so what do I do? I get a weapon that’s a little uncomfortable for me and I deal with it. In my opinion, choosing a weapon is all about balancing comfort, firepower, and price. I don’t enjoy the trigger on striker-fired weapons, but I’ll go to war with a Glock any day that ends with “y.” Comfort is an issue, but it doesn’t mean you need to be coddled by your gun. It’s all about balance.

How to hide your guns, and other off grid caches…

Price sometimes becomes a big issue, especially these days. I tend to agree with the motto that you only have one life, so isn’t it worth the money? You’re right it is worth the money, but to be honest, it’s only a nice saying at the end of the day. Most people will live in the present, where no one is shooting at them but rent is due. So at this point it’s about arming yourself with what you can. A Hi Point is still better than knife, a Taser, or pepper spray.

So my answer to this is not to go into buying a weapon with the mentality of simply being comfortable with your gun, but balancing the need for comfort with the needs of firepower and price. So if all you can afford is a Mosin Nagant as your main battle rifle, then that’s your main battle rifle. Having a gun is step one and you can build from there.  You don’t draw comfort from how the weapon physically treats you, but from how it mentally comforts you.

Step Two: Ammo

Ammo is basically gun batteries—a very simple analogy that I use for non-gun people.  You’ve got to have ammo to make the gun go bang. So how much do you need? What kind do you need?

Ammo is something that can be used to help make your weapon more comfortable and controllable. If you own a .44 Magnum, you know the recoil makes it a tough weapon to use for self-defense, but you can load it with the much more controllable .44 special.  If you feel your .38 special is a bit underpowered, then as long as your gun is rated for it, the 38+P round can give you a bit more juice for the squeeze. A little research into the ammo types can go a long way for a gun novice.

How much do you need is all based on your intentions. Is your weapon for concealed carry? If you are carrying the weapon daily then I suggest at least one reload, preferably two. For basic home defense I would also do the same.  If you are a prepper, then can you ever really have enough? I buy my preps in phases: food, survival gear, ammo, etc. This has accumulated into quite the collection, but only through buying only a little at a time.

What kind do you need? For home and self-defense, I always suggest hollow point or frangible ammunition to prevent over penetration. If you have chosen a shotgun as your home defense weapon then I suggest nothing smaller than #4, and preferably you should use buckshot. Shorter barrel handguns should use lighter rounds to ensure the round will have enough velocity to open up the hollow point. Shorter barrels tend to produce less velocity, and lighter rounds fly at a higher velocity.

Preppers should follow the same idea for at least some of their ammo, especially for use in the home. However, buying Hornady tap rounds in bulk is for millionaires. For home defense buying a few boxes of hollow points for your pistols and revolvers is enough. One word of caution: some handguns do not feed hollow points well, so you should run a few mags of your chosen self-defense ammo through it to ensure it won’t fail in a time of need.

For your main battle rifle I stick with full metal jackets. If I’m using a battle rifle, I expect to be fighting at some kind of longer range, and over penetration will not be an issue. A prepper’s favorite, the Mosin Nagant, has incredibly cheap ammunition. The powerful 7.62 round can be purchased for $80 per 440 rounds. So for around $250 you can have a powerful rifle and a decent amount of full-powered ammunition. The round is powerful enough for self-defense and hunting.

Step Three: Accessories

The trend of “tactical” shooting has become quite main stream in the shooting world. I enjoy it; I love having a weapon similar to the one I carry in the Marine Corps. Forward grips, flashlight, lasers, high-speed optics: I love ‘em all. It’s a good time.

Keep Your Handgun Locked and Loaded, Ready For Instant Use – Without Fear Of An Accident!

Here is my issue with tactical shooting: people buy an AR and jump right on the tactical bandwagon. It’s the cool thing to do. These people forget the basics though—maybe the not the basics of shooting, but the basic accessories.

That Eotech is really cool and it’s a great optic, but what happens if the battery dies or the glass breaks? Do you have iron sights? Iron sights should be on every gun, even if it’s just a simple pair of flip-up sights. I love simplicity, and iron sites are as simple as it gets. Having them is a necessity for too many reasons to list—and not just having them, but also staying proficient with them.

It’s been said that slings are for lazy people: I hate that saying with every fiber in my body. Slings are for modern people who realize that in bad situations you may have to take your hands off the weapon to do things like treat the wounded, use a radio, read a map and compass, climb a ladder… and the list goes on and on. The idea that slings are for lazy people is ridiculous. A good sling should be one of the first accessories you buy. The three main different types of slings are single point, two point, and three point. Which one is chosen will be dictated by the shooter and what works for him or her. The weapon can dictate a sling choice as well, as a full-size M1A is not going to work well with a one point unless you’re about 8 foot tall.

A Mag Pull Angled forward grip is awesome, but that tiny rear pistol grip on your AK can’t be comfortable. I am guilty of this kind of decision: when I got my AK variant, the first thing I did was throw a forward pistol grip on it, completely ignoring the more important trigger hand grip.

This isn’t just about grips; it’s about throwing accessories on before you address main problems. You can throw a ton of sexy gear on your AR, but have you ever thought about a better charging handle like the Bravo Gun Fighter series? It’s hardly noticeable and not too sexy, but it actually improves a vital part of the weapon. Address the shortcomings of your weapons before spending the money to tacticalize them, and you’ll be well on your way to a good first weapon.

Source: Off The Grid News

Surviving A Full SHTF Collapse In Bosnia

Many in the precious metals community are eagerly anticipating a complete systemic collapse of the financial system because as “preppers”, they expect to not only survive, but to prosper in a SHTF scenario.  We suspect however that the following MUST READ account of surviving the Bosnian war in the midst of a complete collapse of the grid will be eye-opening in just how difficult it is to survive a full-on Mad Max scenario, even if one has spent years preparing for it.

I am from Bosnia. You know, between 1992 and 1995, it was hell. For one year, I lived and survived in a city with 6,000 people without water, electricity, gasoline, medical help, civil defense, distribution service, any kind of traditional service or centralized rule.

Today, me and my family are well-prepared, I am well-armed. I have experience. It does not matter what will happen: an earthquake, a war, a tsunami, aliens, terrorists, economic collapse, uprising. The important part is that something will happen.

The following is my experience:

Our city was blockaded by the army; and for one year, life in the city turned into total crap. We had no army, no police. We only had armed groups; those armed protected their homes and families.
When it all started, some of us were better prepared. But most of the neighbors’ families had enough food only for a few days. Some had pistols; a few had AK-47s or shotguns.

After a month or two, gangs started operating, destroying everything. Hospitals, for example, turned into slaughterhouses. There was no more police. About 80 percent of the hospital staff were gone. I got lucky. My family at the time was fairly large (15 people in a large house, six pistols, three AKs), and we survived (most of us, at least).

The Americans dropped MREs every 10 days to help blockaded cities. This was never enough. Some — very few — had gardens. It took three months for the first rumors to spread of men dying from hunger and cold. We removed all the doors, the window frames from abandoned houses, ripped up the floors and burned the furniture for heat. Many died from diseases, especially from the water (two from my own family). We drank mostly rainwater, ate pigeons and even rats.

Money soon became worthless. We returned to an exchange. For a tin can of tushonka (think Soviet spam), you could have a woman. (It is hard to speak of it, but it is true.) Most of the women who sold themselves were desperate mothers.

Arms, ammunition, candles, lighters, antibiotics, gasoline, batteries and food. We fought for these things like animals. In these situations, it all changes. Men become monsters. It was disgusting.

Strength was in numbers. A man living alone getting killed and robbed would be just a matter of time, even if he was armed.

Today, me and my family are well-prepared, I am well-armed. I have experience.

It does not matter what will happen: an earthquake, a war, a tsunami, aliens, terrorists, economic collapse, uprising. The important part is that something will happen.

Here’s my experience: You can’t make it on your own. Don’t stay apart from your family; prepare together, choose reliable friends.

1. How to move safely in a city

The city was divided into communities along streets. Our street (15 to 20 homes) had patrols (five armed men every week) to watch for gangs and for our enemies.

All the exchanges occurred in the street. About 5 kilometers away was an entire street for trading, all well-organized; but going there was too dangerous because of the snipers. You could also get robbed by bandits. I only went there twice, when I needed something really rare (list of medicine, mainly antibiotics, of the French original of the texts).

Nobody used automobiles in the city: The streets were blocked by wreckage and by abandoned cars. Gasoline was very expensive. If one needed to go somewhere, that was done at night. Never travel alone or in groups that were too big — always two to three men. All armed, travel swift, in the shadows, cross streets through ruins, not along open streets.

There were many gangs 10 to 15 men strong, some as large as 50 men. But there were also many normal men, like you and me, fathers and grandfathers, who killed and robbed. There were no “good” and “bad” men. Most were in the middle and ready for the worst.

2. What about wood? Your home city is surrounded by woods; why did you burn doors and furniture?

There were not that many woods around the city. It was very beautiful — restaurants, cinemas, schools, even an airport. Every tree in the city and in the city park was cut down for fuel in the first two months.

Without electricity for cooking and heat, we burned anything that burned. Furniture, doors, flooring: That wood burns swiftly. We had no suburbs or suburban farms. The enemy was in the suburbs. We were surrounded. Even in the city you never knew who was the enemy at any given point.

3. What knowledge was useful to you in that period?

To imagine the situation a bit better, you should know it was practically a return to the Stone Age.

For example, I had a container of cooking gas. But I did not use it for heat. That would be too expensive! I attached a nozzle to it I made myself and used to fill lighters. Lighters were precious.

If a man brought an empty lighter, I would fill it; and he would give me a tin of food or a candle.

I was a paramedic. In these conditions, my knowledge was my wealth. Be curious and skilled. In these conditions, the ability to fix things is more valuable than gold.

Items and supplies will inevitably run out, but your skills will keep you fed.

I wish to say this: Learn to fix things, shoes or people.

My neighbor, for example, knew how to make kerosene for lamps. He never went hungry.

4. If you had three months to prepare now, what would you do?

Three months? Run away from the country? (joking)

Today, I know everything can collapse really fast. I have a stockpile of food, hygiene items, batteries — enough to last me for six months.

I live in a very secure flat and own a home with a shelter in a village 5 kilometers away. Another six-month supply there, too. That’s a small village; most people there are well-prepared. The war had taught them.

I have four weapons and 2,000 rounds for each.

I have a garden and have learned gardening. Also, I have a good instinct. You know, when everyone around you keeps telling you it’ll all be fine, but I know it will all collapse.

I have strength to do what I need to protect my family. Because when it all collapses, you must be ready to do “bad” things to keep your children alive and protect your family.

Surviving on your own is practically impossible. (That’s what I think.) Even you’re armed and ready, if you’re alone, you’ll die. I have seen that happen many times.

Families and groups, well-prepared, with skills and knowledge in various fields: That’s much better.

5. What should you stockpile?

That depends. If you plan to live by theft, all you need is weapons and ammo. Lots of ammo.

If not, more food, hygiene items, batteries, accumulators, little trading items (knives, lighters, flints, soap). Also, alcohol of a type that keeps well. The cheapest whiskey is a good trading item.

Many people died from insufficient hygiene. You’ll need simple items in great amounts. For example, garbage bags. Lots of them. And toilet papers. Non-reusable dishes and cups: You’ll need lots of them. I know that because we didn’t have any at all.

As for me, a supply of hygiene items is perhaps more important than food. You can shoot a pigeon. You can find a plant to eat. You can’t find or shoot any disinfectant.

Disinfectant, detergents, bleach, soap, gloves, masks.

First aid skills, washing wounds and burns. Perhaps you will find a doctor and will not be able to pay him.

Learn to use antibiotics. It’s good to have a stockpile of them.

You should choose the simplest weapons. I carry a Glock .45. I like it, but it’s a rare gun here. So I have two TT pistols, too. (Everyone has them and ammo is common.)

I don’t like Kalashnikov’s, but again, same story. Everyone has them; so do I.

You must own small, unnoticeable items. For example, a generator is good, but 1,000 BIC lighters are better. A generator will attract attention if there’s any trouble, but 1,000 lighters are compact, cheap and can always be traded.

We usually collected rainwater into four large barrels and then boiled it. There was a small river, but the water in it became very dirty very fast.

It’s also important to have containers for water: barrels and buckets.

6. Were gold and silver useful?

Yes. I personally traded all the gold in the house for ammunition.

Sometimes, we got our hands on money: dollars and Deutschmarks. We bought some things for them, but this was rare and prices were astronomical. For example, a can of beans cost $30 to $40. The local money quickly became worthless. Everything we needed we traded for through barter.

7. Was salt expensive?

Yes, but coffee and cigarettes were even more expensive. I had lots of alcohol and traded it without problems. Alcohol consumption grew over 10 times as compared to peacetime. Perhaps today, it’s more useful to keep a stock of cigarettes, lighters and batteries. They take up less space.

At this time, I was not a survivalist. We had no time to prepare — several days before the shit hit the fan. The politicians kept repeating over the TV that everything was going according to plan, there’s no reason to be concerned. When the sky fell on our heads, we took what we could.

8. Was it difficult to purchase firearms? What did you trade for arms and ammunition?

After the war, we had guns in every house. The police confiscated lots of guns at the beginning of the war. But most of them we hid. Now I have one legal gun that I have a license for. Under the law, that’s called a temporary collection. If there is unrest, the government will seize all the registered guns. Never forget that.

You know, there are many people who have one legal gun, but also illegal guns if that one gets seized. If you have good trade goods, you might be able to get a gun in a tough situation. But remember, the most difficult time is the first days, and perhaps you won’t have enough time to find a weapon to protect your family. To be disarmed in a time of chaos and panic is a bad idea.

In my case, there was a man who needed a car battery for his radio. He had shotguns. I traded the accumulator for both of them. Sometimes, I traded ammunition for food, and a few weeks later traded food for ammunition. Never did the trade at home, never in great amounts.

Few people knew how much and what I keep at home.

The most important thing is to keep as many things as possible in terms of space and money. Eventually, you’ll understand what is more valuable.

Correction: I’ll always value weapons and ammunition the most. Second? Maybe gas masks and filters.

9. What about security?

Our defenses were very primitive. Again, we weren’t ready, and we used what we could. The windows were shattered, and the roofs in a horrible state after the bombings. The windows were blocked — some with sandbags, others with rocks.

I blocked the fence gate with wreckage and garbage, and used a ladder to get across the wall. When I came home, I asked someone inside to pass over the ladder. We had a fellow on our street that completely barricaded himself in his house. He broke a hole in the wall, creating a passage for himself into the ruins of the neighbor’s house — a sort of secret entrance.

Maybe this would seem strange, but the most protected houses were looted and destroyed first. In my area of the city, there were beautiful houses with walls, dogs, alarms and barred windows. People attacked them first. Some held out; others didn’t. It all depended how many hands and guns they had inside.

I think defense is very important, but it must be carried out unobtrusively. If you are in a city and SHTF comes, you need a simple, non-flashy place, with lots of guns and ammo.

How much ammo? As much as possible.

Make your house as unattractive as you can.

Right now, I own a steel door, but that’s just against the first wave of chaos. After that passes, I will leave the city to rejoin a larger group of people, my friends and family.

There were some situations during the war. There’s no need for details, but we always had superior firepower and a brick wall on our side.

We also constantly kept someone watching the streets. Quality organization is paramount in case of gang attacks.

Shooting was constantly heard in the city.

Our perimeter was defended primitively. All the exits were barricaded and had little firing slits. Inside we had at least five family members ready for battle at any time and one man in the street, hidden in a shelter.

We stayed home through the day to avoid sniper fire.

At first, the weak perish. Then, the rest fight.

During the day, the streets were practically empty due to sniper fire. Defenses were oriented toward short-range combat alone. Many died if they went out to gather information, for example. It’s important to remember we had no information, no radio, no TV — only rumors and nothing else.

There was no organized army; every man fought. We had no choice. Everybody was armed, ready to defend themselves.

You should not wear quality items in the city; someone will murder you and take them. Don’t even carry a “pretty” long arm, it will attract attention.

Let me tell you something: If SHTF starts tomorrow, I’ll be humble. I’ll look like everyone else. Desperate, fearful. Maybe I’ll even shout and cry a little bit.

Pretty clothing is excluded altogether. I will not go out in my new tactical outfit to shout: “I have come! You’re doomed, bad guys!” No, I’ll stay aside, well-armed, well-prepared, waiting and evaluating my possibilities, with my best friend or brother.

Super-defenses, super-guns are meaningless. If people think they should steal your things, that you’re profitable, they will. It’s only a question of time and the amount of guns and hands.

10. How was the situation with toilets?

We used shovels and a patch of earth near the house. Does it seem dirty? It was. We washed with rainwater or in the river, but most of the time the latter was too dangerous. We had no toilet paper; and if we had any, I would have traded it away.

It was a “dirty” business.

Let me give you a piece of advice: You need guns and ammo first — and second, everything else. Literally everything! All depends on the space and money you have.

If you forget something, there will always be someone to trade with for it. But if you forget weapons and ammo, there will be no access to trading for you.

I don’t think big families are extra mouths. Big families means both more guns and strength — and from there, everyone prepares on his own.

11. How did people treat the sick and the injured?

Most injuries were from gunfire. Without a specialist and without equipment, if an injured man found a doctor somewhere, he had about a 30 percent chance of survival.

It ain’t the movie. People died. Many died from infections of superficial wounds. I had antibiotics for three to four uses — for the family, of course.

People died foolishly quite often. Simple diarrhea will kill you in a few days without medicine, with limited amounts of water.

There were many skin diseases and food poisonings… nothing to it.

Many used local plants and pure alcohol — enough for the short-term, but useless in the long term.

Hygiene is very important, as well as having as much medicine as possible — especially antibiotics.

Source: Silver Doctors

Preppers, Patriots And Pirates

Now that the prospects of a second Obama administration are hitting home, the pace of a rapid deterioration are confronting all thinking Americans. The radical transformation that is centrally planned for the economy and authoritarianism administrated by the statists that are part of the most tyrannical regime in memory, is taking place before our eyes. Falling off the cliff is more like descending into the abyss of martial law contrived to eliminate the last remnants of independent citizens. Advocating for civil liberties is treated as a criminal act and the gun culture is looked upon as the preview of a terrorist cell.

Several decades ago, the label of being a survivalist painted a prepared person as odd if not deranged. Today the “prepper” is demeaned as an enemy of the state. The Obama dependency society demands that government is the dispenser of all wants and needs. The threat to the state from a prepared population has become a primary target of the New World Order minions.

So what is so perilous about the Prepper Nation? The overt resistance to arbitrary authority is a fear that any beholden bureaucrat abhors. Combating the grievous culture, which is the federal ruthless and tyrannical government, is a crucial concern of the beltway elitists. Thus, the prepared individual is a dangerous agonist that ignores, if not resists, the best-laid plans for a controlled society.

The American Dream presents a perceptive analysis and alert in Why Are Preppers Hated So Much?

“In fact, it has been estimated that there are now approximately 3 million preppers in the United States alone. So now the mainstream media has decided that mocking the movement is the best strategy, and lots of “critics” and “skeptics” out there have picked up on this trend. Instead of addressing the very real issues that have caused millions of Americans to prepare for the worst, those criticizing the prepper movement attempt to put the focus on individual personalities. They try to find the strangest nutjobs they possibly can and then hold them up as “typical preppers”. The goal is to portray preppers as tinfoil hat wearing freaks that need to be locked up in the loony bin for their own personal safety and for the good of society.”

The mainstream mass media is a state endorsed first account of history writing and propaganda machine. Entertainment is now defined as a process to marginalize any movement that seeks to deal with fundamental problems in a common sense response.

Daisy Luther writes in The Psy-Ops War on Preppers.

“The National Geographic program Doomsday Preppers also has had a lot to do with the demonization of preppers – it’s a full-court press propaganda attack against preppers. The program finds the most outrageous examples of preparedness possible and edits to make them look foolish. An article on the American Preppers Network explains the modus operandi:

The show severely skews Preppers in an effort that can be summed up as “making good television”. This is evident not only through viewing the show itself, but through the format they have built the show around.”

Again in decades past the “Patriotic Cause” was smeared for its emphasis upon advocating a constitutional law application to the ills of excessive government. The current “Liberty Movement” need not require being a card carrying Libertarian to advance the natural rights of individuals. Such protagonists risk the wrath of Obama mania in the era of dictatorial edicts. No more grievous offense can be registered against the establishment than to champion the wisdom of the Founding Fathers.

John Adams wrote in a letter to H. Niles, February 13, 1818.

“But what do we mean by the American Revolution? Do we mean the American war? The Revolution was affected before the war commenced. The Revolution was in the minds and hearts of the people; a change in their religious sentiments, of their duties and obligations…This radical change in the principles, opinions, sentiments, and affections of the people was the real American Revolution.”

Those changes in principles are a foremost hazard in an age of international globalism. Patriots originally defended the spirit of the American Revolution. The meaning of limited government was understood in the hearts and minds of the ordinary populace. Now despotic technocrats act with impunity and violate the most basic precepts of common law.

Anyone who articulates the fundamental separation of powers that curtails outright totalitarian collectivism is no longer heralded as patriotic, but is viewed as a menace to the ruling cabal. The uniqueness of defiance from the “shot heard ’round the world” is captured in the Ralph Waldo Emerson poem, Concord Hymn.

By the rude bridge that arched the flood,

Their flag to April’s breeze unfurled,

Here once the embattled farmers stood,

And fired the shot heard round the world.

The foe long since in silence slept;

Alike the conqueror silent sleeps;

And Time the ruined bridge has swept

Down the dark stream which seaward creeps.

On this green bank, by this soft stream,

We set to-day a votive stone;

That memory may their deed redeem,

When, like our sires, our sons are gone.

Spirit, that made those heroes dare

To die, and leave their children free,

Bid Time and Nature gently spare

The shaft we raise to them and thee.

Emerson appreciated individualism, self-reliance and intuition. Under the Obama dictatorship, patriots like Emerson, would be degraded into submission as treacherous antagonists to the sociopaths that wear a state tiara. The British Crown is not embodied in a King. The Crown is a system of financial and servitude dominance.

In order to understand the nature of this enslavement scheme, the piracy of individual independence is a crucial element necessary to maintain state supremacy.

When buccaneer Henry Morgan was the scourge of the Spanish Main, he was a successful privateer for the British Empire. His appointment to admiral and then to the title of Sir was a reward for his pillaging and plunder. His eventual fall from grace brought down the anger of the English lords. The mechanism used by the ruling class to establish and maintain their power was based upon looting and force.

While initiative demonstrated by pirates that seized ships of treasure was protected as long as the spoils were shared with the Crown, the practice of keeping individual booty risked a hanging offense. The state is always the master robber.

Piracy is the largest business on the planet. Governments routinely make up the rules as it serves the interests of those who wage war to hold onto their power. Legitimacy of any regime is suspect at best and most governments act as criminal syndicates.

The Prepper intuitively comprehends this reality. The need to discredit the preparer of survival subsistence becomes a priority to the thieves that run the social plantation. Preppers are threats because many are practicing patriots. The establishment breeds compliant fools that eagerly support state tyranny as the price of being a ward of the dependency and entitlement society.

The purging of the essence of the American Revolution in the hearts and minds of the population is a betrayal of the John Adams legacy. As the federal behemoth, governance continues to destroy any lawful authority; the pirates of subversion destroy any legality remaining.

The Butchered Law sums up the dilemma.

“When ‘Truth’ is abandoned, ‘Justice’ is denied. Civilization is created and maintained through an arbitration of disputes that respects the ‘Rights’ of ALL Individuals. The ‘Law’ is the guide to settle and judge adherence to criterion of conduct. But it is left to the realm of morals, ethics and values to establish those principles. ‘Equity’ suffers not a right without a remedy, is based upon moral standards of conduct and ethical codes. The ‘Law’ is NOT meant to make those mores, but to apply them. Judges are the umpires of the rules. Lawyers are the presenters of the evidence. And the Jury is the determiner of guilt.”

Those remaining Patriots need to practice the Bill of Rights. Preppers need to share their personal preparation planning with open-minded neighbors. Both must defend the inalienable right of self-defense, especially against the pirate bandits that are planning military force to coerce you to walk the plank.

The article Have Gun, Will Travel puts the piracy perspective into context.

“The State is an entity that results from the organization of society among varied interests, to rule the public. Your natural rights are never transferred to a non living creation of those who have achieved power over others. Citizens cannot negate their own rights, through a process of delegation and consent to any State. But what we have is a chronicle throughout all history of governments telling citizens that their rights are a result of government authority. If you accept this fraud, you can and mostly likely will, gladly accept the pronouncement of civic administration that restrict your ability to preserve your own existence.

Gun ownership is a sideshow to the real struggle. But guns represent a real threat to corrupt masters and their institutions. You already know the terminal consequences that happen to any population that surrenders the means to protect themselves. The record is clear – the society is at a greater risk to their own government, than domination from a foreign intruder.”

Preppers Who Make Surviving The Apocalypse Even Less Fun

Being forced to endure and survive a catastrophic macro event like a monetary or social collapse is perhaps one of the worst experiences I could imagine.  Such a crisis leads to just about every crime and inhuman action in existence, and, the time required for a culture to right itself and rebuild is severely protracted.  A hurricane or earthquake or tidal wave; these calamities are short lived and easy in comparison.  The point is, as survivalists who are preparing to make an economic end-game scenario as “comfortable” to live through as we can, it is incumbent upon us to consider the kind of company we keep during the gambit.  Some allies will make that mad world bearable; others will bring the madness to your doorstep

Many preppers are aware of the dangers inherent in our progressively deteriorating nation.  Unfortunately, some of them are completely unaware of the dangers inherent within themselves.  Building a solid community of people to rely on during a collapse is absolutely essential, and the larger the group of liberty minded neighbors the better.  But, if certain ground rules are not established from the very beginning, a rainbow of personal issues and character flaws could very well destroy years of effort.  Care must be taken by all parties involved to ensure that internal conflicts remain at a minimum, and when they do arise, that each person is wise enough to resolve issues in an adult manner.

I hate to say it, but you will inevitably run into some folks that are beyond compromise and beyond hope.  Working with them is like pulling teeth…shark’s teeth…from your jugular.  Here are just a handful of powder keg personalities that will make the apocalypse more than a living hell for you and your friends if they manage to latch onto or take leadership in your survival watch…

1) The Self Assumed “Leader”

The “Assumed Leader” is not actually a reliable or practical leader; he just thinks he is, and reminds everyone loudly whenever he can find occasion.  He does not generally do this by screaming “I AM YOUR LEADER!”  Instead, he attempts to micro-manage every aspect of the survival group and shows early signs of control issues.  The Assumed Leader will first make forceful suggestions to test the waters, scoffing angrily whenever people do not strictly follow his advice.  If he gains traction, his suggestions turn into orders, and he begins to act as though he is somehow in a superior position to the rest of the community.

He seems to have an answer to every question or concern, which would be nice if he actually knew what he as talking about half of the time.  Usually, this is not the case.  He may have expertise in a certain field, like farming, or building, or engineering, or even defense, and this is indeed valuable.  However, his mastery of one area of knowledge has inflated his ego to massive proportions and he now pretends as if he is some kind of hyper-educated elitist potentate.  When approached with alternative options and methods, he will respond with ridicule as if you have no clue what you are talking about.  When his ideas are criticized, he will react with fury, and try to remove dissenters from the community entirely.

The best way to avoid these people is to discover them early in your prepping project, and to make certain that NO ONE becomes a De facto dictator.  Every person with particular expertise within the community should be given respect in that specific field, but not given authority over all decisions.  The experienced farmer should offer leadership when it comes to farming, but step aside when it comes to defense and defenders, and vice versa.  It is best to keep in mind that the most effective leaders always ask those around them for aid and advice before coming to any conclusion.  The worst leaders already assume they know everything.

2) The Feudal Lord

The Feudal Lord is an Assumed Leader who has managed to lure other preppers into a Commune, rather than a Community, and there is a considerable difference.  He is often a well-off survivalist who has suddenly realized that for all his money and land and supplies, he is basically defenseless, and needs an organized group to protect his bounty.  He entices other preppers into the fold with ideas that he is building a legitimate and fair community, and with land already available, many take interest.  The problem is, the Feudal Lord believes possession of the land that the group is defending automatically makes him Grand Poobah, and that those people are not equals, but servants and serfs.

I have found that Feudal Lords also have a tendency to charge people “fees” for the right to join their communes.  They will argue that this is designed to “vet” candidates and see if they are truly “serious” about survival prepping.  In the dark corner of their minds, however, they actually believe that they are OWED a tithe from anyone who wishes to earn the “privilege” of becoming a permanent installment on their property.  From the very beginning they go into the project with almost no sincere regard for the people they are working with.

The reality is, the Feudal Lord’s land and supplies are utterly meaningless without security and without aid.  His survival riches can be taken in an instant by a mere handful of looters, or even one experienced raider.  Without other people, treated as equals in survival and ready to lay down their lives to protect each other and him, he has nothing, and is foolhardy to think otherwise.

This is not to say that all landowners who try to centralize a group on their property are seeking to become mini-kings of a mini-kingdom.  If rules and agreements are made early on, and everyone understands their role, then such an arrangement could work.  But, if the landowner purposely avoids set agreements, appoints roles to people without asking them, changes the plan regularly to suit himself, and tries to leech money out of participants, then it’s time to walk away now before it is too late.  Eventually he WILL use his position as landowner as a means to dominate, and will threaten to cast people out who disagree with his methods.

The best way to avoid these characters and the commune situation altogether is to not centralize on a single piece of land, but to organize in a neighborhood fashion, where everyone maintains sovereign control of what they do and all aid is voluntary.

3) The Moral Relativist

There is, sadly, a small subsection of survivalists out there who do not plan to live off their own preps; they plan to confiscate the preps of others by force and solve every problem at the barrel of a gun.  In their mind, a crisis situation calls for the abandonment of conscience and the application of a “survival of the fittest” mentality.  They believe that morals are all well and good when civilized society remains, but a source of weakness during catastrophe.  Their philosophy is: Only the strongest of men will be able to set aside principle and “do what needs to be done”.  That is to say, they believe you must become the monster to defeat the monster.

In fact, only men who are able to hold onto their principles during the worst moments are strong.  Weak men run away from conscience, using the excuse that times are “different and difficult”.  They are not survivalists, they are terrorists in every sense, and they will only hurt our ultimate goal of rebuilding a free, prosperous, and individualistic society.

These people should be avoided like the plague.  They will make enemies wherever they go, ask you to do highly questionable things, and push your community into annihilation.  Eventually, somebody is going to put them out of their misery, and it’s best to not be around when that happens.

4) The Obsessive

The Obsessive is a person whose drive is initially impressive but also ultimately destructive.  His entire life revolves around survival prepping and impending doom.  Certainly, it is better to be extra concerned about the economic crisis on the horizon than to be utterly oblivious.  A smart man over-prepares.  But, there is such a thing as overkill, even in the world of survivalism.

No one can ever do enough fast enough in this person’s eyes.  He will whine constantly about how he is the only one taking preparations seriously, and how everyone else is a lazy bum.  He will become frantic on a daily basis, admonishing the group or community on their lack of urgency.  In a leadership position, this person is a nightmare, creating constant waves of tension and panic, instead of calmly offering solutions or constructive criticism.

Obsessives are generally unimaginative people with little talent or intelligence who use their prepping lifestyle as their only means to feel superior to others.  They tend to become legends in their own minds, dreaming of the day when everyone will desperately cling to them and their remedial survival know-how.  They fantasize about all the people who “wouldn’t take their advice” (usually smug advice), crawling in squalor begging them for help one day.

The Obsessive’s motto is:  “Let me tell you why you are wrong and how you are lazy!”  Instead of: “How can I help you fix this?”

We all need a break once in a while from the horrors we know are waiting for us.  To step back and enjoy what we can of a beautiful day or good friends is not the same as being a freeloader or a backslider within your prepper group.  Survival is about more than sustaining the body.  It is about more than chopping wood, stockpiling ammo, and slaving over a piece of land from sun up until sundown like a mindless drone just to get by; it is also about sustaining the heart and the mind.  Otherwise, what is the point of living?

5) The Ulterior Motive Drama Queen 

The Drama Queen is a man or woman who is loosely interested in survivalism, but wants to join your community for other reasons, and these reasons may cause many members dismay.  The opposite of The Obsessive, you’ll notice a strange non-involvement on their part or lack of interest as far as participating in survival discussions and decision making.  They will often hand over all their survival preparation plans to another person or persons, while hovering like a gnat around the community searching for that special something.

They may be looking for friends and social recognition.  They may be afraid of collapse and simply trying to lock into ANY group regardless of whether they fit, becoming disenchanted later.  They may enjoy the excitement of feeling like they are involved, and are living vicariously through the accomplishments of others.  They may just be looking for a date.  Ultimately, their primary objective is not to build a working community, but to get something out of the community beyond safety.

If they do not get what they want, they raise hell, using whatever excuse happens to be handy without ever admitting their real motivations.  They will deliberately start unnecessary drama, attempt to create divisions, focus on one person as the cause of all their troubles, or blame the whole group for the heartache in their life.  They will attempt to draw everyone into their personal soap opera in the hopes of becoming the focal point, sharing strange and extremely private issues with anyone who accidentally offers to listen.

Eventually, they will be seen for what they are and will lose the ear of the other preppers, who obviously have better things to worry about, but not after wreaking some havoc in the process.

6) The Zealot 

The Zealot has a perfect picture in his mind of how his survival community is going to look.  Absolutely perfect.  The problem is, all people are imperfect and all have different conceptions of life, and this disturbs and disrupts the Zealot’s fantasy.  It is one thing to be careful in whom you associate with when assembling a prepper organization, but it is entirely another to hold everyone to insane standards that even you cannot meet.

The Zealot usually wants to be in charge so that he can vet and control each member of the group, but this is not always the case.  Zealots are also sometimes highly anti-social, showing interest in a group for a short time and then suddenly walking away as if no one is up to par.  He may base his zealotry on a misplaced religious fervor or philosophical inflexibility, but he will not be happy until everyone sees the world the way he does, or until they meet his grandiose brand of moral flawlessness.  For him, it is not enough that the community around him shares a love for liberty and a disdain for tyranny, they must also be “spiritually pure” in his eyes.

One mistake or disagreement by a member of the group earns them a black mark on the Zealot’s list which he never forgets.  From then on, that member is the enemy, and the Zealot will engineer conflict after conflict until the person gives up and goes away, or until he can convince the group that person is more trouble than they are worth.

The great dilemma for any survivalist is to balance personal freedom and a peaceful home life with the reality that they will not last long without relying on a group.  Other people bring talent, friendship, and safety to our lives, but they also bring baggage.  The key is to work with those who know how to manage as much of their own baggage as possible, who are aware of themselves and are willing to police their own quirks, and who have not swan dived off a cliff into extreme disturbia.  No survival community can withstand the savage assault of national collapse otherwise.

Source: Brandon Smith | Alt-Market

Are Black Friday Riots A Preview Of The Civil Unrest That Is Coming When Society Breaks Down?

If Americans will trample one another just to save a few dollars on a television, what will they do when society breaks down and the survival of their families is at stake?  Once in a while an event comes along that gives us a peek into what life could be like when the thin veneer of civilization that we all take for granted is stripped away.  For example, when Hurricane Sandy hit New York and New Jersey there was rampant looting and within days people were digging around in supermarket dumpsters looking for food.  Sadly, “Black Friday” also gives us a look at how crazed the American people can be when given the opportunity.  This year was no exception.  Once again we saw large crowds of frenzied shoppers push, shove, scratch, claw, bite and trample one another just to save a few bucks on cheap foreign-made goods.  And of course most retailers seem to be encouraging this type of behavior.  Most of them actually want people frothing at the mouth and willing to fight one another to buy their goods.  But is this kind of “me first” mentality really something that we want to foster as a society?  If people are willing to riot to save money on a cell phone, what would they be willing to do to feed their families?  Are the Black Friday riots a very small preview of the civil unrest that is coming when society eventually breaks down?

Once upon a time, Thanksgiving was not really a commercial holiday.  It was a time to get together with family and friends, eat turkey and express thanks for the blessings that we have been given.

But in recent years Black Friday has started to become even a bigger event than Thanksgiving itself.

Millions of Americans have become convinced that it is fun to wait in long lines outside retail stores in freezing cold weather in the middle of the night to spend money that they do not have on things that they do not need.

And of course very, very few “Black Friday deals” are actually made in America.  So these frenzied shoppers are actually killing American jobs and destroying the U.S. economy as well.

The absurdity of Black Friday was summed up very well recently in a statement that has already been retweeted on Twitter …

It has gotten to the point where it is now expected that there will be mini-riots all over the country early on Black Friday morning each year.  The following are a few examples of the craziness that we saw this year…

-“Fights break out when stores open on Black Friday”

-“Black Friday madness at Georgia Wal-Mart”

-“Black Friday Frenzy: 2 Run Down in Washington, Man Pulls Gun in Texas”

-“Black Friday 2012: Rush at Victoria’s Secret Pink at Oak Park Mall in Overland Park, Kan.”

-“Black Friday shoppers smash door at Urban Outfitters”

-“Black Friday Shopping Hysteria From Around The Country [PHOTOS]”

-“Disturbance leads to scare at Westroads Mall”

-“Teens In Custody After Woodland Mall Fight”

-“Boy Robbed During Black Friday Shopping At Arundel Mills”

-“Shoppers Were So Obsessed With Black Friday Deals They Left Their Infants Unattended”

Fortunately, many Americans are starting to get fed up with Black Friday.  In fact, one activist named Mark Dice actually went out and heckled Black Friday shoppers this year.  I found the following  to be very funny, and I think most of you will too…

In the end, it is not that big of a deal that people want to fight with one another to save 50 dollars on a cell phone.

But this kind of extreme selfishness and desperation could become a massive problem someday if society breaks down and suddenly millions of extremely selfish and desperate people are scrambling for survival.

With each passing day our economy is getting even weaker, and the next wave of the economic collapse is rapidly approaching.  What are people going to do when the next spike in unemployment hits us and nobody can find work?

To get an idea of where things are headed, just look at Europe.  In both Greece and Spain the unemployment rate is over 25 percent and civil unrest has become almost a constant problem in both of those countries.

So what kind of riots will we see in the United States when the economy gets much worse than it is now?

Already there are signs of social decay all around us, and most Americans are completely unprepared for what will happen if a major disaster or emergency does strike.

Sadly, the reality is that most Americans live on a month to month basis.  Most families do not have any emergency savings to speak of, and one recent poll found that 55 percent of all Americans only have enough food in their homes to survive for three days or less.

To me, that is an absolutely insane number.

We just came through a summer of extreme drought and global food supplies have dropped to a 40 year low.  Our world is becoming increasingly unstable, and the global financial system could fall apart at any time.  Most of us just assume that there will always be huge amounts of very cheap food available to us, but unfortunately that simply is not a safe assumption.  The following is from a recent article in the Guardian…

Evan Fraser, author of Empires of Food and a geography lecturer at Guelph University in Ontario, Canada, says: “For six of the last 11 years the world has consumed more food than it has grown. We do not have any buffer and are running down reserves. Our stocks are very low and if we have a dry winter and a poor rice harvest we could see a major food crisis across the board.”

“Even if things do not boil over this year, by next summer we’ll have used up this buffer and consumers in the poorer parts of the world will once again be exposed to the effects of anything that hurts production.”

When I watch my fellow Americans trample one another to get a deal on a television or a video game, it makes me wonder what they would be willing to do if they went to the store someday and all the food was gone.

Desperate people do desperate things, and someday if there was a major economic breakdown in the United States I think the level of desperation in this country would be extremely frightening.

Source: The Economic Collapse

A Bad Evening For Karl Rove

It was obvious the election was going to be stolen months ago. Rove and company were pulling the same old tricks we have been watching since 2000 with the voting machines, ‘de-registering’ voters, and using phone calls to keep people away from the polls. It looked like a cakewalk for Karl.

Then reports started coming through the Voter Integrity mailing lists with reports of voters seeing their votes transferred, not just from Obama to Romney, but Romney to Obama. True? Who knows.

The jumping vote was exactly what Marilyn Blankenship of Dallas, Texas, reported happening when she tried to vote for the Libertarian candidate in 2004 instead of George W. The little mark, all on its own, finds the X Spot has been selected for them. Mrs. Blankenship protested vehemently for several years, to no avail.

From both sides the cheating started as both candidates ruthlessly destroyed the opposition from within their own party. Ron Paul was just the most visible example.

Did Obama design a strategy to ignore the popular vote, going for the Electoral College! Did it, too involve hacking? Who knows. Ol’ Karl ‘s eyes probably bugged out. Our electoral process is dead either way.

Now it is kind of quiet. No one is happy. Those who were supporting Obama as the lesser of two evils can now consider how very bad the last four years have been. The lesser of two evils is still not a good deal.

Mike Adams, of Natural News predicts these events.

#1) Huge expansion of TSA and the surveillance state;
#2) Expansion of secret arrests of American citizens;
#3) Acceleration of national debt blowout and endless fiat currency creation;
#4) Rapid expansion of GMOs and USDA collusion;
#5) Increasingly dictatorial government health care;
#6) Immediate surge in sales of guns and ammo;
#7) Accelerated erosion of the Bill of Rights and civil liberties;
#8) Continued destruction and looting of the U.S. Economy;
#9) A “giant sucking sound” of employers leaving America;
#10) Stepped-up attacks on veterans and preppers.

There is really only one solution. We need to take back the vote to the most local level, voting on paper ballots which are counted openly and transparently at the precinct. People from all political viewpoints have traditionally done this routinely with no friction. Each precinct publishes to the Internet. We can count for ourselves.

It can be done. See you in 2016.

Bludgeon Constitution Replaced By Fiat Edicts

The rule of law is an empty memory of the past. The powers that rule are globalists that control governments and use their media outlets to write the first version of history. They pull the strings of the intelligence agencies that function as over throwers of non-compliant regimes. Constitutional restrictions that limit impulsive or capricious dictates once protected citizens. With the utter eradication of separations of power and the “Federalist“, form of distinct roles and authority of independent States, the core legitimacy of the United States vanished.

As central ascendancy consolidates, the tyranny of the majority becomes obvious to even the most vocal statist proponent. The reason for this development is well defined. The most wicked and corrupt criminals have hijacked the system and dismantled the checks and balances, placed into the constitutional framework.

However, let us be crystal -clear. The original formation of a supreme central government doomed the infant republic to the same fate of all other countries. Most Americans are so deep in denial that they are unable to confront the truth of this conclusion. The legislative, legal and judicial systems are all complicit in the destruction of the independence of individual states. States’ Rights are essential, and are the original jurisdiction authority, that formed a purported limited role for the federal government.

The hedonistic hordes that extend their consent to the dictatorial governance keep voting for more oppression. A nation of free people endowed in Liberty has become a cesspool of cretins begging for more social welfare benefits and cradle to grave guarantees.

The reliance of executive orders to circumvent, “The People’s House“, has relegated Congress to a homeless child in a globalist orphanage. The internationalists, who unremittingly sought the dismantling of the principles and goals of the American Revolution, have commandeered the compromised institutions of power. Their handpicked candidates and administrators are mere tools for the banksters and corporatists in their long quest to subjugate the public under fiat edicts that only benefit the oligarchy elites. With the passage of the Patriot Act and the NDAA, you have two dreadful examples of the extent of the authoritarianism that rules this country.

Where is the national outrage? What happened to the spirit of the populace that once fought tyranny, but now accepts the boot of a despot on the genitals of a neutered stud? Macho-man, now relegated to video games, act as wimps and yes-men to threats from the federal government stooges.

The military-industrial-security complex wages uninterrupted warfare without any declaration of war or real national threat. The homeland is euphuism for the police state. The domestic drone deployment sheds the Bill of Rights that presupposes the criminalization of ordinary citizens. Who really cares, when the public continues to accept the dictates of the ruling class?

Preppers, labeled as internal terrorists, are slated for FEMA re-education camps. While bleeding heart collectivists point to the recent east coast storm as justification for more big government. Soon the call for more federal powers will be posted all over the sick social networks by the halfwits that solicit an upgrade to the newest Obamaphone.

The causes for the disintegration of commonly shared traditional culture are part of a master plan to destroy our country. Unless people overcome their fear of ostracization by establishment apologists and discover a backbone, the obligatory pattern of propaganda indoctrination, will remain.

As the country is coerced into greater compliance, resistance to illegitimate orders is the crucial element needed to foster a needed confrontation with federal thugs. The visual images and verbal sucking up by New Jersey Governor Chris Christie to the dictator in chief, Barack Hussein Obama is symptomatic of the national malaise that worships at the throne of the “Dear Leader”.

Those confused that Christie disrespected the GOP campaign, fail to appreciate that loyalty to the political system requires homage to the dictatorship, before your next gratuitous photo op. A toady in find standing is a necessary requirement to get your own party’s nomination in the next presidential cycle.

Even at a time of national distress and regional emergency, Washington bureaucrats should not decide the tasks of rebuilding. Yet, the strings attached for federal aid, always requires a pound of flesh to be paid. Could compliance with Agenda 21 be in the fine print for FEMA claims?

Such edicts poison the good will from constructive relief. However, the largesse out of the deficit coffers of the federal treasury necessitates states succumb to political blackmail. This is not a new trend, only the acceleration, frequency and audaciousness as the intimidation increases. Conditions for assistance are dandy opportunities to keep the heel on the throat of the petitioning states.

The constitution is used as wrapping paper, when it comes to the prescription plan used by agencies like FEMA. Carving up the remnants of the prophetic wisdom from separations of power is now the new national anthem.

Allowing federal power grabs has left a legacy of tyranny that touches every level of government. Yet, the apathetic public refuses to fight this absolutism. The globalists have succeeded in their scheme to brainwash the servile populace into accepting that there is no way to alter the supremacy of the beast. Since most voters reflect that conclusion in their balloting practices, the technocrats keep skimming off local home rule with every regulation or decree.

Community ordinances best serve the populist interest. For this very reason, globalists are relentless in their hatred of individual independence. Arbitrary decisions are a way of life for the enablers of the potentates. The elites that write legislative policy also dominate the selection and composition of the administrative bureaus that control much of the political process.

However, accepting that the political process is relegated to feeble attempts to elect new representatives misses the practical reality. The imbalance in the Federalistmodel of government is a root cause that allows elites to destroy society.

What is lacking in the hearts and spirit of our fellow neighbors is the courage to accept Patrick Henry’s proclamation: “Give Me Liberty Or Give Me Death!” This country was born by revolution, but is dying under the fright that the federal government may target you as a dissenter. A national revolt is imperative, fought not with weapons, but with the bravery of trusting in the salvation of your immortal soul.Your own self-respect demands action. Indifference is no longer an option. Without political involvement and vocal pressure, the forces of dictatorial edicts will intensify. The constitutional right to assemble and petition your government is now criminalized.

“The US House of Representatives voted 388-to-3 in favor of ‘The Federal Restricted Buildings And Grounds Improvement Act of 2011′. The bill will allow the government to bring charges against Americans exercising their rights as protesters, demonstrators and activists at political events and other outings across America. So not only can you be subjected to the indignity of being labeled a low-level terrorist for daring to petition your government for grievances, but protest itself, and other ‘disruptive activity’ in the presence or vicinity of government officials, buildings, & ‘official functions’ is being deemed illegal.”

Political officials fear the public because the enforcement arm of the evil empire is disposable. The goons that obey orders are beginning an awareness of their expendability. How long will they protect the mad emperor or another tyrannical successor, when the outpour of the masses, finally realizes that the police state is designed to prey on your own person?

Careerist political sycophants and big government lackeys enable the globalists. They are the adversary of the public. The deception of a beneficial federal government is manifestly absurd. Discretionary crony favoritism is a result of this corrupt political culture. The beltway disease infects even the sturdiest of public servants.

The depravity virus is more acute in the federal syndrome because the central government perfects deficit spending as a high art form. Wasting money is rewarded in its extreme. Issuing favors or buying votes qualifies for a vested pension. Pursuing foes with harsh regulations, stipulates your allegiance for advancement.

The bludgeon club used to impose federal dictates grows longer and weighs heavier with each year. Wishful thinking that elections will place honest representatives into seats of power is often pointless. However, for those so inclined to register disapproval in the upcoming presidential election, you might want to consider some alternative candidates.

AMERICAN THIRD POSITION PARTY (A3P) – Merlin Miller

CONSTITUTION PARTY – Virgil Goode

LIBERTARIAN PARTY – Gary Johnson

Read their stand on the issues. The power elites will not quietly relinquish their stranglehold of their perverted and repressive government. The fundamental failure of citizens rests with their reluctance to confront evil. The federal government is despotism on steroids. Until the public accepts this assessment and commits themselves to replace the tyrannical monster with a limited constitutional republic, the fate of the nation will continue to deteriorate. A fiat presidency is pure treason. Woefully, how many folks are willing to manifest the moral fiber of Patrick Henry?

How “Crazy Survivalists” Make The World A Better Place

I was recently interviewed by a journalist for a local newspaper who was developing a story on the exponential rise of the “prepper lifestyle” in America, most especially in Western Montana.  Being an outsider to the Liberty Movement, she was naturally curious as to what motivated us to make what some in our culture would see as a drastic and bewildering leap away from the mainstream.  She was equally fascinated with our willingness to travel great distances and make substantial sacrifices to live in regions like the American Redoubt.

I will not deny, Montana has indeed become a “hotbed” of survivalism and Constitutionalism, or what the Southern Poverty Law Center would call “extremism and domestic terrorism”.  I lived in Pittsburgh for years while writing for Neithercorp and Alt-Market and rarely ran into like minded individuals aware of the tenuous status of our society.  Within days of moving to Montana, I was being recognized by complete strangers in supermarkets excited to discuss the inner workings of Keynesian monetary corruption, precious metals investment, and Alinsky disinformation tactics.  Yeah…I know…it’s weird.

After living for a while in the Redoubt, you begin to forget that there are still many people in this country that are utterly oblivious to the epic dangers around them, as well as painfully helpless in knowing what to do when those dangers land on their doorsteps.  Speaking with the newspaper reporter, and my experiences at Paulfest in Tampa, Florida, reminded me that the world has yet to be reminded of the value of survivalism.  There is still a gap, a disconnect, a psychological twitch of the masses, and it compels me to explain, yet again, what they are missing.

I had thought about using parables like the ancient Greek story of Cassandra, who was given the gift of foresight and prophecy, but also stricken with a curse which prevented anyone from believing her dire warnings.  Or the story of Noah, who was given an omen, a vision of catastrophe, and directed by God on how to save a remnant of life, while knowing that most of the people around him would perish.  And what about Galileo, who simply tried to point out the scientific operations of the universe in which we exist, only to be ostracized by his church and government?  In these modern times, however, many find it increasingly difficult to relate to mythology, bible lore, or even historical precedence.  Luckily, there is always cinema…

While considering this topic, as if by design, I stumbled upon the film ‘Take Shelter’, the story of a man who suffers from acute intuition.  His vivid dreams warn him of a nightmare event, but is he a prophet, or a schizophrenic with delusions of doom?

Human beings hold within them a natural mechanism, a moral dynamo that compels them to alert others to the dangers they see silhouette on the horizon.  Every survivalist today has at one time or another felt the overwhelming weight of responsibility that comes with knowing; not believing, but KNOWING the future.  The film ‘Take Shelter’ illustrates the internal and external dilemmas of the survivalist in a way that is striking, beautiful, and affirming.

Prophetic dreams and spoken messages from the heavens are not necessarily required to understand the dilemmas our nation faces in the new millennium.  It does not take a psychic to see the mathematical certainty of dollar devaluation and loss of world reserve status.  The degradation of our civil liberties in the name of state security.  The formation of unaccountable supranational bodies which are quickly encroaching upon our individual sovereignty.  In fact, a person would have to be mentally blind, deaf, and dumb to NOT grasp what is happening right under their noses.  Sadly, this is where a majority of the American populace lives.

Even at Paulfest, a convention and congregation of what I consider some of the most awake and socially aware people on the planet, I discovered that at least half of those in attendance had a minimal sense of urgency as far as a true national crisis was concerned, clinging to the assumption that they had yet more time to stab at top down solutions and political tap dancing that continually falls short of what is necessary to restore liberty.

It is difficult to retain one’s composure in the face of the astounding absurdity of normalcy bias.  The idea that today’s comforts will continue on tomorrow and forever is a powerful one.  To break such apathy requires steadfast resolve.  Sometimes, only startling and terrifying events are enough to rattle the mindless masses.  Sometimes, you just have to let the chips fall where they may, speak the truth to the best of your ability, and let the herd sort out the rest in their own good time, whatever there is left of it.  What we see as a forgone conclusion, what we passionately fight to expose, in their minds often translates into belligerence and a frightening subversion of their joyous naivety:

As we invade their perfect world with the dreadful facts of life, their subconscious reflex is to regard us as a tangible threat.  The first reaction is always to laugh.  Ridicule without substance is the primary defense of the ignorant.  But, what if you don’t go away?  What if your arguments are too precise?  What if there is too much clarity to your position?  What if you have a whole movement of people behind you?  What if you are a force to be reckoned with, and cannot be refuted or dissuaded?  What if logic dictates the admission that you are right, and they are wrong?

Then arises fury…

It is not uncommon for the truth tellers of an era to be labeled the enemies of society.  To be held as criminals, traitors, and terrorists.  In fact, the establishment has in the past two decades made every effort to paint survivalists as the boogeymen of our age; unstable and unpredictable wild-men hell bent on destruction in the name of some hallucinatory ideology.  Using generalizations, false associations, and outright lies, corrupt governments seek to fool the citizenry into viewing survivalists as a fringe element and a dark underbelly of their otherwise serene state sponsored existence.

In contrast, I would like to point out to the non-prepper populace the advantages of having some of us “loony” survivalists around.  Rarely in the mainstream are we ever presented with the utility of survival proponents, and how they actually serve the interests of the “greater good” to quote a phrase often used by drooling collectivists and statists who desperately try to defame the prepper subculture…

Advantage #1:  Survivalists Have Their Own Stuff – They Don’t Need Your Stuff

Survivalists have their own stuff, which means, they will likely not feel compelled to take your stuff, if, that is, you have any stuff worth having.  In the midst of a calamity, being surrounded by preppers is one of the best insurance policies a person could acquire.  Think about it; would you rather have me as a neighbor, with my guns, ammo, food supply, off-grid solar power and water, and anti-establishment angst, or, would you rather have some superficial sickly fake friendly suburban yuppie with a Mercedes, an overpriced boat, a $100,000-plus debt obligation, a repressed inferiority complex, a vicious department store-addicted trophy wife, three spoiled crusty children with a vocabulary of 80 words or less, and an empty pantry?  In a crisis, who is the real threat?  Come on!

Advantage #2:  Survivalists Keep To Themselves – Your Business Is Your Own

Have you ever lived in the metro areas of California, New York, or Illinois?  Ever notice how disgustingly nosy many people tend to become in the more socialist minded regions of America?  Neighborhood administrations that cite you for tall grass.  Permits on top of permits.  Sneers when you smoke a cigarette, even outdoors.  Environmental restrictions bordering on the insane.  City governments telling you what you are allowed to eat and drink and how much.  It’s so enraging it makes you want to wrench someone’s head off their neck and squeeze their skull like an oversized pimple.

Survivalists respect privacy.  Grow a garden on your front lawn.  Smoke your cigarettes (or whatever).  Drink your damned 2 liter mega-gulp.  Let your kids play with the water hose for hours, or open a lemonade stand.  Don’t worry; the authorities will never be told, because we don’t care.  We have far more important things to worry about.

Advantage #3:  Survivalists Are Handy

Ever have that one friend, or neighbor, or family member who just seems to have all the right answers when it comes to gardening, or solar power, or repairing that hunting rifle?  Who knows all the best camping and fishing spots?  Who always seems to be willing to go out of his way to help you set up a good emergency kit in case of that next hurricane, flood, tornado, earthquake, etc?  You may very well be working with a survivalist and not even know it.

Advantage #4:  Survivalists Insulate A Region

The more survivalists there are in a particular area, the more likely you are to get through a disaster, whether you have prepared for it or not.  A network of survival communities offers an enormous variety of skills, an alternative economy and barter system to tap into, safety from harm during a major implosion or socially unstable times, and the ingenuity required to rebuild after the disaster.

Let me put it this way:  who is more likely to return your environment to a livable state?  Groups of survivalists with the know-how and the desire because they actually LIVE in the region?  Or, a faceless government bureaucracy like FEMA with no meaningful ties to the community in which you live?

Advantage #5:  Survivalists Cook Up A Mean Barbeque 

Show me a survivalist that doesn’t grill like an artist.  I defy you!

Advantage #6:  Survivalists Stand Their Ground When It Counts

If you ever need someone to back you up in a terrible situation, you can’t do much better than a survivalist.  They are used to adversity.  In fact, many of us deliberately put ourselves through strenuous training environments in order to learn where we will falter.  We make a point to uncover our own weaknesses and improve upon them.  Our current comfort obsessed society is almost devoid of this characteristic.  Finding a single person who will not let you down is a gift.  Finding an entire movement of such people is a miracle.  Don’t let it go to waste…

Advantage #7:  Survivalists Are Time Capsules For Liberty

Every culture needs watchmen.  Not government paid watchmen who seek out power, but citizen volunteers who shun power.  Without such watchmen, fundamental principles can be lost or destroyed, and the people of a nation are apt to forget where they came from, and what made them successful in the first place.  Though the masses have a tendency to be lured away from the legacy of freedom which once served them towards the twisted ideologies of tyrants and collectivists, in the long run they always return, seeking the almost forgotten abundances of liberty.  When the people go searching for freedom once again, the survivalists, the enduring watchmen, will be waiting to greet them.

Advantage #8:  Survivalists Are Not Afraid To Remind Society Of Its Mistakes

It is easy to be apathetic to the criminality of government.  It is easy to cocoon one’s self inside his own little life, within the minor dramas of his family and of his job.  It is easy to turn away from the big picture and hope that the monsters of the world sort themselves out, or overlook us entirely.  Unfortunately, this is not how human history has ever been resolved.  The worst problems never disappear on their own.  Survivalists understand this and are willing to take personal risks in order to uncover the nature of the beast for anyone willing to listen.  They understand that their best chance of survival is to preempt a disaster before it ever occurs.  The value of this to the longevity of our species cannot be calculated.  Without those who can overcome the fears created by conformity, mankind is lost.  Our very future depends upon the principles of survivalism, which teaches us to embrace our individuality, love the individualism within others, stand unyielding in the face of oppression, and fight to our dying breath to see that the best in all of us is one day fully realized.

Source: Brandon Smith | Alt-Market

The Prepping Pyramid: A Culture of Preparedness

The term “prepping” refers to the process by which you incrementally increase your level of preparedness for emergency/disaster on a continuum from short-term self-reliance to long-term self-sufficiency.

The term “preps” can be defined as tangible items or systems that you acquire or build and use in prepping. While some people may include intangible things such as weapons training, drills, skill development, etc. in their definition of preps, for the purpose of this piece, the focus is on physical items.

The stereotype that survivalists live in underground bunkers in the middle of nowhere is rarely accurate. The media sensationalizes the extreme cases, but the reality is that a holistic survival plan involves several locations and several different scales. I’ve organized the list below in order of scale from the smallest to the largest caches of preps in a pyramidal model to represent overlapping zones.

1. Body
2. Bug Out Bag
3. Bug Out Vehicle
4. Workplace/School
5. Home
6. Bug Out Location

Body

Preppers promote taking some level of responsibility for your safety and security by not only developing self-defense, first-aid, and other survival skills sets, but by carrying implements, tools, devices, and supplies on your person at all times. Having preps on your person isn’t only so you can help yourself and your family, it’s also so you can help others in need.

What you carry on your person is often referred to as “Every Day Carry” or “EDC”.  On this scale your preps will include an array of smaller survival gear items. The number of items you carry will be determined by the amount of pockets, belt accessories, carabiners, etc. you’re comfortable with. Fashion and function can be hard to reconcile, but it’s worth an attempt. Many people walk through the world without care or thought of the potential for anything to go wrong. The expectation that something bad will “never happen to me” is a symptom of what is clinically called “normalcy bias”. This is a psychological tendency to avoid considering and logically preparing for disruptions in modern business-as-usual life.

Unfortunately if we encounter bad guys on the street, chances are police won’t arrive on the scene until the incident is over. If we’re in a disaster situation, emergency medical responders may not be able to get to us in the time it takes to die or become seriously ill from preventable causes such as bleeding, dehydration, infection, etc.

Items often carried every day by preppers may include some of the following:

cutting tool, fire making tool, multi-tool, parachute cord, led light, compass, first-aid items (band-aids, alcohol pads), whistle, water purification tablets, emergency medical info card, list of emergency contacts, bandana, cell phone with additional charged battery, flash drive, notepad, writing utensil, “forever” postage stamps, prepaid phone card, cash, checks, herbal energy pills, p38 can opener, water bottle, pepper spray, misc. legal self-defense implements…

Bug Out Bag (BOB)

The “Bug out Bag”, aka “BOB”, is the survivalist slang for what is more officially known as a 72-hour emergency kit. However, the critical distinction is that a BOB must be in the form of a back-pack that can allow you to move on foot, hands-free.

On this scale of preps, you may have some of the same items that you’d have for EDC, however in greater lengths, quantities, container sizes, etc. as you’ll have the main column of the bag, plus many extra pockets, compartments, straps, clips, etc.

Here’s a list of some of the items often found in or attached to BOBs.

More fire making tools, more parachute cord, flashlight, batteries, candles, first aid kit, extra medications, hand crank/solar emergency weather radio, signal mirror, toilet paper, tweezers, toothbrush, misc. toiletries, sun block, bug spray, warm clothes (kept dry in a large zip lock bag), rain gear, gloves, hat, sun glasses, mess kit (eating dish/utensils), lightweight pot for cooking/boiling water, salt/spices, three days worth of dry food, hooks/sinkers, wild edible plant identification books, bigger water bottle, water filtration device, 5 gallon collapsible water jug, small bottle of bleach, folding shovel, wire saw, sewing needles and floss, pen or pencil wrapped with duct tape, pen or pencil wrapped with fishing line, full size notebook, envelopes, plastic bags, garbage bags, survival manuals, entertainment devices such as books or games, documentation package (including emergency contacts, local emergency service provider phone numbers, evacuation procedures/plans/packing checklists, multiple evacuation routes, encrypted bank account, social security, etc. numbers, list of family medications/medical conditions, etc.), maps, sleeping bag, space blanket, tube tent, therma-rest pad, tarp, poly sheeting, legal self-defense tools carried in accordance with local law…

It helps to separate and categorize your items into zip-lock bags and distribute the bags into to different pockets and compartments for easy access. The bags also help keep your gear dry.

This sounds like a lot of stuff but if properly organized and compacted a lot of it can comfortably fit in/on a large camping pack. Depending on the nature of the situation, you may want to drop a lot of weight so you can cover more ground on foot. In Saving Private Ryan, the scene in which the translator joins the unit shows how a combat-inexperienced soldier tries to pack everything he was issued in his bag for the mission, and is made to leave most of it behind by his fellow soldiers. This is a useful bit of insight demonstrating that “the more you know the less you need,” and that you have to be realistic about your ability to haul more than the bare minimum.

Your normal commuting vehicle (which may or not be your “Bug Out Vehicle”) should always contain your BOB so that it will be accessible wherever you drive. Storing it in the trunk also ensures you’ll never forget it at home, and when you need to lighten the load and take a few items out, you can lock them in your trunk or locked box in a flat bed truck.

Of course if you’re riding a bus, if you are a passenger in someone else’s vehicle, or riding a bike, it won’t be feasible to bring your BOB with you. In those situations you’ll be relying on EDC, or a smaller backpack with a selection of items from your BOB depending on the situation. For example, if you’re hiking, you’d want to grab a selection of items from your BOB and put them in your day pack.

Most importantly, every member of your family should have a BOB, and every BOB should contain the same version of the documentation package. In an emergency you’ll then be able to co-ordinate your response based on documented protocols that everyone has the current printed version of.

Bug Out Vehicle (BOV)

Your “Bug Out Vehicle” may be a huge 4-wheel-drive monster or a compact car.

Older diesel trucks are preferable as they have less electrical components that can fail, and they can be converted to run on veggie oil.

Whatever you prefer and have the means to acquire can serve as your BOV, though traditionally it’s a truck or SUV. All that’s required is that it be stocked with extra preps and be equipped with accessories that will optimize performance and provide redundancies in evacuation scenarios.

Besides simply scaling up some of your preps (such as a 5 gallon bucket of dry food that preferably doesn’t require cooking, one or more gallons of water, a larger first aid kit, etc. the following are some preps specific to the BOV:

Flares, basic tools, spare parts (headlights, belts, bulbs, etc.), quarts of oil, extra fluids, map books, solar power system, power inverter, spare tire, snow chains, jack, blankets, tent, boots, trench tool, books, gas can (keep empty unless it can be stored safely and securely), more legal self-defense tools transported in accordance with local law, any other large utility/emergency items that don’t fit in or are not appropriate for your BOB.

Every family vehicle should be to some degree prepped to function as a BOV, even if there’s one larger vehicle that’s designated as the main BOV.

Workplace/School

This refers to the place where most of your time is spent outside of the home, wherever that may be. The goal would be to get your colleagues or co-workers on-board with prepping so that they collaborate and pool resources to ensure that there are preps on-site. Whether in a basement, storage closet, or under your desk you should try to get some amount of food/water/medical supply storage set up. If nothing else, try to convince whoever’s in charge to at least have emergency kits on-site that are sized appropriately for the number of people in your office, dorm, etc.

Most likely if done right, you can store a lot without it being a nuisance and have some sense of security knowing that if you end up stuck there, you won’t die of dehydration, starvation, or mild injuries.

Home

Without being too extreme, you should see your home as your fort. It’s the place where you let down your guard at night and go to sleep. It’s the place where you raise your family, or are being raised by your family. It’s where you should feel the most safe and secure, and where you should have the most control of your survival. Again, many of the prep items you’ll want at home have been listed above, but here are some preps that are unique to the home:

large water tanks, rain water catchment systems, months to years worth of long term food storage in the form of canned foods and dry foods including your favorite grains, legumes, seeds (for eating, sprouting, and planting), nuts, spices, dried herbs, dried fruits, etc. in 5 gallon bucket/mylar bag/oxygen absorber kits on a rotation system so you “eat what you store and store what you eat”, sprout jars, green house, permaculture garden (food forest if possible), irrigation systems, herbal medicine cabinet, organic recycling center (i.e. compost, vermiculture, humanure, etc), guard dog(s), livestock, food dehydrator, canning equipment, solar power system with battery bank, more legal weapons, low and high tech security systems, toiletry reserves, fuel reserves (gas, firewood, etc.), generator, full camping gear for the whole family, bigger/more specialized hand/power tools, fire-proof lock box for important documents, back up computers, back up external hard drives, lots of useful practical/instructional books and videos, cash, precious metal reserves, large self-assembled or store bought emergency kits…

Bug Out Location (BOL) 

The “Bug Out Location” aka “BOL” or “survival retreat” is your ultimate destination in the case of forced or voluntary evacuation from your normal place of residence. Ideally it would be far out of the urban and suburban zones though not necessarily totally isolated. For those who can afford the luxury, the BOL is a piece of rural land that you own and have put some kind of legal temporary or permanent inhabitable structure on (trailer, teepee, yurt, cabin, house, natural building, etc.)

If you don’t have the luxury to buy land, you may discover that you have relatives living in the countryside, or friends living on farms with whom you can pre-arrange to stay with under an agreement that you’ll pay rent, or do work-trade.

No matter how you gain access to a temporary or permanent living situation for you and your family, what matters is that you have a plan in place. The plan should ensure that you have a main BOL and several fall back locations if the main location is inaccessible, and have multiple routes to each location. It’s also important to work out a system whereby if members of your family or group reach a certain rally point, there’s a predefined way to “post” inconspicuous communications about who’s reached that point, when the got there, and where they left to.

In terms of the scales of preps, the main BOL will often have the largest stockpile of preps when you factor in the ability to hide or bury large caches and the ability to establish permaculture edible forest gardens, ponds, springs, streams, swales, wood lots, wind power, solar power, micro-hydro systems, etc.  Ultimately the ideal BOL would be a rural homestead. However the extent to which it’s developed by the time you need it will be determined by how much time, energy, and money you can afford to put into it while you’re not actually living on it.

In rural zones, the land itself is a prep. The more you do to prep the landscape, the more yields you’ll produce that are regenerative. In an apartment or small urban lot, you’re usually not able to access and produce renewable resources on the scale needed to be fully self-sufficient (of course in co-operation with neighboring food producers). Thus urban preps are generally only going to serve for a finite period of self-reliance until the supplies run out.

Ideally if you’re “bugging out” to your BOL, you’ll have taken as many of the preps from the smaller levels of the pyramid with you so you’ll be combining preps as well.

The BOL is typically seen as the end point of the game where if you’re successful at making it there alive you’ll be relatively safe, secure, and supplied. However, most preppers acknowledge to varying degrees and extremes that to be prepared while being surrounded by the unprepared is a recipe for disaster. Generally, the higher the population density, the greater the risk of being jumped, besieged, or raided. So the more remote you are, the less likely the zombie hordes will be to expend the energy to hunt you down in the sticks. There’s a trade-off though which is that the further you are from at least a small town, the less services are available to you and the less functional interdependence you’ll have with neighbors who you may need to rely on to save your life someday, or even just to barter with.

Re-establishing a Culture of Preparedness

No individual, family, or group is an island. Ideally the largest step of the prepping pyramid would be a culture of preparedness wherein redundancy is built into every system that the population relies on for basic survival. It’s not utopian, a hundred years ago it was common sense. According to prominent prepper Stewart Rhodes in episode 602 of The Survival Podcast, “during the Cold War, this country had enough grain to feed all of its people for three years in the event of a nuclear winter, now they have enough to feed all of us half a loaf of bread.”

Our ancient and recent ancestors had the wisdom to live by the ways of the ant, not the grasshopper (see Aesop’s fable “The Ant and the Grasshopper”). In the modern survivalist movement, it’s accepted that winter is coming again as it has in the past and will in the future.

Apocalypse would be an easy way out, but I believe the world will continue, not end. We’ll have to choose to be prepared. Moreover, it doesn’t take TEOTWAWKI (the end of the world as we know it) for any individual or family to experience an acute localized disaster.  Be it a job loss, an injury, death of a loved one, etc, when the s**t his hit your fan, it’s your preps that will carry you through in a state of relative comfort and help buffer desperation.

Jack Spirko of The Survival Podcast has provided numerous planning and strategy tools such as the “threat probability matrix” and notion of “disaster commonality” (see episode 166) to help people identify the threats that are most likely to occur in their personal lives, location, climate, etc. and understand that in many ways the fundamental preps and planning needed to survive anything from the “mundane to the insane” are the generally the same.

It’s important while prepping to be creative and make it fun-based not fear-based. Thanks to the modern survival movement there’s a fail safe principle built-in which essentially states that whatever you do to be prepared for disaster should improve your quality of life whether or not s**t hits the fan! The best example is growing some portion of your own food.

Just avoid panic buying. As with Permaculture the best solutions are small and slow. Continually incrementally add to your preps when grocery items go on sale, when you get extra cash, when you can score something on Craigslist, when there’s a yard sale, etc. Start small, make it fun, get into the groove and you’ll enjoy having a more sensible lifestyle that actually empowers you to be a more safe, secure, confident, and dutiful cosmic citizen, community member, and family member.

Source: Ben Lawson | RealitySandwich.com

Is Now The Time To Move Away From Major U.S. Cities?

As the U.S. economy falls apart and as the world becomes increasingly unstable, more Americans than ever are becoming “preppers”.  It is estimated that there are at least two million preppers in the United States today, but nobody really knows.  The truth is that it is hard to take a poll because a lot of preppers simply do not talk about their preparations.  Your neighbor could be storing up food in the garage or in an extra bedroom and you might never even know it.  An increasing number of Americans are convinced that we are on the verge of some really bad things happening.  But will just storing up some extra food and supplies be enough?  What is going to happen if we see widespread rioting in major U.S. cities like George Soros is predicting?  What is going to happen if the economy totally falls to pieces and our city centers descend into anarchy like we saw in New Orleans during the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina?  In some major U.S. cities such as Detroit, looting .  There are some sections of Detroit where entire blocks of houses are being slowly dismantled by thieves and stripped of anything valuable.  Sadly, the economy is going to get a lot worse than it is at the moment.  So is now the time to move away from major U.S. cities?  Should preppers be seeking safer locations for themselves and their families?  Those are legitimate questions.

According to a recent Gallup poll, satisfaction with the government is now at an all-time low.  Americans are rapidly losing faith in virtually every major institution in society.

Anger and frustration are rising to very dangerous levels, and we are rapidly approaching a boiling point.

When people feel as though they have lost everything, they get desperate.

And desperate people do desperate things.

In many communities in the United States today, crime has become so terrifying that people are literally sleeping with their guns.

The following is a story from Rancho Cordova, California that one of my readers recently sent me….

When I first moved here, it was not a bad place, it was quiet and clean.

However, over the past three years this place has gone to the dumps there are thugs and unruly people everywhere.

I have prevented two car break-ins by scaring these thugs away.

While I was home on thanksgiving weekend, someone decided to break into my apartment.

They trashed my place stole all my items and even took my law enforcement (LE) vehicle to include my equipment.

I m sure they had been watching me for a while because they did not take items that contained my identification.

Thank god, I had my weapon with me.

In many areas of the country, law enforcement resources are being dramatically cut back due to budget problems at the same time that crime is rapidly rising.

Right now, the city of Detroit is teetering on the verge of bankruptcy.  Officials there recently announced that due to budget constraints, all police stations will be closed to the public for 16 hours a day.  From now on, they will only be open to the public from 8 AM to 4 PM.

But in Detroit the police are needed now more than ever.  The following is what one British reporter found during his visit to Detroit….

Much of Detroit is horribly dangerous for its own residents, who in many cases only stay because they have nowhere else to go. Property crime is double the American average, violent crime triple. The isolated, peeling homes, the flooded roads, the clunky, rusted old cars and the neglected front yards amid trees and groin-high grassland make you think you are in rural Alabama, not in one of the greatest industrial cities that ever existed.

The population of Detroit is less than half of what it used to be.  Over the past few decades people have left in droves, and large sections of the city are in an advanced state of decay.

Not too many people want to buy homes in Detroit now.  At this point, the median price of a home in Detroit is just $6000.

The following video contains some video footage of the “ruins of Detroit” that is hard to believe….

Detroit has become a very scary place.  100 bus drivers in Detroit recently refused to drive their routes out of fear of being attacked on the streets.  The head of the bus drivers union, Henry Gaffney, said that the drivers were literally “scared for their lives“….

“Our drivers are scared, they’re scared for their lives. This has been an ongoing situation about security. I think yesterday kind of just topped it off, when one of my drivers was beat up by some teenagers down in the middle of Rosa Parks and it took the police almost 30 minutes to get there, in downtown Detroit,” said Gaffney.

But it is not just Detroit that is having these kinds of problems.

In Cleveland, over 50 percent of all children are living in poverty and abandoned houses are everywhere.

The city has already demolished about 1,000 homes, and there is a plan to demolish 20,000 more homes.  The following comes from a recent CBS News report by Scott Pelley….

Perfectly good homes, worth 75, 100 thousand dollars or more a couple of years ago, are being ripped to splinters in Cleveland, Cuyahoga County, Ohio. Here, the great recession left one fifth of all houses vacant. The owners walked away because they couldn’t or wouldn’t keep paying on a mortgage debt that can be twice the value of the home. Cleveland waited four years for home values to recover and now they’ve decided to face facts and bury the dead.

Down in St. Louis they have a different problem.  In some of the worst areas of the city, roving packs of wild dogs are a serious threat to children that are walking to school.  A recent report by the local CBS affiliate in St. Louisdescribed the situation this way….

…Lewis Reed is sounding the alarm. “I’ve witnessed packs of dogs, 10 and 15 dogs running together, and I’ve seen all these dogs I’m talking about they don’t have collars, they don’t have tags, these are truly wild dogs,” he said.

Reed says stray dogs are terrorizing the north side. “It’s obscene that parents have to walk their kids to school, in some parts of the city, with a golf club to fend off wild dogs.”

How would you feel if you had to fend off wild packs of dogs as you walked your child to school?

These kinds of conditions can be found out on the west coast as well.

For example, there is an area of San Francisco that is known as “Hunter’s Point” that is an absolute nightmare.  In Hunter’s Point, over half of the population lives in poverty and more than half of all children live in a home where there is no father present.  The following is what one reporter discovered on a visit to Hunter’s Point….

Abernathy and I cut through the complex, tromping over an expanse of dirt and concrete toward the northeast end of the development, where a row of apartments looked down from a grassy hill. We paused next to a vacant, boarded-over unit to take in the scene: A stream of ****, piss, tampons, and toilet paper spewed from a dark hole in the sidewalk, poured down the hill, and formed a sort of **** lagoon next to the street. Weeds, about six inches tall, were growing in the little lagoon.

Raw ****, obviously, is not cool. Beyond the fact that it smells and looks nasty, fecal matter provides a haven for dangerous bacteria, most notably E. coli, a virulent pathogen that can sicken and even kill humans, especially infants.

When conditions like this reign, it is a prime breeding ground for crime.

In major U.S. cities all over the United States, drug dealing, gang activity and prostitution are on the rise.  The following comes from a recent article in the New York Times….

In November, a terrified 13-year-old girl pounded on an apartment door in Brooklyn. When a surprised woman answered, the girl pleaded for a phone. She called her mother, and then dialed 911.

The girl, whom I’ll call Baby Face because of her looks, frantically told police that a violent pimp was selling her for sex. He had taken her to the building and ordered her to go to an apartment where a customer was waiting, she said, and now he was waiting downstairs to make sure she did not escape. She had followed the pimp’s directions and gone upstairs, but then had pounded randomly on this door in hopes of getting help.

In some major U.S. cities, the gangs have virtually taken over.  In an article entitled “City of Ruins“, Chris Hedges described what life is like today in Camden, New Jersey….

There are perhaps a hundred open-air drug markets, most run by gangs like the Bloods, the Latin Kings, Los Nietos and MS-13. Knots of young men in black leather jackets and baggy sweatshirts sell weed and crack to clients, many of whom drive in from the suburbs. The drug trade is one of the city’s few thriving businesses. A weapon, police say, is never more than a few feet away, usually stashed behind a trash can, in the grass or on a porch.

As I wrote about the other day, the FBI says that there are now 1.4 million gang members inside this country.  That number has increased by 40 percent since 2009.

Organized criminal behavior by groups of young people is on the rise all over the nation.  Just check out  which shows a flash mob robbery happening in Montgomery County, Maryland.

Sadly, this is just the beginning.

This country is still enjoying a tremendous amount of prosperity.  We still have a very high standard of living compared to most of the rest of the world.

So how nightmarish are things going to get when the economy gets really bad?

The most frightening thing is when these criminals start invading private homes.

The following home invasion story from Sacramento, California was sent to me by one of my readers a while back….

Somebody got into my sister’s house last night while she was out. My mom was upstairs, but didn’t hear anything. Whoever it was, they ate some chips and sorted through a stack of maternity clothes my sister had ready for selling on ebay. He left a dirty pair of boxer shorts and a bottom dentures on the dining room table. Fortunately, he was gone when she got home. I’m amazed, but the police actually came out and collected fingerprints and his boxers and false teeth. Probably a homeless guy. He may have switched his dirty boxers for a clean pair of maternity jeans, so the police just have to look for a guy wearing women’s maternity pants with no lower teeth. 

Because of stuff like this, an increasing number of Americans have decided that it is better to be armed.

The truth is that you never know when you will get jumped.

For example, in Pennsylvania the other day one 65-year-old man was suddenly knocked off his bicycle by three teen thugs.

The 65-year-old man responded by pulling out his gun and shooting two of them.  One of the teens was killed.

Down along the border with Mexico, many ranchers have discovered that a gun battle could potentially erupt on any night.  The federal government has refused to protect the border, and so millions of illegals just keep streaming on in.  The following was recently posted on standwitharizona.com….

Barbed wire fencing doesn’t keep illegal aliens off the property anymore. One Starr County, TX rancher doesn’t have time to worry about the illegals these days. He now worries about the smugglers protecting their loads.

“I don’t think they would have any conscience of taking someone’s life,” the rancher says.

He saw that will to kill firsthand. A smuggler shot at him on his own land.

“One round was fired at me, and it missed my head by about two feet,” says the rancher.

He says there’s only way to react.

“Fire all the rounds you have, reload, and do it again,” says the rancher.

The more stories like this you read, the easier it is to understand why more than 10 million guns were sold in the United States during 2011.

The truth is that you never know when you may need to defend yourself.

This past New Year’s Eve, a single mother named Sarah McKinley was home alone with her three-month old son when she discovered that two armed men were trying to invade her home.  If she had not had a gun, there is no telling what might have happened.  The following is from a news story  about that incident….

An Oklahoma woman was recently home with her 3 month old son when two men tried to break in.  Armed with a shot gun and a pistol she called 9-1-1.

Operator: “Are your doors locked?”

Caller: “Yes, I’ve got two guns in my hand.   Is it ok to shoot him if he comes in this door?”

Operator: “I can’t tell you what you can do but you do what you have to do to protect your baby.”

The mother did shoot killing one of the intruders.  Oklahoma police called the shooting justified.

What would you have done in that situation?

America is rapidly changing, and we all need to adapt to the new reality all around us.

The truth is that America is not the same place it used to be.  In some U.S. cities, authorities are actually dumping dead bodies into mass graves.

Just check out what the Daily Mail says has been going on in Chicago….

It’s a practice more closely associated with third world countries, but in bleak times in a Chicago-area suburb, 30 people were buried in a mass grave on Wednesday.

The pauper’s burial section at Homewood Memorial Gardens was established for those who could not afford to pay for a burial plot.

And it is a problem that’s sweeping America as tough economic times have led to an increase in the number of indigent burials the morgue must perform.

All over the country, major U.S. cities are flat broke and are rapidly decaying.  They are filled with impoverished people that are rapidly becoming angrier and more frustrated.

There simply are not enough jobs for everyone.  Millions of ordinary Americans spend their days agonizing over the fact that they cannot provide even a basic living for themselves and their families.

And as the economy gets even worse, the economic despair in this country is going to grow to unprecedented levels.

So is now the time to move away from major U.S. cities?

In the end, each of us is going to have to answer that question for ourselves.

Jobs are scarce, so if you have a good job right now it may not be wise to give it up.  It can be incredibly challenging to move to a new area when you don’t have a job.

One solution may be to move farther away from your current job so that you are in a more rural setting.  But the rising cost of gasoline can make that a very expensive proposition.

Some families are purchasing second homes that they can “bug out” to in the event of a major disaster or emergency.  But if your financial resources are limited that may not be an option for you.

In the final analysis, you have just got to do the best you can with what you have.

But if you are able to move, it is better to do it while times are relatively stable (like now) than when times are very unstable.

So what do all of you think?

Do you think that now is the time to move away from major U.S. cities?

Source: The American Dream

The Poor Man’s Guide To Survival Gear

Special Note:  Obviously, an entire book could be written on this subject, which is a task beyond the scope of this article.  The purpose of the following piece is to give those with financial difficulty a foothold on prepping without added pain.  It is meant to be a starting point, not a compendium.

A friend of mine took note recently that a large portion of activists involved in the Liberty Movement had hit extremely hard times, or had been struggling financially even before the general economic collapse began to take hold.  He asked me my theory on why it was that so many of us are always so broke.  I could only relate that it is almost always the working class poor in any society that first sees the effects of a corrupt government and a faulty economic system.  Those who legitimately hold to the principles of self sustainment, and fair play, are usually the first to be stabbed in the back by the establishment, and so, they are the first to become politically active against it.  That is to say, sometimes we have to lose almost everything before we are able to see the bigger picture.

While I consider this fact a source of solace in these extraordinarily hard times, it still does little to put food on the table, or survival gear in the bug-out-bag.

The overall consensus within the prepper community is that survival planning is expensive, and yes, it certainly can be.  Another consensus is that you “get what you pay for”; also true…to a point.  My belief is that while no prepping model is free of expense or of quality concerns, perhaps there is a middle road that activists with thin wallets can take which will provide solid gear for less money, and that will serve most of the functions of high-end gear that is ten times as expensive.  Let’s examine a foundation list of those items that can help get you started now….

Backpack (Bug Out Bag)

You can literally spend hundreds of dollars on many top-of-the-line framed backpacks, and some may even be worth it, but it is not necessary to spend that kind of cash to purchase a decent bug-out-bag.  In fact, surplus ALICE packs with frames can be had online for as little as $30-$60, sometimes even less if they are a bit worn.  The ALICE system provides adequate back support for your needs, for a low price, and the quality of the design is military proven.

Camouflage Clothing

Camouflage clothing and gear runs a wide spectrum in price, and it’s hard sometimes to find the colors you want at a discount.  One trick is to buy any camo you find on the cheap, and then lightly dye it to match the colors you want.  For instance, one could gauge the dye levels with small samples, find the right strength, and then dye light camo like Digital ACU a darker green.  Eventually, you may be able to make your own camo with any clothing you come across.  It sounds like a pain, but it’s actually quite easy, and could save you considerable amounts of money.

Extreme Weather Protection

Gortex is outrageously expensive, unless you get lucky and find it used or discounted.  While it is difficult to beat the quality (or the warrantee) on most Gortex cold weather gear, there are cheaper alternatives that get the job done almost as well.  A great extreme cold weather coat is the N-2B Flight Jacket designed to mil spec and resistant to most wet weather conditions.  The jacket was meant specifically to deflect freezing temperatures and it can be had for around $120 or less.

Purchasing several packages of polypropylene thermal underwear could also save your life in extreme weather situations.  They are lightweight, can be easily layered, can be packed into a tiny corner of your B.O.B., and will retain much of your body heat.  Even if you don’t have a lot of winter gear with you, absolutely do not forget to bring the poly-wear!  $30-$50 for a shirt and pants together is well worth it.

Finally, buy wool socks.  Buy plenty.  Look for deals, but do not cut them out of your budget.  Any weather below 20 Degrees Fahrenheit and you’ll want to double up.  Cold feet, on a march, on patrol, on guard duty, sucks.  They can be damaged permanently if you are not careful.

Combat Boots

Top quality combat boots traditionally run anywhere from $100 to $300 depending on the brand.  One rule that you cannot break regardless of the circumstances; always treat your feet right.  They hold up your entire body.  Surplus boots are a good place to start when looking to cut costs, but usually you won’t be saving much.   To be honest, there are plenty of knockoff combat boots found in sporting goods stores, usually in the hiking section, that are just as durable as the expensive models but for much less.  You can go far in a pair of $60 boots.  Be sure, though, to thoroughly check for poor sewing on the seams, crap laces, and light construction.  If they feel heavy, they are probably made well enough.

Camp Heater

Unless you have your own oil well, or a line on a hidden vein of coal (some preppers I have met actually do), then your best bet for efficient heat during the winter weather in a tent, a makeshift shelter, or a house, is a wood burning stove.  Timber fuel sources are everywhere.  A couple cords of wood are enough to heat most homes and shelters through the colder months.

Gasoline and propane storage is possible, but the likelihood of shortage is high, and arranging a practical supply lasting a year or more is incredibly expensive.  Solar power systems and battery banks are recommended, but again, this is another option that requires moderate to substantial investment when it comes to heating a house.  A very affordable alternative for your heating needs would be the M-1941 Military Tent Stove.  The cylindrical stove is portable, burns quite hot, and can be had usually for $100 or less.

Survival Knife

Some knives deserve the amount of attention and the high price tag they have garnered, but many are just….well….regular knives with a fancy name engraved in the blade.  You are buying a knife for its functionality, not its sex appeal.  Gerber, SOG, and Kershaw make plenty of knives which work just as well for $80 or less than any $400 cord wrapped Strider knife.  Again, pay for the tool, not the name or the artificial commercial mystic.

Communications

Good HAM radios, base stations to handheld models, can be had for around $200-$300, but even this amount is sometimes too high for a limited prepper budget.  Unless you plan to coordinate operations over longer distances using repeaters, or set up a HAM alert system with multiple members of your community, regular two-way radios costing around $40 to $60 like those produced by Midland should suffice for communications.  Consumer models often advertize an effective range of 20 to 30 miles, but this is in totally flat terrain.  If you can get five miles out of them in rough terrain, you are doing well.  This range is adequate to handle most tasks required during a survival situation.

Electricity

Gas powered generators are unnecessary in long term survival situations, primarily because the amount of fuel they use is impractical and the noise many of them produce could make having electricity a daily temptation of fate.  Solar is really the best way to go.  Unfortunately, many people assume solar power solutions to be too technical and overwhelming.  In fact, setting up a solar power system is so straight forward it makes all the prepper uneasiness a bit laughable.

A simple and comparably affordable set-up would include one 180 Watt solar panel (which can quickly charge your battery bank during the day), one deep cycle battery, a charge controller, and an inverter.  This kit can be had for $600 to $1000, is compact enough to fit in a medium Rubbermaid storage bin, and will power almost every appliance and charge every electronic device that would make life easier during a collapse.  Remember also that every Watt of power you produce by the sun reduces your on-grid electric bill, saving you even more money.

At the very least, a portable solar powered battery charger is a must have item.  Doing without gear like radios and flashlights is simply not an option.  Going caveman is the most ill conceived method for living through the worst of all possible situations.

Survival Tin

Pre-made mini survival kits are a rip off.  Most of the items they contain (matches, fishing line, compass, small knife, firestarter, wire saw, water purification tablets, etc.) can be easily purchased separately for half the cost.  Making your own mini-kit is also a good exercise in efficiency.  Being able to prioritize gear and understand what is truly useful versus what is a waste of space is as important a skill as being able to shoot or navigate a map.  It does not take a lot of money to build a solid base kit for emergencies….unless you buy one that somebody made for you.

Emergency Medical Kit

Again, all items within most pre-made medical kits can be bought individually for much less.  Celox blood stopper, silk sutures, surgical tools, transfusion bags, and other goods should be added in with the staples, raising the cost slightly, but rounding out your kit and allowing for more critical injuries to be cared for.  Bulk over the counter medications, especially for stomach ailments, would be highly valuable post collapse, and can be bought wholesale.  Medicinal teas, at least the organic brands, work very well!  These can be bought for reasonable prices and will boost your immune system, preventing illness before it ever occurs.

Food Production

If you have enough land to keep them, a half dozen chickens, a half dozen breeding rabbits, and a goat, will produce milk, meat, and eggs daily, providing valuable sustenance, reducing the amount of stored foods you need to use in a day, and reducing the amount of time you have to spend hunting for food in a dangerous collapse environment.  Chickens and goats practically feed themselves with whatever is available on your land.  Rabbit feed is easy to store, and can also be made at home.  These animals are indeed worth their weight in gold.

Seeds are, of course, a currency in and of themselves.  Non-GMO seed and strong gardening knowledge will save you and your family.  Gardening is not as easy as it seems, however.  Extensive practice, trial and error, and an understanding of regional climates will improve your crop yields dramatically.

If you are looking to survive on the cheap and avoid paying thousands of dollars for years worth of freeze dried goods, sustainable food production is the only way to go.  Foraging and scavenging is NOT a reliable alternative.

Security Systems

Trip wires and tin cans are certainly cheaper than thermal security cameras, and a few well trained guard dogs can put your mind at ease, but sometimes more silent or less obvious methods are in order.  I would recommend the MURS radio and infrared alert system for perimeter defense.  As far as force multipliers go, MURS is relatively inexpensive.  MURS motion detectors are wireless, weather proof, have a beam range of around 100 ft, and can be placed up to 4 miles away from your radio base station.  Intruders crossing the infrared beam will set off an alert on your base station and all MURS handheld radios.  Some MURS systems even have underground probes designed to detect the movement of vehicles.  Up to four motion sensors can be linked to one base station and each can be designated for a sector, telling you exactly where on your property the intrusion is occurring.  A full MURS system with multiple motion detectors can be had for $300 or less.  Other comparable outdoor security systems often cost $500 or more.

Night Vision

The price range of night vision devices is truly staggering.  Some can run as little as a few hundred dollars, others climb into the thousands.  For the prepper with low cash flow who feels the need for night time security, a couple models offer good quality at a lower price.

For typical surveillance and overwatch, the Bushnell 2.5 by 42 night vision monocular creates a strong image with quality construction for around $200.

For combat, the Yukon Nvmt Night Vision Scope offers many of the advantages of high end systems for only $350 or less.

Night vision may seem like an unnecessary expense, even at these prices, but any edge one can get in survival is a good thing.  Being at a disadvantage monetarily does not mean you have to be at a disadvantage tactically.

Self Defense 

Yes.  Guns.  Big-scary-guns.  Guns and survival go hand in hand, especially during an economic or social collapse.  To bring up guns in a prepping article almost always draws criticism of militancy and extremism from suburban basted over-privileged adolescent hippies who have read “Into The Wild” way too many times and think survival is about “communing with nature”.  Sorry kids, but as much as I love nature, as soon as you turn your back on it, you end up a pre-digested meal spread like almond butter across 30 acres of grizzly valley.   On the other side of the coin, firearms analysis always draws endless opinions and puffy chested “expertise” from armchair generals and “invincible special-ops superheroes”.

Frankly, after years of survival writing, you stop caring what other people think.  That said, for those of us with limited resources (of which I would include myself), firearms purchases are much less about technical proficiency and more about affordability.

I won’t be delving into sidearms here.  Instead we’ll focus on what you cannot conceivably live without.  Purchasing a primary battle rifle should always be the prepper’s first concern as far as firearms go, whether he is rich or poor.  Semi-automatic, accurate, reliable, hard to damage, fires a common military caliber (.223, 7.62 by 39, .308).  There’s your list.  Finding cheap rifles that meet that list is another matter, but here are a few that come pretty close:

SAIGA