It’s been a bumpy couple of years for the US economy. In 2020 we had the pandemic and all the government’s panic measures to slow it down, which saw the first fall in per capita GDP since the global financial crisis in 2008.
That eventually ended, despite some states trying to keep businesses closed and us stuck in our homes for as long as possible, but the pandemic dealt a massive blow to our economy.
It wasn’t much of a surprise that, as life started to return to normal, inflation started to rise fast. Then, on top of that, gas prices shot up too, reaching an all-time record in summer 2022.
There have definitely been times when it looked like the US was wobbling on the edge of an economic abyss, and a collapse seemed like a real possibility.
Everything’s fine now, though, isn’t it? Inflation is half what it was a year ago. Gas prices are high, but nowhere near as high as they were last June. Can we all relax, stop stockpiling food and ammo, and turn the vegetable garden into a flowerbed?
Not so fast.
The economy has bounced a little, but there’s no guarantee it’s going to keep on improving. In fact there are some red flags that suggest we could be facing more economic problems, even worse than the ones we’ve been through since 2020.
Inflation Is Creeping Up Again
According to the government’s July report, year-on-year inflation was 3.2% in the twelve months to July 2023.
That’s higher than it’s been for most of the last 40 years, but a long way below its terrifying peak of 9.2% in June 2022.
Unfortunately there are signs it could be heading up again.
In fact even the official figures show a slight upward tick from June’s 3.0%, and the reality could be a lot worse.
Although grocery prices are rising more slowly than they were the cost of energy is still high, and that tends to force up the price of everything else.
The post-pandemic recovery is overheating, too; GDP grew by 5.6% in the third quarter of 2023, pumping more money into the economy. Over-fast growth almost always fuels inflation.
Former White House economist Kevin Hassett is pessimistic, and thinks another wave of inflation is on its way.
The Fed Fears Recession
If high growth risks bringing inflation back, low growth would be bad for a host of different reasons – and the Federal Reserve seems to think the present economic surge isn’t going to last.
While they admit last year’s predictions of a recession were wrong, they’re less optimistic about the longer term.
Recently they’ve downgraded their predictions for growth from an annual 2.5% to 1.8%. That seems strange, considering the economic boom in the third quarter, but that’s what they’re saying.
Ironically the thing most likely to cause a recession is the Fed’s own policies. In their drive to cut inflation they’ve pushed interest rates to their highest level in more than 20 years, leaving millions of Americans struggling to pay their mortgages.
If there’s a sharp rise in repossessions people aren’t going to be happy, and with the country as angry and divided as it is now that could give our social stability a hard knock.
Debt Is Out Of Control
Kevin Hassett thinks the current administration is borrowing and spending crazy amounts of money. Many other economists agree.
The federal government is rapidly building up an already huge pile of debt.
At some point, all the money the IRS collects in taxes will be needed just to cover the interest on that debt; at this point, the idea of ever paying off the debt itself is a sick joke.
Republican lawmakers are trying to slow down the administration’s wild spending, which is why the threat of another government shutdown is looming.
Up to now these have always been ended by a compromise that lets the government borrow some extra money, but GOP patience is running out and House Speaker Kevin McCarthy is losing control over his own party.
There’s a real risk that the federal government might not be able to pay its employees. That’s going to leave millions of very unhappy people – many of them armed.
We Could End Up At War
The war in Ukraine shows no sign of ending anytime soon.
And the US is slowly being dragged deeper into it.
Ukraine, understandably, wants advanced western weapons to beat back the Russian invaders.
Whether or not helping Ukraine is the right thing to do – and it’s hard to argue the country doesn’t have a right to defend itself – there’s always a risk that if Russia starts losing badly enough they’ll lash out at anyone they blame for their problems.
And if Russian forces are being pushed back by US-made tanks and aircraft it’s not too hard to work out who they’ll blame.
It would make no sense for Vladimir Putin to attack the US, because he has no chance of winning, but Putin does a lot of things that make no sense. It’s very possible he could react in a rage, and trigger a major – maybe nuclear – war.
Things Can Get A Whole Lot Worse
For now, things seem better – a little, anyway – than they were a couple of years ago. This would be a bad time to let your guard down, though. If you know what to look for there are some warning signs it would be very dangerous to ignore.
Our economy is finely balanced, and could crash into a recession at any moment. The government is gambling dangerously with the national debt, and risking a complete collapse of the country.
You might not be able to stop the dollar from going down, but you can be less dependent on it. Saving money that’s losing its value won’t help you and your family stay afloat. Instead, consider using your money for simple projects that make you more self-sufficient.
Being prepared for the worst has never been more important, because it could be just over the horizon.
I wish I could say that this world of genocide, democide, torture, terror, and slaughter of innocents was something new, but of course it is not. The story of mankind is one of horrible brutality, and it is never-ending. The latest atrocity is the ethnic cleansing and slaughter of innocents in Palestine, and the majority are children. This is the purposeful slaughter of Palestinians at the hands of the Zionists; this after 75 years of ruthless savagery levied against them. My comments here are in no way meant to support Hamas, or any State, government, or terrorist organization, but then that is repetitive, as all States, governments, terrorists, and those who control them, are cut from the same cloth, and are pure evil. That is the nature of all States, organized ruling governments, and criminal terrorists.
Because of the history of man, many would think that his natural state would be that of evil, and given what has occurred over thousands of years, one might be justified in accepting this conclusion, but I think it is much more complicated than it appears. On the other hand, one comment I hear consistently, at least by Americans, is that most people are basically good. I think this incorrect as well, so where does that leave us? It seems to me that the natural state of man, at least psychologically, is more sympathetic and peaceful than is evident, but the stoking of hate and division by very nefarious forces, and the purposeful instilling of great fear, has been voluntarily accepted by the majority, and this has caused constant turmoil among nation-states, leading to horrendous nationalism. Because of this intentionally structured antagonism among peoples, constant war has been the result, and this has led to a common behavior that would be best described as dual hatred. What is meant by this statement, is that governments and rulers are certainly evil, but due to the intentional instilling of nationalism, the majority supports State evil due to false ‘patriotism,’ apathy, and fear; this greatly enhanced by the collectivist nature of nationalism.
We live in a ‘modern’ world where the bulk of populations, if given the opportunity to do so, will more than not, choose non-aggression, but they are willing to turn their heads in the face of brutality, war, and carnage instead of facing the truth. Human nature is fickle, and a spectacle of inverted logic. When one is confronted with a death of friend or family, there may be a cry of agony. When a small group of innocents is mercilessly slaughtered by horrendous means, torment may occur. But when thousands or millions are murdered by States and their armies, a heavy fog of indifference takes over the psyche, and a cloak of silence spreads, covering the crowd. One might say that this is just a protective mechanism, but in reality, by remaining silent, it is an acceptance of evil, which is in and of itself, evil. Until this is understood, evil will reside not only in those who perpetrate this terror, but also in those who stay silent and support or condone it.
First and foremost, there is no real war between Israel and Palestine, there is only war against Palestine. There is no war against Hamas, at least not in any conventional sense, because Hamas was created, built, funded, and supported by the Zionist Israeli government and Mossad, with the assistance of the U.S. government and the CIA. This is also true of groups like ISIS and al Qaeda. The Palestinian people have no military, no navy, no tanks, no rockets, and no arms. They are virtually helpless civilians, mostly children, locked inside a completely walled concentration camp, that is heavily guarded by the Israeli military and Mossad. They are relegated to throwing rocks at Israel’s world class military that consists of advanced weaponry that qualifies as the third most powerful military in the world. This is a slaughter and genocide of these people for political, geopolitical, and monetary purposes, and is nothing more than intentional, unbridled, and inhuman wrath against a persecuted population.
What is so confusing is that this torturous brutality, land and property confiscation, mutilation, starvation, and humiliation by Zionists against Palestinians, has gone on relentlessly for the past 75 years under the guise of a false claiming of a long-inhabited territory; all in the bogus name of defense of a forced Zionist State. But in the bright light of truth and honesty, this has been only offensive and unrestrained aggression. Zionism is not Judaism, it is a tyrannical political cult bent on power, control, and the elimination of Palestine in favor of a singular ‘Jewish’ State.. Zionism is colonialism, pure and simple, a political/nationalist movement, formed and plotted for the purpose of taking over lands of the peoples in that region, and by any means necessary. This plot was decades in the making, with deals solidified with Nazi Germany, the U.K., and the U.S. According to Jewish historian, Ilan Pappe, “Zionist leaders were well aware that implementing their project would necessitate the ethnic cleansing of the indigenous Palestinian population.”
This is a very deep and complicated subject matter, and this short essay is obviously not meant to be an historical accounting of Zionism, but it is vitally important to understand the background of this heinous movement that is not what it has always been falsely portrayed to be. There is no innocence in Zionism, as would be true of any brutal and violent nationalist movement.
The bottom line is this: We are witnessing the unrelenting genocide of a people at the hands of the world powers. It is being sold as a defensive effort due to aggressive terrorism by Hamas, an Israeli created organization, used as a patsy, whether accepted or not by the casual observer, to allow for the long-planned and final elimination of all Palestinians from their homelands. But it is so much deeper than this implies. The West, especially the United States government, the CIA, the U.S. military, and the entire U.S. military industrial complex, among many other Fascist corporate partners, are in full support of this genocide. What this means, is that the U.S. population, the masses if you will, are complicit as well in this inhumane, immoral, and brutally evil plot to slaughter and murder an entire people. They are after all, at least a majority, condoning it through taking sides, and allowing the funding of this murderous rampage with their own tax dollars stolen by the government they support.
Geopolitically, this becomes a springboard for regional or world conflict, all for the purpose of continuing the drive toward a one world government; a secret global governing cabal, which has the one goal of attaining total power and control of all populations. Depending on the agendas sought, the involvement of powers due to this plot, could include Russia, China, Iran, the entire Middle East, the U.S., the U.K., and all of NATO. One can just imagine the carnage possible in the future due to what is deceptively claimed to be a struggle between only Israel and undefended Palestine. It is anything but that, but by framing this as a localized regional conflict, the masses of plebiscites will take sides, thus allowing the rulers and their enforcement monsters, to assume a much larger aggression, and one that will affect everyone on earth.
How can any accept this horror? How can any not speak against it, and refuse to support any factions and nation-states, instead of embracing the plight of all innocent victims, regardless of sides? Condemn all who harm the innocent. Condemn the governments and rulers, and their murderous armies, who stoke and perpetuate this violent assault on civilians. People have the ability to live together in harmony, but governments have no ability to live in peace, because the only mission of ‘authority’ is to attain power and control by any means necessary in its rule based only on the dominance of others. Reclaim the higher ground as individuals, and completely eliminate and destroy all forms of government and rule, as war is their health, fear, violence, and killing are their tools, and elimination of dissent is their only means of survival.
“We will expel the Arabs and take their place. In each attack, a decisive blow should be struck resulting in the destruction of homes and the expulsion of the population.”
David Ben-Gurion: Zionist and first Prime Minister of Israel–Letters to his son, 1937
“For over four decades of the Cold War the world lived under the threat of nuclear annihilation. Nuclear powers spent two trillion dollars on nuclear arms; enough to make sure that there was overkill for the overkill. All this was kept “stable” by the concept of “Mutual Assured Destruction” which isn’t even good grammar, but certainly was MAD enough for anyone.”
But surely not as mad as our “terrorist enemies” who pray for Mutually Assured Destruction.
The media doesn’t talk much about this, but during the Cold War the US lost 7 nuclear bombs and now, more than ever, they are becoming a big threat to our national security.
The One we lost in the swamps – when the US Air Force accidentally dropped two atomic bombs on North Carolina (March 10, 1956)
An American B-52 went into a tailspin during a routine flight along the east coast, causing a pair of 4-megaton hydrogen bombs to dislodge and fall near the town of Goldsboro. A low-voltage safety switch was all that prevented a disaster. Had the bomb exploded, the blast would have been 265 times more powerful than the bomb detonated over Hiroshima and the fallout would have reached as far as Washington DC, Baltimore and New York City, given the strong northerly winds, after eviscerating Goldsboro and much of North Carolina.
Controversy continues to surround the event as newly declassified information reinforced public suspicions that one of the bombs came very close to detonating and one has never been found.
The bomb that was not found plunged into a muddy field. The tail of the bomb was discovered about 20 feet below ground, but the core has never been recovered since excavation was abandoned because of uncontrollable ground-water flooding.
To quote a sarcastic comedian: “OK… We nearly blown up one of the Carolinas, but that’s basically why we have two”.
The one we lost in British Columbia (14 February 1950)
A Convair B-36, carrying a Mark 4 nuclear bomb crashed in northern British Columbia. The B-36 had been en route from Alaska to Texas, on a mission that included a simulated nuclear attack on San Francisco. Seven hours into the flight, three of the six engines began shooting flames and were shut down, and the other three engines proved incapable of delivering full power.
The atomic bomb was jettisoned, the crew bailed out (parachuted) and 12 of the 17 men were eventually found alive.
It is said that the nuclear bomb blew up on impact with the water and only pieces remain on the bottom of the ocean. The bomb’s uranium components were lost and never recovered. According to the United States Air Force the plutonium core was not present for this simulation.
The two Nuclear Cores that not even The US Army knows where they are (March 10, 1956)
A Boeing B-47 Stratojet took off from MacDill Air Force Base, Florida for a non-stop flight to Ben Guerir Air Base, Morocco, but mysteriously disappeared.
The unarmed aircraft was carrying two capsules of nuclear weapons material in carrying cases. Since a nuclear detonation was not possible, the nuclear cores of the bombs are probably intact even today.
Despite an extensive search, no debris were found, and the crash site has never been completely located. Aircrafts last known position was over the Mediterranean Sea.
The One that “rolled” over the deck of U.S.S. Ticonderoga (5 December 1965)
31 days after Ticonderoga ‘s departure from U.S. Naval Base Subic Bay in the Philippines, an A-4E Skyhawk attack aircraft carrying a hydrogen bomb rolled off the deck of the U.S.S. Ticonderoga and fell into the Pacific Ocean. The plane and weapon sank in 16,000 feet of water and were never found. As to this day, the fate of the weapon has been a mystery.
The Two Lost Nuclear Bombs when the U.S.S. Scorpion Submarine mysteriously sank (22 May 1968)
The Nuclear Sub sank about 400 miles to the southwest of the Azores islands with 99 crewmen dying in the incident. In addition to the tragic loss of all 99 crew members, the Scorpion was carrying two nuclear weapons.
Today, the wreck of Scorpion is resting on a sandy seabed at the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean in 9,800 ft of water. The U.S. Navy periodically visits the site to conduct testing for the release of nuclear materials from the nuclear reactor and the two nuclear weapons aboard, and to determine whether the wreckage has been disturbed.
But since the site is located in international water, basically anybody can visit it.
It is true that you need some equipment to dive a probe under 9,800 ft of water, but it can be done. For example, Titanic rests under 12,500 ft of water and we managed to dive there and recover some artifacts. In fact current technology allows us to dive under 21,414 ft of water .
So you may ask yourself: wouldn’t that be too expensive? Not even 1% of the costs of building a nuclear bomb – plus: it’s not that easy. On Manhattan Project we spent $26 billion (plus 130.000 people working for more than 5 years). India, Pakistan and even North Korea spent huge fortunes before making their first nuclear bombs. Iran has been working on this for more than 7 years now, and still doesn’t have one.
Why don’t we get those two bombs out of there, before someone else will? Nobody seems to care about this nuclear threat that will eventually come as a BIG “surprise”.
It sounds outrageous to me that we’ve managed to simply lose some nuclear weapons and we’re doing nothing to recover them. We’ve made so many enemies… that “ignorance” becomes a problem of national security.
Most of our recent failures in the Middle East resulted from taking no stand and just letting events drift.
When you talk with people about crisis preparedness (be it in regards to natural disasters, war, economic collapse, terrorist attack, or whatever) you quickly realize that most folks have the same tendency to react with categorical denial of the obvious. We all create certain safe and predictable ways of dealing with the world that involve some slanting of reality. In order to cope with life, and make it more tolerable, we may distort, embellish, or ignore certain aspects of our environment, our feelings, or our memories. There are things we just don’t want to deal with because they are too painful, we fear them, or because we may get overwhelmed by such information. For most people, crisis preparedness topics fall into this category.
Curiously, the most common excuses for people refusing to prepare are also the most irrational. If you talk to people about this subject, you will most assuredly come across the following illogical reasons.
It is comforting to believe we would be safe if a city-wide crisis ever occurred. However, most of us are not prepared for living in a city without power and with low supplies if any of food and water.
If such an event happened, most people wouldn’t remain in the city they reside in for very long. Those of us who live in metropolitan areas are dependent on the things that come with it.
Cities Cannot Feed Themselves!
Every populated city is man-made. Towns are constructed so people can socialize, participate in commerce, and benefit from public services like water, sanitation, education, mail delivery, and much more. But just as we are dependent on the things a city provides, the city itself is reliant on a supply of resources like water, food, and power in order to provide that functionality. Even though water and electricity may still be available from outside of the city by means of pipelines and cabling, the population of a city still needs a regular incoming supply of food to live on.
No city is capable of feeding itself. Not one. Cities are ultimately reliant on food that is imported by farms. Without food coming in, grocery stores would run out of their stock within a week.
Risks in the City
The city can undergo a major crisis in the event of a water, food, or power shortage. In the event of a disaster, cities would face:
Riots after the collapse of social order.
Lack of water filtration or deliveries of fresh food.
A food supply shortage.
Long-term disruption of electricity.
Even though these outcomes won’t happen in every populated city, they could in yours. Let’s go over some of these scenarios:
The Collapse of Social Order
“Social order” is a fragile thing. It stands as a psychological obstruction that could easily fall apart. We have all observed massive riots in the news, many of them instigated by an unfairness of some kind that results in a dispensation of repressed anger and frustration. The L.A. riots that followed the verdict of the Rodney King trial saw Los Angeles citizens torch their own city. Residents were pulled from their own automobiles and literally beaten to death. Firemen trying to put out fires were shot at! In 2005, we all observed the violence, looting, and complete disintegration of civilization after Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans. We are days away from ending this year and 2020 wasn’t so different, and trust me when I am saying the problems are just starting.
What leads to such chaos in any of the above examples?
The concurrent disintegration of the psychological obstacle of order!
After people realized law enforcement wasn’t able to manage the chaos or weren’t around to help, the police were perceived as being incapable of protecting them. Some saw the police simply leave their posts behind to leave citizens fending for themselves, which canceled out the concept of “Law and Order”.
Nothing was stopping anyone from simply going to the local store and simply taking things without paying for them. They unleashed their frustrations about racism on innocent victims who were driving in the vicinity, and they ran amok on a path of ruin that only ceased when the National Guard, armed with rifles, arrived to restore order. As such, only the risk of sudden death brought violence and looting to a stop. It’s amazing what the sight of a rifle can do. Think about store owners seeking shelter on the roofs of their establishments armed with AK-47’s, shooting at anyone who came close.
Even worse, think about the reckless mob shooting at the rescue helicopters attempting to deliver supplies to helpless victims of the rioting. The National Guard ultimately restored order. This was an isolated incident in one city. Consider hundreds of cities going through a similar experience. Could the National Guard save them all?
Very unlikely, I’m afraid to say.
What about each town’s law enforcement divisions? They aren’t idiots; if things look bleak, they’ll choose to protect their own families first, and more than likely find safe refuge elsewhere as many officers did during the crisis in New Orleans. A pension isn’t worth dying over. Some towns could be changed into combat zones in one night. It would warrant complete military force and martial law to feasibly restore order to the area. There just aren’t enough people in the military to protect every city, should such events occur.
This downfall of social order is maybe the biggest risk to consider when contemplating remaining in a city amid a catastrophe.
What, then, would provoke this downfall of social order? An absence of three key necessities: water, food, and money. When people lack food, they may start to ravage their neighborhoods to replenish their stock. Before long, cities are under attack. Some locales may be able to keep things under control, and the Red Cross will be able to help them. Other cities will see their levels of violence escalate. Visualize the gang-ridden areas of Los Angeles, New York, Chicago, New Orleans, and St. Louis. It is unlikely people are going to behave in a civilized manner under chaotic conditions in those areas.
Already armed with guns, many people will feel the need to use them in such situations. Racial tensions have been building up to give people a reason to begin shooting at others of the same or of different colors in order to get what they want.
In the event that food and supplies make their way into chaotic cities successfully, a lack of money will lead to mass theft and looting. As crime increases, the social order will further collapse.
A lack of water will also lead to the “every man for himself” mentality, and perhaps very quickly. The disassembly of social order is disastrous since it doesn’t warrant any specific breakdown of telecommunications, a power grid, banking, or transportation. Social order is a psychological frame of mind, and any worldwide scare can hastily eliminate the mental barricade that essentially maintains order.
The Failure of Water Treatment and Delivery Systems
Can water treatment facilities prevail in the middle of a crisis? Some will and some won’t. The issue lies in determining whether the one you depend on will. Water treatment facilities rely on electricity, and experiments administered on several plants have already isolated some system weaknesses.
During one particular experiment, a water treatment plant discharged a deadly dose of fluoride into the water system. The computers mistakenly believed they were 99 years behind in distributing fluoride dosages, so they tried to adjust the difference. Anyone who was downstream and drank the water met an early death. Regardless of how much a dentist tries to say otherwise, fluoride is a lethal poison. A large disaster is probable in multiple cities.
The most vital question to ask here is what will happen if the water supply ceases to flow, or if it becomes contaminated. You might be aware that, even though individuals are able to remain alive without consuming food for as long as three weeks, ongoing consumption of water is mandatory for every human being. You can last as much as three days without drinking water, but past that, you’ll be struggling and could very quickly die.
With that said, it should come as no surprise that people will do what they feel they must to get water in order to stay alive. The hardest places to acquire water will be in populated cities. Most trusting people will assume any water stoppage will be temporary, and that the government will work diligently to resolve the deprivation. The panic will set in mere hours after a lack of flow of water, though.
A couple of days into the water shortage, people will become worryingly aware of the problem, and social order will start to collapse, as referenced in the prior chapter. People will start to scavenge for water, and they’ll immediately check retail stores first. Needless to say, in such scenarios, it won’t take long before all shelves inside these stores will be ransacked. Since the liquids won’t last for very long, you’ll see the population displace quickly, as people will relocate or go on searches for water outside of their own locales. Some will take to rivers and streams in the country, while others will go on looting sprees, stealing from homes and shops, using violence to take what they need.
Should a stoppage of water occur, you can expect the following events in run-down cities:
Small disruptions of violence while looting is happening. Retail shop owners will be inclined to defend their businesses with firearms, whether or not it is legal to do so.
Large traffic jams on outbound highways as a result of gas running out in vehicles, mid-transport, which will inevitably block main exits, trapping people in cities.
Grocery stores will be purged of all food by at least the third day of the crisis.
Farms and houses near major cities will be raided for supplies by people likely to be carrying weapons for protection and intimidation purposes.
Populations will dwindle down rapidly as a result of people abandoning their homes to find water supply sources.
A water-based epidemic will break out as people start to use rivers and streams as a bathroom. Those using streams and rivers as a toilet will infect the entire drinking water supply. Filtration units can only prevent so much and will become overrun, eventually shutting down. Once the flow of water stops, the disease will start to set in.
The Depletion of Food Supplies
Food supplies will probably diminish fast as the potential crisis draws nearer and residents will be stocking up for worse-case-scenario outcomes. After the crisis starts, anticipate disruptions in food replenishment. If food does arrive, it will be in short supply.
After this occurs, food will quickly become quite a commodity to people. As such, any shipment of food, no matter the size, will be immediately seized by the first person capable of taking it. It takes a mere 7 days of not eating before people realize how reliant they are on food, so the city will be in a state of panic if the food takes even more than a few days to be replenished.
The frenzy and hysteria to be expected will differ per city. Some towns might undergo minimal hardship obtaining food, while others will face situations involving potential starvation; cities rely on food sent from food processing companies and farms that are more often than not shipped in via road networks that may now possibly be severely disrupted if functioning at all.
Also be mindful that if there is an issue with the water supply, as referred to in the earlier chapter, bulk evacuations will begin, which will flood the highways, resulting in gridlock.
A deficiency of food eventually produces the same outcome as a shortage of water. Initially, people will feast on whatever is stored in their pantry. From there, they will loot whatever is left on grocery store shelves. Once those options are ruled out, they will start ransacking homes scouring for food. Most city folk won’t know how to hunt, so they won’t be able to acquire their own food. Anyone who is able to leave the city will do so immediately after the shortage of food kicks in.
The Failure of the Power Grid
Nothing has a greater impact on your psyche than the fear of living without something you take for granted – in this case, electricity. Without a power grid, everyone will start to panic the minute electricity conks out. Over the course of the first three hours or so of living without power, should such a disaster happen, most people will be under the mistaken assumption that the outage is only temporary.
After waiting for the power to come back on for a while, they’ll eventually grow frustrated and angry, not knowing what to do in such a circumstance. Without power, nothing operates as per the standards we’ve all become accustomed to.
The looting will begin within hours of such an outage in cities with a high crime rate. The social disorder will grow worse the longer the power remains off. The power loss will stop activity throughout the city. Automobiles will be able to function with the gas and power that remain within them, but commerce certainly won’t continue. Houses reliant on electricity to heat up their households will feel the draft the natural winter weather brings.
People who need air conditioning to remain cool in the summer will begin to feel the effects of the sweltering heat. This could be fatal, as the elderly and those with weakened immune systems could succumb to heatstroke. Police stations and hospitals will continue to run on generators, but those, too, will become depleted.
Without power, the water treatment plant will go offline, instigating the events referenced in the water section. Power is something we just can’t survive without unless we are properly prepared for such an eventuality. People might be able to survive on low levels of food supplies and water, but without electricity, the order goes completely out the window.
So what steps can you take if you live in the city in preparation for a crisis?
What you have read so far will have no doubt filled you with a sense of dread should your city ever have to deal with a crisis that results in some if not all of the problems that have been outlined previously. You will also be wondering, very wisely, what you can do to best protect you and your family if these types of situations threaten your safety.
You have two options; the first is to stay put and ride out whatever crisis is looming and the second is to leave the city at the first sign of a problem, Regardless of which option you decide best suits your situation, both will require a certain degree of planning.
The most ardent preppers will make plans to do both because with many urban crisis situations they will very often get past a critical point within a few days and recovery will often happen very quickly after that point has passed. However, there is always a chance that such a recovery is not going to be possible and it is at that time when bugging out of the city as quickly as possible would be the wisest thing to do.
Making plans for surviving a disaster or crisis situation, or prepping as it is commonly referred to, isn’t something that you can sort out in 5 minutes, it requires ongoing planning that can be quite meticulous and encompasses everything from storage of water, supplies, and medicine to communication, protection, and evacuation/relocation protocols.
It may seem like overkill to plan to this degree but when you consider that doing so could not only save your life but also the lives of your loved ones then it really does seem like the sensible thing to do, particularly in these uncertain and worrying times.
Surviving in the City
If you have decided that you don’t feel that prepping for a TEOTWAWKI (the end of the world as we know it) type situation is for you but you still want to know how to be best prepared for a short term urban-type crisis then this list is the minimum you should have for surviving a two week period with no available food, water or power.
Water: You should have at least 1 gallon of water per day, per person stored. This is primarily for drinking and food preparation. Don’t forget that your pet dog or cat will need water too!
Food: You should look to store plenty of non-perishable foods that do not require cooking and that are high in energy and protein. Anything canned or in a jar is a great idea. Peanut butter is a high-energy food source that keeps really well. If you have a baby or toddler, remember to store formula or jars of baby food. Don’t forget pet food too. It’s also a good idea to write the contents directly onto all tins and jars with a permanent marker in case labels fall off, something that tends to happen a lot with flooding situations. Meals ready to eat, MRE are a great idea too as they can be stored for a long time, years in fact!
Important note: Always make sure you have a can opener or two stored away!
Medicines: You should always have a well-equipped first aid kit containing all the essential and prescribed medicines your family will need.
Lighting: If you are without power for two weeks then lighting will be essential. A hand-cranked lamp or kerosene lanterns as well as some torches with plenty of spare batteries are ideal. Before using always ensure your premises are light sealed; you do not want to draw attention to yourselves as having stuff others want.
Radio: A hand-cranked or battery-operated radio for getting essential updates. Don’t waste battery life by listening to music, if you can find any!
Warmth: Blankets, sleeping bags, thick sweaters, woolly hats, and gloves. You will probably have most of this in your home already; just make sure it is to hand for when you need it.
Communication: Hopefully mobile phone networks will still be up so make sure you have fully charged phones or spare fully charged batteries. Walkie-talkies are handy and can be purchased relatively cheaply nowadays. A whistle is a simple yet effective way to communicate and costs next to nothing.
Money: Cash machines will not be working at best, destroyed and ransacked at worst so always make sure you have a stash of hard cash available.
This list is what I would class as being absolutely essential for surviving two weeks in your own home and in all fairness I’m only scratching the surface of what you may need. I haven’t even mentioned sanitation, hygiene, and home and personal protection which in the city, depending on your neighborhood, could prove more important to your survival than anything else!
My hope is that by reading this article and putting into action some of the steps I’ve outlined for surviving a short-term urban crisis you will be more prepared and ready should anything happen to your city.
More than 5 billion people would die of hunger following a full-scale nuclear war between the U.S. and Russia, according to a global study led by Rutgers climate scientists that estimates post-conflict crop production.
“The data tell us one thing: We must prevent a nuclear war from ever happening,” said Alan Robock, a Distinguished Professor of climate science in the Department of Environmental Sciences at Rutgers Universityand co-author of the study. Lili Xia, an assistant research professor in the Department of Environmental Sciences at Rutgers,is lead author of the study published in the journal Nature Food.
Building on past research, Xia, Robock and their colleagues worked to calculate how much Sun-blocking soot would enter the atmosphere from firestorms that would be ignited by the detonation of nuclear weapons. Researchers calculated soot dispersal from six war scenarios – five smaller India-Pakistan wars and a large U.S.-Russia war – based on the size of each country’s nuclear arsenal.
These data then were entered into the Community Earth System Model, a climate forecasting tool supported by the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR). The NCAR Community Land Model made it possible to estimate productivity of major crops (maize, rice, spring wheat and soybean) on a country-by-country basis. The researchers also examined projected changes to livestock pasture and in global marine fisheries.
Under even the smallest nuclear scenario, a localized war between India and Pakistan, global average caloric production decreased 7 percent within five years of the conflict. In the largest war scenario tested – a full-scale U.S.-Russia nuclear conflict – global average caloric production decreased by about 90 percent three to four years after the fighting.
Crop declines would be the most severe in the mid-high latitude nations, including major exporting countries such as Russia and the U.S., which could trigger export restrictions and cause severe disruptions in import-dependent countries in Africa and the Middle East.
These changes would induce a catastrophic disruption of global food markets, the researchers conclude. Even a 7 percent global decline in crop yield would exceed the largest anomaly ever recorded since the beginning of Food and Agricultural Organization observational records in 1961. Under the largest war scenario, more than 75 percent of the planet would be starving within two years.
Researchers considered whether using crops fed to livestock as human food or reducing food waste could offset caloric losses in a war’s immediate aftermath, but the savings were minimal under the large injection scenarios.
“Future work will bring even more granularity to the crop models,” Xia said.
“For instance, the ozone layer would be destroyed by the heating of the stratosphere, producing more ultraviolet radiation at the surface, and we need to understand that impact on food supplies,” she said.
Climate scientists at the University of Colorado, which partnered with Rutgers on the study, are also creating detailed soot models for specific cities, such as Washington, D.C., with inventories of every building to get a more accurate picture of how much smoke would be produced.
Robock said researchers already have more than enough information to know that a nuclear war of any size would obliterate global food systems, killing billions of people in the process.
“If nuclear weapons exist, they can be used, and the world has come close to nuclear war several times,” Robock said. “Banning nuclear weapons is the only long-term solution. The five-year-old UN Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons has been ratified by 66 nations, but none of the nine nuclear states. Our work makes clear that it is time for those nine states to listen to science and the rest of the world and sign this treaty.”
The Rutgers-led study was conducted with scholars at institutions around the world, including Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, Louisiana State University, the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies, Columbia University, the National Center for Atmospheric Research, the University of Colorado Boulder, and Queensland University of Technology.
Historically speaking, inflation or stagflation have always been disastrous affairs. One is hard pressed to find any legitimate examples of a country that experienced an aggressive inflationary episode that came out better for it. A rare scenario would be one in which a nation inflates to fund a war that they then win, but usually negative consequences still happen later down the road.
The problem is that the effects of inflation can be subtle and far reaching, quietly creeping up on a population until suddenly there’s a tidal wave of societal crises. In the U.S. (and much of the western world) we are already witnessing elements of inflationary disaster; there’s a good reason why around 60% of Americans now have a pessimistic view of the future. A majority of people say life is worse for them today than it was in the past.
These kinds of dark sentiments usually coincide with inflationary or deflationary pressures. Inflation in particular can be devastating because it represents an ever expanding hidden tax on the life of each citizen. Not only that, but the cure is often worse than the disease, with central banks instituting interest rate hikes that continue longer than most people expect, which eventually lead to an engineered deflationary kick in the gut for the economy. For a time, prices will remain high on an array of necessities while wages stagnate, consumer demand shrinks and businesses go bankrupt as borrowing becomes impossible.
A system might be able to absorb this shock as long as it is not burdened with immense debt. In the case of the U.S., we are heavily burdened with over $33 trillion in national debt (officially) and over $17 trillion in consumer debt. The damage from stagflation and the Federal Reserve’s inevitable response will make matters worse.
So what should we expect?
More labor strikes
Labor strikes tend to occur in inflationary environments because, at least initially, demand for labor is high, giving labor more leverage against businesses. When people know they can easily jump into another job tomorrow the temptation is to leave their current job at the drop of a hat today.
Strikes were a common crisis in Weimar, Germany and Yugoslavia among others, in some cases because of legitimate concerns and in other cases because of communist provocateurs. The stagflation of the 1970s led to what is known as the “decade of strikes” in the U.S., with labor seeking higher wages to offset rising prices. The strikes sometimes lead to higher wages, which then in turn only lead to even higher prices as production shrinks and the costs are transferred to the consumer.
Wages are stagnant in the U.S., even after the minimum wage unofficially doubled due to labor shortages. Labor demand is high (for now), but the difference in our era compared to previous inflation events is that the vast majority of labor is focused into superfluous markets. It’s not as if manufacturing is a major component of the U.S. economy anymore. Rather, most employment is in the service sector.
No one really cares if McDonalds workers or Walmart workers or Hollywood writers go on strike. This does little to affect their daily lives. What it does do, though, is wear down the business sector over time until a portion of employers eventually downsize operations. If you have enough strikes and businesses can’t find workers in certain regions, they will close up shop and cut their losses. There were multiple incentives for major manufacturers to leave the U.S. for places like China in the 1970s and 1980s, but the constant union strikes during that period played a large part in the decision.
Today, you will have retail and food deserts; places where no businesses will dare set down roots because they can’t keep their stores staffed. In the end, the jobs disappear entirely.
Rising crime and government lies
Speaking of retail deserts, spiking crime rates are another factor that drives employers away from certain neighborhoods and cities.
Obviously this is a situation we are seeing play out in the past couple of years, but the interesting thing is the level of disinformation and denial that public officials have displayed in response. There has been a conspiracy among certain leftist state and local governments and the corporate media to dismiss or hide the rising crime problem in the U.S. The most important aspect of this has been the bizarre overhaul in the way U.S. cities report crime stats to the FBI and to the public.
It’s just a coincidence I’m sure, but starting around the beginning of the Covid pandemic there was a shift in procedures for criminal data reporting within the federal government. That change has allowed a number of cities to withhold crime stats until the new system is finished; this means that some cities will not be reporting reliable stats until 2024-2025.
So, when a leftist journalist says “Gee, conservatives keep complaining about rising crime in San Francisco, but crime is actually going down…” this is a lie. Cities like San Francisco are simply not required to provide full criminal reports for another year.
The crime rate is not only a symptom of high prices. That is a part of it, but the atmosphere of chaos that surrounds inflation also acts as a kind of signal to the mentally unstable and morally corrupt. Bad people will slither out of the woodwork because they view the instability as good cover for their criminal activities. With enough crime overwhelming police, a larger percentage of miscreants are likely to escape scrutiny.
More looting
Again, this is happening right now, but it is generally limited to short bursts in compact urban settings. As inflationary heat boils over, looting will become a daily occurrence and it will move away from retail areas into residential areas.
The fascinating thing about looting is that if you have one man stealing from a store, he is considered a criminal. If you have a group of people stealing from a store, suddenly they become “activists” that are fulfilling their “right to reparations.” There is a political weaponization of looters in the midst of inflation.
The looters are not looting because prices are higher and they need the resources, they are looting because inflation gives them an excuse to loot and political elements are encouraging them to do so.
Population migrations
Inflationary effects can move awkwardly through an economy, with some places far more damaged than others depending on how local governments respond. The worst governments will react with higher taxes in order to offset falling revenues in other areas. They will also reduce public services in order to save money, and this includes reductions in police even in the face of higher crime.
As people realize they are living in a dead zone that is draining their bank accounts dry, they will try to leave if they can. In the U.S., people have migrated by the millions away from blue states in the past few years, but this was more to do with them escaping Covid mandates and lockdowns than escaping economic malaise. The next wave of migrations will happen because of financial decline and the crime that comes with it.
This happens during most economic crisis events. It was common during the Great Depression to see Americans moving around like nomads to places they thought had more work and more prosperity – just like in John Steinbeck’s novel The Grapes of Wrath. Men left their families for jobs across the country so they could send money back home. The homeless spread out from urban areas into the countryside to beg for work or food from farmers.
During inflation, the cost of relocation can be debilitating. There will come a point when moving will be impossible. Until then there will be a swell of populations flowing like water from one place to the next seeking relief from the storm. Expect to see nomadic cultures return to the U.S. with RV caravans, tiny home meccas, tent cities and Hoovervilles (called “Bidenvilles” this time, perhaps).
Balkanization
In the former Yugoslavia, economic disaster accelerated existing social and political divisions to the point of national breakup. “Balkanization” is the fragmentation of a nation into smaller, mutually-hostile (or at least uncooperative) regions.
These kinds of conditions might be a way down the road for the U.S., or, they might be a lot closer than you think. In our case, the divisions will be between the people that want to continue going down the path that is taking us to oblivion, and the people who want to stop and reverse course.
It might seem like insanity, but a large part of the American populace still thinks the direction we are going is necessary and beneficial. They think the destruction of western culture is part of the greater good, that economic calamity is a means to an end and that they will be largely unaffected. There are also people who are just plain stupid and don’t realize that they’re supporting policies which will end up making their lives significantly worse.
Inflation creates chaos, but it can also bring clarity. That which is truly important moves to the forefront of the public mind. The decadent and the vile can no longer hide, but float to the surface like so much putrid ocean froth. People figure out quickly what they can live with and what they’d rather live without. Take steps now to prepare yourself and your family from the chaos ahead. Make certain you have untrackable, uninflatable and totally anonymous stores of wealth (necessities like food and water for survival, barter goods for trade and physical gold and silver for everything else). When you depend others for your very necessities, you’re at their mercy. They have you right where they want you.
Entire subcultures will form and separate to survive and thrive while other groups will try to stop them. Conflict is probably inevitable (as it was in Yugoslavia) but the point remains: Inflationary crisis has the ability to change almost everything.
This is no longer about prices – it’s about survival.
When we think about the future our horizons are constrained by present day ideologies and social systems.
But if we look at life in total, science is converging on data processing and AI that is developing itself with algorithms, (which we are losing control over.)
Intelligence is decoupling from consciousness and soon rather than later it will be consigned to Google, Facebook, Twitter, Smartphones and the like.
You might think that the above question is stupid but it won’t be long before we will be witnessing the most unequal societies in history.
We humans will soon be living with robots that process data without any subjective experiences or consciousness or moral opprobrium.
They will have no notion of self, existing only in the present unaware of the past or future and therefore will be unable to consciously plan for future eventualities. Unconscious algorithms in their brains rather than conscious images in a mind.
We are already living with large AI platforms that are monopolizing the fruits of globalisation with billions being left behind.
With us accepting this as if natural.
The promise of globalisation is a lie, when it comes to AI and prosperity for all. We are all becoming redundant with biotechnology becoming only available to the riches of us.
You might say so what that has always been the case. And you would be right up to now.
Take for instance, when someone says algorithmic trading, it covers a vast subject not just buying and selling large volumes of shares automatically at very high speeds by unsupervised learning algorithms.
They are fighting with each other for supremacy on the market, prey on other algorithms in order to blunder the world exchanges for profit to such an extent that they now effectively in control of capitalism.
There are four major types of trading algorithms. There are:
Execution algorithms
Behavior exploitative algorithms
Scalping algorithms
Predictive algorithms.
orlook at Google an Algorithm’s company that now owns most of the largest data sets in the world stored in its cloud.
It will be too late when we are asking ourselves. What’s more valuable – intelligence or consciousness?
Then ask yourselves what happens to society, politics, and daily life when non-conscious but highly intelligent algorithms know us better than we know ourselves?
Whatever view one takes on artificial Intelligence ethics. You can rest assured that we will see far more nut cases blowing themselves up, far more wars over finite resources, with vast movements of people.
We are only on the outskirts of mind science that presently knows little about how the mind works never mind consciousness. We have no idea how a collection of electric brain signals creates subjective experiences however we are conscious of our dreams.
99% of our bodily activities take place without any conscious feelings.
The first problem that arises when examining consciousness is that a conscious experience is truly accessible only to the person who is experiencing it. Despite the vast knowledge we have gained in the field of mathematics and computer science, none of the data processing systems we have created needs subjective experiences in order to function.
None feel pain, pleasure, anger or love.
These emotions are vanishing into algorithms that are having an effect on how we see the world but also how we live in it. If not address now all moral and political value will disappear, turning consciousness into a kind of mental pollution. After all computers have no minds.
When intelligence is approached in an incremental manner, with strict reliance on interfacing to the real world through perception and action, reliance on representation disappears. It won’t be long before we will not be unable to distinguish the real world from the virtual world.
Since there is only one real world and there can be infinite virtual worlds the probability that you will inhabit this sole world is zero. So it won’t matter whether computers will be conscious or not.
It will only matter what they think about you.
As neuroscientists acquired more and more data about the workings of the brain, cognitive sciences, and their stated purpose is to combine the data from numerous disciplines so as better to understand such diverse phenomena as perception, language, reasoning, and consciousness.
Even so, the subjective essence of “what it means” to be conscious remains an issue that is very difficult to address scientifically.
To really understand what is meant by the cognitive neurosciences, one must recall that until the late 1960s, the various fields of brain research were still tightly compartmentalized.
Brain scientists specialized in fields such as neuroanatomy, neurohistology, neuroembryology, or neurochemistry. Nobody was yet working with the full range of investigative methods available, but eventually, the very complexity of the subject at hand-made that a necessity.
Today, the neurosciences include disciplines such as neurophysiology (the functioning of the neurons), neuroanatomy (the anatomical structure of the nervous system), neurology (the clinical effects of pathologies of the nervous system), neuropsychology (the clinical effects of pathologies of the nervous system on cognition and emotions), and neuroendocrinology (the relations between the nervous system and the hormonal system), and research centres tend to house several such disciplines under the same roof in order to encourage ongoing exchanges and joint publications.
Cybernetics is tells us, life is both a system and information, whereas a machine is a system that feeds on information.
If you cut the power to a computer, it will no longer be able to use the information supplied to it, but it will still be a computer, ready to work again when the power comes back on. But if you cut off a plant’s sunlight or an animal’s food, it will quickly become an inert body and start to decompose. Its structure coincides with the energy that feeds it and that it transforms or, more precisely, informs.
Because cybernetics is so closely linked with the concepts of structures and levels of organization, this new science quickly turned into artificial intelligence which is turning creativity a fundamental feature of human intelligence into mundane like button clicking.
Creativity is not a special “faculty”, nor a psychological property confined to a tiny elite. Rather, it is a feature of human intelligence in general. It is grounded in everyday capacities such as the association of ideas, reminding, perception, analogical thinking, searching a structured problem-space, and reflective self-criticism. It involves not only a cognitive dimension (the generation of new ideas) but also motivation and emotion, and is closely linked to cultural context and personality factors.
Current AI models of creativity focus primarily on the cognitive dimension of intelligence called short term pleasure.
At the moment an algorithm is nothing else than an extremely formalised set of beliefs translated into routines.
The ultimate vindication of AI-creativity would be a program that generated novel ideas which initially perplexed or even repelled us, but which was able to persuade us that they were indeed valuable.
We are a very long way from that.
However my main concern is whether the AI techniques will develop into quantum algorithms totally out of control.
The difficulty of predicting the future is not just a cliche’, it’s a basic fact of our existence. Part of the hypothesis of the Singularity is that this difficulty is just going to get worse and worse.
Yes, creating AGI is a big and difficult goal, but according to known science it is almost surely an achievable one. There are sound though not absolutely confident arguments that it may well be achievable within our lifetimes.
If Artificial general intelligence is on the not too distant horizon, surely we should be insuring that it is not owned by any one corporation and that at its core it respects our core values.
To achieve this we cannot surely let wealth to be concentrated in fewer and fewer hands, or to be let to the market place, or any world organisation that is not totally transparent and self financing.
We therefore as a matter of grave urgency need a new world organization that vets all technology, algorithms. (See previous posts)
As long as the algos don’t go to war with each other and cause something even more difficult to diagnose than a crash on the stock markets they are safe is as naive as saying ” It’s going to be Great.”Algos are increasingly in charge of a world that is precious to us all. Basically we’re entering the era of the machines controlling everything.
If we want to create new different societies with human dignity for all we need to do something about it.
Our friend Selco at SHTF School will change everything you may think about your life in a post-collapse world. For many of us, the idea that the world around us may fall apart and lead to the worst that humanity has to offer is mostly theoretical. For Selco, it was a reality. He experienced a total grid-down collapse in war-torn Sarajevo during the 1990’s – and he lived to tell the tale. He has shared his knowledge with our community over the last few years, and in the article below he changes our perceptions once again. Just because we are making preparations – stocking food, or supplies or guns – means nothing if the mind is not prepared to comprehend the absolute horrors that may come.
Do you want to know what it will be like when law and order break down, when people turn on each other, and when there is no one to depend on except for those in your inner circle?
Then keep reading.
THIS IS REALITY.
As many long term reader or members of my survival course know, I like to talk about important but some maybe call “not so spectacular” part of survival that is not so much fun like for example talking about latest guns and gadgets.
Today I want to talk about dignity and what it means in survival scenario. Before I talk from own experience, read the extract below from the diary of Lieutenant Colonel Mervin Willett Gonin who describes what happened after his unit freed the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp during second world war.
At the moment of his writing every day hundreds of people still died and it was place of pure horror.
It was shortly after the British Red Cross arrived, though it may have no connection, that a very large quantity of lipstick arrived. This was not at all what we men wanted, we were screaming for hundreds and thousands of other things and I don’t know who asked for lipstick. I wish so much that I could discover who did it, it was the action of genius, sheer unadulterated brilliance. I believe nothing did more for those internees than the lipstick. Women lay in bed with no sheets and no nightie but with scarlet red lips, you saw them wandering about with nothing but a blanket over their shoulders, but with scarlet red lips. I saw a woman dead on the post mortem table and clutched in her hand was a piece of lipstick. At last someone had done something to make them individuals again, they were someone, no longer merely the number tattooed on the arm. At last they could take an interest in their appearance. That lipstick started to give them back their humanity.
Importance of still being human and not become complete animal is often overlooked part for people who prepare for long term survival. I had over one year to fight against becoming like rats around our house during war.
EXPECT TO BECOME MORE LIKE ANIMAL
You can have all equipment ready for SHTF, ammo, weapon, gear… you can even be perfectly good trained in lot of different skills and fields and still when SHTF you can end up dead in the first days just because you what i call „refuse to believe“ whats happening.
It is that state of mind when man simple do not want (or not able) to comprehend new situation.
It can be one quick life threatening situation like folks attacking your home and you just waited few seconds too long to shoot some attacker, and then you are dead, end of the story. Or it can be whole process of failing to recognize new world around you and new rules (or absence of rules) and then again you just not doing correct things for the situation, and again you end up dead.
Example would be that when SHTF you are trying desperately to have and use power generator and light all rooms in your houses just because it mean normal life for you. And that normal life is gone, and trying to bring it back in that situation usually means more troubles.
Holding onto all comforts and behavior you are used to can be dangerous.
To make long story short, what I am trying to say is that you may be trained and equip like SEAL member and still you can be killed easily from some 70 years old dude, with even older rifle just because you were surprised when SHTF with amount of destruction and violence and you did not seen that old dude coming (or being so evil).
On the other side that old dude maybe lived through couple of SHTF events in his life, and he knows when it is time to act without hesitation and mercy.
There is still fine line you have to walk between losing your human side and becoming pure animal.
One of the things that changed a lot when SHTF is fact that everything became really dirty.
It was something like slow process, first people tried to keep it as clean they could, but without all normal services, like garbage trucks, running water and all other community services that make normal living soon it simple became impossible.
Later all garbage was used somehow, but in beginning it started piling up everywhere, when you add to that ruins on the street, human waste and dead bodies it was very ugly picture.
After some time, we started to accept dirt outside and it then was priority to stay clean and keep clean only inside that small circle inside your home, and when I say „clean“ I do not mean „clean“ like today. Maybe as clean as we could be.
For example simply moving through the city in the middle of the night meant that you needed to crawl, jump, hide, walk or run trough all kind of things, and very often some real nasty and dirty things.
Many times I was hiding on places so dirty that stench was almost paralyzing, once in the middle of the night I jumped behind some wall because sudden shelling, and when I jumped there I realized that I landed on dead guy.
His face was smashed with broken wall, and partially buried, place there was so small that I had to actually lay on him for some 20 minutes. He died probably when wall from the house collapsed after some shelling, who knows.
Fire from the shelling was so strong that I actually loved that dead guy and that place in that moment. I almost hug him while I was trying to be as small as possible because pieces of steel and rock were flying around me just like some crazy rain, while my stomach was rising and floating from the detonations and smell.
All I was saying at that moment was „thank you, thank you, thank you“ like some magic words, and I even was not aware who do I thank to, that dead stinky guy, my brain for noticing that small space, or God for saving me.
Today years and years later I still carry that smell inside my nose. But I did not move from there before danger was gone. It is survival and luckily I was already used to dirt enough to just stay with that dead guy.
Some folks just stopped to care about cleanliness and hygiene completely. So for them washing and cleaning become something like not wanted luxury. They went complete animal.
They simply stopped to care about these things, so I also knew some guys with look and smell so awful that even dead guy smelled like parfume store.
It was easy to surrender to stuff like that, I mean in trying to keep yourself clean.
But it was stupid not only in terms of the hygiene and illnesses, also by surrendering yourself you admit that you do not care anymore, and when you admit that you are only few steps from becoming animal with what you do too. People give up on themselves.
For me being as clean as I could be had something like preserving one of the last connection with “normal” life, with life before sh!t hit the fan, when things like neighbors, breakfast, car etc, were just things we took for granted, like things that always gonna be there unchanged.
Of course I was aware that being clean is important in order to stay alive because all diseases problem, no doctors hospitals etc. but on some psychological level it kept me sane and it kept me normal man.
Even in survival situation you need to still care about few little things to keep your dignity, to keep spirit up, to not lose yourself. If you stop caring about everything it is like disease that eats you.
When I came back from trading or scavenging in the city, I would clean or wash myself thoroughly in my yard before entering my house, again of course because common sense, hygiene and diseases, but maybe even more important I tried to keep all chaos and violence, suffering outside of my home on some psychological level.
I try to stay out of the everything, or actually I tried to keep everything outside of my home, like some ritual. I would keep the clothes for outside in bag, my boots were in one corner, never entering my room in it etc.
One of my relative wears pink slippers (mittens) when he was home sometimes, he would say that he just felt that everything is fine when he wear it. It was spooky and strange to see him in pink slippers while outside world is going to hell, but we all have some strange ways I guess to keep ourselves sane. Maybe wearing those slippers after he was forced to shoot some folks kept him sane, reminded him on some normal times when grandma wear it in the evenings.
On the other side, like I said in beginning if you stick too much to old habits you are not doing best for survival too.
So if I had to be animal, I was animal. It was about survival. For example there was a period when I eat just to survive, like animal, without paying attention what I eat or how. If I found some food I ate it in quick way, if there was some food with worms in it, I would eat it in dark, without looking what I eat etc.
Point was (and still is) to be man, but to be ready to be animal if you are forced to be animal, and thats it. It comes down to being flexible, adapting to situation and I hope this helps to crush the idea some Hollywood or fantasy survival scenarios show that survival is about being complete animal. No, it is fine line to walk.
You can (and you have to) have as much hand sanitizers, soap, disposable face masks etc. as you can but you can still end up dead if you are not ready to accept fact that one day you might be forced to „hug“ dead guy in order to survive, or eat roast rat or pigeon.
Once next collapse comes many people will wake up to reality and struggle to be human like they were or become animals and as skilled survivalist I hope you will walk fine line in between. The people who were walking that path were and Im sure will be those who have biggest chances to survive.
“The Globalists have had a hand in shaping and financing all the terrorist organizations of the twentieth century, including the Muslim Brotherhood of Egypt, the Hamas of Palestine, and the Afghan Mujahideen. But the history of their duplicity dates farther back still, to the eighteenth century, when British Freemasons created the Wahhabi sect of Saudi Arabia itself, to further their imperialistic objectives by dividing and conquering its targets.
Following the dictates of the Hegelian dialectic, the Globalists have created two antagonizing forces, the “Liberal-Democratic” Zionist West, against Terrorism, or “political Islam”, to force us into the acceptance of their final alternative, a New World Order.
The West and Islam have had a long era of compatibility, but this history has been denied to foster the myth of a “Clash of Civilizations”. In order to inflame the sentiments of the West against Islam, our attention has been focused on the specter of fanatical Wahhabism, and more specifically, its most notorious exponent, Ossama bin Laden.
However, as outlined in an excellent article by Peter Goodgame, “The Globalists and the Islamists” the Globalists have had a hand in shaping and financing all the terrorist organizations of the twentieth century, including the Muslim Brotherhood of Egypt, the Hamas of Palestine, and the Afghan Mujahideen. But the history of their duplicity dates farther back still, to the eighteenth century, when British Freemasons created the Wahhabi sect of Saudi Arabia itself, to further their imperialistic objectives.
That a British spy by the name of Hempher was responsible for the shaping of the extreme tenets of Wahhabism was mentioned in a Turkish work, Mir’at al-Haramain , by Ayyub Sabri Pasha between 1933-1938. British policy in its colonies often involved the creation of deviant sects, in order to Divide and Conquer, as was the case with the Ahmadiyya sect of Islam in India in the nineteenth century.
The details of this conspiracy are outlined in a little-known document by the name of The Memoirs of Mr. Hempher published in series (episodes) in the German paper Spiegel, and later on in a prominent French paper. A Lebanese doctor translated the document to the Arabic language and from there on it was translated into English and other languages.
The document is a first-hand account by Hempher of his mission for his government, who sent him to the Middle East to discover ways to undermine the Ottoman Empire. Among the vices, the British were to promote were racism and nationalism, alcohol, gambling, fornication, and tempting Muslim women to uncover themselves.
But most important was the strategy to “insert heresies into Muslims’ creedal tenets and then criticize Islam for being “a religion of terror.” To this purpose, Hempher located a particularly corrupt individual by the name of Mohammed Ibn Adbul Wahhab.
To understand the brand of fanaticism that Wahhabism inculcated, it is first necessary to recognize that Islam called upon all Muslims, regardless of their race or nationality, to see themselves as brothers in faith. The killing of another Muslim was strictly forbidden. However, as part of their strategy of Divide and Conquer, the British hoped to pit the Arab Muslims against their Turkish brothers. The only way to do so was to find a loophole in Islamic law whereby the Arabs could declare the Turks as apostates.
Abdul Wahhab was the instrument by which the British were able to insinuate this vile idea into the Muslims of the Arabian Peninsula. Basically, Wahhab contrived the idea that, simply by the trivial act of offering prayers to saints, their Turkish brethren had forfeited their faith, and therefore, that it was permitted to kill all who refused to adhere to his reforms and enslave their women and children. But, that included the entire Muslim world, except for his small misguided band of followers.
But, the Wahabbi movement was insignificant without the allegiance of the Saudi family, who, despite claims otherwise, were descended from a Jewish merchant from Iraq . Orthodox jurists of the time branded the Wahhabis as heretics and condemned their fanaticism and intolerance.
Nevertheless, the Wahhabis then demonstrated their contempt for their pretended faith by indiscriminately slaughtering Muslims and non-Muslims alike. The Wahhabis then set about destroying all the holy tombs and burial grounds. They stole the Prophet’s treasure, which included holy books, works of art, and innumerable priceless gifts sent to the city during the previous thousand years. The leather and gilt bindings of the Islamic holy books they had destroyed were used to make sandals for the Wahhabi criminals.
The Ottoman Sultan brought an end to the first Wahhabi rebellion in 1818, but the sect revived under the leadership of the Saudi Faysal I. The movement was then somewhat restored until once again destroyed at the end of the nineteenth century.
After WWI, the former regions of the Ottoman Empire were divided into varying puppets regimes. For aiding to undermine the Ottoman authority in the region, Ibn Saud was duly rewarded with the creation of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, in 1932. One year later, in 1933, the Saudis granted oil concessions to California Arabian Standard Oil Company (Casoc), an affiliate of Standard Oil of California (Socal, today’s Chevron), headed by Rothschild agent, and chief among Illuminati families, Rockefeller. Since that time, Saudi Arabia has been the most important ally to the West in the Middle East, not only providing ready access to its plentiful oil reserves but also tempering Arab aggression against Israel. Due to the evident hypocrisy of the regime, it has been necessary to suppress the ensuing dissent with brutality. Another important aspect has been preventing scholars from speaking of “politics”, that is, criticizing the regime.
In The Two Faces of Islam, writes Schwartz, “Their tastes led them to taverns, casinos, brothels. . . . They bought fleets of automobiles, private jets, and yachts the size of warships. They invested in valuable Western art they did not understand or like which often offended the sensitivities of Wahhabi clerics. They spent as they wished, becoming patrons of international sexual enslavement and the exploitation of children.” The result has been that, in order to nonetheless appear to be espousing Islam, the Saudi regime and its puppet scholars have evolved a version of Islam that emphasizes ceremonial details of the religion, at the expense of helping to understand broader political realities. Their manner has encouraged a literal interpretation of Islamic law, permitting the likes of bin Laden to exploit the Koran to justify the killing of innocents.
Ultimately, the profusion of Rothschild-financed petro-dollars in the coffers of the Saudi family has made it possible to for them to then propagandize their bastardized version of Islam to other parts of the world, most notably to America, where they purportedly subsidize up to 80 percent of the mosques in the country, a version of Islam that substitutes political awareness for dogmatic insistence of ritualistic fanaticism.
In 1999, King Fahd of Saudi Arabia attended the Bilderberg meeting, presumably to discuss his role in furthering the interests of world government, along with other such luminaries as Yasser Arafat and the Pope. Evidently, the Saudi family is part of the deceptive ploys of the Illuminati network. Their complicity in the accumulation of petro-dollars has gone into the financing of Global terrorism, from Afghanistan to Bosnia, merely for the purpose of fomenting the necessary animosity of the world against Islam.
The winds of war are now blowing around the world. One day we will look back on these days with longing as one would look back on the gentle breezes of summer as the hurricane blows outside.
The winter season of the fourth turning is increasing with intensity as most people are fooled into believing that summer is just a few days off. When the winds become deadly and the snow begins to pile up, many will not be prepared to care for themselves. They will find themselves helpless and unprepared for this new weather system. Many will die and many more will suffer as they are cut off from the supplies and materials they depend on for normal living. They will become immobile and have little communication to tell them what to do. When the weather has them at their most vulnerable, the wolves will begin to show up at their door.
It cannot be over emphasized as to the amount of danger America is facing. We are being systematically cut off and separated from our allies and will eventually stand alone to face the fury of the hurricane that approaches. We are currently being set up to take a fall that some hope will be the end of this nation as we know it. The treason and treachery being perpetrated on this nation is a result of the mutation of the population from ants to grasshoppers. We are about to get exactly what we voted for and most people do not understand what that means.
Our birthright has been sold for a hand full of magic beans that will turn out to be rancid leftovers from someone’s failed business adventures. The wealth this nation has amassed over the decades is rapidly dwindling and will suddenly disappear in its entirety as the nation sleeps one night in the near future. The masses will awake one morning in a strange new land that holds no future for them or their children. They will be dumbstruck as to how they got there. The warnings will have been dismissed as insane talk by delusional people that don’t conform to societies norms.
It will be these few delusional, insane people that will determine the future of the once great nation. They will be the only ones that understand the dangers and are prepared to deal with the deadly winter weather. When the snow piles up they will have supplies and heat. When the wolves appear at the door they will have the weapons to fight them off. When the winds blow away the shelters of society the few will be safe in their structures reinforced to handle the tempest.
Those that deny the coming weather will be laid naked before it and will pay the price. No amount of facts or pleading will change the mind of most of these grasshoppers until it is too late.
There is a storm approaching and measures must be taken before it is too late to prepare. Just as you would prepare for a hurricane, the population must lay in stores of food and supplies to maintain their standard of living for the duration of the destruction. They must make sure they are in a safe location that will not get brown away or inundated with water from the storm surge. They must have the means to provide heat and cook food when the power system goes down. They must be able to protect themselves from any wolves that appear in any form. They must be prepared to rebuild after the storm passes. They must be prepared to weather this storm for 10 to 20 years until it blows itself out.
War is being fomented and when it comes the U.S. will be hard pressed to survive it. Our military is being downsized, weapons systems are being reduced and many senior commanders are being fired for dubious reasons at best. The civil population is being systematically impoverished while government operatives tell them the nation is strong and getting stronger. Our manufacturing base has been dismantled and over 17% of our food is imported today. We have bankers that are stealing hard assets with fiat funny money and plan to steal peoples savings with new government regulations and laws. We are on the verge of losing reserve currency status and our banking system as we know it.
We are being inundated by foreigners that seek government entitlements and refuse to assimilate the American culture or language further dividing the civil population into domestic tribes hostile to one another. We have terrorist training camps within our borders and a lack of border control. We have members of the Muslim Brotherhood in the highest levels of our government and leaders that are ignorant at best and treasonous at worst.
In 1996 Thomas Chittum wrote a book called Civil War Two where he describes the breakup of America into ethnic regions. Many of the things he wrote about are evident today in society and spell doom for this nation as it is, even if we were not threatened with world war we would be headed for balkanization. The increasingly dysfunctional nature of this nation as it is will provide its citizens with many difficulties to overcome in the coming years.
War is coming to the world and to America on many levels and it cannot be stopped. The best anyone can do is to prepare and try to stay out of the way of the most serious fighting and bide their time until they can get the upper hand in their locality. The world is about to change in a very radical way and many are not prepared for it either physically or mentally. The forecast has been given and the storm flags are up.
SURVIVAL BLOG 