What Are the Most and Least Dangerous U.S. States in a SHTF

The world is an uncertain place, and the recent pandemic drove home the vulnerabilities many have. Finding creative ways to relieve yourself without toilet paper is the least of your worries if the grid were to collapse, taking with it communication capabilities and stopping supply chains altogether, not just slowing them down. If the SHTF, how safe are you and your loved ones where you are? Where are the best and worst places to be?

Humans have divorced themselves so completely from the natural world that they forget the role climate and resources play in survival. However, the greatest danger you face might come from the human animal. Here are the most and least dangerous U.S. states in a SHTF scenario.

SHTF Scenarios Defined: How Likely Are They?

First, take a deep breath — it’s unlikely that a global SHTF scenario will result in an apocalyptic collapse of all modern civilization. While it’s fine to prep for such circumstances, you’ll probably experience localized disasters, such as hurricanes.

Others may be more widespread, like pandemics, but not so devastating that all is lost. Nevertheless, the following seven situations are SHTF scenarios for which you should be ready:

  • Job loss: This is particularly frightening in the gig economy and as social safety nets shrink.
  • Regional disasters: This includes hurricanes, earthquakes, wildfires, tornadoes and floods.
  • Economic collapse: It’s either increasingly likely or unlikely, depending on which economists you follow.
  • Cyberattacks: Modern reliance on technology to run the grid creates vulnerabilities.
  • Pandemic: Humanity is now well-versed — but have you begun prepping for the next one?
  • War: People in the U.S. have been insulated from war’s true horrors, but this is one of the most frightening SHTF scenarios. Rising divisiveness increases its likelihood.
  • Critical power failure: Nearly everything people do requires electricity — what happens when there is none for days, weeks or longer?

Factors to Consider in a SHTF Scenario

Your first consideration in a SHTF scenario is whether to go or stay where you are. How well you prepare helps determine your answer, as supplies reign supreme — a well-stocked storm cellar is a blessing. However, if you haven’t had a chance to become a proper squirrel, you might have to hit the road in search of what you need to survive.

When selecting your escape route, you must consider the following four factors for the journey and ultimate destination.

1. Climate

It’s vital to keep the weather in mind when traveling. When on vacation, you know you can head home if things get too uncomfortable. You don’t have that option in a SHTF scenario — leaving home means staying is more dangerous than going. You’re about to gain a whole new appreciation of unhoused individuals’ daily struggles.

Even with a vehicle to break the elements, you’ll need plenty of blankets and warmers in the winter. If you only have enough cash for one survival tool and know you’ll likely need to travel, a small propane heater can be a lifesaver. Of course, if you’re trekking through the Arizona desert in July, you have the opposite problem — water will become your most pressing need. You’ll need at least a gallon per day, and that’s if you can find shade and travel at night.

There’s also the risk your ride will break down or you’ll encounter an obstacle you can’t bypass, like a severely flooded roadway. Dress in layers and have a well-stocked bugout backpack ready if you must travel by foot.

2. Availability of Resources

Modern humans head to grocery stores when they need food. However, you probably can’t get there in a SHTF scenario — and attempting it could be dangerous if looting runs rampant. You’re in for an unpleasant awakening if you’ve never experienced genuine hunger.

Fortunately, you can forage even in urban areas. However, it’s safer in the wilds since there’s less risk of pesticides and chemicals. If you don’t have a dime to put toward prepping, at least learn what local plants you can eat in a pinch. You can also hunt to meet your daily caloric needs.

3. Natural Threats

Weather and hunger pose your greatest natural threats. Still, it helps to study the terrain along your escape route. For example, what critters might you encounter if you head to the wilds?

4. Human-made Threats

Your biggest threats in a SHTF scenario may be your fellow humans. Desperation drives people to behavioral extremes, and even the most law-abiding soul will steal a loaf of bread to assuage starvation without caring who else they deprive.

The threats amplify if you’re female or disabled — it’s an unfortunate reality. Another way to prepare if you have no money is to learn how to defend yourself. Although it’s best to attend live training and run through drills with a qualified instructor, there are plenty of free channels on YouTube with techniques you can practice with a partner. If you’re comfortable using a weapon, train with it regularly to make its use intuitive in a pinch.

The Most Dangerous U.S. States in a SHTF Scenario

You may not have had the time, money or resources to stock your home for survival. Perhaps you’re planning on relocating with potential SHTF scenarios in mind. What are the best and worst places to be? Here are the most dangerous U.S. states to be in during a disaster.

1. Major Metro Areas

The first spot on this list isn’t a specific state — it’s more regional than that. Regardless of your state, major metro areas are your worst bets in a SHTF scenario. Consider this: In the past 50 years alone, more Americans have died from gunfire than in all the U.S. wars combined. It’s not an exaggeration to say other humans may pose your biggest survival threat.

There’s also safety in numbers with those you can trust. If you reside in the city, your best prepping bet may be to organize your core posse, coordinating where you will all meet if evacuation becomes necessary.

Stocking your home for supplies is still valuable — it will help you survive SHTF scenarios like job loss, pandemics and regional disasters of limited scope where cleanup efforts take weeks. However, the sheer hordes of people in cities assure there will be plenty who don’t take such measures and will seek what you have if circumstances become dire enough. Prepare to stay, but plan to go.

2. Florida

Florida sees more than its fair share of natural disasters, so it deserves the No. 1 spot on this list outside urban jungles.

3. New York

Parts of New York are quite rural — and gorgeous. The problem is the severe weather extremes in such areas. Sections of the state are tucked between the Great Lakes and Atlantic seaboard, which are among the snowiest regions in the U.S. Even the hardiest survivalist struggles in a blinding blizzard.

3. California

What makes California so dangerous is its population size. It’s the nation’s most populous state, with an economy larger than many small countries. An economic collapse here could lead to severe repercussions, and while there are plenty of helpful folks, there are also more hell-bent on causing chaos and harm.

4. Texas

You might want a firearm for self-defense, but not every user is responsible or humane. Texas has more mass shootings than any other state, and the U.S. leads the world in these events. There are plenty of open spaces, but is it worth the risk? Furthermore, in 2018, Texas had the most motor vehicle fatalities, followed closely by California. You could find your escape route hopelessly deadlocked.

The Least Dangerous States

Where should you go to reduce your risk and increase your survival chances? Here are the four least dangerous states in the U.S. in a SHTF scenario.

1. New Mexico

Two factors make New Mexico the ideal place to be in a SHTF scenario: climate and population. Plenty of wide-open land with no one on it gives you ample areas to boondock until some semblance of normalcy returns. Although the northern part of the state sees extreme cold, driving south for a few hours puts you squarely in the sunshine.

2. Arizona

Arizona is more populous than New Mexico but still offers plenty of wide, open spaces. You’ll also find some of the best boondock camping anywhere if you must flee the Phoenix or Tucson metro areas. You’ll enjoy the perfect climate, as you’re always within a few hours’ drive of comfort.

3. Montana

Extreme cold poses a threat here, but you’ll find plenty of open lands that teem with natural resources. Hunters can survive quite nicely.

4. Utah

The deserts of Utah don’t see as much snow as the mountains. Temperature extremes aren’t too severe in some regions, and abundant campsites and natural resources exist.

Most and Least Dangerous States When SHTF

Although you’re unlikely to experience a SHTF scenario, it pays to prepare. What are the best and worst states to live in during a survival situation?

Forewarned is forearmed. Consider these tips if you’re seeking to relocate or are strategizing what to do if the SHTF.

The Rise of the ALPR Bots: Is America heading down the same path of 24/7 surveillance of its citizens? Are you aware of ALPR cameras in your city or adjoining highways?

America is quietly being populated with Automatic License Plate Reader (ALPR) systems in towns, cities, and on highways. Most Americans drive by these devices daily unaware that they are being watched and recorded into a state database and probably a national database. The ALPR units are often very small and not easily detectable when mounted on electric poles and highway sign poles.

I work in a small city along the I-75 corridor which runs through six states from Florida and Michigan. I work in technology for a local company and know a few higher-ups in the local police department. One day I was inquiring about these new license plate readers and the officer was excited to tell me how they worked and where each of them was placed in town.

He explained that every vehicle that drives by these cameras takes a digital snapshot of the license plate number and the information about the vehicle such as if it’s a four-door, red, truck, sedan, Ford, Toyota, etc. Each snapshot reads the plate and state using character reading software and loads this data into a database. That data is then compared to a list of vehicles that are on a watch list for about any reason to be watched for. He went on to explain how fast this system responds as he tested it by entering his vehicle into the watch list. He then drove by a known camera to see if he would get a “hit” on his phone notification. It was explained the system is so fast that his phone pinged a hit within 10 seconds of driving past the camera.

I was told that any kind of parameters can be entered into the database search such as: “Be on the lookout for a red GM 2 door with a black roof, even without a plate number.” Whenever a car fitting the description of the search drives by, the camera the officer in charge of the database will get a hit that such a vehicle just drove by going in X direction on X street. He then dispatches an officer in the area to investigate the find to see if its a match.

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I went looking for these cameras and found them to be quite small. They are mounted mostly on wood electrical poles. One camera on one side of the pole looking at oncoming traffic and one camera on the other side of the same pole looking at the traffic from the other direction. I found 12 of these cameras in our little town but I’m sure I missed a few more. They are usually mounted high on a pole looking down. They sometimes have a small solar panel to power them. A small box wired to each camera provides a cellular phone network connection,  sending images to a cloud server somewhere.

My source went on to explain that each city might have a database and that they can make that data public to other agencies –which he said everyone does. So, if a crime is committed in a town elsewhere or in the state the police department can search the database for a vehicle description, or plate number, or a name associated with a plate number. Supposedly, the State Patrol is now using the same system with cameras on the highways and shares the same data as the cities. So, if Chief Wiggly in the city of Podunk is looking for a car that fits the description of one used in the robbery of the local donut shop, he can enter the data in his system and search for that car. If there is a hit on it within the database system, he calls the local police department that reported it for more information and possible apprehension.

He went on the explain that a police department in another town was looking for a murder suspect. That other department entered the license plate of the car and it showed up on his system. It seems the guy worked in this town and drove by a camera every day where they ended up finding him and his vehicle at a local employer where the person of interest was apprehended.

I questioned the longevity of these databases.  How long do they retain these captures and was told “only two weeks” but in reality, I’m sure the data is being retained in other agencies much longer. I told him I don’t totally agree with how this system works and I believe it’s an invasion of privacy. He replied it would be no different than someone sitting on the roadside writing down every car that drove by on a piece of paper. In a sense he is right but the fact that this is so automated that our police departments have become keyboard cops.

This brings me to another fact that many towns now have cameras in most downtown areas which monitor and record every second of activity in the streets. Much like London where it is reported to have up to 900,000 cameras throughout the city. There are also cameras on traffic poles but after further investigation, it appears these are used for vehicle detection to operate traffic lights. Is America heading down the same path of 24/7 surveillance of its citizens? Are you aware of ALPR cameras in your city or adjoining highways? As I am now aware of many of these cameras, I try to avoid them, for the simple fact I don’t wish to be recorded into a database.

A web search will lead to several companies providing license plate reader technologies to local law enforcement. Another search of “legality of plate readers” gives a plethora of stories where many citizens and legal experts are arguing the legality of their use. I think this all goes back to awareness of your surroundings. Be aware of what is around you. I have nothing to hide, have never committed a crime, And I am an upstanding Christian citizen. But I don’t agree with my movements throughout a city being tracked and stored in a database.

I read that Washington, DC has used these systems since 2011.  I’m sure that ALPR data was conveniently made available to whatever three-letter agency requested it on or after Jan. 6th, 2021.

Be thankful for your blessings. Stay Frosty, your head and on a swivel, and be aware of your surroundings.

In this short VIDEO, I will unearth A lost super-food will bulletproof you against any food shortage or famine. It’s a food that vanished with the Incas over 6 centuries ago

In the next crisis these lost skills will be more valuable than gold, food supplies and survival equipment combined. These skills have been tested and proven to work for centuries.

Here’s just a small glimpse of what you’ll find in The Lost SuperFoods:

Learn More…

by Anon-12 SURVIVALBLOG CONTRIBUTOR

Survival Chemistry: With a Little Preparation and Care, You Can Create Solutions That Support Your Day-to-Day Life and Help You Thrive Through an Emergency

Often, homesteading and survivalism can be defined by the simple fact that you have your own access to medical tools, energy, and food. However, having independent sources of useful solutions and chemicals can also be essential in difficult situations alongside everyday homesteading.

Much like most products, you don’t have to be limited to purchasing manufactured chemicals. You can produce alternatives to many common solutions that are not only effective but also often greener and more cost-effective. Let’s explore some of these alongside approaches to storing your concoctions safely.

Cleaning Products

Keeping clean is a necessity for any survival situation. Your efforts here help minimize the potential for the spread of bacteria and exposure to infection. Crafting your own cleaning products is not just good for when you’ve run out of commercial items. By making homemade items part of your day-to-day life, you can find you have greater control over the scent, strength, and eco-friendliness of your cleaning materials.

Soap

Making your own soap is a relatively simple process. Firstly, you can extract the base metal hydroxide — known as lye — by boiling hardwood ashes in soft water for 30 minutes. While this is less caustic than the chemical lye you buy from stores, it’s still important to wear protective gloves and goggles when handling it. You’ll then combine the lye with melted fat, such as coconut oil or lard. There needs to be around a 1:3 ratio of lye to fat. By heating the fat and lye gently and stirring every 15 minutes or so for up to 3 hours, you’ll have some serviceable soap. This is as good as either hand soap or dish soap. You can also add some essential oils during the stirring process to give it a more pleasant scent.

Toilet cleaner

An unclean toilet bowl is not just unpleasant to be around, but it can also be a breeding ground for harmful bacteria. Fortunately, toilet cleaner is not difficult to fashion and you can produce it in a range of strengths. A milder toilet bowl cleaner for daily use takes just a quarter cup of baking soda to a cup of distilled white vinegar, mixed thoroughly. However, for something stronger for a more thorough cleansing, you combine the vinegar and baking soda with tea tree essential oils. This is because tea tree oil is known to have antibacterial properties.

Water Purification

Whether you’re homesteading or responding to an emergency scenario, clean water is one of your most important resources. While people can survive for up to 3 weeks without food, they can only last around 3 days without water. Boiling and disinfectant tablets are often the preferred methods of purification. Nevertheless, you can also craft solutions that help to purify water from rivers or collect rain in a pinch.

Plant-based solutions

Some plants can be effective in removing contaminants from water. These include cilantro, banana peels, coconut, and the bark of Oregon grape plants, among others. In most cases, this involves keeping water in a bag with minced or shredded samples of these plants. You then filter and boil the water afterward. Yet, it’s important to do your research into how to effectively collect, store, and utilize each type of plant for this purpose, to avoid dangerous errors.

Homemade chlorine

Creating chlorine can also make a good tool for cleaning water for drinking, washing dishes, and cleaning food. The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) advises that this should only be done when safe bottled water isn’t available and boiling isn’t possible. It’s a last resort. Like other chemicals used in water purification — such as potassium permanganate — it should be used sparingly. Usually around 0.1ml of bleach to each quart of water is sufficient. You can make chlorine bleach at home using a cleaning agent known as calcium hypochlorite. Adding 1 teaspoon of these granules to 2 gallons of water and stirring provides you with a disinfectant that you can use in emergencies.

Pest Control

Unfortunately, there may well be times when pests invade your home and land. This might be in the form of seasonal mosquitos or ticks. You might even find that some pests will get into your homegrown crops. Crafting and storing some of your own pest control solutions can empower you to fend off these minute threats to your well-being and comfort.

Bug repellant

Bug bites can be uncomfortable. Not to mention that, in some instances, they can lead to the spread of disease. Thankfully, you can craft repellant that’s eco-friendly and kinder on your skin than many store-bought varieties. This begins with choosing an essential oil that repels insects. These include citronella, peppermint, and thyme. Some essential oils are particularly effective against specific insects, like sage for fending off ticks. You then mix your chosen oil gently with a base oil — coconut oil or almond oil are popular — and distilled water. Getting the ratios to your preference can take a little trial and error. However, when you have a solution that’s right for you, you can pour it into spray bottles and store these for when you need them most.

Hillbilly breath

Hillbilly breath is a natural insecticide that helps protect your crops and other plants. It’s a pretty agile solution, too, as it’s regarded as something of a catch-all against most bugs. The recipe for this concoction involves chopping garlic, tobacco, mint, and ash. You then mix these ingredients into water along with a tablespoon of your homemade soap. Allow this to steep for a day or so. You can then mix some in a watering can and sprinkle it on your plants to protect them against pests.

Fire Starters

Fire is vital for cooking and heating, particularly in survival scenarios where electrical sources aren’t available. Yes, there are natural methods for igniting a fire. However, keeping a collection of homemade fire starters on hand can save time and energy when you need to get a good blaze going quickly and with minimal effort.

Wine corks in alcohol

Wooden corks have absorbent and inflammable qualities that make them great fire starter materials. However, it’s important to gather the natural wooden kind rather than the plastic versions that are common today. Fill a mason jar or watertight tin with as many corks as you can fit, before filling the rest of the space with isopropyl alcohol. That said, in a pinch, almost any alcohol will do the trick. Once sealed, you can store these away until you need to take one or two out to use as fire starters in the future.

Lint in cardboard tubes

Most people know how important it is to clear out your clothes dryer’s lint compartment, as exposure to heat can make lint a fire hazard. This is also useful information when making homemade fire starters. You can combine a little petroleum jelly with the lint from your dryer, before rolling it into cylinders. From here, you simply stuff the combination into cardboard tubes from the inside of toilet paper or kitchen towels. Storing these in ziplock plastic bags keeps them safe for when you want to add one to your kindling as a fire starter.

Keeping Solutions Safe

Heading into your kitchen or garage to whip up a useful concoction can be interesting and practical. Nevertheless, it’s also vital to establish storage solutions for these and other chemicals in your home. After all, safety is always a priority in any survival or prepping scenario. The homemade nature of these chemicals doesn’t necessarily mean they don’t harbor risks. Taking steps to properly keep them contained can both safeguard your well-being and also ensure the items’ longevity.

Storing chemicals correctly begins with clearly identifying what you have in your collection. Get to know exactly what the makeup of each of your solutions is and the potential hazards they pose. This helps you to choose the most appropriate places and conditions for them. For instance, flammable chemicals — including your homemade fire starters — must be placed in cool areas out of direct sunlight and other potential sources of ignition. This might include a storage shed or garage away from the main part of your home. Corrosive chemicals should be stored away from other solutions, too. This is because there’s a risk of them leaking onto other solutions, affecting the integrity of the containers.

It’s also vital to keep your chemicals organized in the storage area. Given that you’ll be creating many of these from scratch, you should take the time to clearly label each. This is particularly important when you’re not the only one who might be interacting with them. Whoever uses them should be able to tell exactly what each solution is, how it should be used, and what its ingredients are. Another key element of organization is to avoid over-stacking containers. Ensuring that each has its own space on shelves and is not balanced on top of other bottles helps avoid accidents.

In addition, it can be wise to talk to your family about the importance of safe storage of these chemicals. By giving them a little guidance on the system of organization and why these measures are so important, you’re empowering them to keep themselves and others safe.

Conclusion

Crafting and storing your own essential solutions can be a fascinating process, alongside boosting your independence. There are also various other nuanced concoctions that homesteaders have used for centuries that are worth exploring. It’s vital in all circumstances to put your safety first when creating new solutions or handling chemicals, though. This includes utilizing appropriate protective equipment and being mindful of the potential for fumes when boiling solutions or combining chemicals. With a little preparation and care, you can create solutions that support your day-to-day life and help you thrive through an emergency.

How I Survived a Home Invasion – Lessons Learned From a Home Invasion That I Experienced

PART 1: BACKSTORY AND THE EVENT

This is an article about the experience, aftermath, and lessons learned from a home invasion that I experienced. I feel strongly that retelling it provides some important lessons and food for thought for anyone who keeps a gun for self-defense.

THE BACKSTORY

It was a weekend late afternoon and I was in my computer room at my house, working on e-mails and generally perusing the Internet. I had headphones on so I was unable to hear anything going on around me. The only other people in the house were my girlfriend who was cleaning the upstairs. My computer room faces onto my covered front porch.

At some point, I felt some vibrations in the floor that usually indicated someone was walking around on my front porch. I peeked outside through the blinds and saw a man standing on my porch, turning as to leave. Apparently, he had come up on the porch, rang the bell, and I didn’t hear it.

He had a sort of hippie-ish look to him…thick-rimmed eyeglasses, an orange ski cap, dark beard, holding a paper cup of coffee, and was carrying what we have come to call a ‘man purse’. I assumed that he was collecting signatures or something for one of the public-interest groups that are in this town.

I took off my headphones and headed to the front door.

A few details are important to add at this point, for what is about to happen.

Years earlier, I had installed a series of security cameras around the outside of my house. All approaches, entry points, and intersections of travel have a camera covering them. The feed is on a computer monitor in my living room and all video is recorded but sound is not.

I normally carry a Glock with me but I had been spending a ‘lazy day’ at home and was not wearing my pistol.

Next to my front door, to the left as you stand in the door facing outside, there is a small nightstand where, among other things, I keep a Glock 27 with Crimson Trace grips for those times I have to answer the door. The gun sits in a drawer, in a holster, ready to use.

Back to the story…

By the time I got to my front door, the guy has walked off my porch, down the steps, and was standing on the sidewalk that ran in front of my house. I opened the front door, opened the screen door, stuck my head out and asked “Hey, what can I do for you?” He turned and started walking up the walkway to the steps, smiling and saying “Hey, this is a nice place. This place is nice.” He started up the steps to my porch and when he got to the top step I stuck my hand out in a ‘halt’ fashion and said “Hey buddy, do me a favor and don’t come any closer.” He turned 180-degrees from me, turning his back to me, and walked backwards towards me as he seemingly checked behind him to see if anyone was around or watching.

At this point my usual level of caution has bumped into a previously unknown level. Usually, when I tell someone not to come any closer, or to step back from the door, they do it and that’s that. Not this time. I pulled the screen door shut as he turned towards it, put his coffee down, and grabbed the screen door handle to try and pull it open. As he’s tugging the door handle trying to pull it open, I’m pulling the handle trying to keep the door shut. He starts yelling “Let me in! Let me in!” and then starts throwing punches through the screen, trying to grab the door handle from the inside. After the first punch, he starts yelling “Hail Satan!”

I’m holding the door shut with my right hand, and I realize that this is a situation that has gone well beyond anything I’ve ever experienced. Becoming a victim of a violent encounter is no longer a theory, it’s happening. While holding the door shut with my right hand, I grab the drawer handle of the nightstand with my left. I yank the drawer open so hard that it completely clears the nightstand and hits the floor. I lean down and scoop up the pistol with my left hand. A problem immediately occurs – the pistol is in a holster. I need two hands to get the gun out of the holster. This means I need to take my right hand off the screen door handle in order to grab the gun out of the holster, which is held in my left hand. But, if I let go of the door handle, then The Bad Guy will simply be able to yank the door open and come into the house. With him punching his way through the screen and clearly being unhinged, I feel there isn’t much of a choice.

I let go of the screen door handle and yank the pistol out of the holster that I’m holding in my left hand. As I do this I start stepping backwards away from the door to buy myself time to get the gun out of the holster. The Bad Guy pulls the door open and advances into the house. He starts coming towards me as I’m fading back into my living room. At no point we’re we ever more than three or four feet apart. When the gun clears the holster, and I’m backpedaling, I discard the holster and bring the gun up to a two-handed low ready position. There’s no time to tell him to stay back, and if he sees the gun he gives no indication of it. He continues lunging towards me. There’s no time to bring the gun up out of the low ready, there’s no time to use the sights, and the distance is so close that there’s no real need for the laser. We’re close enough that we could reach out and touch each other…which is something I did not want. The last thing I wanted was to get into a clinch with this guy, us rolling around on my living room floor fighting over a pistol.

There’s a moment of hesitation as the thought comes into my head that, once I pull the trigger, my life is never, ever going to be the same. The thought that, somehow, I might get into huge legal trouble also runs through my head. All of these thoughts occur simultaneously in the blink of an eye. I pull the trigger once, he crumples forward, still coming towards me, and almost immediately I follow up with two more shots…pop, pause, pop, pop. He hits the floor at my feet, rolls onto his side, gives a wheezing gasp, and is still. The entire episode of him coming through the door to being on the floor was, at most, four seconds.

I’m standing over him, pistol in a two-hand grip, still pointed at him, when my girlfriend comes running down the stairs. The front door is open, there’s a cloud of gunsmoke in the air, and I’m standing over this guy pointing my pistol at him, the laser visible in the smoke. I tell her to grab my phone and call 911. I also tell her to grab her phone and take a picture of the scene…just in case.

I get 911 on the phone and the first thing I tell them is to send an ambulance. (I had the presence of mind to ask for the ambulance first so I could later point out that, clearly, my first concern was for the person on my living room floor.) Then I told them to send the cops, and that someone had tried to break into my house and I shot them. The dispatcher asks if the guy is still breathing. I tell her I have absolutely no intention of getting close enough to find out. She tells me exactly what I expected: Cops are on the way, put the gun away, go out and meet them with your hands up. No surprise.

I put the gun on the table, and head outside to meet the cops. As it turns out, this happened just at shift change so pretty much every cop from both shifts showed up. A total of 14 police cars. As I expected, I had to walk out of the house with my hands up and they searched me before telling me to just stand by the car while they cleared the place. They let me call my boss and I told her I was probably not going to be at work the next day.

Eventually, I was taken to the police station, and the girlfriend was taken separately as well, and we were put in separate interrogation rooms.

(To be continued in Part 2.)

The Rise of“Theosophy”: The Planned Destruction of the USA From Luciferians and Globalists and Their Psychopathic Religion

In the late 1800s and early 1900s, the western world experienced a sudden burst of open occultism among the ultra-rich elites. The rise of “Theosophy” was underway, becoming a kind of fashion trend that would ultimately set the stage for what would later be called “new age” spiritualism. The primary driver of the theosophical movement was a small group of obscure academics led in part by a woman named H.P. Blavatsky. The group was obsessed with esoteric belief, Gnosticism, and even Satanism.

Blavatsky co-founded the Theosophical Society in New York in 1875, claiming that she had a psychic connection to beings called “the Mahatmas” or “the masters.” These creatures, she asserted, helped her write the foundational books of Theosophy, including ‘The Secret Doctrine.’

I bring up Theosophy and Blavatsky because the movement she helped launch was primarily an elitist one – The spread of occultism in the early 1900s specifically targeted the upper classes and this resulted in many political leaders and financial leaders being involved in obscure organizations with secretive mandates. Such groups have existed in the past, from the Rosicrucians and Freemasons to the alchemists of the Middle Ages who hid their occult beliefs in coded texts. However, never before had they been so public in their efforts.

To their credit, the early theosophists were mostly apolitical (at least outwardly) and they argued against political intrusion into people’s lives. I suspect, however, that this was because at the time western governments revolved around Christian and conservative values. As politicians became more separate from Christianity, the theosophist interest in controlling government grew and the movement became increasingly socialist in practice.

Invariably, these spiritual systems revolved around pagan deities of the past, many Babylonian or Ancient Egyptian in origin. That said, there are also numerous mentions in Theosophy of one figure in particular – Lucifer, also referred to as “the Light Bearer, the angel of light, Prometheus (symbolically), the dragon, the morning star and Satan.” Modern luciferians will consistently deny the the name “Lucifer” has anything to do with the biblical figure of Satan, but this is a lie. Blavatsky herself treats the two figures as synonymous in ‘The Secret Doctrine.’ As she admits in her book:

“And now it stands proven that Satan, or the Red Fiery Dragon, the ‘Lord of Phosphorus,’ and Lucifer, or ‘Light-Bearer,’ is in us: it is our Mind…”

Blavatsky, quoting hermetic texts in the Secret Doctrine, also repeats the mantra:

“It is Satan who is the god of our planet and the only god…”

Luciferians and occultists will also argue that the Christian Bible only mentions the name “Lucifer” once, and that the two figures are not associated. This is once again a lie by omission. The Bible does in fact mention “light bearer,” the “angel of light” and “the dragon” in reference to Satan on multiple occasions, and all of these names are used by elites to describe the figure they call Lucifer.

As mentioned in Corinthians 11:14 – “And it is no wonder, for Satan himself masquerades as an angel of light…”

In other words, when any elitist group mentions terms such as “light bearer” or Lucifer, they are indeed referring to Satan. It’s not just a matter of archetypal discussion, this is in fact a part of their religion. But in our modern times some people might say “who cares?” It’s all mythical hoodoo and fantasy, right?

I would respond with a question:  Do you think the deeply held religious beliefs of the people with financial and political power matter in how they make decisions?  Wouldn’t their beliefs help explain why they do the things they do?  If you want to know why the globalists are engaged in a very real war on the minds of the masses, you cannot overlook their religious motivations. What seems like fantasy to some is VERY real to the globalists.

For example, many know that the United Nations building in New York has an occult library.  But few people know that it was built by a group called the Lucifer Publishing Company (later changed to Lucis Trust). Lucis Trust cites the writings of HP Blavatsky constantly as the inspiration for their organization. The UN continues to associate with Lucis Trust to this day. The very heart of globalism revolves around luciferian ideals.

It doesn’t matter what you or I think about these things. It doesn’t matter if you see such concepts as metaphorical, or symbolic or imaginary. THEY believe, and so we must explore what these beliefs mean.

Before the 1800s, occultists engaged in luciferianism would have been burned at the stake if discovered. I’m beginning to think that maybe this was the right way to handle such people all along. But to understand why, we have to look at the progression of the religion and why it inevitably leads to moral relativism and social self-destruction.

For the theosophists, Lucifer/Satan is a kind of heroic figure. When they argue that Lucifer is “not Satan,” what they mean is that their version of Satan is different from the version ascribed by Christianity. In other words, imagine a group of people took a famously malicious figure such as Joseph Stalin and then devised an entirely different history for him in which he is a misunderstood philanthropist instead of a genocidal maniac. That’s essentially what luciferianism is.

In the Theosophical magazine titled ‘Lucifer’ published in the 1880s, Blavatsky and her group spend multiple pages trying to separate the term Lucifer from the Devil, while also defending the mythology of the devil and painting him as a character slandered by Christian culture.

In their version of the Genesis story, for example, the serpent was the “good guy” bringing the fruit of knowledge to Adam and Eve. Eve is venerated as a root figure in theosophy and in feminism (a movement the theosophists helped to create), because without Eve the serpent would have never been able to get Adam to consume the fruit.

The fruit as a representation of gnosis (knowledge) is the key to luciferianism and the globalist cult. As many atheists I’ve encountered in the past have argued, isn’t knowledge a good thing? And if God is punishing humanity for consuming knowledge, does that not make him a villain? This argument ignores the underlying theme – Knowledge by itself is not good or evil, but evil thrives when people start to worship knowledge to the detriment of everything else. The application of knowledge without wisdom and moral discipline is dangerous.

As Dr. Ian Malcolm brilliantly asserts in the film Jurassic Park:

“Yeah, yeah, but your scientists were so preoccupied with whether or not they could that they didn’t stop to think if they should.”

Luciferians openly admit that the goal of their ideology is to pursue knowledge until human beings become gods. This infatuation with godhood is what leads to great evil; it is a delusion that poisons the mind and encourages morally relative behavior, not to mention a pervasive thirst for power.  Ponder the technological aspect for a moment. Consider the numerous globalist programs to expand artificial intelligence and bring about what they call “transhumanism.” This is a kind of knowledge worship that has terrifying implications for the future.

The integration of technology into the surveillance state to rule over society is bad enough, but what happens when human beings begin integrating technology into their very biology. Will this eventually erase any semblance of what we call “the soul?” After all, machines do not feel, nor do they self reflect on their actions. What happens when humans distort themselves to become more like machines? Will transhumanism become a movement that suffocates all love and empathy, removing moral compass and turning us into a demonic hive-mind devoid of individual thought?

Globalists assert that there is no such thing as the soul, no such thing as individual identity and no such thing as moral compass.  Form their perspective there is no danger of adopting technology as a path to godhood because nothing would be lost; and here we see the true nature of luciferianism at work. A perfect representation of this cancer is World Economic Forum spokesperson Yuval Harari – a man who says the quiet part out loud and promotes the darker tenets of luciferianism regularly.

To hear this in Harari’s own words, see these YouTube videos:

“The idea of a Soul, Free Will — these are Over!” – Technocracy explained by Prof Yuval Harari

and,

“WEF GLOBALIST Wants to ABOLISH Human Rights!

To grasp what luciferianism is, think of it as the anti-god; a war on nature, or a war on the natural state of humanity disguised as “enlightenment.” This is why globalists try to institute the extreme opposite view of every natural disposition. The notion of human beings as a blank slate that Yuval Harari clings to is one such false narrative. It is a philosophy that has been debunked by endless psychological studies as well as anthropological studies.

From Carl Jung to Joseph Campbell to Steven Pinker and beyond, all scientific evidence suggests that human beings have inherent psychological qualities and characteristics from birth. Some of these are unique to the person, some are universal archetypes and ideas that the majority of people share (such as conscience and moral compass). If we didn’t have these built-in qualities, humanity would have become extinct thousands of years ago. We still don’t know where exactly they come from, we only know that without them we are no longer human.

There is, however, a certain percentage of people (1% or less) that actually do not have these inborn character traits. They are generally known as psychopaths and sociopaths, and their behavior is very similar to that of the globalists. I have long held the theory that the globalist cabal is in fact a cult of higher functioning psychopaths.

Their lack of empathy and conscience, their thirst for godhood and omnipotence, their drive to attain all encompassing surveillance of the population, to know everything about us at all time, to have total control over the environment and society, the narcissistic self-image of a supreme ruler who is worshiped by the masses, and the delusion that they will be able to read minds and predict the future. These are psychopathic fantasies, and they are willing to chase these fantasies by any means necessary.

But even psychopaths sometimes need a fundamentalist framework in order to maintain organization and inspire devotion within a group. It makes perfect sense that they would choose luciferianism as their religion.

Their “do what thou wilt” philosophy of hedonism takes the idea of freedom and removes all responsibility – It is a degenerate view of liberty, rather than a principled view. Freedom, they think, is only for people like them; the people willing to desecrate everything in their path and upend the natural order.

As psychopaths, they are devoid of natural inborn contents and are more robotic than human. So, it’s no surprise that people like Harai argue there is no soul, no freedom (for you) and that machines are capable of the same creativity as humans. An empty person with no soul or creativity is going to assume that all other people are empty. An immoral person will also be compelled to prove that everyone else is just as immoral as he is. Or, he will be compelled to prove that he is superior to everyone else because he has embraced his immorality.

Do the elites actually believe in a real “devil” with hooves and horns and a pitchfork? I don’t know. What matters, though, is the philosophical drive of their cultism. Their goal is to convince a majority of the populace that there is no good, and there is no evil. Everything is empty. Everything is relative to the demands of the moment, and the demands of society. Of course, they want to control society, so then everything would really be relative to THEIR demands.

If you want to see something truly demonic, imagine a world in which all inherent truth is abandoned for the sake of subjective perception. A world that caters to the preferences of psychopaths with no ethical imperative. A world where the ends always justify the means. This is the luciferian way, and the globalist way. And no matter how much they deny it, the reality of their beliefs is visible in the fruits of their labors. Wherever they go, destruction, chaos and death follow.

What Happens One Second After an EMP Attack: No Power, No Food, No Transportation, No Banking and No Internet, and According to Congressional Reporting, Upward of 90% of the Population Will Be Dead

William R. Forstchen is a literary hero of mine going back to grade school. The prolific author and historian has written some of the finest speculative fiction of our time, and in recent years, he has achieved superstardom with the novel ONE SECOND AFTER. It is the story of how a father of two and his small, North Carolina community respond to an electromagnetic pulse (EMP) attack on the United States.

His book has become a touchstone work in the “SHTF” (s— hits the fan) genre, and triggered a national conversation that remains ongoing. An EMP strike would involve a hostile power detonating one or more nuclear weapons over the U.S. at high altitudes. As Congressional testimony described, the explosion would interact with the ionosphere (the electrically conducting layer of the atmosphere) and the Earth’s magnetic field. The resultant surge in electromagnetic currents would essentially fry electronics from coast to coast, cripple the power grid, and cause cascading failures in American infrastructure. The United States is woefully unprepared for such an attack.

Next month, FIVE YEARS AFTER, the fourth book in Forstchen’s exploration of a post-EMP America, hits store shelves. We spoke recently about how an EMP attack would work, what its consequences would be, and how best to prepare for what happens one second after. This interview has been lightly edited for length and clarity.

Where is the EMP threat most likely to come from?

North Korea, followed by Iran. Long ago for nuclear weapons, there was a concept called ‘mutual assured destruction.’ If we launched at the Russians, the Russians would launch at us. Everybody would get blown up and so nobody would win.

But for an EMP, the use of a nuclear weapon is a game changer. It’s known as an ‘asymmetrical first strike.’ All you need is one, two, three small warheads, loft them up over the United States, pop them, and you’ve blinded your enemy. You’ve shut down the power grid. It’s a catastrophic situation.

If that happened, we could find ourselves in a scenario where we don’t even know who the hell launched it. It would be as easy as them using a container ship off the coast of Florida. Launch the weapon, blow the ship up, and where are the fingerprints? Who did it? So this is a very different type of warfare.

What would it take to wipe to fundamentally cripple the United States of America? And how precise do you have to be in detonating these things?

Good question. Really good question. When North Korea launched its first attempts at intercontinental ballistic missiles, I started asking some questions. And people, including from the White House, responded that North Korea doesn’t have EMP capability because ICBMs require a successful launch—it’s got to get up there—and then the warhead has to have a precise guidance system to bring it to its target. Seattle, for instance. It needs a precision reentry for a precision strike.

But you don’t need that with an EMP. All you have to do is launch the weapon up there and get it over the western United States—doesn’t matter at that point if it’s over Seattle, San Francisco, whatever. You don’t need any precision guidance. Therefore they already have the capability.

The ideal scenario is three of them. One in the western United States, one somewhere over the middle—it doesn’t matter if it’s over in Nebraska or Iowa, just pop it—and then one over the eastern United States, say, over Pennsylvania. Pop it. You don’t need precision guidance to do this. It’s like horseshoes: As long as you’re in the general area, you’re going to get some kind of points.

What’s terrifying—and you’ve written great literature on the subject—is what happens next. The real enemy becomes human nature.

Yes, exactly. For a lot of people, you go to the sink and fill a glass of water, and it’s almost miraculous. You turn a faucet and water comes out. If you shut down the electricity, though, you are going to lose your water supply—and that’s true for every major city in the country, because it requires pumping and filtration. What happens to the general populace, within two days, if there is no water? People will be willing to kill to put a bottle of water into their kid’s hand.

Society just starts to break down. The food supply? Twenty days you’re out of food. Medication? The pharmacies are closed. We turn on each other to try and survive, and according to Congressional reporting, upward of 90% of the population will be dead a year later. 

One of the strengths the United States has historically enjoyed is geography: we’re just so spread out. How does that play into any sort of post-EMP scenario?

You know, people have this fantasy that if we get hit by an EMP, four or five days into it, you could decide to get the hell out of the city and head to the country. Why? Because there’s a fantasy that out in the country you’ll find food and you’ll find water. Well, even in Nebraska, what do you think they’re dependent upon to bring in the harvest? To plant the seeds? To do all of it? Electricity. But without electricity, all bets are off whether you are in Montana or you are in New York City—it’s all the same.

Does an EMP attack have to be 100% successful to be fundamentally destabilizing? How would we even know we have been hit?

You have to detonate the weapon in the upper atmosphere, the rarefied atmosphere, 200 miles up. The nuclear detonation sets up an electrostatic discharge that then cascades down to the Earth’s surface and blows us out. But it’s not a lightning bolt. You won’t see it, except maybe if you were looking at the point of detonation. Then you’d see a flash, but it wouldn’t even bother your eyesight. You don’t need precision: just put it two hundred miles up, pop it, and it’s a game changer. It’s over.

Tell me about defense policy with respect to retaliation for this sort of thing.

At the end of my book ONE SECOND AFTER, some military people finally come into the town a year later, and one of them says, ‘Oh, yeah, it was the North Koreans who did this to us and we flattened them—we turned their whole country into glass.’ And my main character says, ‘So? What difference does that make now?’

So if this really happened and we retaliated? It would make no difference to any of us because we’d have already lost the war, literally in one second. What we do afterward, it doesn’t matter to you and to me.

So what is Congress doing about this?

I started thinking and writing about the EMP question about 20 years ago, and I based a lot of my book, initially, on Congressional testimony. A number of experts were going up there, all saying the same thing: We’ve got to harden the grid, or we’re waiting to get our butts kicked. There was an attempt at legislative action, but it was killed in committee, particularly thanks to Lisa Murkowski from Alaska, because the bill didn’t have the perks she wanted.

We’ve had at least two or three major efforts to put a bill through. A very strong leader on the issue was Congressman Roscoe Bartlett from Maryland. He was the only person with a PhD in the hard sciences in Congress, and rather than listen to him, they gerrymandered his district to eliminate him. So for 20 years, it’s been gridlocked, and every legislative action has failed.

Now, what are we going to tell those people the day after? Gee, thanks? I had someone say to me more than once that the elite will take care of their own, but the rest of us slobs, we’re doomed. it’s kind of frightening, isn’t it?

So what do you recommend to people who read your book, or who attend your lectures, about what they should be doing in their own lives to prepare for something like this?

To the person who hasn’t done anything: What’s preventing you from getting a month’s worth of supplies in your home? You can do it even if you’re just in a little apartment. Take some two-liter bottles of soda, and when you’re done, clean them out, fill them up with water, and stick them in a closet. You should have at least a couple of gallons of water per day per person in your household.

Next time you go to the market, you don’t need to buy the fancy twenty-five-year shelf life stuff. Just simply pick up Campbell’s Soup and such. That stuff’s good for three or four years. Buy them on sale. Spend fifty bucks a month more than usual to get food, get water.

The third thing I’d say, if you are on medication, don’t wait until the day before the medication comes due to get a refill. If possible, try to keep a three month supply on hand. Next: security. I do not advise people one way or the other regarding guns, but if you decide to do that, I beg you to get trained—and not by your neighbor. Get trained by a professional. I’ve seen too many cases of people getting hurt or killed because of stupidity with guns.

Transportation-wise, you should have a G.O.D. bag in your car: Get Out of Dodge. Just take a backpack, fill it up with two liters of water, a couple of days’ worth of food, one of those space blankets, and keep it in your car. And put some silver in there—actual real silver coins. Because the day after something happens, you could be waving hundred dollar bills and nobody would care. But if you pull out a silver coin, you might be able to trade enough to get what you need. So very basic things like that. They can make a big difference.

There’s this assumption among the public, I think, that if something goes wrong, someone else—likely the government—will take care of everything. But we’ve never encountered a situation where the mechanisms necessary to take care of everything also stop working. Your car stops in the street, and the tow truck that can move it is also stopped. Suddenly, that’s one move too many in a chess game for people to think ahead.

It’s called the expectation of normality. The way things are at this very moment is “normal,” and we expect it will be that way tomorrow and the day after. That’s true for all of us. But if the rug gets pulled out from under us, then what? Suppose on September 10, 2001, a bunch of people started pointing at the sky saying, you know, you could take a couple of jets and turn them into giant cruise missiles. The reaction would be “Oh, you’re crazy. That will never happen.” And then the next day it did.

I keep telling people not to expect normalcy forever. Sooner or later something will happen.

If there’s one consistent, recurring motif in the story of human existence, it is that “something” happens constantly.

Our civilization is temporary. All civilizations are. If you went to the streets of Rome in 150 AD and said, “Guys, it ain’t always gonna be this way. Someday it’s gonna change,” no one would believe you. American civilization, we’ve had 250 years, and we’re doing pretty good. But don’t expect it to run for another 250 years. Something will replace it. Maybe for the better, possibly for the worse. You can’t live on the expectation of normality forever. Every civilization rises, reaches a peak, and collapses. Who’s to say we’re different? We’re not.

Military Alphabet: A Must-Know For Preppers

We in the prepping and survival community have stolen much from the military.

That makes sense, if you think about it. On an individual basis, combat is the ultimate game of survival (although it’s not a game). Why reinvent the wheel, when there is so much that the military does, which we can use?

That’s not to say that everything the military does is perfect for our needs. Military equipment tends to be over-designed, so that it can withstand the strain of rough use by people who have more important things to think about than taking care of their equipment. That tends to make it heavy and bulky, often too heavy for our needs.

Even so, there is much that we can learn from our armed forces and much which can be adapted to our needs. A lot of this is the methodologies that soldiers use, whether in combat or in their barracks. One of these areas we can learn from is the military alphabet.

The Phonetic Alphabet

Have you ever tried to spell out a complicated name for someone else? How about doing that over a poor telephone connection? Those who have unusual names know what I’m talking about; they’re stuck doing it all the time. They also have to put up with other people’s misspellings and mispronunciations all the time as well.

This problem doesn’t exist in the military, especially between communications specialists. That’s because they use the Phonetic Alphabet, often referred to as the Military Alphabet. In this alphabet each letter is assigned an easily recognizable word which starts with that letter.

This alphabet, is actually not the first version that the military has used. The history of these alphabets goes back to before World War I. The current iteration has remained relatively unchanged since 1956, although there have been spelling changes made to it as recently as 2008. One of the reasons for this has been that since World War II, the need was seen for an internationally recognized phonetic alphabet for military forces to use, which would be understood by all allied forces.

The birth of the US Army Air Corps increased the need for a unified phonetic alphabet as pilots often have to convey critical information, while flying in a noisy airplane cockpit. Even with the use of headphones, it was easy for communications to become garbled. By adopting the phonetic alphabet, pilots could communicate with each other, their control towers and ground forces they were supporting, without the errors that had been common beforehand.

While the phonetic alphabet may seem extremely simple, it is not. Countless hours of research has gone into selecting the words which are currently used. The key criteria for this was that they would be easily recognizable, regardless of what sort of English was spoken and what sort of accent the speaker had. The same understanding had to exist, regardless of whether the person spoke British English with a Cockney accent, sounded like they came from Down Under or spoke Midwestern American English.

The current iteration of this alphabet is called the International Code of Signals for Visual, Sound, and Radio Communications or more simply ICAO. It also includes numerals and some basic punctuation, which pretty much follow the same pronunciation that you and I use every day, with the exception of the period, which is referred to as a “full stop.”

While universally adopted by military forces, this version of the phonetic alphabet is not the one used by law enforcement, although most law enforcement officers will understand it. Their version differs in several details, so if you are communicating with a LEO, don’t be surprised if they substitute other words for the ones on that chart.

Using the Phonetic Alphabet

Image result for military phonetic alphabet

Obviously, it is slower to speak with this phonetic alphabet, than it is to speak normally. So it makes absolutely no sense to try and use it for all conversation. Rather, it is only used when necessary to avoid confusion. Some such examples might be:

  • Giving map coordinates or directions
  • Transmitting something in code
  • Spelling the name of a person or location
  • Ordering material by catalog number

When it is necessary to transmit this type of information by voice communications, the normal format is to say the word, spell it out with the phonetic alphabet and then continue on with the conversation. If there is a lot of noise or static, the phonetic spelling might be repeated:

“General Discussion’s unit, I spell Delta – India – Sierra – Charlie – Uniform – Sierra – Sierra – India – Oscar – November, is just over the hill.”

For those who know the phonetic alphabet, there is no possibility of misunderstanding this message. So, what the phonetic alphabet lacks in speed, it makes up for in clarity; and that’s its true purpose anyway. Miscommunications can be disastrous in warfare, causing things like blue on blue fire. This method helps eliminate those disasters, by providing a means of accurate communications.

Using the Phonetic Alphabet in Survival

While there may not seem like much use for the phonetic alphabet in survival, there are a number of situations where it could be extremely useful, especially when trying to transmit something in code.

All radio communications made by your survival team should be in some sort of code, even if you are just using deceptive descriptions and names of people, places and things. You don’t need to be giving information away to potentially hostile forces. Nor do you need to have miscommunications between your own team, because of noise or unclear radio contact. The phonetic alphabet will help eliminate this.

Probably the most important use of the phonetic alphabet for a survival team is in giving directions to team members. Such directions are one of the easiest things to miscommunicate, especially if they contain names which are not known by the receiving party. Spelling the names of streets and other landmarks phonetically will ensure that they receive the message clearly.

Another way that this could be useful to a survival team is to use it for conveying information about supplies. If you develop a simple code, with letter codes, such as “LVD,” for each supply item, then using the phonetic alphabet allows a scavenger team in the field to call back to base and report on what they’ve found, while still keeping that information secret.

Finally, learning the phonetic alphabet will keep others from using that information against you. It is actually rather easy to learn, if you just find a way to use it in your everyday life. Once you’ve learned it, you’ll probably never forget.

I still remember it, and I learned it 40 year ago.

WE ARE CURRENTLY IN THE MOTHER OF ALL FINANCIAL BUBBLES: WHEN TROUBLE ARRIVES, WHERE YOU ARE AT IS WHERE YOU WILL STAY-ARE YOU READY?

I once shared an article on Facebook about the potential for an economic collapse in the near future, and someone left a comment saying, “Why do I keep hearing this warning over and over for years, and yet nothing ever happens?” Good question. When people keep saying that the sky is falling and it never does, it’s hard not to be skeptical.

As I said in my response to him, “After the stock market crash in 2008, everyone started claiming an economic collapse was about to happen, but what they didn’t realize is that it DID happen… in 2008. Since then, the economy has slowly been recovering. But the systemic problems that led to the crash were never corrected, and the bubble has been re-inflating. It can’t re-inflate forever.”

To stop the economy from completely collapsing into chaos, the Federal Reserve had to print huge sums of money to prop up Wall Street. Then they had to do it again during the Covid recession. But every time they do this, they print even more money than before, and the bubble re-inflates and gets even bigger. The larger it gets, the larger the next crash will be.

Eventually, we’ll get to a point where the Federal Reserve can’t save the economy. They won’t be able to keep printing money because it causes too much inflation. But they won’t be able to raise interest rates because it causes the economy to grind to a halt. Basically, they’ve painted themselves into a corner.

We are currently in the mother of all financial bubbles. I believe the next depression (they’ll call it a recession) will begin within the next few years. Something will spook the markets, and even the Fed won’t be able to stop the economy from melting down.

All this is why I believe it’s more important than ever to prepare for a financial collapse, so in this article I’m going to cover 17 things you should do before that happens, starting with the most obvious ones.

1. Stockpile the Necessities

Having some extra food and water is a good idea in general, particularly if you live in an area where inclement weather can affect your daily life. To prepare for an economic collapse, however, you’ll need to have months of rations on hand.

Stockpile enough food, at a minimum, to survive a season without any incoming produce grown yourself. Store enough water for several months’ use and make sure you have multiple ways to purify future water supplies.

Also, stockpile plenty of medical supplies as doctors may be in short supply after a major collapse. Another thing that may be in short supply is electricity. Get all the things you’d need for a power outage, including ways to cook food and keep warm (or cool if it’s summertime). And don’t forget home security measures.

Desperate times means desperate people.

2. Build Some Bug Out Bags

Depending on the severity of the collapse, your town or city might become so dangerous that you have no choice but to leave it and head for a bug out location. But first, you’ll want to put together bug out bags for yourself and your family. You could even make bug out bags for your pets.

You should also consider getting a good bug out vehicle. If all you have is a small car, then you’ll have a hard time getting where you need to go.

3. Grow Your Own Food

Unless you have an underground vault the size of the Sistine Chapel in your backyard, you probably won’t be able to stockpile a lifetime of food for you and your loved ones. A more sustainable option is to grow your own food.

Growing your own food takes quite a bit of trial and error to reach a point where you can live off your own produce, which is all the more reason to start sooner rather than later.

4. Create Your Own Electricity or Learn to Live Without

In the event of an economic collapse, being dependent on the power grid is not the best situation to be in. The more you rely on electricity to accomplish your daily tasks, the more you’ll be behind when the power goes out. Solve this problem by learning to do as many daily activities without electricity as possible.

For example, start using kitchen gadgets and off grid lights that work without power. Combine this with a portable generator for the essentials and you’ll be self-reliant and comfortable.

5. Keep Cash on Hand

If the market tanks, you may still have some time to buy your way out of a sticky situation before inflation hits or the economy collapses altogether. Keep a hefty sum of cash on hand at all times so that you can make an emergency purchase without having to take a trip to the bank.

You never know when you might have to use it, especially if the electricity is out and no credit card transactions are possible.

6. Invest in Precious Metals

When other currencies lose their value, you can trust that gold and silver will still be viable for making purchases in a disaster scenario. In fact, when inflation hits, the price of gold and silver goes up tremendously because these precious metals keep their value despite economic changes.

Be sure to have them in a form that is easily tradable, like coins, rather than in a larger form such as bars.

7. Stock Up on Barter Items

I know, I know, I’ve mentioned cash, precious metals, and barter items now. So you’re probably wondering, which one should I get? Well, all three, if possible. In a deflationary collapse, you’ll want cash. In an inflationary collapse, you’ll want precious metals.

And in a total collapse, you’ll want barter items. Try to have a little bit of each so you’re prepared for every possibility.

8. Get Out of Debt

Once you’ve acquired at least a little bit of cash, precious metals, and barter items, it’s time to start getting out of debt. If the economic crisis isn’t catastrophic (i.e. society’s infrastructure is left intact), you’ll want to make your money go as far as possible.

To that end, get out of debt as fast as you can! You want to be able to respond to a rapid change in the economy as quickly as possible. If inflation hits, you lose your home, or scarcity becomes a real problem, you don’t want to owe your creditors the money you need to survive. To do that…

9. Lower Monthly Bills / Spend Less

In the same vein as paying off debts, lower your bills and try to spend less at the store, so you can spend your money on more important things. Having a monetary obligation to too many places can be a serious drawback in the event of a crisis.

Great ways to lower monthly bills are mentioned earlier: grow your own food, provide your own electricity, and pay off your debts.

10. Create an Emergency Fund

After you’ve gotten out of debt, create an emergency fund that will allow you to handle anything that comes up during a disaster. If the economy is in crisis but stable enough that your money still has value, having 3-6 months’ expenses saved can go a long way toward keeping you out of crisis mode yourself.

To do this, start learning new ways to save money.

11. Learn to Eat Healthy and Exercise Right

Getting in the habit of eating right and exercising is very important for preparing yourself for a survival situation. When the economy collapses, chances are you’ll be burning a lot more calories simply trying to survive than you normally do.

Similarly, knowing the proper fuel to put in your body will pay off later when you’re having to work to stay full.

12. Learn Self Defense

The best time to learn how to defend yourself is now. Start with firearms training and become proficient with rifles, shotguns, and pistols. You may need them to protect yourself, others, and to hunt with. Stockpile ammunition as well, preparing for a shortage or a time when you won’t be able to purchase or find any.

13. Beef Up Your Home Security

After an economic collapse, there are going to be a lot of desperate people out there who won’t think twice about breaking into your home and taking your supplies so they can feed their families.

Don’t make it easy for them. Reinforce your doors and windows, set up hobo alarms so they don’t catch you off guard, put up solar-powered motion lights to try and deter them, and get some guns and ammo in case they manage to break into your house.

14. Expand Your Skill Set

In times of economic turmoil, traditional job markets can become unstable. It’s essential to have a diverse set of skills that can be useful in various scenarios. Learn basic carpentry, plumbing, or mechanical repair skills.

These skills not only make you more self-reliant but could also provide a source of income or barter in a collapsed economy. Additionally, consider acquiring skills in first aid and basic medical care, as access to healthcare might be limited.

15. Establish a Strong Community Network

In difficult times, having a supportive community can make a significant difference. Build relationships with your neighbors and local community members. Consider forming or joining a mutual aid group where skills, resources, and responsibilities can be shared. In a major economic collapse, a strong community network can provide collective security, share food resources, and offer emotional support.

16. Preserve and Store Seeds

In addition to growing your own food, it’s crucial to think about long-term food sustainability. Learn about seed saving and storage techniques. Preserving a diverse variety of seeds ensures that you can continue to grow food even if commercial seeds become unavailable or unaffordable. Focus on heirloom varieties, as they are often more resilient and better adapted to local growing conditions.

17. Develop Alternative Communication Methods

In a severe economic collapse, conventional communication networks might be disrupted or overloaded. Prepare alternative ways to communicate with your family and community. This could include having a hand-crank or solar-powered radio, learning how to use a ham radio, or establishing a system of signals or messengers for local communication. It’s important to have a plan for staying informed and connected, especially in times of crisis.

We Create a World in Which Machines Are Telling Us What to Do or How to Think, Although We May Very Well End Up in a World Like That Where Algorithms Decide Who Lives or Who Dies

Algorithms are making hugely consequential decisions in our society on everything from medicine to transportation to welfare benefits to criminal justice and beyond. Subtly shifting the way our society is operating.

We can see them at work in the world. We know they’re shaping outcomes all around us.

Are we making a mistake by handing over so much decision-making authority to these programs?

This paradox—that the internet is both saviour and executioner of democracy is part of a massive unfolding social experiment.

The proliferation of algorithms is eroding our ability to think and decide for ourselves. They are turning people into products, and they don’t even realize it.

Billions of people around the world are interacting with these technologies, which is why the tiniest changes can have such a gigantic impact on all of humanity.

We will blindly follow them wherever they lead us. There is no one assessing whether or not they are providing a net benefit or cost to society.

WE DON’T HAVE TO CREATE A WORLD IN WHICH MACHINES ARE TELLING US WHAT TO DO OR HOW TO THINK, ALTHOUGH WE MAY VERY WELL END UP IN A WORLD LIKE THAT WHERE ALGORITHMS DECIDE WHO LIVES OR WHO DIES.

How you see the world matters.

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 Beliefs are the things we hold true, regardless of whether we have any proof of their objective truth.

You see, in time, beliefs become labels.

We plaster them on our foreheads and use them to justify our action or inaction. That belief will then drive how you behave as you interpret it as being damning or empowering.

We all would be a lot happier if everyone else around us had the same beliefs as we do, or at least, that they would not challenge us on them. Of course, that is impossible, and this is precisely what fuels most of the world’s conflicts.

And here comes the kicker:

You can decide the direction you take. Your beliefs do not control you, so long as you become self-aware and take charge of your life. Or maybe if you assume everything will fall apart, you never get disappointed.

So, herein lies the persistent conflict of our society:

All of us are driven by our life experiences and by merely being human, but the creeping influence of algorithms in our lives are fucking up the world. We’re increasingly moving towards government by algorithm.

Automated systems are being rolled out with little transparency or public debate, and risk exacerbating existing inequalities.

The algorithm takes the biases and prejudices of the real world and ‘bakes them in’, and gives them a veneer that makes it seem like a policy choice is actually neutral and technical. But it isn’t,”

The problem is, both beliefs and values have strong momentum and seem glued to our character.

How do these beliefs played out in real life?

Are we just becoming throwaway survival machines, following our genetic and neurological programming in an indifferent world?

I believe that human life and the world mean much more than that.

There’s beauty everywhere—we have only to open our eyes to see it.

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When it comes to climate change, the science is settled.

When it comes to technology its all together the opposite.

The sobering truth is that both the climate and technology are out of control.

Given the difficulty of getting the human brain or our political system to tackle anything beyond immediate crises, our attempts to rectify what’s wrong are usual puny compared to what’s really needed.

If you listen to our politicians, there is a strong consensus on climate change.

It consists of four parts.

First, carbon emissions are causing significant changes to our climate. Second, we need to take urgent action to reduce those emissions, including reaching net zero by 2050. Third, we have already made good progress in reducing emissions. And fourth, the steps we need to take to reduce emissions further will also bring many positive benefits for society.

We have a pretty clear understanding of the threat climate change poses to us, our children and our grandchildren. We are already being forced to cope with more droughts, more floods, more extreme storms. At the same time, we have in our arsenal effective policies that are difficult for rational people to demagogue as crippling to the economy or as a subversion of our cherished way of life.

So why does climate misinformation continue to spread online and in our media?

Dire warnings of the looming climate disaster may just make people throw up their hands in despair, sink into denial, or dig their heels in deeper against government action.

Instead, we seem to firmly believe that climate solutions inevitably mean more government, higher taxes and less freedom — and thus are threats to all our core values and identity.

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Technology’s benefits are numerous in all fields, however in the system’s that effect our daily lives it is becoming a threat to our core values, through the use of algorithms. Pushing us like a digital slave army to mindlessly, unwittingly and unwillingly livestream our digital existences into the commercial coffers of companies that see us as nothing more than walking dollar signs.

Examples:

Every time you pick up your smartphone, you’re summoning algorithms. At this point, they are responsible for making decisions about pretty much every aspect of our lives.

The right to an explanation of an algorithm-generated decision does little to fix “systemic injustices” Getting an explanation but no democratic say in how systems work is like getting a privacy policy without a ‘do not consent’ button.

Deciding who gets access to welfare. Using automated interviews with a virtual border guard, based on “deception detection algorithm. Using algorithms to model when and where crime will happen — an area known as predictive policing — is on the rise. Using algorithms to come up with a personality assessment. Having your credit rating scored decided by an algorithm based on questionable data.

Grading algorithm does not not relied solely on automated means. Substituting a mathematical approach for human judgment does not automatically make it fair.

Profit seeking algorithms. Market making algorithms. Execution algorithms Scheduled algorithms. Participation algorithms. VWAP and TWAP algorithms are time-slicing algorithms. Liquidity-seeking algorithms (a.k.a. opportunistic algorithms) Arrival price algorithms seek to trade close to market prices.

Recent developments in algorithmic trading include clustering and high-frequency market forecasting  are playing a central role in finance.

The worst-case scenario is that we fail to disrupt the status quo, in which very powerful companies develop and deploy AI in invisible and obscure ways.

We have no right to see all of the data these companies collect about us, no right to get a percentage when they resell our data without our knowledge or informed consent, no right to ask them to stop. We are for all purposes indentured servants, offered free digital room and board in return for paying with our digital souls and our real-world time.

Social media companies have managed only to create a toxic brew of horrific hate speech that they cannot seem to get rid of.

Algorithms really are so powerful that a few lines of code can push us into any behaviour.

The right message targeted at the right time could mass convert the entire population of a country into mindless zombies who would readily convert even their most deeply held beliefs in an instant.

 When it is obvious to all is that the world is changing, responding faster than expected to Technology’s

Why are we being such idiots?

What gives? It’s not that we are stupid or blind our core values are under attack.

If everything is a core value, then nothing is really a priority.

In this age where technology is dominant, core values may seem like something from the past. So core values may not seem like they have a place.

All of this data is used first and foremost to make money from us. 

There is a really frustrating lag between what AI is capable of and what it’s legislated for. 

Core values are the foundational beliefs held by an individual or an organisation.

Anyone can go to Google and search the meaning of core values,. There are another thing on your to-do list that you don’t have time for, but what about the bigger picture?

When you hear about core values, what comes to mind?

Core values make the biggest difference between successful and failure.

There are more than just words on a wall — it’s how you behave. It’s who you are at your core.

Everyone knows their role, what is expected of them, and they are empowered to act in accordance with their core values.

Once upon a time voting or making decisions in alignment with your core values were the foundation of who we are as individuals. Not any longer with Algorithms running social media.

——————–

To look at it simply, culture is just a collection of people. It is the environment created by the cumulative behaviour of the people.

We all have things that we value deeply, whether we realize it or not.

You remember values, don’t you? You know, those moral thoughts and behaviours we used to hold dear, like decency, civility, honesty and respect, as well as caring, optimism, empathy, and tolerance?

They were once a beacon of idealism. Rewarding behaviour based on them, and align all of our decisions with them.

Core values represent the lens which we view the world. They must be embedded in everything we do.

These “alt” credos and codes of behaviour are the trademarks of the incivility we witness on a daily basis, often expressed with rancour and rage. They have become commonplace on television, in social media and in everyday life. Of even more concern is that these new “moral standards” serve as models of behaviour for our impressionable children and youth.

Hold one another accountable for staying aligned with the values—it’s better not to profess any values at all.

———————

Education and knowledge were cornerstones of our achievement.

We are now living in society that at large looks to social media /television and film personalities for political advice.

You must ensure they are accurate, meaningful, relatable and fully operationalized.

If we continue our descent into callousness, selfishness and hostility, we negatively impact and harm the quality of our lives. We could lose sight of our basic human values and diminish the essence of what MAKES THE WORLD BEAUTIFUL.

Achieving a more transparent and less manipulative media may well be the defining political battle of the 21st century.

Just as we are using our formidable intellect and creativity to reduce our carbon footprint, we can similarly mobilize our resources to improve our emotional footprint, or how we treat and affect each other.

Values are the criteria by which individuals judge ideas, objects, people, situations, and actions as good, worthwhile, desirable, wrong, worthless, or undesirable

.Values are individuals’ embedded abstract motivations. They guide individuals to understand, justify, and explain norms, attitudes, and actions. One of the limitations of examining values is that values cannot  be generalized because they vary between a person and another, culture and another, society and another, even a country and another, thus scrutinizing values will be different in the future.

Core values can be only be fostered in Education, not in schools but with compulsory NATIONAL SERVICE.

The Potential Collapse of American Society: Are the people in this country oblivious to any reality or truth, or are they simply consumed by ignorance, passivity, cowardice, and mediocrity? 

If there’s anything that certain, it’s that nothing is permanent. When we look back through history, we find that many great societies succumbed to societal collapse. Some have been conquered by outside forces, while others have decayed from within. In either case, the society or civilization has ceased to exist as it was once known. To think that the same can’t or won’t happen to us, is to deny one of the most important lessons of history.

The big question for you and I to consider, is whether it will be internal or external forces that ultimately bring about the demise of the Untied States of America. Currently there are no nation-states with a large enough or powerful enough a military to defeat us. Even if Russia and China were to join together to attack us, it is unlikely that they could mount a big enough amphibious force to guarantee success in invading our shores. The two nations together don’t have anywhere near the amphibious capability that was required to invade Europe on D-day, during World War II.

About the only way that a foreign nation could successfully attack the United States and defeat it would be via an attack by high-altitude EMP. That’s a very real possibility, which has been discussed elsewhere; so, I’m not going to bother spending time on it here.

But it may not be necessary for any foreign power to attack the United States, as we may very well tear ourselves apart, without their help. The political divide that is so prevalent in the US today is tearing this country apart, without any other help. The big question now, is whether it will continue or whether we will find some common ground again, where we can continue functioning as a nation.

We were treated to a sample of how this country could be torn apart a couple of years ago with all the Black Lives Matter demonstrations, a fair number of which turned into riots. I have nothing against demonstrations and believe that our First Amendment right to Freedom of Speech includes the right to peacefully protest. But that’s not the same as having a riot, especially a riot that is identified by theft, destruction and arson.

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Unfortunately, we have those in the political system who see it as their duty to use their position to encourage unstable people in their following to engage in these sorts of activities. Not only that, but they are protecting those followers from paying the price for their crimes, while at the same time calling the January 6th incursion in the Capital building an “insurrection,” even though it was unarmed and the only person who was killed was a veteran woman, shot by the police. Justice in this country, at least when it is connected to politics, has become a two-tiered system, with the enforcement of the law being based on one’s political affiliation.

With that being the case, there are more and more people saying that we are headed towards another civil war. Should that war break out, it will be much nastier than the previous one, simply because the battle lines won’t be as obvious. Rather than the north verses the south, it will be the political left verses the political right and while there is some territorial division between the two, it isn’t as clear as it was in the last Civil War.

That lack of clearcut battle lines is what’s going to cause the biggest problem with the next civil war. Battles will break out in random places, as the opposing sides bump up against each other. Little of it will be cohesive warfare, fought by organized troops. Rather, it will be more on the order of ongoing riots, like what we saw with Black Lives Matter.

Should such a war start, it will not only take many lives, but destroy American society as we know it today. Law and order would be largely out the window, not only from the fighting, but from bureaucrats who try and use their position to further the cause of their side. We can pretty much forget about being able to count on the government for anything.

When Might This Happen?

The truth of the matter is that we have no way of knowing when such a breakdown might happen. From what we’ve seen in the last several years, there are plenty of people on both sides of the political divide who are more than ready to turn to violence when things don’t go their party’s way. While almost all of the rioting that has happened can be attributed to one side of that divide, most of the guns belong to the other.

One likely scenario is for the riot side to start tearing things up, due to something happening in the country which they don’t believe in. Interestingly enough, they only seem to do that in cities which are controlled by politicians who are agreeable to their cause. You don’t find such riots happening in cities where law-and-order politicians are in control, because they know that the price of their rioting will be a trip to jail.

If you don’t believe me, just look at what happened in Washington, DC on January 6th and the Congressional hearings that followed. The DC city government is in the hands of Democrats, as was Congress at that time. So the same politicians who winked at the riots which sprung out of the Black Lives Matter protests, were quick to arrest those who unlawfully entered the capital, calling it an “insurrection,” and spreading stories about how dangerous it was for Congress, even though none of those who entered the capital were apparently armed.

If there’s anything in this country which could lead to mass rioting it would be former President Trump winning the 2024 general elections. There is so much hatred focused against Trump in our country today, that there’s a good chance of his winning being all that is needed to cause widespread rioting. Considering how the hate towards him continued through his presidency, I doubt that there’s much anyone can do to keep almost constant protests and rioting from happening during his second term in office.

What Should We Do?

I think it’s necessary to say that it’s not our job to keep the peace or defend our country from those who would destroy it. As tempting as it might be to get directly involved, doing so carries a lot of risk. Remember Kyle Rittenhouse? He eventually won in court, since he didn’t break any laws and only shot in what can very clearly be seen as self-defense. But it could very easily have gone the other way. The mainstream media attempted to try him in the court of public opinion and had declared him guilty even before the bodies could cool. That attempt has cost those news outlets plenty, settling with Kyle for their underhanded attempts at character assassination.

On the other hand, we all have a God-given right to defend home and family. So, regardless of where you live, you need to be ready to do just that. If you happen to live nearby potential targets areas for rioting, either due to the political leadership there or the potential targets for the rioters to go after, you want to be doubly sure that you’re ready to defend your home.

Even with being prepared, the best protection you can possibly have isn’t standing there with guns locked and cocked, it’s not letting the rioters know that you are there. If they don’t know you’re there, they’re much more likely to leave you alone.

That means being able to lock yourself in your home and not come out until the riots are over. More than that, you need to be able to make it look as if nobody is home. That requires things like blackout curtains over the windows and noise discipline to keep them from hearing your television and your kids. At the same time, you don’t want to leave anything outside where they can steal it. Even your cars should be in the garage or hidden away behind the fence, in your backyard.

It’s hard to say just how long you need to be prepared to stay hidden away like that; but figure on a couple of weeks. If there’s one thing that can be said for any mob, it’s that they lose interest just about as fast as they come together to destroy. It’s unlikely that any riot will last more than a couple of days; but as I said, be ready for a couple of weeks.

In this short VIDEO, I will unearth A lost super-food will bulletproof you against any food shortage or famine. It’s a food that vanished with the Incas over 6 centuries ago

In the next crisis these lost skills will be more valuable than gold, food supplies and survival equipment combined. These skills have been tested and proven to work for centuries.

Here’s just a small glimpse of what you’ll find in The Lost SuperFoods:

Learn More…

The other thing we have to realize is that it may take months for any sort of true stability to be reestablished. If the rioting starts because of Donald Trump being elected as president, then it might very well continue throughout his term in office. That will make for a very long four years for anyone living in cities controlled by his political opposition. It’s really hard to estimate just how big the price tag will be on the destruction that is wrought by those who are enraged by his success.

Written By Bill White