Posted on 06/23/2012 3:55:22 PM PDT by Kartographer
It’s Survival Diva again with some food for thought about societal collapse; what to expect and who to look out for. It’s an important part of the puzzle when you’re one of the few prepared to survive the coming onslaught. Some guesstimate preppers make up only 5% of the populace, but it’s my belief it’s closer to 3% at best, and more likely to be 1-2%. Many give lip service to prepping and claim to be prepared when the truth is they’re still in the “thinking” stage.
They haven’t advanced to in-the-trenches preparedness that many need to do to get prepared faster, where dinners out, budget-draining vacations, and designer anything are put on the back-burner until the storage shelves are full, water has been stored, and must-have preparedness goods are crowding sheds, basements, or in a pinch; closets and under the bed.
To come out on the other side of a wide-spread crisis in one piece, even when you’re prepared, takes getting into the head of the majority of the population who are NOT prepared. If you’re successful, you’ll face, head-on, the darker side of humanity most of us would rather pretend doesn’t exist.
(Excerpt) Read more at secretsofurbansurvival.com ...
Preppers PING!
You know it is surprising how many of this type we have right here on FR.
Brenda, the Naysayer: Brenda laughed when her co-worker, Sarah, shared her prepping plans. Now, the streets are over-run with desperate folks. The stores have been looted. Grocers, sporting good stores and gun shops were the first to get hit. But there have been plenty of TV’s, computers and high-ticket electronic items pilfered, even though they’re no good to anyone at present. The family car has an empty gas tank, but she’s in good health and so is the rest of her family. It’s just blind luck Brenda knows where Sarah lives, and the awesome part is she isn’t far—only a couple of miles away. Her family is into bicycling, so the problem of transportation is solved; They’ll just zip past the gridlock, baring looters, that is. The rest of Brenda’s plan lies with the knowledge that Sarah is kindhearted.
She’ll put Brenda and her family up until order is restored, which from the looks of things could be a long time. Brenda and her husband throw what little they have in their pantry (what they can handle weight-wise, anyway) into backpacks and pillowcases. Next, they clear out the medicine cabinet. They tried to use their ATM card for cash just yesterday, so they wouldn’t show up empty-handed—they’d never want to be seen as free-loaders—but the grid is hopelessly crashed, so no luck there, and all businesses are closed, including the banks. But Brenda doesn’t necessarily see that as a deal-breaker. She did everything she could, other than fill her pantry and get preparedness goods. And besides, Brenda has two adorable kids…how can Sarah say no?
Must? Really?
That might have been phrased better. No blogger tells me "must".
All because they destroy things.
I'm single and only have to worry about myself. I expect that eventually the bounty on feral humans will be replaced by a bag limit and a season.
SHTF, and I'm gonna enjoy the hunt until I get got. Or a bag limit and a season, whichever comes first. ;)
But as I told the cop the other night... I won't put up with that crap in my neighborhood.
/johnny
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Sure they do, they post and you must respond. -No flame, just another perspective. |
fl
Look, I garden because I enjoy it. And I have pecan trees, almond trees, pear trees, apple trees, apricot trees, peach trees, plum bushes, blackberry bushes and a strawberry bed.
We farm and have on site storage for 15,000 bushels of wheat or grain, a seed cleaning plant. And we have a meat processing building at the farm. Walk-in box, Commercial Hobart butcher band saw, sausage mill & meat slicer. And a brick pit to smoke sausage.
We sold our cattle last year during the 100 year drought. One of our neighbors is currently grazing our pastures to keep his herd intact. I plan on rebuying next spring.
Have thought about putting in a few chickens but my wife says they are too confining if we want to go somewhere. Probably right.
We have the best neighbors in the world. Most of them have rifles & pistols and like to hunt. Lots of game here. Wild hogs, deer, turkey, quail and dove.
We won’t starve. If the SHTF actually happened we might have to adjust our diet, but we would go on. There are oil wells on our farm and many of our neighbors. There are still pumpers who know how to make casinhead gas. hee hee hee
NOW, do I want to go through that? NO WAY. Will it happen? I doubt it, but things are pretty crazy in DC.
Will TX & OK choose to participate in the discussed insanity? Nahhh!
Some of my ancestors were born in TX during The Republic. Others came here during Reconstruction. During just such a time as is being discussed. They went GTT (Gone to Texas), We are still here. So there. It will remain so.
I don’t consider myself a prepper. But this is how we live.
The article seems to presuppose absolute anarchy. In reality governments that have collapsed in the past seem to do so because of large factions fighting it out; i.e. Sulla and Marius in the last days of the Roman Republic. This does not mean one should not have food stored to help when stores are closed; it does mean one will probably join a large faction and fight. Portable foods, rather than a fixed location, will be the most desireable.
5 looters but I am glad that I have a six shooter.
Gabby Johnson in Blazing Saddles.
/johnny
Negative. I do not respond to them all.
Some I just let slide, not being offensive or self-promoting.
/johnny
FYI! Over the past two months, two cars parked on my street have had all four wheels and the tires were taken/stolen! My neighbor right beside me two months ago came out in the morning and found that his car was up in the air and sitting on bricks with all four aluminum wheels and the tires GONE!
Then, last week, this happened again to another car just a half block down from my house! Car up in the air and sitting on bricks and wheels and tires GONE!
Then two night ago one of the Houston news channels stated that two different used car lots in Houston were hit and both had all their cars up in rows - -in the air on bricks with all wheels/ tires gone. Total for both lots was thirty-three cars all in a row!
So, be prepared for new types of criminal theft! (and a hint, buying wheel lock nuts my neighbor said he started to buy, won't work because the crooks will probably already gone to auto parts stores and have all the typical brands - I have no clue how to protect my cars!)
FYI! Over the past two months, two cars parked on my street have had all four wheels and the tires were taken/stolen! My neighbor right beside me two months ago came out in the morning and found that his car was up in the air and sitting on bricks with all four aluminum wheels and the tires GONE!
Then, last week, this happened again to another car just a half block down from my house! Car up in the air and sitting on bricks and wheels and tires GONE!
Then two night ago one of the Houston news channels stated that two different used car lots in Houston were hit and both had all their cars up in rows - -in the air on bricks with all wheels/ tires gone. Total for both lots was thirty-three cars all in a row!
So, be prepared for new types of criminal theft! (and a hint, buying wheel lock nuts my neighbor said he started to buy, won't work because the crooks will probably already gone to auto parts stores and have all the typical brands - I have no clue how to protect my cars!)
There are two kinds of people:
1. Problem Solvers, critical thinkers
2. Unorganized, fuzzy thinkers
1. Fuzzy thinkers give up if a problem arises - they can't do critical thinking. They will call a problem solver. Fuzzy thinkers don't have stored food or stored anything - it's too hard to solve that problem. They can't stay with a project long enough to complete it. Many liberals have these qualities - it's easier to have a glass, or three, of wine and let someone else do the thinking. They think about today, not the future. They will also do the dying.
2. Problem solvers figure they can solve most problems, they just have to find the answer and will go on a quest until they have the answer to fix the problem. They tend to consider the long term - what's out there for the long term and will make plans for the future. Many conservatives have these qualities. They are compassionate and will stack the bodies of the fuzzy thinkers behind things so they won't be seen.
Brenda apparently never saw the Twilight Zone episode about the bomb shelter.
I went shopping for produce yesterday (garden still a work in progress) and a woman in front of me in the checkout, with 2 small children (one seemed to be having a tantrum the entire time she was in the store) had WIC vouchers for all her purchases.
On the conveyor belt were a number of small lots of food, each with its own WIC voucher that the checker had to total up, check to make sure the food items precisedly matched the voucher, and so on.
It was an eye opener to me (I rarely shop, for one thing) but around here many, many people use EBT cards and usually not for bulk oatmeal; usually frozen pizzas, candy, chips and soda and the like.
I thought to myself: If [when...] the WIC vouchers disappear and the EBT cards don’t work, there are going to be many hungry and desperate people in my valley. Who could have prepared but did not and will not. I saw the two children - now well fed, but maybe very hungry in a while. What will Mommy do? Is there a Daddy around? It sort of brought home the reality.
Oops. Last night was a good example.... ;)
I come from a long line of people that made it. Through times tough and easy.
I've got the skillsets and genetics to manage.
Life is already hard here. I've got problems. Solve them or die.
Not only will I solve them, I'm going to enjoy it, and sometimes, on a Friday night, I'll go out hoorahing with the nurse across the street until 2am.
And regret some of it the next day... hydration is important. Probably should have had an IV.
/johnny
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