Posted on 07/19/2015 6:51:01 PM PDT by Old Sarge
(The following article I wrote in march of 2014 for the online group at "Forward Observer Magazine". This was obviously before the Ferguson and Baltimore riots, but comments on several FR threads ask the question, "what would things look like if it REALLY took off?" Here is my reply....)
Greetings, Folks:
In my first of a two-part article The London Riots of 2001, A Prepper's Perspective, we examined the event of the mass rioting and looting that spread across Britain in August of 2011. Reader feedback, as well as offline conversations about the article, had one common thread of thought and one question: “Can It Happen In America?”
The simple and most direct answer is, absolutely – and it’s not a question of “can”, but actually three questions:
* “when’,
* “how fast”, and
* “what will it look like”?
To understand this, we need to examine how swiftly and how easily chaos will spread, and possible reactions to same. In the London Riots, we saw how looters and arsonists, aided by mass transit and by instant communications and social networks, were able to seemingly be everywhere at once, and thwarted the efforts of government to maintain calm and quell the uprisings. We also recently saw, in the case of the Boston Marathon bombing and its aftermath, the other extreme: the government successfully locked down an entire metropolitan area, and filled the streets with paramilitary forces at frightening speed.
Now, here in America, we have seen rioting and looting not just as a result of a social trigger, such as the case in London. In America, it seems, bad weather can cause chaos as easily as social unrest. The veneer of society can be scraped away by even the slightest cause, revealing the boiling terror beneath.
We have been told by Lord Cameron of Dillington that we are “nine meals away from anarchy”. But we will not have three days of Walmart "just-in-time" inventory to feed the hordes and keep them sated. We will not have three days of normality before the city-dwellers decide that they want what others have.
We will have only HOURS. History teaches us this, as the following timeline shows:
1965 - Los Angeles - the arrest of a young black man in Watts incites a crowd, which spawns a riot (Elapsed time: 60 minutes);
1968 - across America - the death of Martin Luther King touches off rioting in several cities after the media broadcast (Elapsed time: less than 3 hours);
1977 - New York - the grid goes offline at 9:30PM, the looting starts around 11PM (Elapsed time: 90 minutes);
1992 - Miami - Hurricane Andrew's winds haven't even died down before the malls are ransacked;
1992 - Los Angeles - the verdict is announced for the Rodney King Trial, and almost immediately, the city burns (Elapsed time: less than 60 minutes);
2005 - New Orleans - the mayhem started even before the storm made landfall;
2011 - London - a protest over a slain gangbanger turns violent and Greater London descends into bedlam (Elapsed time: 4 hours);
2012 - Long Island, NY - in the wake of Superstorm Sandy, enterprising looters dressed as powerline repairmen sneak past the martial law cordon and pillage, less than 24 hours of the storm;
2013 - California - after the verdict in the Zimmerman Trial, demonstrations "spontaneously" erupt nationwide, but in Oakland and Los Angeles, fires and unrest break out, and the highways are clogged by protestors (Elapsed time: 50 minutes);
You will have hours. Not days, hours.
Now, we have established that riots will transpire in America, for different reasons and causes. With the knowledge that looting and fires will break out, we need to understand the nature of the oncoming threat. An excellent article describing the urban hordes can be read at Survivalblog.com, under the title "A Veteran Policeman's Observations on The Golden Horde". Probably its most eerie excerpt follows:
The bottom rung is occupied by the drug addicts and users. They exist, not live as we understand the word. They have no assets, no goals, no drive. But they do have an almost animal instinct to continue living. They will be armed with anything they can steal or lay hands on. Most will have a knife of razor box cutter, and some sort of cheap pistol, or they will not live to get out of the city.
Since they have no resources or assets, they will be on the edge of starvation and desperation almost within a day of an event. With no fixed residence or place to defend, they will be hitting the road and coming towards us.
They will become violent without any provocation and there will be no negotiating or bargaining with them. They don't want to hear your story or excuses. All they want is what you have. And have no doubts: They will do anything to get what they want. And this does include catering to their most base instincts of rape, murder and mutilation. Letting someone like this even close to you and what you have is flirting with death.
Now, of course, at the risk of raising the ire of the politically-correct among our readers, we need to recognize one salient socio-political fact: the current administration has succeeded in weaponizing one-eighth of the population. The merest hint of their boiling out of the urban kraals has changed the course of national elections, and had gotten inside the decision loop of the recent government shutdown in October of 2013. As author and former Navy SEAL Matt Bracken observed after the EBT card shutdown on 12 OCT 2013:
This was a test of the National EBT Shutdown System. This was only a test.
A test, and a very dangerous warning shot to the GOP to accede to Obama’s demands for an infinite debt limit increase, “or else.”
The “or else” is an EBT system shutdown, and cities on fire from coast to coast.
All blamed on those Evil White Racist Republicans, who wouldn’t give Obama his money, and made little babies go hungry. Damn those evil white racist Republicans! That’s the game plan.
And five days later, the shutdown ended.
With the probability of riots and looting, and the identity of the marauders established, we turn to a potential sequence of events – and how such a crisis will not be wasted, but rather exploited for other objectives. Ask yourself, how do you control a population of sheep? By removing the rams.
A possible sequence of events might run like this:
* The entitlements stop, and the urban kraals begin to burn;
* The mayhem spills out into the immediate suburbs, where most of the sheep live;
* The sheep cry out for .Gov to save them, willing to pay any price for safety;
* Martial law descends upon the cities (JUST the cities), and the mayhem gets clamped down;
* But the fear remains, and .Gov says that, all you have to do to keep your homes and your food, is turn in your neighbors;
* And a reign of terror begins, where all .Gov has to do is round up the "evil white racist teabaggers" who the sheep eagerly turn in, thus doing the regime's work for them.
This is the military principle of Economy Of Force. Why go kicking in doors, when collaborators will gladly turn their neighbors in for a working EBT card and a bottle of Evian? The same principle has been done in totalitarian regimes gone by, and there is nothing new under the sun where this regime is concerned.
We have examined the potential for mass rioting here in America, as it has happened in Britain. We have identified the most likely perpetrators of such violence. We have theorized a potential scenario which would trigger the events, and what follows. It is incumbent upon you, the reader, to act upon what you have learned. This is not a conclusion that has been reached lightly or frivolously. Consider this as a potential intelligence threat assessment.
The lives of those behind you may depend upon it.
Sarge, THANK YOU! I’ve been telling the sheep for decades that the most dangerous words in ANY language are “WHY, THAT COULD NEVER HAPPEN HERE!”
Like HELL IT CAN’T.
Gonna splash this all over the net. Not that the sheep will read or understand it...
Oh, BTW, did you know you were a white racist?
The keyword said so.
Then we have a political class who has purposely used the productive class as the scape goats convincing the underclass we are the reason for their plight.
Currently we work until June to pay the government to transfer our money (time on this planet) as sort of extortion to prevent the cities from burning.
As soon as the money spigot gets turned off, the cities burn. If you were reading Twitter the day they tested the EBT card system shut down you'd know it won't take long. Less than 24 hours.
If you noticed, I mentioned that in the article.
Matt Bracken’s comment was dead on target.
We here at FR were monitoring the situation in realtime, as it happened.
Several of us are fans of the Fallout video games and often compare them to whats in store because of the survival aspect. The creators obviously had access to, end used, people with knowledge of crowds, psychology and the various dynamics involved in a sHTF scenario...and it shows.
The mindset of the average American cannot even begin to grasp a shtf scenario where the grid fails and the ferals come out to rape/pillage/do the voodoo that they do. It’s part of their Television mindset that ‘someone’ will ‘fix it’...but they better hurry because little Johnny has a soccer game next week!
When the grid goes down, I am convinced that millions of people will be furiously trying to contact Apple to demand their lack of internet on their iphone be addressed immediately because they need to order dinner.
There will be no police because the police will be at home taking care of their families. This government, a government on record with population control and having advisors that are on record as olanning for elimination of opposing views in the permanent sense, will not be sending military to ‘help’. The military members not abandoning their posts to go home and protect their loved ones will not be on a Hati style relief mission with stuffed animals and happy thoughts.
The best thing people can do IMO is know who they can trust. I don’t mean trust with grabbing the right flavor of Jello at the store, I mean trust to not sell you and your stuff out to the ferals. Genuine trust that your life likely WILL depend on.
Then get a few of you together to sketch out a VERY basic/rough idea of protecting your junk because A: no plan survives contact with the enemy and B: you will, depending on location, have little to almost no time once the lights go out, to do anything but break out the weaponry and prepare for the ‘Fallout’ to begin.
I was home sick the EBT day (Saturday, I believe). I couldn't even believe some of what I was reading. I would say it was very close. I think, as it was, a few Walmarts got their doors kicked in and were, small scale, looted.
If I remember correctly, it was only a few cities at that time also.
5.56mm
Great summary. Passing this post to Kartographer.
We are so screwed.
In a word...Yes.
Dam
I had just gotten done with some serious prep, and my roommate was just poo-poohing my concerns. I went to Kroger and in big neon signs all over the store windows, it said EBT DOWN, EBT NOT WORKING.
I immediately called Matt B. He was obviously alarmed. I went home and told me roommate. His face went pale.
By the way, I am more screwed than you are.
By the way, I am more screwed than you are.
Another little life skill people are going to need to quickly learn is scavenging. Ferals are going to be looking for things ferals want. Guns/ammo/food/drugs. The rest of the stuff they won’t think about until reality forces it on them. Medical supplies/clothes/repair goods/hardware/tools and such.
Then there’s the whole disease aspect. Ferals tend to leave bodies in their wake. They also attract wild animals of the non human kind. Cleanup is going to be a reality people are going to have to deal with.
It all seems sci-fi/fantasy until one really thinks it all through. Sure eventually some form of order will be restored. But it will be a long time before a semblence of normalicy returns. And then, it isn’t going to be filled with hours wiled away on Facebook posting cat pictures. Far from it.
Kartographer is so screwed.
Just till they get that AI thing worked out ;)
TADSLOS is so screwed.
Who says I’m not AI?
You’ve never met me.
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