Posted on 08/18/2010 6:07:49 PM PDT by Diana in Wisconsin
(Many people see political upheaval and natural disasters as clear signs that civilization is doomed.)
From the outside, Jerry Erwin's Oregon home is a nondescript house with a manicured front lawn and little to differentiate it from those of his neighbors.
But tucked away out of sight in his backyard are the signs of his preparations for doomsday, a catastrophic societal collapse that Erwin, 45, now believes is likely within his lifetime.
"I've got, under an awning, stacks of firewood, rain catching in barrels, I've got a shed with barbed concertina wire, like the military uses," he told AFP.
He and his wife also have also stockpiled thousands of rounds of ammunition and enough food for about six months.
"Several years ago I worked on paying off the house, replacing all the windows, and just very recently, I'm proud to say, we've replaced all our exterior doors with more energy-efficient ones, with as much built-in security features as I could get," he told AFP.
"Plus I'm going to be adding some more structural improvements to the door frames to make it hopefully virtually impossible to take a battering ram to them."
Erwin and others like him in the United States and elsewhere see political upheaval and natural disasters as clear signs that civilization is doomed.
"We're hitting on all cylinders as far as symptoms that have led other great powers to decline or collapse: resource depletion, damage to the environment, climate change, those are the same things that affected other great societies," he said.
For Erwin, the decline is irreversible and the best approach is to prepare for the inevitable.
His pessimism is shared by a wide range of people, from left-wing environmentalists who believe climate change and capitalist greed will doom human society to Christian fundamentalists who think sin will do the same.
They label themselves "preppers," "doomers" and "survivalists," and take a variety of different approaches to the same question: How best to prepare for the coming apocalypse?
Jim Rawles, who Erwin describes as "the patron saint of survivalism," prefers an isolationist, Christian-influenced approach.
He homeschooled his children, declines to say where he lives, and advises readers of his website survivalblog.com to "relocate to a safe area and live there year-round."
"When planning your retreat house, think: medieval castle," he adds, extolling the benefits of using sandbags to protect any new home.
Rawles, like many on the most conservative end of the survivalist spectrum, is also anti-tax, pro-gun rights, and suspicious of anything that smacks of socialism.
But the survivalist movement also includes left-wing community activists, who are devoted to living off the land and have never fired a weapon, and people like Chris Martenson, who quit a job with a six-figure salary that he felt was "an unnecessary diversion from the real tasks at hand."
He began growing his own food and developed a "Crash Course" that urges people to better prepare for societal instability. He also took over management of his investments and boasts of a 166 percent return on his portfolio.
For Martenson, the wake-up call was the September 11, 2001 attacks, when he felt gripped by uncertainty and totally unprepared.
Erwin had always felt that society would eventually disintegrate, but he and many other U.S. survivalists say the dysfunctional response to the 2005 Hurricane Katrina was what spurred them to action.
"I thought, OK, things are not going to get better... maybe this society, our civilization, the American empire, will collapse during my lifetime," Erwin said.
For John Milandred, no single event pushed him to leave his suburban home and set up a farm in Oklahoma.
"We just got fed up of working all the time to pay bills and not accomplishing anything," he said.
A member of the American Preppers Network, Milandred said he and his wife aspired to "grow our own foods and be self sufficient... to live like the pioneers, like our great-grandparents."
It is unclear how many people subscribe to the lifestyle, but there are hundreds of websites devoted to the movement, and Erwin's surburban-self-reliance.com attracts visitors from around the world.
The global financial crisis has increased interest in survivalism "bigtime," Erwin said, but he feels sorry for latecomers to the movement.
"We'll help them if we can," he said. "But a lot of people are climbing on board at the last minute and its going to be hard for them."
“Jim Rawles, who Erwin describes as “the patron saint of survivalism,”
And his novel “Patriots”.
Lot’s of info there.
(with beans, you provide your own gas. hehe)
What he, and others like him, seem to neglect is “What if the disaster makes leaving the house as part of survival ?”
Lemme tell you. Week 2 of the disaster, if I see a hint that they have what I need, I’ll camp out there for weeks or months following to take it. I can take that house, regardless of the security.
I think that a mobile survival plan is still best.
“For Erwin, the decline is irreversible and the best approach is to prepare for the inevitable.”
THEN STFD & STFU! Don’t be tellin’ what you’ve been doing.
You might as well hang a neon sign out front that says, “This way after TSHTF”.
I thought that bean-gas warfare was against the geneva convention?
Huh?
Oh, hell with it! I think I’ll just go play golf. If I get a double eagle, then I know the world is coming to an end. In other words, the world is safe for many, many thousands of years!
Mobile is the desperate last resort. Those that stay put get to keep all their stuff. That can be tough in tsunami or wildfire areas.
had me up until climate change
Pickled eggs and beer are the weapons of mass destruction!
Concertina is silly, anyone can cut through that — I guess it could be used to slow people down so they don’t hit you from all sides at once?
“The Fourth Turning” (right on schedule), at your local library.
The actual solution that one should adopt for a disentigration of our society is not trivial. At the very least, I figure that one has to organize one’s neighbors so we all support each other. We need good communication so we will know who needs help when. If at all possible the local authorities have to be on your side. If Uncle becomes as advisary one needs the means to keep aircraft off of our backs. We need a logistics, medical, and transportation support.
One family holed up in a house will be picked off sooner or later by an attacking group. This is why one needs the support of your neighbors.
He means Erwin just put up a sign saying “Come and get it. I’ve got lot’s of goodies to steal” even if the SHT don’t hit the fan
My bug out bag is ready
My ex-father-in-law (RIP - a great guy) survived the Nazi occupation of Poland by staying off the radar screen with a small family farm away from population centers. His city living half-brother was picked up for slave labor.
He was also able to provide supplemental food to his extended family during the communist years.
That’s the setup I’d choose if I had the resources.
Have you selected a wilderness site and pre-supplied it with food?
I’m not sure that I would want to be a marauder and raider in America after a collapse.
We are a people that pull together, we are armed to the teeth, many of us are hunters and outdoors men and about 25 million of us are military veterans.
That collection of the best armed, most cooperative, biggest mass of military trained Americans is also the biggest collection of good guys and sheep dogs that are the biggest believers in order, and largely eager for the chance to be unleashed from the restraints of never being able to hunt the bad guys themselves, and they generally live among their own kind.
Throw in a military that will probably be hunting the packs of bad guys and looters, and I’m not so sure that a Road Warrior America would result from a great national emergency.
The great urban raiders may find that they have few options when the rules are gone, because the reality of the rules truly being gone basically puts middle America where it was when it was building this nation, back in charge of effective vigilantism and healthy communities.
Oh yes more than one.
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