A Skeptical Survivalist

I took the family on vacation this last weekend to a well known beach vacation spot a few hours from our home. The first evening there I kept getting texts asking if we were ok. Was kind of odd. The next morning I saw stories on CNN showing that the largest number of tornadoes in our region in 25 years had gone within 20 miles of me in several directions.  

On April 16th North Carolina had the most active system of tornadoes on record in the state’s history, leading to 23 deaths.  In fact, over 240 tornadoes ripped through a large portion of the country on Saturday. 

The storms that chugged across the South last week killed at least 46 people in six states. According to Reuters, Tornado season typically runs from March to early July in the United States, moving from south to north as the year progresses. The storms kill an average of 70 people a year.

“There has not been a tornado outbreak in history over three days with this many tornadoes spawned by a single storm system.”  Source

The numbers of tornadoes continue to rise and we have already had over half of the average annual fatalities by mid-April. The freaky weather continues. 

On April 19th & 20th 33 tornado sightings were unofficially reported from Oklahoma to Ohio from Tuesday night through Wednesday morning.

On the way home on the 19th I saw a pool business my wife and I had discussed three days earlier, looking sad with an aging product line in a bad recession.  Now it was decimated - its products marking the path of a twister, strewn in pieces as far as the eye could see.

Hundreds of thousands across many states without electricity for days. People I work with said their cell phones couldn’t connect because the circuits were bogged down with emergency calls.  Of the dead, many were children.

We were lucky. One of my staff had family who lost everything. My house was unscathed. 

In Texas the state is burning from “border to border”. This happens as the state suffers from a drought of a severity not seen since the 1930’s.

Officials at the National Weather Service in Midland, Texas, say their weather data shows the drought in Eddy County and the surrounding region is on par with the Dust Bowl of the 1930s.

Eddy County has not had any measurable rain since Sept. 25, and according to David Henning, National Weather Service meteorologist, there is no rain in sight for southeastern New Mexico and the neighboring Texas communities.  Source

Since January 1, the Texas Forest Service said, it has responded to more than 800 fires that have damaged some 5,000 structures across 1.4 million acres.

“We’re actually seeing Texas burn from border to border. We’ve got it in west Texas, in east Texas, in north Texas, in south Texas — it’s all over the state,” Forest Service spokeswoman April Saginor told CNN Radio. “We’ve got one in the Dallas area that’s four fires that have actually merged together.”

West Texas averages nearly 15 inches of rain a year, according to Hennig. In the past six months, only 13-hundredths of an inch of rain have been recorded in that part of the state. While October through March is typically the dry season, that amount of rainfall is far below what it should be, Hennig said.     Source

None of the folks that these disasters affected knew that this would happen. I did not expect that as I drove away on vacation that my home might not be there when I returned.  We can never know when disaster could strike or what form it might take. 

This does not mean that we must live in fear of what could happen, but that we should be prepared so that if we are faced with a Dramatic Change Event we can act and not react.

There are some disasters that we just can’t beat. A tsunami, massive earthquake, tornado, or out of control wildfire are not to be stopped or prevented. However, having an emergency plan in place in the case of disaster may make the difference in living and dying. It’s not about being paranoid or living in fear, it’s about being pragmatic and realistic.

Survival may very well entail running for your life, or “bugging out” in the vernacular.  Everything you own may be gone, but if you survive and protect those you love, you win.

Call me crazy, but I took my 72 hour bag with me on vacation. 

I have two boys, both in grade school. I teach them about the woods and nature. I make them take a martial art to defend themselves against bullies. I teach them how to fish and how to shoot BB guns and the .22 as I was taught at their age. I talk to them about the world and we sometimes discuss war because they like video games and it’s gotten them interested in history.

I even show them the food I have stocked and we discuss what we all might do in case of an emergency.  I want them to feel safe, and know that I’m protecting them and worrying about all the bad things in the world so they don’t have to.

I do NOT talk to them about things like the “end of the world” or economic collapse. I don’t talk to them about things that fundamentalists, nutjobs, and conspiracy theorists think are going happen. 

The post below from dinosaurbreakfast made me think about how things like this can affect how young people develop. I grew up as part of a fundamentalist Christian family who was expecting the Rapture at any moment. I was heavily impacted by it. It’s part of the impetus for my continued interest in Apocalyptic thought. I no longer expect an Abrahamic-style “End of Days”, but I see how much it continues to influence modern society. 

I’m not here to criticize or judge how other survivalists/preppers raise their children, but I am noting that these kinds of thought patterns can build complexes in your children that they may later resent you for. 

You may think it’s preparing them for the real world and helping them deal with reality, but isn’t that what we are supposed to insulate them from until they are old enough to have to bear those burdens on their own?  

I want my boys to live a happy, carefree childhood, unfettered by fears of nuclear attack or collapse of economic systems.  I want them to know that Dad is standing in the gap for them and that they can depend on me if anything bad ever does happen.

I worry about these things so they don’t have to. That’s why I became a survivalist in the first place.

dinosaurbreakfast:

It’s very strange, watching the world go mad from the comfort and safety of my parents’ kitchen. My survivalist father keeps up his whispering, “Something’s coming, something’s coming.” So, he prepares, builds and stores and makes plans, like a bear getting ready for winter.

I don’t think I want to be a bear, though. I think I want to try staying out in the winter cold. I can hibernate when I’m dead.

It looks like the recent global disasters have stimulated one section of the economy. The story covers general survival sales as well as bunkers.

I have said that I would stay non-political on this blog and just present the stories. I may lose some readers by writing this, but it may not have been the right blog for you anyway.

I follow stories on lots of survivalist and financial blogs run by folks who think the world is going to hell in a handbasket, and perhaps it is, but I don’t agree with many of their arguments. 

Many of them seem to be heavily influenced by the Tea Party movement and express their anger at the gross expenditures of the federal government. I also see them frequently take up for the wealthy and perpetuate the system that enslaves them while railing against the elite and the NWO. It is a dynamic I don’t understand.

Let me get this straight. You rail against the “elite and NWO”, Wall Street Bankers, the Fed, and everyone else who is rich and in power, and then you take a stand on defending them when it comes to their money? We are being robbed blind and the Republicans lead the charge when it comes to protecting bankers, financiers, and corporate interests.

I am flabbergasted. I cannot understand why those of us who are hurt most by the manipulations of the elitists and super rich continue to perpetuate their survival and enable their tactics by defending them and electing them.

How many of you yelling about Government entitlements are using medical benefits and equipment funded by Medicare/caid?

Early on in Rand Paul’s campaigns

he denounced Medicare as socialized medicine. Then when confronted with reducing Medicare payments to Doctors, a man ostensibly so against government power in all its forms that he wants to gut the Americans With Disabilities Act and abolish the departments of Education and Energy, was unwilling to reduce his own government compensation, for a very logical reason. “Physicians,” he said, “should be allowed to make a comfortable living.”

I get it. You are angry. You don’t like the way things are going, but you’re still buying into the same bullshit and hypocrisy that got us to where we are today.

Mac Slavo at SHTFPlan shared this video of Tea Party commentator Bill Whittle criticizing Michael Moore’s anti-corporate and wealth rhetoric. He also points out that Moore is rich himself, an argument often raised by his opponents.  Before watching the video, read Moore’s response to this criticism when asked about it by Wolf Blitzer:

BLITZER: But let’s talk about — most people going to see this movie who don’t like you are going to say, you know what? Michael Moore has done pretty well in this capitalist or free market system. You’ve become a fairly rich guy yourself.

MOORE: So, yes. Your point was, I have done well. Yes, for a documentary filmmaker, I have done very well.

MOORE: Isn’t the question better put — and I’m not trying to do your job for you — but wouldn’t the question better be, gee, Mike, you have done so well. Why don’t you just kick back at the lake and enjoy life? Why are you caring about all these people losing their health care and their jobs and all that? You’re not losing yours?

I wonder if there was like a Wolf Blitzer like 200 years ago who asked Thomas Jefferson or John Adams or George Washington, hey, you know, you guys are wealthy landowners. You have benefited from the king’s system. What are you complaining about? What is this revolt all about?

It’s like, sometimes, people, even people who have actually had the good fortune and blessings in life to not have to struggle with worrying about their health care, whether or not it’s going to be here tomorrow or the next week, sometimes, those people actually are willing to take great risks and create sacrifices for themselves, in the hopes that others will have it just as well.

BLITZER: That you have made a lot of money in this free enterprise, capitalist system, and now you’re railing against it.

MOORE: I know. Isn’t that amazing? Isn’t that amazing, that I actually — I actually, with a high school education, through my hard work and my ideas, have done OK, and then — and that I still want to do these things to help people who have it worse off than I, that I’m actually following through on the religious principles that I was raised with that I will be judged by how I treat the least among us?

I want an economic system that’s run with democratic principles and has a moral and ethical core to it. I want you and I and all the people watching to be able to have a say. And when you say, oh, we get to elect or representatives, well, you and I know the truth of that, that hundreds of millions of dollars are spent every year on lobbying Congress.

And you and I don’t have that kind of money to spend on that. So, the average person doesn’t get to see the things they would like to see happen. Otherwise, the 75 percent who want universal health care would have universal health care right now.

At the :34 mark in this video the speaker calls the people in the Wisconsin protests “mobs disrupting the legislative process because they didn’t like the outcome”.

ARE YOU SERIOUS?

This is the same rhetoric that could be used to discredit any protest. If this hyperbole were used against Tea Party protests you would scream bloody murder. Voltaire said “”I may disagree with what you have to say, but I shall defend to the death your right to say it.”

Wake up! The more you back corporate power and super-rich politicians, the more they laugh at you as you enable them.

At a time most employees can barely remember their last substantial raise, median CEO pay jumped 27% in 2010 as the executives’ compensation started working its way back to prerecession levels. Workers in private industry, meanwhile, saw their compensation grow just 2.1% in the 12 months ended December 2010. Source

Forgive my sarcasm, but by all means, let’s cut my 74 year old Mom’s Medicare and continue to protect the rich 10%.

I found this article about the Tea Party movement in Kentucky, my home state. It’s titled “Tea & Crackers: How Corporate Interests and Republican Insiders Built the Tea Party Monster” and I’m just excerpting the last few paragraphs, but it bears reading in toto.

I think it captures the zeitgeist of the conservative tendency to want to limit government spending, intervention, and taxes, while protecting the corporate wealth interests who continue to rape the working class on a daily basis.

In the Tea Party narrative, victory at the polls means a new American revolution, one that will “take our country back” from everyone they disapprove of. But what they don’t realize is, there’s a catch: This is America, and we have an entrenched oligarchical system in place that insulates us all from any meaningful political change. The Tea Party today is being pitched in the media as this great threat to the GOP; in reality, the Tea Party is the GOP.

What few elements of the movement aren’t yet under the control of the Republican Party soon will be, and even if a few genuine Tea Party candidates sneak through, it’s only a matter of time before the uprising as a whole gets castrated, just like every grass-roots movement does in this country. Its leaders will be bought off and sucked into the two-party bureaucracy, where its platform will be whittled down until the only things left are those that the GOP’s campaign contributors want anyway: top-bracket tax breaks, free trade and financial deregulation.

This, then, is the future of the Republican Party: Angry white voters hovering over their cash-stuffed mattresses with their kerosene lanterns, peering through the blinds at the oncoming hordes of suburban soccer moms they’ve mistaken for death-panel bureaucrats bent on exterminating anyone who isn’t an illegal alien or a Kenyan anti-colonialist.

The world is changing all around the Tea Party. The country is becoming more black and more Hispanic by the day. The economy is becoming more and more complex, access to capital for ordinary individuals more and more remote, the ability to live simply and own a business without worrying about Chinese labor or the depreciating dollar vanished more or less for good. They want to pick up their ball and go home, but they can’t; thus, the difficulties and the rancor with those of us who are resigned to life on this planet.

Of course, the fact that we’re even sitting here two years after Bush talking about a GOP comeback is a profound testament to two things: One, the American voter’s unmatched ability to forget what happened to him 10 seconds ago, and two, the Republican Party’s incredible recuperative skill and bureaucratic ingenuity.

This is a party that in 2008 was not just beaten but obliterated, with nearly every one of its recognizable leaders reduced to historical-footnote status and pinned with blame for some ghastly political catastrophe. There were literally no healthy bodies left on the bench, but the Republicans managed to get back in the game anyway by plucking an assortment of nativist freaks, village idiots and Internet Hitlers out of thin air and training them into a giant ball of incoherent resentment just in time for the 2010 midterms. They returned to prominence by outdoing Barack Obama at his own game: turning out masses of energized and disciplined supporters on the streets and overwhelming the ballot box with sheer enthusiasm.

The bad news is that the Tea Party’s political outrage is being appropriated, with thanks, by the Goldmans and the BPs of the world. The good news, if you want to look at it that way, is that those interests mostly have us by the balls anyway, no matter who wins on Election Day. That’s the reality; the rest of this is just noise. It’s just that it’s a lot of noise, and there’s no telling when it’s ever going to end.

From Commondreams.org - Tea & Crackers: How Corporate Interests and Republican Insiders Built the Tea Party Monster

Meanwhile the Tea Party continues to be funded by the super rich:

Real Americans are mad as hell and want to take back their country from you-know-who.

There’s just one element missing from America’s ostensibly spontaneous and leaderless populist uprising: the Wall Street sugar daddies who are bankrolling it and who have been doing so since well before the “death panel” days.

Three heavy hitters rule. You’ve heard of one of them, Rupert Murdoch, who owns - among other things - Fox News via it’s parent company, NewsCorp.

The other two, the brothers David and Charles Koch, are even richer, with a combined wealth exceeded only by that of Bill Gates and Warren Buffett among Americans. But even those carrying the Kochs’ banner may not know who these brothers really are.

Their self-interested and at times radical agendas, like Murdoch’s, go well beyond and against the interests of those who serve as spear carriers in the political pageants hawked on Fox News. The country will be in for quite a ride should these potentates ever gain power, and given the recession-battered electorate’s unchecked anger and the Obama White House’s strategy, they might.

All three tycoons are the latest incarnation of what the historian Kim Phillips-Fein labeled “Invisible Hands” - those corporate players who have financed the far right ever since the du Pont brothers spawned the American Liberty League in 1934 to bring down F.D.R. with a coup d’etat attempt.

And here’s more on the “big money” behind the Tea Party:

According to the nonpartisan website Source Watch, “Reports indicate that the Tea Party Movement benefits from millions of dollars from conservative foundations that are derived from wealthy U.S. families and their business interests. Is appears that money to organize and implement the Movement is flowing primarily through two conservative groups: Americans for Prosperity and Freedom Works.” Those two entities are “lobbyist-run think tanks” that are “well funded”, providing logistics and organizing for the TEA Party movement nationwide, ThinkProgress.org has reported.

 Media Matters, a nonpartisan site founded by a conservative, reported that FreedomWorks receives substantial funding from David Koch of Koch Industries, the largest privately-held energy company in the country, and the conservative Koch Family FoundationsMedia Matters reports that the Koch family has given more than $12 million to CSE/FreedomWorks between 1985 and 2002. In addition, Media Matters lists the Sarah Scaife Foundation, which is financed by the Mellon industrial, oil and banking fortune, as having given a total of $2.96 million in funding to FreedomWorks, the major backer of the TEA Party movements.

This is why I started this blog. Survivalists and preppers are pervasively conservative and affiliated with the Tea Party. They encompass large numbers of religious fundamentalists and anti-Zionist conspiracy theorists. On the other side, the liberal “survivalists” are ecologists, organic farmers, and green activists; back to the earth people who think it can all be fixed by changing our lightbulbs, growing local, and using alternative energy.

Where is the moderate in the preparedness movement?  Why is there such polarization? Why are those most oppressed deluded and persuaded by right-wing progaganda into believing that rich corporate power houses will work with their best interests in mind?

I maintain that one can believe that the situation is dire, and prepare appropriately without embracing extremism. That is why I write here. That is why I ever remain the Skeptical Survivalist.

I notice often, as a result of numerous keyword searches, that Survivalist and Preparedness spam and ads are increasing. 

I see one tweet come up a lot from multiple accounts. Its starts off like this “Survive Anything (new) Top Converting: The survivalist market is hot.”

One Tumblr advertizing blog for a food storage company has a website that repeatedly mentions that cannibalism is a result of extreme hunger. In big bold print it mentions cannibalism SEVEN times. WTF!!?

I hate this kind of advertising. Instead of relying on the virtues of their product they use the most horrific of scenarios to sell their wares to the unprepared.

Beware these vendors. Fuck them. Buy from a company with the decency to spam you without resorting to fear. 

meadowspook asked: Do you recommend any news websites in particular?

Thank you caffeinatedennui for following and reading.

As a librarian I have to first give a quick disclaimer about using authoritative sources. I have to do this because some of the sites I follow are NOT authoritative in and of themselves.

Authoritative sources have several elements. Not all of them are always going to be met, but I do the best I can to not just pass on conjecture and opinion, but rather the original story as reported by the source. There will always be a question of who counts as an expert, as an authority on a subject.

Articles on news sites, in scientific journals, as reported on television, by eyewitnesses, etc that report the findings from research studies and experiments, that are first hand accounts of events as researched by a reporter, or reports from ‘experts’ are considered “primary” information sources, because they are “first hand” accounts of the actual research and the results, i.e. the original evidence.

The various original sources described above generate a range of “primary evidence” that can be gathered, organized, and assessed by other researchers to give us a sense of the current information on a given topic. These types of review or opinion articles are considered a secondary source because they are “second-hand” accounts which integrate the reports from a number of original research sources.

Even though I try to share information from primary sources, there are many secondary sources that provide valuable insight into a topic, so I sometimes share those as well. My individual comments and writing would almost always be considered secondary sources unless it’s something I know enough about to write authoritatively.

Because I have also studied Philosophy, I tend to question everything, which can lead to it’s own problems, but we must have a healthy skepticism, tempered with some standard of what we can accept as “truth”, in order to not fall into the traps laid by conspiracy theorist type thinking, faulty logic, and blind trust of authority.

That being said, here’s how I scan sources and the sites I check often. I created a Netvibes dashboard and import a wide range of RSS feeds and keyword searches into that page via widgets.I have them categorized by general topic so I can look at numerous sources at the same time.

Here are the General areas I’m watching now and some of the sites I use. I’ll link to the ones that are harder to find and that are less mainstream. I don’t agree with what many of these sites put forth, but I do find interesting stories on them that don’t get a lot of coverage.  I have to warn you that many of these sites are very conservative, and even fringe right-wing (Tea Party) in perspective. I don’t have to agree with their politics to get good information and facts from the things they comment on.

Main Stream Media

• New York Times - World
• The Atlantic
• San Francisco Bay Area News
• Chicago tribune
• Reuters World News
• BBC - World
• Al Jazeera English
• Mother Jones - Politics
• LA Times
• Reuters Science News
• New Scientist
• Scientific American
• Nature Magazine
• The Economist
• USA Today
• International Herald Tribune
• Wall Street Journal
• Washington Post

Finance and Economy

• CNN Money
• Forex Trading News
• Financial Times
• Nouriel Roubini - economist who predicted the housing crash in 2008
• Marc Faber Blog - blog with lots of info from Faber, an economist who has also earned the title Dr Doom
• Zero Hedge - kind of Tea Partyish site with more conservative views than I hold, but they do pull some interesting stories.
• Peter Schiff Blog - another economist who thinks things don’t look so good for the future

Environment, Earth Changes, & Peak Oil

• Energy Bulletin
• The Oil Drum
• SkyTruth
• Peak Oil News
• RSOE EDIS - real time updates of global disasters of all types
• USGS Liver Internet Seismic server - heliplots of earthquake monitors all over the world
• Earth Changes & the Pole Shift - this site is run by a real kook; thinks she’s channeling aliens and Planet X is causing the pole shift. HOWEVER, they dig up some of the wildest news stories about all the shit that’s happening all over the world with regard to earthquakes, landslides, cracks, sounds, flooding, etc. I use the stories but never link to them because of the stigma of their bias.

Alt News Sources

• Before It’s News
• Alternet
• DiscloseTV
• Project Censored
• Natural News
• The Raw Story
• Global Research
• Unexplained Mysteries

Survivalist News

• SHTFPlan - I read Mac Slavo daily. He’s a bit more edgy and alarmist than I am, and many of his readers are fucking nuts, but he has an interesting perspective and covers topics I’m interested in. All in all a good site.
• Chris Martenson - well educated wall street insider turned survivalist. One of the most well known names in the survivalist community. Fairly doom and gloom, but a smart guy and I watch what he has to say - skeptically. ;)
• The Daily Crux
• The Warning Signs - tea party-ish
• Activist Post
• What Really Happened
• The Intel Hub
• World Wide Wake Up Now - angry Tea Party
• The Daily Sheeple
• Redacted news

Survivalists

• Suburban Survivalist
• Modern Survival Online
• Survivology 101
• Survival Podcast - Rick Spirko is by far the survivalist/prepper that I like the most. Rational, positive, and yet pragmatic and full of good stuff. Best example of what survivalism can be. If you’re going to start somewhere in this Topical area, start here.
• SHTF Times
• The Survivalist Blog
• Bison Survival Blog
• Survival Blog - Jim Rawles wrote the book on hardcore survivalism - the super religious, conservative, grab your gun and head for the hills kind. He has a huge following to prove it. But he knows his skills.
• Save Our Skills - great blog on skills that aren’t much in use any longer
• Wilderness Survival Forums

Conspiracy Theorists

• Above Top Secret
• GodLike Productions
• Disinfo - one of the more ‘reputable’ ones
• Death By A Thousand Papercuts
• Dutchsinse - video feed - this guy has some amazing earthquake and weird weather footage, but he thinks HAARP is behind it all. I think he is sincere, and I kind of crack up when he gets all alarmed and issues alerts, but he finds interesting stuff, even if I don’t agree with his conclusions. 

Keyword Searches

I use Twitter and Google News keyword searches that feed into the dashboard. I follow these topics:

• survival or survivalist or prepper or emergency preparedness
• food shortage or food prices
• peak oil or oil prices or gas prices or oil slick or oil sheen or oil spill
• poleshift (mostly reports from the followers of the blog listed above)
• earthquake or weird weather or ground cracks
• mass fish kill or mass animal deaths or dead fish or beached whale or whale strandings or beached dolphins
• collapse of the dollar or reserve currency
• homeland security or FEMA

Well, those are a few of the things I watch. Like I said, be skeptical and don’t believe it just because someone thinks it makes sense - even if that someone is me.  :) 

FEMA recommends making an emergency bag with supplies you might need if you had to quickly evacuate in the event of an emergency. Here are several ways to do that.

Survivalists have been on this concept for decades and have taken the art of making a Bug Out Bag (B.O.B.) or Get Out of Dodge bag (G.O.O.D. or G.O.D.) to a whole new level.  I like the latter phrase less because the fundie survivalists seem to favor it, and Get Out Of Dodge Yesterday (G.O.O.D.Y.) bag would fit better. :)

My wife, who has only come over to my ‘dark side’ since the disaster in Japan, has instructed me to make sure ours is fully outfitted after the next paycheck. I’ve already been working on it, but with full budget approval from the better half I can make it GREAT! Now I can make one for each of our vehicles, and several for our home, including the kids.

What you pick will depend on your budget, but try to get the basics in there first. Alleviate disaster anxiety - prepare well. 

Understanding the BOB - Get the basics from Wikipedia

FEMA Recommendations - Basic 72 hour kit items. 

FEMA Recommendations - Where to keep 72-hour bags 

The 7 Types of Gear you must have in your Bug Out Bag - nice break down of categories

How To Survive The Apocalypse, on $20 and the stuff in your apartment - get started on a budget

How to Make a Bug Out Bag: Your 72-Hour Emergency Evacuation Survival Kit - this one must weigh a ton, but it’s comprehensive

34 Essential Items For Your Bug Out Bag - focused on general disasters, no guns\

Buy a 72-hour bag - shop for backpacks and ready-made kits

Ultimate BOB - Amazon list with lots of items you might add - especially the Katadyn water filter if you can afford it, there are cheaper one out there though.

BOB Guns - lists the pros and cons of firearms for various scenarios

GOOD Bag tips from a northern Idaho housewife - some useful info on preparing your bag

Videos 

Entry level intro

A Survivalist Wife’s Bug Out Bag For When SHTF

Kids BOB

British BOB

Hardcore - heavy on weapons survivalist :)

Breaking it down - the ‘Science’ of BOB’s - 1 of 3: The Purpose, Planning and Packing your Bug-Out-Bag 1/3