Survivalism: Keeping It Real (Part-II)

There are different types of crisis and for each one you need a different and specialized type of survival preparation.

I can’t say enough when it comes to sticking to the lone-abundantly-stocked-cabin-fortress-in-the-woods scenario.

If you’ve got, one great!

But don't make this the beginning, middle and end of your survival strategy.

Plan ahead, keep a firm foot in reality…and stay flexible.

There are three types crisis situations:
-Economic Collapse
-Civil Unrest
-Social Collapse
-Drastic Political Change
-Catastrophe
-War

Let’s look at the details for each one below:

Economic Collapse
A situation of economic collapse is one of monetary instability.

There is little means to acquire money and what little money is available is losing its value as you hold it in your hands.

What does this look like?

Mass unemployment, little pay and increasing prices.

The situation does not lend itself to saving money.

At this time, the bottom tier is going homeless, suffering from exposure or going hungry.

You want to make sure you don’t join this group.

Silver Coins
To prepare, you may start by hoarding real money, not paper money.

By this I mean gold and silver coins minted by legitimate governments.

You can be holding a real bar of pure gold.

Nobody on the street will respect it unless it has some sort of recognizable seal proving it is what you say it is.

This is why you want coins.

Gold is the best – but remember – governments (like Franklin Roosevelt’s) have a reputation of confiscating gold in hard times. This means they give you 30 days to sell ALL your gold to a government agency at THEIR PRICE.

What gold you then keep (illegally) then becomes hard to sell it becomes a felony.

If this happens, you will be forced to sell what gold you have on the black market to acquire money. But from here on you don’t really know who you are dealing with or what they will do to you.

You can stockpile gold, but understand that you will probably end up selling it on the black market to people you don’t know or trust and at risk to yourself. Count on the government confiscating all gold.

This is why I prefer silver coins.

They have a stamp proving legitimacy and acceptability (American Eagles are best). They can be used directly to purchase things from mom and pop stores (chain stores will reject them). And they can be easily and locally exchanged for money.

So stock up on American Eagle silver coins to prevent inflation from destroying your savings.

Convert your money into silver coinage to preserve the value of your savings.

Otherwise inflation will destroy your saved money.

Remember, if you invest in gold or silver, the value of your gold and silver will increase along with inflation, thus preserving the value of your money.

Pay Off Your House
The one thing you want to own during bad economic times is a paid-off house.

If you live in an economically viable area you can work there and drive to work from there.

If your area dries up economically, you at least have a rental property or you can sell it to acquire another property in your new location (probably at a loss).

A paid off house removes the large financial burdens of rent and home insurance.

It offers a place of refuge to your loved ones, friends and relatives.

It also serves as a reliable home-base from which you can travel to find work elsewhere to feed your family.

Make Plans to Stay Mobile
A hard economy might require that you move frequently from one area to another in search of a job.

In this case, it is better to leave your family in the care of a relative while you head out on your own.

Even if you find a job, rent rather than buy.

A mortgaged house is like an extra anchor of expenditure that weighs on you and your family during hard economic times. There is no guarantee that the job you have today will be there tomorrow to keep paying for that house, so rent rather than buy.

Find maintainable employment
Work at something that is in demand.
Work on the side for cash
Start your own business from home.

Car
Pay-off, sell or otherwise get rid of car bills.
Buy a quality used car from a private seller (car dealers just want to get you into debt).
Make sure its an extreme fuel-saver.
Use gasoline fuel-saving additives and devices (they work! – look them up on the web)

Face the Fact: You Are Poor
We all are! The entire country is….save for a few oligarchic elites.
Too many Americans will increase their suffering both psychologically and physically because they don’t own up to this fact now.
These people keep spending on things that they still consider ‘necessary’ while the truth is they can no longer afford them.

Get Rid of Your Bills
Get rid of all non-essential expenditure.
-mortgages
-insurance
-health insurance (yes, get rid of it – see below)
-cable
-vacations
-subscriptions

Switch from Standard to Alternate Medicine
Health insurance is unaffordable
Medical treatment is unaffordable.
The modern health industry is in a condition of collapse.
Modern medicine is a murderous fraud.
It will hinder, bankrupt and then kill you.
Chemotherapy, radiation treatment or cut and burn will kill you before the cancer does.
Switch to alternative medicine – it is cheaper and it works better than standard medicine.
Finally, look at it this way: you can afford alternative medicine. You can no longer afford modern medicine.

Connect with Family and Relatives
Now’s the time.
You don’t know when you might desperately need their help.
Reconnect with relatives and friends – come closer together.
You’re going to need each other.

Secure Your Home
-window bars
-alarms
-censors
-dogs
-locks
-steel doors
-cameras
-guns
-keep somebody at home at all times

Be Aware of Your Surroundings
As the economy tanks, crime will skyrocket.
Corruption will also skyrocket.
Stay aware of your surroundings, situation and the opportunity for crime or corruption to hurt you.

Get in Touch with the Black Market
Black markets flourish in hard economic times to counter government regulations.
Merchandise (like food) can be acquired from a black market at half the price (yeah, it might be ‘expired’, but you can still eat it).

Deal in Cash
Get the job done off Craigslist and pay in cash
You yourself can work independently for cash
Businesses pay a lot in taxes, rent and electricity so they charge you more than just a plain skilled person.
Also, cash cannot be tracked and is tax-free

Civil Unrest
Hopefully, this is the way the States will confront and tame the Federal Government.

County Sheriffs will stop accepting Federal mandates or authority.

State Legislatures will start rejecting Federal mandates.

Police and soldiers will stop obeying illegal and unconstitutional orders.

Members of our military will start quitting in disgust.

This is the most desirable SHTF scenario, but make no mistake, it will involve hardship.

Please note: depending on how far both sides are willing to push the envelope, this could be the precursor to a national civil war.

So be ready (if necessary) to survive war (see below).

Civil disobedience at the state and local level can lead to a plethora of economic and social problems.

Presently the State and Federal are so intertwined that a separation could lead to unforeseen economic shock.

The Federal government could lash back by cutting off all Federal aid and all Federal programs in disobedient states.

This means masses of welfare-dependent recipients finding themselves penniless, huge prison populations without a supporting structure, collapse of our federally dependent educational system.

Things could get even worse if the Feds cut off rail, highway, air and sea traffic to the state.

So you can soon be facing something close to a social collapse situation.

Under these circumstances standard survival preparations will come in handy.

But don’t expect a 4th of July Parade.

The disobedient states (under a lot of economic pressure) may start enforcing some pretty draconian regulations (food and gas purchase limitations, higher taxes, wage and price control, arbitrary laws, increased militia presence, etc) to deal with it.

Whichever way you slice it, state vs fed confrontation will carry with it a lot of hardship.

Understand that your state is fighting for your rights, but that it is doing so under a lot of pressure. It will have to make many difficult decisions.

This is really our greatest chance to make a difference and save the country.

Support your local state and become part of the process, not a hindrance.

This will not be easy, especially when some of your state actions begin to resemble the very same Fed abuses we are rebelling against.

But understand that an organized state-level disobedience stands the greatest chance of success.

Make it your plan to be a supportive part of it.

Hopefully, the Feds will blink and they will erase some of the most unconstitutional, socialistic and un-American laws in this country’s entire history.

On the other hand, they may not.

A situation like this could lead to a civil war, so you must keep this possibility at the back of your mind at all costs (see surviving war below).

Social Collapse
This is the standard SHTF scenario which everybody has in mind when they talk about survival.

This is a situation where government loses control over society and society breaks itself and then breaks down.

Believe it or not, there are not too many examples of this outside of Haiti, Ethiopia, Somalia and some African countries.

Such a thing could become a true reality for America in a Planet-X or EMP attack scenario, in other words, a catastrophe that affects the entire nation, not just one local area.

Suggestions that an economic collapse alone will cause social collapse are, in my opinion exaggerated.

Historically governments have kept a steely grip on society in the worse of economic collapses (see 1990’s Argentina or Brazil, Weimar Germany or Leningrad in 1941).

It is my belief that government will not only keep a steel grip, but will radically increase its enforcement power within an economic collapse scenario – even if America is starving.

For certain, all survival preparations you have made will serve you well – with one exception:

Don’t count on a stand-off scenario.

The government enforcement mechanism will be radically enlarged and looking for any challenge to its authority.

Instead, hide and survive in quiet fashion.

(If there is a resistance movement, join it, but make sure your family is safe first.)

Your preparations will make your survival more pleasant and avoid the drastic deprivation others will be suffering.

Your main concern should be to keep you ‘stash’ secret from jealous neighbors, government informers or government enforcement.

Historically all such ‘stashes’ are confiscated by government and their owners accused of ‘hoarding.’

This extends to weapons.

Hide your weapons from government thugs. To prevent intrusion, buy your weapons from private parties. FBI lists will be used to confiscate legally purchased weapons. Even then you can hide your weapons (learn weapon stashing techniques) so that when the thugs come a knockin’ they find nothing.

For all practical purposes, the government will keep a steel grip on society until the economy recovers.

Your job is:
-Confront government if confrontation is actually happening (but put your family in a safe place first)
-Hide your goods (in your property and abroad)
-Keep a low profile
-Be ready to Leave the Country if the re-established society goes against your values
-Make Preparations to Stay Mobile (you may be required to evacuate your immediate place of residence in an instant).

Drastic Political Change
This means the government has changed radically into a non-democratic entity – a dictatorship.

There is no more resistance. The new government has simply taken over.

Revolutionary France, Communist Russia, Imperial Japan and Nazi Germany are good examples of this.

When faced with torrential events like the Russian Revolution or the Chinese Revolution, survivalism is moot. The best choice is to leave.

If you see America overrun by enforcers, its government replaced by a puppet government and concentration camps open for business, your best move might be to move (or at least move your family) to another country.

Of course, we are talking about an endgame scenario here.

Under this scenario, all resistance has stopped.

If there is no more active resistance either by government or the people, what are you doing there?

You must decide whether continuing to live in such a society meets your moral, political, social values.

Most such societies end badly, with their populations suffering huge deprivation (either from within, without, or both).

So if you are seeing mass-arrests, mass-disappearances, concentration camps, persecutions, executions, fear, police and enforcers everywhere…without any resistance from government or the population…the best choice for you might be to leave.

In hindsight, everyone who left France before the Revolution, Russia before Communism, Japan before WW-II or Germany before Hitler is considered not only heroic, but intelligent, moral and upright.

These ‘refugees’ are admired for their rejection of evil, and are never looked down upon.

When your entire society has surrendered to the devil and turned itself into hell, sometimes the most revolutionary act of protest and resistance an individual make is to leave (and carry on the struggle from the outside).

Catastrophe
Catastrophe can be either natural or man-made.

In this case, survival involves the preparation against catastrophe for the period of up to one year.

It could be a big catastrophe, it could be a local catastrophe, it could be a national catastrophe, it could be a world catastrophe.

What is important is that you survive it by being prepared to do three things:
Hunker down
Move
and
Hide
…for a year…and…not necessarily in that order.

The only way to survive non-survivable catastrophe is to not be present in the area where it occurs in the first place.

You can begin to ‘survive’ RIGHT NOW by moving out of these danger zones:
-the coast
-large metropolitan areas
-tornado zones
-earthquake zones
-riversides
-low ground
-areas around nuclear plants
-areas around military bases

Simply relocate as soon as possible to places that don’t include any of the above.

A large part of surviving a natural catastrophe is simply not being at the wrong place at the wrong time…before the catastrophe even begins.

As much as we fantasize about the total collapse of government and society, the truth is some type of government has historically continued to exist in even the most extreme of circumstances along with its power to organize and enforce.

This means that in a sedentary (non-nomadic) group or society some entity is always in charge, even if that entity is a group of shirtless guys with AK-47s.

All you have to do is look at modern day Somalia or WW-II Leningrad to see that government ‘continues’ in the most extreme of conditions. I mean, we’re talking mass starvation and death here. You think that affected ‘the government’ any?

Government is sort of like a cockroach. It can survive in the most exreme environments.

It’s the little people like you and me who get to die off.

The sad truth is that government continues to exist in the most difficult conditions, even if its only purpose is just to poke you with a bayonet and tell you to ‘move.’

In fact, the above seems to be FEMA’s main role in most natural catastrophes.

What ever the case may be, survival is always a short-term answer (1 week to 1 year) during which you must survive until you come under the rule of the new or reconstituted social reorganization which will inevitably occur.

The idea of surviving independently for years on your own or with a survival team is a fantasy. Eventually, the enforcers of the new or reconstituted social order (whatever it may be) will gain a say in your affairs, and you will become part that larger community.

The key choices are survive or move. If your area floods, you must move. If a hurricane destroys your town, you must survive.

Human government survives in the most extreme of circumstances and it often has at its disposition enough bodies of cannon fodder to overwhelm you.

Please see Part-I for more detail on surviving catastrophe.

War
We are talking all out war here – total war – and more specifically, war which affects your immediate living space.

This could be anything from an internal civil war, to a foreign invasion to a nuclear strike.

Mobility is the main factor in surviving war.

The things to consider are:
1) your location
2) how you will change your location
3) where will you go to once the change is made

When dealing with being overrun by war, your ability to re-locate neatly and efficiently is of maximum importance.

Notice the emphasis is on movement here.

You cant’ make a stand against roving armies.

All out war is like a tidal waves that engulfs and wipes out whatever stands in its way.

If WW-II is anything on which to base things on, then the people caught in war’s path will be subject to rape, enslavement, exposure, starvation and death.

It is better just to move out of war’s way.

Remember, this is not a collapse scenario. War is the destruction human beings by governments who are still very much in charge and in control.

So to restate: the best way to survive all out war is to GET OUT OF ITS WAY.

Don’t let your “stuff” keep you from vacating.

The best time to get out of the way is before the war gets to you.

Many people left Nazi Germany and Eastern Europe before WW-II due to their fear of Fascism instead of a sense of all-out war.

Those who did later breathed a sigh of relief when they saw what happened to those areas in 1944 and 1945.

Use a Combination of Survival Skills
One type of survival strategy does not negate the other.
All survival preparations will favor you in all survival scenarios.
Preparing for one does not mean not preparing for another.
All survival preparations are good.

Here’s a quick review list:
-mobility
-paid off home
-guns
-food stash
-hiding places
-place you can relocate to
-low profile
-keep your preparations secret
-survival team or acquaintances
-family
-silver
-water well
-chimney
-situational awareness
-skills
-black market
-cash