Guest article Saturday.
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I try not to pay a whole lot of attention to the mainstream media ( The Wizards of Media Oz: Behind the Curtain of Mainstream News
). Whereas before they were obnoxiously obsequious in their lip smacking anal pucker to any idea even remotely tied to communism, federalism, socialism or politically correctness ( defined as the ability to self-hypnotize the urgent need to promote the victimization of everyone at the hands of a few non-collectivists ), now that everyone is rushing to any official with a clipboard to voluntarily sign up for self imposed servility in exchange for a government payout they no longer need to put so much work into preaching to the masses and have instead switched to preaching to the choir. In the place of propaganda there is nothing so worthless or intoxicating as infotainment. Nonetheless, a certain amount of “news” is going to assault my consciousness and I simply must pass it on. If nothing else this allows me to spew and remove some of the toxins out of my system. The newest Big Lies ( was that Stalin that said a big enough lie repeated often enough was truth, or was that the Nazis? ) are that there are no more leaks at the Gulf oil rig and that three quarters of the spilled oil has disappeared. Now, as with any lie, there is a kernel of truth. True, right at the well there are no more leaks. Don’t go out too far and visit the unofficial plumes and this fact stands up and salutes “I got a Nobel for being a half-breed” Obamma, commander in chief of American Empire ( American Empire Before the Fall
). And, if you don’t visit the sand inland, or look too far under the waves, and if you ignore the gas and just focus on the solids, then you won’t find a whole lot of evidence of the oil spill. Congratulations! *
A lot has been made of the American militaries ability to learn from the Vietnam Conflict ( we won’t call it a war, least the usurpation of Congresses duty to declare such is questioned ). Yet it seems that the only lesson was to better control your media people. Just as the lessons learned from the Exxon Valdez ( I don’t know if I’m spelling that right – if you want perfect editing go spend money on a newspaper or magazine you tight bastards ) spill was not to prevent them but to keep the media from reporting from anything other than your press release. If perception is reality, than our masters have substituted concrete reform with just another viewing lens.
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Now, I grant you I haven’t been over to the middle east any time soon. It’s been awhile since I’ve fired up the Lear Jet ( 1/48 Lear Jet
) and flew over with minor celebrities to visit my buddy the oil sheik. He left word that he was going to finance a nuke attack on Iraqi oil fields and blame it on Iran ( that should turn his oil from a dwindling commodity controlled by western banks to a much richer prize under his control ), so I’ve stayed away. He felt comfortable telling me this since he knew no one believed a damn thing I had to say. Although he was quick to point out how much he valued my advice ( some people have a bit of class which you could learn from ). So I can’t speak with unquestionable authority here. But aren’t we employing pretty much the same military strategy in Iraq that we did in Vietnam? Stay in fortified bases ( Bulwark of empire: Bermuda's fortified naval base 1860-1920
) and send out troops to blast anything that moved. In Vietnam we had a draft that killed off the ghetto inhabitants cheaply, here we are paying mercenaries huge bucks to die ( mercs aren’t part of the casualty figures, and rather than gold backed dollars we pay them in Monopoly Greenbacks ). In Vietnam, we killed off our troops with Agent Orange. Now, it’s depleted uranium ( better profits than on a mere chemical ). Then, we set up Quonset huts ( Quonset Hut: Metal Living For The Modern Age
) and tents erected by SeeBees. Now, Halliburton builds concrete cities ( as our domestic infrastructure is allowed to crumble ). The troops hunker down, go out on patrol, come back. Not much changes in the scheme to pacify the indigs.*
And most survivalists have the same basic defense plan. Sit around, wait for an attack. Or, go out on patrol with thousands of dollars worth of gear, thinking you are as stealthy as a ninja or Daniel Boone hunting a “bar”. When your super deluxe fortified bunker is attacked by primitive black powder siege weapons, your expensive investment goes up in smoke and you end up in the stewpot. Now, if you have that mythical trained survival group and you live in the boonies, your chances are much better. Not because an ex-officer trained in Vietnam tactics ( Combat Techniques: An Elite Forces Guide to Modern Infantry Tactics
) trains you, but because most folks will miss you by dumb luck. Yet the lone survivalist hidden out in the boonies has about the same odds of being undetected. Let’s go back to the group. If the entire US Army had a tough time finding the Viet Cong ( Viet Cong Fighter (Warrior)
), what makes you think your patrols will be guaranteed to find intruders? Because you have radios and night vision and other cool toys? The army in Vietnam had all the latest and greatest, and they had almost ten years to get it right. And failed miserably. I don’t question the valor of the individuals, I question the generals. The Cong might have been fighting the Forth Generation, the Americans are to this day probably still in the second. Didn’t they have time to read T.E. Lawrence ( Seven Pillars of Wisdom: A Triumph
)? You don’t fight the strength of the enemy, but exploit the weakness. You don’t trade lives for land when, in the final analysis, the land serves no purpose. *
The problem we preppers have is that the military must fight on its stomach. Whatever feeds you is how you fight. Agriculturalists must defend stationary targets and nomads must fight mobile. But we are not where we will be eating, by and large. Most of us are living in urban areas being fed by petroleum. We can’t adjust accordingly and prepare a defense. We don’t have a village to help us. We are all isolated, and must eventually move ( even if you are currently on a homestead, chances are good you will be violently displaced ). This makes immediate defense and eventual strategy ( Grand Strategies: Literature, Statecraft, and World Order
) two different problems. We’ve already talked about strategy after the collapse ( farming lands with militia, with treaties with surrounding nomads acting as a buffer ). How do we defend our crashstead? A fixed defense is suicide. A roving layer of defense is expensive in food and weapons, needing a group. While it is really no defense at all, at this time I see little in the way of options other than hiding in isolation with not enough manpower, hoping the mobs will die off soon. Am I following this advice? Of course not. One must work to feed the system, and you must live near work. And I haven’t devoted the resources to off site burial of back-up supplies. There are no good answers. It sucks to rely on luck when we work so hard to prepare against needing it. And, yes, a lot of negative commentating without much concrete advice. This is one of those “pondering awhile” problems.END
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8 comments:
Great post! - I agree that defending a fixed position can be suicide. Remember the Alamo? What about stealth survival? I can heat and light my home invisibly with kerosene lanterns, kerosene heaters, and heavy drapes. I can cook inside with a kerosene stove. I have my own well and septic and a very quiet generator in the basement. Running the genny 30 minutes a week will give me enough water for drinking, bathing, and flushing. I have the generator exhaust piped outside. The way I see it, after about a month the unprepared will be so weak from hunger as to be no threat. Anyone who tries to break into my "unoccupied" home during SHTF can fertilize the trees in my backyard :-)
when you have alittle time to read something... it's amazing that people don't think about history repeating itself.
http://johngaltfla.com/blog3/2010/08/05/it-cant-happen-here-again-or-will-it/
"While it is really no defense at all, at this time I see little in the way of options other than hiding in isolation with not enough manpower, hoping the mobs will die off soon"
yea, sadly I had come to that conclusion too. We can't store enough food to keep a group large enough to fend off a mob. With a small group we can store enough food, but we run the risk of our spotty patrolling missing things/people.
We're mostly banking on our location, it's not on the "new" highway, and it's a couple miles off even the old highway. Also we're 3/4's buried, which lowers our visibility even from the gravel road. The few mcMansions on the surrounding miles of gravel make much bigger targets. We could literally hide the house and garden behind weeds in late summer and fall. We're researching native rose bushes to grow along a couple sides of the property. Or bramble fruits, some combination there of.
A well trained dog is an option we're looking into to boost intruder detection. But yea.... luck... :-P seems flimsy and it grates on my prepper sensibilities.
On Quonset huts - they're made of huge corrugated steel sections rolled into shape on huge rollers at the factory. Because the corrugations are laterally oriented, the stuff is extremely strong, and a quite large one can be transported on the back of a truck, and then set up with little additional framing inside. I've love to get ahold of a Quonset hut. A poor but serviceable imitation would be a wooden or steel-pipe frame with corrugated steel pieces overlapping on it, and the corrugations running lengthwise since the stuff doesn't curve well the other way.
On The Yuppie site there's an EXCELLENT post about airgun hunting for survival, the Crosman the guy talks about costs 1/3 what my Gamo cost me, and it has me eager to run out and buy one as soon as my stiffy from reading the article goes down. in short, the guy found himself homeless etc and realizing that no one's gonna help him, helped himself. Panning for gold for cash needs, hunting small game "the feast was on" lol, and living it not just talking about it. This is why the yuppie site still needs to be read regularly. I tend to read it then come over here for my "dessert" reading.
I had a friend who showed me his arsenal of weapons,ammo and blades,etc.
I ask him how much of it he could carry while running from an Apache Helicopter?
If you notice,the reason the zombies in the movies get you is there are a million of them and one of you.
Kind of reminds you of the Red Chinese Army.
Of course, no one in their right mind would expend those kind of resources to dispatch one lone survivalist. It is easier to fly over with nerve gas and wipe out a bunch all at once.
What the hell,it will be the one thing you over looked that gets you in the end.
Here's my million dollar plan:
I'm going to take over a remote oil refinery and make gasoline. I'll drill for oil on site,because I believe in the abiotic oil theory.Drill deep enough and you'll hit oil sooner or later. To keep out the gay bikers I'll use barbed wire and some old tires,an old school bus covered with sheet metal as a rolling front gate. Since I have enough gasoline,I can make some flame throwers.I'll dig a tunnel and let a feral boy live outside my compound,he will warn me when the bikers attack.
Pretty good,eh?
bigsun- you bastard, stealing my thunder by one-uping me on tactics. And remember, you can drink and eat the oil, too, since there is no water or crops in the middle of the outback.
Oh, GREAT AND NOBLE FOUNTAIN OF WISDOM AND ALL THINGS WORTHY OF SPEAKING, PLEASE ALLOW ME COMMENT.
I served in an infantry platoon in Nam (67)and I am not in the least offended by your post. In fact, I check it each day, and I buy all my shit thru your blog at amazon. You are a worthy leader of us unworthy, tight, bastards.
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