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Preparedness Critics Are History's Cannon Fodder
Submitted by Brandon Smith via Alt-Market.com,
The world is entering a kind of no man’s land, in between the realms of insane denial and utterly obvious crisis. Europe is now destabilizing amid the Greek soap opera (an event that I predicted in January would occur in 2015); China’s stock market bubble is bursting; and the U.S. dollar’s world reserve status is about to be decimated by the global shift toward the International Monetary Fund’s basket currency reserve system. I’m afraid I’m going to have to say this because I don’t know if anyone else will admit it: Alternative economic analysts were right, and the mainstream choir was either terribly wrong or disgustingly dishonest. However, as most of us in the liberty movement are well aware, being right is not necessarily a solution to disaster.
At the forefront of alternative economics and constitutional vigilance are the people doing the real work in the movement: the preppers. These are the activists taking concrete action in the tangible world (as opposed to the ethereal laziness of the intellectual world) first to make themselves as independent as possible from the mainstream grid, thereby removing themselves as a potential refugee or looter in the event of national crisis. Second, they are the people mastering valuable and necessary skills that will allow them to rebuild any collapsed social and financial system. Third, they are the people most capable of defending our inherent freedoms and the principles of our founding culture, and they are the only people organizing locally for mutual aid and security. The fact of the matter is preppers are free, and almost everyone else is a slave — a slave to dependency, a slave to doubt, a slave to ignorance, a slave to fear and, thus, a slave to petty establishment authority.
During the Great Depression, the vast majority of American citizens were rural, farm-oriented people with survival skills far beyond the modern American. “Prepping” in those days was ingrained in our society, rather than marginalized and labeled “fringe.” Today, the numbers are reversed, with a dwindling number of farm-experienced Americans and a vast wasteland of urban and suburban citizens — many with few, if any, legitimate skill sets. During the Great Depression, millions of people died of starvation and general poverty, despite the incredible number of people with rural survival knowledge. What do you think would happen to our effeminate; metrosexual; iPhone-addicted; lisping; limp-wristed; self-obsessed; Twitter-, texting-, video game-addled; La-Z-Boy-riding; overgrown-child culture in the event that another economic crisis even remotely similar were to occur? Yes, most of them would die, probably in a horrible fashion.
Think about it for a moment. An incredible subsection of Americans do not know how to feed themselves; they do not know how to hunt; they do not know how to grow crops; they do not know how to repair any necessary items used for subsistence; they do not know how to build anything useful; they do not know how to shoot; they do not know how to defend themselves; they don’t even know how to cook a pot of rice properly. Their only skills involve parroting snarky remarks from their favorite lowest-common-denominator television and Web shows, building ample karma points on Reddit, and avoiding any stance contrary to what they perceive to be the majority opinion (which they also derive from mainstream media and websites).
It is decidedly ironic given the uselessness of such people that it is often the worst subsections of the blind, deaf and dumb that choose to “critique” the prepper lifestyle as “disturbed” or “dangerous.”
In my view, they are absolutely damned pathetic and should be looked down upon with utter contempt as the most concentrated example of slithering human misery ever to smear across the pages of history.
But, hey, that doesn’t mean I wish them harm.
People who are unaware and unprepared are not necessarily our enemies. At one time or another, we all were unaware of the underlying truths to our system and our future, until we woke up one day. On the other hand, there are some people who have truly evolved from the sickly and bitter bile scraped from the lower intestine of the grotesquely ignorant. These people are the anti-preppers.
Anti-preppers are well aware of the philosophies and fact-based arguments of prepper activism; but rather than ignoring or dismissing us outright and moving on with their vapid lives, they instead seek to destroy preppers and the prepping ideal. Why? To understand that, you have to understand the nature of statists and collectivists because that it where these people root themselves and their twisted worldview.
I recently read an article by Joshua Krause over at The Daily Sheeple in which he countered a mainstream hit piece article against preppers titled “Be prepared For preppers.” The article is itself an immensely disturbed display, first using typical and unimaginative ad hominem arguments to marginalize preppers, then mutating into a treatise on why preppers should all be exterminated.
Krause did a fine job of dismantling the substandard and journalistically challenged propaganda essay, but I would like to go beyond the typical arguments of anti-preppers and into the mindset that drives them. I recommend you read “Be prepared for preppers” for good measure, being that it is a perfect example of the psychopathic nature of the common statist. Then, I would like to perform a little brain surgery here and peel away some layers of psyche so that you can understand why these people hate us so much.
The Prepper Stereotype
The sad reality is most anti-preppers I’ve dealt with in person have never even talked to a prepper face to face until they had met me. They tend to enter into an immediate debate posture with multiple assumptions in terms of what a prepper believes and how a prepper lives. This posture begins with an incredulous and sarcastic demeanor. And as they begin to realize that the prepper they are dealing with is smarter than they are, their attitude devolves into conditioned talking points and generally indignant frothing.
Anti-preppers do not know or associate with real preppers. Rather, they derive their opinions of us from popular media, which is in most cases openly biased; episodes of “Doomsday Preppers” and other shows designed to make us look ridiculous; and Southern Poverty Law Center-influenced news articles loaded with carefully crafted slander. They rarely, if ever, confront a prepper or preppers on neutral ground and address facts or figures honestly.
The bulk of what makes up the prepper stereotype is utter nonsense. But it reinforces the anti-prepper’s hateful inclinations, so they eat it up without question.
They Hate Us Because Of Our Freedom
Are anti-preppers “terrorists?” Yes, they are. It might sound harsh, but consider the attitude of the anti-prepper for a moment. He hates you because you have chosen a lifestyle that is independent from the system and ideology of which he chooses to remain a part. He hates you because you have a measure of freedom he does not have, but could have if only he had the guts to do something about it. He hates you because you do not want to participate in the meaningless game of collectivism he has spent his whole life attempting to master. He hates you because you are walking away from his system and doing your own thing. How dare you do your own thing!
Many of us who appreciate libertarian-oriented ideals are proponents of the “non-aggression principle,” which, to summarize, states that respect for individual freedom is the paramount value of any society that seeks to sustain itself peacefully and indefinitely. Human society is not a nexus; it is not a hive. Society, if it is anything at all, is a collection of individual minds and souls acting voluntarily for the advancement the community, but never at the cost of personal liberty. Contrary to popular mainstream belief, the individual does NOT owe society a thing.
Non-aggression requires that society will not violate personal liberty for arbitrary collective gain and that individuals will not use violence or coercion to forcefully mandate the participation of others. That is to say, you leave me to my dream and I leave you to yours. But if you try to deliberately trample my dream in order to enrich your own, I am then within my rights to bring a mighty friggin' hammer down on your skull until you leave me alone. Anti-preppers have no capacity to grasp this concept. To them, each human being is property of the larger group and defiance of the state is blasphemy.
Such collectivists are also predictably devout followers of the religion of resource management, and often argue that preppers are in fact "horders" of resources. Under this ideology, resources do not belong to the people who actually worked to earn them. Rather, resources somehow belong to EVERYONE no matter how lazy they are, and must be constantly redistributed so that all people (common people, not elites) have the same exact amount. They can never seem to define what exactly a "fair share" actually is, and I believe this is because as long as a "fair share" remains ambiguously up to them, they retain the ultimate power to take what they want whenever they want always under the rationale that yesterday you and I had enough, but today we again have too much. The anti-prepper argument that "hording" is harmful to the collective and that all resources, even your food storage, should be managed by the group (the state), is THE propaganda model of the future. Do not forget this because you will be seeing this propaganda take center stage very soon.
Anti-preppers are often the kinds of social justice circus clowns that preach unerring tolerance and claim disdain for any form of discrimination, yet they are at the same time violently discriminatory against anyone who will not preach their particular collectivist gospel. The social collectivist model is by every definition a form of cultism, and in most cases the god of this cult is the state. It treats the state as an infallible omnipotent presence: mother and father, caretaker and disciplinarian.
To refuse participation is to deny the collectivist god, and the kinds of horrors we read about of the religious zealotry of medieval Christian inquisitions pale in comparison to the death and destruction dealt by modern collectivists.
Their worship of the state is energized by their love of its collective power - the state is the ultimate weapon to those who think they can successfully wield it. The state has the ability to "legally" imprison and/or kill, and it has the ability to threaten such consequences against anyone who refuses to conform to the ideological whims of the people who exploit it. Unless, that is, the victims of the state become revolutionaries. This is the great fear of collectivists in terms of the prepper movement; they see us as potential revolutionaries that could conceivably extinguish their mechanism of control, and they don't like that one bit.
The Psychotic Zealotry Of Anti-Preppers
Many anti-preppers are not content only to attack the character of the prepper movement — at least, not anymore. You see, despite the rabid attempts to undermine the validity of prepping and dissuade the growth of the movement, preppers are now legion, with millions of active participants and effective alternative media experts who are dominating Web traffic and crushing traditional media into archaic bone meal. We have made the mainstream media a mainstream joke, and this does not sit well in the minds of statist adherents who once had the power to bottleneck all discussion. If we are so desperately fringe, there would be no need to write unprovoked hit pieces against us to begin with. Who are they trying to convince?
Since they now know they cannot win the war of information, they increasingly foster fantasies of genocide. This quote (in reference to methods for solving the “prepper problem”) from the article linked above truly says it all:
"Furthermore, consumed with the heady lust of their own unexpected survival (see any episode of The Walking Dead), and with only expired condoms at their disposal (not even Doom and Bloom stocks birth-control pills) these mouth-breathers will doubtless multiply rapidly, and, ergo, must be stopped before such an advent. That can mean only one thing: key preparation in any disaster for the rest of us (other than a map to all of Wal-Mart’s distribution warehouses) is this: be prepared to neuter preppers by any means available.
… Not only will such noblesse oblige ensure a stronger gene pool going forward, but hey — those bastards have all the gear and food and fish antibiotics you’ll ever need."
And there you have it: the comic book delusion of the anti-prepper, so desperate to stop us from stockpiling food and essentials, so disturbed by our local organization and ability to defend ourselves, that they would prefer to see us all “neutered,” i.e., killed. Note also the obsession with the sterilization of the gene pool as socialists in their psychotic fury often harken back to their fascist and communist forefathers.
It is perhaps not coincidental that the people most in love with the state are often the first ones to be annihilated by it. Avid lower echelon and middlemen agents of tyranny are in many cases exterminated by the very system they helped to dominance. If they do not meet their demise at the hands of the establishment, then they invariably meet their demise at the hands of those fighting against the establishment.
The problem for anti-preppers is that most of them are weaklings and cowards who are incapable of carrying out their vision of a final program. They have always needed a warrior class mandated by the state to implement the killing they desire. Hilariously, this particular anti-prepper spends 80% of his article shoveling poorly written character assassinations like so much manure as if our concerns of crisis are inconsequential, then goes on to describe his idea of wiping out all preppers and stealing our supplies in the event that the system does collapse. If we are all such “kooks” and paranoid hillbillies, then why even entertain the notion of having us snuffed out so that our stores can be redistributed? Surely, such a collapse will never occur in the midst of our invincible American economy; and, thus, preppers are nothing more than harmless eccentrics wasting our money on boxes of food we won’t touch for another 20 years. Right?
History does not support the assumptions of anti-preppers. And throughout history, anti-preparedness people tend to be the first to meet an early demise in the wake of fiscal and social collapse because they have no utility and because, frankly, no one really likes them. They also aren’t the brightest bulbs around (the guy actually thinks he’s going to find food at a Wal-Mart distribution center after a breakdown in civil order).
Anti-preppers today are promoting violent action against preparedness culture because in the far reaches of their sickly subconscious, they know we are right and that we will not be controlled when the system breaks. These people accuse us of lusting after collapse, when it is in fact they who salivate over mass die-off scenarios in which they fantasize that they will somehow be the survivors despite the fact that they are born victims. They imagine a time when, after the “gene pool has been cleansed,” they will rebuild society as a perfect socialist utopia in which every ideology contrary to their own has been erased from all memory, leaving their ultimate prize: a blank slate world to do with as they wish.
The goal behind the prepper movement is simple, not sinister; we seek to defuse crisis before it occurs by providing our own necessities without the need for a mainstream grid that could easily malfunction and a government that is corrupt beyond repair. If your neighbor is a prepper, be thankful, for you have one less person on your street to worry about as a potential looter during an emergency. If your neighbor is an anti-prepper, beware, for this person sees you as a potential source of supply and thinks you owe him merely because you have something he does not. The bottom line is if the world were full of preppers, there would be no such thing as crisis because there would be no lack of necessity or individual ingenuity. In the land of preppers, disaster vanishes. When was the last time an anti-prepper did anything to improve anything for anyone other than himself? Ask yourself which you would rather be in the end: ready for anything or ready for nothing?
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If you fail to plan, you plan to fail.
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not again.
time for a replybomb ....
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MOAR.
i don't see why he sees this as the end of the dollar's reserve currency status. IF this means the demise of the euro, it means capital flight into the USD as a safe haven. T bonds will soar, yeilds will plumet. the USD will see more demand.
Decimate: "To select by lot and kill every tenth person of". I do not think the dollar will be merely "decimated"
When the SHTF...beware of the "Citizens Committee". They'll come to take YOUR stuff, for the "common good", of course.
I'd trade my freedom for a FEMA trailer and some Soylant Green. I really would. I'm a broke dead dick.
Does anyone else see this as a straw-man hit piece?
"(an event that I predicted in January would occur in 2015)"
That's where I stopped reading.
Wow, good for you. You predicted something that even my 2 year old saw coming. Make sure you do some light stretching before doing anymore patting of your own back.
Almost everyone has been calling for Europe to remain tied together, even Rickards. How many times have you heard people say there is "no way" the banksters would allow the EU to fall apart because the EU is supposed to be a prize single currency system? Very few people actually predicted a breakup of the EU. The author deserves some points for calling it against the concensus.
I agree, it will be a total reset. I don't mind telling you, what's coming frightens crap out of me.
There is no question there is a monetary shift coming, but they have happened before and not always surrounded by devastation. It happened in 1913, 1933, 1945 and 1971. The rule of monetary shift thus far is the banks and government gain power. ’33 was obviously pretty rough and 71 ushered in some turmoil. Some hard times, sure, but utter ruin probably isn’t in the cards. Of course prepare for the worst and hope for the best and the reality will be somewhere in between.
Re: decimate.
Thank you. You seem to be one of those who cling to the idea that words have "meanings".
Bravo!
"words have meanings"
...and spelling matters!
When people post in forums like this, they fail to realize that when their postings are rife with misspellings, errors in diction, and semantic inconsistencies, they are highlighting their ignorance, and their viewpoint is immediately discredited and dismissed as the rantings of an uneducated Bubba. It is hard to give such muddled and poorly articulated thoughts any credence.
I realize that people are fond of quickly dashing off a reply or clever repartee, but it only takes a few seconds to check what you have written before you hit “save” or “send.” A lack of consideration in this regard, is a lack of consideration for your thoughts. If you, the writer, do not have respect for your thoughts, why should the reader(s)? You are shooting yourself (and your innate brilliance) in the foot.
Why does this matter? Such practice is the root of much, if not most miscommunication and misunderstanding. It also exhibits a lack of respect for your reader/listener. I often find brilliant nuggets of insight here at Zero Hedge, but not until I have expended effort in trying to figure out what was actually meant by the writer. You are making it too damned hard to glean your wisdom!
And, yes, I know that I will be voted down for this comment, but, no, I do not care. The preponderance of ignorant expression in public forums decries the sad state of education and literacy at this juncture in history. It is rampant and it seems to be getting worse. If I extrapolate this trend twenty years into the future, I foresee internet forums degenerating into indecipherable grunts, snorts, and grumbles which serve no purpose other than to insult and incite.
I submit that we are better than this, and grant that (ample evidence on this forum notwithstanding) most participants here are intelligent and have interesting observations which could delight and educate. We owe it to ourselves to strive to recover the language protocols which enable communication and education, so that we don’t do a disservice to our readers – and to ourselves.
greenskeeper carl...King Dollar will be the last to fall...but fall it must.
On other threads I have pointed out that the USD has a limited Shelf Life.
As the Derivatives Markets implodes and Credit Freeze II takes shape there will be a lack of Physical Dollars in the US Economy as there are only $800 Billion to back up $10 Trillion in Savings, Checking and available Credit accounts.
During the Credit Freeze, US Banks will stop trusting other US Banks as nobody knows who is solvent and who is not due to the POSSIBLE Derivatives exposure. The whole damned system relies upon Faith, Trust, and Confidence and after the implosion nobody knows who in the hell to trust thus confidence is eroded and there is Faith No More...(Sound like the name of a Rock Band...)
Since the only TENDER that will be available is PAPER DOLLARS, these will become EXTREMELY VALUABLE due to their SCARCITY for about Six Weeks following the Credit Freeze with the systemic shutdown of the ATMs and Credit Card readers at the stores. If you do not have Physical Cash in your possession then you will not be able to buy anything.
So how do you think that our wonderful Gooberment will respond to that scarcity of Physical Paper Dollars? THEY WILL PRINT in a vain attempt to get the system flowing again. Of course they will OVERDO IT.
CONCURRENT TO THIS HAPPENSTANCE...
The Foreign Banks will be just as insolvent as American Banks and they will have thier own problems with Liquidity....DUE TO THE CREDIT FREEZE. And here is the shocker. Those Foreign Banks hold $12 Trillion in US DOLLARS...PHYSICAL DOLLARS. They sit in the vaults of Foreign Central Banks GLOBALLY...AS RESERVES...as the US Dollar is the World's Reserve Currency after all. Nobody is loaning them any money either.
Those Foreign Nations have actual NEEDS. But they DO have our currency in thier vaults.
Do you think that they will allow those to sit and collect more dust? They will spend them to satisfy thier Nation's needs. And those US Dollars will make it back to our shores as a Tsunami.
And when that happens we will have a Hyperinflationary Inferno on the shores of the United States, the likes of which has never been seen.
I estimate that after the Credit Freeze II premiers we have about SIX WEEKS...After that you had best have hard goods as the US Dollar will not be held as any RESERVE in any Foreign Nation's vault and the Purchasing Power of those PRINTED US Dollars will be utterly destroyed.
Good Bye World Reserve Currency status. Good bye US Dollar.
Good riddance!!!
Hey now, last I checked, it was $1.38 trillion of physical cash in circulation with nearly $12 trillion in M2 money. That's so totally sustainable. /sarc
Your figures are most likely more accurate than mine but it is the same concept.
I think that I got my figures from The Daily Reckoning...Addison Wiggins...and he said there was no certain way of ascertainng the exact amount of Physical in circulation.
Regardless of the precise figures it is not sustainable in the advent of a Credit Freeze. You are absolutely correct.
You failed to mention what would take the place of the gone currencys once they are last to be gone.
food, booze, cigarettes, medicine, ammo, pussy? remember most americans have no fucking idea what au and ag are. PMs will have value once stability returns.
Gold and Silver...of course. I thought that was understood.
And who's going to check for hearts of tungstun?
You are.
I imagine there will a large number of gold coins in circulation that have a small hole drilled through them.
holy shit everyone. I am well aware king dollar is going away. My point was that it WILL be the last one to fall. My post above was not to say the dollar is a stable, healthy currency, I just meant the the euro demise will cause a flight to safety, which RIGHT NOW means the USD. downvote away, you faggots, but Im right. Im well aware that pretty much every global bank is insolvent, as is the US govt. But, again, when all the capital is looking for a safe place to hide, its gping to head to T bills, not gold. this will strengthen the dollar, which will probably cause the price of gold, in dollars, to drop.
This whole house of cards will collapse eventually, so look at it as a buying opportunity
You do have a few good points there SafelyGraze.
I've said it before...
1. Arable land
2. Water
3. Family
4. Guns
5. Skills
If you live someplace with a population density greater than 10 people per square mile, you're already in trouble.
and 9.9 of those are sheeple in a coral with no moar free shit or cash. pretty god damned depressing. darwinism economically speaking, no mon, no hope, ha...
Good point lets list our density, I live in 176 sq mile, low by US standards, but ten miles from 500K of sheeple. Start making plans for difficult travel, funneling to easy travel is the best strategy.
.
i dont suppose you are a 'FUCK ME DOLL'?
What was that Boy Scout Motto again?
and oh look a FEMA link on prepping too
http://www.fema.gov/media-library/assets/documents/7877
Fuck wits don't even know what their overlords recommend
In addition, as advised by the CDC, we should be prepared for a Zombie Apocalypse....
http://blogs.cdc.gov/publichealthmatters/2011/05/preparedness-101-zombie-apocalypse/
Captures the idiocy of the times:
"What do you mean I'm dangerous? I did just as recommenced by the Federal government."
And some people question why some others don't know what or whom to believe.
Institutionally Inspired Cognitive Dissonance
if you hear something out in the yard, uncle joe biden recommends that you go out on your porch and shoot off a couple of rounds from your shotgun into the air, that'll scare em real good.
HH has some excellent artcles on preparedness.
Forget prepping; I am using some of HH's stuff today. Got bit by some insect a couple of weekends ago and am almost healed. Was somewhat concerned that it was a brown recluse, but it doesn't have the necrotic circling.
can't stop laughing about that
"... recommended by the Federal government." :-) NOT!
Effeminate; metrosexual; iPhone-addicted; lisping; limp-wristed; self-obsessed; Twitter-, texting-, video game-addled; La-Z-Boy-riding; overgrown-child...
Meet your new friend...
EBT-man! Com'ere, bitch!
Badlly titled good information.
It's probably been a year, but a long while ago I posted a similar FEMA link, and an FBI link that said doing what was suggested by the FEMA link was a flag that you were a terrorist.
So either it's incompetence (likely) or deliberate doublethink so they can bust anyone (possible, but less likely) or just scaremongering to justify budgets (where I'd place my money.)
One thing is for sure. Every single time there's been a disaster, the Feds have failed miserably and often made the situation worse. The only people you can count on when things go to shit is youself, so that's the best place to put your investments.
I hate to break it to the author of the article, but I have never heard of preppers. I'm pretty current on things excluding pop culture and I have never heard the term before. I doubt there is a huge anti prepping movement because I don't think most people are even aware that such a movement exists.
Where have you been incarcerated in isolation? Rikers ?
Close, Wisconsin.
preppers are fairly widespread and have been for a while, sometimes going by other names, like survivalists.
you're probably right about anti-prepping movement not being widespread, i've never heard of it...i know a lot of usa suffers from normalcy bias, thinking, we're the greatest nation on earth, we'll never go down, and consequently tends to mock preppers thinking them to be loonies, but i don't know of any who are activists against the prepper "cause".
the author is fairly bright, but he's off about some things...seems to have a persecution complex like many christians do, it's a bit odd.
so, how did you find your way to the hedge?
Thanks. First I searched for annual derivative contracts which I could not find and called the SEC and they would not disclose. I fell in love with the Goldman Rats street art posted by ZH and have been a market spectator since the '87 crash. It's sort of benign but time consuming obsession of mine.
He gives a direct example of an anti-prepping article, so, I think he has relevant concerns. The guy in the "Be prepared for preppers" article is a psycho. I don't think anti-prepping is so much a movement as a propaganda program.
Stacking...so, you don't know shit, yet you're an "expert" on what the author is talking about.
Um, OK, you fucking dickhead.
i'm not an expert on anything, nor do i claim to be.
i'm just relating my own experience and outlook.
so, fuck you too very much and have a nice day.
Just because you have not heard about it does not mean that it does not exist. Perhaps you are not educated about it. But here are the facts.
Society, civilization as you have cpme to know it, is breaking down rapidly and nearing a state of systemic collapse.
There are some people who see that eventuality and are PREPARING FOR THE WORST OUTCOME as we believe that we are not anymore facing any solvable problems but are facing the PREDICAMENT of the collapse.
Problems MIGHT have solutions whereas PREDICAMENTS have OUTCOMES, dismal at best, and FATAL at worst...if you value your own skin that is.
(An example of a Predicament is falling from a plane in flight....without a parachute. The outcome is assured except how hard you will strike the ground. There is no solution. You will collide with Mother Earth.)
Thus some people are stockpiling FOOD, WATER, MEDICINES, ALCOHOL, TOBACCO, CASH, GUNS, AMMUNITION, SEEDS, GOLD, SILVER, BATTERIES, FUEL, amongst many other items including SOAP, TOOTHPASTE, TOILET PAPER, FEMININE HYGIENE PRODUCTS, DIAPERS, and many other items in preparation for the xollapse....TOO MANY TO LIST HERE.
These people have been given a DERAGATORY LABEL by the MSM as PREPPERS.
(It is the same sort of derogatory label as TRUTHER...Since when is it ridiculous to search out the TRUTH? But the Collectivist Stateist believes that truth is perception and values an image over that which is REAL.)
Now if I were you I would spend a few dollars and buy up as many supplies as I can afford as TIME IS RUNNING OUT. And if you believe that Mommy Gooberment will take care of you...THINK ABOUT KATRINA and New Orleans....Sad to inform you that it is not going to happen.
But you are free to do as you damned well please.
I was considering it, however, the author referred to looters, something that hadn't occurred o me so why bother? I hate canned food and hate wasting food. My friend told me a saying that I tend to agree with through my own personal experiences, "Man plans and God laughs."
I am ready and willing to vacate this Earth when my time comes. It's not exactly Shangrila.
Reb, It sounds like you are a prepper. Your plan is apparently to bug out leaving the earth behind.
...if you value your own skin that is.
Life is what happens to us as we are busy making other plans. - attributed to John Lennon
On my wall I have a picture of Jesus...LAUGHING. At seldom times i think that He may be laughing with me but most of the time I believe that He is laughing at me. (I keep it there to inspire my own humility and remind myselff of my ultimate powerlessness in the Grand Scheme.)
No/ Planet Earth is no Shangri La. There are no answers here, the part you play and the chance you took. Nothing is for granted and it is rather antichrist to believe upon your own capabilities rather than rely upon the Creator for sustanance.
Why bother? Well it is NOT all about you. Now do NOT misunderstand me. I am ready to vacate Planet Earth as well. There is absolutely nothing here that I really want. In that sense I have won the game. I have lived as a King for most of my life when I look back upon the many years. Why live in a state of WANT and discomfort, outright pain? (I have Lyme Disease after all. That is chronic pain without cessation with the intensity of Broken Bones. I brke an ankle and the pain level was NO DIFFERENT than what I normally experience. And there is NO CURE at this late stage.) But I live in a state of HAVING. Lucky me, eh?
So why will anybody prep? Well I do not drink Alcohol. But notice that Booze is on my list. I am NOT a woman but notice that Feminine Hygiene Products are on my list.
It is about TAKING CARE OF OTHER UNFORTUNATES, many who did not adequately PREPARE.
Even on Zerohedge I am not here to "blow my own horn". I am here to ideally provide some guidance to other people. I also enjoy poking fun at the trolls and to ridicule our most wonderful Gooberment Officials. I am also here to LEARN new things to pass on that information to others.
You see?
It is NOT about me.
That is the reason.
Oh I will not help the undeserving, or, rather who I believe to be undeserving. I am not that damned good. I am NOT a saint by any means. (Or perhaps I will as I am currently angry at those who know better and then do not do what is right. And then there is that heart that gets in the way.)
But that is the reason...NOT FOR YOU necessarily...but for others.
Like you, I have been lucky and had a life with many good things coming my way. BUT I can not choose the prepper strategy. Nice if I could ... but my health issues require regular access to facilities only found in a major metroplis.
I am utterly dependant on the system. I understand that, and can not change it. So if SHTF I get to die ... Ok ... born/live/die ... I guess that was deal from day one anyway,
Yeah. My health issues will condemn me as well. I am not planning on seeing the other side.
But I will fight the good fight until I cannot.
Then the survivors can use my stores...whatever is left. I will not be needing them.
So I choose the Prepper Strategy anyway. I will do it for other people.
Tall Tom, your position and outlook is admirable.
Thank you.
Tom, I don't know if I qualify as a prepper or not. I am the type who discovers a new food, or a new way to cook food, and rather than get one and try it, I find it on sale 12 for cheap, and buy a dozen. Then don't think of it for another 6 months. After several years of this, I have a stuffed pantry. But it is all assembled at a total cost less than the local supermarket, so why not count it as prepping?
That is storing food and prepping.
Some take it to much higher degrees.
Let's put it this way. I can survive for ninety days if the shit hits the fan on my stock.
But I think that I will be amongst the first to succumb...not to my lack but others' lack.
The average American will be hungry after 2 days. That is after just seven meals...
I will maybe live 10 days...before I am killed for what I have.
Some people can survive for years.
I will settle for 5 months.
My name is taoJones, and I'm a Prepper...
OK, since we're all writing our own eulogies here, might as well do the same...
First off, I would like to thank the Academy (ZH) for making all this possible... :P
My reason for prepping is twofold:
Firstly, I feel it is my duty (and honour) to help my kids/family (whether they appreciate it now or not)
Secondly, I have a problem with bullies... the State and the 0.01% being chief among them
And in spite of all my temporal prepping, I would be remiss if I did not acknowledge my spiritual prepping... that by the grace of God I am at peace with Him via His Son. I know ZH is divided on such matters, and that's OK - just sharing my journey...
And to JUCH and T.Tom and others in that camp, I admire your resolve in the face of adversity... and will enadeavour to keep you in prayer in the dark days ahead
Thanks for letting me share...
So I guess you won't be loaning out your stash of thermite?
Pity.
In a disaster physical preparation is just part of the need. Mentally even those who have considered the collapse scenario will find it difficult to confront the reality. There was a reason people jumped out of tall buildings in 1929. Depending on the severity and type of disaster expect suicides to skyrocket. There are some so dependent on technology the first hour without Internet may prove fatal. With family scattered around the country and globe consider a world where communication much less transportation becomes rudimentary again or unavailable. It is not just can you eat but will you want to. Given the frail nature of many today it may not be worth the effort. On the upside there wouldn't be time for bullying on FB. I've looked over the "prepper" literature which has some valuable insights on not only what is useful but also shelf life, but the most valuable training manual I discovered was only one paragraph long. It said turn the power off to your house for a week and see how long you last. I bought a coffee grinder and a French press after that.
Good plan Rebel, save somebody a bullet when your stomach really starts hurting...
All of us who prepare are going against the grain of the govt and media who wish to perpetrate the lie that Statism will take care of everyone's needs and everything is under control.
Now, anyone with common sense can see that is not the case, but the lo-fo folks are simply grasshoppers frolicking about while the ant is storing up for winter.
Preparing reveals the Lie foisted by government and media.
The overwhelming majority of my ignorant friends never heard of Bernanke or Yellen. To them those 2 don't exist.
Oh how I wish it were true!
Wisconsin is chock full of preppers. The fact that YOU don't know any is.......GREAT!
Oh. Why is it great that I don't know any preppers?
Because most of the preppers I know here would help you with your "willingness".
Let's hope it never comes to that.
Willingness for what?
Do you mean my willingness to die? They talk about killing people that haven't bothered them? C'est la vie.
They talk about defending themselves from extremely desperate people whose only "prep" was buying a gun. C'est la vie.
And they prepare for that eventuality extensively.
Well, they won't have to defend themselves against me. You can have it all... My empire of dirt.- NIN
Ok. But starving has a way a focusing your mind. Just ask that Chilean soccer team. But, if you really have a dirt empire, you're half way there.
It is all dirt.
Some dirt is just more refined than other dirt.
But it really is all dirt.
Start amending that empire of dirt. You have a dairy or horse stable near by? A lot will be happy for you to come and pick manure up. I like to compost it first. Start now and you can have a decent garden next year. You might even be able to have a respectable fall garden this year.
Got it! Google THE CONFUSION TECHNIQUE.....
deleted
http://cooperative-individualism.org/
https://realcurrencies.wordpress.com/
Liberty, but not libertarian economics please.
https://realcurrencies.wordpress.com/?s=libertarian
I dream of the IMF doing things right with their basket of currencies. Increasing the allocation of currencies that are appreciating, thus rewarding responsible Governments and their "Central Banks." Then, countries could buy the basket as their reserve. (in the never ending fiat world)
...but I'm just dreaming.
I dream of the IMF not existing.
"and the U.S. dollar’s world reserve status is about to be decimated by the global shift toward the International Monetary Fund’s basket currency reserve system."
lol that's where I stopped reading... the author's slip is showing
When the author REPORTS something which he is seeing it does not mean that the author SUPPORTS what he REPORTS.
For instance I do NOT support that traditional valyes are breaking down. Yet I'd be a FOOL to declare OTHERWISE.
I will REPORT that traditional values are being trashed. I DO NOT SUPPORT IT.
Of course you have demonstrated the COMPLETE AND TOTAL LACK OF DEPTH OF CRITICAL THINKING when you decided, ARBITRARILY, to CONFUSE the CONCEPTS of SUPPORT and REPORT.
It is TO YOUR LOSS that you did not read the article because this author is OBVIOUSLY DIAMETRICALLY OPPOSED to STATEISM and the COLLECTIVIST'S ENTITLEMENT MENTALITY.
Hmm... "me thinks" the pot is calling the kettle black...... lol
When you stop reading because of a disagreement, a misunderstood one at that, of ONE POINT, then that is evidential of a closed mind.
Closed minds are CONCRETE and do not accept challenges to beliefs.
if you don't understand how something works, you shouldn't use it as a talking point to back your argument
the author obviously knows nothing about the history of the IMF or how XDRs are formed and used given the statement made, so yes there's no point in reading further if the remainder of the article is built on an obvious fallacy
what you call "closed mind" I call "judicious use of my time"... if you're going to waste my time spouting obviously incorrect bullshit then I'm going to stop reading
The article was not about how SDRs are formed or the history of the IMF. That point was perhaps irrelevant and distracting.
In fact it served NO FOUNDATIONAL premise to the atricle. The article pointed out that a Main Stream writer was proposing the DEATH of the Prepper because he prepared...which is absolutely insane.
Now that you have the "Cliff Notes" then perhaps you will READ the article rather than attempt to justify your behavior.
"The article was not about how SDRs are formed or the history of the IMF. That point was perhaps irrelevant and distracting." Tom he was referring to the fact that many believe the Chinese Yuan will be added/hit the basket of currency as soon as Oct. King dollah is 60%+, for now. Yuan in the mix could be quite a catalist to economic demise in the USA economy, in theory, due to a flight to Yuan from dollars. Could be inflationary to the US consumer.That's what he failed to mention.
USE MORE CAPS, TOM! IT'S CLEAR THAT YOU'RE SOMEONE WITH SOMETHING VERY IMPORTANT TO SAY!
now, please explain how you concluded, that the turtle on a stick got confused between supporting and reporting.
maybe he is just disagreeing with the author's assumption that SDRs will replace the dollar
He stopped reading and rejected the entire message because of a report..
you sidestepped the question and didn't answer it.
how do you know that's the case?
could very well be that he rejected the message because he disagreed with the author's analysis.
you're jumping to conclusions.
in the movie office space, tom has a jump to conclusions mat, with conclusions written on it, that you can, jump to.
post turtle saver wrote, "lol that's where I stopped reading... the author's slip is showing"
Gee...That is jumping to conclusions and just assuming that he actually means what he wrote.
Why are you trolling? Are you just bored?
tom, you're not this dense.
i don't doubt that he meant what he wrote.
what i am saying is, it could very well be that he doesn't agree with the author's assumption about SDR replacing the dollar.
why are you refusing to consider that possibility?
everyone has a blind spot.
Deep down inside, anti-preppers know. They just use their stated disdain for preppers as a psychological crutch to engage in denial, but deep down, they know.
Most anti-preppers I've come across are woefully ignorant of world events, the current state of the world economy, the fragility of the food and energy distribution system, and the disaster which has been and is, the Federal Reserve.
Let them rot in their ignorance.
Ignorance combined with insatiable HUNGER just serves to create TARGETS...YOU for instance.
It is to YOUR PERSONAL BENEFIT to WAKE THEM UP so that they do not end up targetting YOU.
How many guns can you fire accurately? Are there many more of them than you have bullets that you can discharge?
I can only shoot one gun at a time...accurately. If my Gun holds six rounds and there are a gang of Twenty then I am a dead man.
So if the answer is yes then that really diminishes and decreases your odds of survival.
So diminish thier numbers by EDUCATING AS MANY AS POSSIBLE before the End Game is played out.
The antidote toignorance is knowledge.
And if they are knowledgable then they will also prepare and perhaps ally with you.
so, you're saying that you should go and proselytize the heathen unbelievers so that they can be saved when the rapture comes?
hallelujah! praise jesus!
Do you really want to hijack this thread and sidetrack the discussion with atheism versus theism?
We can go there if you'd like...
you're the one who brought that up, not i.
my comment was merely that you came across as someone who was adamant about converting the unvelievers.
Where did I bring up Jesus in my response to post turtle saver or hardcleareye?
You piped into a conversation which had nothing to do with you.
You are dishonest, aren't you?
I guess that is demonstrative of your moral relativism and needs to be expected.
Why are you stacking, stacking?
well, i have a good income flow, i live a modest lifestyle, and i've got to do something with it, don't you think?
the corrupt western debt-based financial system is on the verge of collapse, so that's out.
i guess i could take up gambling, driving fancy cars, or frequenting strip clubs - is that what you'd suggest?
Many refuse to be educated, Tom. Deep down, they know that something is wrong, but they' choose to stick their heads in the sand. If there is a gradual break in supply chains, many will come around. If there is a sudden break, most will be gone within 6-8 weeks of the date that food stops shipping. How slow or rapid this deterioation is will be the deciding factor in how nasty people get with each other. I know where to go if things get so bad that we have to worry about roving mobs of starving people. It is rugged, it has water, nobody knows that it exists and I always keep enough fuel in my garage to get there, using the back roads that aren't on the map to get away from traces of civilization. If I have to face a roving mob of 20, it is my intent to use the terrain of the area to make sure that I have a chance. If somebody is going to be shooting at me, I want to be as far away as possible. But my goto rifle uses 8rd clips. Yes, clips, not mags.
We can just do the best that we can. That is all that I am asking.
I will probably not live through it. I live in a squalored area with the people having an Entitlement Mentality and people know that I have as I buy a lot from them.
I am letting them know that the shit is hitting the fan. I am telling them to buy stocks out of that Dollar Store. So perhaps I can raise an army.
But too many are Drugged Out, Alcohol Addicted Zombies. I can only shoot one gun at a time.
Good luck to you. It seems as you have a good bug out plan.
Garand is a good rifle elvaq, but may I suggest FAL or hk91, 20 rd mags...
TT, you need more firepower.
Well Bombs are rather easy... :)
It is a question of numbers.
"If my Gun holds six rounds and there are a gang of Twenty then I am a dead man.
Hnt: Unless they're armed with guns, Wasp and Hornet Spray is a nice deterrent. Shoots a solid stream ten feet or more, from a big can. I have one at the house and in my car, in case I ever have to deal with a 'Reginald Denny' moment.
Another, totally inocuous 'device' is the solid rubber 'Checkout Lane Divider'. $9 each and they weigh about a pound or so, but have a very nice flex action to them. It also has a convenient hole, running lengthwise through the center, to store fishing weights, if need be.
http://www.supermarketequipment.com/supermarket-related-equipment
http://www.amazon.com/Checkout-Lane-Divider-16-Gray/dp/B007XISTTG
Agree. Self-responsibilityt is the cure. If someone doesn't take it, the consquences are theirs only, not anyone else's.
I'm just glad I've been tuned in to the historic disaster coming this way so I could postion and prepare. Can't stop it but at least I can sit back and relax during the initial collapse and see how it unfolds. Global economic foundation is crumbling on cue.
and tear into some of the better barter whiskey, just because you can.
Just got the book "One Second Later." Nice how the author introduces the probable issues following a grid down event.
It's "One Second After" Yes, good book! It all starts with an EMP...
http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=1&ved=0CB8Q...
Why all the words?
Why not expend the energy on shoring up rule of law and principle and spirit of intent?
Why behave as powerless and defeated?
"shoring?" You meant shearing me thinks.
Fuck 3 million freedom robbing laws. That is exactly why this fucked police state exists.
In the 04 hurricane season the local constabulary ran out of gasoline. Phone lines were down. Cell towers were down. There was no infrastructure to shore up. Look at what happened to the New Orleans Police Department during Katrina. A huge portion of the force simply walked off the job. Some elements became cadres of well-armed gangsters. When things get in short supply the kaki clad Humvee crowed will take whatever is necessary to maintain their unit integrity. If it is a permanent collapse as opposed to a localized disaster, they will become the center for the rise of warlords in the new feudalism.
If you are unprepared be ready to inter serfdom and the reinstitution of jus primae noctis.
That hammer is a Rocket. Got a lot of miles on mine. Paid for more than one divorce.
http://www.hammersource.com/Framing_Hammers/Rocket_20_oz_Straight_claw_p...
I'm getting one for my kitchen tool drawer! Beautiful. Thanks for link.
My favorite.
http://www.amazon.com/Estwing-E20S-20-ounce-Straight-Leather/dp/B0000224...
Perfect balance with no strike shock. The leather forms to your grip after a good while.
I was an Estwing fan until the Rocket came in to my life.
I actually have two. A fiber glass 22oz for Demolition. The 20 is good for framing an interior.
There is no shock in this hammer, the core is hickory. The metal tube protects it well. So you get the feel of a hickory handle with the steel durability of the Estwings.
Straight claw FTW.
Yes I work in electronics.
These former denizens of the Beehive just caught our second varmint a few minutes ago...it waar a Biden Possum, and is awaiting desposition in the morning ;). Last week we caught us our suspected chicken murderer; an Obama Raccoon.
To paraphrase Pogo...we have met the enemy and it is them.
It is going to be ok the US military will be prepared to kill Husbands, wives, grandparents and children after the Jade Helm exercises this summer. You won't have a thing to worry about once you are dead.
September 23rd is an interesting date. According to jewish tradition the jubilee happens every 49 years, in the jewish calendar. Every 7th year is the year of the shemittah, every 7th shemittah is the jubilee.
The Balfour Declaration happened 11/2/1917, a declaration to Rothschild and Zionist jews that Palestine will be set aside for the national home for the jewish people. Exactly 49 years later on 6/7/1967, Israel recaptured Jerusalem. Exactly 49 years later ends on 9/23/15, the day of atonement when the year of jubilee begins. Some say jewish people will be called home on this day. The pope will be visiting Philidelphia this day. They say that the celebration of the end of this shemittah year will occur on Sukkoth 9/28/15, at the western wall in jerusalem. On that same evening, the fourth and final in the series of the 2014-15 Blood Moon tetrad will occur, according to NASA. The next solar eclipse will be around this time. Hello? Moon turns to blood, black sun? Anyone? HA HA.
On 5/13/14 French foreign minister Laurent Fabius said there was a 500 day deadline before "climate chaos", which turns out to be 9/24/15.
On 9/11/01 the plane hit the tower, on the day of the shemittah, at exactly 9:23.
On 2/15/13 a meteor hit russia at exactly 9:23.
Philidelphia train wreck on 5/12/15, 9:23
Propaganda: Noah's Ark with Steve Correll, the flood happened on 9/22. Third Rock from The Sun the Professer says "Doesn't anyone remember the great catastrophe of 9/23/15". Gorillaz 19-2000 predicts 9/23. Madonna 9/23/14 concert entailed Lucifer falling from the sky. Tomorrowland emphasizes 9/23. Deep Impact - 9/23. Taco Bell Ad (Youtube) "Wake me up when September ends".
A Comet/asteroid is expected to hit earth on 9/23/15. The comet is classified but the unit in charge of watching goes by the acronym O.S.I.R.I.S. I forget exactly what the name is cause it is so long but you can look it up.
Interesting date indeed, if one buys into these sort of amazing coincidences.
Edit: HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA
Grand Central: ECB to Stay the Course Even as Growth Picks Up
http://blogs.wsj.com/economics/2015/05/13/grand-central-ecb-to-stay-the-...
Stay the Course
Stay the Course
Stay the Course
Stay the Course
Stay the Course
Stay the Course
Stay the Course...*(and so on)
30 days will determine who is prepared and who is not. No point in arguing what ifs - we may know soon enough.
Posted 16th June:
"I've personally sounded defcon2 as far as my meager personal finances are concerned. I'm not advocating anyone do the same, since we're probably all tired of crying wolf about a systemic collapse of the financial system, but merely declaring what I am doing about it. I have closed all managed funds in the system, lost all my PMs in a boating accident, have cash reserves to last a few months, got a nice little larder growing in my garden and quite woeful contingency plans for civil disorder (But it's better than nothing)."
These anti-preppers all voted for Obama, still believe his bullshit, and won't survive the great reaping... because they can't do anything but steal or have the cops do it for them. The comments section from the article "be prepared for preppers" was very telling, in that everyone told the author he was a jack hole.
http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-TUwZGv3YfJA/UeFBzWMQbaI/AAAAAAAAAWY/m40OxVTm2m...
Unsurprisingly...I look forward to the day.
"... being right is not necessarily a solution to disaster ..."
I liked that line, however, it seems to me that those who are not prepared outnumber those who attempted to become prepared about 100 to 1, which makes really being prepared for that practically impossible. I am not against attempting to become prepared. However, since we can not prevent globalized systems of electronic frauds, backed by atomic bombs, from driving through their own mad self-destruction, I can not imagine any ways to actually be "prepared" for that ...
The basic problems are that "money" was made out of nothing as debts to "pay" for strip-mining the planet's natural resources at an exponential rate, while those fundamentally fraudulent financial accounting systems also enabled deliberately discounting and disregarding the garbage and pollution accumulating from doing that. Therefore, that exponential growth of everything done by human beings has already spectacularly overshot anything that might have otherwise been sustainable. Hence, when the globalized systems of exponential growth of strip-mining the planet run into limits of diminishing returns, the consequences from having already done that will be manifesting at exponential rates, coming at us as avalanches of overlapping problems, along with series of severe social storms.
Given those sorts of problems: globalized electronic frauds, backed by atomic bombs, having enabled strip-mining the planet's natural resources at an exponential rate, the dismal failure to prevent that from happening are going to be matched by the dismal failure to attempt to become prepared for that! Moreover, civilizations have always necessarily operated as general energy systems, which matched the principles and methods of organized crime. That will become more intense and acutely manifested in the foreseeable future, since continued exponential growth of strip-mining the planet's natural resources, in ways which can deliberately discount and disregard the associated problems with accumulating garbage and pollution, will continue to manifest at exponentially accelerating rates.
Those problems will first and foremost show up in the established financial accounting systems which are based upon being able to enforce frauds. Moreover, it is already too late for any theoretical changes in the monetary systems to cope with what has already been done through the established monetary systems. The real limits of diminishing returns, and related increasing costs, from strip-mining the planet are headed towards the greatest ever boom being followed by the greatest ever bust, on astronomically amplified scales, whose orders of magnitude do not appear to be amenable to any preparations, similarly to how those were not amenable to any ways to prevent that from happening.
Rather, what will actually continue to happen is that human beings will continue to operate as entropic pumps of energy flows, as best that they are still able to, given that the planet has already been significantly high-graded to hell. That means that human beings will continue to primarily behave in ways which match the principles and methods of organized crime. At the present time, nobody can fully imagine what will happen after the development of electronic frauds, backed by atomic bombs, reach their limits to growth, due to more and more relatively objective issues with diminishing returns from being able to strip-mine the planet manifest ... However, I REPEAT, my basic conclusions are that it will eventually be demonstrated that it was just as impossible to prepare for that, as it was to prevent that from happening.
OT have you heard noisy sloshes and bubbles in Pepsi Products or... a rumor of change in processing of Pepsi Process for Cans.
Sorry for not Reading your post. I admire your intellect here.
But had empty can with half inch of Pepsi popping and I am not at high altitude or sea level. Then pulled Diet(Different type here) and it sloshes with a sound completely different from my whole lie. Like if there is un carbonated liquid and it has weight it was slapping the can.
Let me confirm.
Diet Pepsi has bubbles after 2 minutes since typing.
- Metals Content?
- Toxic Content change?
What the Hell.
I was typing with a near empty can of Pepsi regular and it was tapping or pinging. Pop. Hm... held it up to my ear. I have been typing for a while drank like 3 whiskey-Pepsis.
That is not normal. Hold on let me look at the weather channel. Temps have gone down over 24 hours ago, didn't get high today, slight increase in humidity.
I don't know. I am from many places. I have never heard cola slosh in the can and pop when the can was down to 1/2 inch or whatever in static condition.
Mystery.
I think you've been having what RM's been having.
If you want to find out what's going on there you need to put a stack of sensors on them and datalog a statistically significant sample, then import the data into Excel and start making graphs. I'd also send a sample of liquid and metal of the cans for x-ray fluorescence and flame spectroscopy analysis. As that will give you the atoms and structures of compounds present, so then you can write a paper and see if you can get it peer-reviewed and published in Nature.
Good luck, the Cosmos does not give up its mysteries easily.
stop buying that crap.
I think rule no. 1 is to get out of any large city. Some say 100 mi. but I think by the time looting is completed in the major cities, gasoline will be in short supply. I think 100 mi. ought to do it.
Mighty fine article Brandon
This is not the end yet, CBs will throw massive QE at the problem and kick the can again.
They will do this until all faith in the system is lost. Most people are still blind to what is going on, se this can still go on for a while.
I agree, not the end yet. Slowly, gradually morphing. The military entity called Rome didn't go away, it simply became something else.
Q: But can't we rely on Hope towards a better future?
A: Hope is not an Actionable Strategy (AS). If you don't have AS, you got Wishful Thinking -- like the kind a troubled ot scared child has.
Q: Won't the Gov or the Church help me out?
A: Good luck with that, as both are designed and based on You helping Them. What... you still haven't figured that out yet?
If I had to bet/hedge on the Laws of Nature & Human Nature on the one hand, versus the Laws of Moses & Jesus, I'd bet on the former. And have better odds. Those who live in the Real World usually do better than those who don't.