Authorities across the US have prepared for more protests after demonstrators took to the streets on Wednesday night in numerous cities following Donald Trump’s call to halt vote-counting in critical swing states that could determine the outcome of the presidential election.
Demonstrations of varying sizes took place in cities including Chicago, Denver, Los Angeles, Minneapolis, New York, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Seattle, and Washington, DC. Some protesters called to stop additional votes from being counted, while others urged authorities to keep tallying ballots.
Both Mr. Trump and his Democratic challenger Joe Biden have said they had a pathway to victory, although Mr. Biden currently holds the lead. Mr. Trump has made unsubstantiated claims of voter fraud in some of the states where votes are still being tallied. Mr. Biden on Thursday appealed for patience. “I ask everyone to stay calm,” the former vice-president said. “The process is working.” (take that statement any way you wish, today’s article is not about that)
We came across an interesting article on a survivalist blog about life after an SHTF event. The writer said he believed that too many people are being too negative in terms of their projections about what will happen after TEOTWAWKI. (You can read more in-depth articles here After The Collapse Series )
This writer spoke about his belief in the basic goodness of the American people and offered up various high-minded platitudes to this effect. As well as platitudes, he also described in some detail a scenario that he believed would apply.
Basically, it was the ‘neighborhood watch on steroids’ concept, where the residents in a neighborhood all banded together to defend themselves against roving gangs of looters and rioters.
A mean-minded person would point out that his reference to roving gangs of goblins already acknowledged that cities would become lawless to a greater or lesser extent. But let’s not score points through rhetoric, and let’s concentrate instead on the viability of smaller neighborhood communities managing to keep law and order within their own cul-de-sac or apartment complex or gated community or whatever.
He added the comment ‘around where I live, there are more rifles than people’; that may or may not be true about where you live, but it doesn’t really matter and obscures an appreciation of the issues that do matter.
Let’s simply agree with this optimistic view of the future – that you and your neighbors have lots of weapons, are decent honest people, and you all effectively band together harmoniously and create your own micro-community and safe zone, keeping the goblins away.
Bravo.
But….
What happens next?
By this, we simply mean, what happens when food starts to run low in your little micro-community? We see three breakdown events occurring in the days after the creation of your neighborhood cooperative.
First Breakdown
The first level of breakdown will be when your tiny self-defense cooperative is first formed. What’s the betting that part of the deal will be the organizers saying ‘We need to join together and pool our resources for our shared common good’. Now that all sounds fine and dandy when they’re saying ‘We all need to take turns watching out for raiders and repelling them’ but the chances they are also saying ‘And let’s pool all our food and other survival resources’.
So right from day one, you’ll be under pressure from your fellow law-abiding neighbors to share away everything you have to help them. In return for this, they are offering additional security – ostensibly from others outside your neighborhood, but the unwritten unstated ugliness is you’re also getting security from them, too.
However, let’s say this is not a problem. Maybe you are all equally prepared, so redistribution of all your supplies has little effect.
482 Year Old Secret To Surviving SHTF…
What if I told you that NASA rediscovered a superfood that’s been lost to history for the past 482 years? It’s packed with more nutrients than any other food out there and lasts even longer than pemmican. In fact, it’s so easy to store and cheap to make, you might never need another emergency food.
Click here (or the video bellow)to see how you can make your own
Second Breakdown
But now for stage two. Some people in your community have strangely used up their share of the pooled community supplies much faster than others. Are they secretly hoarding food? Eating twice as much as anyone else? Or just being wasteful? Whatever the cause, your community and you now have your second social crisis. Do you reward these people’s bad behavior and give them more food – especially because, at this point, everyone’s supplies are now diminishing.
With any measure of remaining civilization, this is almost certainly what will happen, because not only will some people be lobbying for more food, half the other people will also be looking ahead to the point where they too will be needing support from anyone who still has surplus food. So they’ll support the concept of daily redistributions of food based on need, because they see themselves becoming net beneficiaries of the policy, too. A bit like taxing a few wealthy people to feed the many poor people, right?
Besides which, while you might have had to shoot at and maybe even hit looters attempting to attack your community, they have all been strangers at a distance, and there’s been a life or death, them or us, element to the encounter. But are you to let one of your neighbors starve in front of you? And will they just passively starve while you continue to eat, or will they fight you to get your food?
The outcome of this second breakdown is almost certain – you give up still more of your own prepared supplies in exchange for a little bit more peace and safety within your community.
Third Breakdown
Now for stage three, and this is the point where we feel we must surely ‘win’ the argument (we use quotes because we wish we were wrong, but we fear we are right).
You’re now at the point where everyone in your community group has exhausted their food supplies. What do you do now?
Your choices are starkly simple. You stay where you are, and slowly starve to death, or alternatively, you do whatever it takes to get additional food for your friends, your families, and yourselves.
Also read: During the Collapse: Know Your Enemy Part 1 – The Unprepared Neighbor
During the Collapse Part 2: ”I will come to your house when SHTF” – No You Won’t!
This is the point where all community members, of all communities, have no choice but to become ‘lawless looters’ – except that it won’t just be empty stores you’ll be smashing into to steal food from. The stores will already have been emptied, days or weeks ago. The only places where you can get food now are places where people still have food and are protecting their food from people like – yes, from people like you.
What do you do when your polite request for a gift of food is rebuffed? What do you do after you’ve offered to pay them with money, with valuables, with anything at all they care to ask for, and they’ve still refused to sell/exchange even a single food item?
Most people will manage to become morally outraged at this, and so will then see what happens next not as their own transition to a lawless looter, but instead, they’ll see themselves as morally empowered to fairly redistribute the remaining food and to stop selfish people from illegally hoarding more food than they could ever truly need.
These people will not see themselves as killing the current lawful owners of whatever food remains. They’ll see themselves saving the lives of many others when they secure the food and redistribute it.
Indeed, what passes for the remaining lawful authorities will probably pass urgent laws making it illegal to keep more than a day or two of food in one’s house, requiring ‘hoarders’ to give up their food, and authorizing any necessary level of force to take it from these demon selfish ‘hoarders’. (Do we need to add that the people passing such laws are very unlikely to be preppers?)
The Life or Death Question That Has Only One Answer
We agree with the person who wrote the positive heartwarming article. Many communities will band together to create isolated pockets of safety where the rule of law prevails. Maybe even entire towns and cities will do so.
But what happens when the food runs out? Let’s assume there’s less than a week of food for the community. Maybe on half rations, that will keep people reasonably healthy and comfortable for two weeks. But if there’s no clear sign of food resupply coming anytime soon, at some point people will be forced to choose between taking food by force from wherever they can find it, or passively dying of starvation in their dwellings.
A starving person has no choice – they have to do whatever it takes to find food.
How Fast Will the Collapse Occur
Probably the total collapse of society doesn’t occur instantly. Depending on the nature of the Level 2/3 event, it may take some days or even weeks for a clear understanding of the changing world to be broadly accepted.
Maybe the authorities will succeed in maintaining order to start with. But police and national guardsmen have to eat, too, and so do their families. This sets in place another no-win situation. Either the security forces are given food while the rest of the population starves, or else the security forces starve alongside the population as a whole.
In the former case, the alienation between the communities and the security forces will grow to the point where ordinary people will no longer feel inhibited at revolting against uniformed officers with guns and badges. In the latter case, the security forces won’t hesitate too long to join in the lawlessness themselves, because if they don’t, they’ll die.
Things might slowly decay over the course of a week or two – maybe even three or four, but if populations can’t eat lawfully, they’ll do whatever it takes to get food, anyway they can.
And because of the very nature of cities and our country today, there is no way that urban concentrations can become self-supporting. Some cities have a million or more people, and little or no food growing resources within 100 miles.
Do you know how much food a typical person needs to eat every day? Let’s say, on low rations, they need half a pound of solids (plus lots of water). That is 500,000 lbs of solids every day – 250 tons of food a day to support a million people. Where will 250 tons of food a day come from?
People can’t start planting gardens today and harvesting enough food to live tomorrow. Apartment dwellers can’t do it at all. People with yards would need seed, fertilizer, and patience – what say the Level 2/3 event comes just after the end of a growing season, with perhaps 200 non-growing days now to wait through before seed can be sown and crops started?
Without the promise of adequate resupplies of food, there is no avoiding this outcome. Level 3 events, by definition, imply no resupply for over a year, Level 2 events for somewhere between some weeks and a year or so.
The collapse will come, at a rate determined by the remaining supply of food and the certainty of future resupply. The cities will become totally lawless and anarchistic, and the former city dwellers will necessarily stream out from the cities in their essential quest for food.
These people will stop only when they find food or die.
What You Must Do Before a SHTF Event
Prepping for a Level 2 or 3 event must start from the decision that you will abandon your urban residence and flee to a safer retreat, far from urban concentrations of people.
Stockpiling food in an urban location will only result in it being taken from you and you find yourself no better equipped to survive than the unprepared people all around you.
You must develop a plan to leave the city and to live in a place where you have stockpiled food and where you can transition to a self-contained and sustainable lifestyle. City living does not, will not, and can not allow for this.
Related articles: The Key To Surviving Any Crisis Is To Have The Right People In Place, And To Be Far Away From The Wrong People
Here’s How You Can Prepare Over The Next 6 Months For Economic Crisis
Are We Being Too Optimistic?
You might think this article is negative – perhaps even too negative – but this is the sad reality we are facing in the near future.
All we can say is… “Brace yourself and stay alert, friends.”
Also, I highly recommend this book to everyone. 300 pages, color, paperback. The Lost Book of Remedies is helping Americans achieve medical self-sufficiency even in the darkest times using the time-tested methods of our grandparents without spending lots of money on toxic drugs and without side effects. A great asset when doctors and hospitals won’t be available any more given the current situation. You may not be Claude Davis, but you can make use of his procedures and techniques to increase your chances of survival!
Before you go to bed tonight, do this ONE “stupidly simple” Greek ritual to reverse your diabetes…This diabetes-reversing trick was previously known ONLY to the inhabitants of a small, barely populated Greek island, 4800 miles from home… check it out here.
It is hard to put any credence in what you write, when you advertise the power4all scam in every article.
All you do with such articles is confirm the reason why 90% are going to die if the grid goes down and stays down. For the fact is, those of us of the household of Faith would rather die than become an animal. Of the 10% that survive, you’ll have a significant percentage who are the elite; most of whom are sociopathic narcissists. The rest will be those who were meaner, fitter, and better armed, and willing to do anything to continue to live on this miserable prison planet. I, and millions like me, don’t want to live like that. If God doesn’t specially keep me alive for some reason I can’t fathom, I will gladly die with the 90%. That’s why my preps are good for about 30 days. If the power comes back on within two weeks, I can still eat my own rations while the unprepared eat MRE’s issued by the government while waiting for the distribution system to become fully operational. If you don’t own a cave, or other remote bunker, there is no sense at all in spending your money on further preps. The only post-apocalyptic world I want to live in is Christ’s Kingdom.
I have a hard time believing that you are willing to die gladly.
Then you probably also have a hard time believing that God raised Jesus from the dead, or that there is life for us after death. I will be glad when I am with the Lord, that much is certain. I’m 57, and suffer from a list of health problems. If it were not for modern medicine, and modern technology, I would have been dead many years ago. I had a near death experience, and I KNOW life goes on after the death of this weak flesh. There are much worse things than that. If God wants me here, no one can kill me. If it is time for me to go, no one can save me. Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof.
Chuck, that was a great answer. I’m with you all the way on your answer and reasoning.
Thanks, Sean. TRYING to be well understood, and ACTUALLY being well understood…….It’s our lot in life and the Curse of Babel! God Bless you and yours.
Thanks Chuck.
Bravo
The bravo was for you Chuck Morrison have no idea how that happened so Bravo Bravo Bravo. the answer to N-49 is simple, we are not of this world.
Thank you. I agree that the simple answer is best, so I probably gave him too long an answer above, but maybe not.
i hear you. you are right.
I look around daily to see everyone still guzzling high fructose corn syrup and eating poisoned foods, read about the pervasive addiction to opioids, see how ridiculously overweight and unskilled Americans are (and how hopelessly the ghastly girly Millennials turned out), then imagine a sudden EMP/nuke/shutdown of the just-in-time delivery system, or any other major system impact……I don’t know about a week or two, but by 60 days and on, the place will be unrecognisable.
That’s why I’m saying if the power doesn’t come back on by the end of the second week or so, it probably isn’t going to be up in a month, either. And by the time that month is up, everyone will begin to understand that it might be a year, or maybe never. I will defend my family to the end, I just pray that the end is quick and merciful.
Agreed.
Everyone must within there means, stop living in Mcmansion, driving the biggest gas hog we can buy, taking vacations, wasting half eaten food, buy the latest electronics and so on, instead invest in knowledge how to help yourself should it befall on the masses, this way more will have a better chance to pull ahead.
As a 20+ year LEO in a large violent city, I can assure you complete lawlessness can be achieved in just hours or less. When the blackout of 2003 hit Detroit it was not even an hour in and the looting began.
Thanks for more insightful writing. You provide a valuable service; too few will wake up, and even fewer will adequately prepare–even for their own family. Now, I’d like to raise your and your readers’ level of thinking: Perhaps there is a critical reason why Judgement follows the Great Tribulation: Might it be that those who would share what they have and always treat their fellow man with kindness… those, the selfless will inherit the New Earth?
They will certainly be among those who inherit the Earth. It’s a cinch that there will be no murderers, thieves, adulterers, idolaters, homosexuals (or any other brand of pervert), or any who ‘loveth and maketh a lie’. There will be a smallish number of ‘unsaved survivors’, who will not be changed and glorified at the first resurrection. But the Earth will be healed and restored, and they will have long lives. The resurrected and/or glorified saved ones will live and reign with Christ for the thousand years. By that time, the Earth will be repopulated, and when Satan is released, many of those ‘latter day millennials’ will fall, and think they can surround and conquer Jerusalem and the King. I think you know what happens then.
See, the Millennium will prove, that even with Jesus as King, and celestial beings and glorified saints among them, some will still believe Satan’s lies, instead of the Truth that is right in front of them. Think about it: it’ll be the Ultimate Generation Gap! This is the final dividing of sheep from goats, and the final judgement.
ANYONE who believes that Americans will be polite to one another (especially in the large metropolitan areas) when disaster strikes is quite honestly, DELUDED. Civility in this so-called “peaceful phase” is missing, I can only imagine the savagery and viciousness that will come about when everyone is vying for limited resources. Smart people will prep as much as they can, have a plan to move or bug out to rural and/or mountainous areas, listen to their instincts and NOT listen or pay attention to the shill/mouthpieces paid to keep the sheeple asleep, and most importantly seek the shelter of the Lord.
Keep your informative articles coming and God Bless you for your courage to speak out during these troubling times.
REALLY smart people will have a cave or underground bunker, or perhaps a nice, fat government job at a high enough level to get a ticket to Cheyenne Mountain. MILLIONS of ‘smart’ people simply lack the resources (often through no fault of their own, such as theft by bankster, oligarch, or government agency) to be prepared for the worst case scenarios. Millions of SMART people lack the physical health, strength, and stamina for a long march to the wilderness; or to survive there if they manage to drive that far. Now, a guy with an effective IQ of 87 who’s been living hard and eating out of dumpsters, and won’t mind eating cats, rats, roaches, or people; I’ll lay odds on him. I just won’t be sharing any meals with him.
Re Steve Quayle ALERT Section from a couple of weeks ago regarding the Big One hitting California. Information from a participant in a government meeting advised that there will be 3 million to 10 million deaths and unimaginable number (estimated to be 100s of thousands) of serious injuries within one week of the event. Additionally, if the Cascadia fault (Washington State and Oregon) gives way (highly probable) at the same time or soon thereafter, there will be another 3 million to 10 million deaths and double the number injured. Max number of deaths and injuries will be in the large cities and suburbs. The expected tsunami is expected to wash out the coastlines and the majority of buildings along the coast. The Feds will immediately institute martial law, but it may take weeks to bring real, effective relief. Survivors are not expected to use mobile transportation to exit the affected areas due to roads, bridges, and tunnels being useless and a complete lack of gasoline. Survivors should expect that they will have to “walk out” for several miles to get to aid stations. In addition, the attendee emphasized and advised riots are expected throughout the LA area and in San Diego. A retired military contact there is aware and preparations have been ongoing among the retired Spec Ops people and their families, despite Gov Moonbeam’s efforts to paint a rosy picture. There military facilities are being prepped and readied.
Ergo, in this particular natural disaster, all will come crashing down in a matter of two to three days. DHS, DOD, etc are prepped for it.
Great article SurvivalDan, I agree that in a bad situation society can break down. Further, that for many food will be the number one problem/priority. Depending on where you live and time of year weather shelter could be as important as food. No Ac in phoenix in july or no heat in Minneapolis could be devestating. Lets also not forget that chances are l strong Fema and cog will be making their rounds. The more that go with fema that will alleviate for those that dont.
no one would ever stoop so low as to steal a fresh peanut butter and jelly sandwich so just stockpile peanut butter and jelly sandwiches😁
One of the best articles on the psychology of human need I have read in a long time. What you did not mention was that there may come a time in a true SHTF scenario where humans may have to make the decision to eat each other. Cannibalism has happened all over the earth and when faced with starvation, or eating the flesh of the rotten SOB you just shot for trying to steal from you, you will have to make a decision at that point, “do I die along with him or do I eat him.
The flight that crashed in the Andes and the Donner party both had to make that decision. This is one of those types of decisions most people do not like to discussed, but when no other alternative exist, you WILL find yourselves discussing it !
Hopefully they’re plumpy white meat. Me likes that!
By that time you will most likely be looking at skinny, dried up and sickly. Bad situation either way. Nostadamus wrote that “man will become an eater of men”. Maybe that is what he was referring to?
off topic joke re cannibalism….
a cannibal goes to the meat market and says to the cannibal butcher, “how much for that sailor meat?” the butcher says, “sailors are pretty tough and stringy, so it is $10 a pound.” “hmmmm, how much for that missionary meat?” “oh, that is so soft and tender, it is $15 a pound.” “hmmm, how much for that Biker meat?” the butcher say it is $40 a pound. “$40 a pound for Biker meat, why so expensive?” the butcher says, “you ever try to clean one of those **********?”
So let’s say shtf and you bug out to your hideaway in the middle of nowhere. Just you,preps and some family members,in the middle of nowhere. What happens if a roving band of looters or just plain bad guys show up? You’re out numbered, eventually will run out of food and ammo. Now what? There is no one else around.because it’s just you in the middle of no where. Now what?
this is what i never understood,running out yonder,alone w/family, thinking no one will ever get to you ,even if one on one-are they willing to kill ? can all over age 10 safely use a firearm and even safely maintain it ?
you need to be within a small community,just like a military camp,complete w/surveillance of the camp perimeter,surroundings etc.fortunately for us this entire area is gun owning conservatives,former military, complete w/seasoned hunters,guides etc and if gawd forbid we need to will strictly organise down to who will mind the kids,livestock etc. yeah,we’re deep in the heart of TX & the cajuns,swamp people etc nationwide folks are the same-GOD, guns, country livin, constitution.
A man told me he would do anything to feed his kids in time of trouble, including murdering anyone who had food he wanted but was unwilling to share or trade, you might even know some like him, but at least be wary of anyone you’re not 150 percent certain of and be ready to defend yourself/property/family/friends. I suppose these types are born to every generation, but the folks living today take the cake.
Nuclear war will take out a lot of our population very quickly if not instantly as our larger cities are choice targets for Russian and Chinese slcms and icbms. reason being is less enemy to fight that way, as well as most of our manufacturing and power production is in the larger cities. This is a “blessing” for those who “survive” as they won’t have the army of the walking dead heading their way that would otherwise, say in a mere emp or bio/chem attack where the cities empty into the countryside in search of food, guns, and women to rape.I count on YHWH and his son Yahshuah to take care of us, but they dont want us to be stupid, they want us to be as prepared as possible for whatever life brings us. They also want us to love our neighbor as ourselves, and do unto others as we would have done to us.
realize that your best resource in survival is water. not food. i know from much experiece. i survived in the woods for two weeks on a single bag of popcorn which i rationed. i drank water from fast moving streams after rain storms. never got sick. the stuff from the sky is clean. you don’t need 3 meals a day to survive. a can of peas or even less can get you through a day. properly preserved and rationed food can last a very long time you just have to get use to eating much less thn normal. water is your worry. water is your best friend in survival.
realize that your best resource in survival is water. not food. i know from much experiece. i survived in the woods for two weeks on a single bag of popcorn which i rationed. i drank water from fast moving streams after rain storms. never got sick. the stuff from the sky is clean. you don’t need 3 meals a day to survive. a can of peas or even less can get you through a day. properly preserved and rationed food can last a very long time you just have to get use to eating much less thn normal. water is your worry. water is your best friend in survival. note. i never once boiled the water.
i did not boil the water. did not have the means.
We were given the answer centuries ago, now do as you’ve been instructed and pray:
To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven:
A time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to pluck up that which is planted;
A time to kill, and a time to heal; a time to break down, and a time to build up; A time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance;
A time to cast away stones, and a time to gather stones together; a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing; A time to get, and a time to lose; a time to keep, and a time to cast away;
A time to rend, and a time to sew; a time to keep silence, and a time to speak; A time to love, and a time to hate; a time of war, and a time of peace. Ecclesiastes 3
President Trump’s statement about voter fraud is not unsubstantiated. Voter fraud happens in any number of elections, and he has every right to insist that the laws be followed. He wants every legitimate vote counted and was asking that the illegitimate vote counting be stopped. It is his right to demand that poll watchers be allowed to monitor the counting of ballots, which was not occurring in Michigan and Pennsylvania. Every candidate has the right to ask for a recall and a fair election. He deserves the benefit of doubt until all the facts are in.
i’m ready; i gots my toilet paper in stock
It is not Mr. Trump It is President Trump!!!! get it right!! he is still our President