Thursday, August 14, 2008

THE MYTH OF SUBURBAN SURVIVAL

I haven't a thing to write about this morning so I will belabour all suburban preppers. I haven't hung them out to dry for quite a while and it does not hurt to keep them touched up.



I was reading some suburban preppers blog this morning and he bragged about how 50% of the bloggers out there in cyberspace were from the burbs. And he said they out numbered the "outlanders" and were a force to be reckoned with. My question is where do we go to reckon with this force? And who wants to reckon with it? What is the purpose of reckoning with it?



One of the problems with folks living in the burbs is their numbers. They always think in terms of numbers, a.k.a. as body count. And that is a serious mistake. Voting sucks. Voting gives the people in the burbs the idea that their personal agendas matter. And their personal agendas matter very little. Their personal agendas are formulated with their faith in politicians, bankers, foreign royalty, movie stars, and our beloved friends the corporate media. They want very nice homes and big cars and large retirement checks and all the other stuff that will soon fall by the wayside. They want to save the whales, stop global warming, have full medical coverage, and bestow favors on their grand children. All the while enjoying the greatness of all that technology has to offer. Sounds like someone somewhat out of touch to me. The Suburban Prepper at http://suburbanprepper.wordpress.com/ is supply the denizens of cyberspace with this propaganda. Sorta like the Phoenix rising from the ashes. Sorta like something George Lucas would make into a movie.



And this Suburban Prepper fella is no dummy. He can wrap words around his thoughts pretty well and I believe he just passed the California Bar Exam. Pretty smart dude. But he places an inordinate amount of faith in the suburban dwellers. This makes no sense to me as the suburban dwellers are the prime source of our misery right now. All those hundreds of thousands of toxic mortgages are out in the burbs. All those people who are defaulting on the idiocy of the American dream. And as they default, the homes become the targets of the underground demolition crews who strip them of any valuable copper and electrical gear. The homeless move into them until the law enforcement shows up and runs them off. Drug gangs move in and use the homes for shooting galleries. Then some nut will do something that will cause a fire and the place will burn down. One more suburban icon bites the dust. Oh well! I ain't living there!



The next item up for examination and scrutiny is the concept of CERT. Hurrah for CERT! Get your CERT stuff from the FEMA branch of the fedgov! Doesn't anyone get the message behind the fedgov? They don't like us. They merely want to perpetuate their tax base. Remember a little incident called Katrina down in New Orleans? It's two years ago and the damage is still not fixed. What good will CERT do for the populace? All their stuff is gonna say call the "authorities" if anything goes wrong! Who the hell are the authorities? Are they the same people who would not go into Watts when Rodney King got beat up by the pigs? Are they the reason the National Guard got called out to quell the disturbance? Are they the people who taser ANYONE for ANY reason? Are they basically cowards? The Police Chief of our closest town said they were 30 years ago. They joined for reasons of pay and personal security. They do not love you! Protect and serve my ass! I will stay in my homeland and protect and serve myself and my friends and I will not be calling the cops! And woe be onto anyone who comes to do harm. Out here in the country we get down to brass tacks pretty quick. If we see you and you are not supposed to be here we will tell you to get out. If you don't go then you will have to be carried out. Ain't waiting for any cops to arrive or any CERT program to kick in. And we are not interested in buying
your food and what not after the SHTF. We can grow our own, thank you. And we have water and animals and fuel in the woods and all kinds of neat stuff. We have all trained as hunters and fishermen and trappers. Some of us are foragers and herbalists. We will organize watch details in a heartbeat and they will be armed. What the hell is CERT? A bunch of mental pygmies playing bridge and talking about Obama's change? The only thing I have seen that made any sense form the fedgov was the billboard out about 3 years ago that said "We can be scared or we can be ready" Far out! I made the decision to be ready, thank you very much. I don't trust people in the burbs to realize the dangers of this world until it is too late. They believe that the rule of law will prevail, and that is nuts. CERT is a lame duck and won't mean a thing after a day or two of SHTF. Here is a paragraph that bears some scrutiny.

The other awesome stat was that the majority of those surveyed plan to shelter in place which I am a strong advocate of. Attempting to flee even moderately populated areas is a mistake. Almost every populated area has only one or two major arteries of ingress and egress and those will be absolutely jammed, I am talking parking lot! Unless you have a sure-fire way (read helicopter) to get to your retreat, your best bet is to shelter in place, lock the house down and ride out the disaster. The silver lining to the �Golden Horde� theory is that there will be masses of unprepared folks flooding OUT of the burbs. Leaving us with more resources to scrounge and less people to worry about. You can grow crops in your neighbors back yard when he makes a run for it or set up a rain catchment system on your neighbors roof for additional water capacity.

Sounds like the suburban guy is wanting to create the country in the city! Well, all those Golden Horde folks will stop by and take your stuff before they move on out. After they have raped your wife and you daughters and maybe even you son and then killed them all, including you. Won't you be an heroic figure then! "But you can't do this! We are part of the CERT program!" And if the road out of town is crowded that just means that a lot of people have gotten their shit together, albeit a little late in the game.

And how are you going to flush your toilets? How will you get rid of the trash and garbage? How will you get heat into your home in the Winter or cool air in the Summer? How will you cook? How will you maintain sanitation with no running water. How will you get more food? Do you really think you will get by planting your neighbors lawn in vegetables? While you are attending to your new garden why don't you put up a big sign that tells the world you have food on hand? Hah hah! Your garden will draw the very people you don't want!

I believe in group survival very strongly. And somewhere in the deep recesses of the mind of whoever does the thinking for CERT there was an inkling of the worth of group survival. But whatever that thought was it got corrupted. It got run through the Mill of the fedgov and came out as peanut butter instead of real survivalism. But I have come to expect that from the fedgov. They are such a losing proposition. Forget them and try to stay alive!

Michael

mboone@rtccom.net

6 comments:

BigBear said...

There are two mindset here.

Society is going to hiccup

Society is going to collapse

Most suburban dwellers follow the hiccup theory. There will be a bad time then things will return to normal. Think natural disaster. Their great investment in the American dream will be maintained.

Most rural dwellers believe society is moving towards a gigantic collapse followed by anarchy and death. (I believe this) Think nuclear war or viral population reduction.

Just ask yourself this one question

What will you do when the electricity goes off and the natural gas stops flowing?

ElderGuru.com said...

Could you have fit a few more suburban stereo-types in this post? C'mon, think on it. There must be another 38 or so.

Sam said...

REBUTTAL TO "THE MYTH OF SUBURBAN SURVIVAL"

Michael wrote: "I was reading some suburban preppers blog this morning and he bragged about how 50% of the bloggers out there in cyberspace were from the burbs. And he said they out numbered the "outlanders" and were a force to be reckoned with. My question is where do we go to reckon with this force? And who wants to reckon with it? What is the purpose of reckoning with it?"

The reckoning is not with rural preppers, it is with non-preppers and government agencies. Sheesh Michael, the guy is just enthusiastic about what he is trying to do.

Not everyone in suburbia is as you describe, your rant is pure bigotry. Your post is every bit as lopsided and nasty as anyone that suggests every rural person is an uneducated, stupid, redneck hick. Some folks need to work in the city or you would not have the guns, gloves, and boots you write about. They are manufactured in cities and suburbia, not on the farm. Ditto for the equipment you use to maintain your 3000 acres.

When a suburbanite comes to the conclusion they cannot leave suburbia (for whatever reason) and then choose to make the best of it by becoming prepared, those fortunate enough to be in rural America ought to at least be glad for them. Those a tad more mature might even be encouraging to the suburban prepper. The suburban prepper is still a prepper, and just like the rural prepper, they are doing the best they can with what they have - and where they are. Worst case; they thin out the "Golden Horde" for their rural cousins.

There are plenty suburban folks without "toxic mortgages", many without any mortgage at all. How in the world can you lump everyone in suburbia together? Have you ever been to a city? There are lots of rotten people there, sure. There are also one heck of a lot of very fine, upstanding lovers of Liberty that pay their own way, stay out of debt, and vote the same way you do.

Sheesh Michael, are you trying to create division in our tiny prepper community? There are not anywhere near enough folks prepping, and here you are ripping into half of them.

CERT is about training, I have been through the course and I am a certified CERT trainer. What do you really know about CERT Michael? Obviously nothing.

Surprise Micheal - there is water in the city! Not all of it is in pipes. Suburban preppers are figuring out water solutions daily. They are smart enough to keep their yaps shut so that these sources are not ruined by some bureaucrat. There are many places in suburbia to plant a hidden garden, including some neighbor's yards. This is a no-brainer for suburban preppers. Heating and other needs also have solutions in suburbia, not everything is limited to just your thinking Michael. You might limit your posts to things you actually know something about.

CERT teams are composed of thinking people Michael. They put up with the FEMA garbage to get the training, and that is an excellent start. CERT teams are, by and large, made up of smart, caring and good-neighbor-type people. They choose to be ready for whatever comes. Exactly what you claim to be.

Do you have the b***s to post this, or are you the coward you accuse others of being? Having b***s is one thing, but being man enough to apologize, without qualification, is what I hope you are. That would tend to bring preppers from all of America together.
Sam

Dragon said...

I'll agree with bear and mike on this.....The only sure way in my book is a long driveway with a clear field of fire....Survival in the Burbs is a coin toss as you'll probably have to defend your stuff from even the LEA.... and even some of them prep and will have bugged out...I thought and still think that prepping is about giving you and yours the best chance in a society gone haywire. folks do need reminded of some of the worst parts of Katrina... There were allot of whack and stacks down there and no-one asked any questions...
I hope some of them stay in the burbs cause when they come to the country they bring burb mentality with them.... as in clear more land than you need to build and start a lawn... gotta have that lawn, right....house visible from a well marked driveway...hell you can be scoped out from the road.... always with visible wealth saying come get me. here in west Pa the burbs are getting ugly and Ohio ain't much better. If you ask me, I don't want to hear their story after they stagger out of that future wasteland,Dragon

Anonymous said...

Only thing you can do is lead by example. That's what I suggest! Although blowing off some steam helps every now and again.

The Urban Survivalist said...

Whether or not civilization collapses isn't a question of when yet. It's still a question of if. We've already gone back and forth with our views on the pros and cons of city living vs country living. I can say this. I imagine that you and I vote similarly when it comes down to it. I know a lot of people that vote just like I do. These are all people that live in the city. Also, you have to be just as careful about choosing a city, suburb or neighborhood to live in as you are when choosing a retreat.

Some cities are just much better places to live than others. I live in a city of 3 million with several other million person + cities within an hour drive. We don't have vacant houses being stripped of all of their wiring. The houses in my neighborhood don't even stay on the market for more than a month before they're sold. People aren't being forclosed on left and right around here. The stories that you read are just another example of the media blowing things out of proportion and shining the spotlight on the worst possible cases and trying to pass them off as "what's really going on out there".