The Era of Food Crisis… How Much Emergency Food Should You Keep at Home?

How Much Emergency Food Supply Do You Currently Have?

Calculating How Long Your Food Stockpile Will Last

To get the total number of days your stockpile will last, you need to take the:

Total calories in your stockpile ÷ Calories your family needs per day

Let’s start with the top half of the equation.

Calculating How Many Calories You Have

Ideally, your pantry is well organized, making the process much faster.

But if it’s not…perhaps this will allow you to do so…?!?

Because you’re about to take inventory.

Yup. Just like ALL successful retail businesses do regularly.

Now you may ask, “Should I count EVERYTHING” on my shelves?

If it’s shelf stable and you replace it regularly, then YES, count it.

Sure, some items will fluctuate as you use them up and then buy more.

But a snapshot of the shelf life stable calories in your pantry is “close enough” …

Obviously count all freeze-dried foods, MREs, canned meats, and #10 Cans.

Also, don’t count ANY calories in your refrigerator or freezer.

Power outages make freezers highly vulnerable disaster appliances.

The only exception is if you have a robust backup energy plan or you are already living off the grid.

A robust backup energy plan means having a Power station (or a generator with a few weeks of fuel).

Otherwise, I DON’T count your refrigerated and frozen goods.

I used a simple spreadsheet for this to help make the calculations easy. Plus, I can sort and filter as needed later with a spreadsheet.

Jacks' Food Stockpile Spreadsheet Image

Start by making a few columns titled:

  1. Food – Brand
  2. Number of items (pouches, bags, containers)
  3. Servings Per Container
  4. Calories per Serving
  5. Total Calories

Once you fill out an entire row with that info, multiply the “number of items” by the “servings per container” by the “calories per serving.”

This will give you the number of calories you have in your inventory for THAT specific food item.

Now, you need to be careful here.

I added the Brand to the first column because not ALL brands use the same servings/calorie info.

For example:

Separate Brands of canned beans may seem identical but often are not.

The difference can add up, especially if you have a lot of dried beans…

Now, IF the foods are the same, AND the info per serving is the same, you can put them in the same line.

Otherwise, if any of those numbers are different, add a new line item.

Now keep going and inventory everything that makes sense for you.

Once done, you should add up all the calories.

And now you know exactly how much non-perishable food you currently have.

This calorie number may seem massive if you’ve got a decent-sized stockpile.

Perhaps even a few hundred thousand calories, like 358,753 or something like that.

WOW. Massive, right? Not so fast…

Having your total calories may seem like an important number to know, but it’s not all that helpful…yet.

Why? Because it’s relative to the size of your family, right?

For example, 358,753 calories is a stellar long term food storage for a retired couple of 2.

But what about a growing family of 5? Not so much.

That’s why we need to figure out how many calories YOUR family consumes each day…

How Many Calories Does Your Family Need Per Day?

At first, this may seem like a difficult task, but with the proper tools, it’s easy.

You must figure out how many replacement calories each family member needs daily.

  1. And this is NOT the same for males and females.
  2. It’s also NOT the same for babies, kids, young adults, adults, or mature adults.
  3. And it’s NOT the same for those who live an active or sedentary lifestyle.

You need to consider ALL 3 of these variables to make an educated guess.

The good news is I created a simple chart to do just THAT.

You can use this chart to determine your sex, age, and activity level for each family member.

Then add up each number.

The TOTAL is how many calories you’re family needs per day.

Now, THIS is a very good number to know!

This is the number you need to figure out how long your food stockpile will last.

Your Final Calculation

Take your total calories and divide by your family’s daily calorie requirement.

Viola! THAT new number is a very good approximation of How Long Your Current Food Stockpile Will Last.

Perhaps your number is 58.63 days?

That means you’re very close to having 2 months’ worth of food in your emergency stockpile.

Now, of course, you may be able to ration those calories a bit in a longer-term emergency.

But I don’t recommend “rationing” your calculation.

Why? Because I’d rather underestimate the duration of my stockpile by a few days and NOT the other way around.

Said another way, I’d rather be pleasantly surprised…

You now know how long you have before starvation begins after the grocery store shelves go bare.

We can now finally circle back around to the original question:

How Much Emergency Food Should I Have?

Ok, are you ready for YOUR answer? Do you have a pen and paper ready?

A minimum of 2 weeks and a maximum of 1 year…

I can hear you booing at me already…

You were probably hoping for something a bit more specific, weren’t you…

Like most things, everyone’s situation, risk tolerance, and resources vary.

I can hardly give a more specific answer for everyone.

But I CAN do better than THAT.

So let’s break things down into a few different categories.

Only then can we zero in on something more meaningful.

Here are a few categories:

  1. Those ONLY Worry About High-Frequency, Short Term Natural Disasters
  2. Those Who Worry About Medium Term Disasters (natural and/or manmade)
  3. Those Worried About an Extensive Lawless, SHTF Type Event…
Hurricane Damage Street Blocked

1. Those Worried About Shorter-Term Natural Disasters

Some folks are mainly concerned with short-term natural disasters.

US Natural Disaster Map

They don’t accept that the world is becoming less stable and more uncertain by the day.

They deny the risk of major societal upheavals is rising.

That’s NOT me, but hey, perhaps that’s you.

Well, in this case, you need to get 2 weeks’ worth of survival food in place.

That’s the bare minimum, in my opinion.

Any less, and you’re not living up to your primary adult responsibilities.

I recommend 2 weeks as the first target for 2 reasons:

  1. It’s meaningful – gives you a basic level of resiliency
  2. It’s achievable – everyone can hit this mark in a short period of time

Sure, some folks will scoff at only 2 weeks of emergency food.

But it’s actually a solid start, good for MOST likely emergencies we’ll all encounter year in and year out.

And it’s way more resilient than MOST people…

53% of Americans admit to having less than 3 days’ worth of nonperishable food and water.

That’s gross negligence!

Sorry but if you have only 2 or 3 days of short term food, you’re completely fragile.

You’re dependent on handouts in a crisis.

This is unacceptable and irresponsible.

So, get 2 weeks, and then I’ll stop the name-calling…

And perhaps I can encourage you to shoot for a month.

A month is so much more resilient than 2 weeks.

At a month’s worth, you’ll be able to ride out 99.9% of natural disasters.

And you’ll also have a bit of extra resiliency to civil unrest, chaos, famines, etc.

traffic chaos

2. Those Worried About Medium-Term SHTF Disasters

Ok, this category is for those who don’t feel like 1 month is enough,

But also think a SHTF-type event way worse than the recent pandemic is zero…

I mean, the more widespread and the longer the emergency crisis, the LESS likely it is to occur, right?

It’s simple statistics.

Yet, I believe there’s a greater than zero chance we do have a SHTF event in our lifetimes.

Why? Because the world is getting more vulnerable as:

  1. technology advances at a breakneck pace
  2. the world becomes more and more interconnected.

So, what’s “reasonable” for someone who sits between the two extremes?

I recommend somewhere between 3 and 6 months.

That solid supply of calories will keep you fed for ALL but the most unlikely doomsday events.

Nuclear Attack Bomb Explosion

3. Those Worried About a Worst Case-SHTF Type Event…

Well, here we are…the resilient few.

Those of us who think there’s a non-zero chance of life as we know it coming to an end in our lifetimes.

We tend to see our emergency food stockpiles as cheap self-insurance.

A policy you own that lasts up to 25 or 30 years if done right.

So why not go big and sleep really well at night, even as the world continues to crumble?

To enter this realm, you’ll be targeting at least 1’ year’s worth of emergency food…

Now perhaps we’re NOT there yet, but that’s ok; 1 year is an excellent goal.

You can do more if you’d like, heck, 2 years if you’re really dedicated.

But after you hit 1 year, your time and energy are better spent elsewhere.

At that point, I recommend focusing on skills to bring more calories into your storerooms.

I’m talking about:

  • Canning, Gardening & Seed Saving
  • Foraging and Gathering
  • Hunting & Fishing
  • Farming & Raising Farm Animals (chickens, rabbits, goats, etc.)
  • Aquaponics

These more advanced prepping techniques.

Why? Because they not only give you a runway should grocery store foods go bare.

They extend your calorie runway into the future.

If all you do is stockpile (without adding any new calories), then your time to starvation is on a countdown clock.

You keep adding calories back into your stockpiles.

This helps to extend that time to starvation even longer into the future.

If you ever get to more calories in than out, you’ll never starve, right?

Dispelling The 5 Most Common Stockpiling Amount Myths

I’ve heard a lot of misconceptions about this topic.

Let’s set the record straight:

Myth #1: “I only need a month’s supply.”

A one-month stockpile just won’t cut it.

Emergencies can last longer than that, and you don’t want to be caught with empty shelves.

Aim for at least three to six months’ worth of food to be truly prepared.

Myth #2: “Canned goods will last forever.”

While canned foods have a long shelf life, they don’t last indefinitely.

Over time, the quality and nutritional value can degrade.

Rotate your canned goods regularly and check expiration dates to ensure you have fresh supplies.

Myth #3: “I’ll survive on MREs and freeze-dried meals.”

While these are convenient options, relying solely on MREs and freeze-dried meals can get expensive and monotonous.

Diversify your stockpile with staples like rice, beans, and pasta to create a balanced and sustainable food reserve.

Myth #4: “I’ll catch or hunt for food during an emergency.”

Hunting and fishing can be great survival skills, but they’re not guaranteed sources of food.

Wildlife can be scarce, and fishing might not yield results every time.

Stockpile food as your primary source and use hunting and fishing as supplementary options.

Myth #5: “I’ll just grow my own food.”

Gardening is a valuable skill, but it takes time and effort to yield a significant harvest.

Plus, it’s season-dependent.

Don’t rely solely on your garden; have a well-stocked pantry to bridge the gaps.

Final Thoughts

Everyone reading this needs to build a stockpile a food (and gallon of water) that will last at least 2 weeks

No excuses!

Once you get there, I recommend you keep building for up to 1 month.

And if you want even more protection, try to get to the 3 – 6 months window.

Or perhaps you want lots of food security.

A nice long runway to give you ample time to let the post-modern world sort itself out – then go with 1 year.

After that, move to advanced skills such as farming, raising animals, aquaponics, etc.

Ok, if you’re ready to get started, you should check out my review of Valley Food Storage or watch the video below:

Remember, folks, it’s better to have more food than you need than to come up short during an emergency.

Plan and prepare for the unexpected, and you’ll have peace of mind knowing your family is well-fed.

10 Trends For The Future Of Warfare

Stories about killer robots, machine-augmented heroes, laser weapons and battles in space – outer or cyber – have always been good for filling cinema seats, but now they have started to liven up sober academic journals and government white papers.

However, war is about much more than combat or how we fight. Is the sensationalism of high-tech weaponry blinding us to technology’s impact on the broader social, political and cultural context that determines why, where and when war happens, what makes it more or less likely, and who wins?

Consider artificial intelligence (AI). The potential for developing lethal autonomous weapons systems grabs headlines (“killer robots!”), but the greatest impact of AI on conflict may be socially mediated. Algorithmically-driven social media connections funnel individuals into trans-national but culturally enclosed echo-chambers, radicalising their world-view.

As robots relieve humans of their jobs, some societies will prove better prepared than others in their use of education and infrastructures for transitioning workers into new, socially sustainable and economically productive ways to make a living. Less prepared nations could see increasingly stark inequality, with economically-excluded young people undermining social stability, losing faith with technocratic governance, and spurring the rise of leaders who aim popular anger at an external enemy.

Looking beyond individual technologies allows us to focus on the broader and deeper dimensions of the transformation coming our way. Professor Klaus Schwab, chairman and founder of the World Economic Forum, argues that the collapse of barriers between digital and physical, and between synthetic and organic, constitutes a Fourth Industrial Revolution, promising a level of change comparable to that brought about by steam power, electricity and computing.

Something that makes this revolution fundamentally different is how it challenges ideas about what it means to be human. For instance, neuroscience is teaching us more about our own fallibility, and also just how ‘hackable’ humans are. As science continues to uncover difficult truths about how we really operate, we will have to confront basic assumptions about the nature of human beings. Whether this deep transformation will reinforce or undermine a shared sense of human dignity, and what effects it will have on our relationship with organized violence, remain open to question.

The experience of past industrial revolutions can help us begin to search for answers about how this will transform the wider context of international security. In the first industrial revolution, deposits of coal and iron ore were one factor determining the “winners” in terms of economic and geopolitical power.

Today, new modes and artefacts of industrial production will also change demand patterns, empowering countries controlling supply and transit, and disempowering others. Progress in energy production and storage efficiency, for instance, is likely to have profound consequences for the petro economies and the security challenges of their regions. Although the set of natural resources critical to strategic industries will change, their use as a geo-economic tool will probably be repeated.

For instance, this is widely thought to have happened when, in the midst of a maritime dispute with Japan in 2010, China restricted export of “rare earths” that are critical for computing, sensors, permanent magnets and energy storage. With ever more commercial and military value embedded in the technology sector, such key materials will be deemed “critical” or “strategic” in terms of national security, and be subject to political as well as market forces.

The 19th Century Industrial Revolution showed how technological asymmetry can translate into geopolitical inequality – in the words of Hilaire Belloc’s poem ‘The modern traveller’, spoken by a European about Africa: “Whatever happens, we have got the Maxim Gun, and they have not”. (The Maxim Gun was the first recoil-operated machine gun).

What will be the Maxim Gun of our time? Who will have it, and who will not? In the 20th Century, the “haves and have-nots” of the nuclear weapons club membership became the major determinant of the post-war global order, and – as seen in the cases of Iran and North Korea today – this continues to be relevant. Stealth technology and precision guided missiles used to impose a “new world order” in the early 1990s showed how the gap in military capability separated the United States from others, sustaining its leadership of a “unipolar” order.

According to the current US deputy secretary of defence Robert Work, “There’s no question that US military technological superiority is beginning to erode”.

History can only tell us only so much. There is a need for fresh thinking about the implications of the Fourth Industrial Revolution for international security.

Strategic de-stabilisation

1. Waging war may seem “easier”. If increased reliance on machines for remote killing makes combat more abstract from our everyday experience, could that make it more tolerable for our societies, and therefore make war more likely? Those who operate lethal systems are ever more distant from the battlefield and insulated from physical danger, but this sense of advantage may prove illusory. Those on the receiving end of technological asymmetries have a stronger incentive to find other ways to strike back: when you cannot compete on a traditional battlefield, you look to where your adversary is vulnerable, such as through opportunistic attacks on civilians.

2. Speed kills. “The speed at which machines can make decisions in the far future is likely to challenge our ability to cope, demanding a new relationship between man and machine.” This was the assessment of US Major General William Hix at a conference on the future of the Army in October 2016. The speed of technological innovation also makes it hard to keep abreast of new military capabilities, easier to be misled on the actual balance of power, and to fall victim to a strategic miscalculation. The fact that some capabilities are deliberately hidden just makes it harder. Because offensive cyber capability relies so much on exploiting one-off vulnerabilities, it is difficult to simultaneously demonstrate and maintain a capability. Once a particular vulnerability has been exploited, the victim is alerted and will take steps to fix it. General Hix again: “A conventional conflict in the near future will be extremely lethal and fast, And we will not own the stopwatch.”

3. Fear and uncertainty increase risk. The expectation that asymmetries could change quickly – as may be the case with new strategic capabilities in areas like artificial intelligence, space, deep sea and cyber – could incentivise risk-taking and aggressive behaviour. If you are confident that you have a lead in a strategically-significant but highly dynamic field of technology, but you are not confident that the lead will last, you might be more tempted to use it before a rival catches up. Enhanced capacity to operate at speed puts security actors into a constant state of high alert, incentivises investment in resilience, and forces us to live with uncertainty. Under these conditions, war by mistake – either through over-confidence in your ability to win, or because of exaggerated threat perception – becomes more likely.

4. Deterrence and pre-emption. When new capabilities cause a shift in the balance between offensive and defensive advantage – or even the perception of such a shift -, it could increase the incentives for aggression. For example, one of the pillars of nuclear deterrence is the “second strike” capability, which puts the following thought into the mind of an actor contemplating a nuclear attack: “even if I destroy my opponent’s country totally, their submarines will still be around to take revenge”. But suppose swarms of undersea drones were able to track and neutralize the submarines that launch nuclear missiles? Long-range aerial drones can already navigate freely across the oceans, and will be able to fly under the radar deep into enemy territory. Such capabilities make it possible in theory for an actor to escape the fear of second-strike retaliation, and feel safer in launching a pre-emptive strike against aircraft in their hangars, ships in port, and critical infrastructure, with practically no chance of early warning. Indeed, cyberattacks on banks, power stations and government institutions have demonstrated that it is no longer necessary to fly bombers around the world to reach a distant enemy’s critical infrastructure without early warning. The idea of striking a `knockout blow` may come to seem feasible once more.

5. The new arms race is harder to control. One of the mechanisms for strategic stability is arms control agreements, which have served to limit the use of nuclear, biological and chemical weapons. When it comes to the multiple combinations of technology we see as a hallmark of the Fourth Industrial Revolution, one of the obstacles to international agreement is caused by uncertainty about how strategic benefits will be distributed. For instance, the international community is currently debating both the ethics and practicality of a ban on the development of lethal autonomous weapons systems. One of the factors holding this debate back from a conclusion is a lack of consensus among experts about whether such systems would give an advantage to the defender or the attacker, and hence be more likely to deter or incentivize the escalation of conflict. Where you stand on the issue may depend on whether you see yourself as a master of the technology, or a victim. Another obstacle to imposing control is the wider cast of players –

6. A wider cast of players. As cutting-edge technology becomes cheaper, it spreads to a wider range of actors. Consider the development of nuclear bombs – the last breakthrough in weapons technology that re-wrote the rules of international security. Although the potential for a fission bomb was understood in terms of theoretical physics, putting it into practice involved thousands of scientists and billions of dollars – resources on a scale only a few nations could muster. Over 70 years later, the club of nuclear weapons states remains exclusively small, and no non-state actor has succeeded in acquiring nuclear capability.

In contrast, there are more than 70 nations operating earth-orbiting satellites today. Nano-satellites are launched by Universities and Corporations. A growing list of companies can launch and recover payloads on demand, meaning even small states can buy top-notch equipment “off the shelf”. As Christopher Zember put it, “Once the pinnacle of national achievement, space has become a trophy to be traded between two business owners”. These days, even a committed enthusiast can now feasibly do genetic engineering in their basement. Other examples of dual-purpose technologies include encryption, surveillance, drones, AI and genomics. With commercial availability, proliferation of these technologies becomes wider and faster, creating more peer competitors on the state level and among non-state actors, and making it harder to broker agreements to stop them falling into the wrong hands.

7. The grey zone. The democratisation of weaponisable technology empowers non-state actors and individuals to create havoc on a massive scale. It also threatens stability by offering states more options in the form of “hybrid” warfare and the use of proxies to create plausible deniability and strategic ambiguity. When it is technically difficult to attribute an attack – already true with cyber, and becoming an issue with autonomous drones – conflicts can become more prone to escalation and unintended consequences.

8. Pushing the moral boundaries. Institutions governing legal and moral restraints on the conduct of war or controlling proliferation date from an era when massively destructive technology was reserved to a small, distinct set of actors – mostly states or people acting under state sponsorship. The function of state-centric institutions is impaired by the fact that states’ militaries are no longer necessarily at the cutting edge of technology: most of the talent driving research and development in today’s transformative dual-use technologies is privately employed, in part because the private sector simply has access to more money. For example, the private sector has invested more in AI research and development in five years than governments have since AI research first started. Diminishing state control of talent is epitomised by Uber`s recruitment of a team of robotics researchers from Carnegie Mellon University in 2015, which decimated the research effort they had had been working on for the United States department of Defence.

The fact that the trajectory of research – and much of the infrastructure critical to security – are in private hands need not be a problem if state actors were able to exercise oversight through traditional means such as norms development, regulation and law-making. However, the pace and intensity of innovation, and difficulty of predicting what new capabilities will be unleashed as new technologies intersect, makes it difficult for states to keep up. State-centric institutions for maintaining international security have failed to develop a systematic approach to address the possible long-term security implications of advances in areas as diverse as nanotechnology, synthetic biology, big data and machine learning. Nor have industry-led measures yet filled the gap.

9. Expanding domains of conflict. Domains of potential conflict such as outer space, the deep oceans, and the Arctic – all perceived as gateways to economic and strategic advantage – are expanding via new technologies and materials that can overcome inhospitable conditions. Like cyberspace, these are less well-governed than the familiar domains of land, sea and air: their lack of natural borders can make them difficult to reconcile with existing international legal frameworks, and technological development is both rapid and private sector-driven, which makes it hard for governance institutions to keep up.

Those who secure “first mover” advantage may also seek to defend it against the establishment of regulation and governance in the common interest. Access to the technology needed to reach and exploit space, for example, allows belligerents to compromise the effectiveness of defensive measures that rely on satellites for communications, navigation, command and control technology. Even a very limited strike on a satellite would likely cause space debris, damaging systems used by the wider community. Despite a 1967 United Nations treaty calling for the peaceful use of Space, the United States Deputy Secretary of the Air Force recently warned that “there is not an agreed upon code of conduct” for space operations.

10. What is physically possible becomes likely. History suggests that any technology – even one that gives moral pause – will eventually be developed in order to be used as a weapon. As the political theorist Carl Schmitt explained, political conflict is the “realm of exception” in all sorts of ways that make the morally unthinkable not only possible, but more likely. Professor Ole Wæver and the Copenhagen School of international relations developed the concept of “securitisation” to describe how a security actor invokes the principle of necessity as a way of getting around legal or moral restraints. Policy-makers can argue that because non-state actors, terrorist and criminal groups can access new technology, they are obliged to pursue weaponization, in order to prepare an adequate defence. Public disquiet can also be bypassed by conducting research in secret; we now know from de-classified accounts of Cold War studies that soldiers were used as guinea pigs to research the effects of new weapons, and military experiments may well be underway today in areas such as human enhancement. The tendency for the logic of conflict to drive the development of technology beyond what is considered acceptable by society under normal conditions is one more reason to pay closer attention to trends in this field.

Institutional shifts

International Security is destabilised at the institutional level by the way the 4th Industrial Revolution is empowering the individual through technology, and the way that blurs the lines between war and peace, military and civilian, domestic and foreign, public and private, and physical and digital. The democratisation of destruction has been mentioned above, but non-state groups’ leveraging of global social media – whether to gain support, undermine the morale of opponents, sow confusion, or provoke a response that will create an advantage – has increased the strategic importance of shaping perceptions and narratives about international security. ISIS’s use of online videos provide an extreme example of a non-state actor using social media to drive recruitment, while state security services in select countries employ online “trolls” on a large scale. Consider the implications for democratic control over armed force when technologies like big data analytics, machine learning, behavioural science and chatbots are fully enlisted in the battle over perceptions and control of the narrative.

The hacking attack suffered by Sony Pictures Entertainment in 2014, allegedly motivated by North Korea’s political grievance, highlights these blurring lines – and the resulting difficulty of deciding who should be responsible for security in this new reality. If someone were so offended by a movie that they burned down the studio’s warehouse, one would expect the police to step in. But is it ultimately the responsibility of the state or of corporations to prevent or deter the kind of attack experienced by Sony Pictures? What is the appropriate response? When does an attack on a private company constitute an act of war? As an increasing proportion of what we value gets uploaded onto a global infrastructure of information and communications technology, do we expect it to be protected by service providers like Apple, or by our state’s security agencies?

Little by little, the responsibility for defending citizens is effectively shifting away from the state and towards the private sector. It is, for example, your bank’s security chief who bears responsibility for protecting your money from international cyber theft, whether it comes from straightforward criminal groups or those acting under the sponsorship of sovereign states. A report by Internet security company McAfee and the think-tank CSIS estimated the likely annual cost to the global economy from cybercrime at more than $400 billion – roughly equivalent to the combined defence spending of the European Union, or the Asia region.

According to 17th century political theorist Thomas Hobbes, the citizen agrees to give up some freedom and render loyalty in exchange for protection and to escape the “natural condition” of life, which was otherwise “solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short”. In return, the state expects respect for its laws. But if citizens lose confidence in the state’s capacity to guarantee their security, be it through military protection or domestic justice and policing or social safety nets, they may also feel less of an obligation to be loyal to the state in return. In effect, the unravelling of the Hobbesian ”social contract”. This can undermine mechanisms for global governance, which consist of inter-state institutions that rely on state power for their effectiveness.

Could the relative loss of state power fatally undermine the system of international security? Several well-known tech entrepreneurs have talked in ways that suggest they see national governments not as a leader in norms development, but as an unnecessary inconvenience. Genetics innovator Balaji Srinivasan has envisioned “Silicon Valley`s ultimate exit” from the USA. Paypal co-founder Peter Thiel has floated the idea of establishing a sea colony to literally offshore himself from government regulation. Elon Musk has talked about colonising Mars. There is serious interest in businesses formulating their own foreign policy. These are interesting ideas, but until there is a credible rival the state for the role of main international security actor to meet the challenges of the Fourth Industrial Revolution, the character of state action on security will need to adapt to the new environment, re-position itself to accommodate other actors, and renegotiate relations across a widespread network of partnerships.

What is to be done?

As attitudes adapt to the new distribution of security responsibility between individuals, companies and institutions of governance, there is a need for a new approach to international security. There is plenty of room for debate about how that approach should look, but the baseline can be drawn through three points: it will need to be able to think long-term, adapt rapidly to the implications of technological advances, and work in a spirit of partnership with a wide range of stakeholders.

Institutional barriers between civilian and military spheres are being torn down. Outreach to Silicon Valley is a feature of current US Defence policy, for example, as are invitations to hackers to help the Department of Defence to maintain its advantage in the digital domain. The “third offset strategy” promoted by US Defence Secretary Ashton Carter is based on a recognition that private sector innovation has outstripped that of military institutions in the post-Cold War era, and a more open relationship with business as well as with academic and science institutions could prove vital to maintaining the dominance of US military capabilities.

Such is the speed, complexity and ubiquity of innovation today, we need a regulation process that looks ahead to how emerging technologies could conceivably be weaponized, without holding back the development of those technologies for beneficial ends. “Hard governance” of laws and regulations remain necessary, but we will also need to make more use of faster-moving “soft governance” mechanisms such as laboratory standards, testing and certification regimes, insurance policies and mechanisms like those set up by academics to make potentially dangerous research subject to approval and oversight. This will need to proactively anticipate and adapt to not only technological changes, but also macro-cultural ones, which are a lot harder to predict.

States and other security actors need to start exploring with each other some of the concepts and modes of operation that would make such a networked approach sustainable, legitimate and fit for the ultimate purpose of maintaining stability and promoting peaceful coexistence in the emerging international security landscape.

Instead of meeting each other in court, as the FBI met the Apple Corporation to settle their dispute about encryption, security providers could meet across a table, under new forms of public oversight and agile governance, as partners in a common endeavour. Instead of struggling along in denial, or wasting energy trying to fight the inevitable, stakeholders who have been working in parallel siloes can learn to collaborate for a safer world. What cast of actors populate this wider security ecosystem? What are shared priorities in terms of risks? What are some of the potential models for peer to peer security? How can the 4th Industrial Revolution be used to give citizens a stronger sense of control over choices of governance, or to deny space to criminal organizations and corrupt practices? Can smart contracts using block chain technology be applied to build confidence in financial transactions and peace agreements? Can defensive alliances be expanded to include or even consist entirely of non-state actors? Should international law extend the right to use proportionate force in self-defence in cyber conflict to commercial actors? What aspects of these challenges are a matter for legal instruments and regulation, and what aspects will require a new approach?

The future of national security may lie in models of self-defence that are decentralised and networked. As Jean-Marie Guéhenno, CEO of the International Crisis Group, wrote: “distribution of security measures among a multiplicity of actors – neighbourhoods, cities, private stakeholders – will make society more resilient. And over time, smaller but well-connected communities may be more effective at preventing and identifying terrorist threats among their members.” Several of the critical ingredients of such a de-centralized model are becoming available: more security responsibility is being taken up by city mayors and even civil society groups like the global hacktivist collective “Anonymous”, who declared war on the self-styled Islamic State. So far, however, this has been a haphazard phenomenon and its impact is diminished by a lack of coordination.

The answers that may emerge to these questions are unpredictable – but what is clear is the need to have a conversation that reaches across generations and across disciplines. This conversation has to be global. International security is threatened by a loss of trust, in particular between those who drew power from the last industrial revolution and those whose power is rising within a fluid and complex environment. The conversation needs to foster mutual understanding, dispel unjustified fears, and revive public confidence in new forms of responsive leadership that manifestly serve the common good.

8 Signs Predict the Coming Food Crisis In the Next Years!

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It can be hard to imagine a looming food crisis when you can walk into your local grocery store and see shelves overflowing with abundance. You can find easily find everything you need, and plenty that you don’t.

You might even ignore those around you warning you to stock up on food while you still can. In fact, they might seem like Chicken Little desperately calling out, “The sky is falling!”

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But don’t let the full shelves fool you. While the sky may not actually be falling, the world is facing a food shortage. It’s only a matter of time until it hits. Until then, the government wants you to keep walking into the stores, feeling like everything is fine.

The world’s food situation is not fine. Here are just eight of the many indicators that it’s time to stockpile food, and start growing some of your own.

1. Raising Food Prices

Have you noticed the price of groceries rising in your area? I sure have here, especially for basic staple ingredients such as butter, flour, and rice. Every time I head to the store, it seems like I have to stretch my food dollars a little further.

It’s not just in my neck of the woods where prices are creeping up. According to a study by the USDA Economic Research Service, supermarket prices are expected to rise .25-1.25 percent during 2025, and 1.0-2.0 percent during 2026. While those percentage points may seem low, they’re still moving up.

But, since the price of gas and food are intertwined, those numbers could soar past predictions if gas goes up again. Most of the food in the supermarket wasn’t grown in your local area. It was shipped there, requiring fuel.

As food prices continue rising, it’s getting harder and harder for families to buy what they need. That means the number of families now getting food assistance from the government continues to grow. It’s not a healthy outlook for our food supply.

2. Drought

Plants need water to grow and produce harvestable yields. As temperatures around the world rise, droughts are becoming more common.

Widespread droughts are hitting fertile cropland across the planet. From California to India, low rainfall and high temperatures cause devastation on crop production. Long-term forecasts indicate these weather patterns are likely to continue.

3. Diseases Wiping Out Crops & Animals

It’s not just the weather wreaking havoc on our food supply, it’s also disease. From the virulent Panama disease taking out bananas to African Swine Fever that can wipe out entire pig farms, diseases are running rampant in the food supply.

Modern food production techniques such as CAFOs create the perfect environment for peril. In a natural setting, you’d see a couple of pigs on farms across the landscape. They’d be interacting with nature, and have other animals and plant life around to help keep disease causing parasites at bay.

Instead, the majority of today’s pig farms are just pigs and concrete all around. When a disease comes in, it quickly moves through the whole herd. Often entire farms have to execute their animals to prevent the disease from spreading.

The loss of that many animals plays a role in rising food prices. Supply can no longer keep up with demand.

These issues aren’t just a problem for pigs. Cows, chickens, and other animals are being raised in conditions that make them prone for disease.

Crops are being raised in similar fashion. Instead of farmers growing a variety of crops, you see corn growing in huge fields for miles around. There are similar fields for soybeans, wheat, and other crops.

WARNING: Watching The Following Video Will Give You Access To Knowledge The Government Does NOT Want You To Know About

4. Food Safety Concerns

Have you noticed how often food is being recalled? From peanuts to frozen vegetables, meat to processed foods, it’s hard to trust the establishment to deliver safe food to your table. Listeria, e-coli, salmonella, and a host of other food borne illnesses are harming and killing people around the globe. Modern food handling practices have led to these food safety concerns.

Factories play a part in the production of numerous food products. When one factory has a role to play in the bulk of the food system, a containment can quickly spread.

Add transportation, storage, and unsafe handling, and you’ve got food that’s ready to play host to multiple strains of bacteria. Then there’s that whole GMO debate. Some countries don’t believe that genetically modified foods are safe for consumption. Others have drunk the GMO Kool-Aid and are pushing them on the marketplace at an astounding rate.

That’s another reason to grow your own food. You can pick heirloom varieties that haven’t been modified. No matter what you grow and preserve, be sure to inspect what you stockpile to ensure it’s safe.

5. Crops Being Used for Other Purposes

Crops aren’t just being grown to feed humans anymore. A huge portion of our food supply goes to feed cows. Cows were never meant to eat grains in the first place! Let them eat hay, and that’ll relieve a huge burden on our food supply.

Then there’s the whole ethanol thing. About a quarter of US corn is being used for fuel instead of food now. With a food crisis already in the works, using food for other purposes adds to the problem.

6. The Death of Small Farms

The family farmer is slowly become obsolete. Small family farms are being bought out by large mega-farms.

When single companies have their hands in so much of the food chain, a blow to one can cause huge problems. Conversely, when you have hundreds of small farms producing, it’s easy for the others to step in and make up the difference if one experiences loss.

But with rules and regulations definitely favoring mega-farms, it’s no wonder that small ones are selling out and shutting down. As governments continue persecuting small farmers, the number of farms producing your food will continue to shrink.

7. Mistreated Soil

The Fukushima crisis spewed nuclear material onto much of Japan. That soil isn’t safe to grow food in, and probably won’t be for a long time.

Nuclear disasters aren’t the only thing polluting our soil. Farming practices that strip all the nutrients out and dump chemicals back in also play a role.

Mega-farms don’t tend to care about the soil. They just like the money. Until sustainable practices are used in the ag industry, our soil will continue being mistreated.

Bad soil won’t grow as much food. However, it will keep bringing the food crisis closer to our reality.

processed food

8. Dependence on Processed Food

The majority of food on supermarket shelves is highly processed. This is the food that many people rely on to supply their nutrition on a daily basis. This boxed and packaged food hardly resembles real food. Because of this, people are becoming further removed from the source of their food.

Many don’t know how to make bread. They don’t know how to cut apart a chicken. They don’t know what animal hamburger comes from. For many people, food just comes from the store. That’s all they know, and this attitude is dangerous.

The further people get from their food, the easier it is for a crisis to occur. They’re totally dependent on other people to supply what they eat. When those farms or factories shut down, they simply won’t have a clue how to begin feeding themselves and their family.

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How to Prepare for the Food Crisis

It’s not too late to begin preparing for the coming food crisis. You can begin taking steps to ensure your family’s survival when the grocery store shelves are empty. Here are a few important ones:

Education

Ensure you know where your food comes from. If you are currently food ignorant, make friends with some farmers. Do some research. Learn all you can. Feeding yourself doesn’t have to be complicated!

To take it a step further, you can educate yourself about local food regulations. Be on the lookout for laws that are restricting your right to feed your family. Play an active role in the political process to end the regulations that are strangling small farms.

Buy Local

Source food that’s grown as close to you as possible. Not only will you be supporting your local economy and farmers, you’ll also be eating food that’s fresher.

Local sources of food are less likely to be affected by national food shortages. If you’re already used to finding food that’s not in a supermarket, you’ll be a step ahead when the time comes.

Start Producing Your Own Food

No matter where you live, you can begin growing your own food. If you don’t have much space, put a couple of containers in your windowsills. Learn how to grow food in small spaces.

If you have more space, consider getting some livestock. Rabbits and chickens are allowed in many cities, and you’ll be producing your own meat and eggs.

You can continue to expand your survival garden as space allows. Try to grow some of the nutritious foods described in this Survivopedia article.

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If you grow too much, learn how to preserve your harvest. Freezing, dehydrating, canning, and fermenting are some of the methods used to save food for later.

Producing your own food will help you lower your food bill and gain self-sufficiency. Everything you grow better prepares you for the food crisis.

Learn How to Cook

Stop buying processed food and take back your kitchen. Learn how to prepare simple, nutritious food that your family enjoys. Good food doesn’t have to be complicated!

Stockpile Food

Each time you go shopping, make it a point to buy some extra food. But, you shouldn’t just buy any food. You really need to stockpile what you actually eat.

Otherwise your family will have to adjust to both a crisis and new food when the time comes. It’s much better to have food on hand that you enjoy.

You don’t have to spend a ton of money to stock up. If your budget is really tight, try allocating just $5 or $10 a shopping trip. While it doesn’t sound like much, you’ll begin growing your reserves.

Be sure you store your stockpiles properly to keep pests and bacteria out. You also need to rotate your stores, which is why you should be eating what you’re storing. When I add to my stockpile, I put the new in the back. That way I use the older food first.

How Are You Preparing?

Have you noticed these eight signs of an approaching food crisis? Are there others you’d add to my list?

What basic steps are you taking to prepare? What advice would you give someone who is just starting to develop a preparedness mindset? Please share your tips in the comments section below so others can learn from you!

IT’S OFFICIAL!!! This executive order rips off the mask and officially marks them as what they’ve always been!

The world stands at a precipice. The 12-Day War was a prelude. What comes next may redefine or dent civilization itself.

The Looming Iran-Israel-U.S. Conflagration: A Global Power Play That Could Reshape the World Order

The drumbeats of war are no longer distant echoes, they are thundering across the Middle East, reverberating through global capitals, and shaking the foundations of the post–Cold War international system. What once seemed like speculative alarmism is now unfolding as a meticulously orchestrated geopolitical endgame, with Iran, Israel, and the United States locked in a high-stakes confrontation that promises to be anything but brief or contained.

You’ll Understand Everything After Watching This VIDEO!

Forget the so-called “12-Day War” of recent memory. Sources within defense and intelligence circles confirm that the next phase will not be a surgical strike or a limited retaliation, it will be a full-spectrum, decapitating campaign aimed at dismantling Iran’s nuclear infrastructure, military command, government officials, proxies and regional influence in stages of overwhelming blow. Yet this time, the calculus has shifted dramatically.

During the Trump administration, officials confidently claimed that Iran’s nuclear facilities had been “bombed into the ground,” rendering them inoperable for years. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and his inner circle echoed this narrative, projecting an image of irreversible strategic victory. But that was then. What happened again? Is it because Iran refused to cooperate with IAEA? No, not at all. Today, Iran has signaled, unequivocally, that it will show no restraint this time around, Did Israel forgot it had to appeal to Trump to step in bring the last conflict to a close? No! They want Iran crushed. Should hostilities erupt, which will definitely do very soon, Tehran has made it clear it will not only retaliate against Israel but will also target U.S. military assets and interests across the region. Crucially, Iran has warned that any country hosting American bases used to launch attacks against it will be considered a legitimate target. This is not bluster; it is doctrine.

Netanyahu, besieged by domestic unrest, international condemnation over Gaza, and mounting protests from a global coalition critical of Zionist policies, is running out of time. Analysts suggest that opening a new front with Iran may serve a dual purpose: diverting global attention from the humanitarian catastrophe in Palestine while creating the fog of war necessary to escalate operations in Gaza with reduced scrutiny. In essence, a war with Iran could become the smokescreen for a final, devastating push in the occupied territories.

The scale of military mobilization confirms these intentions. Under directives linked to President Donald Trump and current Pentagon leadership, there has been an unprecedented surge in the deployment of heavy weaponry to the Middle East. Fighter jets, glide bombs, and—most tellingly—large consignments of gravity bombs have been moved into position across U.S. and allied bases. You do not transport such ordnance unless you intend to use it.

Even more revealing is the reactivation of Cold War–era protocols. The U.S. Department of Defense has quietly restructured command channels in a manner reminiscent of the War Department’s mobilization before World War II. The reason for the recent summons to generals and admirals worldwide, signaling a shift to war footing. Meanwhile, dozens of KC-135 and KC-46 aerial refueling tankers now sit in Qatar, assets that exist solely to enable deep-strike missions over Iranian territory. The USS Gerald R. Ford carrier strike group looms in the Mediterranean, a textbook prelude to escalation. Meanwhile, the geopolitical chessboard is fracturing along new fault lines. The U.S. recently signed a sweeping defense pact with Qatar, declaring that any attack on the emirate constitutes a direct threat to American national security. This isn’t about Qatar—it’s about securing Al Udeid Air Base from Iran missiles, the largest U.S. military installation in the region, as a launchpad for operations against Iran.

Yet the U.S. arsenal is not without vulnerabilities. With SM-6 missile inventories critically low, planners are reportedly relying on old Tomahawk cruise missiles, subsonic, slower, and more susceptible to Iran’s increasingly sophisticated air defenses. This reliance on legacy systems underscores both urgency and strategic risk. With Iran signalling the readiness to use advance weapons integrated with air defense.

Iran, for its part, is far from passive. Intelligence from regional sources indicates Tehran has fortified its asymmetric warfare capabilities. Its ultimate trump card? The Strait of Hormuz. Just 21 miles wide, this maritime chokepoint handles nearly 20% of the world’s oil exports. Even a partial closure would send oil prices soaring past $200 a barrel, trigger global supply chain collapse, and ignite economic chaos from Berlin to Beijing. Iran doesn’t need to win militarily, it only needs to make victory unbearably costly for its adversaries. We see Kurdish quick supply of oil to the global market, an alternative move the West played, in the case of Iran oil blockade, but sources have said even Kurdish will not be able to serve that purpose.

Iran Executive Six Mossad Operatives

Mossad, Israel’s intelligence agency, has allegedly been orchestrating covert destabilization campaigns in northern Iran via Azerbaijan. But this shadow war suffered a major setback when six operatives were captured and executed, a stark reminder that Iran is watching, and ready.

Regionally, no nation can remain neutral. Egypt’s President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi faces mounting pressure to act, as public outrage over perceived complicity with Israel grows. Pakistan, backed by China and possessing a nuclear arsenal it has declared “an Islamic deterrent,” stands ready to intervene if Israel crosses the nuclear threshold. Riyadh’s recent nuclear umbrella agreement with Islamabad is no coincidence, it’s a hedge against total regional collapse, to be on the safe haven of Western allies and Islamic State protection.

Pakistan, a nuclear-armed state that refuses to be sidelined. Backed by robust Chinese financial and military support, Islamabad has quietly repositioned itself as a key deterrent in the Islamic world. Pakistani officials have reiterated that their nuclear arsenal is not solely for national defense but is, in their words, “an Islamic shield” available to any Muslim nation facing existential threat. While never explicitly naming Israel, the implication is clear: should Tel Aviv resort to nuclear weapons in a desperate attempt to “decapitate” Iran, Pakistan may not remain neutral. The mere possibility of nuclear escalation however remote, adds a terrifying layer of unpredictability to an already volatile equation.

IT’S OFFICIAL!!! This executive order rips off the mask and officially marks them as what they’ve always been!

Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, long straddling the fence between East and West, may soon be forced to choose a side as domestic unrest swells and opposition forces demand decisive action. The Iran-Israel crisis could be the catalyst that finally pulls Ankara off the sidelines. In a move that signals a dramatic shift in regional power dynamics, Turkey recently denied passage to an Indian naval vessel reportedly en route to support Israeli operations in the Eastern Mediterranean. This isn’t mere bureaucratic friction, it’s a calculated geopolitical statement. By blocking the warship’s transit through the Turkish Straits under the Montreux Convention, Ankara has effectively lifted a finger, not in aggression, but in assertion. It’s a quiet yet unmistakable declaration that Turkey will no longer serve as a passive corridor for military actions it opposes, especially those aligned with Israel during a period of escalating tension with Iran.

Meanwhile, the United States has placed its entire global military command structure on high alert. From CENTCOM to EUCOM and INDOPACOM, readiness levels have been elevated to near-crisis status. Commanders across all theaters are being instructed to maintain constant operational preparedness, not just for potential direct conflict with Iran, but for cascading contingencies that could erupt from the Middle East to the South China Sea. This synchronized posture reflects a doctrine of “full-spectrum dominance,” but also reveals deep anxiety within the Pentagon: the fear that a regional war could spiral into a multipolar confrontation.

The Houthis of Yemen are far from passive observers in the escalating Iran-Israel-U.S. crisis, they are active, and have confirmed they will go all out against Israel. Their are now capable, and increasingly audacious players reshaping the regional balance of power. No longer reliant on rudimentary rockets, Houthi forces have developed and deployed a new generation of precision-guided, long-range missiles and drones capable of striking deep inside Israeli territory with alarming accuracy and minimal warning. Intelligence assessments confirm these systems, some reverse-engineered with Iranian assistance, others indigenously engineered, can now bypass layered air defenses and reach Tel Aviv, Haifa, and even Dimona without significant difficulty.

More than a military capability, this advancement is a strategic declaration: the Houthis have made it unequivocally clear that any large-scale U.S.-Israeli assault on Iran will trigger an immediate and sustained campaign against maritime traffic in the Red Sea and the Bab el-Mandeb Strait. They have vowed to bring global shipping to a standstill, targeting commercial vessels linked to Israel, the U.S., or their allies. Given that nearly 12% of global trade and 30% of container traffic between Asia and Europe passes through this chokepoint, such a blockade would inflict immediate economic shockwaves worldwide, spiking insurance premiums, rerouting supply chains, and potentially triggering a second energy and commodity crisis.

This is not theoretical posturing. Recall how, Trump administration, the USS Dwight D. Eisenhower aircraft carrier strike group was abruptly withdrawn from the Eastern Mediterranean after Houthi threats intensified, officially framed as the result of a “diplomatic understanding,” but widely known as a tacit acknowledgment of Houthi deterrence. The message was clear: even the world’s most powerful navy hesitates when asymmetric actors control critical maritime arteries.

Meanwhile, Iraq has taken a firm stance: Baghdad has formally declared it will not permit its airspace or territory to be used by any belligerent faction in a future conflict. This is a significant shift from past permissiveness and reflects growing Iraqi sovereignty concerns, public anti-American sentiment, and pressure from powerful Iran-aligned factions within its own security apparatus. Should the U.S. or Israel attempt to route strikes through Iraqi skies, they risk not only diplomatic rupture but potential retaliation from Iraqi paramilitary groups. Though Azerbaijan is on the side of the Israel, and it airspace open for Israel use, is also on the line of attack from Iran.

Now, as tensions surge again, the Houthis are signaling they will act as Iran’s western flank, tying down U.S. naval assets, stretching Israeli air defenses, and forcing Washington to fight a multi-front shadow war it never planned for.

China and Russia have moved swiftly to bolster Iran’s defensive and offensive capabilities. Just weeks ago, Tehran, Beijing, and Moscow formalized a trilateral defense cooperation treaty, cementing what many analysts now describe as an “anti-hegemonic axis.” Intelligence reports confirm the delivery of advanced air defense systems, electronic warfare suites, precision-guided munitions, and even satellite intelligence-sharing protocols to Iran. These aren’t symbolic gestures; they are force multipliers designed to deter, delay, and if necessary, inflict unacceptable costs on any coalition attempting a strike on Iranian soil.

Disturbing intelligence assessments suggest the United States could exploit the chaos of an Iran-Israel conflagration to launch a simultaneous “law enforcement” operation in Venezuela, framed as a renewed “war on drugs” but functionally serving as a strategic diversion. By igniting a secondary crisis in Latin America, Washington could flood global news cycles with narratives of cartel violence and narco-terrorism, effectively drawing public attention and journalistic scrutiny away from military actions in the Middle East. Such a tactic would mirror historical precedents where secondary conflicts were used to mask primary geopolitical maneuvers.

The once-celebrated 21-point U.S.-Israel coordination framework for Gaza-Palestine now lies in tatters. Both nations are reportedly suspending other regional operations to concentrate entirely on what insiders refer to as “the Iran phase.” Military preparations are complete, with activation windows reportedly opening as early as late October. The urgency is palpable—and deeply political.

And behind it all looms a deeper, more insidious agenda. Critics warn that this manufactured crisis could serve as the final domino in the so-called “Great Reset”—a global power consolidation masked as emergency response. In the wake of economic shock, governments may fast-track Central Bank Digital Currencies, enforce universal digital IDs, and implement programmable money systems under the guise of “stability” and “security.”

Together, these developments reveal a world no longer governed by unipolar dictates but fractured into competing spheres of influence, shadow alliances, and covert red lines. Turkey’s blockade, Venezuela’s vulnerability, Pakistan’s nuclear posture, and Israel’s media machine are not isolated events, they are interconnected nodes in a global crisis architecture. What unfolds in the deserts of Iran may well echo in the boardrooms of Beijing, the corridors of Ankara, the slums of Caracas, and the digital feeds of billions.

This is more than a regional war in the making. It is the birth pang of a new world order, one defined not by treaties alone, but by who controls the narrative, the oil, the data, and ultimately, and the so called truth.

This is not merely a regional conflict. It is a battle for the soul of the 21st century, a clash between multipolarity and digital authoritarianism, between sovereignty and surveillance, between chaos and control.

The world stands at a precipice. The 12-Day War was a prelude. What comes next may redefine or dent civilization itself.

You’ll Understand Everything After Watching This VIDEO! 

The Secret Network That Could Have Crippled New York

How a Clandestine SIM Empire Threatened Chaos on the Eve of UNGA

The Secret Network That Could Have Crippled New York

In late September 2025, the U.S. Secret Service publicly revealed the dismantlement of a sophisticated, hidden telecommunications network spanning the New York tristate area. This operation, conducted in coordination with multiple federal and local agencies, neutralized a system capable of severely disrupting cellular communications in New York City, including overwhelming cell towers, jamming emergency 911 calls, and enabling anonymous encrypted messaging for criminal and threat actors. The network was discovered amid an investigation into swatting threats against high-profile officials and was seized just days before the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) convened in Manhattan on September 23, 2025. No direct plot targeting the UNGA was identified, and no arrests have been announced as of September 29, 2025. Forensic analysis remains ongoing.

Discovery and Seizure

The network came to light through the Secret Service’s Advanced Threat Interdiction Unit, which was initially tracking a surge of anonymous swatting calls—false emergency reports designed to provoke armed police responses—against senior U.S. officials. These calls were masked using SIM (Subscriber Identity Module) spoofing technology to evade traceability. Tracing the signals led investigators to five covert sites within a 35-mile radius of Manhattan, forming a strategic ring around key cellular infrastructure. The locations included:

  • Armonk, New York
  • Greenwich, Connecticut
  • Queens, New York
  • Multiple sites across New Jersey

On or around September 23, 2025, agents raided these “electronic safe houses” and seized the largest cache of such devices in Secret Service history: over 300 co-located SIM servers functioning as “SIM farms” (arrays of simulated cellphones) and more than 100,000 SIM cards. Additional items recovered included 80 grams of cocaine, illegal firearms, computers, and cellphones, suggesting ties to broader criminal activity. The sites were reportedly leased or operated under the guise of legitimate businesses, highlighting vulnerabilities in commercial real estate for adversarial operations.

Matt McCool, Special Agent in Charge of the Secret Service’s New York Field Office, described the find as an “imminent threat” to protective operations, emphasizing the agency’s preventive mandate. Secret Service Director Sean Curran stated: “This investigation makes it clear to potential bad actors that imminent threats to our protectees will be immediately investigated, tracked down and dismantled.”

Network Capabilities and Potential Impact

The dismantled system was a highly organized, well-funded operation designed for both offensive disruption and covert communication. Key functionalities included:

  • Network Overload: Servers could remotely generate massive volumes of calls and texts, flooding cell towers and causing denial-of-service (DoS) attacks. McCool noted it could “send an encrypted and anonymous text to every human being in the United States within 12 minutes” or overwhelm NYC’s cellular grid, preventing access to services like Google Maps for all Manhattan residents.
  • Emergency Service Jamming: By saturating 911 lines and infrastructure, it could block emergency calls while hindering coordination for police, fire, EMS, hospitals (e.g., patient monitoring), and transportation systems (e.g., train tracking).
  • Anonymous Communications: Enabled encrypted, untraceable messaging between nation-state actors and groups like organized crime syndicates, cartels, and terrorists. SIM cards could rotate rapidly to dodge detection.

The potential havoc was likened to post-9/11 cellular blackouts in NYC (2001) and the Boston Marathon bombing overload (2013), where networks collapsed under strain. In a city like New York, reliant on cellular links for critical infrastructure, this could escalate to life-threatening scenarios, including disrupted water/power systems and municipal services.

Early forensics indicate cellular communications between “nation-state threat actors” (specific countries undisclosed) and known criminal entities, though no ties to particular governments or groups have been confirmed. Investigators are analyzing “all the phone calls, all the text messages” from the 100,000+ SIMs, a process expected to take weeks or months.

Involved Agencies and Broader Context

The operation involved a multi-agency task force:

  • U.S. Secret Service (lead, protective intelligence)
  • New York Police Department (NYPD, local enforcement and cyberintelligence)
  • Department of Homeland Security (DHS, investigations)
  • Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI, intelligence analysis)
  • U.S. Department of Justice (legal oversight)

This fits into rising concerns over telecommunications as a geopolitical battleground, with SIM farms increasingly used by adversaries for hybrid threats. NYC’s history of infrastructure vulnerabilities—e.g., ConEd blackouts in 2019 and 2020 affecting tens of thousands—underscores the stakes. Public discourse on X (formerly Twitter) has amplified the story, with users sharing news links and speculating on foreign involvement, though no verified new details emerged.

Current Status and Ongoing Developments

As of September 29, 2025, no suspects have been named or charged, and officials stress there are “no known credible threats” to NYC. The Secret Service has warned of similar networks’ potential nationwide, urging vigilance. For the latest updates, monitor official channels like the Secret Service’s newsroom. This event highlights the evolving risks of telecom sabotage in urban centers, blending cyber, physical, and criminal elements.


Verified Chatter on the Dismantled New York Telecom Network

Verified information stems from official statements by the U.S. Secret Service, corroborated by major news outlets like AP, The Guardian, CNBC, PBS, NBC News, and CNN. These reports, based on agency briefings and forensic previews, confirm the network’s existence, capabilities, and seizure without arrests or a confirmed plot. Key details include:

  • Discovery and Operation: The network was uncovered via a Secret Service investigation into swatting threats (anonymous hoax calls prompting armed responses) against senior U.S. officials. Agents from the Secret Service’s Advanced Threat Interdiction Unit traced signals to five sites in a 35-mile radius around Manhattan, including Armonk, NY; Greenwich, CT; Queens, NY; and multiple New Jersey locations. Raids occurred around September 23, 2025, just before the UN General Assembly (UNGA) opened on September 22. Sites were disguised as legitimate businesses or vacant spaces.
  • Seized Assets: Over 300 co-located SIM servers (functioning as “SIM farms” simulating thousands of phones) and more than 100,000 SIM cards. Additional finds: 80 grams of cocaine, illegal firearms, computers, and cellphones, indicating criminal ties. The largest such seizure in Secret Service history.
  • Capabilities: Designed for overload attacks—generating millions of calls/texts per minute to flood cell towers, causing denial-of-service (DoS) blackouts. Could jam 911 lines, disrupt EMS/police coordination, and enable untraceable encrypted messaging between actors. Potential to send texts to every U.S. phone in 12 minutes or collapse NYC’s grid, akin to 9/11 or Boston Marathon overloads. Early forensics show communications between “nation-state threat actors” (undisclosed countries) and known criminals, but no specific government links confirmed.
  • Impact and Response: No direct UNGA plot found; officials emphasize “no known credible threats” to NYC as of September 29. Involved agencies: Secret Service (lead), NYPD, DHS, ODNI, DOJ. Director Sean Curran called it preventive action against “imminent threats.” Special Agent Matt McCool warned of “catastrophic” potential if activated, including halted trains, hospital monitors, and municipal services. Forensic analysis of calls/texts ongoing, expected to take weeks/months.
  • Broader Context: Highlights telecom as a hybrid threat vector, with SIM farms used by adversaries for sabotage. No arrests announced; investigation active.

Public discourse on X echoes these facts, with users like @GenFlynn, @MAGACharlie2024, and @securityblvd reposting agency details and videos, stressing national security implications.

Unverified Chatter and Speculation

Unverified claims dominate X discussions, often blending facts with conjecture, conspiracy, or unrelated events. These lack official backing and stem from user posts, with engagement driven by alarmism. Common themes:

  • Nation-State Attribution: Widespread speculation pins it on China or Russia, citing “nation-state actors” vaguely. @xiaominz_film (a Chinese film director) claims it’s a “fake number factory” for opinion manipulation and harassment, infiltrated “like a sieve” by foreign powers, possibly linked to UNGA glitches like teleprompter failures. @MAGACharlie2024 and @GenFlynn call it an “act of war” with “earmarks of a nation-state,” urging U.S. retaliation to avoid “losing without a shot fired.” @5tuxnet (cybersecurity pro) notes ties to swatting but speculates on foreign maintenance crews.
  • Conspiracy Ties: Links to unrelated incidents, e.g., @ColonelTowner connects it to Microsoft’s September 25 halt of services to an Israeli Defense Ministry division, implying broader intel ops. @SydCrafty ties it to Australia’s Optus outage (post-deaths), suggesting NYC as a “practice ground” for global shutdowns, questioning funding and “ring formation” of sites. @its_The_Dr dismisses a separate Pentagon “hit” as staged, loosely associating with telecom sabotage.
  • Doomsday Scenarios: Exaggerations include crashing Wall Street/banks (@MAGACharlie2024) or enabling full EBS (Emergency Broadcast System) blackouts (@Real_Gesara_Qfs, tying to NESARA/QFS myths, MedBeds, and Vatican files—pure fiction). @JoshuaSteinman (pre-event, September 20) warns of a “plot” tracked for months by LE/IC, urging insiders to act.
  • Technical/Operational Guesses: @lakiw (security researcher) suspects scammers renting it for fraud, not DoS, based on NYC cellular experience. @RustyRocket101 posts unverified “facsimile maps” of sites and claims 30 million texts/minute capacity. @NesaraGesara0 and @HillsOutBack amplify without new info.
  • Global/Tech Angles: @telecominfra and @cmsdownload share blog recaps, speculating on “clandestine” foreign leasing of warehouses. @AlpToygar1 decries adversaries “renting warehouses” with “cutting-edge tech” to “destroy America.” @QBCCIntegrity links to a Melbourne EMP-like train outage, calling it “not a fault.”
  • Other Noise: Off-topic posts like @drawandstrike on DC mortgage fraud, @thebeaconsignal on JFK “ritual,” or @apsk32’s fictional “transmission” dilute focus. Engagement spikes on alarmist threads (e.g., @GenFlynn: 11k+ likes).

Overall, verified chatter reinforces the Secret Service’s narrative of a prevented threat, while unverified amplifies fears of foreign sabotage amid UNGA timing. No new developments as of September 29; monitor official sources for updates.


Correlations in the Dismantled New York Telecom Network

Based on the verified details from the U.S. Secret Service announcement and ongoing investigations, combined with patterns from similar incidents, I’ve identified several key correlations that suggest this wasn’t a standalone criminal operation but part of a broader hybrid threat ecosystem. These links point to coordinated efforts blending state-sponsored espionage, cyber disruption, and criminal facilitation:

  1. Timing with High-Profile Events: The raids occurred around September 23, 2025, mere days before the UN General Assembly’s high-level week (September 22–27), when over 150 world leaders, including U.S. officials and figures like Donald Trump, were in Manhattan. This aligns with historical patterns of telecom sabotage during diplomatic summits—e.g., Russia’s alleged interference in 2018 NATO events or China’s suspected network probing ahead of 2022 G20 in Bali. No direct UNGA plot was confirmed, but the network’s proximity (within 35 miles) and overload capacity could have amplified chaos during evacuations or protests.
  2. Swatting and Assassination Threats as Entry Point: The discovery stemmed from tracing SIM-spoofed swatting calls (hoax emergencies triggering SWAT responses) against senior U.S. officials, starting last spring. This mirrors a surge in such attacks linked to foreign influence ops, like the 2023-2024 wave attributed to Russian trolls targeting U.S. lawmakers. The network’s encrypted messaging enabled “anonymous threats,” correlating with intercepted comms between nation-states and “known criminals” (e.g., cartels, traffickers), including the 80g cocaine and illegal firearms seized—hallmarks of narco-state hybrids.
  3. Technical and Operational Similarities to Known State Tools: SIM farms of this scale (300+ servers, 100k+ cards) are rare outside state-backed ops; they’re used for SMS bombing (up to 30M texts/min) and DoS attacks, akin to Iran’s 2020-2021 floods on U.S. carriers or China’s 2023 TikTok-linked spam campaigns. The “ring” of sites (Armonk NY, Greenwich CT, Queens NY, NJ) around NYC’s cell infrastructure suggests strategic placement for maximum disruption, much like the 2016 Mirai botnet (Russian-tied) that targeted U.S. DNS. Forensics show cellular links to “nation-state threat actors,” with no domestic-only explanations fitting the funding and evasion tech.
  4. Criminal-Nation-State Nexus: Seized items tie to organized crime (e.g., fraud rings, human trafficking), but the sophistication—rapid SIM rotation, co-located servers—exceeds typical syndicates. This echoes U.S. indictments of Chinese firms like Sichuan Silence (2024) for SIM-based espionage aiding cartels, or Russian GRU ops funneling ransomware proceeds to proxies.
  5. Broader Geopolitical Chatter: X discussions spike with UNGA overlaps, swatting trends, and recent telecom vulns (e.g., AT&T’s July 2024 breach). Unverified threads speculate on “act of war” ties to election interference, but verified leaks point to foreign leasing of U.S. warehouses for such farms.

These correlations paint a picture of premeditated hybrid warfare: not just disruption, but a platform for influence ops during a global spotlight.


My Prediction: Who’s Behind It?

Applying predictive reasoning—drawing from attribution models like MITRE ATT&CK for telecom threats, historical precedents (e.g., SolarWinds by Russia, Volt Typhoon by China), and the fresh intel from leaks—I predict the primary orchestrator is China (specifically, elements of the CCP’s Ministry of State Security or PLA Unit 61398 proxies). Here’s why, step-by-step:

  • Direct Evidence Leaks: Multiple law enforcement sources briefed on the probe explicitly link it to the Chinese government, with the network’s SIMs tied to CCP-directed threats against U.S. officials. This isn’t vague speculation; it’s from ABC News insiders, corroborated by the Secret Service’s “nation-state” phrasing, which often veils China to avoid escalation.
  • Motive Fit: UNGA timing screams Beijing’s playbook—disrupt U.S.-led diplomacy while probing infrastructure. China has escalated telecom espionage post-2024 Taiwan tensions, with FBI warnings of “pre-positioned” hacks on U.S. grids. Crippling NYC cells could mask physical ops (e.g., against Trump or envoys) or sow panic amid anti-China rhetoric at the summit.
  • Capability Match: China’s dominance in SIM tech (via Huawei/ZTE supply chains) and history of SIM farms for fraud/espionage (e.g., 2023 Operation CuckooBees) aligns perfectly. The criminal ties? CCP routinely proxies through triads or cartels for deniability, as in the 2022 fentanyl precursor ops.
  • Probability Breakdown: 70% China (strongest signals); 20% Russia (hybrid warfare expertise, but less UNGA focus); 10% Iran/North Korea (opportunistic, but tech scale mismatches). If forensics drop more (expected in weeks), expect indictments naming Chinese entities, like the 2024 Sichuan case.

This was a close call—kudos to the Secret Service—but it underscores telecom as the new cyber frontier. If activated, it could’ve echoed 9/11 blackouts on steroids. What’s your take on the China angle?


First Things You Need to Do Right Now to Be Prepared For a Natural or Man-Made Disaster

In today’s world we need to be vigilant and prepared for sudden changes in our environment which may be brought on by Mother Nature or Political Activities. We all want to protect our family from harm, and preparedness for disaster emergencies should be one of our top priorities. I’m not advocating that you pack up your family and move to some isolated location to hide from the world, but I am offering simple preparations for ice storms, floods, hurricanes, or terrorist activities will make your existence much more palatable during the disaster.

1. Be prepared – Yes, the first thing on the list is to use the list to be prepared. It is one thing to take a glance at the list, but unless you actually put this list into a workable plan for your family, then reading this is just wasted time on your part. Just making the preparations will give you a sense of calm when faced with the disaster.

This sense of calm will work in your favor because you will be less likely to be one of the hordes of people acting in a reactionary, fear driven, panic when the reality of the disaster is recognized (usually when the news anchors start saying things like “This is going to be bad.”… or… “We can’t stress enough the dangerous nature of this storm.”… or… “Here is video of people fighting over the last of the bread at this grocery store.”… or… “The police have lost control of this area of town.” While the crowds are rushing to the grocery store and emptying the aisles of bread and milk, you will be safely at home making last minute preparations to keep yourself and your family safe.

Because I realize that there is a definite cost factor in making these preparations, I will try to prioritize the items on the list as to which are absolutely necessary and which ones can be added as funds are available. Any item with an * next to it is a priority item and needs to be included from the beginning. To my Prepper Friends, I do realize that this list will not satisfy your need to prepare for any and all situations and it is only a short term duration solution, so don’t pounce on me with a long list of items that you think I have left off. It is intentionally a short, condensed list which is meant to help an average family through a short term disaster situation, not a nuclear holocaust. I also have not addressed any need for firearms or ammunition.

A big part of the preparation is being organized. There will be enough things to be concerned with when the situation presents itself, trying to remember where all of your supplies might be stored should not be one of them. Buy one of the following. We will be storing everything possible in them, so your preparedness items will be readily available to you when you need them.

a. Storage Locker* – Find a well built, heavy plastic storage locker that is large enough to hold a lot of gear, but still small enough to fit in the trunk of your car or the bed of your truck. This is not one of those plastic storage bins that people use to store winter clothes in during the summer, this thing needs to be a bit more durable than that. Find one with handles to make it easier to move into and out of your vehicle. Most stores like Academy will have them starting at about $20.

b. Backpack* – This is not a child’s school backpack. Go to the camping section and find one that is well made, durable, and large enough to hold lots of stuff. Don’t worry about it being too big, we are not going to have to backpack across the Grand Canyon with it, and my experience is that you ALWAYS need more space to store stuff. The starting price for a good one will be around $39, but if you can only afford a back-to-school type backpack, go ahead and get it, we can always upgrade later.

2. Shelter from the weather – Unexpected disasters will likely subject you to the elements. This could be due to a fast developing situation where you are caught away from home when the disaster strikes, or it could result from a storm that has caused widespread power outages, broken windows in your home, or taken off a portion of your roof. Exposure to the weather is not just annoying, it can be dangerous. The combination of being wet and cold is deadly.

a. Polyethylene tarp – These come in a variety of sizes and are quite inexpensive. (a 6×8 tarp is only about $5 if you check some camping supply stores). These are great for keeping out the weather if windows are broken during a storm. They can also be used for a makeshift tent if you happen to be caught out of your home when the disaster strikes. They will be great for keeping you dry and holding off the wind. Get 3-4 of them. Put them in your storage locker.

b. Plastic rain poncho* – One for every member of your family, plus a few extra (they are cheap (as little as $1) and will get torn when being worn for any length of time). Get the kind that fold up into a small pouch. Put into your backpack.

c. Quart – ½ Gallon sized plastic zip-lock bags* – These will be used to store some of the items on this list as well as storage of food and medicines. These are important, but cheap. Put in the storage locker.

d. Wool, Cotton, Fleece pullover or Hoodie – One for every member of the family. My preference would be wool, but anything is better than nothing. They are about $12 each for Haynes brand at most stores. If the power goes out, or if you are caught away from home, the cooler temps at night are deceptively dangerous. One main goal is to stay dry and warm. Roll up and place into a zip-lock bag and then put in your backpack.

e. Extra wool or cotton socks* – Two or three pair for every member of the family. Style is not important here, regular white tube socks are just fine (about $8 for a pack of 3). Cheap, but a fresh change of socks can do wonders, and will help keep your feet more healthy and comfortable during the disaster situation and can act as emergency mittens if needed. I can’t say enough about taking care of your feet. I know it sounds trivial, but it is not. Put unopened packs into zip-lock bags and then into your backpack (keeping them dry is key).

f. Change of clothes* – A complete change of clothes for each member of the family. This is not time for a fashion statement, we are after durability and function here. Long pants (blue jeans) and a long sleeve shirt. Don’t forget a change of underwear. Also include a pair of shoes that you would be comfortable wearing for long periods of time. An old pair of tennis shoes might be the answer. Really no costs here, we are going to use clothes we already have in the closet, but probably don’t wear because it has a stain on it, or it is not a color we wear often. Put in the storage locker.

g. Sleeping Bag – One for each member of the family. In this case, I am recommending a specific product, SOL Emergency Bivvy Bag* (do a Google search for stores selling it). Sells for about $17 each but packs up very small and will save your life. Much smaller than a standard sleeping bag (starting price, around $20). If you have the room for a sleeping bag for each person, by all means get them. Store the SOL Emergency Bivvy Bag in your backpack, and the Sleeping bags in a single location near where you will store the backpack and storage locker.

3. Safety and Security – There are several items that you will need to make sure that you and your family remain healthy and safe.

a. Medical Kit – You should get two kits.

I. The first is a small, compact first aid kit* that can easily be stored in a zip-lock bag and placed in your backpack and are designed to take care of minor medial issues like blisters, splinters, sprains, etc. They sell for less than $20.

ii. The next is a more complete kit, sometimes called a trauma kit. It contains more supplies and tools and is usually marketed as a Sportsman’s First Aid Kit, or an Outdoors Adventure Medical Kit (starting price is about $49). Store this in your storage locker.

b. CPR Training* – At least one person in your family needs to be CPR certified. The Red Cross and American Heart Association offer classes on a regular basis, but usually charge for the certification class ($70-$110). Most fire departments also offer classes but these classes do not provide a certification needed to fulfill any job requirements (usually free).

c. Know your evacuation routes* – Think about where you could go if you had to quickly leave your home due to the disaster. Keep in mind the destinations that would be appropriate for the situation (going to stay with your Uncle on the coast may work well if your home is threatened by a fire, but is not a good idea if you are fleeing a hurricane). Get an old fashioned paper map ($5-$10) and learn how to read it, don’t rely on your navigation app to get you anywhere, the system could be down due to the disaster. Have more than one route mapped out for each destination, roads may be impassable and you may need to find a secondary route. Keep the map in your vehicle.

d. Make a list of contacts* – Everyone in the family should have a list of important contacts they carry with them. Make sure you include numbers for your office, your partner’s office, your children’s schools, day care, doctors, and close family members. Include the numbers of your health and home owner’s insurance companies, as well as your policy numbers. On this list include information of any medical condition and medications needed for all family members (for young children, also include the date of birth). Also designate a family member or friend that will serve as the point-of-contact if your family is separated. Choosing someone out of town is a good idea because they may be less likely to be experiencing the same issues in their area as you are experiencing in yours. Put this list inside of a zip-lock bag and place in your backpack (and an emergency contact list in your child’s school backpack).

e. Money – In disaster situations, ATM’s, credit cards and debit cards may not work or may not be accepted by merchants. Have a stash of emergency funds available in cash. It doesn’t need to be lots of money, but make sure that you have both small bills and some change (probably quarters) already packed in your backpack. The amount that you choose is up to you, but I suggest that it is enough to get a tank of gas, a few meals for the family while on the road, or buy some last minute item needed for the situation at hand.

4. Food and Water – It is a good idea to have a minimum of three days’ emergency supply of food* on hand at all times. My preference would be two weeks. Keep in mind that this does not mean regular full blown meals, these are meals during emergency situations. If you are remaining at home and the power is gone, here are some guidelines to follow:

a. First, use perishable goods from the pantry (apples, bananas, oranges, potatoes, hard packaged salamis, sausages, pepperoni, etc.) and food items in the refrigerator. Do not open the freezer!

b. Second, use the items stored in your freezer. Limit the number of times the freezer door is opened. Foods stored in a well-stocked freezer will still have ice crystals in the center even after two days of no power and will be safe to eat. Place zip-lock bags ¾ filled with water into the freezer so that you will have ice bags already in the freezer if the power goes off. These bags will fit into the spaces between items and will help keep them frozen and safe for longer periods of time after the power is out.

c. Third, use non-perishable items from the pantry. If you don’t already have them on hand, these are also the things you want to stock up on if you have a warning that a storm is headed your way. Don’t worry about bread and milk. The following items should be a part of your emergency supply because will last a long time and will be a perfect supplement for your family’s nutrition: Peanut butter, nuts, canned meats, canned vegetable soups, canned fruits and vegetables, dried fruits, instant cereals that only require water, white rice, hard candy and canned nuts, crackers, trail mix, granola bars, power bars, sports drinks.

d. Water is essential for life. It is also needed for cleaning utensils, cooking, bathing, and brushing teeth. Maintaining personal hygiene is a top priority in a disaster situation. Not only does it keep you physically healthy, but it gives you a morale boost as well. Store your water near the storage locker so that you know exactly where it is when the disaster strikes.

I. A minimum of one gallon of water per family member per day. This will supply the needs of each person for personal hygiene. This water can be stored in plastic containers and filled when making last minute preparations for the disaster (time permitting). I suggest getting several 5-gallon collapsible containers* from the camping supply store (about $7). When not in use, they take up very little space. While water supplies are usually not totally disrupted during storms, the water supply may become contaminated. If these containers are filled at the beginning of the storm or disaster preparation, the water will be good for personal hygiene or for drinking (if needed) for several months.

ii. Bottled water for drinking packaged in small containers is great for almost any situation. They can be included in a backpack, carried in your pocket, or loose in the vehicle for use at any time. A case of bottled water can be as little as $2 at the grocery store and has a relatively long shelf life.

5. Tools – There are certain things that you need to have on hand to be prepared for a disaster situation. Place these in the storage locker.

a. Flashlight – Having working flashlights is a must. Do not make the mistake of buying flashlights for your disaster kit and then using them around the house. If you do, then you will inevitably find them with dead batteries when they are needed most. Get several LED flashlights with a minimum brightness of 15-20 lumens*. If you have children, get a multi-pack of LED flashlights. This will give them something to keep them from being scared of the dark and a light that they can play with and will keep them from playing with your flashlights. Both single flashlights and small multi-pack flashlights can be found for as little as $5 each.

b. Extra Batteries – In many flashlights, the batteries are good for about 12-16 hours of use. Get enough spare batteries to replace the batteries in your flashlights 5 times.

c. Manual Can Opener – If the power goes out, you need to have a way to open the cans in your pantry.

d. Moist Towelettes – These are useful for all kinds of personal hygiene and cleaning household surfaces.

e. Garbage Bags* – Tall kitchen bags are probably the best size to use. You do not want any garbage to build up in your home.

f. Dust Masks – In the aftermath of a disaster gas explosion, earthquake, hurricane, volcano, tornado, tsunami, winter storm, terrorist attack, flood, fire, accident or other emergency, contaminants may be released into the air. It is important to have an air filtration mechanism such as a dust mask or particulate air filter.

g. Pry Bar – In an emergency situation, the basic reason for having a pry-bar is to open a door or window. If water, or heat from a fire, causes wood to swell, or an earthquake causes a door to jam, or a file cabinet or book case keeps the door closed, and we must get through it, having a pry-bar is the only way to go. The flat bar type, 18″ – 24″ in length is just fine and should cost $10-$15 for a quality one.

h. Fire Extinguisher* – Get a small to medium sized ABC extinguisher, available for $15 – $20.

I. Channel Lock Style Pliers – A quality channel lock pliers of at least 10″ length is a must for your disaster tool box. Do not buy a cheap one, it will not work properly and will slip when you need it most. They are available for as little as $15 at most hardware supply stores (Home Depot, Lowes, etc).

j. Adjustable Wrench – You need to have a quality adjustable wrench in your disaster tool box, and it needs to be at least 10″ in length to be able to have the leverage that you might need. They are available from the hardware supply stores for about $12 each.

k. Screwdriver Set – Get a basic screw driver set that has various sizes and both flat and Philips style tips. Again, a quality set is important, because a cheap set will not hold up at all. A basic 10 piece set will cost approximately $20 at any hardware supply store.

l. Claw Hammer – This tool is one of those multi-purpose tools that you will find quite useful. Available from $10 everywhere.

m. Camping Style Cookware – If the power goes out you may find the need to cook on a camp fire or in your fireplace. You will not be able to use your everyday cookware for this, and something as simple as a hot cup of coffee in the morning can make a huge difference in your day.

I. Dutch Oven – a Dutch oven will provide you with a great meal that you can cook right on an open flame, such as your fireplace.

ii. Coffee Pot – Get an enamel coffee pot, you will be glad you did. You will be able to make coffee, tea, or even just boil water for use in cooking.

n. Multi-tool – A Leatherman style Multi-tool will be the solution for a multitude of situations and is available for around $15 at most camping or hardware supply stores.

o. Folding Knife – There is no need to buy a giant knife like the one Crocodile Dundee used in the movies. A folding knife with a blade length of 4 inches is just fine. Make sure that the blade locks open so that you can use it more safely. Starting at $15 at most camping supply stores.

This is a good starting point for your family disaster preparedness. It is only a starting point, there is so much more that you can do to be prepared. However, if you do nothing more than the things on this list, you will be far ahead of many others who will be floundering around when the time for action comes.

Complete List of 800 FEMA Concentration Camps

The most shocking videos in the world! This video actually shows us what the secret of the Trump family is related to their expressive health!!! Video HERE.

FEMA is the executive arm of the coming police state and thus will head up all operations. The Presidential Executive Orders already listed on the Federal Register also are part of the legal framework for this operation.

The camps all have railroad facilities as well as roads leading to and from the detention facilities. Many also have an airport nearby. The majority of the camps can house a population of 20,000 prisoners. Currently, the largest of these facilities is just outside of Fairbanks, Alaska. The Alaskan facility is a massive mental health facility and can hold approximately 2 million people.

Now let’s review the justification for any actions taken…

Executive Orders associated with FEMA that would suspend the Constitution and the Bill of Rights. These Executive Orders have been on record for nearly 30 years and could be enacted by the stroke of a Presidential pen…

All Americans  Will Lose Their Home, Income And Power By September 27, 2025

Watch the video below!

EXECUTIVE ORDER 10990

allows the government to take over all modes of transportation and control of highways and seaports.

EXECUTIVE ORDER 10995

allows the government to seize and control the communication media.

EXECUTIVE ORDER 10997

allows the government to take over all electrical power, gas, petroleum, fuels and minerals.

EXECUTIVE ORDER 10998

allows the government to seize all means of transportation, including personal cars, trucks or vehicles of any kind and total control over all highways, seaports, and waterways.

EXECUTIVE ORDER 10999

allows the government to take over all food resources and farms.

EXECUTIVE ORDER 11000

allows the government to mobilize civilians into work brigades under government supervision.

EXECUTIVE ORDER 11001

allows the government to take over all health, education and welfare functions. »»» Even SWAT Teams are Helpless Against This.

EXECUTIVE ORDER 11002

designates the Postmaster General to operate a national registration of all persons.

EXECUTIVE ORDER 11003

allows the government to take over all airports and aircraft, including commercial aircraft.

EXECUTIVE ORDER

11004 allows the Housing and Finance Authority to relocate communities, build new housing with public funds, designate areas to be abandoned, and establish new locations for populations.

EXECUTIVE ORDER 11005

allows the government to take over railroads, inland waterways and public storage facilities.

EXECUTIVE ORDER 11051

specifies the responsibility of the Office of Emergency Planning and gives authorization to put all Executive Orders into effect in times of increased international tensions and economic or financial crisis.

EXECUTIVE ORDER 11310

grants authority to the Department of Justice to enforce the plans set out in Executive Orders, to institute industrial support, to establish judicial and legislative liaison, to control all aliens, to operate penal and correctional institutions, and to advise and assist the President.

EXECUTIVE ORDER 11049

assigns emergency preparedness function to federal departments and agencies, consolidating 21 operative Executive Orders issued over a fifteen year period.

EXECUTIVE ORDER 11921

allows the Federal Emergency Preparedness Agency to develop plans to establish control over the mechanisms of production and distribution, of energy sources, wages, salaries, credit and the flow of money in U.S. financial institution in any undefined national emergency.

It also provides that when a state of emergency is declared by the President, Congress cannot review the action for six months.

The Federal Emergency Management Agency has broad powers in every aspect of the nation. General Frank Salzedo, chief of FEMA’s Civil Security Division stated in a 1983 conference that he saw FEMA’s role as a:

“new frontier in the protection of individual and governmental leaders from assassination, and of civil and military installations from sabotage and/or attack, as well as prevention of dissident groups from gaining access to U.S. opinion, or a global audience in times of crisis.”

FEMA’s powers were consolidated by President Carter to incorporate the…

National Security Act of 1947

-allows for the strategic relocation of industries, services, government and other essential economic activities, and to rationalize the requirements for manpower, resources and production facilities.

1950 Defense Production Act

-gives the President sweeping powers over all aspects of the economy.

Act of August 29, 1916

-authorizes the Secretary of the Army, in time of war, to take possession of any transportation system for transporting troops, material, or any other purpose related to the emergency.

International Emergency Economic Powers Act

-enables the President to seize the property of a foreign country or national. These powers were transferred to FEMA in a sweeping consolidation in 1979.

Where are these camps?

ALABAMA

  • Opelika – Military compound either in or very near town.
  • Aliceville – WWII German POW camp – capacity 15,000
  • Ft. McClellan (Anniston) – Opposite side of town from Army Depot;
  • Maxwell AFB (Montgomery) – Civilian prison camp established under Operation Garden Plot, currently operating with support staff and small inmate population.
  • Talladega – Federal prison “satellite” camp.

WARNING: Watching The Following Video Will Give You Access To Knowledge The Government Does NOT Want You To Know About

ALASKA

  • Wilderness – East of Anchorage. No roads, Air & Railroad access only.
  • Estimated capacity of 500,000 Elmendorf AFB – Northeast area of Anchorage – far end of base. Garden Plot facility.
  • Eielson AFB – Southeast of Fairbanks. Operation Garden Plot facility.
  • Ft. Wainwright – East of Fairbanks

ARIZONA

  • Ft. Huachuca – 20 miles from Mexican border, 30 miles from Nogales Rex ’84 facility.
  • Pinal County – on the Gila River – WWII Japanese detention camp. May be renovated.
  • Yuma County – Colorado River – Site of former Japanese detention camp (near proving grounds). This site was completely removed in 1990 according to some reports.
  • Phoenix – Federal Prison Satellite Camp. Main federal facility expanded.
  • Florence – WWII prison camp NOW RENOVATED, OPERATIONAL with staff & 400 prisoners, operational capacity of 3,500.
  • Wickenburg – Airport is ready for conversion; total capacity unknown. Davis-Monthan AFB (Tucson) – Fully staffed and presently holding prisoners!! Sedona – site of possible UN base.

ARKANSAS

  • Jerome – Chicot/Drew Counties – site of WWII Japanese camps Rohwer – Descha County – site of WWII Japanese camps Blythville AFB – Closed airbase now being used as camp.
  • New wooden barracks have been constructed at this location. Classic decorations – guard towers, barbed wire, high fences.
  • Berryville – FEMA facility located east of Eureka Springs off Hwy. 62. Omaha – Northeast of Berryville near Missouri state line, on Hwy 65 south of old wood processing plant. Possible crematory facility.

CALIFORNIA

  • Vandenburg AFB – Rex 84 facility, located near Lompoc & Santa Maria. Internment facility is located near the oceanside, close to Space Launch Complex #6, also called “Slick Six”. The launch site has had “a flawless failure record” and is rarely used. Norton AFB – (closed base) now staffed with UN according to some sources.
  • Tule Lake – area of “wildlife refuge”, accessible by unpaved road, just inside Modoc County. Fort Ord – Closed in 1994, this facility is now an urban warfare training center for US and foreign troops, and may have some “P.O.W. – C.I.” enclosures. Twenty nine Palms Marine Base – Birthplace of the infamous “Would you shoot American citizens?” Quiz.
  • New camps being built on “back 40”. Oakdale – Rex 84 camp capable of holding at least 20,000 people. 90 mi. East of San Francisco. Terminal Island – (Long Beach) located next to naval shipyards operated by Chi Com shipping interests. Federal prison facility located here. Possible deportation point.
  • Ft. Irwin – FEMA facility near Barstow. Base is designated inactive but has staffed camp. McClellan AFB – facility capable for 30,000 – 35,000 Sacramento – Army Depot – No specific information at this time.
  • Mather AFB – Road to facility is blocked off by cement barriers and a stop sign. Sign states area is restricted; as of 1997 there were barbed wire fences pointing inward, a row of stadium lights pointed toward an empty field, etc. Black boxes on poles may have been cameras.

COLORADO

  • Trinidad – WWII German/Italian camp being renovated. Granada – Prowers County – WWII Japanese internment camp Ft. Carson – Along route 115 near Canon City

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CONNECTICUT, DELAWARE

No data available.

FLORIDA

  • Avon Park – Air Force gunnery range, Avon Park has an on-base “correctional facility” which was a former WWII detention camp.
  • Camp Krome – DoJ detention/interrogation center, Rex 84 facility Eglin AFB – This base is over 30 miles long, from Pensacola to Hwy 331 in De Funiak Springs. High capacity facility, presently manned and populated with some prisoners.
  • Pensacola – Federal Prison Camp Everglades – It is believed that a facility may be carved out of the wilds here.
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GEORGIA

  • Ft. Benning – Located east of Columbus near Alabama state line. Rex 84 site – Prisoners brought in via Lawson Army airfield.
  • Ft. Mc Pherson – US Force Command – Multiple reports that this will be the national headquarters and coordinating center for foreign/UN troop movement and detainee collection.
  • Ft. Gordon – West of Augusta – No information at this time. Unadilla – Dooly County – Manned, staffed FEMA prison on route 230, no prisoners. Oglethorpe – Macon County; facility is located five miles from Montezuma, three miles from Oglethorpe.
  • This FEMA prison has no staff and no prisoners. Morgan – Calhoun County, FEMA facility is fully manned & staffed – no prisoners. Camilla – Mitchell County, south of Albany. This FEMA facility is located on Mt. Zion Rd approximately 5.7 miles south of Camilla.
  • Unmanned – no prisoners, no staff. Hawkinsville – Wilcox County; Five miles east of town, fully manned and staffed but no prisoners. Located on fire road 100/Upper River Road Abbeville – South of Hawkinsville on US route 129; south of town off route 280 near Ocmulgee River.
  • FEMA facility is staffed but without prisoners. McRae – Telfair County – 1.5 miles west of McRae on Hwy 134 (8th St). Facility is on Irwinton Avenue off 8th St., manned & staffed – no prisoners.
  • Fort Gillem – South side of Atlanta – FEMA designated detention facility. Fort Stewart – Savannah area – FEMA designated detention facility.

HAWAII

  • Halawa Heights area – Crematory facility located in hills above city. Area is marked as a state department of health laboratory.
  • Barbers Point NAS – There are several military areas that could be equipped for detention / deportation.
  • Honolulu – Detention transfer facility at the Honolulu airport similar in construction to the one in.
  • Oklahoma (pentagon-shaped building where airplanes can taxi up to).

IDAHO

  • Minidoka/Jerome Counties – WWII Japanese-American internment facility possibly under renovation.
  • Clearwater National Forest – Near Lolo Pass – Just miles from the Montana state line near Moose Creek, this unmanned facility is reported to have a nearby airfield. Wilderness areas – Possible location. No data.

ILLINOIS

  • Marseilles – Located on the Illinois River off Interstate 80 on Hwy 6. It is a relatively small facility with a cap of 1400 prisoners. Though it is small it is designed like prison facilities with barred windows, but the real smoking gun is the presence of military vehicles. Being located on the Illinois River it is possible that prisoners will be brought in by water as well as by road and air. This facility is approximately 75 miles west of Chicago.
  • National Guard training area nearby. Scott AFB – Barbed wire prisoner enclosure reported to exist just off-base. More info needed, as another facility on-base is believed to exist. Pekin – This Federal satellite prison camp is also on the Illinois River, just south of Peoria. It supplements the federal penitentiary in Marion, which is equipped to handle additional population outside on the grounds.
  • Chanute AFB – Rantoul, near Champaign/Urbana – This closed base had WWII – era barracks that were condemned and torn down, but the medical facility was upgraded and additional fencing put up in the area. More info needed. Marion – Federal Penitentiary and satellite prison camp inside Crab Orchard Nat’l Wildlife Refuge. Manned, staffed, populated fully. Greenfield – Two federal correctional “satellite prison camps” serving Marion – populated as above.
  • Shawnee National Forest – Pope County – This area has seen heavy traffic of foreign military equipment and troops via Illinois Central Railroad, which runs through the area. Suspected location is unknown, but may be close to Vienna and Shawnee correctional centers, located 6 mi. west of Dixon Springs.
  • Savanna Army Depot – NW area of state on Mississippi River. Lincoln, Sheridan, Menard, Pontiac, Galesburg – State prison facilities equipped for major expansion and close or adjacent to highways & railroad tracks. Kankakee – Abandoned industrial area on west side of town (Rt.17 & Main) designated as FEMA detention site. Equipped with water tower, incinerator, a small train yard behind it and the rear of the facility is surrounded by barbed wire facing inwards.

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INDIANA

  • Indianapolis / Marion County – Amtrak railcar repair facility (closed); controversial site of a major alleged detention / processing center. Although some sources state that this site is a “red herring”, photographic and video evidence suggests otherwise.
  • This large facility contains large 3-4 inch gas mains to large furnaces (crematoria??), helicopter landing pads, railheads for prisoners, Red/Blue/Green zones for classifying/processing incoming personnel, one-way turnstiles, barracks, towers, high fences with razor wire, etc.
  • Personnel with government clearance who are friendly to the patriot movement took a guided tour of the facility to confirm this site. This site is located next to a closed refrigeration plant facility. Ft. Benjamin Harrison – Located in the northeast part of Indianapolis, this base has been decommissioned from “active” use but portions are still ideally converted to hold detainees.
  • Helicopter landing areas still exist for prisoners to be brought in by air, land & rail. Crown Point – Across street from county jail, former hospital. One wing presently being used for county work-release program, 80% of facility still unused.
  • Possible FEMA detention center or holding facility. Camp Atterbury – Facility is converted to hold prisoners and boasts two active compounds presently configured for minimum security detainees. Located just west of Interstate 65 near Edinburgh, south of Indianapolis.
  • Terre Haute – Federal Correctional Institution, Satellite prison camp and death facility. Equipped with crematoria reported to have a capacity of 3,000 people a day. FEMA designated facility located here. Fort Wayne – This city located in Northeast Indiana has a FEMA designated detention facility, accessible by air, road and nearby rail. Kingsbury – This “closed” military base is adjacent to a state fish & wildlife preserve.
  • Part of the base is converted to an industrial park, but the southern portion of this property is still used. It is bordered on the south by railroad, and is staffed with some foreign-speaking UN troops. A local police officer who was hunting and camping close to the base in the game preserve was accosted, roughed up, and warned by the English-speaking unit commander to stay away from the area. It was suggested to the officer that the welfare of his family would depend on his “silence”.
  • Located just southeast of LaPorte. Jasper-Pulaski Wildlife Area – Youth Corrections farm located here. Facility is “closed”, but is still staffed and being “renovated”. Total capacity unknown. Grissom AFB – This closed airbase still handles a lot of traffic, and has a “state-owned” prison compound on the southern part of the facility.:
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UNICOR

  • Jefferson Proving Grounds – Southern Indiana – This facility was an active base with test firing occurring daily. Portions of the base have been opened to create an industrial park, but other areas are still highly restricted. A camp is believed to be located “downrange”. Facility is equipped with an airfield and has a nearby rail line.
  • Newport – Army Depot – VX nerve gas storage facility. Secret meetings were held here in 1998 regarding the addition of the Kankakee River watershed to the Heritage Rivers Initiative. Hammond – large enclosure identified in FEMA-designated city.

IOWA

  • No data available.

KANSAS

  • Leavenworth – US Marshal’s Fed Holding Facility, US Penitentiary, Federal Prison Camp, McConnell Air Force Base. Federal death penalty facility.
  • Concordia – WWII German POW camp used to exist at this location but there is no facility there at this time. Ft. Riley – Just north of Interstate 70, airport, near city of Manhattan.
  • El Dorado – Federal prison converted into forced-labor camp, UNICOR industries. Topeka – 80 acres has been converted into a temporary holding camp.

KENTUCKY

  • Ashland – Federal prison camp in Eastern Kentucky near the Ohio River.
  • Louisville – FEMA detention facility, located near restricted area US naval ordnance plant. Military airfield located at facility, which is on south side of city.
  • Lexington – FEMA detention facility, National Guard base with adjacent airport facility. Manchester – Federal prison camp located inside Dan Boone National Forest.
  • Ft. Knox – Detention center, possibly located near Salt River, in restricted area of base. Local patriots advise that black Special Forces & UN gray helicopters are occasionally seen in area.
  • Land Between the Lakes – This area was declared a UN biosphere and is an ideal geographic location for detention facilities. Area is an isthmus extending out from Tennessee, between Lake Barkley on the east and Kentucky Lake on the west. Just scant miles from Fort Campbell in Tennessee.

LOUISIANA

  • Ft. Polk – This is a main base for UN troops & personnel, and a training center for the disarmament of America.
  • Livingston – WWII German/Italian internment camp being renovated?; halfway between Baton Rouge and Hammond, several miles north of Interstate 12.
  • Oakdale – Located on US route 165 about 50 miles south of Alexandria; two federal detention centers just southeast of Fort Polk.

MAINE

  • Houlton – WWII German internment camp in Northern Maine, off US Route 1.

MARYLAND, and DC

  • Ft. Meade – Halfway between the District of Criminals and Baltimore. Data needed.
  • Ft. Detrick – Biological warfare center for the NWO, located in Frederick.

MASSACHUSETTS

  • Camp Edwards / Otis AFB – Cape Cod – This “inactive” base is being converted to hold many New Englander patriots. Capacity unknown.
  • Ft. Devens – Active detention facility. More data needed.

MICHIGAN

  • Camp Grayling – Michigan Nat’l Guard base has several confirmed detention camps, classic setup with high fences, razor wire, etc. Guard towers are very well-built, sturdy. Multiple compounds within larger enclosures. Facility deep within forest area. Sawyer AFB – Upper Peninsula – south of Marquette – No data available.
  • Bay City – Classic enclosure with guard towers, high fence, and close to shipping port on Saginaw Bay, which connects to Lake Huron. Could be a deportation point to overseas via St. Lawrence Seaway. Southwest – possibly Berrien County – FEMA detention center. Lansing – FEMA detention facility.

MINNESOTA

  • Duluth – Federal prison camp facility. Camp Ripley – new prison facility.

MISSISSIPPI

  • These sites are confirmed hoaxes. Hancock County – NASA test site De Soto National Forest. “These two supposed camps in Mississippi do not exist. Members of the Mississippi Militia have checked these out on more than one occasion beginning back when they first appeared on the Internet and throughout the Patriot Movement.” – Commander D. Rayner, Mississippi Militia.

MISSOURI

  • Richards-Gebaur AFB – located in Grandview, near K.C.MO. A very large internment facility has been built on this base, and all base personnel are restricted from coming near it. Ft. Leonard Wood – Situated in the middle of Mark Twain National Forest in Pulaski County. This site has been known for some UN training, also home to the US Army Urban Warfare Training school “Stem Village”.
  • Warsaw – Unconfirmed report of a large concentration camp facility.

MONTANA

  • Malmstrom AFB – UN aircraft groups stationed here, and possibly a detention facility.

NEBRASKA

  • Scottsbluff – WWII German POW camp (renovated?). Northwest, Northeast corners of state – FEMA detention facilities – more data needed.
  • South Central part of state – Many old WWII sites – some may be renovated.

NEVADA

  • Elko – Ten miles south of town. Wells – Camp is located in the O’Niel basin area, 40 miles north of Wells, past Thousand Springs, west off Hwy 93 for 25 miles.
  • Pershing County – Camp is located at I-80 mile marker 112, south side of the highway, about a mile back on the county road and then just off the road about 3/4mi.
  • Winnemucca – Battle Mountain area – at the base of the mountains.
  • Nellis Air Force Range – Northwest from Las Vegas on Route 95.
  • Nellis AFB is just north of Las Vegas on Hwy 604.
  • Stillwater Naval Air Station – east of Reno . No additional data.

NEW HAMPSHIRE / VERMONT

  • Northern New Hampshire – near Lake Francis. No additional data.

NEW JERSEY

  • Ft. Dix / McGuire AFB – Possible deportation point for detainees. Lots of pictures taken of detention compounds and posted on Internet, this camp is well-known. Facility is now complete and ready for occupancy.

NEW MEXICO

  • Ft. Bliss – This base actually straddles Texas state line. Just south of Alomogordo, Ft. Bliss has thousands of acres for people who refuse to go with the “New Order”. Holloman AFB (Alomogordo)- Home of the German Luftwaffe in Amerika; major UN base. New facility being built on this base, according to recent visitors.
  • Many former USAF buildings have been torn down by the busy and rapidly growing German military force located here. Fort Stanton – currently being used as a youth detention facility approximately 35 miles north of Ruidoso, New Mexico.
  • Not a great deal of information concerning the Lordsburg location. White Sands Missile Range – Currently being used as a storage facility for United Nations vehicles and equipment. Observers have seen this material brought in on the Whitesands rail spur in Oro Grande New Mexico about thirty miles from the Texas, New Mexico Border.

NEW YORK

  • Ft. Drum – two compounds: Rex 84 detention camp and FEMA detention facility.
  • Albany – FEMA detention facility.
  • Otisville – Federal correctional facility, near Middletown.
  • Buffalo – FEMA detention facility.

NORTH CAROLINA

Camp Lejeune / New River Marine Airfield – facility has renovated, occupied WWII detention compounds and “mock city” that closely resembles Anytown, USA. Fort Bragg – Special Warfare Training Center. Renovated WWII detention facility. Andrews – Federal experiment in putting a small town under siege.

Began with the search/ hunt for survivalist Eric Rudolph. No persons were allowed in or out of town without federal permission and travel through town was highly restricted. Most residents compelled to stay in their homes. Unregistered Baptist pastor from Indiana visiting Andrews affirmed these facts.

OHIO

  • Camp Perry – Site renovated; once used as a POW camp to house German and Italian prisoners of WWII. Some tar paper covered huts built for housing these prisoners are still standing. Recently, the construction of multiple 200-man barracks have replaced most of the huts.
  • Cincinnati, Cleveland, Columbus – FEMA detention facilities. Data needed.
  • Lima – FEMA detention facility. Another facility located in/near old stone quarry near Interstate 75. Railroad access to property, fences etc.

OKLAHOMA

  • Tinker AFB (OKC) – All base personnel are prohibited from going near civilian detention area, which is under constant guard.
  • Will Rogers World Airport – FEMA’s main processing center for west of the Mississippi. All personnel are kept out of the security zone. Federal prisoner transfer center located here (A pentagon-shaped building where airplanes can taxi up to). Photos have been taken and this site will try to post soon!
  • El Reno – Renovated federal internment facility with CURRENT population of 12,000 on Route 66.
  • McAlester – near Army Munitions Plant property – former WWII German / Italian POW camp designated for future use.
  • Ft. Sill (Lawton) – Former WWII detention camps. More data still needed.

OREGON

  • Sheridan – Federal prison satellite camp northwest of Salem. Josephine County – WWII Japanese internment camp ready for renovation. Sheridan – FEMA detention center. Umatilla – New prison spotted.

PENNSYLVANIA

  • Allenwood – Federal prison camp located south of Williamsport on the Susquehanna River. It has a current inmate population of 300, and is identified by William Pabst as having a capacity in excess of 15,000 on 400 acres.
  • Indiantown Gap Military Reservation – located north of Harrisburg.
  • Used for WWII POW camp and renovated by Jimmy Carter. Was used to hold Cubans during Mariel boat lift.
  • Camp Hill – State prison close to Army depot. Lots of room, located in Camp Hill, Pa.
  • New Cumberland Army Depot – on the Susquehanna River, located off Interstate 83 and Interstate 76.
  • Schuylkill Haven – Federal prison camp, north of Reading.

SOUTH CAROLINA

  • Greenville – Unoccupied youth prison camp; total capacity unknown.
  • Charleston – Naval Reserve & Air Force base, restricted area on naval base.

SOUTH DAKOTA

  • Yankton – Federal prison camp
  • Black Hills Nat’l Forest – north of Edgemont, southwest part of state. WWII internment camp being renovated.

TENNESSEE

  • Ft. Campbell – Next to Land Between the Lakes; adjacent to airfield and US Alt. 41.
  • Millington – Federal prison camp next door to Memphis Naval Air Station.
  • Crossville – Site of WWII German / Italian prison camp is renovated; completed barracks and behind the camp in the woods is a training facility with high tight ropes and a rappelling deck.
  • Nashville – There are two buildings built on State property that are definitely built to hold prisoners. They are identical buildings – side by side on Old Briley Parkway. High barbed wire fence that curves inward.

TEXAS

  • Austin – Robert Mueller Municipal airport has detenion areas inside hangars.
  • Bastrop – Prison and military vehicle motor pool.
  • Eden – 1500 bed privately run federal center. Currently holds illegal aliens.
  • Ft. Hood (Killeen) – Newly built concentration camp, with towers, barbed wire etc., just like the one featured in the movie Amerika. Mock city for NWO shock- force training.
  • Some footage of this area was used in “Waco: A New Revelation” Reese AFB (Lubbock) – FEMA designated detention facility.
  • Sheppard AFB – in Wichita Falls just south of Ft. Sill, OK. FEMA designated detention facility.
  • North Dallas – near Carrolton – water treatment plant, close to interstate and railroad.
  • Mexia – East of Waco 33mi.; WWII German facility may be renovated.
  • Amarillo – FEMA designated detention facility
  • Ft. Bliss (El Paso) – Extensive renovation of buildings and from what patriots have been able to see, many of these buildings that are being renovated are being surrounded by razor wire.
  • Beaumont / Port Arthur area – hundreds of acres of federal camps already built on large-scale detention camp design, complete with the double rows of chain link fencing with razor type concertina wire on top of each row. Some (but not all) of these facilities are currently being used for low-risk state prisoners who require a minimum of supervision.
  • Ft. Worth – Federal prison under construction on the site of Carswell AFB.

UTAH

  • Millard County – Central Utah – WWII Japanese camp. (Renovated?)
  • Ft. Douglas – This “inactive” military reservation has a renovated WWII concentration camp.
  • Migratory Bird Refuge – West of Brigham City – contains a WWII internment camp that was built before the game preserve was established.
  • Cedar City – east of city – no data available. Wendover – WWII internment camp may be renovated.
  • Skull Valley – southwestern Camp William property – east of the old bombing range. Camp was accidentally discovered by a man and his son who were rabbit hunting; they were discovered and apprehended. SW of Tooele.

VIRGINIA

  • Ft. A.P. Hill (Fredericksburg) – Rex 84 / FEMA facility. Estimated capacity 45,000.
  • Petersburg – Federal satellite prison camp, south of Richmond.

WEST VIRGINIA

  • Beckley – Alderson – Lewisburg – Former WWII detention camps that are now converted into active federal prison complexes capable of holding several times their current populations. Alderson is presently a women’s federal reformatory.
  • Morgantown – Federal prison camp located in northern WV; just north of Kingwood.
  • Mill Creek – FEMA detention facility.
  • Kingwood – Newly built detention camp at Camp Dawson Army Reservation. More data needed on Camp Dawson.

WASHINGTON

  • Seattle/Tacoma – SeaTac Airport: fully operational federal transfer center
  • Okanogan County – Borders Canada and is a site for a massive concentration camp capable of holding hundreds of thousands of people for slave labor. This is probably one of the locations that will be used to hold hard core patriots who will be held captive for the rest of their lives.
  • Sand Point Naval Station – Seattle – FEMA detention center used actively during the 1999 WTO protests to classify prisoners.
  • Ft. Lewis / McChord AFB – near Tacoma – This is one of several sites that may be used to ship prisoners overseas for slave labor.

WISCONSIN

  • Ft. McCoy – Rex 84 facility with several complete interment compounds.
  • Oxford – Central part of state – Federal prison & staellite camp and FEMA detention facility.

WYOMING

  • Heart Mountain – Park County N. of Cody – WWII Japanese interment camp ready for renovation.
  • Laramie – FEMA detention facility
  • Southwest – near Lyman – FEMA detention facility
  • East Yellowstone – Manned internment facility – Investigating patriots were apprehended by European soldiers speaking in an unknown language. Federal government assumed custody of the persons and arranged their release.

OTHER LOCATIONS IN THE UNITED STATES

There are many other locations not listed above that are worthy of consideration as a possible detention camp site, but due to space limitations and the time needed to verify, could not be included here. Virtually all military reservations, posts, bases, stations, & depots can be considered highly suspect (because it is “federal” land).

Also fitting this category are “Regional Airports” and “International Airports” which also fall under federal jurisdiction and have limited-access areas. Mental hospitals, closed hospitals & nursing homes, closed military bases, wildlife refuges, state prisons, toxic waste dumps, hotels and other areas all have varying degrees of potential for being a detention camp area.

The likelihood of a site being suspect increases with transportation access to the site, including airports/airstrips, railheads, navigable waterways & ports, interstate and US highways. Some facilities are “disguised” as industrial or commercial properties, camouflaged or even wholly contained inside large buildings (Indianapolis) or factories. Many inner-city buildings left vacant during the de-industrialization of America have been quietly acquired and held, sometimes retrofitted for their new uses.

CANADA

  • Our Canadian friends tell us that virtually all Canadian military bases, especially those north of the 50th Parallel, are all set up with concentration camps. Not even half of these can be listed, but here are a few sites with the massive land space to handle any population:
  • Suffield CFB – just north of Medicine Hat, less than 60 miles from the USA.
  • Primrose Lake Air Range – 70 miles northeast of Edmonton
  • Wainwright CFB – halfway between Medicine Hat and Primrose Lake.
  • Ft. Nelson – Northernmost point on the BC Railway line.
  • Ft. McPherson – Very cold territory ~ NW Territories. Ft. Providence – Located on Great Slave Lake.
  • Halifax – Nova Scotia. Dept. of National Defense reserve…. And others.

OVERSEAS LOCATIONS

  • Guayanabo, Puerto Rico – Federal prison camp facility. Capacity unknown.
  • Guantanamo Bay, Cuba – US Marine Corps Base – Presently home to 30,000 Mariel Cubans and 40,000 Albanians. Total capacity unknown.

Without The Cloud People, The Famous Civilizations That Followed Might Never Have Reached Such Heights.

Archaeological evidence points to Monte Alban around 500 BC as home to roughly 115,000 residents at its peak. The hilltop metropolis sprawled across terraced mountainsides in what is now Oaxaca, Mexico. Yet most people today recognize names like Aztec and Maya while the Zapotec remain largely unknown.

This oversight reflects colonial perspectives more than historical reality. Spanish conquistadors encountered the Aztec and Maya empires at their zenith, giving these civilizations outsized recognition. The Zapotec, by contrast, had already experienced their golden age and decline centuries before European contact. Their story challenges assumptions about Mesoamerican urban development.

Archaeological surveys across the Valley of Oaxaca reveal settlements dating back 2,500 years. The Zapotec called themselves Be’ena’a, meaning “the people.” Later cultures dubbed them “Cloud People,” perhaps referencing their mountain homeland or creation myths linking them to sky deities.

Mountain Cities and Strategic Location

Monte Alban wasn’t built by accident. The site occupies neutral territory atop a 6,400-foot peak, offering commanding views across three converging valleys. No major river runs nearby. No natural resources demanded settlement there. The location served purely strategic and ceremonial purposes.

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Early Zapotec communities scattered throughout the valley floor practiced agriculture and small-scale trade. Around 500 BC, something changed. People began constructing massive terraces, plazas, and pyramidal structures on the previously uninhabited mountaintop.

Construction required moving tons of earth and stone up steep slopes. Workers carved platforms directly from bedrock, then built upon these foundations. The Great Plaza alone measures 300 by 200 meters, larger than four football fields. Ball courts, residential complexes, and ceremonial buildings surrounded this central space.

Archaeological deposits show continuous occupation for over a millennium. Population estimates suggest 17,000 people lived at Monte Alban during its early period, growing to 115,000 by 700 AD before gradual abandonment.

Earliest Writing in the Americas

The Zapotec developed Mesoamerica’s first known writing system. Monument 3 from San José Mogote, dating between 600-500 BC, contains the oldest confirmed Zapotec glyphs. The carved stone shows a captive with his heart removed, accompanied by hieroglyphic text.

Joyce Marcus discovered this monument in 1975 during excavations near San José Mogote’s main temple. The stone lay horizontally in a corridor where people walked over the defeated enemy image. This suggests early Zapotec warfare and ritual practices alongside developing literacy.

File:Monte Alban Stela 12+13.jpg
Zapotec writing (CC BY 3.0)

During the Early Classic period (250-450 CE), Monte Alban writing became largely limited to calendrical sequences, proper names and toponyms, with iconography used for other purposes. The script combined logographic and syllabic elements, representing both whole words and individual sounds.

Despite decades of study, the Zapotec writing system remains undeciphered. Scholars can identify calendar dates and some personal names, but longer texts resist translation. Extended glyphic inscriptions appear throughout Monte Alban’s plaza on carved stone monuments, though the script as such remains undeciphered.

Religious Innovation and Cultural Legacy

Zapotec religion centered on agricultural deities reflecting their farming origins. Cocijo, the rain god, appears frequently in art and architecture. Lightning bolts and cloud symbols mark his representations. Pitao Cozobi governed maize cultivation, while Coquihani controlled light and solar cycles.

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An Early Classic representation of Cocijo found at Monte Albán and now in the Museo Nacional de Antropología in Mexico City. (CC BY-SA 3.0)

The Bat God held particular significance, representing fertility and corn production. Elaborate jade masks depicting this deity have been recovered from elite tombs. One spectacular example from Monte Alban shows intricate craftsmanship in precious green stone.

Dedication rituals sanctified new construction projects. Excavations at the Cuilapan Temple revealed a cache containing jade earspools, obsidian blades, pearls, shells, and bird bones dating to 700 AD. Each material carried symbolic meaning. Jade represented water and fertility. Obsidian connected to sacrifice and bloodletting. Ocean shells symbolized the underworld, while bird bones evoked the sky realm.

These religious practices influenced later Mesoamerican cultures. Maya, Aztec, and other groups adopted similar deities, architectural forms, and ritual behaviors. Even after Monte Alban’s decline, Zapotec artisans continued producing jewelry for Aztec rulers in Tenochtitlan.

Urban Planning and Engineering

The Zapotec engineered sophisticated water management systems. Terraced hillsides captured rainfall for agricultural use. Canals directed water flow throughout urban areas. Underground tombs featured drainage to prevent flooding.

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Looking over the site of Monte Albán. Situated on a mountaintop, Monte Albán overlooks much of the Valley of Oaxaca. (CC BY-SA 3.0)

Residential architecture varied by social class. Elite families occupied stone palaces with multiple rooms and interior courtyards. Common people lived in simpler structures, though still built with stone and mortar rather than perishable materials. This construction durability explains why so much Zapotec architecture survives today.

The terraces, dams, canals, pyramids and artificial mounds of Monte Albán were literally carved out of the mountain over centuries of continuous construction. The engineering challenges required coordinated labor and central planning on a scale rarely seen in early Mesoamerica.

Building projects also served ideological purposes. Massive construction demonstrated ruler power while creating shared spaces for religious ceremonies. The Great Plaza could accommodate thousands of participants during major festivals.

Trade Networks and Economic Power

Early Zapotec prosperity depended on agriculture, but trade networks expanded their influence across Mesoamerica. Connections with Gulf Coast Olmec civilizations brought exotic goods and new technologies to Oaxaca.

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Zapotec mosaic mask that represents a “bat god”, made of 25 pieces of jade, with yellow eyes made of shell. It was found in a tomb at Monte Albán (CC BY-SA 4.0)

Archaeological evidence shows Zapotec merchants traveled hundreds of miles to acquire materials unavailable locally. Obsidian came from central Mexican sources. Jade originated in Guatemala. Marine shells traveled from both Pacific and Atlantic coasts.

This long-distance exchange required sophisticated organization. Merchants needed safe passage through foreign territories, standardized weights and measures, and reliable trading partnerships. The Zapotec developed these commercial institutions centuries before later Mesoamerican civilizations.

Monte Alban’s strategic location facilitated trade control. Goods moving between highland and lowland regions passed through Zapotec territory. Rulers could tax commerce while merchants provided exotic items for elite consumption and religious ceremonies.

Legacy and Decline

Monte Alban lost its political pre-eminence by the end of the Late Classic period (c. AD 500–750), and soon thereafter was largely abandoned. The reasons for decline remain unclear. Climate change, warfare, internal conflict, or economic disruption may have contributed.

The city wasn’t entirely deserted. Small populations continued living there, reusing earlier structures and maintaining ritual activities. Mixtec people later occupied the city after the displacement of the Zapotec people, as evidenced by discoveries in Tomb 7 during Alfonso Caso’s excavations in the early 20th century.

Zapotec communities persisted throughout the Oaxaca valleys even after Monte Alban’s abandonment. They maintained their language, agricultural practices, and cultural traditions. Spanish colonization beginning in the 1520s finally disrupted this continuity, though Zapotec descendants still live in the region today.

The Zapotec achievement in creating Mesoamerica’s first major urban center established patterns followed by later civilizations. Their innovations in writing, architecture, religion, and trade provided foundations for Mexican cultural development spanning over two millennia. Without the Cloud People, the famous civilizations that followed might never have reached such heights.

References

Blanton, R. E., Kowalewski, S. A., Feinman, G. M., & Finsten, L. M. (1993). Ancient Mesoamerica: A Comparison of Change in Three Regions. Cambridge University Press.

Cartwright, M, 2013. Zapotec Civilization. Available at: https://www.worldhistory.org/Zapotec_Civilization/

Discover Oaxaca, 2022. Monte Alban: Capital of Zapotec Civilization. Available at: https://discover-oaxaca.com/culture/monte-alban/

Flannery, K. V., & Marcus, J. (1983). The Cloud People: Divergent Evolution of the Zapotec and Mixtec Civilizations. Academic Press.

Marcus, J. (1992). Mesoamerican Writing Systems: Propaganda, Myth, and History in Four Ancient Civilizations. Princeton University Press.

Marcus, J., & Flannery, K. V. (1996). Zapotec Civilization: How Urban Society Evolved in Mexico’s Oaxaca Valley. Thames and Hudson.

Oudijk, M. R. (2000). Historiography of the Bènizàa: The Postclassic and Early Colonial Periods (1000-1600 A.D.). CNWS Publications.

The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica. 2022. Zapotec. Available at: https://www.britannica.com/topic/Zapotec

Winter, M. (1989). Oaxaca: The Archaeological Record. Minutiae Mexicana.

How the 1987 ban came about in America and what it means to your food security today.

A “scientific” ideology banned raw milk and vilified mothers who chose it anyway. Behind this, was a wealthy philanthropist pushing his agenda and setting the stage for the demise of the small farmer and food security in America.

An age-old food

In the opening scenes of the famous musical Fiddler on The Roof, our hero–Tevye–arranges his milk cart.

As the overture plays, drawing us into the scene and his inner musings on “Tradition!” he and his horse drive through the village serving his community with the milk from his cows and the cheeses he makes from that milk.

He is a farmer. A milkman. He is central to his community.

He dips his ladle into his milk can and pours the liquid into the waiting pitchers of the women. The activity of feeding his community is a small detail almost lost in the background of the plot–an illustration of a challenging time in 1905 Imperial Russia. It is lost in the background because of its normalcy. In this illustration of a time long ago, there was nothing unusual about a milkman feeding his community. It was what happened in many civilizations for millenia. The drama of the story unfolds as a controlling ideology comes closer into village life, destroying what they treasured and leaving them to ruin.

This is not a story about imperialism. It is about raw milk. It is about how this life-giving food has become a villain in modern America.

What Happened To Change How We View Raw Milk?

Raw milk–it is a food that is obscure to many Americans. Do you fear it? Despise it? Are you curious about it? We’ve been told that raw milk is dangerous. Is it?

Forgotten details of American history allow us to explore the topic and untangle our societal prejudice against it. Perhaps understanding the facts of our history will help us to understand how we got here and how we can make better decisions for the future.

The history is a tangled web of greed, deceit, and control.

Raw Milk Is a Significant Food for Civilization

Raw dairy is a perfect food–one of the two foods designed by nature to nourish the young (honey is the other). It is rich in nutrients humans need–filled with protein, fats, and sugars. It contains vitamins and minerals. It has vital enzymes that help our bodies absorb and use these nutrients. For example, lactase helps us digest the lactose (sugars), while the phosphatase helps us absorb phosphorus. Raw milk is probiotic, containing bacteria that help our own microbiomes thrive and that allow milk to change into other desirable foods.

There is nothing more basic between a mother and child than milk. Historically, a mother nurtures her child on the milk she produces. For the first few months of life, the child gets all the nutrients he or she needs from this wonderful mechanism our creator bestowed on all mammals.

We humans are not special in this regard.

For millennia, human civilizations have relied on a relationship between us and other mammals–most notably cows, goats, sheep, camels, water buffalo, and horses.

Not every civilization developed these relationships. But in those civilizations that did, milk became a fundamental ingredient in their food security.

There were 2 things that were true across the cultures that had dairy:

It was local.

It was primarily consumed raw.

In some lands, because these were warm climates, there was no way to keep dairy cold. It would immediately begin its fermentation process. Cow and water buffalo milk turn to clabber (drinkable yogurt), goat and sheep milk become yogurt, while camel and horse milk transform to a sour kefir-like drink.

These fermented dairy products brought life to the cultures that depended on them. They were often revered.

In time, cheese became a way we learned to preserve milk. All types of milks could be crafted into cheeses specific to their regions.

What happened that changed raw milk from a staple of civilization to something obscure, scary, reviled, and even criminal?

It all started with whisky…

The Entangled Relationship Between War, Whisky, and Milk

You are probably asking “What does whisky have to do with milk?”

We must understand whisky production in America to understand our history with milk.

In 1800s America, high taxes (to pay for the Revolutionary War) on imported spirits led to the rise of whisky distilleries in America. American farmers said “We can do this!” and they did. American whisky skyrocketed in popularity and production.

Whisky distilleries popped up everywhere. Even in certain cities. Transportation was a big cost, so putting the distilleries near the people seemed like a good idea. Disposing of the spent grain used to make whisky was expensive and cumbersome. This led to the concept of putting dairies right next to the distilleries and feeding the cows the spent grain from the whisky-making process. Spent grain is not a cow’s native food. Her native food is a diversity of grasses, while she roams the fields in the sunshine.

For those profiting from both the whisky and the milk, this seemed like a great idea. However, these abominations on agriculture led to disastrous results for cows and humans.

What ensued from this situation was predictable. The cows spent most of their short miserable lives indoors, in filthy conditions, unhealthy and producing milk that was of terrifying quality. There were no closed milking systems at the time. Workers hand milked into open pails.

This milk became known as “swill milk.”

It is not shocking that infant mortality was unacceptably high during this period. Sanitation was poor, there were no closed milking systems and no refrigeration. Public voices began to implicate the milk from the distillery dairies as a factor in the infant mortality rate.

This tragic situation had an easy-enough solution: stop feeding cows spent grain. Return cows to their native diets. Give them adequate lives out on pasture, and provide clean milking conditions. Have healthy workers milking the animals. Bring clean milk to the cities from the surrounding countryside.

But that was not the proposed solution.

A Wealthy Philanthropist “Saves” The Children

By the late 1800s, Nathan Straus, a wealthy philanthropist and co-owner of Macy’s department store, advocated for and then subsidized the pasteurization of all milk in New York City.

Several doctors spoke out against this policy noting that clean raw milk was highly nutritious and great for children. Leading the campaign for clean raw milk was Dr. Henry Coit. He saw the terrible conditions of the “distillery dairies,” and the health consequences that were blamed on the raw milk. He proposed an entirely different solution: establishing a “Medical Milk Commission” that would have doctors certify raw dairies outside the city. These doctors would ensure the farms had clean practices and produced healthy, safe milk.

His approach was a decentralized approach to feeding communities. Farmers remained in control of their own farms, the Medical Milk Commission simply became a certifying agent.

Many doctors participated in this endeavor and they had great results.

These doctors advocated for proper nutrition for children and proper animal husbandry. The results were a win-win.

But Straus’ argument against this was that certified clean raw milk was more expensive than Straus’ subsidized, “efficient” pasteurized milk. It was often double or quadruple the cost of the swill milk or the subsidized, pasteurized milk that Straus offered.

The obvious solution is a dual approach. But that is not what happened.

The “public health” campaign, backed by Straus’ deep pockets, prevailed. Pasteurization won out on the better “efficiency” although most all players recognized that certified clean raw milk was the better option. (One can only wonder what types of influence Straus’ “philanthropy” led to.)

What ensued was a decades-long battle. Many doctors advocated for clean raw milk. Those in Straus’ camp campaigned for “public health” and compulsory pasteurization without focusing on the underlying quality of the product.

The doctors who advocated for clean, certified farms were vilified, ridiculed, and bullied. The “public health advocates” who spoke about the dangers of raw dairy and pushed for mandatory pasteurization shifted policy in many cities.

Unfortunately, it didn’t stop there.

The Rise of Propaganda

Journalist Edward Bernays published his book Propaganda in 1928. Bernays was not an ordinary journalist. He was Sigmund Frued’s nephew and acutely aware of this new field of study. He is infamous for writing, “The conscious and intelligent manipulation of the organized habits and opinions of the masses is an important element in democratic society. Those who manipulate this unseen mechanism of society constitute an invisible government which is the true ruling power of our country. We are governed, our minds are molded, our tastes formed, and our ideas suggested, largely by men we have never heard of…. It is they who pull the wires that control the public mind.”

Post WWII, Bernays realized that if propaganda could work during war time, it could be applied outside of war efforts as well. But, the term “propaganda” had certain connotations. He re-coined the same ideas as “public relations” to make it more palatable to a discerning population. One of his infamous campaigns portrayed cigarettes as “freedom torches” for women to increase the sales of cigarettes to female consumers.

During this time, many American farms still offered raw milk directly to consumers. But this wouldn’t last long.

How much did Bernays’ research factor into the next 20-30 years of vilification of America’s dairy farmers? The propaganda against raw milk was relentless. One begins to wonder if there was something more sinister at play? Could the strategies that altered the perceptions of women smoking also shift public opinion of an age-old food?

During the 1930s “commercial dairy interests, segments of the medical community, politicians and public health agency officials and their allies in the media [began] a campaign first to smear all raw milk and then to eliminate its availability and sale.” (Schmid 57)

They did this through a series of articles–many in magazines targeted towards women. The articles claimed, with no documentation, that raw milk was dangerous. The most prominent article was in Coronet magazine in 1945. The headline blazed “Raw Milk Can Kill You.” It was about “Crossroads, America” and told the story of an epidemic in this town caused by raw milk and that “one out of every four patients died.” Except that it was entirely made up. There was no such city. “The outbreak was fictitious and represented no actual occurrence.” (Schmid 144).

But, the scare tactics worked. Fear took hold. Compulsory pasteurization laws passed in most states. Few continued to push back against the propaganda. It was politically and socially expensive.

“With widespread pasteurization came the notion, fostered by the public health authorities and the media, that all milk must be pasteurized, the good with the bad, and that somehow pasteurization would take unhealthy milk and make it not only safe to drink, but also healthy. The acceptance of this mantra led to compulsory pasteurization, confinement dairying, and the demise of milk and its products as vital health sustaining foods.” (Schmid 58)

In less than 2 generations, the raw milk issue, seemingly, sank into oblivion.

The “science” was settled: raw milk was dangerous. Those who drank it, gave it to their children, or provided it to their communities were relegated to the fringe. They didn’t care about health. They didn’t care about their community. They were labeled “nut jobs” and worse. They were censored and ignored.

Would this dogmatic ideology prevail over thoughtful examination of the facts?

The Criminalization of Raw Milk and The Vilification of the Community Milkman

Over the next 50-70 years, raw milk became increasingly harder for average, non-farming Americans to find.

Nathan Straus, though now long deceased, had won. His flawed ideology prevailed. “Straus and his supporters ignored the fundamental relationships between animals, food and human health. As zealots and politicians often do, they repeated a mixture of platitudes, truths, half-truths and falsehoods often and loud, making it impossible for most people to separate fact from fiction. They set the stage for the epidemic of chronic disease which ironically but significantly had its start during the very years they convinced Americans to accept universal pasteurization.” (Schmid 65 emphasis added)

The emotional and ideological campaign against raw milk built the foundation for the regulatory ban to occur and stick. The decades-long vilification of raw milk, of mothers who nurtured their children with raw dairy, and of the farmers who provided it changed our culture.

It started with the zealous campaigning of a wealthy businessman whose goal was to control what other people put in their bodies. Whether or not his intentions were “good,” the results have inflicted deep wounds on mothers’ ability to feed their families. 

What was once the staple of many American communities–a dairy farm that could provide food security to their surrounding area–no longer exists. 

Will we be able to restore it?

Russian Roulette

Today, raw dairy is scarce. It is usually far away from those who seek it, requiring long drives and increased expense. More relevant than that, dairies in general are removed from the communities they serve.

The Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) ideology is that no one should drink raw milk for any reason ever. They’ve said in the past that it is like “playing Russian Roulette with your health.”

This ideology removes vital choice from families and eliminates community food security.

In the 1980s, Ralph Nadar’s organization, Public Citizen, campaigned for the complete elimination of raw milk sales and consumption through a ban on interstate commerce. They eventually won, through a court case in 1986. The FDA implemented the ban in 1987 to the demise of all Americans and the erosion of farming communities. This tiny, obscure regulation in the federal code says that no one can cause to be delivered into interstate commerce raw milk intended for human consumption.

Food choice and security for our families and our communities is in the hands of bureaucrats. When bureaucrats decide that mothers cannot choose what type of milk they can give their children, our entire food security is atop a slippery slope.

Loyalty to this bureaucratic ideology has the American government criminalizing our farmers and mothers for basic food choices. It is not simply the political or policy decision that removes our access and threatens our food security; it is the overwhelming implication that if we decide differently than the bureaucrats, we are wrong and are damaging or endangering our children.

Do we want to put our food security and future in the hands of a few unelected bureaucrats?

Perhaps this dangerous ideology is the real “Russian Roulette.” As farms become further centralized and removed from where we live, our food security is threatened.

When we understand that the story behind the bureaucratic control is a lie–a profit-seeking farce made up to pit a mother’s instincts against her own children, fueled by propaganda–we are empowered to use discernment and choose wisely.

It is our responsibility as mothers to shift an ideology that doesn’t work. It is our job to nurture our children and our communities, to live freely and to live in health. It is time to dispel harmful ideologies and shake the dust from our shoulders.

We are the mamas. 

We know what’s best for our children.

In the story of Fiddler on the Roof, Tevye–the farmer–was central to his community. His is the story of a horrific ideology that took hold in Russia: totalitarianism. Tevye’s family and village were abused, tortured, and driven from their homes because ordinary people blindly complied with the dangerous, prevailing ideology that destroyed this traditional milkman.

At the same time, far away in America, another dangerous ideology was shifting our communities.

The continued criminalization of raw milk threatens a similar ending to that of Tevye and his family. While seemingly insignificant, this regulatory ban removes the number one basic food choice from the American household. It represents a shift that changed how we relate to our food, to each other, and to the farmers producing our basic needs. We must remove the ideological foothold and bring back our choice to produce, purchase, sell, and consume raw milk–indeed any food–within our own communities. It’s time to bring back the dairy farmer as a central figure. It’s time to trust mamas. It is time to write the future we want to see. It is time to rebuild our community food security.

The Eight Stages of the Rise and Fall of Civilizations

Cultures and civilizations go through cycles. Over time, many civilizations and cultures have risen and then fallen. We who live in painful times like these do well to recall these truths. Cultures and civilizations come and go; only the Church (though often in need of reform) and true biblical culture remain. An old song says, “Only what you do for Christ will last.” Yes, all else passes; the Church is like an ark in the passing waters of this world and in the floodwaters of times like these.

For those of us who love our country and our culture, the pain is real. By God’s grace, many fair flowers have come from Western culture as it grew over the past millennium. Whatever its imperfections (and there were many), great beauty, civilization, and progress emerged at the crossroads of faith and human giftedness. But now it appears that we are at the end of an era. We are in a tailspin we don’t we seem to be able to pull ourselves out of. Greed, aversion to sacrifice, secularism, divorce, promiscuity, and the destruction of the most basic unit of civilization (the family), do not make for a healthy culture. There seems to be no basis for true reform and the deepening darkness suggests that we are moving into the last stages of a disease. This is painful but not unprecedented.

Sociologists and anthropologists have described the stages of the rise and fall of the world’s great civilizations. Scottish philosopher Alexander Tyler of the University of Edinburg noted eight stages that articulate well what history discloses. I first encountered these in in Ted Flynn’s book The Great Transformation. They provide a great deal of perspective to what we are currently experiencing.

Let’s look at each of the eight stages. The names of the stages are from Tyler’s book and are presented in bold red text. My brief reflections follow in plain text.

  1. From bondage to spiritual growth – Great civilizations are formed in the crucible. The Ancient Jews were in bondage for 400 years in Egypt. The Christian faith and the Church came out of 300 years of persecution. Western Christendom emerged from the chaotic conflicts during the decline of the Roman Empire and the movements of often fierce “barbarian” tribes. American culture was formed by the injustices that grew in colonial times. Sufferings and injustices cause—even force—spiritual growth. Suffering brings wisdom and demands a spiritual discipline that seeks justice and solutions.
  2. From spiritual growth to great courage – Having been steeled in the crucible of suffering, courage and the ability to endure great sacrifice come forth. Anointed leaders emerge and people are summoned to courage and sacrifice (including loss of life) in order to create a better, more just world for succeeding generations. People who have little or nothing, also have little or nothing to lose and are often more willing to live for something more important than themselves and their own pleasure. A battle is begun, a battle requiring courage, discipline, and other virtues.
  3. From courage to liberty – As a result of the courageous fight, the foe is vanquished and liberty and greater justice emerges. At this point a civilization comes forth, rooted in its greatest ideals. Many who led the battle are still alive, and the legacy of those who are not is still fresh. Heroism and the virtues that brought about liberty are still esteemed. The ideals that were struggled for during the years in the crucible are still largely agreed upon.
  4. From liberty to abundance – Liberty ushers in greater prosperity, because a civilization is still functioning with the virtues of sacrifice and hard work. But then comes the first danger: abundance. Things that are in too great an abundance tend to weigh us down and take on a life of their own. At the same time, the struggles that engender wisdom and steel the soul to proper discipline and priorities move to the background. Jesus said that man’s life does not consist in his possessions. But just try to tell that to people in a culture that starts to experience abundance. Such a culture is living on the fumes of earlier sacrifices; its people become less and less willing to make such sacrifices. Ideals diminish in importance and abundance weighs down the souls of the citizens. The sacrifices, discipline, and virtues responsible for the thriving of the civilization are increasingly remote from the collective conscience; the enjoyment of their fruits becomes the focus.
  5. From abundance to complacency – To be complacent means to be self-satisfied and increasingly unaware of serious trends that undermine health and the ability to thrive. Everything looks fine, so it must be fine. Yet foundations, resources, infrastructures, and necessary virtues are all crumbling. As virtues, disciplines, and ideals become ever more remote, those who raise alarms are labeled by the complacent as “killjoys” and considered extreme, harsh, or judgmental.
  6. From complacency to apathy – The word apathy comes from the Greek and refers to a lack of interest in, or passion for, the things that once animated and inspired. Due to the complacency of the previous stage, the growing lack of attention to disturbing trends advances to outright dismissal. Many seldom think or care about the sacrifices of previous generations and lose a sense that they must work for and contribute to the common good. “Civilization” suffers the serious blow of being replaced by personalization and privatization in growing degrees. Working and sacrificing for others becomes more remote. Growing numbers becoming increasingly willing to live on the carcass of previous sacrifices. They park on someone else’s dime, but will not fill the parking meter themselves. Hard work and self-discipline continue to erode.
  7. From apathy to dependence – Increasing numbers of people lack the virtues and zeal necessary to work and contribute. The suffering and the sacrifices that built the culture are now a distant memory. As discipline and work increasingly seem “too hard,” dependence grows. The collective culture now tips in the direction of dependence. Suffering of any sort seems intolerable. But virtue is not seen as the solution. Having lived on the sacrifices of others for years, the civilization now insists that “others” must solve their woes. This ushers in growing demands for governmental, collective solutions. This in turns deepens dependence, as solutions move from personal virtue and local, family-based sacrifices to centralized ones.
  8. From dependence back to bondage – As dependence increases, so does centralized power. Dependent people tend to become increasingly dysfunctional and desperate. Seeking a savior, they look to strong central leadership. But centralized power corrupts, and tends to usher in increasing intrusion by centralized power. Injustice and intrusion multiplies. But those in bondage know of no other solutions. Family and personal virtue (essential ingredients for any civilization) are now effectively replaced by an increasingly dark and despotic centralized control, hungry for more and more power. In this way, the civilization is gradually ended, because people in bondage no longer have the virtues necessary to fight.

Another possibility is that a more powerful nation or group is able to enter, by invasion or replacement, and destroy the final vestiges of a decadent civilization and replace it with their own culture.

Either way, it’s back to crucible, until suffering and conflict bring about enough of the wisdom, virtue, and courage necessary to begin a new civilization that will rise from the ashes.

Thus are the stages of civilizations. Sic transit gloria mundi. The Church has witnessed a lot of this in just the brief two millennia of her time. In addition to civilizations, nations have come and gone quite frequently over the years. Few nations have lasted longer than 200 years. Civilizations are harder to define with exact years, but at the beginning of the New Covenant, Rome was already in decline. In the Church’s future would be other large nations and empires in the West: the “Holy” Roman Empire, various colonial powers, the Spanish, the Portuguese, and the French.  It was once said that “The sun never sets on the British Empire.” Now it does. As the West began a long decline, Napoleon made his move. Later, Hitler strove to build a German empire. Then came the USSR. And prior to all this, in the Old Testament period, there had been the Kingdom of David, to be succeeded by Babylon, Medo-Persia, Greece, and Rome.

The only true ark of safety is the Church, who received her promise of indefectibility from the Lord (Matt 16:18). But the Church, too, is always in need of reform and will have much to suffer. Yet she alone will survive this changing world, because she is the Bride of Christ and also His Body.

These are hard days, but perspective can help. It is hard to deny that we are living at the end of an era. It is painful because something we love is dying. But from death comes forth new life. Only the Lord knows the next stage and long this interregnum will be. Look to Him. Go ahead and vote, but put not your trust in princes (Ps 146:3). God will preserve His people, as He did in the Old Covenant. He will preserve those of us who are now joined to Him in the New Covenant. Find your place in the ark, ever ancient and yet new.