With a possible end to the COVID-19 pandemic in sight, one question that remains unanswered is whether or not the sizable number of people who moved from urban centers to suburban and exurban areas will return to the cities. While some cities will undoubtedly rebound, survey evidence reveals that an overwhelming number of Americans not only would like to live outside city centers, but also that they find that their social lives are anything but stale outside cities. Such appreciation for suburbia stands in stark contrast to countless narratives from urbanists who sing the praises of the city, often highlighting their financial, political, and cultural prowess and decrying the suburbs as monotonous and soulless. As such, planners and politicos alike should be cautious when thinking about planning after the COVID-19 vaccine has been administered. It may be foolish to assume that Americans who moved from urban cores dislike their new environs and will want to return.

Thanks to newly released data on civic life collected by the Survey Center on American Life, it is now known that even before COVID-19, Americans did not perceive that suburbs were economic or social dead zones. Fielded at the end of 2019 to over 3,600 Americans, the data makes it abundantly clear that suburban areas were the most desirable urban form while cities were actually the least preferred. Only 16 percent of Americans would opt to live in a city if they could live anywhere in the United States. In contrast, 36 percent—the plurality—preferred a suburban area, with another 28 percent stating a small town and 20 percent a rural area. 

When age is considered, suburbs are still the area most in demand. This fact is worth noting, for it is widely thought that young people eschew the bland suburbs for cities. However, just 20 percent of 18-29 year olds would ideally live in cities, while 39 percent would prefer suburban areas and another 23 percent would like small towns. City life was even less popular among older Americans—just 12 percent of those 55 and older wanted to live in a city—and the data reveals that Americans across the board believed that cities were the least desirable conurbation.

Relatedly, narratives readily hold that suburban areas are both bland and spatially isolated, leading to a sense of spatial dislocation and loneliness when compared to cities, but the data does not suggest that there is truth to these ideas either. When Americans were asked how closely connected they felt to the area in which they lived, 62 percent of urbanites say very or somewhat close, but that figure barely moves to 61 percent for suburban areas. Moreover, 19 percent of urbanites compared to 16 percent of suburbanites claim to be lonely either nearly all the time or most of the time. These numbers are sadly too high, but not appreciably different. 

When formal groups that are not religious such as sports teams, book clubs, PTAs, neighborhood associations, or political organizations are considered—and these are considered the glue of communal life by many social theorists—there are no real urban/suburban differences there either. Twenty-one percent of those in cities participate in such groups monthly, identical to those in suburbs. And, as for confidence in one’s local government acting in the best interests of the people, the differences are minor, with suburbs being a bit better: 57 percent to 53 percent. Neither cities nor their suburbs are particularly good models for overwhelmingly high levels of civic engagement, but it is not the case that city dwellers are participating in leagues and groups in any greater numbers compared to their suburban counterparts.

Going further, while attitudes about a place may not entirely square with empirical reality, how Americans think about place remains hugely important in their decision-making about living arrangements. And Americans were far more optimistic about their family’s future in suburbia compared to cities. Suburban Americans are more likely than city dwellers to think that they live in a place where people look out for each other (76 percent to 65 percent) and that suburbs are a good place to raise a family (90 percent to 77 percent).

Finally, one of the most salient measures of a social community is the existence of “third places”: places where people can go that are outside of their homes and places of work and mix and feel connected, from gyms to bars to bowling alleys. Once again, suburbs are not all that different from cities. In fact, when asked if you have a third place—a coffee shop, bar, restaurant, park, or other public place that one visits regularly—it turns out that two-thirds of Americans have such a place. While it is easy to think that the suburbs are empty and devoid of such critical places to meet up and socialize given that many think of houses and yards with people driving everywhere, suburbanites do have these places to socialize. In cities, 73 percent of Americans have such places, but so do 68 percent of those in suburban areas and small towns. Only 52 percent of rural-area residents have third places, so those areas are missing these amenities. But it is a myth that suburbs are devoid of social spaces or that they are social deserts.

This all being said, it worth noting the cities are often a bit more demographically diverse than their suburbs, and that is reflected in the sample here. In this data, 18 percent of those in cities, compared to 11 percent in suburbs, are Black. Whites make up 66 percent of suburbanites, compared to 45 percent of urban dwellers. Furthermore, larger numbers of suburbanites are generally more affluent in the sample.

However, relatively equal numbers of people live in cities and the suburbs by age. Thirty-seven percent of the 18-29 year olds and 40 percent of the 50-64 year olds, for instance, live in the suburbs, and fairly close numbers of married (41 percent) and unmarried (36 percent) people live in the suburbs as well. There are differences, but they are not huge, and more importantly, they reveal that those who live the suburban life are anything but monolithic. 

Cities are wonderful places, but these new data powerfully show that it is imprudent to assume that socio-economic life outside urban centers is devoid of human connection. The problem with so much anti-suburban rhetoric is that many Americans are extremely happy with their lives in suburbia, and social life in America’s suburban areas is thriving; it is anything but empty, economically dead, or soul crushing. Even before the COVID-19 pandemic, many cities were already losing their allure and Americans rejected cities for numerous reasons including space, cost, and general difficulty in raising families. Cities may bounce back over time, but it would be presumptuous to think that those who left urban areas will be miserable and run back as soon as possible. For them, at least, the suburbs provide a richness regularly overlooked by many who write about the city and its virtues.

Just because your home is already built does not preclude you from upgrading your residential security to include an impenetrable safe or panic room. Our team can guide you in how to build a safe room in your existing home using our wide range of reinforcement materials and expertise.

How to Build A Panic Room:

• Choose a room that is quickly accessed and easily secured
• Determine threats you may face
• Select secure walls and windows
• Select secure entry door
• Install components
• Create and practice an emergency action plan

Planning Your Home’s Safe Room

Follow our guide to get started in planning a panic room for your home.

Step 1: Choose Safe Room Location

• Try and pick a room that has no existing windows. This will help conceal the presence of your new safe room, as well as minimize the potential entry points. If the only suitable room has windows, this still can be solved. Our team will guide you to upgrading towards forced entry resistant or bullet resistant windows for the location.
• Safe rooms and panic rooms should be placed as close to the frequented living spaces as possible. The room should be accessible in the case of an emergency. Seconds can be of the essence. It is best that the safe room be located on the same floor as the bedrooms of your homes.
• Attempt to camouflage your safe room as much as possible. More so than the amount of steel protecting you, this will eliminate potential threats. Some factors to consider are the location of the room – where would a criminal not expect to find a room or closet? Others are how to disguise the entry door.

Step 2: Determine Possible Threats

All subsequent decisions about how to build and protect your safe room will depend on what threats you wish the room to be protected from. Are you primarily looking to protect valuables, people or both? Do you expect to just resisting hammers, or might you be under attack from handguns or even assault rifles?

Step 3: Select Panic Room Windows and Walls

• The room’s walls should be constructed out of materials that can withstand force entry and firearms. If you are retrofitting an existing home it may be hard to construct concrete walls. Luckily there are great retrofit options. Look to use ballistic panels made out of fiber glass panels or Kevlar wall panels instead.
• These panels are relatively easy to install and cost effective. Unlike steel they can be cut to fit on site and also don’t interfere with Wifi and cellular signals. They also come in a variety of bullet resistant or forced entry resistant protection levels.
• Often a room will be selected that does not have windows – such as a closet or basement area – but many of our clients do have windows in their safe room. This is particularly the case when a safe room will be built into a bedroom.
• Ballistic and blast windows can simply replace existing annealed windows to provide the desired level of protection. Generally windows of these type are fixed and inoperable. However, we do offer some of the only operable ballistic windows, which may be preferred as a means of escape.

Step 4: Select Secure Entry Door

• The door to your panic room is the most important security feature of your room. It is the first place that criminals will attempt entry through for it is the only security component of the room that is literally designed to allow people to pass through.
• Custom safe room entranceThe door locking capabilities will depend on your planned use of the room. If planning to secure valuables, the door must be lockable from the outside. The unlocking method can be sophisticated though a convenient one makes use of the room for a greater amount of one’s valuables more likely.
• If planning to only secure people during an emergency the door need only be lockable from the inside. This allows the door to be unlocked during normal use for fastest possible entry.
• Of course, many safe rooms are used for both purposes. In these cases look to have an easy to access lock for day to day use while engaging a more robust locking system when away for an extended period or during an emergency.
• The door must be properly secured to the surrounding wall, ensuring the wood or metal door jamb is of sufficient thickness. The door should use a high security lock which has multiple locking points. This will minimize ability for the pins to be disengaged.
• The door leaf itself must also be able to withstand abuse without allow entry. Proper thick gauge steel should be used to prevent pass through.

Step 5: Install Safe Room Components

• All of our materials we provide for safe rooms are designed to be conveniently installed by a local contractor or sometimes even a DIY homeowner. They are factory assembled as much as practically possible. Someone with experience installing standard doors, windows and walls will be able to use the same skills for high security versions. However, it is highly recommended to work with a licensed and bonded contractor.
• Note also that most security components are much heavier than standard features, which makes handling them more cumbersome.
• Additionally for certain components – like doors with multi-point locks – it is important to work with various precise measurements. The most important measurement to determine when manufacturing doors and windows is the rough opening of the room.
• Our team can help you plan all of this and be in direct contact with your contractor to advise on design and installation.

Step 6: Create (and Practice) an Emergency Plan

• A safe room must be used to be effective. We recommend creating a basic plan to maximize the value of your safe room. With regards to storing valuables, determine some rules of thumb about when the door will be locked and what you’ll keep inside.
• With regards to protecting your family, make a few rules of thumb on which type of possible threats you will use the room for. If you hear a strange noise in the night should your family head there immediately? Might you want someone in the family in charge of bringing small children to the room?
• What method will you use to alert authorities? What method will you use for an “all-clear”.
• Don’t forget to have a line of communication to the outside world. An extra cell phone, radio or dedicated phone line will all allow you to call 911 once you are securely in your safe room.

Additional Ideas for Stocking Your Safe Room

• As you may be in the room for a long time be sure to have food and water. A minimum of three gallons of water per person will allow for a lengthy stay.
• Store nonperishable food items in the safe room.
• A small medical kit would also be useful.
• Periodically rotate your supplies so that nothing expires
• Also consider having a flashlight and other emergency items.

How Much Does A Panic Room Cost?

A panic room’s cost depends on the size and how secure its components are. An 8′ x 10′ panic room may cost between $9,000 – $40,000 for high security walls and door, plus an additional $3,000 – $20,000 for expert installation. Ballistic windows add additional cost. Additional, more exotic features such as over pressure filtration systems, automation and luxury interiors can greatly increase the overall price.

Nobody has said it yet, but the Coronavirus has turned into a TEOTWAWKI event. Not the kind of “end of the world we knew” event that we all expected, but still one nevertheless. No matter how many people end up getting sick and how many die, the current changes in the ways we do things are so severe, that many of these are likely to end up becoming a permanent part of our society.

Some of them will not necessarily be for the best. Our government, at all levels, has taken a huge amount of authority upon itself, much of which is of questionable legality. While I don’t think that there are many people who would argue the government’s right to quarantine, shutting down churches and other places of worship as “non-essential” comes directly against our First Amendment rights.

But the real question is whether or not the government is going to be willing to give up all that control that they’ve taken. Historically, governments which gain control over something are not quick to give that control up. What’s to make any of us think that they will do so in this case?

Nevertheless, for the moment, many of us are obeying various government mandates to stay home, with companies telling as many of their employees that can, to do so as well. So, as we all sit in our homes, trying to telecommute with noisy kids in the background and our spouses on the other side of the table, working on their computer, we need to start thinking ahead. There will be an end to all this and we will have to emerge from our caves to see the light of the sun once again.

But what sort of world will we emerge into? Experts are forecasting that anywhere from 20 to 34 percent of our workforce will be laid off during the course of this pandemic. If we come anywhere near the top end of those predictions, it will be huge; much worse than the Great Depression. Unfortunately, from the viewpoint of where we are today, a worldwide economic depression seems to be in all of our futures, starting even before the pandemic burns out.

So how can you and I prepare ourselves for that coming depression? There are actually many things that we can do, but the first of them is to restructure our finances. Specifically, get rid of, or at least cut down on unnecessary expenses, so that we are ready when the depression hits.

Car Payments

Many families are paying more for their two car payments, than they are for their mortgage payment. If you think about that for a minute, it really doesn’t make much sense.

But cars and light trucks have gone up incredibly in price, at least partially due to all the bells and whistles they put on a car these days.

In a financial collapse, the people who are hit the hardest are those which are in debt. Those car payments are some of the biggest debt you have. So, it only makes sense to attack it first.

Trading your cars in for something used, but still in good condition, can save you a lot of money from your monthly payments. If you’re fortunate to find a good deal, you might even be able to get rid of one of those payments, really saving yourself some money.

Entertainment Expenses

The home computer has evolved into an entertainment center, or maybe the home entertainment center has evolved into a computer. Either way, many of us are spending a fair amount on cable service, plus an assortment of different movie websites. Netflix is no longer enough, producers have decided to divide and conquer, requiring us all to have multiple subscriptions in order to see all the movies we want to.

The obvious problem with this is that it can get rather expensive. Not only that, but it’s obviously an unnecessary expense. Now, I realize you might not agree with that, especially with your kids home from school. But at least find out how to cancel your subscriptions and have the information handy, so that if you have to, you can pull the plug on them.

Service Expenses

From mowing our lawns, through curbside pickup of our groceries, to having a mechanic repair our cars, we all pay others to do things for us. That’s fine, when you can afford it, helping others to have jobs.

But when the economy goes belly up, you’re going to need to save that money.

One of my favorite money saving techniques is that I’m a consummate do-it-yourselfer. I do everything from making gifts for my wife to making my own furniture, with car repairs somewhere in-between. The more you can do for yourself, the less you have to pay others to do. And in the midst of the next depression, you probably won’t be able to afford paying someone else to do it.

Coffee Habits

How much do you spend on coffee every month? Do you even know? How about every day? You should be able to figure that out.

That can add up to quite a bit over a month, especially if you’re buying the high-dollar made to order lattes and cappuccinos.

You can get just as good a cup of coffee, including all the assorted flavoring syrups, in your own kitchen. It might take a little experimentation to get it right, but you can probably even get a better cup of coffee than what you’re buying right now. And you can do it without paying seven bucks a cup.

Eating Out

Speaking of coffee, let’s expand on that idea. How much do you spend a month on eating out? If you happen to be the average American family, then that figure is somewhere between $250 and $300 per month. If you eat lunch out or from the cafeteria at work, that figure might be even higher.

There’s nothing wrong with eating out, just as long as it’s not in excess. How much is excess? That depends on how much you make. So for most of us, that figure is likely to be changing, sometime in the next few months. With that being the case, wouldn’t it be a good idea to start working on it now?

Don’t go overboard on take-out, just because you’re part of the lockdown going on. Take this time to experiment with some new recipes, so that you can keep your family happy, without having to eat out all the time.

Vices

Speaking of coffee again, there are those people who would call coffee an addiction.

This includes people who are at least emotionally addicted to having their two cups in the morning, before they are human enough to talk to anyone without biting their hand off.

Another word we can use for that is “vice”, a word normally associated with smoking, drinking, gambling, prostitution and drugs.

I’m not trying to accuse you of anything, but if you smoke or drink, this might be a good time to think of quitting. The cost of a few beers a day or a couple of packs of smokes may not seem like much, but it does add up. I’m sure you could find something better to do with the extra $150 to $350 a month than a two-pack-a-day habit can cost.

Unnecessary Monthly Payments

Creditors, especially the big credit card companies, have worked overtime to convince us all that the way to buy anything is on credit. That’s led us to having an average credit card debt of $6,028. While some of those purchases may have been necessities, I’d venture to guess that many are things we could have waited to buy, if we had a little more patience.

Either way, they are a problem or, more likely, they will be a problem when the economy collapses and we’re stuck holding that debt. As with any other debt, it will be one more (or several more) creditors calling and asking us when we’re going to pay our bills. If you’ve secured that debt with some sort of collateral, you might end up losing whatever you’ve put up to cover the debt.

Excessive Shopping

This one might cause some battles in your home, but how about cutting out unnecessary shopping? The trick here is to determine what really qualifies as unnecessary.

Women will say that all the “toys” that men buy are unnecessary and men will say that all the clothes their wives buy are. Either way, between the toys and the clothes, it can get really expensive.

Here’s something you can try, if you want to get a real handle on your shopping expenses. Make a deal with each other, that before you can buy something, you have to get the other to agree that it is necessary. If she wants a new pair of shoes, she’s got to convince her husband that she actually needs them. Likewise, if he wants to buy a tool, he’s got to convince her that he can’t do the pending repair or other project without it.

Quit Replacing Things

Long ago our society transitioned to being a disposable society. Other than some pretty major things, like cars and houses, we no longer repair anything.

We throw it away and replace it. In many cases, there’s no other option.

But we’ve gone far beyond that now, in that we don’t just replace things that are broken, we replace things that are just fine, for no other reason than because they are “old”.

Of course, our definition of old in many cases is highly subject to questioning, as last year’s cell phone model really isn’t old, just because the company has come out with a new one. Yet many of us will replace that phone, just to have the new one, “complaining” that our old one “Just doesn’t work right anymore”.

Smartphones aren’t the only thing we do this with. We also do it with eyeglasses, frying pans and even dishes. Once people had a mixed batch of dishes, because they kept using the remainder of a set, when some of them got broken. Today, we’ll throw away the rest of the set or donate it to charity, just so we can buy a new one.

There’s nothing wrong with using something that’s “old”, as long as it works. Why not try to see how long you can keep that cell phone or those glasses, rather than seeing how quickly you can replace them?

Avoid Gimmick Products

Our homes are filled with gimmicks and gadgets. Some are obvious, while others manage to slip under the radar. One of those is cleaning supplies. There’s really not much you can’t clean with Clorox in a spray bottle, but many of us have special cleaners for the bathtub, the kitchen, our appliances and even the toilet. Not so surprisingly, most of those “special” products are basically the same thing, in different packaging.

Figure out what you really need and stick with it. Don’t let Madison Avenue convince you that you need their latest product, just because it’s “New” and “Different”. It’s probably neither. All that’s new is the packaging and the advertising campaign.

How many of you believe that this country is plunging head-first into a state of revolution? How many of you believe that a planned currency collapse coupled with the implementation of a brutal martial law and gun confiscation will be the trigger events which will incite the coming revolution? In addition, nonsense climate change policies designed to bring America and most Americans to their knees will occur under a Democratic Party leadership. The Democrats are aligned with the UN troops in our country under the Kigali Principles of UN Peacekeeper intervention (ie invasion of the United States). As I have demonstrated, Nancy Pelosi and Beto O’Rourke are aligned with former Mexican President Nieto who took $100 million to leave the Sinaloa cartel alone. In part, I blame the deaths of these 9 American citizens on Pelosi, Eric “Fast and Furious” Holder and Obama. It was their open border, let-the-drugs-flow policies that led to these deaths. These horrific murders are just the beginning of what is coming to both sides of the border. What else can we expect than when we witness Pelosi and O’Rourke hanging out with Nieto?

You might be living in one of America’s deathzones and not have a clue about it
What if that were you? What would YOU do?

In the next few minutes, I’m going to show you the U.S. Nuclear Target map, where you’ll find out if you’re living in one of America’s Deathzones.

The exit of California from the Union would devastate our economy and agricultural production. Key Democrats are aligned with this movement. Senators Kamala Harris and Feinstein and Governor, Gavin Newsome, are aligned with the Communist Chinese on a number of fronts. Many Democrats and even some Republicans are being blackmailed by the Epstein operation. I could go on, but the readers know where this is leading. We are a nation that has forsaken its rule of law just like Nazi Germany did in 1932. Adam Schiff is holding Soviet-style hearings with secret witnesses, hearsay evidence and outright liars. This is your judicial future America should the Democrats takeover. We would be witnessing the Obama administration on steroids.

Being a coach and former athlete, I know the feeling of a once-inferior opponent rising up to defeat my team. I know the feeling of underestimating an opponent. I have done that with the Democrats. The Kentucky Governor’s race is proof of what I am saying along with the fact that Texas is turning “blue”. We are all faced with the possibility that the Democrats could be running the country in the next several months. These are Democrats in name only. These individuals are Communists and I am not exaggerating when I say that many are demonically possessed and serve Satan. Then there are radicalized Democrats like AOC and Omar. They run their Congressional offices like a makeshift terrorist organization. They crawled out from underneath the rock we call the “Justice Democrats”. There is nothing that these people will not do to solidify their power. And I have just had the “aha moment” of my life when I have come to the final realization that they and their fellow servants of Satan could be running this country in a few months.

Many of us in the alternative media believe that this is the likely scenario that will very soon turn this country into the most dangerous country on the face of the earth. It might behoove us to look a little closer at the nature of revolution in order to predict where all of this is likely headed. In the present political climate, I see no way to stem the tide of unthinkable brutality and violence which seems imminent. It is in this mindset that I set about to research the topic of revolution and this series of articles reflects the results of the research. And as a result of past and common patterns of revolution, it appears as if a clear picture is beginning to emerge.

We already are in a civil war. The last thing to happen in a civil war is the piling up of bodies. And America, make no mistake about it, the enemy controls the media, the military industrial complex, the stock market and the banks. Guerrilla war will be the only viable form of resistance.

Four Levels of Warfare

Most military strategists identify four levels of conflict; (1) nuclear war is the trump card of all conflict; (2) conventional warfare; (3) guerrilla warfare; and, (4) terrorism.

It is safe to say that if our country does indeed descend into revolution, nuclear war will not come into play, for if it did, there would be nothing to rule over in the aftermath.

The United States has witnessed civil war of a conventional nature In the 1860’s as two mighty armies of that era locked horns in what proved to be the conflict in which America suffered her greatest loss of life. In the Civil War, both sides had equivalent weaponry and as a result employed conventional tactics. However, given the disparity of technology and resources between the people the globalist controlled forces of the new Democratically controlled government, a conventional war would prove to be a disaster for the rebel forces. If key elements of the military were to break away and support the people, perhaps a conventional war would unfold. However, it is not likely that the upcoming civil war will be conventional as it is not probable that the military will bifurcate and turn in on itself. The likely mode of the revolutionary war conflict facing the people of the United States is that it will consist of either guerrilla warfare or terrorism.

Guerrilla Warfare Or Terrorism?

Terrorism is the least preferred option by any insurgent group. With terrorism, there is absolutely no hope of final victory because territory is never occupied. For that reason, nobody aspires to engage in terrorism if they have a viable alternative and the American people do have a choice given how well armed we are. However, terrorism arising out a defeated guerrilla force is a distinct possibility as it would represent American guerrilla’s fallback position should they be defeated. Subsequently, does the MIAC Report which labeled Libertarians, Constitutionalists, Second Amendment Supporters, Ron Paul Supporters, Veterans and now Christians as domestic terrorists, make a little more sense as to why DHS made these bold proclamations? The DHS of the Obama years understood and demonstrated their understanding of these facts and has also prepared for what I just wrote about in the previous paragraph. Hillary was to be 2016 recipient of Obama’s work, but Donald Trump happened.

The Veterans Administration estimates that there are approximately 21.5 million veterans living in the United States. We also live in a country with over 300 million privately owned guns. These combined factors point clearly to a guerrilla war being the preferred and necessary mode of combat which will likely be visited upon this country.

What Is Guerrilla Warfare?

Guerrilla warfare, for most of human history, is not new. Tribal war, which traditionally pits one guerrilla force against another, is the oldest form of warfare. The new “conventional” form of warfare, which pits guerrillas against “conventional” forces, is more recent as it first arose in Mesopotamia 5,000 years ago.

The good news for future American freedom fighters is that guerrilla war has been getting more successful since 1945, but unfortunately guerrilla fighters still lose most of the time. An analysis of past conflicts featuring guerrilla war, reveals that only 25% of guerrilla forces, out of 443 such conflicts since 1775, were successful. The government prevailed almost 64% of the time with the remainder of the conflicts ended in a stalemate. Conversely, since the end of WWII, the percentage of success for guerrilla forces has indeed gone up to 39.6%. Yet that still means that government forces have continued to prevail 51% of the time. When the American people engage in a guerrilla war in the upcoming years, the people have less than a 40% chance of success.

Length of Guerrilla Wars

Guerrilla wars are rarely short and as a result do not favor the American culture and our collective psyche of instant gratification. When Americans flip the switch on the wall, we expect the light to come on. Will Americans set aside their entitlements as well as their entrenched soft lifestyle and rise to the occasion? Only time will tell.

The Vietnamese culture with an external locus of control predominating the people where the group is more important than the individual is the perfect mindset for guerrilla fighters. This could prove to be the American rebels biggest challenge because guerrilla warfare is not something that one does like driving over a speed bump. It is a way of life, a very hard way of life filled with misery, extreme sacrifice and unspeakable losses.

For my money, the best guerrilla fighters in the modern era were the Viet Cong in which Vietnamese people were involved in some form of guerrilla war from 1942-1975. After the Americans invaded Vietnam, the forces in the north had a saying, “born in the north, to die in the south.” There were nearly two generations of Vietnamese people in which war was an unavoidable part of life. What General Westmoreland and LBJ failed to recognize was that in order to defeat and totally subdue the Vietnamese people, the Americans would have had to have engaged in unspeakable genocide because despite the fact that the US won every single battle of the war, the Vietnamese rebels were never going to give up. Do we Americans have that same tenacity to persevere like the Vietnamese?

Prior to WWII, guerrilla wars lasted an average of seven years. Following WWII, guerrilla conflicts lasted an average of 10 years. Will Americans embrace the tenets and sacrifices of guerrilla war and can it ever become a way of life? I believe that conditions would have to be unspeakably horrendous for America to embrace a conflict under these conditions. I think that things would have to be so bad, so completely genocidal, that fighting and dying would be the only viable alternative for America in order to embrace guerrilla warfare as a way of life. What I am saying here is that we are a very soft people.

How Close Are We to the Inevitable Conflict?

Successful guerrilla leaders such as Lawrence of Arabia, Mao, Castro and Giap all concur that there are three phases of any guerrilla war. However, before the phases can unfold there are two preconditions which must be met.

The first condition which is a prerequisite for guerrilla war, is based upon the fact that there has to be a decisive battle for the belief systems of the people as a whole. The globalists have invested billions of dollars in order to dominate the mainstream media. On the other side is the alternative media. Both sides are vying for control of the belief systems of the country.

There are two very distinct ideologies playing out today in the court of public opinion. On one hand, the future rebels are adept at exposing the loss of national sovereignty and civil liberties every chance they get. Conversely, the globalist dominated media is spending billions of dollars to convince the masses that there is no such thing as a conspiracy theory and despite some governmental incompetence, the government loves and protects its people. And the globalists are being somewhat effective. Have you ever noticed that when you are describing a globalist inspired conspiracy such as what happened at Benghazi, and no matter how well documented your position is, that your audience frequently responds with “you must be one of these conspiracy theorists.” Our facts are rarely attacked because they are accurate, but the idea of the existence of any kind of conspiracy is what is challenged. This kind of programming coming from the media is brilliant and effective. Who is winning this war of words? The jury is still out, but the unmistakable conclusion is that the ideological battle lines for the upcoming conflict have clearly been drawn. One might argue that social media censorship will eventually beat down the alt media.

The globalists sell the sheep on the notion that we have to control you to protect you (from a threat of our creation), and the other side is saying “we will take our chances, give us freedom.”

The second precondition which must be met prior to descending into guerrilla war consists of both sides engaging in an arms race. In response to the Obama administration’s threat of seizing our guns for the false flag events of the Aurora Batman massacre and Sandy Hook, Americans went on a gun-buying frenzy which continues to this day. DHS has engaged in their own arms buildup as they have purchased 2.2 billion rounds of ammunition to go with 2700 new armored personnel carriers and that is not all. The federal government has invested in 730,000 drones, super soldier robots and intelligence gathering techniques which are mind-blowing. As an aside, Snowden’s public revelations related to the extent of the NSA’s illegal surveillance activities contained nothing that most of us in the alternative media did not already know. It is my belief that Ed Snowden knows a lot more than has been reported related to the reasons underlying the NSA spying and the media is refusing to report on it.

In summary, the American people and their government have engaged in an arms race very similar in nature to two rival countries preparing to go to war.

Conclusion

The preconditions for armed conflict and the likelihood that the conflict will be guerrilla is very likely. In Part Two of this series, an analysis of the commonalities between past guerrilla conflicts (e.g. Giap, Mao, Castro, etc.) will be offered. Emerging from the discussion in the next part in this series is the discovery of the fact that there three overlapping phases to guerrilla war and it will be a shocking surprise to all of us as to how far along this country is in relation to these three phases. All that is needed is the right trigger event and that will be discussed in the next part as well.

Today I’d like to share with you a “3-second survival hack” you can use to skyrocket your chances of protecting your loved ones during ANY crisis.

This technique is so powerful it can give you almost superhuman powers during the ugliest nightmares imaginable….

From natural disasters like earthquakes or tornadoes…

To explosive situations like mass shootings or even nationwide martial law.

And It doesn’t matter if you’re out of shape…

Or have no equipment…

Or even if you’re disabled living in a wheelchair.

This technique has been tested and proven by elite soldiers and real world “miracle” survivors from around the world.

With all the talk about the risk for civil war in America — and the new Nancy Pelosi push for impeachment that will drive America into more conflict — it’s crucial to realize how your proximity to left-wing population density hubs will largely determine your fate.

Over the last several months, I’ve been asking many of my best contacts what they think about the risk of civil war and what such a conflict would actually look like. These contacts include former military intelligence, special forces and law enforcement. They all agree that several upcoming events could trigger a rampage by the increasingly hysterical Leftists, including if Trump wins re-election in 2020, or if Ruth Bader Ginsberg passes away, giving Trump the opportunity to nominate another U.S. Supreme Court Justice.

There’s also the increasing risk of systemic financial collapse, which the central banks are desperately trying to stave off through “repo” actions that are just another form of quantitative easing. The writing is on the wall, however: Even the central banks know this is the final blowout chapter in the history of global debt. It’s only a matter of time before the ability to create new money can no longer fund the runaway debt spending of the governments of the world, include the U.S. government.

Today I’d like to share with you a “3-second survival hack” you can use to skyrocket your chances of protecting your loved ones during ANY crisis.

This technique is so powerful it can give you almost superhuman powers during the ugliest nightmares imaginable….

From natural disasters like earthquakes or tornadoes…

To explosive situations like mass shootings or even nationwide martial law.

And It doesn’t matter if you’re out of shape…

Or have no equipment…

Or even if you’re disabled living in a wheelchair.

This technique has been tested and proven by elite soldiers and real world “miracle” survivors from around the world.

Practical actions that can help keep you alive

One of my goals in all this is to translate intelligence into practical action that can help keep you safe. When I learn things that might help you survive, or relocate, or defend yourself against what’s coming, I make it a point to share those conclusions publicly. That’s why I routinely talk to so many well-connected individuals who are either former or active military and law enforcement. These people know far more about what’s really going on than you might suspect, and they are almost universally supportive of defending America (and our president) from domestic enemies.

What they’ve recently told me has reshaped some of my own thinking on this subject, and the new analysis they’ve offered seems so important that it just begged for this article to share everything.

Here’s what I learned, in the aggregate, from multiple sources, many of whom have operated inside collapsing, war-torn cities and countries:

• There won’t be a nationwide kinetic civil war fought like America’s first Civil War. Instead, outbreaks of kinetic violence will be very limited to the areas in and around high-density population centers dominated by Leftists (i.e. Antifa and similar left-wing lunatics).
• This means your proximity to left-wing cities largely determines your risk of being caught up in any kind of kinetic engagement. The closer you are to the “zombies,” the worse off you’ll be when it hits the fan.
• At the same time, if you live in rural America, far from left-wing strongholds, your risk of being involved in kinetic engagement is virtually zero, according to my sources. They do not expect any mass exodus from liberal cities, since it is well understood that liberal zombies are incapable of doing anything that requires effort (such as walking a distance, or reading a topo map, etc.).
• Evacuating those cities will be largely impossible. Law enforcement isn’t even planning to try to run such evacuations for the largest cities like Los Angeles. The strategy is to keep people in place and attempt to support them with deliveries of food, water and medical supplies, should circumstances require. In effect, the response strategy will be to quarantine cities that are collapsing, and not risk National Guard troops trying to enter those cities once they’ve passed a certain point of lawlessness. (I was specifically told that the first responders already realize that trying to stop crime is just playing a game of “whack-a-mole” once the crime rate passes a certain point.)
• Ironically, the closer you live to left-wing stronghold cities, the more likely the government has restricted your ability to own firearms and normal-capacity magazines. Thus, the very people who will need firearms the most are being stripped of their Second Amendment rights in advance of the coming chaos. (Hint: Move to somewhere else.)
• When it comes to safety buffer zones from liberal cities, there are three distances that matter. First is the walking distance from your nearest liberal city. In other words, how long would it take the zombies to reach you if they are on foot? 25-50 miles away is generally considered to be sufficiently far away from the majority of walkers, although such distances are considered quite small for military veterans. The second distance to consider is the driving distance, which means how far someone might get on one tank of gas. This is roughly considered to be about 400 miles, although in a collapse scenario, even the zombies won’t have much success driving anywhere since the roads will likely be either jammed up or rigged as ambush points. The distance of 400 miles means there is practically no place along the East Coast that is a safe distance away from a liberal city. You have to head West — into Texas, Oklahoma, Colorado, Utah, Arizona, Idaho, Wyoming, etc. — to get away from the cities. Along the Left Coast, you of course have to head inland, getting yourself situation in Eastern California, Eastern Oregon or Eastern Washington rather than risking proximity to collapsing cities like Los Angeles, Portland or Seattle.
• By the way, as a relevant side note, when it comes to cross-country fleeing via vehicles, stupid zombie liberals will drive their cars at night with their headlights on and tail lights functioning. Experienced veterans will pull the fuses for all their lights and drive using night vision, which is very dangerous but not as dangerous as running with your headlights at night, right into an ambush.
• If you live far from the liberal “zombie” cities, your biggest issue will be collapsing infrastructure such as grocery deliveries, fuel deliveries, communications infrastructure, medical supplies and possibly regional power grid failures. Thus, the strategy for those who are not in close proximity to liberal cities is to stockpile supplies and prepare to ride out a period of chaos and disruptions. During this chaos, there will of course be local looting and crimes of desperation, but there will not be organized left-wing waves of communist lunatics trying to sweep across the geography.
• This means the survival strategies are very different depending on your proximity to left-wing cities. To summarize, if you’re close to a city, you may be swept up in kinetic engagement initiated by the lunatic Leftists. If you’re in rural areas, your most likely challenge will be surviving disruptions of logistics, deliveries and essential services.
• The biggest gap in the preparedness efforts of most people today is a lack of communications capabilities. Even many preppers don’t have radio skills to monitor frequencies, use repeaters or coordinate community defense or rescue operations when needed. Most people have no idea what frequencies are used by local police and emergency services, and they don’t even have practical radios to communicate with neighbors or family members who may be on patrol around their own property. Even the simple MURS or GMRS radios can be incredibly useful, but acquiring and learning to use radios that can listen to a far large spectrum of frequencies is strongly recommended.
• One website that’s been recommended to me is ForwardObserver.com, which will soon be indexed by Censored.news as well. Forward Observer is written by individuals with impressive real-world skills in intelligence gathering and action responses to incoming intel. The mission statement of this website is, “Deliver high impact intelligence to shape a real-world, ground level understanding of America’s likely tumultuous future.” The site is largely written by U.S. Special Operations and Intelligence personnel, which explains how I came to know about this work (I know the people who know those people, in other words). As you’ll learn on this site, it’s also highly recommended that you acquire detailed topo maps for your local area so that you can navigate streams, roads, railroad tracks, etc., when needed.
• All the standard preps such as food, emergency medicine, water filters, ammo, etc., are obviously needed no matter what happens. But beyond the bullets and band-aids, you need intelligence, communications and ground-level familiarity with your geographic reality if you hope to shore up your community defenses and resilience. We’ve got a decent selection of some preparedness gear at HealthRangerStore.com, including our ever-popular Ranger Buckets which are certified organic, lab-tested storable food pails that come with bonus survival gear items. We can barely keep these in stock, but we’ve recently added more personnel to our operations, so we hope to have more inventory over the next few months. If those are out of stock, we offer an alternative, which is sealed #10 cans packed with a variety of lab-verified freeze-dried fruits, vegetables, miso soup powders, spirulina and more.
• The goal of rural communities that don’t have to deal with left-wing zombie waves will be to maintain the rule of law, re-establish barter and trade in a safe environment, and keep the roadways safe and usable so that citizens can engage in trade. From this, communities can survive and even thrive.
• As recent attacks in Saudi Arabia revealed, key infrastructure in America are now highly vulnerable to drone attacks. In the United States, this includes power grid substations, oil refineries, communications towers and water delivery facilities. Drones enable an ease of attack that has previously never existed. For example, how hard would it be for domestic terrorists to fly a drone filled with some sort of high potency poison right into the water canals that feed a city like Phoenix or Los Angeles? There are essentially zero defenses against such acts, and similar vulnerabilities exist for power grid substations and power generation stations that feed the power consumption of large cities. Without power, large cities very quickly collapse into chaos.
• If you do not yet own some sort of night vision device such as a PVS-14 (or something better), you are already behind the curve and are hopelessly out-geared from an equipment point of view. Such devices allow you to see the IR designation beams or IR illuminators of organized attackers. They also allow you to see and maneuver in low-light or nearly no-light conditions, especially if you have your own IR illumination device. 

During a SHTF situation, pain could become an annoyance for some, but unbearable for others.

If doctors are scarce and medicine becomes even scarcer, this one little weed, found all over North America and similar to morphine, could be a saving grace.

The last straw was Rudy Giuliani stripping down to his borats and shouting “Never concede! Wolverines!” The Second Civil War had begun.

“Newspaper” (so called because it once contained news and was published on actual paper, for the elderly) columnists at The New York Times and Washington Post, now the Ministry of Truth, tried hard enough to warn us it was coming. Statues now line the National Mall, and school kids know the names: Krugman, Friedman, Bruni, Rubin, and Boot. All perished in the White Guilt Plague of 2026, its origin traced to the Oberlin campus.

The key event in the Second Civil War, the Great Confiscation of Guns, took place even before the struggle proper unfolded. Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez (whose name graced the aircraft carrier USS AOC, now in the process of being handed over to the Native American nation, spa, and casino formed out of the former state of Texas), standing outside Fox headquarters, challenged anyone with one of those automatic guns with the handle on top to take a free shot at her. This was a clever solution to the problem of the people who have guns living nowhere near and having nothing to do with those who oppose guns.

After over 200,000,000 people showed up, waves of millenials descended on the crowd. As most of the attacking wave only had one hand free (no one set down their Starbucks) the confiscation proceeded slowly. Sadly, several thousand patriots were rendered unable to reproduce due to pistols-in-their-belt-related accidents. Reinforcements were unavailable when QAnon, Boogaloo Boys, Oath Keepers, Proud Boys, and seven Michigan militias all turned out to be the same guys and they couldn’t get anyone to take their shifts at Chick-fil-A.

The Maddow Division (General Maddow, her bearded face in relief wearing a black beret over shaggy hair, adorns a million t-shirts) struck south on Citibikes. The advance was delayed when the second wave’s surge-priced Ubers did not arrive on time and the black UN helicopters never showed up, again, but the division’s clever use of weaponized sarcasm caused Tr*mp supporters (while the name is banned, for historical clarity we use here the term Tr*mp rather than “The T word”) to quit the field and return to their RVs.

It also turned out wearing bright red MAGA hats made for relatively easy targeting after Apple released its “Kill Kinda Kaucasians” app. Still, many of Maddow’s troops suffered after being deeply offended as the MAGA line displayed photos from old Hollywood movies of white actors playing Asian roles.

Postal workers hiding ballots accidentally then discovered the secret Fox transmitter which had been broadcasting mind control instructions not only to vote Republican, but also to purchase MyPillow, items from that fishing store that has way too much stuff for just fishing, and massive amounts of Flexi-Seal people didn’t need so it’s in the garage now behind the cooler. The conservative economy collapsed. The images of conservative children forced to eat soy products when their regular high-fructose food supplies ran out haunt even the toughest Resistance fighters to this day. Thoughts and prayers.

But those images of children are nothing compared with the nightmare unleashed when Nancy Pelosi liberated the Kids ‘N Kages camps along what used to be America’s southern border (known today as “Newer New Mexico 2.0”) After being fed only expired Taco Bell products in what was assumed to be a failed humanitarian gesture by the Venezuelan Red Cross, the migrant children were each awarded H-1 visas posthumously.

Pelosi blamed herself and regularly called in to Maxine Waters’ late night comedy show to explain how after she impeached Tr*mp, Pence, Barr, Kavanaugh, several junior Senators, and Tucker Carlson she was briefly seated as America’s first woman president before her untimely accidental death at the hands of a meth-addled Hillary Clinton wearing a Joker mask.

The conservative last stand took place, appropriately, on the steps of the Supreme Court. Just before losing power, the final conservative government expanded the bench to 78 judges, all cloned from the last available saliva sample from Roy Cohn Tr*mp kept in a vial around his neck. No monument marks their abortive battle to prevent freedom, no plaque records their final words (“lower capital gains taxes”) and even their ashes were lost in the changeover from Obamacare to the Bidencare plan which provides unlimited free visits to a doctor but requires travel to Germany for appointments (“You can keep your own doctor as long as he speaks German”).

It is considered a step toward healing that once a year under the watchful eyes of the Greta Thunberg Youth Brigade a few old conservative men are allowed to observe a minute of unhinged ranting in honor of their fallen comrades before being forced to convert to Islam. A small group of survivors is rumored to exist deep in the jungle. Occasional broadcasts have been monitored, typically scraps of argument among libertarians and conservatives over the value of military intervention.

Events moved quickly once fighting ended. The Amulet of Democracy was restored as Chelsea Handler and Chelsea Clinton brought their halves together and matched perfectly. The Ancient One Biden returned. Don, Jr. and his siblings were granted political asylum at that new Walmart out by where the high school used to be before COVID. Their father, the former president, now earns a modest living on OnlyFans.

Reparations money (“Biden Bucks”) was mostly squandered on timeshares and everyone is still angry. The collapse of the National Bank of Venmo could not be prevented once it was revealed the app really did cheat the person who just had a salad when dividing up a check. The conversion to an all-Three Stooges marathon format allowed CNN to reclaim its title as “America’s Most Trusted New Source.”

Ken Burns is still waiting to get started on his documentary about the Second Civil War, explaining he is contractually bogged down with 11 more years of footage from Kandahar to review first. Three states are locked in a court battle to rename themselves “Obama.” Locally, a consortium of Chinese investors purchased The American Conservative, renamed it TicTAC and converted it into a dating app for people who are certain they know better then everyone else.

Microsoft went bankrupt when Windows 2025 proved so bulky it required the user to have a second computer. The creation of two Internets, one for porn and one no one uses, proved popular. The end of elections saved the nation trillions. The previous campaign process was replaced with a mass Zoom call, with the president being the last person to stay online after everyone else left early claiming “mic problems.” It mattered little; after 2020 presidents have simply serially been impeached and a new person sworn in who is immediately placed under investigation. The 25th Amendment was crowned “America’s Favorite” (pepperoni took second place) in a contest after the naming rights to our foundational document, now known as the Domino’s Pizza Constitution, were sold to pay for free college for everyone.

Of course every American remembers where they were when Secretary of Why-Is-She-Still-Around Kathy Griffin announced the gender transition of 97 percent of Americans had really screwed up the NFL. The subsequent rise in attendance at WNBA games was not foreseen. The musical Biden, translated from the original Ukrainian, replaced Hamilton on Broadway despite the controversial Obama nude scene. America’s largest industry remained Patreon accounts as Etsy devolved into a market for the wealthy to purchase human organs. The U.S. government is currently looking for a new place for a capitol building, because after the move out of Washington to a Brooklyn WeWork prices have really gone up. Negotiations to invite Canada in as a roommate to share the rent are underway.

The good news is the important things are still the same. Most decisions are still made by the heads of the intel agencies when they meet at Jeff Bezos’ house. American troops are still in Afghanistan. And the Rolling Stones have announced their for sure this time final tour. Even after a second civil war some things don’t change.

The United States dominated the Twentieth Century for four principal reasons. Its manufacturing capability far exceeded anyone else’s; perhaps the most dramatic illustration was its stunning production in the Second World War when it, for example, manufactured 300,000 aircraft, twice as much as the next place country. Its inventive capability was also immense: from airplanes to electricity transmission to assembly lines the USA was the inventor and, equally important, the adaptor of numerous world-changing innovations. Thirdly, unlike most of the non-Anglosphere world, it was politically stable: even under the strain of the Great Depression its political system held. Finally the “American Dream” had sufficient reality to be attractive. But what is left today of these four? Much (most?) of its manufacturing has been outsourced to China. What remains of American ingenuity? – a buttonless iPhone is not at the same level as the Apple 1. As to political stability, whoever sits in the White House at the end of January 2021 will be regarded as an interloper by half the population; that will have consequences on the street. The American dream that your children will be better off – by every measurement – than you were has collapsed: the children, crushed by unpayable debt and zero-hour contracts, hide in your basement. And as it goes with the West’s leader, so, ceteris paribus, it goes with the other Western countries. The outlook is poor, unstable and desperate.

How did it happen? There are many reasons but the principals are the usual pair: wars and spending. Too much war: during its rise to power, wars were good for the West but it doesn’t win them any more and it hasn’t lost the habit. Too much spending leading to too much debt: debt for investment is worthwhile but debt for consumption is not. It transpires that “history” has, in fact, resumed its movement.

In short, the West has lost its mojo”. “Mojo” or “magic” is an appropriate word: there certainly was a reality to Western power and authority but there was also a magical element because a significant amount of the West’s power rested on the conviction of the conquered and the awed that it could not be beaten.

There has been a loss of competence – an essential component of the mojo. I recommend Stephen Walt’s essay The Death of American Competence. As he rightly points out, one of the pillars of American power was “an image of the United States as a place where people knew how to set ambitious goals and bring them successfully to fruition.” He speculates on the reasons for the decline, suggests several, but he knows it has been a long development: “Over the past 25 years, however, the United States has done a remarkable job of squandering that invaluable reputation for responsible leadership and basic competence”.

The COVID-19 outbreak provides a sharp demonstration of the loss of mojo.

In what will probably be remembered as one of the most ironic events of the Twenty-first Century, the GHS Index in October 2019 assessed the countries of the world on their preparedness for an epidemic or pandemic. It ranked the USA and the UK as the two best prepared countries: the former with a score of 83.5/100 and the latter at 77.9/100. The world average was calculated to be 40.2/100. I think it is a pretty safe bet that no one a year later would say that either handled COVID-19 well: some might say that the two were among the worst in the world. According to at least one ranking, the USA was first and the UK fifth in deaths as of 14 November. Hardly the “best prepared”.

These kinds of rankings are very dependent on GIGO and unstated assumptions. And the cynic would not be especially surprised to see GIGO and assumptions manifesting themselves in the GHS rankings: the top fifteen contain nine NATO members and two close U.S. allies. Who knew that geopolitical choices were so prophylactic? As to countries with – shall we say – less therapeutic alliances, China scored 48.2/100 and Russia 44.3/100. In the actual test of COVID-19, no one would suggest that Russia (216 deaths/million) or China (3/million) did worse than the USA (745/million) or the UK (740/million).

There is a lot to question about these numbers and how they are measured; consequently, they should only be considered as rough comparisons. They are drawn from the worldometer site and are, I believe, the numbers as generally reported. What’s counted as a “COVID death” varies, what’s counted as an “infection” varies; some countries (ours) are truthful and others (theirs) aren’t. So there’s room for much argument about this or that number. But, with respect to Russia and China as compared with the West, there is one clue to reality and that is the IMF projection for economic growth in 2020. Against a world fall of 4.4% China is projected to grow 1.9% and Russia to fall 4.1%. The IMF expects Russia will do better (less badly) than any in the Euro zone or G7; specifically, it projects the USA at -4.3% and the UK at -9.8%. Therefore, whatever the “real” COVID-19 numbers may be, the IMF at least assesses Russia and China to have done better (less badly) than the supposed winners of the GHS Index.

A poor result for the West and one to be meditated on. Prima facie, one would expect the USA and the UK to have handled COVID-19 much better than they did and therefore why they did so poorly requires some thought. And the same goes for many other Western countries. Given the long-time reputation and expectation of Western competence, COVID-19 has demonstrated that there needs to be some re-thinking about these assumptions.

COVID-19 revealed a lack of planning: none of these countries seems to have had a stock of PPE. In the USA destroyed stocks were not replaced. Neither were they in Belgium, Canada or the UK. There seems to have been a shortage in many other places. Not competent. How about hydroxychloroquine: is it a useful treatment or not? maybe in July; yes in July; no in July; yes in October; confused in October; yes in October; no in November; maybe in November. And so it goes: you’d think in a competent epidemiology environment there would be a pretty definitive answer – even if “only sometimes” – by now. How about face masks? In February “skip mask and wash hands“; March “If it’s a regular surgical face mask, the answer is no“; April “only useful for healthcare workers and patients who test positive“. Today, they are essential for all. Not competent. The Imperial College model… enough said. Not competent. The Gates Foundation, a strong proponent of vaccines, is a principal funder of the WHO, Dr Fauci’s organisation and the CDC. The CEO of Pfizer sold shares the day of the announcement that the company had a vaccine. Why would Fauci fund gain-of-function research on bat coronaviruses in Wuhan? Conflict of interest? Coincidence? But certainly not competent.

Not competent. In the West today competence always comes second. It used to be normally first and occasionally second; now it is always second. Second to what? Second to diversity. The list of diversity categories that must be satisfied is ever-changing and ever-growing: race, language, gender, sexual preference, transgender – always expanding. And all of these categories have to be filled first. By competent people, of course. But only by whatever competency is left over after the primary demands are satisfied.

Gilbert Doctorow describes the state of affairs as it relates to Belgium in his essay which was the spark for mine:

The source of incompetence is called corruption, and corruption is built into the political system here by the ultra-sophisticated practice of power sharing that enables the two nations of Belgium, French-speakers and Dutch speakers, to spare one another’s throats and enjoy the fruits of governing without concern over competence or popular will. The problem is compounded by another ultra-progressive political principle built into the practice of governance – proportional representation, which encourages a proliferation of political parties, which in recent decades numbered already double what they had in the 1960s due to party organizations stopping at the linguistic borders. There is a constant search for a parliamentary majority through coalition building, where policy consistency goes out the window for the sake of nose-counting and finding bedfellows however ‘strange’ they may be.

He concentrates on Belgium’s “power-sharing” (a concept familiar to Canadians after years of official bilingualism). But I think his point can be expanded farther and that what he sees as peculiar to Belgium is now common throughout the West under the rubric of “diversity”.

First make sure that the ever-changing and ever-expanding diversity requirement is satisfied and then you can look for competence. This state of affairs can bumble along until reality bites and competence or the lack of it really makes a difference.

And reality, in the shape of the SARS-CoV-2, bit. I suspect that in China and Russia, to take two better performers, competency is still the common first choice.

Coincidental with this is the chaos in the U.S. election, the signing of the RCEP and the report that two Chinese “carrier killer” missiles hit a moving target in the South China Sea.

So why has the West lost its mojo? I would propose this epitaph for the tombstone

So you are hunkering down. Now what? Here are 7 things you need when hunkering down when the SHTF.

We always talk about bugging out when the SHTF. It’s a necessity with certain disasters. But sometimes, it is best to stay where you are.

What happens when there is no need to evacuate where you are?

Going out may be dangerous…. then what?

Today we’ll focus on just that. What things you should focus on first if you need to hunker down.

Shelter

You need to check to make sure your home is secured enough for you to be safe. Things like sliding doors are particularly vulnerable to intruders as is unlocked windows and doors. Make sure your shelter is as safe as it can be.

Also, try to keep items out of the way to keep a clear line of vision around your home, if possible. Secure garages and make sure it will be hard for intruders to break into.

Lastly, keep your prepping supplies in an area where you can get to it easily. If you have your prepping items in an area that could be completely closed off such as a detached garage or a climate controlled storage shed, move them quickly inside if possible.

Food

Preppers are notorious for their food storage because it’s one of the biggest and most important concerns when the SHTF. Of course, we want to feed our families.

But I added this because a lot of preppers like myself forget to rotate my food out so it becomes expired or my wife needs something while cooking dinner and I give it to her out of my stockpile instead of driving to the store when I’m tired. (Come on guys, i know we’ve all probably done it!)

Remember to replenish what you have taken from your food storage, Keep up with expiration dates. Rotate them out. Do an inventory of your food to see what you are lacking.

Water

Storing water is super hard to store because is heavy and you will need so much of it for each family member. Because of this, I lean more towards water purification.

One of my favorite is the Lifestraw from Vestergaard products. They are compact and the ultimate in water purification. Read the fine print however because even though most Lifestraw products remove viruses, some don’t. (Lifestraw Personal & Lifestraw Go do NOT). For prepping purposes, I recommend you use a larger water purification device that meets the standard EPA standard for removal of bacteria, parasites, and viruses.

Medicine

OTC drugs will be few and far between when the SHTF. Buy up a stock of OTC drugs for pains, cold, allergies, and whatever else you think you may need while you can.
Prescription drugs can often be gotten in a 90 supply just by talking to your doctor.

As a reminder, keep all medicines in a safe place where children, teens and persons with questionable judgement cannot get to them.

Protection

Have a way to protect yourself if needed. For some that may mean having a gun or even multiple guns and for others in may mean a knife, or a bow & arrow. Hopefully you have multiple ways to defending yourself.

But just make sure you have at least one way of protecting yourself and your loved ones. If you have guns, make sure you have plenty of ammunition stored. Make sure again to keep these in a safe place away from children!

Light

You need some form of light. It could be an LED or a rechargeable flashlight.  It’s important for security such as it’ll help you keep an eye out at night around the perimeters of your shelter.

Entertainment

One of the most overlooked things by preppers. You don’t want to just survive. You want to thrive in a SHTF scenario. The means having a way to unwind, some refreshment.

Play cards. Read a book. Play UNO or Monopoly. Play charades. There are several things you can do to get your mind refreshed and relaxed.

Final Thoughts

Remember to keep any harmful items such as medicines and weapons away from children and in a safe place.

It is no longer some conspiracy theorists fantasy. The transformation of America and the destruction of our personal liberties are well under way. It was orchestrated for decades behind closed doors. Now the doors are opening and America is being overthrown in the light of day. For those who get it, read on. For those who choose otherwise, please step aside as there is much to be done.

“We have to save the free market system by abandoning the free market system” – George W. Bush 2008. Oh really? And where are we today? Trillions upon trillions of dollars in debt with increased unemployment approaching the great depression levels. The economies, global financial systems and currencies around the world are collapsing. Washington takes its marching orders from the architects of chaos as empire America is being driven to its knees. And since you are still reading this, we must agree on some level that this is not happening by accident but by deliberate, calculated design. Let’s take a closer look. We will begin this journey by going back to 1913.

A group of private international bankers owning approximately 25% of the world’s wealth took over the issuing power of the U.S. currency. Since then, the U.S. dollar has lost over 95% of its purchasing power. Baron Rothschild (one of the original architects of chaos) said this, “Give me control over a nations currency and I care not who makes the laws”. Thomas Jefferson, in the following quote, shares his views with us. “I believe that banking institutions are more dangerous to our liberties than standing armies. If the American people ever allow private banks to control the issue of their currency, first by inflation, then by deflation, the banks and corporations that will grow up around [the banks] will deprive the people of all property until their children wake-up homeless on the continent their fathers conquered. The issuing power should be taken from the banks and restored to the people, to whom it properly belongs”.

According to the International Monetary Fund (IMF) back in 2009, if the government debt load climbs above 90% of GDP, economic growth slows so much that growth is no longer a viable solution for reducing that debt, The United States will not be able to pay down the debt and by their actions, have chosen to monetize the debt which will lead the U.S. into a hyperinflation. Right now is at 149%. Estimates back then for a total economic collapse were 2016-2017. Are you prepared?

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As economic conditions and political corruption ramp up, social unrest will increase. As this occurs the government counters by increasing Draconian measures that restrict the political rights and civil liberties of its citizens.

With “Free Speech Zones” and a push for the “Fairness Doctrine”, our freedom of speech is under attack. We have become a society under surveillance as our every move is monitored, stored and categorized. The policies being implemented to complete the long sought after goal of global governance, has brought the United Sates to a Socialist/Marxist government as the architects of chaos complete the final phase of creating their “New World Order” by removing America as its greatest obstacle. The mission is nearly complete with much of the ten planks of the communist manifesto already in place here in America. Look…you decide.

The 10 PLANKS stated in the Communist Manifesto
and some of their American counterparts

1. Abolition of private property and the application of all rents of land to public purposes. Americans do these with actions such as the 14th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution (1868), and various zoning, school & property taxes. Also the Bureau of Land Management (Zoning laws are the first step to government property ownership)

2. A heavy progressive or graduated income tax. Americans know this as misapplication of the 16th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, 1913, The Social Security Act of 1936. Joint House Resolution 192 of 1933; and various State “income” taxes. We call it “paying your fair share”.

3. Abolition of all rights of inheritance. Americans call it Federal & State estate Tax (1916); or reformed Probate Laws, and limited inheritance via arbitrary inheritance tax statutes.

4. Confiscation of the property of all emigrants and rebels. Americans call it government seizures, tax liens, Public “law” 99-570 (1986); Executive order 11490, sections 1205, 2002 which gives private land to the Department of Urban Development; the imprisonment of “terrorists” and those who speak out or write against the “government” (1997 Crime/Terrorist Bill); or the IRS confiscation of property without due process. Asset forfeiture laws are used by DEA, IRS, ATF
etc…).

5. Centralization of credit in the hands of the state, by means of a national bank with State capital and an exclusive monopoly. Americans call it the Federal Reserve which is a privately-owned credit/debt system allowed by the Federal Reserve act of 1913. All local banks are members of the Fed system, and are regulated by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) another privately-owned corporation. The Federal Reserve Banks issue Fiat Paper Money and practice economically destructive fractional reserve banking.

6. Centralization of the means of communications and transportation in the hands of the State. Americans call it the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) and Department of Transportation (DOT) mandated through the ICC act of 1887, the Commissions Act of 1934, The Interstate Commerce Commission established in 1938, The Federal Aviation Administration, Federal Communications Commission, and Executive orders 11490, 10999, as well as State mandated driver’s licenses and Department of Transportation regulations.

7. Extension of factories and instruments of production owned by the state, the bringing into cultivation of waste lands, and the improvement of the soil generally in accordance with a common plan. Americans call it corporate capacity, The Desert Entry Act and The Department of Agriculture… Thus read “controlled or subsidized” rather than “owned”… This is easily seen in these as well as the Department of Commerce and Labor, Department of Interior, the Environmental Protection Agency, Bureau of Land Management, Bureau of Reclamation, Bureau of Mines, National
Park Service, and the IRS control of business through corporate regulations.

8. Equal liability of all to labor. Establishment of industrial armies, especially for agriculture. Americans call it Minimum Wage and slave labor like dealing with our Most Favored Nation trade partner; i.e. Communist China. We see it in practice via the Social Security Administration and The Department of Labor. The National debt and inflation caused by the communal bank has caused the need for a two “income” family. Woman in the workplace since the 1920’s, the 19th amendment of
the U.S. Constitution, the Civil Rights Act of 1964, assorted Socialist Unions, affirmative action, the Federal Public Works Program and of course Executive order 11000.

9. Combination of agriculture with manufacturing industries, gradual abolition of the
distinction between town and country, by a more equitable distribution of population over the country. Americans call it the Planning Reorganization act of 1949 , zoning (Title 17 1910-1990) and Super Corporate Farms, as well as Executive orders 11647, 11731 (ten regions) and Public “law” 89-136. These provide for forced relocations and forced sterilization programs, like in China.

10. Free education for all children in public schools. Abolition of children’s factory labor in its present form. Combination of education with industrial production. Americans are being taxed to support what we call ‘public’ schools, but are actually “government force-tax-funded schools” Even private schools are government regulated. The purpose is to train the young to work for the communal debt system. We also call it the Department of Education, the NEA and Outcome Based “Education”. These are used so that all children can be indoctrinated and inculcated with the government propaganda, like “majority rules”, and “pay your fair share”. Ronald Reagan on
Socialism – “Socialism only works in two places: Heaven where they don’t need it and hell where they already have it.”

So the transformation of America and the destruction of our personal liberties are well under way. Perhaps you already knew all of this but have become apathetic, overwhelmed or complacent? Well that is just the result that the architects of chaos want to achieve. This does not have to happen. Simply say “not on my watch”. This is not above your pay grade. Freedom as we know is never free. We must fight for what’s right, this is our home. How does one prepare? What is the battle plan?
How do we survive and then reinstate Constitutional Government?

The Four Pillars

1. Pray to God. Your spiritual preparedness is of the utmost importance. For those of us of faith, pray to God for guidance, wisdom and protection.

2. Protect your wealth. Your personal freedom is tied to your economic freedom. There are ways to preserve wealth and purchasing power. This will not happen by accident. There are action steps that you can and should be applying today. Get educated. Stay informed and take proactive measures now before it’s too late!

3. Protect your life. Survival will not happen by accident as we progress through the challenging times ahead. Take precautionary and protective measures to sustain and safeguard your life and the lives of your loved ones.

4. Political activism. Study the Constitution. Get involved in the political process. Vet and vote. Join and support groups who are doing the same. Elect leaders, citizen candidates that will reinstate, protect, defend and adhere to the Constitution of the United States. Never give up. Take your country back. The “Second American Revolution” is here.

People really should avert their gaze from the modern survival thinking for just a bit and also look at how the guys who wandered the west 150 or so years ago did it.

1.Community – We were not meant to survive in isolation forever. There are many skills we can learn from one another. Nothing will help people survive more than a tight knit community that cares for its members. In this community, you will find different skills, access to different resources, and a psychological morale improvement. Finding others with the same mindset will help you survive long-term, and make the situation far more bearable than braving the dark times alone.

Turns out the popular image of the Old West as a place where manly men solved their differences by shooting themselves in the face simply isn’t true. People were more likely to cooperate than fight – in a harsh and lawless world, it was better to side with your neighbor for mutual benefit than start shooting. One estimate places the number of bank robberies at about a dozen for the entire frontier period.

2.Many small towns in the Texas Hill Country have a secret. Beneath our town’s main street are old tunnels that were built to protect settlers in case of Indian raids. That makes me feel a little safer next time I shop for pickles knowing that if a nuclear bomb goes off my family can go underground. (quote – Sophie) Build or have in mind a hideout in your BOL or better said a hideout in your hideout.

3.“We don’t dial 911” – there won’t be any. Every type of gun known to man is here to protect their family and property. A good rule is to honk first when driving up unexpectedly to a ranch so as not to spook anyone.  Watching those old cowboy movies gave me a good idea: use both hands when shooting guns.

4.Shooting your dinner. Or shooting to protect yourself. Learn to hit something with a bullet and you’ll be better fed and it may even keep you and your family alive.

5.Repairing guns and reusing ammo. Limited or no ammo availability for my SHTF Guns meant the brass has to last as long as possible. Semi-auto rifles are harder on brass than bolt, falling block or other type’s rifles. With semi-autos, you have brass elongation; you need to trim your brass frequently, full-length size on every load. And after a few reloads, you basically run out of brass life

A broken gunstock could be repaired with rawhide. The wet, pliable hide would be stretched over the broken pieces at the break, then either laced or nailed in place. As the rawhide dried it shrank, holding the broken stock together as effectively as if it had been replaced.

6.Stockpiling Wood and keeping warm was a chore in winter. About the only thing folks had to burn was wood. There was a woodpile or a woodshed associated with just about every house. There were no iron stoves in early Texas – they didn’t start coming in until late in the Republic period. Heat came from a fireplace, & it generally wasn’t very effective. Along the Rio Grande, especially in the poorer regions, there were no fireplaces in houses. That’s because Spain & later Mexico taxed chimneys. Those people cooked out-of-doors. Because they mostly built of adobe, their house – walls were very thick, so even a small fire indoors would keep the place fairly warm. In summer going into a properly – built adobe house is like walking into a cave. They stay fairly cool even on the hottest days.

7.Brain Tanning Leather – learning the process of skinning a deer, fleshing, stretching, drying, scraping, soaking, brain tanning, and then smoking the hide to waterproof. Deer hides, horse hides, coon hides – was used for just about everything, & rawhide was very useful. It used to be called ‘Mexican iron.’ The stuff is stiff as a plank, but if you put it in boiling water for a while, it becomes pliable. You can then use it in place of nails to tie a corral’s stringers to the posts. As it dried it would shrink, holding the stringers as effectively as nails.

8.Mostly, clothing was hand-made on the frontier. Almost any source of cloth could be used to make shirts or dresses. One of the reasons floursacks, for many years, were made of patterned cloth, was the fact that women collected them to make shirts or dresses, for themselves, their husbands, & their children. I can remember when I was a kid, farm ladies using white flour sacks to make children’s underwear.

9.Blacksmithing. Being able to make something useful like a horseshoe, tool, or cooking utensil from scrap metal could come in very handy. This is a skill people will barter for. Blacksmith work does require a good deal of practice and some special equipment, but it’s a skill worth learning and the learning curve is cut a bit if you already know how to weld or do other metal work.

10.Preserving food without a fridge. Many people have forgotten this old method of preserving food, especially meet. Here is one of the easiest methods available and doesn’t take much time.  You will need fresh pork, pickling salt, brown sugar, and crocks or jars for storage.

First, cut the pork into slabs. Generally, four- to six-inch slabs work best. Mix 1/2 pound of pickling salt with 1/4 cup of brown sugar. This is enough to cover twelve pounds of pork. Liberally cover the pork with this mixture. Next, pack the meat into sterilized crocks or jars. You should make sure it is tightly packed. Cover the meat with cheesecloth.

Using the temperature chart of your house, determine where to store your crocks. You need to keep the meat in an area that is about 36°F – no higher than 38°F. You also do not want an area that could see freezing temperatures. Leave the meat in this cool storage for at least one month. After that time, you can wrap the meat in plastic or moisture-proof paper and leave it stored all winter. You now have salt-cured pork for any occasion.

Many older people remember having a smokehouse on their land when they were young. Meat would be salted and hung to cure in these cool, dry areas. You could build a storage room for handing meat without too much work. The room should have excellent air circulation and stay cool without freezing.

Canned Meat – If you are familiar with canning fruits and vegetables, you should know that you can also can meat. You have to make sure you get the temperature of the meat high enough to kill bacteria before it seals. Chicken and beef are good options for canning, as are fish. You can cook the meat before you can and seal it. For example, you could make beef stew and preserve it in cans. Stewed chicken also cans and preserves well. Raw packing is another option you can try as well.

11.Navigation and Orientation – basic compass, map, landmarks; preparation for traveling outdoors; reading nature signs, stars, and sun to navigate through wilderness; knowing the best routes and time to travel.

Whether someone is going to bug in or bug out to somewhere safer, they need to know where they plan to take a stand and stay. Transportation is a very important issue to consider and how much of what they have can be moved to where they are planning to go. Fuel will be a huge consideration as the lack of it prohibits how far someone can go. Something else everyone should understand is how to read maps. You will likely not have any GPS system to guide you and the good old fashioned paper map may be the only way to show you where you are going. Understanding topographic maps is also key here

12.Trapping – trapping animals for clothing and food; using dead falls and snares; proper preparation of traps; understanding their use and safety.

13.Gardening. Growing your own vegetables and fruits, knowing soil conditions, how to get water to your plants, extending your harvest season, and common garden pests will be vital to having a continuous food supply. Check out The Forgotten Skills of Self-Sufficiency Used by the Mormon Pioneers for some great old-time gardening tips.

14.Saving seeds. The other end of gardening is being able to plant again next year. Saving seed can be kind of intimidating and mysterious, especially for plants like carrots that don’t go to seed in their first growing season. Start with non-hybrid seeds and a reference book like Seed to Seed and practice saving some kind of seed from your next garden. This is definitely a learned skill, but could be vital to a continued food supply.

15.Building a home, or another shelter, or a fort, or a fence. Knowing how to use hand tools and simple machines will go a long way if you have to rebuild.

16.Start a Fire without Matches and learn how to keep the fire going 24/7. Prepare your fireboard. Cut a groove in the fireboard. This will be your track for the spindle.

Take the tip of your spindle and place it in the groove of your fireboard. Start rubbing the tip of the spindle up and down the groove.

Have your tinder nest at the end of the fireboard, so that you’ll plow embers into as you’re rubbing. Once you catch one, blow the nest gently and get that fire going.

17.Cooking over a fire. You may have other methods to cook your food available, like a solar oven or barbeque grill, but an open fire is the most primitive and one of the most common means of cooking in a grid down emergency.

18.Tracking – identifying animal tracks; understanding process of tracking.

19.The Bee Hunter. One of the most important men on the frontier was the bee hunter. Sugar was almost impossible to come by. Honey, which was called ‘long sweetenin” in Texas, was the only source of sweetening for many years.

20.Knowing and preparing wild edibles. Which plants in your area are safe to eat and what parts of them are edible? A little foraging can add variety to your diet or even sustain life if there’s nothing else to eat.

21.Learn how to maintain light at night. One of the most depressing situations is to spend night in near to total darkness. Besides this, not being able to see at night is dangerous. Learning how to make candles and wicks should be a skill to consider learning. Fats and other oils will burn and can be obtained throughout nature and the outdoors. Long term solar battery rechargers for flashlights and LED battery powered lanterns are another option.

22.Maintain proper hygiene. This is one of the top priorities because disease and sickness can and do take down the toughest man. People must realize that after a terrible disaster it is not like someone that goes camping, comes back dirty, and takes a nice long shower or a hot bath. After SHTF the water to the faucets, as well the hot water heater, may not work. Bathing on at least a semi-regular basis is necessary to avoid all sorts of bacteria from building up on the skin and causing a variety of health concerning ailments that will then have to be treated. People should plan on just how they will keep themselves clean, even thinking about sponge baths as an option.

23.A car or a horse?

Some people say about SHTF that unless you’re living on an oil well or in a gas tank you won’t have access to gas.

Riding a horse. They make this look easy in the movies, but there is a learning curve involved. A horse is transportation, a pack animal, and a friend. Learning to ride one can get you places when roads are impassable or vehicles aren’t working. Plus, your gas reserves won’t last forever when SHTF.

Texans love all kinds of horse powered transportation. Should an EMP attack render cars useless, they’ll get around riding their horses or driving their horse drawn carriages, buggy’s, hay wagons, chuck wagons and buck board wagons. During the summer on country roads you can run into wagon trains filled with hundreds of people driving their wagons, which is an awesome sight to behold! And yes they still ride their horses into town for a coke, hamburger and even a beer.

There were vast herds of wild horses in early Texas. The horses were considered an excellent source of meat. Many of them were shot for food. Others were captured, but if a horse resisted being tamed and saddle-broke, it usually wound up on the table.

24. Herbal remedies. When the doctor’s not around, knowing which herbs to use and how to use them to treat common ailments like cough, fever, headache, etc. can be a great blessing to your family or others around that may need the help.

25.Learn first aid. Treating yourself and or others will probably be the only thing someone can do as medical professionals are going to be few and far between. Many places offer free classes on first aid because they want people in the community to be prepared. A good first aid book along with a first aid kit is something every household should have before, during, and after a disaster. Primitive conditions should be expected when anyone is helping someone after a catastrophe. A stockpile of antibiotics are always a good idea. Even acquiring the skill of making your own antibiotics can save lives as infection is something that will become an epidemic, especially with minor cuts and abrasives that are sure to be plenty.

26.Don’t throw away anything that may be useful at some point. Personally, I don’t like to keep too many things in my house. So I throw away much stuff. And most of us do that because we know that if we have to, we can immediately buy another one. But our grandparents NEVER threw away jars, plastic bags, casseroles, boxes, cans, metal in general.

27.Stealth. While the survivalist mindset might seem to stem from weathering bad times, it is actually based in a basic enjoyment of nature. Nature is a gift, and the ability to live comfortably from its provisions is one of the most life-changing experiences a person can ever have. The art of survival seems to have been lost over the years, but before the technology boom in the last century, it was commonplace to know and understand survivalist principles.

One of the most basic skills when in the wild is a combination of two methods. These methods are called the “Fox Walk” and “Wide-Angle Vision.” These were the basic “bread and butter” of how tribal populations would hunt and stalk without leaving any trace. Learning lessons from these peoples, it has enlightened us on how to live from the land.

28.How to pan for gold – Although gold pans were much in evidence during the early days of the Gold Rush, miners used them less and less as time went on and they created better gold extraction devices but much more expensive. Even today, however, some gold seekers will use the light and simple pans for prospecting, systematically sampling gravels as they work up a stream, for example, and knowing that when the gold “color” stops, a vein or two of gold feeding into the stream may be close at hand.

29.Understand the psychology of desperate people. This is a difficult one. After a SHTF event people are going to, simply put, go crazy. That neighbor that was in control during many minor emergencies may be the one pounding on your door with whacked out eyes demanding what you have because they did not prepare for anything. In the Wild West most of the travelers when they spotted another traveler – they went around him thinking it’s wiser not to encounter at all.

30.Every cowboy knows that a rope is an important tool. Sure they can lasso a cow, but it serves so many other uses that it would be impossible to list. Suffice to say that that’s one thing that you never can have enough of and I’ve been known to use my son’s lariat in a pinch to tie down furniture on the utility trailer.