Ol' Remus--What Would You Do?

Ol' Remus at the Woodpile Report discusses partisan warfare:

In a post-collapse scenario, what would you do if mob of violent foragers came your way? Would you and your survival group stand your ground? Would you join with other survivalist groups to face the threat? If you did, what if your combined gardens, live stock and supplies were raided not by roaming looters but by desperate people who themselves had been looted, would you oppose them with force or accept them into your community? What if your combined resources were "requisitioned" by a nearby town for The Greater Good, meaning people who are no worse off than you? What if your firearms and ammunition were also to be 'redistributed'? What if they intend to draft some of your people for labor gangs or to man their defenses? Where do you draw the line?
History has seen a lot of this and it doesn't end well.

He then goes on to discuss WWII partisan warfare in more detail. He concludes:

This was in a different place, a different time. We're not occupied by a foreign military force, there is no liberation army needing sabotage and intelligence gathering and no left-behind military units or escaped POWs to act as a nucleus. Nor are there air drops of supplies and weaponry from allies, or slave labor and extermination camp roundups to evade. At present, notions of an armed American resistance are founded on hyperbole or too many video games.
That said, the Clinton, Bush and Obama regimes are startlingly similar to the path of tyrannies in times past. The US is more similar to the late and unlamented East Germany than to what it once was. The Third Reich attained power through the democratic process, then declared a state of emergency. "This time it's different" is one of those phrases you know are wrong as soon as they're said, but it's the main argument one hears from DC and their media sycophants.
Just as the Odyssey is the same story even when set in modern times, so too is tyranny the same regardless of how it presents itself. Just as the lessons of the European resistance are the same over time, so too are the conditions that bring them about. In the end it's the people who decide when serious resistance is warranted, not the historians or ideologues or political theorists or the press or the blathering class. Good decisions need good information. The real history of real resistance gives even the raving fantasists pause, as it should.


It's right for the survivalist to consider what's gone before, and to be wary of where present developments are leading. But in doing so the survivalist is wise to know exactly, without equivocation, where he will draw the line. In a true homicidal chaos, defending yourself and your community is a duty, and sometimes offense really is the best defense. But defense can metamorphosize into unceasing offense. Great Britain defended itself into a world empire.

Wars between national armies are bad enough. Partisan wars are worse. They're total war. There are no battlefields, no innocents, no bystanders, no noncombatants. Total war is literally "blood in the streets" . Nobody asks 'why', there is no 'why'. The Newtown Massacre compares weakly with everyday outrages in the partisan wars of occupied Europe. Consider this incident from Poland:

After blew the door of the building. We saw a room full of small children around 500, all with small hands in the air. Dirlewanger its own people even called a butcher, he had to kill them all. He ordered at the same time save ammo and kill them by rifle weapon. Blood and brain flowed streams of the stairs. 

Mathias Schenck at wikipedia.com

Partisan warfare consumes people and resources like nothing else, and the retirement plan is the worst on the planet. As an Eastwood movie put it, "dying ain't much of a living, son." Nor do resistance fighters have much to look forward to if they live long enough to see normalcy reestablished. Irregulars are understandably unwelcome by "legitimate" government, and usually purged soon after being honored for their service. Make no mistake about this, when the smoke clears the politicians will come out from hiding and "win the peace."


As said here many times, Rule One is: "Stay away from crowds." Violate it at your peril.