Western Rifle Shooter's Association recently (i.e., I think within the last couple of weeks) linked to a post from the Anarchonomicon blog by Kulak on prepping, which led me to another of her articles. I don't remember which was which, so here are the links to both articles:
“What will you do during the end of the world?”I’m sorry to have to tell you this: But in 99% of all scenarios, You’ll still be going to work and paying your taxes, right up until the death squad rolls through or the press gangs drag you away.The peasants on the eastern front were still working their farms and worried about making quota when the Whermacht went through.
This is something I've pointed out before when I've discussed the Black Death of the 14th Century: that despite the massive die-offs (estimated as anywhere between 1/3 to 1/2 of the population of Europe, with higher percentages in the cities), governments, court systems, and all the other instruments of state continued. And although the Black Death ultimately resulted in major social and political reforms over the long run, none of the governments of Europe collapsed.
In fact, as Kulak points out, government is one of the biggest threats to our lives, liberty and property. She notes:
There are basically 5 scenarios in which civilians drastically lose their liberties, lives, and fortunes:
1. Communist Revolution
2. Civil War broadly defined: regime change/guerilla campaigns/insurgency/ complete loss of order
3. Foreign Invasion
4. domestic outward invasion/war
5. economic sanctions/blockade (externally or internally imposed).
and as we’ve seen recently… there's a 6th condition:
6. Disease outbreak and public health totalitarianism (i.e. Soft Communist Revolution)
Anyone one of these 5 (6) conditions can be caused by or cause economic collapses, and there are numerous examples of all of them resulting in things such as: mass starvation, breakdown in healthcare, concentration camp style detainment of populations, ethnic cleansing, mass enslavement, government by terror, conscription, press gangs, banditry, confiscation of wealth.
Even undisturbed Countries like America and Canada implemented Concentration camps for “foreign Aliens” during their world wars, and given what happened to POWs and detained civilians throughout the world as the regimes detaining them fell… not even getting into the ones the governments of the world consciously decided to murder them… it is very doubtful interned Japanese Americans or Canadian Ukrainians would have been fed had the worst paranoid fever dreams proved correct and Emperor Hirohito or Kaiser Wilhelm’s troops started landing in California or Nova Scotia.
Then of course there are examples like Vietnam, Eastern Europe… the entire history of China… the ongoing death of Yemen under Saudi/American blockade and airstrikes, where even food and medicals are withheld… The cascade of Nightmarish civilizational breakdowns that can occur WHILE you are suffering under totalitarian and imposing governments are endless.
She uses Russia and the Soviet Union as an example of a state that went through numerous disasters and upheavals, and yet--other than the Russian Revolution--government persisted. As I've pointed out before, the key aim of our government in the event war or a major disaster is not to save civilians, but "continuity of government".
Thus, much like FerFal has said, Kulak states that the single most important bit of prepper kit is a valid passport so you can, if necessary, flee the country. Connected to this is mobility: the ability to travel and outrun or outmaneuver government or enemy forces. Thus, her second recommendation is to have various vehicles or modes of travel--a car, a bicycle, maybe even a boat or motorcycle--and map out escape routes to get you across the border. Don't underestimate bicycles: as the author notes, a very fit hiker might be able to hike 50 km (about 31 miles) in a day, but even someone of moderate fitness can bicycle 100-160 km (about 60 to 100 miles) per day on a bike (assuming a good road).
Another survival tool (or, rather, tactic) she suggests is becoming a criminal. At one end of the spectrum, and FerFal and Selco have alluded to this in their writings and commentary, is the need to access black and grey markets, bribe officials, and so on. But Kulak suggests that survival might require more, perhaps even becoming a partisan.
She also warns that your food storage might be stolen, or worse:
Lots of people have stocked their pantries and squirreled away all the kit they needed to survive… only to have it found, stollen, and their entire family shot for hiding it, these things happened in Ukraine in ‘33 and they happened in Warsaw a decade later. These scenarios have played out from Cambodia to Nicaragua and back to Vietnam.
It could happen here, as well. One of my earliest articles was about a 1918 incident in the U.S. where a man and his wife were criminally charged for "hoarding" in violation of federal law. Kulak continues:
If you want to actually be prepared you shouldn’t be studying wilderness survivalists, but the Mexican Cartels and IRA. They’ve actually survived the most advanced states in the world trying to crush them for decades, and their members have raised families whilst doing it. If your plan is to flee into the woods and then hideout til the crisis passes… what are you going to do when 30 years from now you realize you were a Ukrainian in 1915, nothing ever really got better, and you didn’t marry or reproduce because you were hiding, and now your family line is dead and you might as well have just gone to be shot fighting against the Kaiser for all your “survival” skills saved you.
She has a point. The Lykov family is a Russian family that practiced the retreat into the woods and hunker down approach. They survived, but just barely. (See, "For 40 Years, This Russian Family Was Cut Off From All Human Contact, Unaware of World War II"--Smithsonian).
In her later article, she continues this theme:
One need only look at the headlines to see St. Petersburg gangsters thriving so much in the collapse of the USSR that they become the government, IRA networks turned to drug smuggling, narco-traffickers becoming terrorists, and then warlords in the Chaos of South and Central America.
Simply put if you intend to survive, which over any length of time or intergenerational concern inevitably will mean prospering, thriving, and gaining for yourself a political order that aligns with your interests…. you’re almost guaranteed to be involved in some form of organized crime.
I’ve avoided holocaust references in this because Americans over-study it and overanalyze it and latch onto narratives…. but one thing Americans and most of the world never study is the founding of Isreal [sic] and just How it was that a despised minority went from reeling from one of the worst genocides in human history in 1945 to founding their own state for the first time in 2000 years just 3 years later in 1948.
Of course, the reason it’s not studied is the regime really doesn’t want you to know the answer: Terrorism and International Criminal Conspiracy.
Zionists formed a major international movement to get Jews to the British Mandate of Palestine, and then to fund and carry out a terrorist campaign against the Palestinians and the British.
This isn’t a criticism of Isreal [sic]… It’s basically an axiom that literally every political order must be founded on either terrorism or the military force of an established political order that did.
I'm reminded of the book Defiance which is, at its root, a lesson about surviving by not being the ones meekly rounded up and sent to the concentration camps.
Anyway, she raises some good points so check out her articles.
Kulak's picture is of a woman... Perhaps the writer is a "she"?
ReplyDeleteI hadn't paid attention to the photo. Thanks for pointing that out. Of course, it may not be an accurate representation of the author. Mine, for example, is of a custom Lego mini-fig. But I will make the changes.
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