If society collapsed, manufacturing of clinical medical supplies would come to grinding halt. On top of that, in case of any major disaster, the chances you’ll catch a deadly disease are 60 times easier in a FEMA camp. That is why health should be your top priority.

Let me break this down for you…

You probably heard about “The Third Army” in the American Civil War and how it slaughtered over almost 500,000 U.S. soldiers.

That’s because the American Civil War represents a landmark in military and medical history as the last large-scale conflict fought without knowledge of the germ theory of disease. Unsound hygiene, dietary deficiencies, and battle wounds set the stage for epidemic infection, while inadequate information about disease’s causes greatly hampered its prevention, diagnosis, and treatment.

Altogether, two-thirds of the approximately 660,000 deaths of soldiers during the American Civil War were caused by infectious diseases, and epidemics played a major role in halting several major campaigns. Such delays, coming at a crucial point early in the war, also prolonged fighting by as much as two years. It’s only in modern times that bullets, and bombs, cause more casualties than bacteria and germs. That’s how things will be when SHTF…

It’s true that nowadays most of the diseases that killed half a million Americans can be cured in a couple of days, but that doesn’t mean you can easily disregard them…

Since cuts and scrapes and other open wounds are the most common type of injury you are liable to deal with, it is vital you understand how to use the things you can find at home to make the medicines necessary to prevent those injuries from becoming life threatening.

How Fast Will the Collapse Occur

Probably the total collapse of society doesn’t occur instantly.  Depending on the nature of the event, it may take some days or even weeks for a clear understanding of the changed world to be broadly accepted.

Maybe the authorities will succeed in maintaining order to start with.  But police and national guardsmen have to eat, too, and so do their families.  This sets in place another no-win situation.  Either the security forces are given food while the rest of the population starves, or else the security forces starve alongside the population as a whole.

In the former case, the alienation between the communities and the security forces will grow to the point where ordinary people will no longer feel inhibited at revolting against uniformed officers with guns and badges.  In the latter case, the security forces won’t hesitate too long to join in the lawlessness themselves, because if they don’t, they’ll die.

Things might slowly decay over the course of a week or two – maybe even three or four, but if populations can’t eat lawfully, they’ll do whatever it takes to get food, any way they can.

And because of the very nature of cities and our country today, there is no way that urban concentrations can become self-supporting.  Some cities have a million or more people, and little or no food growing resources within 100 miles.

Do you know how much food a typical person needs to eat every day?  Let’s say, on low rations, they need half a pound of solids (plus lots of water).  That is 500,000 lbs of solids every day – 250 tons of food a day to support a million people.  Where will 250 tons of food a day come from?

People can’t start planting gardens today and harvesting enough food to live tomorrow.  Apartment dwellers can’t do it at all.  People with yards would need seed, fertilizer, and patience – what say the Level 2/3 event comes just after the end of a growing season, with perhaps 200 non-growing days now to wait through before seed can be sown and crops started?

Without the promise of adequate resupplies of food, there is no avoiding this outcome.  Level 3 events, by definition, imply no resupply for over a year, Level 2 events for somewhere between some weeks and a year or so.

The collapse will come, at a rate determined by the remaining supply of food and the certainty of future resupply.  The cities will become totally lawless and anarchistic, and the former city dwellers will necessarily stream out from the cities in their essential quest for food.

These people will stop only when they find food or die.

First Breakdown

The first level of breakdown will be when your tiny self-defense cooperative is first formed.  What’s the betting that part of the deal will be the organizers saying ‘We need to join together and pool our resources for our shared common good’.  Now that all sounds fine and dandy when they’re saying ‘We all need to take turns watching out for raiders and repelling them’ but the chances they are also saying ‘And let’s pool all our food and other survival resources’.

So right from day one, you’ll be under pressure from your fellow law-abiding neighbors to share away everything you have to help them.  In return for this, they are offering additional security – ostensibly from others outside your neighborhood, but the unwritten unstated ugliness is you’re also getting security from them, too.

However, let’s say this is not a problem.  Maybe you are all equally prepared, so redistribution of all your supplies has little effect.

Second Breakdown

But now for stage two.  Some people in your community have strangely used up their share of the pooled community supplies much faster than others.  Are they secretly hoarding food?  Eating twice as much as anyone else?  Or just being wasteful?  Whatever the cause, your community and you now have your second social crisis.  Do you reward these people’s bad behavior and give them more food – especially because, at this point, everyone’s supplies are now diminishing.

With any measure of remaining civilization, this is almost certainly what will happen, because not only will some people be lobbying for more food, half the other people will also be looking ahead to the point where they too will be needing support from anyone who still has surplus food.  So they’ll support the concept of daily redistributions of food based on need, because they see themselves becoming net beneficiaries of the policy, too.  A bit like taxing a few wealthy people to feed the many poor people, right?

Besides which, while you might have had to shoot at and maybe even hit looters attempting to attack your community, they have all been strangers at a distance, and there’s been a life or death, them or us, element to the encounter.  But are you to let one of your neighbors starve in front of you?  And will they just passively starve while you continue to eat, or will they fight you to get your food?

The outcome of this second breakdown is almost certain – you give up still more of your own prepared supplies in exchange for a little bit more peace and safety within your community.

Third Breakdown

Now for stage three, and this is the point where we feel we must surely ‘win’ the argument (we use quotes, because we wish we were wrong, but we fear we are right).

You’re now at the point where everyone in your community group has exhausted their food supplies.  What do you do now?

Your choices are starkly simple.  You stay where you are, and slowly starve to death, or alternatively, you do whatever it takes to get additional food for your friends, your families, and yourselves.

This is the point where all community members, of all communities, have no choice but to become ‘lawless looters’ – except that it won’t just be empty stores you’ll be smashing into to steal food from.  The stores will already have been emptied, days or weeks ago.  The only places where you can get food now are places where people still have food and are protecting their food from people like – yes, from people like you.

What do you do when your polite request for a gift of food is rebuffed?  What do you do after you’ve offered to pay them with money, with valuables, with anything at all they care to ask for, and they’ve still refused to sell/exchange even a single food item?

Most people will manage to become morally outraged at this, and so will then see what happens next not as their own transition to a lawless looter, but instead, they’ll see themselves as morally empowered to fairly redistribute the remaining food and to stop selfish people from illegally hoarding more food than they could ever truly need.

These people will not see themselves as killing the current lawful owners of whatever food remains.  They’ll see themselves saving the lives of many others when they secure the food and redistribute it.

Indeed, what passes for the remaining lawful authorities will probably pass urgent laws making it illegal to keep more than a day or two of food in one’s house, requiring ‘hoarders’ to give up their food, and authorizing any necessary level of force to take it from these demon selfish ‘hoarders’.  (Do we need to add that the people passing such laws are very unlikely to be preppers?)

The Life or Death Question That Has Only One Answer

We agree with the person who wrote the positive heartwarming article.  Many communities will band together to create isolated pockets of safety where the rule of law prevails.  Maybe even entire towns and cities will do so.

But what happens when the food runs out?  Let’s assume there’s less than a week of food for the community.  Maybe on half rations, that will keep people reasonably healthy and comfortable for two weeks.  But if there’s no clear sign of food resupply coming any time soon, at some point people will be forced to choose between taking food by force from wherever they can find it, or passively dying of starvation in their dwellings.

A starving person has no choice – they have to do whatever it takes to find food.

What You Must Do

Prepping for a Level 2 or 3 event must start from the decision that you will abandon your urban residence and flee to a safer retreat, far from urban concentrations of people.

Stockpiling food in an urban location will only result in it being taken from you and you finding yourself no better equipped to survive than the unprepared people all around you.

You must develop a plan to leave the city and to live in a place where you have stockpiled food and where you can transition to a self-contained and sustainable lifestyle.  City living does not, will not, and can not allow for this.

One of the consequences of an American civil war would be a worldwide food shortage for many years. The disruption of the agricultural sector of the American economy during a nationwide war would virtually eliminate the tons of food exported to other nations from the U.S. A large percentage of these exports are grain that keeps many third world nations stable and peaceful.

Any national chaos would disable the system of seed production that allows farmers to plant the millions of acres in the U.S. It would also disable the production and distribution of fuels and fertilizers that farmers depend on to plant, grow and harvest.

The only way the food production system would continue operating is if the government or a corporate entity seized control of the large tracts of farmland in the Midwest and continued to operate them. Given the executive orders now on the books this is always a possibility. It is also likely that if that happened, food would be used as a weapon against those areas of the country in rebellion against government rule.

Some in the U.S. would possibly continue to eek out an existence on locally grown products but the vast majority of the country and the countries that depend on the surplus grain would either have to find another source or starve. Growing any food in the U.S. under those conditions would be very difficult and very dangerous. That is the main reason individuals must have ample supplies laid in for chaos that lasts for several years.

Even if a person does not have the financial means to store several years worth of regular meals, they can store some of the basics that will allow them to get by along with any fresh produce they are able to scavenge off the land. That may sound like a very extreme case but we are likely headed for unprecedented times and nothing should be taken for granted.

In his book, Nuclear War Survival Skills, Cresson Kearny provides a list of basic foods that will get a person through the difficult times. He provides the following basic survival ration for multi-year storage.

Amount Per day

Whole kernel hard wheat – 16oz.
Beans – 5oz.
Non-fat milk powder – 2oz.
Vegetable oil – 1oz.
Sugar – 2oz.
Salt (iodized) – 1/3oz.
Multi vitamin pills – 1 per day

This ration will provide you with about 2600 calories a day and is nutritionally balanced. The two disadvantages of this ration are that it requires cooking and most people are not accustomed to such a diet. He also provides an emergency ration for infants.

Amount Per Day

Instant non-fat dry milk – 1 cup + 2 tablespoons ( 2 3/4 oz.)
Vegetable cooking oil – 3 tablespoons (1 oz.)
Sugar – 2 tablespoons (0.7 0z.)
Standard daily multi vitamin – 1/3 pill
Safe water – 4 cups

The items listed can be bought in bulk and are relatively cheap at this time so there is no excuse not having even these few items in storage. The need to rely on a basic ration with little variety may result in taste fatigue over time but the ability to eat daily and supply your body with sufficient calories to deal with the crisis will enable you to get through it.

The list of emergencies that could impose starvation on the population is long. It is the responsibility of every parent to take care of their family under any circumstances and nothing is as important in a long crisis as eating. When the next world changing crisis appears, will you be ready for it?

In a nation like America with all of the natural resources that we have available to us, it need not come to that. The one thing that we lack today is the motivation to do something positive about our looming situation. The current inhabitants of America no longer have the moral fiber that was common in the 1930’s when we last went through something like this. That will have to change or some other factor will have to be utilized to stabilize the population in the future. A mass exodus out of the country is just such a factor.

For those that have the moral fiber to make a stand and provide for their family it will be a trying time and a dangerous one for many years. Those that have the will to work through the problems will need to have either funds or resources to get them through. Simply having several months of food and supplies will not be enough. It will take a plan that spans two or three decades that you can enact to provide the things you and your family will need.

Something this encompassing will require many resources and the know-how to use them. The amount of resources can be a stopping point for many due to lack of funds to acquire them now but that is all the more reason to make plans and work towards a goal that you can accomplish. Many of the resources you may need can likely be made from scratch that can provide you with the things you need and even something to sell. It is not that hard to build a spinning wheel and floor loom to make cloth from raw cotton or wool. It just takes time and patience. The old ways are not fast or efficient by today’s standards but they allow you to produce something from the raw materials you can obtain. This is just one example of how you need to think in the days ahead.

You need to utilize the time, funds and skills you can obtain now to construct a plan to deal with the future and overcome the problems. If you need to house your family it is now common to get a loan and be in debt for 30 years. In the future it may be necessary to provide that home with what you have on hand to build it. That may entail using a few hand tools that you have and the available natural resources around you. A home made from sod, cobblestone, adobe or logs can be utilized to provide the shelter you need. It may not be pretty or what you are used to but our forefathers utilized this type of construction as a stepping stone to better things.

When the economy as we know it fails, the only thing you can do is to return to an earlier point in time that depended on a simpler more functional system and utilize the available resources. When mechanized farming fails it may be necessary to return to less mechanized methods and cheaper alternatives to grow the food and fibers we need for survival. The thought of having to go backwards to get to the future is not pretty and will likely be difficult but sometimes that is the only way to move forward.

Surviving during a collapsing economy where systems we depend on cease to function requires individual actions to reduce the hardship that will ultimately overwhelm society and cause societal breakdown on most levels. Skills to lessen the hardships are critical to stabilization and recovery. These skills are the only way to utilize available resources to provide the necessities of society. The first things individuals strive to produce are food, shelter and clothing. These are the very basic things people need to survive over time. Later, other things such as security, medicine, communication and transportation become necessary to form a more cohesive community.

The skills to grow and store food, purify water, build shelter, make clothing, produce heat and light, produce energy to power machines, produce medicines and administer healthcare, harvest and move raw materials and communicate over long distances are skills necessary today and will continue to be vital in times of economic distress.

The skills and resources to provide these things are the foundation of a functional society. The lack of these things results in chaos and anarchy that prevents the construction of sustainable systems that a functional society needs to grow. The special skills needed to utilize available resources depends on the location of the person and the natural resources available for development. Because of this, different locations may develop along somewhat different lines but the destination is the same.

The need to know or learn these skills is necessary now while the social situation is stable enough to enable persons to plan and prepare for the hardships we will ultimately face as the economy fails due to fraud and mismanagement. Those with a lack of skills and resources will be a detracting factor on society as hardships increase and constitute an ever present danger for those with the resources to survive the times. These are the things that everyone must prepare for now while the system is still intact. There are no guarantees for tomorrow.

IMPORTANT: I wrote this post to get people to think about this very likely situation. Today we have the luxury of thinking in black and white, but each SHTF scenario will require different actions, and all those actions will have different consequences and repercussions. Whether you agree or disagree is not important…thinking about it is.

One part of prepping that is sometimes overlooked or not given the consideration it deserves is what you will do when someone comes knocking on your door. I’m not talking about the wondering stranger, I’m talking about close family members that may or may not know you are prepping.

The question we need to ask ourselves and think about very seriously is who you would turn away, and what extended family members would you help out in a disaster or SHTF event.

Unfortunately this is just the first step, now you need to think about how you are going to handle the situation of having extra mouths to feed. This is all dependent on whether you decide to help them or turn them away, and as I said in the last article, (and I am talking about close family, not the entire family) I just couldn’t turn close family members away. If you could, my bet is there are other circumstances that weigh into your decision other than survival.

Missed it by That Much…

How would you decide who could stay and who needed to go away? This is a tough question, but it’s one we really need to put a lot of thought into. Deciding on who would make the cut could be the difference between surviving and thriving, or throwing everything you have down the tubes.

To me there are a few factors that I would have to think about…

1. How Close Are They?

It’s just not feasible to think that you can bring everyone and everyone they bring with them in during an SHTF event, most of us can barely afford to get ourselves prepared. Like it or not, we are going to have to figure out how to say “I just can’t do it”

In the podcast we used my son and his fiancée as an example, I absolutely want him here, and I know he won’t come without her. She has her twin sister that she is very close to and who knows who else she would want to bring along, so how do I handle that situation?

As much as it would pain me I would have to have a conversation with my son and tell him that he has a choice to make. If he chooses to stay it will only be him and her, if he chooses to stay with her I would help as much as I could and send them on their way.

2. What is my Family’s Opinion?

In any marriage we are bound to have different opinions about people than our spouse, and this should weigh heavily into your decision. Your husband or wife’s opinion about your favorite cousin might be completely different than yours.

Have a conversation now with your family about who would stay and why, try to put personal feelings aside and come to a rational conclusion about whether they would be an asset or a hindrance to your survival plan. Also, try not to get into an argument when you’re talking about this, a divorce is the last thing you want.

3. How Helpful Have They Been?

During your conversation with your family your past experiences with this person are bound to come up. What is their personality like? And how has our past relationship been?

Some people are helpful, some are all about themselves and some people are know it all’s. We can tolerate these personality traits now, but in an SHTF situation these traits will be magnified.

4. How Helpful Would They Be?

I dig a little deeper into this later, but think about how they would benefit your situation, what skills do they have that would help you in a disaster situation. Even if someone is a “one upper” and it drives you crazy, they might have skills that would be useful to you.

Do they have carpentry, electrical, gardening or welding skills? In situations like these we will need to weigh the good with the bad to figure out if we give them a thumbs up, or a thumbs down.

5. What Challenges Do They Bring?

Just as important as thinking about what they bring to the table is what they will be taking from the table. The truth is that any time you add someone to the equation the situation becomes more complicated, and sometimes the negatives so outweigh the positives you need to make that tough decision.

The Double Edged Sward

As much as it drives me nuts knowing that I shouldn’t have to prepare for someone who doesn’t see why it’s important, I do understand that this is a catch 22 that I might have to deal with.

We can barely prepare for ourselves, let alone for the family members that might end up on our doorstep, but unless you are willing to turn everyone away it is a problem you are bound to face.

One other option that could be another article all by itself is bugging out altogether. We always think about security from marauders and criminals, but what if so many people end up at your door that you have no option other than leave, you might have to.

How Much Extra do you Prepare?

Because we can only do what we can do, and sometimes storage space and money are limited I think more along the lines of “how can they make my situation better?” Maybe saying that you should turn this into a positive is a little optimistic, but at least try to make it a little less negative.

Storing extra beans, rice, flour and dry goods will go a long way and give you the basics you will need, but at some point it will run out. Have plans in place to use them like you would an employee, start thinking like a post collapse CEO.

Set the guidelines and expectations from day one. You need to let them know that if you are going to let them stay there for however long that might be you expect them to help. What is impossible for 2 or 3 people to do in a day might be possible with more people, expanding the garden, foraging, hunting, raising more animals for food and building/repairing will become more possible with more people.

The Come to Jesus Talk

At first we might need to lower our expectations because most unprepared people will try to hold on to their Pollyanna reality as long as possible, they will be like a junkies going through withdraws. This is why it’s important to set your expectations from day one.

You might hear things like “why are you rationing the water? This will be over in a day or two?” or “Look at all this food, were going to eat like kings!” These people might have no idea what we could be in for, and need to be set straight before it becomes a problem.

At some point it might become necessary to have what I call the “come to Jesus talk” people will tell you whatever you want to hear to get your help, but if they are not holding up their end of the bargain you might have to have the tough conversation neither one of you want to have.

You might have to say…

“This is what you told me you would do when you came here, and this is what you are actually doing (or not doing), how are we going to fix this? Does this mean you need to go? Or are you going to get onboard and pull your weight?”

Problems like these are bound to happen, and these are situations we need to be able to face, otherwise disappearing and not letting people know where you are might be the better option.

If anyone wants to see where western civilization is headed they need only to look at Venezuela today. The Bolivar has gone from 6.3 per dollar to 1,000 per dollar in the past few years. Last year farmers were ordered to turn over certain crops to the government for dispersion in government owned stores. About 100 shopping malls are now having their power cut for several hours a day as power shortages become a problem. But, as one citizen said, it doesn’t really matter because there isn’t anything to buy anyway. Last year their economy dropped 10% and this year it is expected to drop another 8%. They just had 36 747 cargo aircraft deliver newly printed cash to keep up with inflation.

This is the price of socialist programs and lack of sound economic practices. With currency inflating at this rate it is impossible for anyone to save from one year to the next. With government taking farm commodities how long will farmers continue to produce crops they will not get paid for or be paid in increasingly worthless currency. With power shortages commerce cannot continue in any serious way.

Gold has begun its move upwards in reaction to failing bank policies and the realization by the public that all is not well. If you do not get resources before they are gone you will not get them or you will pay dearly for them. Empty stores and closed banks make resource acquisition difficult if not impossible and life becomes much more difficult to survive on a daily basis. Nothing can create shortages like socialist policies and global war.

Saudi Arabia, Turkey the UAE and other actors in the Mideast are massing troops to intervene in the Syrian crisis. They must move soon or rebel forces which include Al Qaeda and ISIS troops will be destroyed by Syrian, Russian and Iranian forces that now threaten Aleppo and soon Raqqa which will end the civil war in Syria once and for all. The latest reports indicate about 350,000 troops, 2,000 tanks, 2,400 airplanes and over 400 helicopters are massing in northern Saudi Arabia. If this force invades Syria it is possible Russia may be forced to utilize tactical nukes to stop them. Once that line has been breached there is no telling where it might end.

One thing that is certain is that bankers and politicians will welcome an escalation to distract the people from the fact that they are about to loose everything they have. Major banks around the world are on the verge of bankruptcy which will trigger a massive derivatives meltdown. When that happens you can kiss any paper assets you have goodbye forever.

In times like this it is only prudent to protect yourself from the machinations of those that push the buttons of global commerce and banking. The rise in gold and silver indicate people are becoming aware of the dangers and are taking defensive positions. Those that realize inflation and shortages of consumer goods are on the horizon are taking the necessary steps to get through the times ahead. They are also taking steps to get through any dangers that governments and bankers are orchestrating to cover their illegal actions.

Let the difficulties in Venezuela be a fair warning of what can happen when the system no longer works properly and you are left to your own devices to get by. The ability to care for yourself is critical when large systems fail. When they fail everything you normally depend on stops and no amount of wishful thinking will change things. If you cannot touch it, you will not have it. A smart man learns from his mistakes. A genius learns from other peoples mistakes. Learn now or pay dearly later.

Most Americans who have been around for a while know life is nothing like it used to be. When someone wanted a job one was found with a little bit of searching. Today jobs are difficult to find, especially in small communities.

When I was growing up in the 70’s, there were several car dealers in my community. There were three tractor dealers and too many mom and pop stores to count. Today there are two used car dealers and the nearest tractor dealer is twenty miles away. So how is it that we now have more people, but fewer businesses to employ them?

A nations wealth is derived from having a product to sell. That wealth needs to circulate in towns and cities to compound the wealth effect and create jobs and businesses. When wealth is not created or it is siphoned off to other places, the wealth effect can not happen, and in many cases goes into reverse. A community needs a certain amount of service related jobs to function but it also needs some type of production jobs to bring in money from the outside. This can be mining , agriculture or manufacturing type jobs, but they must exist to insure a healthy economy.

America has two major problems today. A large amount of our production is done outside the country eliminating production jobs in local communities and many of the small local businesses that kept wealth within communities have been supplanted by large corporations that siphon wealth out of communities and send it to wall street.

In the past when a small business made profit, that profit was kept in the local community because that is where the owner lived. Now, that profit leaves the community never to be seen again. With less money to circulate within the community the businesses that depend on people spending their extra dollars, have fewer customers and eventually go out of business. With fewer jobs there is that much less money circulating and the economic situation spirals down until nothing is left.

These days corporate businesses and government jobs make up the major part of many local communities. In many cases if it were not for the government jobs, many communities would no longer exist. So what do you think would happen if the government suddenly no longer had money to pay those workers? What would happen if corporate profits dropped to the point where corporate stores decided to close and cut their losses?

To some extent we are seeing this happen now in many places. Corporate stores moved in and drove small local businesses out. Then when the profits dried up the corporate stores closed leaving the community with no jobs or products to buy. With no capital in the local communities to rebuild small businesses, the people simply drive to other areas to do their shopping.

The corporate cronies and government laggards control most of the money flowing through communities now and they want to keep it that way. Any attempt to rebuild local businesses is met with luke warm results. Any business that might make a difference is either killed outright or regulated into oblivion before it can get off the ground. The county where I live has all but abandoned local businesses. The bulk of their income comes from property taxes generated by vacation homes and retirement homes of retired government employees. As long as the government pensions and paychecks continue, they see no reason to change the status quo. The result is that the younger people leave as soon as they can and the average age of the population continues to get older. As with many places today, this area has no future.

Where I live is a microcosm of the nation. Corporate and government entities continue to siphon what little money there is out of communities and just as small communities are dying, the nation will soon follow if current trends do not change. A return to small local economics is the only way to reverse some of the damage and keep our communities livable. But, do not be deceived. There is no way to undo all of the damage that has been done and even if we survive, we will only be a shadow of what we once were as a nation

Do you ever get the feeling that someone is peering over your shoulder? It could be at the ATM or when you are on your cellphone. You might feel like someone is watching and most of the time you are right. Those its not the eyes around you that should worry you. If you own a mobile phone google, Facebook and government know almost everything about you!

You either know about all of this already or you are going to walk away feeling very uncomfortable and maybe a little trapped.

This article will not only be a look at what Facebook, Google and the Government know about you, but we will also provide some links that allow you to affect what they know about you. Yes. There are many things these entities are doing, with your permission, that you don’t know about.

These “services” have off switches and you can take advantage of those if you read on.

They Know Where You Are

Both Google and Facebook are very up front about giving you the ability to tell the world where you are. Their services are tied in with your GPS technology and you have agreed to that long before you started posting or doing anything else, they offer.

You can even get solid proof by following this link to see your own personal timeline. Google is very transparent about this data but its none the less chilling!

Make no mistake about it, if your phones tracking is on, they know where you are. Most people know about this and some even work to counteract it but there are millions that do not, and Google keeps tabs on all of them.

They Know What You REALLY Like

Google uses two mediums to really understand what you like. You know, the person you are in front of your phone is the person they want to know. The nasty things you search at night when the family is asleep, they want to know that, too.

The first method they use to really get to know you, is to save all your activity. All of it! Again, they are terribly transparent if you know where to look. This means things you have searched and things you have searched and deleted are all logged. Unless you have been very diligent and deleted things across devices.

If you are interested, you can see your activity profile with Google HERE.

The other method is your advertising profile. While Google does not sell your personal information, they basically remake you based on a variety of characteristics and interests. They are not allowed to sell your exact age, but they can certainly say that you fall into a demographic/age bracket.

This ad profile is what they use to make money on ads. They can target you with ads based on the things you search, like, places you visit and a variety of other things. In essence they know what gets you to act when you are on your device and they sell that to ad agencies. This is arguably much more powerful than your personal information.

You can stop these targeted ads by going to this link HERE.

They Can Watch You

Yeah. I know, its creepy but its true. Along with information about everything you use on your phone, everything you watch, what you like and where you go, even your calendar, you have also given Facebook and Google permission to use your microphone and camera!

Facebook and Google Stockpile Everything About You

Both services offer you options to download all the storage they have on you. Not sure how you feel about that but its definitely a service they offer. Its likely something, they will charge a lot of money for one day. Now, the most alarming part about this is the size of what you download. For all the information on you, you might need close to a gigabyte of space or more!

I have read of people requesting this information from Goggle and needing 5GB of data space for that file! That is huge.

Big Brother Is Just As Bad

The cloud has changed everything. The US Government can understand your entire daily routine based off information that doesn’t even live on your device!

To be honest, the government doesn’t have enough agents or time to track all of us with precision. However, if they were to raise an eyebrow over something that you were doing or saying. They could hone in on an individual and suspend a lot of the rights you think are part of your birthright.

We have watched scenarios like this transpire before our very eyes. We have seen the government burst from its shell and attack with full force. From pressuring tech companies to crack cellphones to people being washed from our society altogether.

Its not that they are watching you right now, but you must be honest with yourself and understand that they can, when they want to. Beyond the governments scope of surveillance, they can also tap the aforementioned Google and Facebook for all the information in their storage.

Privacy is a dissolving feature of our society. There is no getting around that. Unless you take steps from birth you are going to be part of a heavily surveilled state that can set its sights on you whenever it pleases.

What are you going to do sue the Federal Government?

The State will skirt the constitution whenever it sees fit and in this divisive day and age, there aren’t even swaths of the population to stand up for you. So, what is a person to do? Well, its more of an excuse to live free and be yourself.

If you like buying ammunition and stockpiling weapons, everyone knows about it anyway. You might as well enjoy it! In any ways the prepper idea of OPSEC has been shattered by all this and maybe that’s a good thing.

We can get to the task of preparing the rest of the world for the high tides ahead.

Last year, Christians were persecuted more than ever in the modern era—and this year is expected to be worse: “4,136 Christians were killed for faith-related reasons,” says Open Doors USA in its recently published World Watch List 2019 of the top 50 nations where Christians are persecuted.  “On average, that’s 11 Christians killed every day for their faith.” Additionally, “2,625 Christians were detained without trial, arrested, sentenced and imprisoned” in 2018, and “1,266 churches or Christian buildings were attacked.”

Whereas 215 million Christians faced persecution in 2018, 245 million will suffer throughout 2019—a 14% increase, notes the report, representing 30 million more people abused for their faith. This means that “1 in 9 Christians experience high levels of persecution worldwide.” (Note: all quotes in this article are from the WWL 2019.) 

One of the most noteworthy trends concerns the “shocking reality of persecution against women…. In many places, they experience a ‘double persecution’— one for being a Christian and one for being a woman. Even in the most restricted circumstances, gender-specific persecution is a key means of destroying the minority Christian community.”   Last year’s WWL provided more specific numbers: “At least six women every day are raped, sexually harassed or forced into marriage to a Muslim man under the threat of death for their Christian faith…”

Another alarming trend is that, “For the first time since the start of the World Watch List, India has entered the top 10,” meaning Christians there are now experiencing “extreme persecution”:

Christians have been targeted by Hindu nationalist extremists more each year. Since the current ruling party took power in 2014, attacks have increased, and Hindu radicals believe they can attack Christians with no consequences. The view of the nationalists is that to be Indian is to be Hindu, so any other faith— including Christianity—is viewed as non-Indian. Additionally, in some regions of the country, converts to Christianity from Hinduism experience extreme persecution, discrimination and violence.

The most obvious trend remains unchanged:

Islamic oppression continues to impact millions of Christians. In seven out of the top 10 World Watch List countries, the primary cause of persecution is Islamic oppression. This means, for millions of Christians—particularly those who grew up Muslim or were born into Muslim families—openly following Jesus can have painful consequences. They can be treated as second-class citizens, discriminated against for jobs or even violently attacked.

Not only is “Islamic oppression” responsible for the persecution Christians face in seven of the ten worst nations; 38 of the 50 nations making the list are Muslim majority.

Among the worst persecutors are those that rule according to Sharia.  In Afghanistan (ranked #2), “Christianity is not permitted to exist” because it “is an Islamic state by constitution, which means government officials, ethnic group leaders, religious officials and citizens are hostile toward” Christians.  Similarly, in Somalia, (#3), “The Christian community is small and under constant threat of attack. Sharia law and Islam are enshrined in the country’s constitution, and the persecution of Christians almost always involves violence.”  In Iran (#9), “society is governed by Islamic law, which means the rights and professional possibilities for Christians are heavily restricted.”

While the forms of and actors behind the persecution vary, they all appear to be connected to Islam.  For example, “Under Pakistan’s (#5) notorious blasphemy laws, Christians continue to live in daily fear they will be accused of insulting Muhammad—which can carry a penalty of death.”  In Libya (#4), Yemen (#8), Syria (#11), Iraq (#13) war has given rise to Islamic militancy and general lawlessness, both of which prey on Christian minorities.

In Muslim nations where Christians make for a significant minority, a significant amount of churches is needed to meet their numbers—the visibility of which may offend Muslim sensibilities.   Thus in Egypt (#16), where Christians amount for at least 10 percent of the population (quite possibly even double that):

Severe restrictions on building or securing places for worship prevent Christians from congregating, in addition to hostility and violence toward believers who do gather. In recent years, Islamic extremist groups have targeted Christians and churches in numerous violent and deadly acts of persecution.

“The spread of radical Islam across subSaharan Africa” is another growing and troubling trend.   For example,

Nigeria’s score for violence [99.9%] has stayed as high as possible, primarily due to the increased attacks on Christian communities by militant Fulani herdsmen. These attacks claimed the lives of hundreds of believers during the reporting period, and villages and churches burned to the ground. Additionally, in parts of northern Nigeria, Christians are treated as secondclass citizens.

Some of the WWL’s findings are surprising. Although Orthodox Christians make for the majority of its population, the Russian Federation is #41, and the “source of persecution” is, again, “Islamic oppression”: “Christians in parts of Russia dominated by Islam report the highest level of persecution.”

Despite Islam’s domineering role, North Korea (#1) remains the worst nation, where “never-ending pressure and violence” is directed against Christians: “The primary driver of persecution in North Korea is the state. For three generations, everything in the country has focused on idolizing the Kim family. Christians are seen as hostiles to be eradicated.”

As difficult as it is for Christians under the Kim regime, there may be a light at the end of the tunnel for them and those in other communist nations (such as China #27): cults of personalities can only last so long, but in the Islamic world, where the bulk of persecution occurs, the source—“Islamic oppression” according to the WWL—is integral to and permeates the whole of society.

The recent disasters around the world have shown most people are ill prepared for sudden disruptions to normal life.

Simply having supplies piled up in preparation for some occurrence is not enough to insure your survival. There are several other things you must keep in mind and balance out among your preparations.

You must imagine the potential catastrophic possibilities
You must prepare yourself mentally to deal with whatever happens
You must have knowledge of how best to employ your resources
You need to use your imagination to think outside the box
You must be able to improvise, adapt and overcome obstacles
You must have a flexible plan to guide you

Many people have spewed hateful rhetoric at preppers over the years and today some are finding themselves in dire circumstances as infrastructure and supplies are cut off for an indefinite period of time. Those unprepared individuals have few options and now rely on the actions of others to insure their survival.

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As many in the Caribbean can now attest to, having to wait for help to come from hundreds or even thousands of miles away is slow and stressful to those who wait. They do not know when help will arrive and what resources will be available when they arrive. It could take years for many locations to return to some type of normalcy and this is at a time when help is available and forthcoming. What happens when that help is not available following an event?

In the world we now live in the bulk of the population is conditioned to wait for help to come. They are not encouraged to perform self help to minimize their suffering. This leads to many more victims to deal with overloading services and resources available to the public. This is happening in good times. What happens when things deteriorate and no help is available to communities or cities? What will happen when people and equipment do not come because damage is wide scale? What happens when all expendable resources are exhausted and cannot be replaced?

Preppers already know the answers to those questions and that is why they prepare. They know that someday an event could happen where no help will be available and they will be on their own for weeks or months. They know if something happens, what they have on hand is all they will likely have to work with for the duration. They know those that have not planned will be victims and most will expect someone to help them and their family. This creates a difficult situation for preppers and victims alike.

The act of learned helplessness is the only thing many people know today and that will lead to a reduced chance of survival for many depending on the depth of the event. A prepper can only do so much to help others in this type of situation but the main thing they possess are the leadership qualities and survival skills the masses need to come through the situation.

Following an event there will be a certain number of survivors that will see the light and understand what preppers have been trying to tell them for years. These people will differ from those that will still have the entitlement mentality and expect others to care for them and provide resources they need. These newly enlightened individuals are the ones that preppers will be able to help the most.

The Greatest Trick the Devil Ever Pulled Was Convincing the World He Didn’t Exist. Learn More…

The true leaders in society will be able to direct these individuals on courses of action that will allow them to slowly recover and build up some resilience over time. These are the actions that will be necessary to reduce the chaos in society and provide some stabilization. These people will help provide a buffer between preppers and the hostile unprepared masses that manage to survive.

Make no mistake about it. There will be groups with varying mindsets roaming about following an event and it is advantageous to have as many of them on your side as possible. There is little you can do about the entitled victims except defend against their actions. In this case, there will be safety in numbers.

While a prepper cannot foresee every problem, they can plan ahead and set aside some resources that can help solidify your leadership among those you are able to work with. This could take the form of setting aside a few drums of bulk grains like oats or beans that can be purchased cheaply now but will allow you to feed a small group of people a basic meal for several weeks. The small price of a few drums of grain could buy a lot of goodwill.

Being able to provide clean drinking water to a small group by purchasing a good spare water filter will help eliminate the spread of disease among the group. Having a few medications that can help a few individuals that do manage to become sick will mean a lot to their families. Having a few extra radios that the group can share will help with security for everyone. Having a means to provide a small power source for lighting or battery recharging could mean a great deal to those with no power. In some locations having an extra wood stove to share and some wood will provide these people with heat and cooking ability.

There are many little things that could be worth a great deal to unprepared survivors that will help to stabilize their situation and insure they do not become a hostile force you would eventually have to deal with. You may not be able to help everyone or provide everything they need but being able to help a few can have long term benefits.

In a survival situation there will be many that become threats to you no matter what you do but the more you can eliminate from that potential pool the safer life will be for you. No matter what type of event takes place or how long the effects last eventually there will come a time of stabilization. The type of people in control of that stable situation could be a good thing or a very bad thing. As a prepper you could have a lot of influence over the outcome.

If you’re interested in learning more old remedies, you should read The Lost Book Of Remedies.

The physical book has 300 pages, with 3 colored pictures for every plant and for every medicine.It was written by Claude Davis, whose grandfather was one of the greatest healers in America. Claude took his grandfather’s lifelong plant journal, which he used to treat thousands of people, and adapted it into this book.

Learn More…

Want To Prep But Not Sure Where To Begin?