Basic Concepts

(Survival Manual/2. Social issues/Basic concepts)

One of the most amazing points of ‘Preparedness’ is- the sudden awareness of your vulnerability.

1.  Definitions:
•  Wealth is the ability to survive a given number of days forward. Wealth is not measured  in dollars, but in how long into the future you can survive; food is wealth, etc. (Buckminster Fuller)

•  Self Sufficiency:  Refers to the state of not requiring any outside inputs or aid, support, or interaction, for survival. Having a bank of batteries that feed power into your systems after the power is out, but which use the power grid to recharge once the power comes back on.
Self Reliance: Is having a solar panel to recharge your battery bank, so you do not need the power grid.
Having a degree of Self Sufficiency does not mean turning your back on the system (grocery store, electric co.), it’s about accepting the fact that the systems can fail and  developing a degree of separation from your dependency. The pioneers who first colonized the New World, Australia, and parts of Africa were self-sufficient because they had to be and, in this context, the term suggests a kind of rugged independence associated with mastering a new and rather hostile environment.

•  Self Reliant: The practice of being dependent only on yourself, and being able to care for yourself in any situation. Still need inputs, but have a back up a limited period of ‘self sufficient’ capability. To rely on something is to depend on it. If you are self-reliant, you rely on yourself.
This can be a good thing if you are independent and take care of yourself. Self-reliance of any kind, political, social or personal, is not an easy goal to reach. “To be nobody but yourself in a world which is doing its best, night and day, to make you like everybody else,” writes E.E. Cummings, “means to fight the hardest battle any human being can fight, and never stop fighting.” It’s a battle well worth fighting-for ourselves and for future generations.

•  Acute: The immediate/abrupt onset/effects of a disaster, i.e.,  the ground shaking during an earthquake, the shock wave and immediate fallout from a blast/nuclear explosion, being fired
from ones job, home invasion, home fire. The period of acute effects is variable depending on the nature of the disaster.

•  Aftermath:  A period of time following a disastrous event in which the consequences of the disaster come to bear on you and your area, i.e. famine follows a severe drought; the aftermath is always worse on the survivors than the brief and often violent phase of the disaster. Survivalists primarily
prepare for the Aftermath.

•  An Event cascade: Engineers used to talk about guarding against the “single point of  failure” when designing critical systems like aircraft control systems or nuclear power plants. But rarely does one mistake or event cause a catastrophe. As we’ve seen in Japan (2011 earthquake, tsunami, nuclear plant explosions), disaster is usually a function of multiple mistakes and a string of bad luck,
often called an “event cascade” or “propagating failures.”

•  True Wealth: True Wealth is having possession of what it takes to keep a full belly, maintain a sense of hope and pay your bills.

•  How long can you survive? People wish to emulate others who live in Mac-Mansion homes, however, the affluent ‘rich’ depend on their job incomes to maintain their lifestyle, shut off the income and they’d be broke in 30-60 days. Their ‘wealth; is based strictly on income. However, a small farmer holding a laborers job in a rural box factory might be considered wealthy,  because he has survivability. In the aftermath of a disaster money may not have value, while goods, i.e., food and water have value. (If I have food and you have gold, before long I’ll have all your gold and you’ll have a small amount of my food.)

Could you live in your home for 3 months if there was a National Epidemic Lockup? Would you have water stored for every member of the family for drinking, washing and flushing the toilet? Would you have enough food, toilet paper, Kleenex, personal medical supplies, and  other auxiliary products on hand?

•  Financial Concerns: Once you are well on your way to acquiring your family’s preparation tools, equipment, and supplies, consider acquiring extra items to help others and to use as future barter
goods. You might be able to trade extra water filters, garden seeds, survival books, cooking fuel, batteries, antibiotics, and ammo for other needed products or services. Some people are even converting a modest percentage of their traditional paper investments into some gold and/or silver coins for trading purposes, as well as for prudent wealth diversification.

Having wealth in forms other than solely paper dollars, plastic credit cards, or a 401k account might make the critical difference in one day being able to buy gas or get your gravely ill child to the front of a mile-long line to see the only overworked doctor or dentist or pharmacist in town. It’ll sure beat only waving around your last mutual fund or bank statement then.

•  Commonality of Disasters: We all share a common circumstance and that is, if the public systems/social structures/political leadership/economic and military systems we depend on fail, then we are left to fall back on our personal resources for survival.

The systems we count on can simply be made non available to individuals or to groups that share a commonality, or they can fail on a local, or larger geographical level. Systems may be available to most
people, but not accessible for others. For example if you lose your job and run out of money and are unable to pay your credit card, then your credit line is closed down. So, while the financial net provided by credit remains available for most, it becomes inaccessible to you.

If there were a series of EMP explosions above the USA, the country’s financial electronic infrastructure would fail, making electronic deposits, transfers, credit checks, electronic debits and
electronic cash registers, checkout scanners inoperable commercial retail trade would have failed. For a short period, trade would be crippled and not available to anyone,  it would become available to persons with cash.

•  The World’s Largest Ponzi Scheme. Ponzi schemes have a tough time existing in “reality”. They typically need the “virtual world” in order to wreak havoc on their victims because in the real world
things are exposed, but in the virtual world it is easy to hide behind lies – because the system in which we live is, in fact, NOT REAL. Our government won’t publish M3 (which tells us how many US dollars are currently in circulation).
What does that tell you about the true strength of the dollars we hold? The US dollar is right now potentially the largest Ponzi scheme in the world because no one knows how diluted its supply really is, yet it is the entire world’s reserve currency. If that doesn’t make you want to own at least some gold
I don’t know what will.

•  Regarding The Federal Reserve: “They will thrash about more as the air gets thinner and thinner. They see the likely end-game. They will push it into the future are long as possible.  And just before the inevitable happens, they will press the panic button – a false flag, a civil insurrection, a world war. And then they will make their escape and hope to pop back up again when it is safe—as the savior
to a devastated and downtrodden citizenry desperate for help.”
“The last duty of a central banker is to tell the public the truth.” — Alan Blinder, Vice Chairman of the  Federal Reserve

•  The Virtual World: Our world has become virtual in so many ways; from our bank accounts to our relationships on social networking sites. We judge our wealth by looking up our 401 K’s online at work instead of counting the physical assets in our possession. We judge our support systems by how many people wished us a happy birthday on Facebook. We judge our personal security by the fact that we may live in a community with a reportedly low crime rate instead of our own abilities to defend ourselves. We view the world through our television sets which tell us that economic collapses always happen somewhere else. We couldn’t imagine gas stations that are out of fuel, grocery stores with empty shelves, banks with no money, or a local police force that refuses to respond to calls unless they are deemed a “priority”.

We couldn’t imagine these things because most of us in America believe that our “civilized society” has evolved to the point where we don’t need to produce things anymore. Instead we just need to pay the rest of the world (with the dollars generated from our service based economy) so that they can produce things for us. Regardless of how fragile our social and economic structure has become due to our reliance on the strength of our currency and our inability to appreciate the gravity of a full-blown societal panic, our ability to thrive in this virtual world has led to a false sense of security that is sure to catch the majority of us off guard when things begin to get worse and the reality of this economic depression begins to settle in.

2.  Concept Notes
•  You don’t know if, or when, or with what severity a disaster might strike, while you do know
the history of your area and the nature of past disasters. You don’t know what will and will not be available to you in the aftermath.
•  Survival is not a right and it’s not guaranteed, you have to make it happen.
•  The typical American’s rainy-day plan: Hope it doesn’t rain.
Poll: 24% of Americans have the recommended six months expenses set aside (mostly older people, in their 50s and 60s), 24% have no emergency savings at all (under 30 years old, and/or incomes less than $30,000/ year.). Fewer than 50% had saving worth 3 months expenses.
•  Where ever you live– the greater the population density of your community and surrounding communities, the greater the resource requirements are, and the faster a breakdown will occur when the supply infrastructure (money, food, water, electricity, auto gas, etc.) is stopped.
•  Once the Welfare and Medicare checks stop ‘the poor will take care of their own family’ by taking from the people with an apparent wealth of material goods, people who are perceived to be their oppressors anyway.  Once you lose that sense of community, it’s basically every man for himself.
•  Failure to plan on your part does not constitute an emergency on my part.
•  If I have food and you have gold, before long I’ll have all your gold and you’ll have a small amount of my food.
•  Reality has no compassion, its neutral.
•  A battle plan never survives contact with the enemy.
•  Preparedness activity is difficult to track statistically, since people who take measures are usually highly circumspect by nature. people should “assume the possibility of a breakdown of the civilized
infrastructure.”
•  The veneer of freedom, prosperity and civilization is very, very  thin, and the monetary authorities
can destroy it with a few years of severe inflation.
•  Your safe haven should be as designed to be as self-sufficient as possible and capable of growing some kind of food. It should be well-stocked with seed, fertilizer, canned food, wine, medicine, clothes,
etc. Think Swiss Family Robinson. Even in America and Europe there could be moments of riot, rebellion or other causative factors  precipitating a period when law and order temporarily completely breaks down.
•  Banks only have around 4 cents in cash for every $1 on deposit. As long as the US & world economy and currencies are in decline, the number of nations in revolution and in bankruptcy are increasing, don’t leave any more than the minimum amount of currency in your account.
•  People say, “I would never buy silver or gold at these prices.” But it’s not a matter of price. It’s a matter of possession. At the end of a monetary collapse what matters is what you actually posses, not what you have claims to. Claims quickly become worthless. Wealth is goods. Money is the claim
to goods. Understand this and you will understand why gold and silver have stayed around as money for centuries while governments and their “legal tender” have come and gone. I suggest you get yours before you can’t.
•  The Wall Street Journal podcast (4 June 2011)  reported that a study recently showed that 40% of the businesses forced to close due to a natural or manmade disaster, never reopened.
[My take on this is, should the disaster be small scale, then the town, city, county, state or regional community can step in with support, but if the disaster involves several regions, or becomes national in scope, there will follow massive unemployment that will not promptly recover, but will linger on continuing to degrade the affected areas.]
•  Money: Gold is the money of kings. Silver is the money of gentleman. Barter is the money of
peasants. Debt is the money of slaves.
•  “Invest in anything that Bernanke can’t destroy, including gold, canned beans, bottled water and flashlight batteries.” (David Stockman, Reagan’s Budget Director, October 2010 )
•  When there’s a gap between perception and reality, more reality won’t close the gap.
•  Those who sweat the most during peacetime bleed the least during wartime.
•  The more experienced you become, the more dangerous you become to yourself. (Because you begin to behave according to patterns that may not in fact repeat, setting yourself up for an alternative undesirable  outcomes.)
•  Remember, none of us will ultimately be survivors – we all have to die one day. But the successful survivor extends his or her life beyond an earlier death…a death that was caused by ignorance of how to make that life last longer.

3.  Survival concepts
A.  The Rules of 3:
In any survival situation,  prioritize your activities to protect yourself from the closest, most pressing
element in the Rules of Three. If you are in an area with extreme temps seek to protect your core temp then look for water, if you have adequate temps/shelter  and water, look for food…

Rules  of Three table

3 minutes	You can only live about 3 minutes without air/breathing.
3 hours	You can live only about 3 hours exposed and unprotected to extreme temperatures. Hyperthermia (body core rises to about 103ºF-106ºF, and usually is slower to kill).   (body core declines to 87ºF-90ºF, can occur quickly if the body/clothing is wet freezing rain or submersion, then exposed to freezing or near freezing air temperatures).
3 days	You can only live about 3 days without safe water.
3 weeks	You can live only about 3 weeks without food.
3 months	Death may follow without socialization after about 3 months.
3 years	Apathy/Disinterested: May only live 3 years without an interest or goal in life

See author and instructor Cody Lundin’s website,  http://www.codylundin.com/

B. It’s a Calorie Game
“It’s a calorie game’. A survival situation is all about conserving energy when you can and expending energy wisely to accomplish something to better your situation. Whether it’s building a shelter for weather protection or using traps to hunt for game while you are busy doing other things, it’s all about
calories. To save calories in a survival situation you need to focus on the essentials and not spin your wheels doing a bunch of things that won’t improve your status or enable a rescue.

 C.  7  Skills used to defeat the 7 Enemies of Life.
The 7 Skills:
•   Fire Starting
•   Water Procurement
•   Shelter Building
•   Foraging for food
•   First Aid
•   Self Defense
•   Signaling
The 7 Enemies of Life:
•   Cold and Heat
•   Thirst
•   Fear and anxiety
•   Hunger
•   Fatigue
•   Pain and Injury
•   Boredom and Loneliness

D.  Can survivalism  be compared to a game of chess?
In chess you have your pawns, knights,
bishops, rooks (castle), queen and king. Good chess players always think several moves ahead, they have plans and backup plans. If one plan does not work out, then the next plan is put into play.
Pawns – stockpiled food, water and other supplies.
Rook (or castle) – Your home, shelter, retreat, bug out location.
Knight – Your weapons and firearms.
Bishop – Your faith,  religion, morals or values – this is what you believe in.
King and Queen – the family unit.

Pawns are the stockpiled food and supplies because you will go through them the fastest. These are
expendable items that you have a lot of. Maybe pawns could also include seed stocks? If you get a pawn to the other side of the chess board, you get a piece back. So if you plant a seed and get something in return, that would be like getting a chess piece back. If you open a case of MREs, you lose a pawn. You
only have so many to go through before you will run out.
Rook, symbolic of a home and shelter. A man’s house is his castle.
Knight, symbolic of old Europe. These are defenders of the faith and crown. They are portable, and able to jump over other pieces on the board. The knights job is to protect the queen.
Bishop, symbol of what is good and holy.
King and Queen, the goal of the game  is to keep them alive. Just as the queen is the strongest piece on the chess board, so are women strong in a survival situation. A lot of times women are more resourceful and cunning then men.
The King, without his queen and other resources, he is nothing. As the game draws to an end, and the king is the only piece left on the board, we realize how important team work is. As he scurries about trying to avoid checkmate, survivors with no friends, family or other resources will scurry around trying to stay alive.
As the opponents pieces move in for check mate, so death moves in to claim its next victim. Only through resources and skillful planning, will the king and queen win the day.
Pasted from <http://www.survivalistboards.com/showthread.php?t=104882&highlight=survival+chess>

 E.  The Five Cs
The Five Cs are the core of what Dave Canterbury teaches in what he calls the Pathfinder System. The five Cs are (in priority)
Cutting – A solid dependable knife.
Combustion – A way to quickly and reliably start a fire in all conditions.
Cover/Clothing- A way to get out of the elements of nature and be protected. Also how to dress
appropriately for where you are.
Container – A way to carry, store and boil water for purification. Also for carrying food,  cooking, etc.
Cordage – A way to tie and lash together available resources for shelter, carrying, traps, etc.
http://www.thepathfinderschoolllc.com/

 F. Three kinds of people: Sheep, Sheep Dog, Wolves
Sheeple: Kind, decent and productive, don’t hurt one another unless by accident.  In denial of the potential for danger and self-sufficiency. They don’t particularly like the sheep dogs as they ‘look’ too much like the wolves and may have a capacity for violence.

Sheep dogs: protect the flock and confront the wolves. People of the front line.  People with the heart of a  warrior, a warrior class. Ones who walk the heroes path,  who walk into the heart of darkness. The military, police and armed Citizens (particularly ones w/ Carry Permits).
Sheep dogs are people who have a capacity for violence, but who’d never consider hurting any of the sheep. Typically, the sheep tend to be afraid of the sheep dogs, referring to the police as ‘ruthless cops’ and others as ‘crazy Survivalists’. Yet every year, more bad guys are shot by armed citizens than by police.
Sheep dogs have one advantage over the Sheep, they are able to survive in an environment that destroys 98% of the other people…Sheep Dogs are not in denial.

Wolves: Have no empathy for their fellow citizens. Criminals target people’s body language,
watching for people who walk bent over, slowly, unsteady distracted and weak. Victims are chosen in a way similar to a large carnivorous cat does, selecting one that looks weak then culling it out of the herd.

 5.  Best of John Pugsley
February 15, 2005, http://www.stealthinvestor.com
“A number of years ago, three friends and I flew by ski-plane into the tiny town of Bettles just south of the Arctic Circle in northern Alaska. We then adventured by dogsled a few miles up a river, where we came across the cabin of a fur trapper and his family.
Fascinated, we looked at the skins that made his livelihood, shared some moose-jerky, and listened as he explained how he tended some 20 miles of trap lines.

It seemed dangerous to us. He’d be gone for days, alone, miles from the cabin, completely at the risk of the violent Alaskan winter storms.
“Not a problem,” he winked, “I’m insured.”
“Insured against being caught by a storm?,” I asked incredulously.

“Yup. Self-insured. Every mile or so I’ve buried a cache of survival stuff, you know, matches, fuel,
food…essentials to hold me for a few days if I get snowed in. The caches are my insurance. Even collected on it a few years back. One cache saved me.”

Clearly, a cache of supplies is a primitive, but effective form of insurance. In exactly the same sense, the
strategies of second citizenships, offshore trusts, foreign bank accounts, and international asset diversification are global caches, and thus forms of self-insurance against political and economic storms.”

6.  Philosophical  & Biblical
•   “What a changed country we have become in our expectations of ourselves. A less affluent America survived a Depression and world war without anything like the 99 weeks of unemployment insurance, welfare payments, earned income tax credits, food stamps, rent supplements, day care, school lunches and Medicaid we have today. Public or private charity were thought necessary, but were almost always to be temporary until a breadwinner could find work or a family could get back on its feet.” (Pat Buchanan)
•   “In early 1964, a Food Stamp Act was signed into law by LBJ appropriating $75 million for 350,000 individuals in 40 counties and three U.S. cities,” say Pat Buchanan in his article, Food Stamp Nation. “Now, 43 million—one out of seven Americans—either can’t or won’t feed themselves.”
•   “I sincerely believe, with you, that banking establishments are more dangerous than standing armies; and that the principle of spending money to be paid by posterity, under the name of funding, is but swindling futurity on a large-scale.” (Thomas Jefferson, to John Taylor May 28, 1816 )
•   “A prudent man foresees the difficulties ahead and prepares for them; the simpleton goes blindly on and suffers the consequences.” – Proverbs 22:3
•   “The wise see danger ahead and avoid it; but fools keep going and get into trouble.” (Proverbs 27:12)
•   “My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge.” (Hosea 4:6)

•   “The way that is bright seems dull;
The way that leads forward seems to lead backward;
The way that is even seems rough.
The highest virtue is like the valley;
The sheerest whiteness seems sullied;
Ample virtue seems defective.” (Tao Te Ching 41)

•   “God will save you from hidden traps and from deadly diseases.
He will cover you with his feathers, and under his wings you can hide.
His truth will be your shield and protection.
“You will not be afraid of the terror by night,
Or of the arrow that flies by day,
Of the pestilence that stalks in darkness,
Or of the destruction that lays waste at noon.
A thousand may fall at your side, or even ten thousand right beside you;
But it shall not approach you.
For He will give His angels charge concerning you,
To guard you in all your ways”. (Psalm 91:2-5)

•   “For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.” (Jeremiah 29:11)

A Final Word
To better avoid  unhealthy and overwhelming angst trying to prepare for all future dislocations
and disruptions, keep in mind, that each step is like acquiring commercial insurance. We all hope and pray we won’t need that insurance, but if we ever do, our families won’t find us lacking in providing for their basic safety and welfare.

Once you’ve started making the type preparations discussed in Survival Manual, strive to stay balanced. Thank God that you have begun, try to awaken others, and begin to confidently relax in your new alert status. You’ll then be able to more fully enjoy life with your family knowing that you’re firmly on the road to better being able to handle just about any event that might occur in this quickly changing world. Mr. Larry