Hmmm…solar panels and LifeStraws. What do the folks at CostCo know that the rst of us don’t?

In actuality, this is probably just related to summer-outdoor-time rather than descent-into-chaos-time….but, they do sell Mountain House freeze drieds and bulk bags of rice, so perhaps….

Actually, for someone who wants to experiment with an itty bitty solar power setup to practice their skills, that $99 deal might not be a bad buncha cheap materials to practice on.

I swear to Crom, I need to get a little shrine going for the household god of frustration. Seems like every time I take a step forward I get yanked back forty steps. Grr.

But, life goes on…like it or not.

I see that the Biden administration (Motto: is it naptime yet?) is quietly starting to float the idea that, mmmmyeah…that inflation thing might be around for a while. And then, in an epic display of chutzpah, these same mouthbreathers crow about unemployment figures and ‘jobs for the taking’. Hey, I’d have great employment numbers to show, too, if I forced businesses  to close and then counted their reopening as ‘new jobs’.

I’m just getting to be a cynic, I suppose. But, these are historic times. Which leads me to this quote: You do not make history. You can only hope to survive it.

I’m pretty resilient these days, but I’m still not at the point yet where I’d feel comfortable pulling the plug on the rest of the world, locking the gate, and letting the world burn while I do my own thing. Not yet. But…man, I’m working on it.

“Anceint Chinese proverbs” aside, disasters and adversity are, in fact, opportunities for others. We have an economy that seems to have the throttle dialed forward yet we have shortages everywhere, housing prices in the stratosphere with interest rates that are at lifetime lows, and a populace and government that thinks money grows on trees and that everyone is entitled to ‘their fair share’ in the form of absolved student loans and ‘basic universal income’. If the disaster/opportunity ratios are proportionate, we should be seeing one amazingly epic wave of opportunities coming up. Where? Well, I think that real estate is going to contract in a year or so…maybe less. My goal is to be in place to jump on it. Other opportunities? Labor brokers probably can write their own check these days. Same for logistics and transportation coordinators. The energy industry is probably gonna be a nice place to be. And, of course, you can never go wrong selling weapons, food, medicine, entertainment, or sex.

Interesting times. Be curious to see how this all shakes out in a year or two.

“For I have sworn upon the altar of god eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man.” – T. Jefferson

I don’t do social media for several reasons. However, if I’m sitting at a table killing time between drink orders and the person I’m with has their phone out, I’ll cruise their social media just out of curiosity. I saw this and just had to snag it:

Honestly, both sides, left and right, have a history of this sort of thing. Difference is that now it’s become a bloodsport. Used to be that if  you didn’t agree with someones politics, you called them a dirty name and left it at that. Nowadays, if you don’t like someones politics you ‘deplatform’ or ‘cancel’ them…if you’re too lazy to go to their home and terrorize their family.

Silencing a group, no matter if you agree or not with them, is the necessary first step towards marginalizing that group. And, historically, groups that get marginalized wind up suffering…sometimes it manifests as lack of a voice in political issues and sometimes it’s cattle cars and barbed wire. But it always has to start with silencing that particular group.

Do I think people who think like me are heading for striped pajamas and labor gangs? Nope. But what I do see happening is laws and regulation being passed that will incrementally chip away at my liberties and the people who oppose those infringements will not be allowed a voice to try to sway the public and policymakers. With the increasing complicity of large communication outlets like Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, etc * in shutting down certain opinions and certain topics, there aren’t a lot of high-traffic venues left to get your message out when your message goes against the official narrative.

This is one of the reasons that for the last several years, since Trump was elected, that I accelerated my gun/ammo/mag purchasing – because I could see that the people pushing for a ban were getting more airtime and more distribution than the people who opposed it. When Trump got elected, the ‘deplatforming’ and ‘cancel’ thing really took off. Doesn’t matter if the ban/no-ban support is 50/50 when one of those 50’s doesn’t get to state their case.

Next time you read some article about a particular belief or ideology being shut  out of the popular media channels, ask yourself how that will affect you. For example, shutting down the pro-gun voices mean the anti-gun voice will be that much louder, thus enabling them to sway more people to their cause and probably leading to more gun prohibitions. Result: go buy more guns while you can.

And although this is an extremely personal choice, and most people won’t agree with me, try not to become the kind of person who shuts down other peoples speech. Remember, popular speech never needed First Amendment protections to begin with….its the unpopular, the non-mainstream, and yes even the extreme speech that needed protecting. I don’t have to like the message, but I like people trying to silence other people even less.

* = YouTube, Twitter, Facebook, etc. are companies that are absolutely free to censor whomever they want. Thats their right. And I have the right to badmouth them, choose not to support them, refuse to deal with people who do support them, etc. That’s part of the bargain when it comes to freedom…you have to take the good with the bad, otherwise it isn’t really freedom.

Once an event or action has taken place that affects you, it’s usually too late to undo it. All you can do from that point forward is mitigate the consequences. The previous paradigm of election outcomes was that whichever side lost wold sulk around and say “Yeah, we’ll see what happens in four years”. Nowadays? I think it’s going to be different.

All those people who burn buildings, overturn cars, break windows, trash police cars, and block traffic? They feel vindicated. They look at the election results and are convinced that their ‘tactics’ worked. The result? Going forward, I expect that every time theres a political choice to be made that is a little polarizing you’re going to see an uptick in violence and ‘civil unrest’ accompanying it. Why? Because the people who perpetrate that sort of thing are now convinced that ‘it works’.

I’m never happy when something I believe in gets shot down at the polls, but I take it like a man. I grumble, I fume, and then I move forward and deal with the consequences. I don’t hunt down supporters of the other side, I don’t burn their businesses, and I don’t threaten their families. But I think that sort of thing is going to become more and more common in future elections.

Mitigation? Well, as Theo. Roosevelt once said in regards to the tactics of the anarachists of the day, “”There is but one answer to be made to the dynamite bomb and that can best be made by the Winchester rifle.” (As an aside, I would totally buy an M4gery made by Winchester.) But I suppose in the future we’ll have to add Election Day (and the weeks leading up to it) as one of those ‘heightened alert’ times. It’s a shame too…I remember when watching election violence with mobs, burnings, and violence was the sort of thing that happened in Third World banana republics.

I guess ‘election related violence’ gets added to the list of ‘Apocalypses That People Prepare For’, right up there with Peak Oil, Planet X, the UN Invasion, and that sort of thing.

I’ve been involved, in one degree or another, with the various facets of survivalism (or preparedness) for over thirty years now. (Actually forty years, come to think of it…I distinctly recall reading ‘Alas Babylon’ around junior high school age.) I’ve seen a lot of ‘this is it! hunker down!’ moments come through that never amounted (to me) to anything more than a hiccup. Y2k, 9/11, Katrina, assorted ‘asteroid/comet may collide with Earth’, threats of war with Iran/Iraq/China/Russia/NorK/Cartels, Bird Flu, SARS, Ebola, Peak Oil, etc, have all come and gone and at no point have I had to shutter myself in the house, pull the blinds, load the 870, and pray no one comes to the door. .Not once.

But…that doesn’t mean it won’t happen.

So here comes the statement that I’m sure you all saw coming: And then 2020 came along…….

This year has proven to be a chimera of several flavors of apocalypse rolled into one. I won’t go into the constituent components of it because any idiot can go to Drudge Report and find at least three of them on the front page. Will 2020 turn out to be another nothingburger in terms of generating the awaited Mad Max scenario that we all anticipate eventually occurring? The famed ‘Without rule of law’? In my opinion, no. Even with the swirling miasma of various dooms pervading the land, I am still 99.999% certain that at this time next year the lights will still be on, the trucks will still be running, and water will still flow from the tap.

“If you’re that certain, than why are you still roaming WalMart clutching a printed spreadsheet of things to stockpile?”, you may ask. Valid question.

In ‘Starship Troopers’, theres a scene where the recruits have to mud crawl through obstacles as a belt-fed gun fires just over their prostrate forms…even though only one round out of a hundred, or maybe a thousand,  in the belt is live that one round out of a hundred is enough to make you hug the dirt. Same reasoning.

But over all the time I’ve been at this, it never seemed like there needed to be as much ..deliberateness… in what I was doing as there seems to be a need for now. Now it seems like every task, every trip to the store, every usage of an item out of storage, every gun oiled, every round loaded, is done with the same all-consuming care as if you were packing your own parachute. (Which, really, you are.) It’s a time of careful considerations, deliberate actions, strategic movements, and heavily-weighed options…in short, its a season of caution.

As I say, I’m not necessarily doing anything different these days…it’s just that I’m doing them with a level of focus, intensity, urgency, and pace that, over the years, has been a lot less. The curtain hasn’t risen on the worst of 2020 yet, but I think I hear the band warming up.

I have a terrible history of forecasting the future. (Although, on some aspects of precognition I’m freakishly astute.) When I predict what the future holds it may as well be a coin toss. But, while I don’t think that a year from now we’re going to be fighting over canned vegetables and eating our pets, I think there’s going to be some economic turmoil, regardless of the election, and that it will be an economic turmoil worse than what 2020 has turned up so far. I suppose that, also, regardless of the election youre going to see continued ‘peaceful protests’ but those won’t affect me as directly as the economic events. (actually, come to think of it, all things being equal, I’d forecast worse economic turmoil under Biden than Trump given any set of circumstances.)

So, to sum it up, for me it is a time of caution and purposeful movement. My level of certainty that this time next year won’t be Max Max-ville is about the same level of certainty as me believing the sun will rise tomorrow. But, as the man says, Doveryay, no proveryay. I trust the ship not sink, but I look to see where the lifeboats are anyway.

Every so often you read about people who let their dogs run loose and those dogs start terrorizing neighborhoods and chasing down deer. These are, for the most part, “good dogs” who, once they start hanging out in groups, tend to let the pack mentality make them do things they otherwise would not. I suspect rioters are the same way. Put twenty college kids, who would normally shrink from violence, into a group and watch them egg each other on to things that they never woulda had the cajones to do on their own.

Thats why any group of people is more dangerous than a single person. Not because of the numbers, but because with others encouraging or ‘backing him up’ someone is more likely to behave in a manner that they would not have before. A rioting mob is an example of the ‘herd’ mentality at its worst.  A person is smart, people are dumb, panicky, dangerous animals…and you know it.

I’d be curious to see if the election, regardless of how it turns out, convinces a lot of otherwise peaceful people to be less-than-peaceful because ‘everyone is with me on this’.

I expect plywood sales to explode in early November.

The election is almost two months away. Ah, how it seems like only yesterday we were watching Hillary admit that, once again, her ‘turn’ would be denied to her…again. Good times, good times.

You know, one of the things we used to pride ourselves on as a nation was that, unlike many other countries, when our government changed hands it was usually not accompanied by civil disturbances and gunfire. Funny how times change.

It’s a safe bet that no matter who wins, there’s going to be some ugliness. And, whoever doesn’t win will see their ‘side’ even more energized, galvanized, incentivized, and polarized than before.

Whats going to happen in two months and a couple days? Beats me. But I’d expect that there’s going to be a bit more of these ‘demonstrations’/’rallys’ where someone initiates a bullet party and the hand-wringing reaches epic levels.

Hats and bats. The latest in election year fashions.

This is about the point in the post where I’d say something like “Be ready for some sort of civil disorder”, “Get your magazines and AR lowers now”, or “Be ready for the market to drop like a rock”. But, I’m not going to say that. Honestly, if you haven’t come to those conclusions on your own by now you probably deserve whats going to happen to you. The greatest likelihood is that there will be a few ‘demonstrations’ cough*riots*cough with a few severe beatings and deaths, the market will yo-yo a bit, and you still won’t be able to buy .223 with a handful of hundred dollar bills. That’s the likely outcome. But, as survivalists, we try to prepare for the alternative outcomes. Only you know what you need to do between now and November; go out and do it.

It’s been a rough few days here at Casa Zero. Just that time of year. However, I’ve got some stuff to do in my civilian life that’s gonna keep my busy for the next few days so…amuse yourself with 15+ years of posts. I’m sure there’s something in there somewhere that you haven’t read yet.

But…some observations….

Guns and ammo continue to be either unobtainable at reasonable prices, or obtainable at ‘fetch the Crisco’ prices. I sealed the deal on guns, ammo, and mags a long time ago so I’m not really concerned for myself. I do, however, admit that I had bought more ‘speculative’ guns and ammo so I could be one of those people making bank on the current demand.
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I was talking to one of the flunkies at the post office today. He’s switching roles from front counter to back room sorting. I asked why. He said he started off enjoying dealing with people but as of late has decided that people are “80% mean” and he doesn’t want to deal with people anymore. (Hey, disgruntled postal worker! Good thing ammo is hard to find.) He said that between Kung Flu and everything else, people are getting mean. I pointed out that people aren’t ‘getting mean’. Rather, the current situation is simply bringing out the person they always were.Good people, the mensches, remain mensches. Bad people remain bad or get worse. Nothing brings out who a person really is like adversity. And adversity usually has an element of fear, and fear is what makes Mr Rogers into Mr T. This is why in times of crisis…war,famine,depression,whatever…you have to be cautious. Scared people are dangerous people and they don’t even think they’re being dangerous.

So, the postal guy realized that most folks are not intrinsically happy, shiny people.

Welcome to my outlook.
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Although I’ve been light in posting lately that doesn’t mean I’m not still diligently working on keeping up my end of the Ant-Grasshopper paradigm. Still socking away food and supplies, although that pace has slowed down considerably since I went so hardcore on the subject a few weeks back. Now it’s mostly fine-tuning and maintenance…that is to say, I’m starting to rotate older stock into everyday use and replacing it with newer stock. For example, I pulled half a dozen bars of soap out of storage, moved them to the bathroom for use, and then replaced them in storage with newer product. (Because, unsurprisingly, soap can kinda ‘go bad’. It ossifies. Thats why I vacuum seal the soap I put into storage.)

But, by and large, I am…okay….with the situation here in terms of preparedness. Certainly I am far, far better off than most of the sheep out there. Somewhere right now there’s a 30-something with a crushing student debt, a car loan, sharing an apartment with two other people, and working in a Verizon store where their hours just got cut. It’s been a major drag most of the time getting there, but I’m extremely grateful to me for not being in that situation. Tomorrow might be different…anything can happen. But if it does turn to crap tomorrow I’ll have at least a couple tricks up my sleeve to improve my situation…money in the bank, food in the cupboards, gas in the tank, etc. And thats pretty much what preparedness is, no?
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Posting will be short and sporadic, if at all, for the next few days. Go outside and do a ruck march, practice your shooting, or something.