guest article

All Things in Common
Howard W. Malone

Certain socioeconomic conditions must exist before a people can eliminate the consequences of greed, corruption, avarice, poverty and inequality associated with money. Truly equitable societies have existed in the past, as recorded in ancient historical texts, both from the Old World and the Americas.

Temporal Equality was never achieved through the use of money, nor can it be as long as one considers himself superior because of his abundance, only through the exercise of spirituality embodied by self-discipline, self-reliance, honest labor, interdependence, temperance, humility, selflessness, compassion and generosity. The governments of men over the millennia, and not the least over the last century, had several flaws in common to the detriment of human freedoms. Specifically, they had stringent social and economic controls with a strong centralized government, and policies of belligerent nationalism usually headed by a dictator, as in Fascism. True communism has never been more than an idealist theory and has never been achieved outside tribal-societies. Modern industrial societies currently practice either capitalism or socialism. In both cases there are strong centralized governments which, truthfully, impose social and economic controls. The former has a president, the latter has a dictator. In both cases there is a disparity between wealth and poverty. Individuals and governments predictably seek for wealth and power either by corporate intrigue or revolution and coup despite philosophical ideology.

The freedoms of the people of the United Stated of America have been severely compromised and degraded since the Bill of Rights, comprising the first ten amendments, was penned. The next seventeen amendments that followed, with the exception of emancipation and voter suffrage, are suspect because they are written for the intent of consolidating power to a centralized government. The sixteenth Amendment, and perhaps the most damaging to the liberties of a free people, states; “The Congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes on incomes, from whatever source derived, without apportionment among the several States, and without regard to any census or enumeration.” Despite official statements, this amendment was never ratified by any of the states, but rather, simply went into effect. Simply put, the sixteenth amendment is unconstitutional. There are many people still living who remember when Income Tax was tax levied against corporate profits rather than personal income. Passive resistance to this “Law” can be effectual through sustenance living.

Progress, in terms of Gross National Product is contrary to the best interests of a sustainable community-society. GNP is driven by annual profits to the total disregard for the environment and the peace of the individual and community. Though this statement is presented as axiomatic it is nevertheless borne out by history and needs no documentation. Alternately, there are several models for developing a sustainable community which are another topic. It is the opinion of the author that no progress is the best progress, in terms of development of non-sustainable products and energy.


Consequently, community-societies are most successful when limited to several thousand members or less. Such communities, historically agrarian, still exist wherein honest labor, self-reliance and interdependence meet virtually all the needs of the people. Such communities have little need for “Leaders” outside of clergy, who, ideally, support themselves through the labor of their own hands. They have no need of government because they manage the affairs of their own homes and community. They have no need of taxes because they manage and repair their own infrastructure, and also rise to the special needs of their neighbors in times of distress. In a community of this size everyone knows their neighbor and life revolves around the church and community hall. Communication through these portals facilitates knowledge of the welfare of the community and is essential to its success.

It is understood that land ownership is, unavoidably, the crux of temporal freedom. Land is, however, unobtainable outside the current fiduciary system. The participants of a moneyless social community may nevertheless find respite from this system within their association and on their duly obtained properties. Thus, the association of like minded individuals may, for the sake of ethical conviction, embrace a simplified life, denouncing contemporary values which are based on the accumulation of wealth, that they may be free and on equal ground with their neighbor.

The natural tendency of man, in coveting or possessing property, is contrary to the best interests of a community when that property consumes the individual. Communities and societies are historically documented wherein property ownership, strictly speaking, was nonexistent. Except a body of people embrace an internal conviction sufficient to view property as common to a community family a moneyless society cannot exist.

A contemporary application of this principle must include the following elements, comprising a constitution:

1. A community-society is established without money, wherein all transactions for goods and services are exchanged in kind without regard for individual status or specialized trade, realizing that every skilled trade is an essential component of a functional community. Barter is an acceptable medium of exchange, with conventional currency, obtained through cottage industry or outside employment, being used only for outside and nonmember transactions for necessities normally unavailable to the core community.
2. The community at large agrees upon a condition that, accepting an acknowledged disability that is accommodated by the good will of the populace and not by external government policy, no individual is accepted into the community except he or she works within their respective roles for their own self support.
3. All participants covenant and agree to give of their substance and provide labor to the benefit and common good of the community, not by compulsion but as the need arises. A tract of land may be procured collectively for the purpose of establishing a sustainable community. Property then, in the form of physical land, is equitably apportioned by consent of the majority member populace according to family or individual need for an inheritance and livelihood by legal contract. In the case of non geographically connected member real estate, as may occur in new community memberships, the property is retained by the community member who purchased it and commodities and services are simply exchanged in kind.
4. All decisions and actions affecting the community are agreed upon by common consents and sustained by a simple majority of community members of accountable age in open assembly.
5. The government of the community shall never fall to an individual, or group of individuals, wherein private council may be sought over the voice of the majority, the majority always has precedent over special interests. All members are on equal ground.
6. No commercial or corporate interests, whether part of, or outside the community-society, must be allowed to legislate, administrate or enforce policies which affect the common good of the community.
7. The community-government may appoint, by common consent through a simple majority vote of the entire member populace of accountable age, without compensation or tenure, as the need arises, judges, who field grievances and moderate conflicts between members of the community. Offenses of a grievous nature will be remanded to outside authorities. Such judges have authority to call meetings in such a manor that a majority of members may attend, and chair community meetings for issues and decisions affecting the common good of the community. Should an issue affecting the community arise during such an assembly no decision may be reached or announced unless a simple majority vote is obtained in an open assembly of the entire member populace of accountable age.

8. The community-government shall have no power to discipline an individual, only by censure or disassociation.
9. Free agency is, above all, a ruling principle, with the understanding that an individual is responsible for his or her own choices and actions; personal free agency must never interfere with the agency or liberty of another individual. The community-government shall recognize freedom of choice or liberty to act in matters of life, liberty or the pursuit of happiness.
10. The community-society is, strictly speaking, a voluntary association for common good. Individuals may associate or excuse themselves from association by their own free will and choice. In cases of disassociation, property that has been acquired by legal contract is nevertheless binding and may not be separated from the individual or family, only by consent of the legal owner and for fair market value by legal contract.

END
I will gladly publish any reader submitted article on Sunday, the day I don’t publish my Earth Shaking Blog posts.
* On another note, go to Amazon.com. I don’t know if this is the last day of the sale, but hurry if it is. I got “Peak Oil Survival” by Aric McBay for only $2.99. Well worth it if you buy enough for free postage ( otherwise it exceeds the cost of the book ). Not a survivalist book, more like a low tech or appropriate tech guidebook for water procurement, water filtering, heat, cooking, that sort of thing. Limited, but very good in what it does cover. About 100 pages, great illustrations.

trade collapse

TRADE DISRUPTION CAUSES COLLAPSE
In the 12-28-06 posting at SurvivalBlog a link was given for an article by Olden Scott Card. I believe the link was titled “How We Can Collapse”. The article was very good and I was very jealous since it was so well done. Of course some of us get paid well to write which adds a different motivation than love of craft. Not that I would call my mad scribblings a craft, but I do enjoy it. Anyway, this is an article everyone should read. Very well done. I can’t even really do it justice here but I’ll give it a shot anyway.
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All the traditional causes given for Rome’s collapse were what led up to trade being suspended. And when trade was disrupted, collapse happened. The decline of Rome was from a variety of events. Inflation, Republic replaced by dictatorship, mass welfare. Decline in conquered land and slaves. Disincentive to produce rather than consume. We are seeing it all now. But when the civil wars started that started the troops fighting each other rather than protecting the borders the barbarians moved in and sacked the area, cutting off trade. Without trade a lot of areas couldn’t even feed themselves. Syria had soil good for little other than olive trees. But it was such good quality that she could import all the food that couldn’t be grown locally. After trade was cut off the population declined quickly due to lack of food.
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Now of course the article was much better at describing what happened. You really need to read it unless you are repulsed by economics, history and politics. That seems to be today’s common response. Perhaps I am alone in loving social studies. If you don’t want to read it, just consider the following. Trade is what allows us to eat. Without trade we starve. Even in farm country there is a need for trade to supply the tools needed for growing food. Unless you are an Amish farmer or a organic gardener you can’t supply your own food without fertilizer, irrigated water, seeds, a tractor, etc. For those of us not on a farm or a homestead advanced along the self-sufficiency route, we all need trade to live. We depend on oil from Texas or Saudi Arabia to get us to work and someone in the farm belt buying the good or service we produce for some food at dinnertime.
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In the last century or so it has been the rapid adoption of petroleum to all aspects of life that has allowed us to not only expand trade on a truly global scale but also allowed us to forget the old labor intensive ways of trades and crafts. We are all dependant on a factory somewhere to give us anything and everything we need. Even our meat and produce is from largely automated mechanized operations. Without open and free trade we can’t produce the first thing we need in order to survive. The above mentioned article gave the example of pottery. Trade was widespread and everyone could afford professionally made pottery. After trade collapsed the areas that had once had a factory ( for lack of a better term applied to the time ) now had misshapen, poorly glazed pots made from clay from the local river by amateurs. With commerce dead the former equipment couldn’t even continue to run. Think about that in your plans.
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Each area is forced to provide all its own food and defense after trade collapses. And there are far from ample areas where this is feasible outside of a pathetic attempt. Such were the Dark Ages. Peasants were forced to till marginal soil and often were malnourished due to poor harvests that had to be shared with the king and his soldiers. Without that protection no crops at all were feasible. It’s just like a liquor store. Without cops there it would be out of business in one night. Of course if you don’t pay taxes you get shutdown also, but in theory the government takes less than bandits.
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Before, Roman soldiers guarded the borders to protect the merchants and farmers from barbarians. After the soldiers got involved in political infighting the borders were left open. Without a guarantee of safe unhindered trade ( other than marginal protection money ) no one will risk their investment. Trade dies. That is why a little government is better than none unless individuals have the weapons to protect themselves ( and you wonder why government hates guns ). Our investment of a half a trillion bucks a year is the price we pay for world trade. Our military might currently be misused in stealing oil but it is still needed to keep world trade going or we all starve. No one else could police the oceans and dominate all other armies. Of course that era might be coming to an end, especially if the dollar’s dominance slips for good. But it worked good for awhile. We had better hope it doesn’t end soon, for all our sakes.
END
I don't think I've bugged you much lately, so here goes- BUY MY BOOKS NOW www.bisonpress.com

immigration

WHY ILLEGAL IMMIGRATION IS TOLERATED
Perhaps tolerated is too soft of a word. Like when sometimes only swearing adequately describes something. My ex-wife is such a… fill in the blank. It is taken for granted that something like “disagreeable person” is not strong enough of a description. So when I say illegal immigration is tolerated what I really mean is that it is encouraged. It is planned for. It is thrown governmental money to help it grow. I see you are skeptical. You know how some people are so evil and immoral that they would sell their grandmother to a prison gang for financial gain. And not only would they sell her, they would tie her to the nearest piece of furniture and apply a stick of butter to the appropriate location so that the gang could easily sodomize her and then later tell themselves it was okay since they made her more comfortable. That is our politicians and corporate leaders.
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The corporate interest in illegal immigrants is easy to understand. One, there is a downward pressure on wages. And two, there is much more population in which to sell goods and services to. Before I describe the first attraction, let me clear up the question you might be asking yourself. Why not allow legal immigration? Because the shrinking middle class would see the process in which their demise was being orchestrated. It is as simple as that. It is not true that immigrants only pick lettuce and dig ditches. They take away more jobs than just the undesirable ones. Just ask yourself, how many crap jobs are there really out there? We have backhoes now. Not every ditch must be shoveled by hand. And not all crews helping harvest produce are illegals. But even if they were, how many crops do you think really need human labor. Most are mechanized. Or, think of it this way. The amount of illegals in this country can’t be supported by three months of working the fields. They are working other jobs.
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It used to be that meat packing plants paid good wages. High school graduates started at twice the minimum wage. Supervisors could earn twenty bucks an hour. And benefits were common. Now, you max out at the old starting wage, supervisors earn less. And there are no benefits. Labor costs have been shrunk, at the same time small companies have been consolidated into huge giants. Part is needed savings as wages were too high. Part is the need to escape raising prices too much because of competition. But part is just greed and CEO bonuses based on profit. And don’t tell me illegals weren’t hired. There was just a high news profile story on the national raids in that industry by the INS.
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Illegals may work for low wages. But they also breed like rabid rabbits. And each child born here is an automatic citizen. New consumers are being born every minute, and mostly on the taxpayer dime at county hospitals. So now we have a downward pressure on wages. Pedro will work for less than a living wage since his standards are lower. Joe Bob won’t live in a house with another family nor will he eat rice and beans all day. And no, I’m not prejudice. I grew up in Southern California and half my wives have been Mexican. This is just reality. If your sensibilities are rubbed raw, immigrate to Old Mexico and see if you get put on welfare or in jail. And on top of Americans being paid less every year in real terms, now there are more and more people. Whose demand places upwards pressure on cars and houses and tears up the roads so taxes go up and crowds the jails and etc.
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Now we get to our little friends the politicians. Let me tell you this. I hate those bastards so much, once it gets to be open season on politicians and their retarded kissing cousins the lawyers after the collapse of civilization that if you don’t shoot them I will shoot both them and you. We need a lawyer from every lamp post to remind folks of what career field not to go into. The politicians benefit from rising prices. A house doubled in price in the last six years. So have property taxes. A car is now twice the price. They used to cost one half of a years starting wage ( for the cheapest one ). Now they cost a full years wages. Twice the sales tax.
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More people means more housing means more construction means more sub-prime loans from our wonderful buddies the bankers. The last five years we have been out of a Depression because of the housing bubble. Increased population helped that along, just as much as lower interest rates. So in a round about way illegals are pumping up the population which adds to the cost of housing which lowers our living standard and keeps us in debt longer. But the politicians and the bankers make more money. Corporate treasure chests finance the politicians who won’t tread too heavy on the status quo. And coming soon to your neck of the woods, lowered wages on the last plum job you can get, the medical field. In regions where factories are closing to ship over to China and especially around Detroit, the only job growth is in the medical field. Helped along by government spending of course. And with the added population of now legal children from illegal immigrants wanting a good job soon, those now high paying jobs will be open to competition and start to pay less. You won’t see doctors pay decrease, but jobs closer to the bottom like nurses aids, etc. Hell, their college education is going to be free.
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China is closing our factories. And the jobs left are all being squeezed by downward pressure on wages. The middle class will continue to shrink and the lower and higher economic classes will grow. Guess which direction me and you will go. And the bankers and politicians and corporate big wigs will profit all the way. Are you sure you still want to gamble on a thirty year mortgage that can only be paid off with two high income wages? You might think you are so friggin special that your job will never be eliminated, but I can guarantee you that your boss does not share your opinion. He would love to send your job overseas, or eliminate the Union or mechanize that job or let a computer do it. That measly $20,000 you are scrapping by on is another part of his bonus and you are standing in the way of his swimming pool and sending his worthless retarded son going to Harvard. Roll the dice. When you lose there is plenty of room in my trailer park. And this area has two kinds of non-professional jobs available. Anything paying over $8 an hour is on a graveyard shift, and everything else is fast food. Oh, joy.
END

commuting

PEAK OIL AND YOUR RETREAT/HOMESTEAD
The great teeming masses are a direct threat to you me and any other serious survivalist. Perhaps in anticipation of the grey hairs voting politicians out of office if Senior Welfare is not upheld, immigration ( mostly of the illegal variety ) has been allowed to such a degree that our population has surged and now almost any hamlet, township or fork in the road is stuffed to capacity and we are all stumbling over each other. The increase from 200 million to 300 million did not by and large occur on new areas but on existing ones. If the roads feel more crowded and every time you turn around some damn idiot is in your face, it is because Social Security, Baby Boomers and our masters blind to anything other than expediency have allowed more and more people into the same areas. Areas that don’t even have enough clean water now, let alone in a severe drought.
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So it is natural to wish to move away from all those idiots. Oh, I’m sure if you got to know each of them they really are nice people. But in general they are uneducated herd animals. Individually they might possess a smidge of intelligence but by their actions they are helping to contribute to the fall of, if not Western Civilization, at least the American Republic. The road to Hell is paved with good intentions. Remember that one? By voting for jerk-offs that refuse to uphold their oaths to the Constitution they are following in the footsteps of Germany’s population that voted in Hitler. By voting for Republican or Democrat they are voting for Socialism ( okay, perhaps Fascism or even Mercantilism, take your pick, they are all anti-individualism ). By allowing zoning laws to artificially prop up their house values at the expense of property rights they are greasing the skids for Communism. May all their rotted putrid souls be tormented for all of eternity in the lowest bowels of Hell!! Am I being too harsh? I don’t think so.
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So in your hast to escape these vicious scum sucking animals you decide to escape to the country. To avoid the butt hole to elbow crowds east of the Mississippi you move to the West, perhaps in some dot on the map in the middle of nowhere. Or to the top of a mountain. Or if you stay back on the Wrong Coast, as far away from the city and its crowds as you can. And remember, it doesn’t have to be expensive. You don’t need twenty acres and a fallout shelter and a year round stream and woods. You can take your tax return of $2,000 and buy a lot in the country ( for as little as $500 through E-Bay ) and put a used trailer on it and still have enough to buy a coaster brake bike with bike trailer and a war surplus rifle with ammo and a years worth of wheat and a water filter. See my free booklet on cheap homesteading, go to my web site for the link at www.bisonpress.com
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So you get out there. If you are like most red blooded Americans you live as far away as you can from the city and drive a vehicle back and forth. Even if you are employed at home you still need to get into town a lot for supplies. So the question is, can you still do that come Peak Oil? I realize a few of you refuse to remove your head from the sand and refuse to accept the fact that oil is a non-renewable resource. It will eventually run out. The only question is how fast and to what effect. Will a thirty or fifty miles round trip eventually become unaffordable? Are you too far out away from people?
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The answer is, of course, yes and no. Yes, you are too far away to commute by car. No, if you have a viable alternative to a motor vehicle. I realize a few of you will stay back East and have good soil and water and can grow your own food and fuel. Fine and dandy. Most of us are poor and will live in an arid and dry area. Less people and cheaper land. You will need a good food storage and you will need to be able to partially divorce yourself from the car culture. Anything over a distance of a comfortable bicycle ride round trip should be seriously reevaluated. Is it possible to live there come gasoline being unaffordable. It doesn’t matter if a Depression takes your job and you can’t buy gas or Peak Oil dries up the supply. You are not able to make it into town to buy food or supplies if gas becomes dear. Even events such as Katrina wiping out refineries can suddenly put the brakes on your trips to town.
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I am not saying it is a bad idea to live in the middle of nowhere. I am not saying a car might not be considered a necessity in the country. What I am saying is that one day soon you may not be able to drive. Make plans now to figure out a way around it. Buy a moped. Buy several bikes and learn to repair them. Move to another spot in the boonies closer to town. Stockpile so much you only need to come into town twice a year. Or live in a very small town in the middle of nowhere. And beware the effect of dear oil on supplies making it to the town near you. Finding the answers to this problem is most likely far better than living among the teeming masses of cattle. And remember, the answer is not hard. All problems have easy answers. It is just that you don’t like the answer.
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All solutions to survivalisms problems are easy. It is just no one likes the answers. That is why the Yuppie approach has so much appeal. You can buy the solutions to any problems. The frugal approach is to accept answers you don’t really like. We don’t really want to eat wheat or have weak LED lights or shoot old beat up rifles or ride a bicycle. But it gets the job done. Figure out the transportation problem now while you still have time and money. Or wait until you are on foot dragging a hand cart, taking two days to get to town and back.
END
Glenn in NZ- I got your card- thank you very much, that was quite classy. Big smily face :)

wonderful life

IT’S A WONDERFUL LIFE IN AMERIKA
Every once in awhile there is a great movie that comes out despite the often foul and grotesque Communism that saturates Hollywood. Either the Liberals control is less than complete, or a good film gets through by accident or like most things run by a committee and not by a pure profit motive they are very inefficient in their censorship. Hollywood is like Washington DC. It is not run for profit but for control but the sheer volume of its business sees them awash in money anyway. With this kind of money, it pays to be a flamming Commie. You wonder why so many brainless twerps in Hollywood proclaim their government preference despite the fact that it makes them look like total morons? It is the easy paycheck of about ten million dollars. You suck up, proclaim the party line and soon you are on the A list despite talent or lack there of.
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But as I said, for whatever reason good movies occasionally sneak out. One very good example is Red Dawn. At the height of the Cold War when we were at a razors edge of fighting the Soviets and the Liberals in college ivory towers everywhere were pleading for us all to be good little appeasers and give the Russians a big juicy sloppy kiss on the lips and perhaps while we were at it slip them a little tongue, Hollywood was going along with the program and lining up all its idiot savants to tote the party line ( a good example of what happens when you listen to Liberals is Vietnam and South Africa ). And then along comes a great movie about how evil the Soviets are and how a bunch of snot nose kids could kick their vodka swilling butts. I mean, how cool could you get in a movie than putting a bullet in the skull of a traitor? It doesn’t get any better than that, especially when you stop and think about the next traitors- lawyers, politicians and central bankers.
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Another wonderful movie was Wall Street. Yes, Gordon, greed is good. One of the few flicks to say, hey, we’re all greedy little capitalists here and proud of it. I don’t even really hate the original Yuppies the movie was supposed to parody. The original ones just ate slept and drank making money. It is today’s little pale imitators that screw over others to make money and then try to act like they are superior since they have nicer crap. Now, I don’t think Wall Street was put out there as a purely “pro capitalism” film. The evil excesses were showcased. But for anyone without a self induced lobotomy from too much politically correct study can tell you that is not the end message most of us take away. And then when Charlie Sheen as the little narc that weasels out to escape his own tortured Liberal soul is sent to prison- ah, sweet justice.
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One film that is not very good and which neatly fits into the Liberal Propaganda camp is “It’s A Wonderful Life”. Now don’t get me wrong. It was a tear jerker of a film. A feel good film. A family film. A classic. But this Sunday I watched the entire thing for the first time. Before it had just been one half or the other or a few minutes from the middle. And I was disturbed by what I saw. Now, granted, I might have been unduly influenced by an earlier article by Gary North that didn’t like the message that mortgages were good. So that was more than likely on my subconscious when I watched the film. But it was also a warning to watch closely and not to be taken in by the emotionalism. What I saw was an anti-capitalistic remake of Scrooge. Bah, humbug.
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Now, just because you and I choose not to devote our lives to amassing a fortune does not mean there is anything wrong with it. Without people like that there would be less jobs around for those that care about money only enough not to starve. But the banker was shown as a very mean spirited miserable person. And as usual in masterful con jobs such as this there was mostly truth in this portrayal. But obviously he enjoyed what he was doing. Or why continue? Just because a Hollywood type with more money than sense feels guilty for being paid so much for doing so little doesn’t mean making money is bad. It might not be everyone’s cup of tea but if it is acquired honestly there is nothing wrong with making the money.
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But worse than painting making too much money harshly was the heavy handedness in saying that only those that selflessly help others are going to enjoy life. This is such BS that I can’t believe it is thoughtlessly bought by most folks watching the movie. Only by being selfish can you help others. Even volunteers to charities are acting selfish when they help others, since it makes them feel good. I’m not saying we should not try to help others unconditionally. I’m just saying that trying to be false to our true character is emotionally dishonest and not a good habit to get into. By all means help others. But you are doing it to feel good about yourself. Be honest with yourself and then you can be honest with everyone else.
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And be honest with your kids. Enjoy movies, but be sure to inform them of the propaganda message hidden in most by those bastard Commies. They might think you are a dork by yelling at the TV like a dysfunctional Red-Basher, but perhaps the lesson will sink in to them and counter the crap drummed into their heads in school.
END

cold weather gear

CHEAP EXTREME COLD WEATHER GEAR
Jim over at www.survivalblog.com has advertisers over at his site contribute prizes to offer readers so they submit articles to fill in his daily blog ( that or daily mail from them ). Backwoodsman magazine is nothing but articles offered by readers for free. He has been doing that for about twenty years. Countryside magazine is mostly reader submitted articles. Clearly, if you can get your readers to write your magazine for you at a cheaper price than what you would pay professionals, you are on to a good thing and should latch on with both hands and your teeth and never let go no matter what. Myself, being a great writer only after many years of trial and error in which my core of loyal readers suffered horribly, am a terrible businessman and have never figured out how to get others to do all my work for me for substandard wages. I hang my head in shame.
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Now, don’t get me wrong. I’m more than happy to publish the articles that others write. But I promised you a page and a half of my own writing every day Monday through Saturday, and thus it shall be. I do have one article I am going to post this Sunday. If anyone would like to submit an article, feel free to do so. I will post it on the day I don’t post my writing. It doesn’t have to be well written, just put through a spell checker. It is the idea that is important. Well, since I can’t get you all to write cheaply for me every day and make a profit at it, at least throw me a bone and submit ideas to me. It is tough some days to get an idea to run with. Give me the kernel of an idea and I can talk it to death. But I do need the idea. E-mail is jimd303@netzero.com
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Today I present an idea someone sent to me as an article originally published in Mother Earth Magazine. It is a great idea. Extreme cold weather gear made very cheaply. The illustration in the original article didn’t come with the article so the described patterns were not given. Just talk to someone that sews to get a pattern or buy an old piece of clothing at the thrift store and take it apart to get an idea. The basic idea is to avoid the high cost of extreme cold weather gear, make your own using a very cheap material. You get clothing several sizes too big and put this home made insulation under it. A high tech version of sodden rummies stuffing newspaper down their pants to escape freezing to death three feet from a homeless shelter after they consumed three pints of Mad Dog Purple Nerpel Wine.
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The magic ingredient here is polyurethane plastic foam. Not foam rubber or other substitutes. Any place that sells upholstery supplies. I don’t know how long ago this article was written. If it was thirty years ago then we might be in trouble. Nowadays more and more of our furniture building industry is being shipped over to China. The day we get in a pissing contest with China over the last supertanker of oil we might not really miss that couch or love seat we no longer manufacture, but such things as computer chips might be nice to have. Anyway, the question being, are there upholstery supply stores near you? I don’t know. I would imagine there is an ongoing repair of such things as restaurant seats. So if the material is still available and not phased out by the EPA as a threat to the American Way Of Life, or at least a threat to the Spotted Owl, we are in business.
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The material, even if dependant on Gulf Coast manufacturing from petroleum derived plastics and thus twice the price of two years ago, should still be reasonably priced. Price is all relative of course as I notice you are all still driving around in your gas guzzling petrol pigs after gasoline doubled in price after your wages were raised 5%. And did any of you sell your 1500 square foot palatial digs and move into a cabin or trailer after natural gas doubled ( and yes I know the price went back down but that will not last since the entire North American area is post Peak Gas )? No. You kept paying the price. Wal-Mart is still selling coastal brake bikes for the cost of two tank fill-ups. One day you will pull your hair out in anguish and berate yourself sternly for not listening to me.
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Along with polyurethane plastic foam you will want to get urethane glue. You not only want to glue the seams together but also glue supporting pieces together for reinforcement of areas prone to pull apart such as the crotch. And glue onto the fabric if desired. You take the foam and build a garment that is next to your skin for maximum insulation. And then cover with a wind and water resistant cloth. The cloth needs to be three or four times your normal size to fit over the foam. Use one inch foam for pants and torso, three quarters of an inch width foam for arms since they need a bit of flexibility. Now you will waddle about as a pregnant penguin. But you should be warmer than a small bug in a very large rug.
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If you don’t live in Alaska and don’t quite need the level of protection afforded by head to toe foam you can just do a parka/shoe/mitten combo. Take mud boots, the tall rubber boots sold in places such as Wal-Mart and put in a foam sock. Warm as can be and much cheaper than those cute boots with the tuff of fur at the top and that sell for a hundred bucks. In fact, I would recommend this if nothing else. Stockpile enough foam and rubber boots and Shoe-Glu to take you through the many winters after the Collapse with toasty tootsies. The mittens might be a tough one. If nothing else make a shell for your whole hand and cover with a cloth bag. I can’t see how you could make fingers out of it with this kind of material. And the parka. A simple torso covering. It might be all you need if your area doesn’t get extremely cold. This was designed for artic conditions after all.
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This is not extreme long term material. You will eventually run out of the material or it will rip and you run out of glue. If you put inside a shell of material rather than next to your skin for maximum insulation then it will last longer of course. Just something else to stockpile. But if this works ( of course my room full of lawyers are advising me to warn you that this was not tested personally and you should cautiously test it yourself right outside the door with the wife peeking out the curtains to assure you are all right with a huge fire going inside and a kettle of hot water awaiting you and all emergency numbers clearly written next to the phone and a back-up generator waiting in case the electricity fails and an ambulance standing by at $400 an hour ) it could really simplify your cold weather preps.
END
Did you get what you wanted for Christmas? I got my beloved fruitcake. Which by the way could be survival rations. One pound has about 1700 calories. Peace, now go buy my crap www.bisonpress.com

an inconvenient truth

Hey everybody, Merry Christmas!! Enjoy the holiday and especially your family. Best to you all!!

AN INCONVENIENT TRUTH BY I GORE’S TRAVELLING CIRCUS
An Inconvenient Truth, the DVD that was just rushed to video stores near you to soften you up for Democratic Enviro-Nazism, is a must pass on your trip for entertainment or enlightenment. This film is merely a slicker version of his traveling tour he takes globally to support his East Coast Blue Blood Royal living standard. And boy howdy is he shameless, using the death of his sister and the near death of this child to further the message that all will not end well unless the Greens take power, kill the golden goose of capitalism that supports the tree hugger nuts and turns us into good little communists. I was not disappointed after I expected to be disappointed by this piece of crap pressed into the shape of a digital disc.
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Okay, I admit, the previews looked cool. Global warming graphically illustrated by side by side photos of drastically reduced glaciers. So I was marginally enthusiastic when they released the video. Still, I warned myself. Take care, danger, danger will robinson, Chairman Gore is talking. Put BS detectors on full mode and beware subtle leftist political message!! Well, the cover claimed something about both republican and democrats loving this charming tale of warning that I Gore was only putting out in the interest of the purest science and only concerned for the future of the human race since he just loved everyone to pieces ( or something to that effect, the Hollywood Video sticker was in the way ). So I thought, hey, perhaps this leopard with sharp fangs and claws will change his stripes and not try to enslave the sheep but instead try to save them from petroleum enslavement. No, same old collectivist that would vomit blood if we ever went back to following the Constitution.
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This Hollywood leftist green tree hugging Commie piece of propaganda uses just enough truth to make their case. Unfortunately as anyone who studies global warming past a shallow level knows, there are too many unknowns and contradictory information to arrive at the truth. Everyone has an ax to grind, from the Commies to the Oil Cartel. You don’t know who to believe as everyone’s perceptions and political beliefs make any conclusions suspect. Being a pure anarchist myself, one who believes the Libertarian Party doesn’t really believe in freedom since that want to allow some government to exist, I would suspect any governmental data or solution even if it was correct. But at least I’m honest about it and won’t try to sell you a bill of goods for some sinister purpose. Like fleecing audiences of money to put on a dog and pony show to earn money to allow my spawn to continue to breed and turn out little leftist political monsters to carry on my work of wiping the Constitution with my ass.
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Now, if I were a simpleton, I might ask why a member of the ruling cartel is burning petrol to travel around and lecture against the evils of carbon emissions. Of course, you silly rabbit, if our masters wishing to enslave us had to live by the same standards they imposed on us they wouldn’t be our masters. At the animal farm some animals are created more equal than others. Gore says he has given this slide show at least a thousand times. And a lot of clips are about him traveling by air to give his show. And other clips of him driving a big SUV. This is the man lecturing us on the evil of man made global warming? Does he even realize he is being a hypocrite?
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If you don’t know a darn thing about global warming and want to be scared, go see this video. It does simplistically outline the problem and give you in general terms the background you need. It is not without educational value. Its failures are in its erroneous conclusions and its subtle introduction into more controlling government. Just keep that in mind. Gore wants to rule you with an iron fist, taking away your car and home and forcing you onto a bike while you live in a commune. No, not even he might realize this right now. But a political mindset that places individual rights way down in importance will eventual go the full route and totally curtail capitalism to achieve whatever desired goals they have. Today it is approving the carbon tax and tomorrow we are living in state built apartment buildings and walking to the public transportation depot to go to work at a government run collectivist farm.
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To Al Gore and all other collectivist politicians we are mere insects valuable only to work for the common good. They ignore history ( why do you think today’s high schools have reduced the requirement for history down to one semester? ) which shows the highest living standards are achieved under the least government. It would be an Inconvenient Truth.
END

honey wagon

YE OLDE HONEY WAGON
Often I look in the mirror and sadly shake my head. How is it that I am so much better than anyone else? What did the rest of humanity do to deserve to be so little like me? Now don’t get me wrong, we are not going to see a repeat of “The man who would be king” here, I have no desire to be turned on by the natives ( that’s you by the way ) when they discover I am not a god. But, really, can’t we at least admit that I am the closest a mere human will ever get to being a deity? Am I not perfect? Or at least close enough for government work?
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Here I am, minding my own business, walking down the sidewalk, I trip and fall and you are instantly covered in my peals of wisdom ( or something, anyway ). I am literally vomiting Huge Life Altering Words Of Wisdom. I am here for all who care to listen, spouting nuggets of information on how to cheaply prepare for survival. But then, as if that was no where near enough, I now give you even more. Superb ideas on how to prepare to cash in on a post apocalypse business. I mean,. not everyone can be so good so long so often. You are welcome.
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A honey wagon was what disposed of human waste before sewers were installed. Some poor schmuck got to go around and pick up buckets of crap and throw them into a wagon and take them away. I don’t know where they ended up, most likely in the nearest river so the evil Lord Duffus down stream had to, literally, eat out of his enemies ass. Hmmm, yummy, fecal flavored water. No wonder the only beverage anyone ever drank was beer and wine. Even weak, low alcohol beverages would kill the bugs in water. My question is, were people really that stupid? Even if you are an ignorant farmer without ten minutes of formal education, can you possibly think your waste products are healthy to consume? We’re not cats, we can’t lick our own butts. Surely they could see a connection there. But, apparently not, as people located privies next to wells or threw buckets of waste out onto the streets ( but of course God was smiting us with various diseases for evil thoughts ) or into rivers upstream from a village where they went to market. If you were wondering why the idiots burned witches, there’s your answer. They would have licked their own butts if they could have.
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Surely one of the first things to fail after a system wide collapse, after the electrical grid and the water supply, is going to be the sewage system. If you let people they will go back to throwing their sewage into the river. Then the guy who drank the water will come over for a visit, puke in your well and then everyone is sick. Including you. The best thing you can do to help people is to get rid of their wastes for them. Even not charging for the service is beneficial, as those cheap bastards out there that will multiple drastically after an economic collapse will be throwing buckets of crap out into the woods, over cliffs and into the neighbors back yard over the annoying dog that is supposed to warm about approaching marauders but instead barks every night all night long at any noise within a ten block radius and the owner who weighs 225 pounds and is ripped like Mr. Universe from prison weight lifting loves his little poopsey whoopsey even if he is a little bastard flea bitten varmint. And just where does he get the food to feed the damn thing anyway? Most likely killing neighbors who complain about the barking.
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So, don’t charge your customers to pick up their nasty slop. Get yourself a pick of old abandoned vehicles and attach a leak proof container on to the back. Remove the engine and have a team of horses or mules pull it. Why not alcohol fuel driven? It would be a waste of alcohol you could dilute and sell in your bar and fodder will be free or as part of the barter you are going to take for the methane gas you generate from the sewage. Put a pulley with an oversize bucket on it. You stop at each house, empty the honey pots into the bucket, winch it up and deposit into your big tank. This allows several houses to be done at once and stops slopping. Back at the homestead you have hundreds or thousands of gallons of sewage that quickly turns into methane gas and farm safe fertilizer. You might need to play around with getting an ideal environment for it such as going underground or surrounded by a greenhouse, but even in cold areas you should be able to make it work.
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You can salvage old propane bottles and fill with the gas and sell the gas to people for cooking and heating. Or, I would imagine anyway. Perhaps propane canisters can’t be reused with methane. I don’t know. You might end up using the gas to operate a generator. Or power a factory. Or whatever. Gas is energy, there will be some sort of market for it. And then you have the fertilizer. Even if there is little market for it you can run a farm yourself and sell the crops. You will find plenty of cheap willing workers. You just need to be the mastermind behind it all. But don’t mistreat the workers. They could easily sabotage your investment. Figure out ways to combine businesses. The waste heat from the digester going elsewhere for profit, etc.
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And the great thing? You won’t need any up front investment here and now other than books on the process of methane manufacture. Then keep it a secret afterwards. Knowledge will be a very dear commodity as it is not widely shared today. Oh, all knowledge is available. But no one bothers to collect it as they think the petroleum will last forever and our high tech society with it. The fools! Don’t be a peasant on the farm or cannon fodder in an army. Become part of the merchant class to better your post collapse lifestyle.
END
Attention J.L.S. in Va.- I got your e-mail but was unable to reply. The address was invalid. Just want to say, thanks a million, bro!

gold

GOLD IN YOUR SURVIVAL PLANS
In times past most folks knew that gold was the only real money there was. The trouble now is that while some might tow the gold bug line that this is the case, in practice we all trade and hoard greenbacks instead. There is a heavy penalty for keeping gold. We must pay a dealer fee to buy it and another fee to sell it if we need trade currency since no one accepts gold as payment anymore. And it accrues no interest. Even if there is no real return on paper investments this is the argument put forth by central bank apologists.
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In times of deflation the price of gold will go down. But more than likely the purchasing power will increase as sellers are more desperate for sales as no one has any jobs or excess income to spend. In times of inflation golds price will increase but the purchasing power will hold steady or even better reflect an added premium as there is far less gold in existence than will meet demand in times of calamity. That is why the price of gold went from $35 to $800 in the 1970’s. More people wanted a stable real money as things got worse throughout the decade.
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Gold will hold its purchasing power. Forever. The only reason your value of gold will decrease is if the supply suddenly increases. The only way that is going to happen is if we are able to economically mine it from sea water or an asteroid. And the odds of that happening are slim. Unless a freak accident like that happens your gold value will not be effected. Not through Depressions or hyperinflations or wars or changes of government. Gold is the only way for you to preserve your wealth in total safety.
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It is true that gold will not feed you during a famine. It will not protect you from bad men with guns. You need beans and bullets. But to carry your excess capital through your life and perhaps into that of your kids and grandchildren you should only have gold. Land can be taxed beyond your ability to pay. Diamonds are vastly inflated over their value by the monopoly on them. Silver is too heavy for its value, although in and of itself is an excellent value store. It is just not portable wealth. The only thing that can come close is valuable knowledge, and that is not a constant. Knowledge can erode or blossom in value depending on many factors. Gold stays constant because it is so scarce.
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We all have excess wealth. The guy making minimum wage has excess wealth. He uses it to buy pizza and X-Box games and trying to impress the girls with a car. Middle class couples have plenty of excess wealth, they just waste it all on cars and a big house and what not. I am not judging. I don’t race down to the coin shop with my excess wealth either. My point is that gold is affordable to all of us. If we choose it. In a way it is good that nobody thinks they can afford it as then it would cost a lot more than it does now.
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We all know the dollar will eventually become worthless. That is a given. In less than one hundred years it has lost 97% of its value. In the last seven years we have seen most prices double. No ones income has doubled, except perhaps that of lawyers. Or politicians or defense contractors. The average worker is seeing their purchasing power erode very quickly. This might seem like the worse time to buy gold. You can now least afford the disposable income needed to safeguard your wealth. But the actually question you have to ask yourself is, do you want to eventually see all your remaining dollars used as toilet paper or do you want to bite the bullet now and get it while it is at a low, artificially held down value. You don’t even need $700 per once ( roughly- at $625 an ounce and commission and sales tax ). You can buy coins of less than one ounce weight. You will pay a higher commission but will need less up front cash.
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This all assumes you have your grains and beans and ammunition. And other basic supplies. Iodized salt, grain grinder, LED lights, alternate heat. The usual suspects. It actually doesn’t matter if you don’t buy gold at all. Usually. Supplies are much more important. This is of course about preserving wealth. Supplies are about preserving life. Just don’t discount gold hoarding as unneeded. Social Security might fail. You might need savings in your most vulnerable period of old age. A little is better than none. Everybody needs savings for rainy days and gold is the best. Assuming things get a lot worse and people take gold as money again and you don’t have to pay to convert to Greenbacks to spend it.
END
After two friggin weeks the post office delivered my copy of the print version of The Frugal Survivalist. The hazards of X-Mas shipping ( and going with the cheapest shipping ). It looks pretty nice, quality paper. I thumbed through it and only noticed a few mistakes. A paragraph not spaced, the table on cost not lined up, those kinds of minor mistakes. In a few days I will go through it better, but if you want to order it you shouldn't find anything other than minor mistakes throughout it. Go to www.lulu.com/content/567927 it is $10 plus shipping.

minimum wage

MINIMUM WAGE FOR SURVIVAL
You all know I advocate a lower wage type of living, both to escape higher taxes and the threat of outsourcing. Now, I realize that many of you have families and it is insane to think that you can raise a family on the kind of money I’m talking about. Or is it?
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Anyone can go into any business hiring help and get seven dollars an hour with minimal job experience. Some states are still at $5 an hour and that figure might be more like $6, but changes are that in that case you would be in a lower cost of living area anyway and things would roughly be equal. So I think $7 an hour is reasonable. You gross $1,000 a month and take home $800. You can raise a family on that amount. It will not be easy, but it can be done. If both parents are working you usually see little from the second income due to child care, but assume at least $1,000 a month if both work for take home, after taxes, after day care.
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Now, the beautiful thing about working for such low wages is that you can move anywhere. Everyone is paying about the same but some areas are cheaper to live in. When I lived in Florida the average starting pay was $6. Then I moved to Nevada and it started at $7. But rents were 50% more in Nevada. I would have been better off staying in Florida. So you aren’t stuck in one area just for the pay, as you would be if you were a professional or a blue collar worker. Making less money frees you up to move to the most advantageous survival area.
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Buying a used mobile home and paying lot rent in a park is one cheap way of having enough room for the family cheaply. If you made a bit more than the minimum and lived as cheaply as possible you could even pay for a piece of land to eventually avoid the house payment and rent. It essentially boils down to living primitively and doing without comforts for a short time and then being financially independent or clinging to your comforts and being forever in debt and holding on to those increasing scarce better paying jobs. I just lived five months in a van to put money into this business and have some money in the bank. I am now back in a travel trailer to start living normal again. Anyone can live like a dog for a short time to achieve a goal. And before you dismiss my experience, two years ago we were living in a thirty five foot travel trailer with my step-daughter, the grandson and his father. Four adults, an infant in diapers and two angry cats. A year after that we took the grandson in for five months. We got no assistance from his mother. Me, the wife and the grandson and two slightly less angry cats lived on my income alone. While he was in diapers.
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You need rent, electric and food. You don’t need a car. Or credit cards. Or cable television. I know living without a car is tough. I used to bring back a weeks worth of groceries for two tied in plastic bags to my bicycle handlebars ( remember the song by Queen “I want to ride my bicycle”- it keeps going through my head whenever I bring up that mode of transportation ). I used to peddle twenty plus miles round trip to visit my kids on the weekend. If you live in town or close to it you don’t need a car. You want a car, true. When it is raining or ten degrees out, it sure would be nice. Just do without for five years until your trailer and/or land is paid off. Then go back to having a car.
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Look, income is not a criteria for living well or preparing for survival. Attitude and discipline take you a lot farther. My folks live on a combined total of $50k plus and complain of never having enough money. And their mortgage is only $999 a month. What went wrong there? They won’t deprive themselves. New cars, cable TV, a very comfortable setting on the thermostat and trips to the casino. Same with my married step-sister. Two very high County government jobs with high seniority pay. And never having two nickels to rub together. They can’t tell the difference between needs and wants. You can live in a crap shack and eat a lot of beans and grains and little meat. If you are properly motivated.
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You can use cloth diapers, if you had to. You can live off of beans instead of meat ( well, large portions anyway ). You can walk or bike to work. Not to deprive yourself of comfort but to achieve a goal. A paid for house ( you can build your own if you build smart and small for the cost of most peoples down deposits ). A small business ( easier than ever with the Internet ). Or becoming independent by reducing your income needs.
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By learning to live on less you can earn less and move anywhere you like. You don’t have to be stuck in a big city. With crime and pollution and traffic. You can move to a more peaceful area. Just learn to live on less. I could easily earn $10-$13 an hour. But I don’t need the stress. I like earning $7 an hour and not having to dread going to work. I can move anywhere I want, although I do like the Great Basin area here. High desert agrees with me. Even when it gets thirty degrees in the trailer like this morning. Four degrees outside, thirty inside. I have a heater allowance I can’t exceed so it can get rather cold. The price of $7 an hour means wearing two wool sweaters and a wool beanie inside sometimes.
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Your family doesn’t have to go through such extremes. Remember, I earn $7 an hour and pay child support. Your take home is higher than mine. Your food can be non-processed and mostly potatoes, grains and beans with a little meat. Your family can eat very cheap. Diapers can be cloth, you can buy re-useable feminine hygiene products, cloth napkins, etc. Your family can all ride used bikes, you can run around in shorts in summer with fans instead of A/C, wear sweaters and hats in the winter, cook with solar ovens, etc. You can live cheap and dad can stay at home a lot more than he used to. And you can live in a safe area.
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I can share techniques with you. The motivation is all your doing. If you want to do it, you can.
END

affordable housing

AFFORDABLE HOUSING
Last night I was reading the latest issue of Backwoods Home Magazine and good ol’ Dave Duffy was writing in his editorial about an affordable house alternative. Many folks he knew were unable to afford housing out in the country in his neck of the woods. Of course, this was Oregon so that is understandable. It seems the Bolsheviks over there want to get everyone out of the country and into massed condos ( the Yankee equivalent of Soviet apartment blocks ) with mass transportation. In the Liberals wet dream of paradise we all live like rats in a cage and leave the pure Natural land untouched by unworthy human hands.
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They advocate the same lifestyle I do. Small homes, no automobiles, cheap natural food. The basic difference is that I look at it as a voluntary step to avoid financial servitude whereas they want to force everyone into their version of a sustainable future. In a way they might be correct. If Peak Oil is going to happen then it would behoove us to live in small energy efficient dwellings and take public transportation and live in the city close to work. And have our food grown locally. The problem is forcing that down other peoples throats, despite whatever merits it might have. I think a lot of ideas have merit but that doesn’t mean you can force them on to others. Let them suffer from their own folly.
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So Dave had the brilliant idea that one should get a metal building put up. You know, the ones advertised in all the self sufficiency magazines, steel buildings for several thousand bucks on up. The idea was to live in it now and then slowly add on electrical and plumbing as you could afford. The size he had in mind ran about $18,000. If you had that much it would be a debt free house. But that was only a building ( it included the foundation and labor ). You needed to buy the land and put in septic and add plumbing and blah, blah, blah. Don’t get me wrong, it is a good idea in comparison to other middle class building options. It is just that it is far from affordable. You can do a lot better for less.
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You all know, unless you are new here and should of course immediately go to my site and buy all my books to get up to speed, www.bisonpress.com , that I advocate used travel trailer living. It is very affordable, starting at under a grand for the smaller models. It is turn-key, meaning you can set it up and have it livable almost instantly. And it doesn’t have to go through building inspections. But I realize there are those of you out there that are too classy and ritzy and wouldn’t be caught dead in a trailer because your excretions don’t in any way smell and you would have been royalty had you only been born a hundred and fifty years earlier. So, okay. Fine. You won’t live in a trailer. Park a trailer on your land to live in as you build a cabin. Use the trailer for the toilet and kitchen. You can build as you can afford it, paying as you go.
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You could disguise your cabin as storage sheds and avoid any permits. My idea has always been to build an underground house under a trailer. You escape building inspectors, get a temperature stable dwelling and hide all your valuables. Perhaps an enclosed porch in the front of the trailer with a hidden trap door leading down to the underground room. A steel cargo container for under a grand could be buried and be your room. You couldn’t put too much dirt on top without reinforcing the roof as they are corner load bearing, but rebar and cement on a eight by twenty roof should be cheap. The only challenge is figuring out the stairway/entrance room leading to it. I would think this is a much cheaper way to go than a professionally erected building.
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Another option would be to set up the travel trailer and build on to it. I have seen mobile homes and travel trailers shrink to about one third of the house size as built on rooms eventually dwarfed the original structure. You pay as you go, get more than 200 square feet and should be able to escape the building inspector. If you don’t add electric or plumbing you might be able to pass off the additions as enclosed porches and storage sheds. Chances are good that you will be off the grid anyway so you can hook up a home made septic to the original trailer flush toilet and use the trailer 12v lights and for the rest of the structure use kerosene and/or propane light.
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I like the size of my thirty two foot trailer. It fits me and the wife and the cats very well. With a very small shed added to one end I could store all my junk. A shed on the other end would hold all my storage food. An enclosed porch would alleviate cabin fever. But there is only a budget to consider when considering your add on size. You can build as big or as small as you desire. Surely even your high end high maintenance wife can agree to this kind of compromise. Cheap, pay as you go, electric and flush commode, and debt free.
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Let’s see what you can get for under that $18,000. A land lot for less than $3,000 if care is taken where you buy it. $3,000 for a big trailer in very good shape. $2,000 for the first few sheds, add ons and porch. Ten thousand less. And that is spending more to satisfy the wife. In an area with utilities. You could spend $500 for a used cab over camper. $500 for a big shed. And $1,000 for a decent lot of land. Almost anyone can get two grand from a tax return. Heck, you don’t even have to live there except on vacations. The rest of the time find a poor but trustworthy person to caretake it for you. And have it as a back-up. Come the Depression the wife will be glad for a place to live, however primitive. And it will give you a project. Buy the lumber as you can and you and the guy living there can slowly but surely build on to it. It could be a retirement cabin if no collapse comes but Social Security screws you over in the end.
END

uncle sam wants a crash

THE GOVERNMENT WANTS A COLLAPSE
Let’s set aside the question of whether the government had anything to do with 9/11. We can all ponder about its role in the Oklahoma City bombing since that was a bunch of dumb hicks, but let a few useless mouth breathers in Americas biggest crap hole get killed and government conspiracy theories are suddenly off limits. The Tech Wreck could have derailed the economy and the onset of Peak Oil meant we needed to occupy the mid east, but of course there could have been no involvement by the government even if that event gave them what they needed. Our government still loves us and is a Republic and still values the Constitution. And now you have made me nauseous.
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But forget about that. Whether the government engineers an economic collapse or just knows it is inevitable and so will make the most of the situation doesn’t matter. In the end the same difficulties for the average citizen will happen. The government knows it has no way out of its current economic dilemma. If it keeps the dollar from collapsing so foreigners will continue to buy our debt ( one of the main reasons we have yet to see a collapse ) the housing bubble will pop. If it props up the housing market by not raising interest rates foreigners will stop buying our debt. It is a lose, lose situation. The housing bubble was engineered to keep the Tech Wreck from collapsing the economy but to keep it going means we lose foreign banks holding up the dollar even though our economic situation should scare away any holder of dollar denominated assets.
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You would think that the government is screwed any way they turn. But that is not true. We have wrung a lot of extra value out of our economy. We slowly but surely let inflation eat into the value of the dollar. Then we slowly but surely sold off our industrial economy to the highest bidder. Now we are playing our last card with military intervention. But that doesn’t mean Uncle Sugar is done. Not by a long shot. By allowing the housing bubble to take down the economy and by foreigners moving from the dollar to other currencies the Feds hold on to power a lot longer.
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Look, a collapse would wipe out more industries. Corporations could move the last of the jobs overseas. From lack of foreign buying of debt, hyperinflation would be allowed. Government loves hyperinflation. It can pay its bills without pain. The public, by and large, will welcome a police state. Plenty of houses would revert to bank ownership which means the preceding years of mortgage payments were free money to the lender. The new bankruptcy law means no one can escape the difference between lowered house values and their original loans. The bank gets the house back plus continued payments. Consumption of oil falls drastically due to economic pain and unemployment meaning a dwindling supply from Peak Oil is less painful. And the military sees a huge increase in “voluntary” recruits as no other jobs are available. More troops for Iraq and domestic rebellion.
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Corporations want their local factories to shut down if their labor and benefit costs are too high. They can still make a profit if China turns out their goods. Look at the meat industry. It used to be a good paying job with benefits. Now, no benefits and one third the old wages. Immigration is the corporations way to mimic China here is this country, so don’t think your job is safe just because they don’t send the beef overseas. And no, corporations are not worried about Americans without jobs not being a customer for their goods and services. That is where the government steps in with “make work” jobs and increased welfare. They can afford it with increased inflation and decreasing welfare benefits ( in real purchasing terms- remember, currently we have an official 3% inflation but a real rate of 10% and COLA is based on the official figure ).
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Hyperinflation will allow government to continue to print new money and screw everyone over with faster depreciation of the dollars they are making. American wages are down in real purchasing power over the last few decades. Expect that to get worse.
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The public will welcome with open arms a new oppressive police state to save their butts from starvation and unemployment. It is already all in place. And has been a steady buildup for generations. The only thing you can do is buy an unregistered weapon and bury it, waiting for the time to revolt. Which is also why you should keep your food stash secret. One drought and a fake famine will have your neighbor narcing on you fast. Just remember, the new Federalized police force and swelling ranks of military to combat unemployment will have the majority approval from the population. You will find few fellows in arms.
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The Federal Reserve controlled banks will be after your home and your future earnings. If they can’t get rich off of the interest paid by tax payers to foreign owned debt they will get rich off the death of the middle class. One way or another the bankers will not be hurting. I recommend gold and silver holdings as a hedge. The dollar will soon be worthless between corporate, banking and government greed.
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As the economy crashes oil use scales back as the unemployed can’t consume much petroleum. Nor can the very poor. Peak Oil is now less of a problem and the military industrial complex can return to making a profit over the corpses of the young instead of trying to secure oil wells. But don’t worry, you or your kids can still join the military ( or starve ). Then you can suppress internal revolt or occupy other nations that still have resources. We are all soon going to become the bitches of the ruling CorpGovBanker elite. Enjoy that mortgage and plasma screen TV while you can.
END

routine

BENEFITS OF ROUTINE
The benefits of following a routine are that unpleasant tasks get accomplished despite our natural inclination to avoid reality at every opportunity. Now, if you are a undercover operative in the CIA, a Columbian drug runner or the President of the United States then obviously following a routine will get you killed at the first opportunity. For the rest of us, despite how important we think we are, no one is out stalking us and using our schedule to set up an assassination. We can use a schedule, a routine and habits to get everything done in life we need to do.
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If you work at a boring job and wish you could write the next great American Novel, hopefully having naked dancing girls and fully automatic belt fed squad level weapons in it because I know I might buy such a fun and exciting story line since you NEVER see that combination in a Hollywood musical, if you keep dreaming about writing the novel while at work it will never get done. Yet if you force yourself to sit down every night and complete, say, one page before you can have your supper than chances are that the routine of writing and the empty stomach ( no fair eating half a pepperoni pizza as a snack before you sit down at your computer ) will present you with a finished manuscript within a year.
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As much as you hate constantly hearing about how I do things, mostly because of your inflamed jealousy at how wonderful of a person I am and what a sad little peon you are, I like to talk about myself and love hearing about myself and even take pleasure looking at myself for long periods of time in the mirror even if, frankly, I will never be asked to take a photo op for Playgirl magazine but still like what I see because of my overwhelming and powerful Jim-ness. I used to sit down every work day and write for about an hour and come out with about five pages a week for the Bison Newsletter. After visiting Elko I became even more inflamed with the desire to escape the Rat Race and doubled my efforts at writing, easily turning out ten pages a week writing about six hours a week. When I sit down at two different times each day I double that figure. When you all suddenly slap yourself on the forehead and groan out loud and say to yourself, “I am an idiot for not buying Jim’s writing so he can stop working a formal job and write even more every day”, and promptly send me a money order since we both know your check will bounce, then I can double even that figure to turn out at least seven finished pages a day which would translate to a novel a month plus the blog.
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But I can only write this much with a routine. Every lunch at work I sit down and write for an hour while eating my whole wheat bread I get at work free. It ain’t a great lunch, but by eating it five days a week I get my fiber, stay regular, stay used to a whole wheat diet ( important since 95% of my storage food is wheat ) and save on my food bill. So each week I get all my blog writing done ( except one hour on the weekend ) and get all my dietary fiber ( I don’t want them sticking a tube up my butt checking for bowl cancer ) just by scheduling my lunch hour at work to those two tasks. In fact, since I follow the schedule so well just this Friday I turned down a free Employee Lunch of fried chicken and spiral ham so I could write. Someone reading this owes me a Christmas lunch.
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Since I foolishly started offering the Chicken Little Magazine now I have to start writing in the evening again. By setting aside a time I must do it, I can get it done with minimal mental anguish. If I had no routine I would hem and haw and never get it done. I can procrastinate until the cows come home. In fact, not being a farmer, waiting until the cows come home is a great way of never doing anything at all. Now obviously, you can set a schedule and never follow it. It does take some discipline. But it is much easier to see that something must get done on schedule. You look at your watch and say to yourself, well, It’s five o’clock, I HAVE TO DO this task. Doesn’t matter if you have to do it, if you already concluded it would get done on schedule you will go from wanting to do it to having to do it. An important distinction.
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Back a few years when I made more income and silver was nearly one third its current price I scheduled a buying spree on the metal. I took each weeks pay and set aside twenty dollars ( I got paid every two weeks but I “paid ahead” one week to get on a weekly schedule which was easier to keep ) to buy silver. At first that bought three ounces of silver ( after dealer fees and tax ). After awhile it bought two ounces. Soon I had to set aside twenty five dollars to get those two ounces. But by the time silver hit ten bucks an ounce I could stop buying it as I had enough to feel comfortable with. I couldn’t have done it without a schedule, without forcing myself to buy it every week despite my financial situation that week. Silver was first, then the normal bills.
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I cut back on my smoking in a similar manner. I have never been a heavy smoker, about three quarters of a pack even when drinking. I kept trying to quit, not really wanting to continue since I slowly quit bad habits and gain better ones as I get older. Yet inevitably after I quit I would start again, six, twelve, even twenty four months later. So I decided to quit and not to quit. I have one cigarette a day, after dinner. One won’t kill me anytime soon and I avoid the nicotine cravings. But I couldn’t do it if I didn’t stick with a routine.
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You can cut back on TV viewing the same way. Set a schedule and stick with it. You will free up a lot of “family” or even “me” time this way. You don’t even have to do anything productive with the time, just relax a bit. It feels like you aren’t wasting so much of your life that way.
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Now apply this to stockpiling. Set and keep a schedule. Every weekend. Every payday. The first of every month. Even every February at tax return time. Buy preps first with that set aside money. Then worry about the other needed bills. It is needed insurance. You just hope you never need it. You buy fire insurance. It doesn’t matter what the other pressing bills are, you still protect your home. I view prepping as mandatory insurance. You can also apply this to required tasks. Perhaps such as electronically scanning library books on primitive technology. A book a week, or a similar schedule. It adds up very quickly. A book a week is fifty a year. A bag of wheat every pay day is over a half a ton a year. Yet no one is going to suddenly say, “let’s go buy a half ton of wheat now”. It would cost too much. Sticker shock. But doing a bit at a time is painless.
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That is the whole point in establishing a routine. It adds up to a large mount over time yet is painless enough as you go along. I never would have said, I’m going to write seven hundred pages on survivalism. But I did over time writing the Bison. I never would have bought the amount of silver I did all at one time. Or the surplus ammunition. Or, to rip off wise Oriental Deep Thinkers, every long journey starts with a single step. Just make sure you take that step every day at the same time
END
BUY NOW-YOU MUST BUY NOW. Buy my junk so I can have a merrier Christmas. www.bisonpress.com

food charity

CHARITABLE FOOD
Charitable food donations after a crash has come up recently on www.survivalblog.com and also in a book I just got done with from Bruce Clayton ( an old 80’s magazine article compilation published by Paladin Press ). That was where I got the “animals are all brown” argument in the camouflage article. In the article in the book Clayton argued the merits of giving stored food as barter. In the Survival Blog article it took more of a Christian Charity tone. While both answers have their strong points I would instead argue for the more selfish approach, if for no other reason than to be different and difficult.
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When Bruce arrived at his Super Secret small town location in California’s Sierra Nevada Mountains ( back when the state was a fit place for both man and beast to live ) his no doubt delightful mother in law blabbed to the whole place what an important survivalist writer he was. So, out go the plans to buy a few Battle Rifle Cadillac’s ( H&K 91’s for those Stone Age types that mistakenly think I’m referring to M14’s or FN-FAL’s- look, Ma, no gas fouling and near indestructible parts ) and he decides to stockpile enough to feed all his neighbors in a five mile radius. I would have bought the HK’s, shot the mother in law, her daughter too if I got any lip about it and moved to an even more remote area.
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The idea was to trade the wheat to each household on a weekly basis and get barter in exchange, such as a normally unproductive old crone knitting a wool sweater instead of popping prunes and cashing in a Social Security check. That’s how you get these old farts to pay their way. And no, they did not pay their fair share into the system. They paid far less of the 15% I’m paying and for a shorter period of time. The average recipient now gets back everything they paid into the system their entire career in under five years of Old Bugger Welfare. 78 Friggin Million people are now or shortly going to be on this generous vote buying welfare. The old bastards are going to bankrupt us a lot faster than single moms on welfare ever could. If about one in three of the population is working and 25% are on government Job Welfare, that means every holder of a private sector job is going to have to support one friggin old worthless fart. And I don’t even ( much ) blame them, the worthless old ones who won’t have the decency of walking out into a snowstorm and relieve the tribe of the burden of feeding them. My dad is on the public teat. So if I can’t hate him for bankrupting the system I can’t hate your dad either. I hate the politicians that lived off of the scam.
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The other argument is that you have a moral obligation to at least warn your neighbors of the impending doom. And then try to set a little aside for them when it all comes crashing down. A great idea when your close neighbors are three miles down the road. A really crappy idea for most of us that don’t live out in the country. I have over a hundred neighbors in my trailer park. I ain’t warning one of the bastards. One, they will form a lynch mob and kill me and steal my food. It will be enough to feed all of them one half a day. I keep two hundred pounds of wheat and two hundred rounds of ammunition in my trailer. The rest is in storage. If I can keep them at bay long enough with my .357 I can load up the rifle. But odds are one will be able to shoot back. Better they don’t know I have food.
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And, to be fair, what the Hell is this Blog, anyway? I know I’m trying to make money off of it but the majority ignore my pitiful sniveling and read it for free. I am providing a public service here, warning about the coming hard times and showing you how to cheaply prepare for them. How much more charitable am I supposed to get? Aren’t I doing enough? How many people has Jim over at Survival Blog helped out by publishing his book before Y2K? I would wager tens of thousands. He got the message out to the confused and ignorant. He is still getting mail all the time thanking him for turning them on to the danger. Why should he feel obligated to help his neighbors also? At most I would give them a copy of my book at a house warming, if I were him.
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The only good reason you should have for stockpiling food for others is so they can work it off with needed skills. And even that can backfire when they kill you, steal your food, put your wife and daughter to work in the new post-Apocalypse brothel and take over as area warlord. I don’t trust anyone past my family in that case. My dad might be old with a bad ticker but I can trust him when I go to sleep. My brother in law might agree with me on the future and still fail to prepare but I don’t mind providing for him as he is still more trustworthy than a stranger off the street, even if they are a doctor. Well, some professions are worth taking the risk. Like a chemist. They would be worth their weight in wheat.
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Be cautious with any charity. It is noble, but until civilization stabilizes after a collapse you are risking your life by trusting strangers. And risking your family. A human being can rationalize any behavior, including betrayal and cannibalism. Including killing you and your three year old child. The traditional rationalization for Native American genocide was they occupied our land. We justify holding Muslims indefinitely without a trial because there is a slender chance they might become a terrorist. I might become a child molester, since I’m male, should you kill me before I do anything? Rational thinking will go the way of the electric grid after a collapse. Be prepared for it.
END

mobile survival

MOBILE SURVIVALIST
The guy with a backpack heading off into the hills to survive by hunting and camping has long ago been discredited and dismissed. But it was an idea that had certain advantages. The disadvantage of course was that you would starve, freeze, get eaten by wild animals or a combination of all three. The advantage was that you saved money not needing to buy a retreat ( no small thing at today’s land prices ), you really got away from the crowds and there was a lot less competition for the available food supplies.
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Down in settled country you need to trade for food, defend your crops, join a protective association and in general deal with people that don’t have your best interests in mind. Of course I would rather deal with feral people than wild critters such as lions and tigers and bears. If for no other reason than that they are a lot smaller and have no claws. It takes a certain aptitude to survive out in the wilds. Don’t delude yourself into thinking you are Grizzly Adams if you ain’t. You must deal with nature on its terms, not yours.
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But if you choose to take to the mountains you become a lot safer, not from nature but at least from man. No one is going to mess with you up in the mountains or in the middle of a vast desert. Or, for that matter, in a sailboat in the ocean. You are mobile, and you are in a wilderness. Two good ways to avoid unreasonable people. Because lets face it, man is a predator and despite political correct brainwashing from our handlers, left outside of the safe confines of civilized society he will quickly kill you, then abuse your person then eat you. Perhaps in that order.
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If you choose this route, again with realistic expectations of the difficulties you will encounter, you will need to make some preparations. You can’t just stuff some underwear and an issue of Jugs Magazine into a backpack, whittle a stick into a spear and head off into the woods. You will need to build caches and stock supplies in the wilderness area you intend to inhabit. And besides supplies you need to build your skills. No GPS receivers, you must learn to use a map and compass. You must learn primitive wilderness skills in case your equipment is lost or stolen.
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I would stash in small cans and/or PVC pipes to easily carry each cache into its location. While you are there on the weekend you can practice fire starting and snare building and other needed skills which are readily available taught in book form. You will want to stash as much as you can since you never know when the game will get scarce. Your containers should have the cheap stuff, as usual, grains and beans. A shelf stable fat such as lard or shortening, ammunition, matches, etc. Neither the caches nor hunting/trapping foraging by themselves are going to be sufficient to keep you alive and well. You will need both. Don’t start slacking on your stash containers and expect your largely untested skills to do the trick.
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You want both grains and beans so as to get a complete protein in times where you can’t get animal flesh. The fats, which I would rotate no less than every five years, are going to be essential keeping you alive in the winters. Ammunition of course can’t be carried in bulk so must be stashed. Spare warm clothes such as thermals and caps and wool socks and sweaters. Matches and toothbrushes and entertainment items such as playing cards and books. Needles and thread, knives, shoelaces, iodized salt. You can’t forget those small critical items or you’ll be making dangerous visits into a settlement.
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For weapons I would stick with my bolt action surplus rifle, a few knives and a pistol. You could do with just a .22 rifle and a 357 revolver. The 22 will harass humans that showed up and kill game. The revolver will be some protection against bears and other large dangerous animals. You could afford to stash thousands of rounds of 22 and several hundred revolver rounds. It is less than the ideal arsenal but it is light weight, affordable and long lasting.
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In the winter you are going to need to shelter in a good cave or build yourself a small underground cabin. It is going to be cold and you are going to have to try to minimize your wood smoke. An underground shelter will allow you to survive with good clothes and no fire. And you need more than one winter shelter in case you are forced out of one. The same goes for your stashes, have more than one and in different areas. You really need to always assume the worse case scenario. It will save your life.
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Don’t forget to really think this one out. Such as getting a metal thermos for “hay box cooking” to cut down on the needed cooking. Or the best longest lasting water filter. And try to have everything backed up as far as equipment. The store isn’t going to be available.
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Remember, this isn’t for everyone. Know your limitations. And if we never suffer a collapse you can commit a crime and escape to the wilderness with your caches already there.
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Number one, I can’t spell. The link yesterday should have been Lehmans, not Lemans. I forgot the h in the middle, my bad. Number two, they are forecasting another cold spell. If it gets below about fifty in the trailer I can’t use the computer, it “freezes” up. So if I’m not posted in the morning about 6:30 I’ll do it at night at 5:30 after the sun has warmed us up a bit. Number three, it looks like the final results are in and about three percent of you are buying the Chicken Little Magazine- three percent I LOVE you. The rest of you suck. But you can still read my blog. And I won’t throw curses on you, YET. Your time may come, be warned. As you can tell, my curses are powerful things. Just look at my ex- wife. Living in Florida, grossing $70k a year. Buys a new car every other year. Eats out every weekend. Job of her dreams. Yeh, I showed her! So be warned!

christmas test

THE CHRISTMAS SMELL TEST FOR SURVIVALISTS
I never worked as a professional, nor in a factory. It has always been in retail or in services. And the one thing that really chapped my ass for these last twenty years is having to work the holidays and the amount of idiots out there that would be out and about on the major days such as Thanksgiving or Christmas.
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Today’s consumers are being conditioned for instant gratification. That is understandable enough. You can’t make a profit if no one spends 115% of what they make. With 70% of the economy consumption our Empire will sink into economic stagnation with houses, garages and commercial storage units full of worthless crap. But the general public is not even being encouraged to plan ahead at all. Store hours are being constantly lengthened. Even banks are staying open longer hours. The great 1980’s push to put an ATM machine on every corner was touted as saving on bank teller labor and even physical bank buildings. Now to try to keep customers they are playing the customer service game. Yet with ATM’s for deposits and debit cards taking the place of checks and cash we need banks less than ever. We are paying for a large overhead we may not even use.
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And in any moderate sized city you can find several of the same stores. A new Wal-Mart opens when a city gets over a certain amount. Our city of sixty thousand has three Albertsons grocery stores, two Blockbusters, two Wal-Mart’s and three McDonald’s. Maybe they are staying open longer to try to get enough business in every branch to pay the rent and keep the lights on. Now, my job that I lucked into is one of the best I’ve ever had. I spend all day driving around and picking up food donations from different stores for the areas food bank. Not only is it low stress ( but of course low pay ) but I get out of date food for my food storage ( we get a bit of canned #10 cans from the Salt Lake City welfare- when they are too far out of date I get them ) but I get free breakfast and lunch ( we can help ourselves to any bread product since there is so much of it ). And I drive around and see what is going on in town, something I wouldn’t have done normally without a car.
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I have only seen one store that is going to close on Christmas ( not all have signs posted yet of course ). The others are being oh so friggin kind to their wage slaves and closing a bit early on the 24th and opening a smidge late the next day. OOOHHHH!!! That is so damn kind of them! I hope they are soooo generous with their wages and perks. Now, this year I’m not working Christmas day. I have in mind a two pound slab of bloody Tri-Tip beef on the barbeque. That’s it. That’s going to be my dinner. No potatoes or rolls or stuffing, just the biggest hunk of quality beef I can fill my gut with. Hey, I eat at least a half pound of whole wheat a day. I can go protein crazy one day. This job does have good perks since the wages suck. NINE paid holidays a year. Union members should have it so good anymore.
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And the sad reality of it all is that these businesses will have plenty of business Christmas day. I can see the casinos. I mean, granny has an oxygen tank to keep her going while she smokes like a chimney and gambles away her Social Security check. And the worthless oxygen wasting mouth breathers will go into the casino restaurant so they don’t have to cook. I worked the last three Christmases at the casino. It sucked, but at least you expected the losers to show up and pester you. Working at gas stations in years past all the idiots showed up, not to buy last minute olives or cranberries or even as you would have thought, beer, but to buy scratch off lottery tickets. All the old farts spending their Social Security before Congress repealed the program. When anyone complains they can’t make it on the public pension I just think back to the gambling that takes place on Christmas. Don’t buy a lottery number, dill hole! Then you can buy groceries.
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Now, think back. Have you ever gone out on Christmas or Thanksgiving? WHY???? You are encouraging businesses to stay open by giving them your business, and by extension the idiots working there can’t spend the time with their families. A lot of it is unnecessary, such as the gambling. Or going to the movies. But a lot of it is people are not prepared to stay away from the stores for one whole entire day! The majority of the population can’t be self reliant for 24 hours! How sad is this? No one can plan ahead to get by one day. They need a store open and willing to serve them. Their cupboards are so bare they can’t get through a holiday without going shopping. I weep in frustration.
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I hope none of you are like that. Test yourself. If you can’t survive 24 hours without replenishing your supplies, you won’t last three weeks as the government tries to recall your local National Guard unit from Iraq to ship food into your area. Even if Uncle Albert is visiting and wants something you don’t have you should at least be able to improvise. This might be a wake up call for you.
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I’ve gotten a lot of requests for a CD of the Chicken little Magazine ( and also my books ). If you add a dollar to each order you want I’ll send a plain jane CD. That means no printing on the CD, a thin envelope. And all books on the one CD if you order more than one. It cost me about seventy cents to burn and mail it to you. Twice that if I got fancy, so for now we’ll go the cheap way. So, the download price is $1 Chicken Little, $3 Frugal Survivalist, $4 Bison Newsletter. Plus the buck for the CD. This way those without credit cards or fast providers can get in on the action. My address is on the main page at www.bisonpress.com. And include a note inside with what you want plus a legible name and address. If I just get cash with no note I assume it’s a donation. And money orders are okay too. Please no checks. Thanks.
BTW- there’s a Dietz kerosene lantern/cooker for sale at www.lemans.com for only $20! I was surprised as they usual are sky high. Item # m2000

camouflage

REAL CAMOUFLAGE
Perhaps for psychological reasons after the defeat of Vietnam and the low caliber of draftees causing a huge drug problem, in the early 80’s the Army totally revamped itself. Born again. Strategy and tactics were rethought. Schools became more professional. Pay was increased, recruiting standards were toughened. All for the good. But they also decided to give themselves a face lift. The baby was thrown out with the bathwater. To let itself feel different as well as present a new face to the world, lots of equipment was replaced ( and to be honest a lot of it was spending the extra money Reagan gave them ). The perfect combat pistol, the 1911A1 was replaced by the Euro-Trash Berretta 9mm pea shooter. The 9mm was popularized by those damn Germans who either are brilliant in military matters, or just plain suck at it. The 9mm just plain sucks.
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The perfect Jeep, designed to outlast a tank and fixable by any shade tree mechanic was replaced by the huge piece of crap the Humvee, which was nicknamed the Hummer which it was- a friggin act of oral copulation. The darn thing is over complicated, over priced and typical of late 70’s through late eighties Detroit junk. It really is a wonder they didn’t go bankrupt back then they turned out such garbage. It was so bad the crap from Germany was good by comparison. One advantage which they tried to propagandize to us was that it was supposedly bulletproof, like a big Kevlar helmet. Iraq of course is exposing that lie. I never liked it from the beginning, much preferring the Jeep which was indestructible.
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The MRE replaced the C-ration which of course was better for the poor guys that had to carry the things in the field, but overall it was a failed program in my view as it now required more money to process and package the food, plus the life span was reduced. I’ll call that one a draw. And of course the idiots replaced the olive drab fatigues with the Battle Dress Uniform. The BDU is like wearing a sack. It is uncomfortable. It looks sloppy. And the camouflage doesn’t do a darn bit of good past a certain distance. All the pretty little splotches blend into one dark color. They should have just made the fatigues a darker color. It only would have cost a little bit of dye.
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I joined the Army and was issued BDU’s. I hated the darn things. At my first duty station I immediately got some old style fatigues and wore them until the day they were no longer allowed. I looked a lot sharper, I felt more comfortable and I hated going back to BDU’s. And then they did away with the Specialist ranks other than E-4 ( you went from PFC to Spec.4 to Sgt. ), forcing you to become an NCO if you wanted to stay in the service rather than keeping experienced soldiers in a non-leadership position but giving them pay raises. Idiots. That was the main reason I got out, I didn’t want to be an NCO. Of course if I had stayed in I would have been sent over to Desert Storm and been forced to get an anthrax shot and inhaled depleted uranium round dust and died shortly after I retired in miserable agony so I guess it all worked out for the best.
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But BDU’s are worthless. They are the wrong shape. You see a dark uniform at a distance and it is the wrong color. How many mammals do you see a dark green color? They are all friggin BROWN. You are going to sit there and tell me that the US Army, who replaced a real pistol with a limp wrist faggity round like the 9mm ( especially considering the military only used FMJ bullets ) and replaced a hat with a bill to reduce sun in your eyes and shade eye glasses from reflecting so the enemy can’t see it and shoot you in the face with a beret because they look cool but are totally worthless other than to force your hair to fall out and when they did so they didn’t have enough domestic manufactures to do it so they changed the law to allow Chinese to make the things, you are telling me this same organization is smarter than Mother Nature when it comes to camouflage? I DON’T THINK SO.
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Wear predominately brown. You can buy used khaki pants at the thrift stores for a few bucks and shirts of different Earth shades. Instant camo. Not perfect. But not much worse than wearing military designed crap and a lot cheaper. And no one will mistake you for a gangster, a militiaman or the regular military and shoot your sorry ass after the collapse. And you are always wearing it. Any sudden unexpected detour into the wilderness fleeing for your life and you are already somewhat able to blend into your surroundings.
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Thank you, yes-I know I’m good.
END
Did you drop a dollar in the Salvation Army red kettle as a donation? No? Good, send me the darn thing. The Chicken Little Magazine #1 is only a buck. www.lulu.com/content/567927