urban suction

URBAN SUCTION
Urban areas are not where any self-respecting survivalist wants to be. Yet what if you don’t have any choice? I’m not talking about your current situation where you are currently residing because of a good paying job or where you are living because of family also living there. Or you are stuck because the real estate market turned south and you can’t sell your home without being upside down ( a situation long familiar to automobile owners, just now happening to home owners who thought real estate would always increase in value- and its kind of funny also in that cars are now as expensive as homes in most areas were twenty years ago ). What I am talking about is that we might all be forced into urban areas against our wishes either for economic survival or by government mandate.
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If we are lucky, the oil starts to run out and suburban areas are no longer viable. The government creates a mess of telecommuter jobs ( or mandates that private companies do so ) and we can hold out a lot longer. Electricity and heating oil are rationed and nobody stays real comfortable but we keep our houses and can travel one day a week to a government distribution warehouse with our coupon books for our rice and beans and six ounces of meat per person. If we are unlucky, the government does nothing to impede the profits of big corporations and we are all unemployed. The suburbs lose most residents since gasoline is a luxury item. We must move back to urban core areas since that is the only place jobs are available and with no tractor trailers running rail is the only transportation for goods. We end up in ghettos, mostly unemployed, fighting amongst ourselves and easily controlled by the government. Farms are consolidated and turned over to big-agri-corps. They receive all fertilizer and seed.
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Right now in the Third World, most farming land is turned over to foreign corporations to grow cash crops. Coffee and sugar, cocoa, etc. The natives are forced to live in giant mega-cities where the quality of life is bad enough that most turn to drug use and crime ( the young, anyway, and they are the majority of the population ). How would you like just a little taste of that? The American public, by and large, has already demonstrated how little they care about the direction of this country. The front page of the newspaper, top above the fold, is usually only sports or celebrity news. Even the lowest brow of entertainment such as Fox TV is exceeding its old standards and getting worse. The day the bridge collapse was shown in the paper, the front page news was a three inch article with medium print. Right below that was a six inch article with large print was an article about a local Lake Tahoe golf tournament. Most people only want to visit the Coliseum. Don’t bother them with news of wheat crop failures in Africa.
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So almost no one wants to hear about the Perfect Storm brewing to end our lives of luxury and privilege. They will be knocking at your door the same time nuclear fallout is arriving, demanding to be let in and provided for. But right now they don’t want to hear any bad news. The vast majority of suburbia will be shocked to learn they must give up their fairy tale existence. It won’t all go down hill immediately ( baring an Iranian attack that closes the Straights to oil ). As gas gets truly scarce and insanely expensive, we will start to car pool. I think we are spoiled enough that gas will need to get to twice the current price to force us to inconvenience ourselves for that. Speed limits will be lowered. Tires will have taxes increased to somewhat cut down on distances driven. Perhaps some gas rationing. After it is too late the government will add gas taxes to help re-build the public transport Detroit had destroyed decades ago ( maybe we should try for restitution before they go bankrupt ).
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When things get to the point there are no more easy fixes, then government gets serious about not allowing us to drive. The only question is going to be, will a Communist Dictatorship win out and everything is nationalized or will a Fascist Dictatorship take over, supported by big business? In the one, Hillary will rule us from the Politburo, dictating politically correct mandates that are For The Children. We all slowly die as the entire economy is run like the Post Office. In the other, corporate control of campaigns dictates that the giant corporations can do anything they want and the American public is treated like those poor bastards in China, fighting for the crumbs amongst themselves. I don’t know which will be worse. The public will go along either way as long as they don’t have to wake up and make any hard decisions.
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Communism works for them since they figure they can be one of the ones getting something for free, but fascism is attractive to those with power. My bet is on the Fatherland ( I mean Homeland ). Fascism will make the bankers more money. So, we all dutifully hike back to the cities, babies and plasma TV’s strapped to wheelbarrows and infant bicycle trailers. We crowd several families into each house. Dad goes to the employment center each morning for day labor in a human labor gang fixing levies to keep the East Coast from flooding from global warming. He gets paid minimum wage but hyper-inflation is at least twelve times quicker at destroying that purchasing power so it buys less every payday. He can’t quit despite a hernia and arthritis since a long line of people will gladly take his position. I’m sure in female positions there will be sexual favors demanded for job security. Better get that implant now for a survival prep.
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Health care might be universal, but long waiting lists ensure you die before treatment is wasted on you. Malnutrition is common. Government soup lines always run out of supplies before the line is finished. Any riots are met by overwhelming force as the military and Federal law enforcement ( metro police are joined into the Feds like it or not ) are given the remaining oil. They can race to any disturbances in shiny new SUV’s armored and armed with squad automatic guns. A large unemployment sector allows them to recruit for the biggest and strongest having the mental outlook they require. Expect no sympathy from a friendly soldier or cop. They will have been bred to kill you at command. Any area seeing too much rioting has its rations cut. The government hasn’t nationalized farms, but the agri-corps is given a monopoly in exchange for bribes. All farm land belongs to them, only they get the supplies. The cozy relationship with industry and Nazi Germany will be followed here, but since we own no more local factories it will be Hollywood and ADM farms that jump into bed with the Feds and expose their will butt hole for a bigger share of profits.
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You can’t own rural land and there are no jobs. There is no more private auto use allowed. You will be forced to “decide” to move to the city where you will be totally controlled by our masters. Have fun with that one.
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