An Eclectic List of Survival/Preparedness Tips and Ideas

An Eclectic List of Survival/Preparedness Tips and Ideas

By

Kevin S. in Alabama

 

The word eclectic means “selecting or employing individual elements from a variety of sources, systems, or styles”.  Thinks of this article as a Thanksgiving time cornucopia of tips and ideas in which you can take the tips and ideas that are useful to you and disregard the rest.

 

1.       In all things relating to survival and preparedness, DO THE BEST YOU CAN WITH WHAT YOU HAVE NOW.  Any amount of preparedness is better than no preparedness.  Money is the major limiting factor in most individual’s preparedness plans.  Prepare as best you can given your financial position.

 

2.        Look into Ziploc Slider storage bags.  These bags come in storage type and heavy duty freezer type.  Both types are available in quart and gallon sizes.  I suggest purchasing the heavy duty freezer type if money is not an issue.  The price difference between the storage type and freezer type is not great.

 

Unlike some of the lesser quality “zip lock” bags, these bags have a slider that you pull to seal the bag.  With this slider, you know you have a good seal and you know the bag will stay sealed.

 

One can use these bags to organize the items in your bug out pack.  You can put fire making equipment in one bag, signaling equipment in another bag, etc.  Also, by putting all the equipment in your bug out pack into the Ziploc slider bag, you have turned your non-waterproof bug out pack into a waterproof bug out pack.

 

I also suggest you take one of the one gallon size slider bags and stuff it full of as many slider bags as possible.  In a survival situation, the potential uses for these slider bags are almost unlimited.  You can use the bags to collect water to be purified at a later time.  You can use them to store food you collect.  If you had to do a river crossing you could fill the bags with air and tape them to an injured adult, a non-swimmer, a child, or even an infant and use them as a flotation device.  You could even get creative fill some bags with air and some bags with water.  By taping the bags in the right position you could make an improvised self-righting devise to keep the person face up in the water.    Bags filled with air could be put into your bug out bag or taped to it to get it to or close to neutral buoyancy when river crossing.

 

3.       Keep a Ziploc Slider bag full of rock salt in your bug out kit.  Salt creates an environment in which it is hard for infectious bacteria to thrive.  For puncture wounds, a little water can be added to rock salt to make a paste to put in the wound, to suck out toxins.  You can add a lot of water to rock salt to make a saline solution.  This saline solution is good for washing out wounds.  A warm saline solution is good for rinsing out the mouth when oral infections are present.  This is also good for rinsing the mouth after meals if you cannot brush your teeth.

 

This is especially important if you keep your bug out pack in your vehicle.  None of your over-the-counter or prescription antibiotic creams and powders will survive the heat level inside your vehicle on a sunny day.  Salt will last essentially forever.

 

4.       Keep a cylinder of sugar (sucrose), like the ones you buy on the coffee and tea isle in the grocery store in your bug out pack.  Sugar can be used to treat infected wounds and was once sold in combination with providone-iodine solution (Betadine) as a product called Sugardyne.  To treat an infected wound you simply pack the wound with sugar crystals.  Check the wound at regular intervals.  When the sugar crystals turn liquid, it’s time to re-pack the wound with more sugar crystals.  Why do you do this?  The sugar kills the infectious agent by osmotic shock.  In simple terms, it sucks the water out of the infectious agent, dehydrating it.  If you leave the liquefied sugar crystals in the wound, the infectious agent can use the water in the liquefied sugar solution to begin the growth process again.

 

 

5.       Keep a roll of aluminum foil tape in your bug out pack.  It has numerous uses, but the most important use relating to bugging out is protecting you from frostbite and hypothermia.

 

Imagine TEOTWAWKI has come and you have to bug out in a hurry.  Its winter and it’s very cold.  You have to travel on foot and you don’t have waterproof socks or shoes.  There is a foot of snow on the ground.  If you travel in the snow on foot your shoes and socks are going to be soaked in short order.  Then come’s frostbite and possibly trench foot.

 

If you have a roll of aluminum foil tape in your bug out pack you’re covered.  Before going out you simply wrap your socks with a layer of aluminum foil tape.   Like the space blankets made of aluminum, the aluminum foil tape reflects your body heat back onto your feet and keeps out the water.

 

Imagine a situation even worse.  You have to bug out in a winter storm and you don’t have adequate clothing for the cold.  You could wrap the upper part of your body (the area around the heart and lungs) with aluminum foil tape.  This would help keep your core body temperature from dropping into the hypothermia range.  Using a pair of scissors like those on a pocket knife or multi tool you could cut small pieces of aluminum foil tape to go on your face, nose, and ears to prevent frostbite.

 

6.       Get Gorilla Tape.  This stuff puts the best duct tape to shame.  It comes in several sizes and is available in camouflage.  Keep a roll of it in your bug out pack.  Get as much of this product as you can.

 

7.       There is a lot you can do with the metal coat hangers you get from the dry cleaners.  This little tool from Duluth Trading will help immensely in bending coat hangers into the shapes needed for whatever preparedness project you are working on.   It bends mild steel up to 3/16” diameter and lets you bend “S” hooks, fishing rod eyes, curtain rod rings and more.  Get a large plastic garbage can and save all your metal coat hangers.  They can be very useful.

 

8.       There is a huge amount of survival and preparedness information on the internet.  Unlike Survival Blog many web sites are here today and gone tomorrow.  (And they don’t have the funds to make an archive CD like Survival Blog.)    So if you find useful information on a site, it’s very important to capture that data.

 

I suggest copying and pasting the data with Word Pad.  Why Word Pad?  It is not that great of a word processor but it is on virtually every computer that uses Microsoft Windows as its operating system.

 

Word Pad has its drawbacks.  The program is hit or miss when it comes to capturing graphics.  I prefer to use the special paste option unformatted text.  Sometimes you lose the graphics, but this is not a big deal with many articles.

 

If you want to capture and entire web page the newer versions of Microsoft Word or Adobe Acrobat 10 can do that. 

 

Whatever method you use to capture survival and preparedness data from the internet, it is very important that you print out a hard copy.  Print the data out onto 8 ½ x 11 inch paper with three holes and put the papers in three ring binders.  That way, if you lose your computer to EMP or other threats you still have the data.  You might even consider purchasing a gun safe rated to take a 1500 degree Fahrenheit fire for 30 minutes to store your three ring binders (and survival and preparedness books) in.  To give your survival and preparedness information even more protection you could wrap your binders and books in several layers of aluminum foil before putting them in the gun safe.

 

This and this are examples of the kind of information you should be making hard copies of.

 

9.       When stockpiling 12 gauge shotgun ammo stockpile only 2 ¾ inch shells.  Why?  Depending on the make and model of the shotgun it may shoot 2 ¾ inch shells, 3 inch shells,  3 ½ inch shells, or all three sizes.  Let’s say you have a 12 gauge shotgun that shoots all three sizes and you stockpile 3 ½ inch shells.  Let’s say you lose that shotgun in a firefight defending your survival retreat.  You scrounge and find another 12 gauge shotgun, but it is only chambered for 2 ¾ inch shotgun shells.  You’re out of luck.

 

10.    When stockpiling pistol ammunition, stockpile the heaviest grain weigh non +P ammunition.  Why?  You may have a pistol that can take the pressures produced by + P ammunition, but you lose it.  You scrounge and find a perfectly good pistol in your caliber that was produced before the introduction of + P ammunition.  Again, you’re out of luck.

 

11.   Get to know the herb andrographis.  It is a very effective treatment for bacterial and viral infections when professional medical care is delayed or outright unavailable.  You might consider getting the seeds and growing it yourself.  Native to India, some claim the use of this herb kept India relatively free from the 1918 flu pandemic.  If you have bleeding disorders or autoimmune disease do not take andrographis.  If you have any serious problem with your heart, lungs, liver, kidneys, or immune system check with and M.D. or D.O. who has knowledge of herbal medicine in addition to standard medical training before taking this herb.  When I feel the flu coming on, 4 capsules every 4 hours knocks it out.  I like the Nature’s Way brand.

 

12.   There are times when you might have to drop your bug out pack and run.  You need something to go on your belt to keep your most essential items.  The Nite Ize Hip Pock-Its Utility Holster is a good option to wear on your belt.  With two of these on your belt, filled with your most essential items, even if you lost you bug out pack you would not be totally naked in terms of survival equipment.

 

 

13.    When bugging out, you are going to run into the “Golden Hoard” leaving the cities en mass.  A few of them will be civil but most will act like savages.  Have something to give them that they can use like these emergency ponchos from Coghlans.  It may help, but you will eventually meet some with whom you will need to exchange gunfire.

 

14.   With # 13 in mind, get some serious medical gear designed to help you survive combat.  Tactical Medical Solutions is a good supplier.  Request their print catalog.  They make some very good medical products to treat gunshot wounds, such as:

 

Quick Clot Combat Gauze

Celox Hemostatic Agent with syringe style applicator for deep wounds  Note: The active ingredient in Celox is chitosan, which is made from shellfish.  If you have ever had an anaphylactic reaction from eating shellfish DO NOT USE THIS PRODUCT.

The Phantom Individual Medical Kit

Active Shooter Response Kit

 

15.   Get a copy of the Tactical Survival Specialties Inc. print catalog.  It has some really hard to find and uncommon survival equipment.   

 

 

16.    Since fire is absolutely essential for survival, you need to exceed the Nez Perce Rule of Threes. 

 

Have the following on your person in a small hip pack on your belt like that listed in item # 12.  In it you will have:

 

1.        A Zippo type wind proof lighter

2.       Several Bic lighters still in the plastic

3.       At least 4 boxes of waterproof matches

4.       A tube of Coghlans Fire Paste

5.       At least 2 Duraflame Firestart Firelighters

6.       Another fire starting tool or method of your choice

7.       Still another fire starting tool of your choice.

Remember, you keep this kit on your belt, not in your bug out pack.  The ability to make fire is survival itself.  Without fire there is no heat to boil water to purify it.  There is no heat for cooking.  Every individual in your group should have a kit like this of their own on their belt.  All the items in the hip pack on your belt should be duplicated in the bug out kit of every member of your group.

 

17.    Since water is absolutely necessary for life for your bug out kit consider the following:

 

1.        A Katadyn small water filter.  This will give you water to drink very fast.

2.       A  SteriPEN water treatment devise

3.       A small metal cup (stainless steel or copper) for boiling water.

 

             In a hip pack on a belt include:

1.       5 of the Ziploc Slider bags-heavy duty freezer type-1 gallon size to collect water in.

2.       Katadyn or other brand of chlorine dioxide tablets.  These tablets take 4 hours to work, but they claim they kill giardia and cryptosporidium

 

18.    If you’re planning on bugging out in a group and you are thinking something like this:  “person 1 will carry survival items A, B, and C. Person 2 will carry items D, E, and F. Person 3 will carry survival items G, H and I.”  I have two words for you.  FORGET IT.  Each person in your bug out group must have all the essentials for survival (water purification, fire making equipment etc.) on their person.  Why?  You could get split up, captured or killed.  If you did the scenario described above some of your essential survival equipment would be gone.

 

19.   If you want a handgun to put in your bug out pack or to wear concealed while bugging out, I suggest the Glock 26.  This is one of the “baby” Glocks.  With its standard 10 round magazine, it is hard to hold.  But put in one of Glock’s extended magazines, and it handles great.  It will accept the Glock 9mm 12 round magazine, the 15 round magazine, the 17 round magazine, the 19 round magazine, and even the 33 round 9mm magazine.  You could wear it in a shoulder rig under a dark shirt with the 17 round magazine in it.  You could have 4 to 8 of the 33 round magazines in a hip pouch if the stuff hit the fan

 

20.    Remember to protect your eyes, hands, and feet.  If you have any major problem with any one or all of these three, your efficiency will drop dramatically.

 

For eye protection, wear the military type goggles that seal out dust and sand.  If you have corrective lenses some companies will make these goggles with your prescription ground into the lens.

For hands, get gloves that are cut resistant, fire resistant, and provide good grip.

For footwear, get something you can walk in for a very long distance (this will require testing) comfortably.  Steel toes are preferred.

All of these items can be found in the Grainger catalog.  Order a print copy of it today.  (The Grainger catalog is loaded with safety equipment, survival equipment, medical supplies and just about anything one would need for their survival retreat, wire, fasteners, etc.)

 

21.   Do you know how to haggle?  Would you know how to work the black market during crisis and/or martial law to get the things you and your family need to survive?  If not, start studying up.  If and when TEOTWAWKI comes, the only economic system operating will be the barter system.

 

22.   Have something in your bug out pack to keep you motivated.  If you’re a Christian, a copy of the Holy Bible Old and New Testament in the King James Version or the English Standard Version would be good.  If you’re a religious Jew, a copy of the Old Testament and some of the other sacred Jewish texts. 

 

Here is a nice product you might store your religious texts in.

 

 

In addition to religious material, a copy of the United States Constitution would be good. Also, some non-fiction books that motivate you would be in order.  I would have any or all of the Pocket Ref books.  They contain vast amounts of useful information.

 

23.   In your bug out pack, keep a map of your state and maps of every state that borders your state.  After and EMP attack the GPS system might be down as well as your hand held GPS devise.  Topographic maps can be useful as well.

 

24.    If you’re looking for a hobby, why not learn how to use the sextant and the slide rule?  If the GPS system goes down, both of these items would be useful.  You can buy slide rules here.  You can buy sextants here and here.

 

 

 

25.   When you get to your survival retreat, if you don’t have some fun from time to time you’ll go crazy.  You need recreational activities that people of all ages can play.  K-Mart sells some low priced, good quality bocce ball sets (in the south we use these sets for lawn bowling).  In bocce ball (lawn bowling) you have a small white ball.  The two players are on opposite sides at equal distance from the small ball.  The players then take turns rolling their two larger balls toward the small white ball.  The player that gets closest to the white ball without touching it wins.  If a player hits the white ball that player automatically loses.  You can play a cut throat version of this in which one player can roll his ball into the other players ball, causing it to hit the white ball, thus the other player loses.

 

Games like chess and go are good as well because they teach strategy, something you will need in defending your survival retreat.  This is especially true for the game go in which you try to control the largest amount of territory with the least number of pieces.

 

26.   Remember, no one has this whole survival/preparedness thing figured out yet.  As such, it would benefit us to drop or at least fall out of love with our preconceived notions of how TEOTWAWKI may happen.  If and when TEOTWAWKI comes, it will most likely come in a form few of us expect.

 

27.   Consilio et animis.   Latin By wisdom and courage.

 

  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Some Interesting Data About the Alleged "Peak Oil" Theory

Kevins Rant on Peak Oil

There is just one problem with the "fossil fuel" theory of oil and coal: There is no hard science to back it up. The same is true for "peak oil". The "peak oil" theory is based on a lot of what I would call "guesstimates".

If petroleum and coal are the remains of dead animals and plants, there are certain things you should find in them that just aren’t there.

Paleontologist Robert Bakker has pretty much proven that dinosaurs were not cold blooded like reptiles and amphibians, but warm blooded and more closely related to birds. Birds like other vertebras have two very important things in their blood: Cyanocobalamin (vitamin B-12) and heme iron (the type of iron that forms hemoglobin which carries oxygen through the body). These substances are not found in oil or coal.

As for the idea that dead plants are the stuff petroleum and coal are made of, consider this: Plants contain chlorophyll. You do not find residue of chlorophyll in petroleum or coal.

The abiotic oil theory is true. Recently a new book on it has been released by Jerome Corsi.

So why are the "pushers" of "Peak Oil" and the "fossil fuel" theory so ardent in their belief? Some of them are true environmental nut jobs who want to send us all to "green hell". (Check out the Green Hell blog).

If you want to drive up the price of any product, if you can convince people that it is going to run out, you can really drive up price.

Consider also that the United States is the Saudi Arabia not only of natural gas, but of energy itself. You can heat high grade coal and it will give off gases. On or about fifty percent of this gas is in the form of hydrogen. On or about thirty percent of this gas is methane. There is no shortage of energy. The problem is that one energy interest gets the government to keep other energy interest from accessing their product. It’s called political whoredom.

That’s enough of my rant. However, do not take my statements on faith. Do you're own research.

A Review of Founders: A Novel of the Coming Collapse by James Wesley Rawles

James Wesley Rawles was kind enough to send me an advanced uncorrected proof of his new book Founders. On the whole I found the book to be a very good read. If you liked Rawle’s books Patriots and Survivors, I think you will like Founders. Like the other books, it is centered around a planet wide economic collapse. You can read my review of Rawle’s previous book Survivors at this link.

The way all three of the books are written, you can start off with any of them-you don’t have to read them in the order they were published to understand the plot of any of the books, although there are some chapters where there is overlap of characters from other books, but none of these overlaps are out of time sequence. For example, in the book Patriots the character Dan Fong gets killed. However, Dan Fong is alive in Founders. There are four major points about Founders I think are worth mentioning.

1. Founders is quite literally a treasure house of great quotations. These quotes appear at the beginning of each chapter.

2. The actions taken in chapter 28 of Founders is a good plan to fix a lot of what is wrong with The United States of America today.

3. The way the characters deal with the invading United Nations troops is very creative. In Founders, the United Nations troops and the traitors in the United States armed forces who join the United Nations forces main activity is looting. Occasionally they can find time to shoot laser guided artillery into elderly people’s homes, simply on the basis of being given a “tip” that resistance fighters are there-they don’t bother to actually check to see if these “tips” are true before firing the laser guided artillery.

4. Chapter 30 ended in a beautiful way, proving God can turn something bad into something good.  . Mr. Rawles has a very good intellect, and I agree with most Rawles principles on preparedness. However, per chapter 30 and a lot of other things Mr. Rawles has published in the past, it’s clear he believes in the “Peak Oil” theory and it’s corollary that petroleum and coal are “fossil fuels” formed from the remains of very old plants and animals.  See my rant against peak oil in the next entry on this blogspot.

Founders also has a tremendous amount of info about OPSEC that can be applied in a situation like tha protrayed in the book.

Founders is a first rate work. If you have not ordered your copy, hold on until the release date a.k.a. the “Book Bomb Day” of September 25th, 2012. This will help the book get a better ranking on the best seller list.

To all of you out there around the planet, keep the faith.

Crass Stupidity, Ignorance and Arrogance, the Muslim Brotherhood, and the Truth about Islam and the Arab Spring

Crass Stupidity, Ignorance and Arrogance, the Muslim Brotherhood, and the Truth about Islam and the Arab Spring

As I begin this on 09-12-2012 A.D. at 09:54 CST, many people have not yet woken up to learn that diplomatic facilities of The United States of America in Libya and Egypt were attacked by forces of the Muslim Brotherhood. Multiple United States citizens were killed.

I cannot help think of a statement made by the religious leader of POTUS 44, Jeremiah Alvesta Wright, Jr. “The chickens have come home to roost!”

Some of you reading this post will undoubtedly think you have this whole “Arab Spring” figured out as you’re a 2 digit I.Q. non-thinker “sheeple” who believes everything you hear in mainstream media. You probably think it’s all about spreading democracy. It is not. The “Arab Spring” is about spreading the stuff that sticks to your shoes and stinks on a hot day.

It has been my contention that the whole purpose of the “Arab Spring” is to destabilize the entire middle east and ultimately produce a third world war to bring about global government AND destroy the state of Israel.

At this point, some of you are thinking “conspiracy theory”. If you are one of those people, go to the top right of the screen and hit the x button, you’re a lost cause.

In The United States of America today, the term “conspiracy theory” has been transformed into a bona fide psychological weapon that is used to stop rational analysis and debate. A man could say “The sky reflects blue light and the grass reflects green light.” Call that man a “conspiracy theorist” and 99 times in 100 he would back off that last statement.

Now let me rant for a few paragraphs.

The United States of America IS NOT a democracy. It is a constitutional republic in which elected representatives make the laws. In a true democracy 51 percent of the people rule and this 51 percent can even vote away the rights of the other 49 person. Democracy is majority rule. A republic is the rule of law. In democracy differs from a dictatorship in only this way: you substitute a51 percent majority to take the place of a dictator.

While going down this line of thought, some of you need to learn that our country’s name is the United States of America, not “America”. America is two continents that stretch from Cape Columbia, Ellesmere Island, Nunavut, Canada 83°8′N to the Águila Islet, Diego Ramirez Islands, Chile 56°32′16’S. We’ve usurped the name of two continents. It’s called imperial hubris.

I think the “United States” part of The United States of America is left off purposely, because originally state citizenship took precedence over federal citizenship and federal citizenship only applied to citizens when they travelled outside the United States of America. (Say this and some will try to associate you with the sovereign citizen’s movement, whose member’s murder police for “tyrannical acts” like giving them a traffic ticket.)

Now back to topic.

I support the right of the State of Israel to exist. The current government in power in the United States of America does not. Judge them only by their actions and not their speech and this becomes obvious.

In case there are any Jew hating bigot’s reading this post let me say two things:

1. Every loser on planet Earth tries to blame the Jews for their own problems.

2. If you’re thinking “Swindle is a Jew” you would be wrong. The patriarch of our family had the last name “Otts”. Do your research and see what country that comes from.

Now, if you’re one of those “conspiracy theorist” labeling people, and you’re still here, please do as I said and hit the x button at the top right.

The plan for world government has been in place before the United States Civil War, and the plan involves having 3 world wars. (For those of you who label ideas like this as “conspiracy theory” I have news you’re probably not aware of: there have only been 2 world wars so far. There are these things called books, and you can learn facts like that if you actually read them.)

Mr. Assad in Syria is not a nice person. But if Assad falls, a Muslim Brotherhood government will take over, and world war 3 is on. Yet the mainstream news all of you “conspiracy theory” labelers get you “facts” from will not tell you this. Instead democracy is the bromide to medicate all the world's ills.

THERE CAN BE NO REAL FREEDOM UNDER ISLAM. I am not of the opinion that all or even most Muslims are bad. In fact, most of them are good people who want the same thing other people on planet Earth want-a good life, a family, and worthwhile goals to pursue. However, the Islamic faith is incompatible with individual rights and property rights. Families living in Islamic countries that go abroad for 6 months or so often come home to find their homes occupied by other families.

ISLAM IS NOT A RELIGION OF PEACE. If one actually takes time to read the Koran, it’s filled with statements that say, in various ways; kill the non-Muslims or “infidels” as they are called. In Christianity, there are no cases where Jesus, any of Jesus’s Disciple’s or the Apostles called for the murder of non-Christians, nor do they support forced conversions (which aren’t real conversions) as the Muslims do. Non-Muslim’s either convert or are murdered by Muslims. Sometimes they get off by “paying the tax” a tax placed on non-Muslims in some Muslim countries.

The cause cited for the murder of United States diplomatic personnel in Libya and Egypt is a film that portrayed Mohammed in a negative way. IT’S CALLED FREE SPEECH. SOME MUSLIMS WOULD DO WELL TO LOOK INTO IT.

In the film The Last Temptation of Christ actor William Dafoe plays the part of Jesus Christ. In this vile, wretched piece of filth, Jesus is portrayed as a homosexual. Christians were rightly upset, but I don’t recall any of burning down theaters or killing movie directors. Yet within the past few weeks some U.S. Congressman and Senators are calling for investigations into so called “radical Christians”.


THE MUSLIM BROTHERHOOD IS A TERRORIST ORGANIZATION. Period. Again, observe what they DO, not what they say. Notice who they associate with. We need about ten thousand modified Hugo Stiglitz set for “Muslim Brotherhood” instead of “Nazi” If that sounds like an ugly statement it is because it is an ugly statement. Sometimes life is ugly.

One of the authors who have had more influence on my life than just about all the rest is Robert J. Ringer. Ringer points out that arrogance and ignorance go hand and hand, where one is the other will always be.

Notice those who claim to have this Arab Spring/Muslim brotherhood figured out figured out. They don’t look below the surface nor do they look at the big picture. Then they tell you “it’s a very unique situation. Per Robert J. Ringer “unique” means “one of a kind”. There are no degrees to uniqueness. A thing is either one of a kind or not.

Yes, I have been somewhat of a horse’s ass to some of you in this article. I do not apologize. Why? WE, the rest of us who are no longer drinking the kool-aid need YOU to get on the wagon and start looking below the surface and stop being naïve sheep. In that spirit I say this: Do not believe anything in this article is true because I say it. Likewise, do not believe everything in this article is false because someone else says it is false or labels it a “conspiracy theory”. Check it out for yourself-do your own research.

Knowledge IS the killer of fear.

A Review of Survivors: A Novel of the Coming Collapse by James Wesley Rawles

A Review of Survivors: A Novel of the Coming Collapse by James Wesley Rawles

James Wesley Rawles runs Survival Blog,the best preparedness/survival web site on planet Earth. The web address is www.survivalblog.com

James Wesley Rawles is also a first class writer. He has written a second fiction book, Survivors: A Novel of the Coming Collapse. If you liked Mr. Rawles first book Patriots, you will like Survivors. While the books are alike in some ways, there are some significant differences. This article will compare and contrast the books.

Many of the characters who were in Rawles first novel Patriots are also in Survivors. (The books are written in such a way that you do not have to read Patriots first to get what’s going on.)

For those of you who read Rawles’s first book, Patriots, you know that while it is a work of fiction, it is essentially a training manual as well. You learned something new in every chapter. The knowledge base Rawles possesses is incredible.

Survivors focuses a little more on the human side of survival during a TEOTWAWKI type event. Still, this book has a lot of good information in it. There are three chapters in the book that contain such high quality data that those three chapters are worth the price of the entire book. (I’m not going to tell you what chapters they are, as the purpose of this article is to get you to go out and buy a copy of Survivors.)

Survivors, like Patriots begins during a worldwide financial meltdown. Patriots focused mostly on what happens in the United States as a result of a global financial meltdown. In Survivors however, Rawles paints a very good picture of what happens all over the planet when the global financial meltdown occurs. There are characters who live in Afghanistan, Western Europe, Central America, and the United States. This is what really sets the book apart. It shows the financial meltdown not just from the perspective of a United States citizen, but from people in other countries. This brings us to the main character.

The main character in the book is a combat hardened veteran of the war in Afghanistan. As the worldwide economy collapses, he finds it hard to get home. What makes his situation worse is he has a bride back in the U.S.A. waiting to marry him. He manages to hop a German military transport to Germany. From there he has to hike and bike his way to the western coast of Europe. He then has to get a boat to England, not an easy task in a worldwide economic crash.

His situation gets harder. When he gets to England he wants to get a boat going directly to the U.S.A. But with rioting in major U.S. cities and large scale social breakdown, no one with a boat wants to go to the United States.

Our hero does manage to get a boat ride from England to Central America. He then has to go on foot and horseback from Central America to his home in the Four Corners area of the United States.
As you might imagine, during his trek across Europe, during his boat ride across the Atlantic, and during his trek from central America to the Four Corners regions of the United States, our hero has a number of incidents with thugs (and pirates during the Atlantic Ocean crossing.) This isn’t a great problem while he is in Western Europe, because most of the civilian population there do not have guns. Our hero does-only a pistol, but a make generally considered to be the best in the world. During the Atlantic Ocean crossing this pistol is put to good use against pirates. When our hero arrives in Central America things get much more complicated, as most everyone has guns.

While the main character is making his trek from Afghanistan to the United States, the other characters are trying to survive. Some of them form retreat communities. Others find ways to open businesses that give the citizens what they want, as there is no excessive government to speak of, at least for a while.

The economy changes into one where there are essentially three currencies: Barter item, gold coins, and silver coins.

Remember the previous "at least for a while" ? In Survivors, a so called legitimate government arises that is allied with the United Nations. (One character in the book stated something very funny. He said essentially any government that actually has to call itself the “legitimate” government probably isn’t legitimate.) Using United Nations troops and United Sates troops who are traitors or are so ill informed they believe they are doing the right thing (they’re still traitors.) the new “legitimate government” tries to impose it’s will.

Pretty much all firearms and other equipment that would be useful for resisting a criminal “United Nations” government are banned. If not turned in by a certain time, any person caught with such weapons after that time is summarily executed. This goes right along with real life United Nations standard operating procedures. In real life, United Nations "peace keepers" have executed people for simply violating curfews.

The new and “legitimate” government does what all criminal governments do-it steals from the citizens. How does the “legitimate” government in Survivors do this? By re-introducing fiat money. Remember, in addition to being counterfeit, fiat money is also a hidden form of taxation via printing more worthless paper.

With that last sentence in mind, Mr. Rawles chose the perfect first name for the president of the new “legitimate” government: Maynard!

For those readers unfamiliar with economics, there is a school of thought in economics called the Keynesian school of economics, named after economist John Maynard Keynes. This school of economics favors big government, massive intervention in the free market, and prefers fiat money. Fiat money is backed by nothing. It’s money because the government says it is.

The new “legitimate” government uses the United Nation’s troops and the traitors in the U.S. military to “pacify” They begin with four states. I actually live in one of those first four states the “legitimate” government chose to be “pacified” in the novel.. That state is Alabama.

(Just a personal comment. If a situation like the one described in Survivors, ever really occurs, unless a “legitimate” government is willing to use nuclear, biological, chemical, scalar weapons, or totally defoliate all the crops, trying to “pacify” Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, Northern Florida, Georgia, Tennessee, Arkansas, South Carolina, and Texas is going to be.......interesting.)

Perhaps the most important thing in Survivors that every person that is into preparation and survival should pay close attention to is Rawles description of the emergence of organized criminal gangs that loot entire towns. I think Rawles description is a very accurate one. Essentially what he describes is modern day brigandage. (Brigandage is a crime committed a lot in the past. You see it in movies sometimes. Gangs ride in on horseback, loot the village, rape the women, kill all the men, and then burn the village down.) In a TEOTWAWKI situation, the probability of the emergence of organized criminal gangs that loot entire towns is essentially one hundred percent. In fact, I would not be surprised if various criminal organizations are already planning for this type of activity so they can take maximum advantage of a TEOTWAWKI event.

In the book, the leader of this criminal organization is very smart. He starts out his criminal career by forming a gang and doing home invasions (which Mr. Rawles and I both believe is going to be a very common crime in the near future) but as the economy crashes, the leader manages to steal military vehicles, including A.P.C.’s (Armored Personnel Carrier). The gang grows and eventually reaches the point it can raid towns with populations of twenty thousand or more.

AGAIN-This type of organized criminal looting is essentially a sure thing if there is a TEOTWAWKI situation such as the power grid going down or full scale economic collapse.


I said the beginning of this blog entry that Survivors focuses more on the human side of survival. Let me explain what I mean.

Patriots is a novel that had huge appeal to people who were already into preparedness and survival. Patriots presented fictionalized data on how to fight a war of resistance (guerilla warfare) against a non-legitimate U.S. puppet government backed by the United Nations-a global criminal organization, and traitors from the U.S. military who join the U.N. forces. Data like this can be a bit heavy for people who are exploring getting into preparedness. I have no doubt that many people who read Survival Blog gave a copy of Patriots to someone they care for who isn’t preparing hoping it would induce that someone they care for to start preparing. If I were laying odds, that might have worked 1 time in 9.

Survivors is the book you should give to that person who will not prepare. Why you ask? The book shows what a TEOTWAWKI situation would look like through the eyes of the people living it in, but it does so in a way that is a bit more palatable for the average person, for the non-prepper.

In Patriots Mr. Rawles simply lays out the honest truth of what a TEOTWAWKI situation would look like.. In Patriots there is even one example of cannibalism. For a lot of people, this is too much. Truth can be an ugly thing. Most people really don’t like the truth. Most people prefer the soothing comfort of the lie.

In simple terms, Patriots may be too much of a psychological shock to the non-prepper, because non-peppers are mostly non-informed. Let me explain.

The average person, the non prepper, watches their 30 minute local newscast and a 30 minute national newscast, and they think they know what’s going on in the world.

Not so for the prepper. Just to get a basic idea of what’s going on in the world we use the net to study economics, geopolitics, worldwide food levels, disease outbreaks, and even praxeology.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Praxeology

How many non prepper’s or even professional investment advisors look at the Baltic Dry Goods Index?

Mass media portrays prepper’s as mostly nut jobs, gun nuts, or associates preparedness with race hate organizations. In a small number of cases, these portrayals are correct. But most of the presentations of prepper’s are smear jobs. I’ll give you a good example.

James Wesley Rawles did an interview with a newspaper, I think it was the Los Angeles Times. Rawles told the newspaper he opposed racism because judging someone solely by their race is fundamentally irrational. RAWLES EVEN STATES THIS ON HIS WEB SITE! So guess what the Los Angeles Times does? On their internet addition on the same page with Mr. Rawles picture and article link there is a link to a story about some guy convicted of a crime who was a member of some race hate organization!

Now, taking those facts into account, consider the fact that most people who live in the first world operate under the normalcy bias (see link)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Normalcy_bias

and have no concept of what black swann event are or how and why they occur.

How many people who live in the first world have really experienced hunger? In the United States, how many people have actually ever had to go 48 or 72 hour without any food. Remember, when I said Patriots event had an incident of cannibalism in it? Like the looting of towns by organized criminal gangs, in a TEOTWAWKI situation, cannibalism is going to happen (and, like in the book Patriots, the people who do it should be shot.) But to even think about this is usually too much for your average person.

One thing I want to be clear on though: I AM NOT saying Survivors is some kind of watered down version of Patriots. If anyone tells you that, you can be certain they have not read Survivors. But Survivors is not quite the shock to a non-prepper that Patriots can be. Survivors is a better book to give to the non prepper than Patriots if you are trying to get the non prepper to start preparing.

If you have not read Survivors get out and buy a copy. If you do long haul driving there is an unabridged version available on CD.

I even think there is movie potential for Survivors, provided you could find a producer and a film company not overly concerned about political correctness.

I’m currently in the process of reading Rawles next book Founders, scheduled to be released later this year. So far it’s looking very good. From what I’ve read so far, it seems to be a cross between Patriots and Survivors. I will write a review here when I’ve completed reading it.

To all of you out there around the planet, keep the faith.