Randi Rhodes Forums

Where do preppers live?

Not in Brazil or Uganda

Kind of a weird addition to the roster of so-called American exceptionalism.

Now, the problem with any chart like that is we never know whether it results from the tendency of certain groups to over-report vs. other groups to under-report. I.e. given the language of the site, for example, maybe there ARE 'preppers' in Brazil, but they're not going there to put in a pushpin.

But, I have seen other data besides that map (and that article) that does seem to indicate the U.S. has the largest numbers of 'preppers' in the world.

The fact that the two other pushpins are in the UK and Australia make me think one thought right out of the cranium which I can't repress: just what the heck is wrong with WASPs, anyway?

http://www.lastmyth.com/

During the first dozen years of the twenty-first century–from Y2K through 2012–apocalyptic anticipation in America has leapt from the margins of society and into the mainstream. Today, nearly 60 percent of Americans believe that the events foretold in the book of Revelation will come true. But it’s not just the Christian Right that is obsessed with the end of the world; secular readers hungry for catastrophe have propelled fiction and nonfiction books about peak oil, global warming, and the end of civilization into best-sellers, while Doomsday Preppers has become one of the most talked-about new reality TV shows on television. How did we come to live in a culture obsessed by the belief that the end is nearly here?

The Last Myth explains why apocalyptic beliefs are surging within the American mainstream today. Tracing the development of our expectation of the end of the world from the beginnings of history through the modern era, and examining the global challenges facing America today, authors Mathew Barrett Gross and Mel Gilles combine history, current events, and psychological and cultural analysis to reveal the profound influence of apocalyptic thinking on America’s past, present, and future.

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http://www.gjfreepress.com/ARTICLE/2012 ... 6/1059/RSS

I have to admit that I was seduced at one time by the whole Mayan 2012 calendar business — that there might be a great planetary/cosmic reckoning in December of this year.

It's been heralded and hyped in dozens of books over the last decade, along with a booming survivalist industry, and it's certainly not difficult to imagine some crescendo of dire problems in the offing with all the trends that beset us: climate change and extreme weather (whether “natural” or man-made, or a combination of both, it's definitely happening), peak oil, disappearing fisheries, overstressed fresh water supplies, declining crop yields, new viruses, antibiotic resistance, solar flares, economic mayhem, nuclear proliferation... and all these celebrities dying young! It's fuel enough to power even the moderately paranoid.

But a new book goes a long way in debunking the imminent apocalypse, “The Last Myth: What the Rise of Apocalyptic Thinking Tells Us About America” (Prometheus Books; 2012) by Matthew Gross and Mel Gilles. (Disclosure: The authors are friends of mine from Moab). It is superbly written and researched, far exceeding my expectations.

The authors trace the lineage of apocalyptic thinking back to the ancient Hebrews after they suffered a series of invasions and calamities that, along with the novel influence of Zoroastrianism, inspired a new linear concept of history — that there was a beginning, and there will also be a climactic end, to human civilization.

Previously, traditional cultures viewed the world cyclically — a succession of deaths and rebirths, just like the seasons, changing regularly but stable and predictable, with humankind but a more sophisticated species of fauna in the natural world. But now, history had a new meaning: Humankind was on an evolutionary path beyond nature.

Christianity inherited the meme, and nowadays many Christians are convinced that the Tribulation and Rapture are nigh, as more secular-minded people are equally convinced that global warming, nuclear pollution, a solar knockout of the global electrical grid, or mutant bird flu are the four horseman of the coming apocalypse. The Mayan calendar, according to New Age folk, merely establishes a likely date for the beginning of a great transition, when a new phoenix of enlightened consciousness will arise from the ashes of the old order.

The end of the world has been scheduled many times before, of course, and all these dates, such as the “Great Disappointment” of 1844, have been postponed. Every decade some preacher sets a new date, the flock prepares for the Rapture, selling off assets and neglecting to milk the cows — and nothing happens. The 2012 date is just as phantasmagoric, so we can all stop hoarding gold and ammunition.

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Right from Happy Hour to Heard On The Show. Hour 3 today!

I heard that. We be material.

There are times when the "You Know What" really hits the fan. Look at "First World" Europe. Even as recently as the 1990s, ethnic cleansing was being used. Look at Anne Frank and her family. If I remember the book, The Diary of Anne Frank, correctly, her father bought a whole truckload of cabbage to stock up with as a food supply in the attic. This tale of Survialists didn't end well. Sadly, the term "Never Again" is no iron clad insurance that it won't ....

Go ahead, make fun of the "Comet Boys". Ridicule the "End of Days" folks. Zombies are just a bad horror movie plot line, no ...... ? We don't need no "stinking guns". We'll all just sing "Kum Ba Yah" right?

No, I don't own a bunker. But I do keep a back pack with four days rations (along with clothing) in my car. No guns, however.

IF the big one hits, I doubt I'll be driving back from San Diego to Riverside (collapsed over passes). I have no doubt that the walk back home will be "memorable".

There is a subtle difference between preparedness, and insanity. A backpack with some supplies makes sense. That is preparedness. It's similar to keeping a first aid kit, a can of gas, or a few bottles of water. Preppers are in a completely different mindset. They are hoarding supplies - months and years worth - for just themselves. They have no intention on sharing. They are going to shoot anyone that approaches them. Preppers are insane, and if the big one hits, they will die just like everyone else.

i'm not so sure i agree and i'm not a prepper

makes sense to me that some people will be immune to say radiation or whatever.

we'll just take the dead preppers backpack and home.

it's all good.

My point exactly Lucy. In normal, everyday disasters, someone will survive. Lots of someones. Lots and lots of people. Some will be almost unaffected. But, Preppers act like whatever it is, it will be The Mega Apocalypse. It will make the quake in Port au Prince look like a day in the park. All of civilization will end. There will be no response. It's over. Fini.

Well, if something that big happens, the Preppers are going to be dead too. Or at least wish they were. Having a bunker with a years supply of food, water, and weapons out the ying yang will not stop a planet killer from taking their souls too. Something with that much finality will catch up to them no matter how well prepared they are. These are mentally ill people caught up in fear, and possibly dangerous to themselves and their families.

They will not become the next Adam and Eve. Instead, they will become part of the geological record with numerous interesting artifacts for future scientists to ponder. If they really want to prepare, they should join the local fire department. They can put their shoulder to the wheel and help push. They are selfish narcissists.

No one's immune. If you get a dose over a certain threshold, you will get radiation sickness. Below that, you might be fine.

Here's the thing. What people like Ann Coulter don't get is everyone exposed to radiation will experience mutations. 99% of those mutations will be detrimental to your health or that of your descendants.

Sure, a tiny fraction of 1% of those mutations might be beneficial.

It won't be the ability to shoot energy beams from your eyes.



But it could be growing some additional organ or body structure which now makes you more adapted to the post-apocalyptic environment.

Yeah, post the radioactive landscape, there will be human survivors, but I predict in a few generations they won't look like us, anymore, due to this.

The other bigger problem Carl Sagan wrote about in the 1980s: nuclear winter. The good news? It will cancel out global warming. The bad news? Human agriculture will fail all over the planet.

I hope one of those mutations is photosynthesis, or something else that helps us survive THAT problem. Eventually, bunkered rations will run out ... and then what?

I can tell you a lot abou the mindset because the raw truth is I came her down that path. A lot of the counter arguments here don't cover the bulk of the prepper mindets. Nuclear devstation occurs to some and they'll stock iodine and prep salt baths and such. Some have medical training and will even go so far as to prepare for full blood treatment and bypass and such to filter out and increase the likelihood of survival.

But without inviting anyone in who will go nutso on the argument I'll tell you what they'd say. Your biggest categories of preppers fall into a couple of categories. Some are very fact-based amateur military strategists. These include folks with actual military experience up to special forces and command level time served. Others just make this shit up from reading everything from Clancy and Pieczenic to Field Manuals and conspiracy texts from supposed ex-intelligence types. Also in this category is every military fanboy who gathers like a satellite around those who know enough about this stuff and talk it in an influential way from compunds all the way down to the neighborhood drinking hole.

The other big category, not accounting for overlap, is the Spiritualists. This is everything from hardcore Christian doomsdayers to the sheep on the couch watching late-night cable prophets of all stripe. Also in this category are followers of smaller religions and sects as well as cults, again not accounting for overlap. Pagan traditions don't by-and-large go for survivalism but I'll tell you a lot of people in that wide group do go in for it, and there are a good numberof well-organized pagan groups who consider themselves vry well-prepared for one kind of doomsday scenario or another.

Recall the altar found in the backyard of Giffords shooter Jared Loughner. It was reminiscent of certain sects who follow the old Norse traditions and I can tell you from personal knowledge that if it were possible to comb the hills and valleys of Arizona you'd probably find a good couple dozen survivalist compounds of followers of similar traditions, many also following the racial purity model. Again, overlap.

What a lot of these folks will tell you is basically some form of the argument that the world is in a delicate balance.

(My phone is overloaded here. Continued in next post)

Running off at the mouth, continued-

The delicate balance. Yes, this concept encapsulates what I'd unauthoritatively say is the broadest category of prepper mindets. For any of them there may be those who espouse nuclear war, deadly meteor, Ed Dames' killshot solar flare theory, or some other manner of cataclysmic tragedy. But many of those and most of the rest of preppers seem to believe in the delicate balance and have some theory of how that balance might be or maybe is already in the process of tipping. Maybe climate change is going to make conditions unliveable suddenly or gradually. Maybe governmental conspiracy will lead up to destabilization of nations leaving people to fend for themselves. Some actually continue to argue the limited nuclear war theory that major population centers will be hit but through some machination nobody can or does launch everything and areas of the world remain liveable. And spiritualists propose everything from a long reading of Revelations taking tens, hundreds, or thousands of years to survive, similar world shifts from many other traditions including native american, asian, and some African - not to exclude any.

And with many preppers the arguments are interchangeable. Like a shell game you argue against one theory and they'll shift right on over to the next. "If Jesus doesn't get us HAARP surely will! Angels have harps! Maybe that's what God intended all along!" and there's no telling from which to which they might shift. That was one of the fun things about hanging around Occupy was seeing new and exciting combinations of these theories in the dark tents in the corners.

In watching some of the episodes of Preppers, I thought one of the better strategies for handling any future crisis was the one that was proposed by the guy who knows what plants are edible along the LA river. He regularly walks the river and knows the locals. He even plans to bring items to trade when (and if) he has to use the river as an escape route. Much better than the Texas couple who had built a Fort Drum out of steel cargo containers and are presighting the surrounding landscape with their guns. They (the Texas couple) were only a 45 minute drive from a major city. They won't have enough bullets.

Someone does need to tell the woman on a Prepper's episode with a two years supply of store bought spagetti that there is such a thing as self life on food. It has to be used, or it will reach a point of being inedible.

It is an interesting show.

Based on personal experience with assembling "earthquake supplies," I can tell you it's absurdly difficult to get reliable information about reasonable and realistic "shelf life." What everyone seems to agree on is that the "use by" and "best if consumed by" dates are fairly arbitrary, and most spring from a couple of states that have laws requiring expiration dates on ALL consumables - even water. (I seem to recall New Jersey is one of those states.)

Anyway, to be able to sell their products nationally or regionally, the manufacturers come up with somewhat arbitrary dates, and because at least one of those aforementioned state laws also specifies that none of them can be more than two years after manufacture/processing/packaging, that's what many of them use.

There are a variety of survivalist-type sites out there that claim to offer more realistic and researched shelf-life estimates, but some of them seem to be no less guess-work. The FDA has a site that purports to offer the same sort of info, but their info seems to coincidentally hew to the manufacturer's dates.

But if you can find a site that claims canned peas are good if kept for 5 years, chances are I can find another site that claims 3 years is the absolute maximum, and 2 years the best choice for safety. And so it goes down the list of various foods.

I basically rotate all my food supplies out every 26 - 28 months, but it's an extremely expensive process. (Food banks in California are prohibited from accepting donations of out-of-date food items, even if only by a month.) And since I don't eat on a day-to-day basis the vast majority of the foods I set aside for emergencies (canned chicken, canned meats, and the like), I have to find someone on the street who will take it, or I just toss it.

I also drain my 55 gallon water drum and refill that every 2 years, and also have to rotate out a lot of the medical supplies. (Even Band-Aids stored in their unopened, new containers but in the high heat of SoCal summers tend to dry up and shrivel away - or at least their wrappers do, thus eliminating their status as sterile.)

I have supplies more than adequate for 4 people and 3 dogs (and we'll just eat the damned cat), to last for 2-3 weeks. But it's damned expensive to have to throw away that much stuff every couple of years and buy new/fresh.

The REAL solution for Preppers



Generosity is the habit of giving freely without expecting anything in return.
It can involve offering time, assets or talents to aid someone in need.
It sure beats greed!