Preparedness for when

Have you seen what is happening in Venezuela? The government claims that the opposition have been buying up all food and provisions and now there is a toilet roll shortage :eek:

Not in my brassicas, The Thrilla; I don't bother growing any as the pigeons/ cabbage white caterpillars eat them all.

Discretion is always the better part of valour, particularly when encountering persons who are younger, faster, better-armed and more aggressive than we are ourselves.

Howsomever, in certain circumstances, robbing a person of their critical resource of water, food, shelter is as good as killing them, so would you risk fighting back or allow "them" to take what was critical to your survival?

Would you fight to protect your last morsel of food, or that of your child or grandchild? I suspect so, which is why there is nothing in nature more dangerous than a mother with young. Even small, frail herbovirous species will perform acts of incredible courage to protect their young. Homo sap is no different.

In the book After Light, Alex Scarrow is writing EOTWAWKI + 10 years. He thought it would be more interesting to write the sequel set several years on, rather than immediately post-apocalyse events in Last Light.

I found it entirely believable that the roving gangs of violent looters would thin out over time, to the point where they became a non-menace. If you got a large group of (say) mainly young men on the rampage, several things would probably happen.

There would be a steady attrition of their numbers caused by confrontations with other groups, whether homesteaders or other gangs. If twenty looters raid a home and one gets a wound which festers and causes his death, there are nineteen looters next time. Each cache of food or supplies has to be shared among the surviving looters. A big stash might last them days or a few weeks, then they have to risk another confrontation with the potential for death or injury. And so on, ad infinitum.

With no medical care, many injuries would be deadly or lead to a permanant disability. Which would likely cause the crippled party to be abandoned by the mob. Such groups fight among themselves and there would be losses and spilts in groups over leadership.

Ultimately, a group based on a raiding lifestyle, unless backed up by a tribe of spouses, elders and youngsters in a safe(ish) area, would run out of viable numbers to exist as raiders and would eventually die out.

There is also the inevitable attrition of the supply of lootable items, whether salvage from the current era, or "new" resources such as livestock or crops. The raiders could sweep down on a farm, or a succession of farms, and attack. They could barbeque the only cow and run away with all the grain, but they'd eventually leave a wasteland behind them where there was nothing left to steal, and their choices would be to work or starve.

MrsLurcherwalker wrote: »

I know folks who don't even have the next meal indoors for today, let alone a store of non perishables just in case. In the event of a societal breakdown I think we would all be at equal risk, no matter how prepared we are, no matter how skilled and forward looking, no matter how many ways we know to defend ourselves and no matter how big or sharp out weapons are. If a mob is determined to take - then take they will and no action of yours will stop them. I see it as sense to make preparations for bad weather events, acts of terrorism that occur and might mean that you were confined indoors for a finite period, illness outbreaks that put you at risk if you mix with Joe Public, but I'm not going to tackle even a small and puny looter/housebreaker who has a weapon, I'd much rather say take what you want and leave us alone, our lives are worth so very much more than our stores.

This is one of the reasons that my stores aren't all in one place and some are a lot more obvious than others.
I'm not aware of any preps that would let you successfully deal with a mob, other than get out of their way if you can.

I think that we have to be realistic in what we could do to defend us and ours and I don't think arming ourselves to the teeth and looking scary would do anything in extreme situations than make others see us as the threat to be dealt with first and then they would take whatever they wanted to. I have a penknife, as previously stated, and that is only because it is useful and has gadgets that are useful, in my preps there is NO room for guns, big knives, crossbows or any other weaponry you can name, I couldn't hurt anyone, couldn't kill anyone for any reason, no matter what happened so I'm possibly a failure at being a prepper but I can say I'll do my damdest to survive and keep my family safe by any other methods than violence.

I'd count that as a success as a prepper. It happens there are several weapons around Nuatha's abode, Japanese swords and staff from my days as a martial artist, a broadsword and some throwing axes from reenactment type things. I don't regard any of them as "preps" nor are they likely to be useful survival tools. I've yet to see a knife that would cut large quantities of kindling the way an axe or heavy marchete will - far more useful survival tools IMO.

The_Thrilla wrote: »

If you are going to hit the road and walk for miles, you would have to practise some walking. Apart from anything else, walking boots need not be friendly. You would at least have to break them in. A lot of people sneer at the people who 'do not have the right footwear,' whom they meet in the Lake District or the West Highland Way. In reality, you start off with a proper pair of walking boots; then, after the blisters come, you change into a pair of trainers or tennis shoes, and walk the next hundred miles in those. That's happened to me often enough. That's why you need to practise these things before they happen on the real run, so problems like this can be ironed out.

And even good walking boots properly broken in may not be the best solution for some situations. I used to regularly walk Hadrian's Wall, the last 20 miles tended to be walked in good quality trainers because I don't find mountain boots that good for walking tarmac.

For some reason multiquote decided to drop your previous post which I found both interesting and thought provoking - Thank you.

I hope 2tonsils is ok, this is a very worrying piece of information coming out of Greece

IT HAPPENS NOW: the Greek government decided to close public television with a simple announcement from the government representative Simos Kedikoglou! neoliberal fascists eliminate every democratic process with the false argument of unjustified waste of money at the same time journalists of public TV have been fired, wages have been cut, and no one is researching the big capital establishment which controls the big private media and waste plenty of money at the expense of Greek taxpayers to maintain the propaganda.

Spread this everywhere.
http://adiritos.blogspot.gr/

UPDATE: police forces outside the public TV building in Thessaloniki and Patra also!

Butterfly_Brain wrote: »

I hope 2tonsils is ok, this is a very worrying piece of information coming out of Greece

IT HAPPENS NOW: the Greek government decided to close public television with a simple announcement from the government representative Simos Kedikoglou! neoliberal fascists eliminate every democratic process with the false argument of unjustified waste of money at the same time journalists of public TV have been fired, wages have been cut, and no one is researching the big capital establishment which controls the big private media and waste plenty of money at the expense of Greek taxpayers to maintain the propaganda.

Spread this everywhere.
http://adiritos.blogspot.gr/

UPDATE: police forces outside the public TV building in Thessaloniki and Patra also!

It's up on Zer0 H£dg3, too:

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2013-06-11/greek-recovery-may-no-longer-be-televized-following-transitory-shut-down-national-br?page=1

Just shy of 4,500 reads atm. I do hope 2tonsils and her OH are OK. She was going to be in Greece til the end of this month, wasn't she, then off to her new job? I do hope she can drop by and let us know how it's going.

Is anyone else getting the feeling that we're seeing the wheels start to come off the bus? Obfustication of the facts left, right and centre and lots of "happy talk" like shale oil and bread and circuses all over the place.

And "pre-arresting" potential protesters in Lunnon today? Since when had intent-to-protest been an arrestable offence? Oh, silly me, they might do criminal damage and affray. Well, so might any crowd of footie fans on the way across town to the stadium, but no one tries to mass-arrest them just in case.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/jun/11/anti-g8-protest-headquarters-london-riot-police

Almost as much as the miners' strike. The LibCons must be wetting themselves with sheer excitement.

I went to the allotment for just shy of two hours. I planted more beans. Beans are important. So are world events, but I can only influence one of those.

RAS, seems a good idea to me, having multiple small bank accounts. I fully-expect that we will see more banks in trouble (and lumpier mattresses, lol). Interest rates are sooo pitiful that losing some is hardly a disincentive, is it?

There is apparently a run on A.m.z sales of George Orwell's 1984. Interesting, and a good thing. More people need to do some hard thinking and be prepared to hold TPTB to account.

Right, off to read websites and blogs choc full of seditious economics and related matters. I'll probably give a fly-by wave to the secret service whilst there................:p