Do We Have Your Full Attention Yet?- Part 1, by Old Bobbert

Let me get your attention by sharing this fact: “Life expectancy is going up everywhere except in the U.S.” This opening statement is supposed to be the “grabber” and should make the reader want to read the entire article.

Okay! Here we go with your bad news of the day in two parts. The first part is short, simple, and terrifying. It’s the one liner in quotes above. And the second part is worse yet. This part says that the life expectancy news today will be worse tomorrow, and every American is subject to the same bad news. However, there is good news available in the next line.

The quoted one liner above is not quite entirely true.

Dealing With Huge Volume of Information Available

The specific end goal of this article to to help you, the reader, become better able to help yourself deal with the huge volume of information constantly being made available to us in our everyday lives. Towards that desired goal, I have chosen to create this message in a conversational tone plus a narrative style. I am trying to write for two types of readers– both the experienced and helpful prepper and also the eager but still very new members of our larger group of preppers. All readers of either type, of course, want to learn about themselves and how to better deal with the expected (SHTF) incident/event. You old adventurers will benefit through adding to your skill set with new ways to help others gain expertise.

My hope is that you, the reader, will read carefully with a pencil handy, making notes of agreement and especially notes of concern, ever willing to post comments, liven up our discourse, and upgrade these efforts for the betterment of all of us. So let us begin to scale the challenging mountain of concern and hopefulness common to all preppers.

Evaluate Data Offered As News

You need, and have a right to, a better way to evaluate the data being offered as news. Data is usually portrayed as accurate, well-meaning content.

You also need, and have a right to, a better way to discern the truths buried deep in the mass of lies and half truths constantly being paraded to our every sense. There are many writers whose every intent is to cause us to make a judgmental error that will mean a financial, political, or social advance for someone else, usually a someone about whom we have no idea of who or why.

Remember back at the beginning when I shared the quote? You see, that sad fact of a shortened life expectancy due to overweight, casual or serious dope usage, road rage accidents, a major city homicide victim, poor health care, or whatever is only partially true. The report appears to have been well crafted so as to appear to a causal reader to be a well researched documentary built on relevant and authenticated news. There is in it what seems to me to be a planned lack of numbers and dates and any type of pertinent backup data.

Illustrated Bad Situation

This is a good spot in this article to illustrate exactly what we do not want to be your situation. All is well at home today. You’re safe for another day. And then you say, “Honey, where’s the TV remote? The ball game is starting.” That is what many do, say, and believe, and it is wrong and dangerous.

Be Careful and Cautious Accepting Information For Decisions

My secondary goal of this article is to show you that we, you and I and all of us, must always be careful and cautious in selecting or accepting the information we will be using as the base for our decisions. We must look at other opinions and other information sources. We must use the documented and verified experiences of others who have traveled our particular paths successfully. Additionally, and very importantly, we will put great emphasis on using a series of lists to survive the preparedness process, and most surely we should always rely on prayer.

Words Arranged To Mislead You

I am working earnestly to show you how words can be carefully arranged and placed so as to read any way, convey any thought, that the writer is being paid to use to mislead you. Their hope is to cause you to allow or follow a policy that with more correct information you would strongly resist and never follow.

Let’s continue this lesson on reality planning/acquiring more information. We can start with the awkward and innocent looking word “assume”. It is not a a nice word. In our everyday, trusting, liberal society, the word can be translated as being “as – you – me”. That’s sorta cute. But in my world of real life wordage, it can more readily be translated very differently to mean “ass out of u and me”.

My wife just said, “and the point is?”. Okay, here is the point of of my efforts. In part, I am trying to show you that you can correct your innocent but still wrongful word usage and election and that you must not base your life decisions on assumptions, especially when the real facts are so readily and easily available. Local library use is still free nationwide. Try it. You may even want to ask for a free library card. We will cover selection and evaluation of words and the importance of list usage, sorta in that order. It will be great fun for me, I think.

President Reagan had a maxim: “Trust… but verify.” He may have been a superior type of prepper in another life somewhere.

Not Arm-Chair Preppers

Because you are reading this piece, we can safely assume that you’re not the usual arm-chair prepper who has bought, but not yet read, every survivalist book ever written, most of which are currently in storage somewhere in a Costco box out in the garage, except for the two or three magazines laying out for others to see. You are so much more prepared that your foolish neighbors. You’re not just another want-to-be a prepper who has a pair of camo pants and a camo ball cap to show off your prepper status to the neighbors. You’re a fully qualified preparedness person, and you are comfortable with a “ready to do something” position. You “feel” and “think”. And that unusual, calm, non-event current status may well have been caused by the lack of actually being taught about concerning priorities and proper preparedness correctly. We’ll try to fix that now.

It is very possible that no one ever has taught you or shown you “how to do preparedness stuff”. They just state what, when, why, who, and seldom the all important “how”. Possibly they realize that the readers have so many different aspects within their lives that no one could ever touch on every issue within the vast array of readers, who have so many difficult and different “needs to know”.

Being Self Taught

We are trying to give you a proven method of teaching yourself what you will personally need to do to determine your particular “how to do” mentality and what you will need to do when you need to change something in your personal methods and standards of performance style. From my experience with fellow veterans, I have learned that the unofficial USMC motto of, “Improvise, Adapt, Overcome” nearly always leads us to success, in whatever our goals may be, especially in our preparedness issues.

Why Most Are Not Dying Sooner

Okay, let’s go back to why most of us are not dying sooner but are actually living a little longer. Here is an excellent example of what I would consider to be a well done piece of garbage reporting with an anti-American bias. It comes right off of my ever-ready Google connection and directly to you. This is about the “words” part of this effort. I did not think up this example. This is the real world of mass media.

Misleading News Article on U.S. Life Expectancy Projections

From the Pittsburgh Post – Gazette on Saturday, August 05, 2017, the article says, “Experts attribute the lag to economic inequality, particularly when it comes to health care. The United States is one of the only industrialized nations without universal health care.” “This means that some groups are getting left behind, and it’s pulling the average down,” James Bennett, a researcher in the department of epidemiology and biostatistics at Imperial College London, told Vox.

The report above appears to have assumptions and specific grammar usage, which I believe is because their aim is to make a specific misleading point easily assumable by their readers.

Old Bobbert’s Personal Opinion Relating To News Article

This is only Old Bobbert’s personal opinion. But look again at the words “the United States is one of the only industrialized nations”. How can any nation be “one of the only” anything? Shouldn’t that be written as “the only industrial nation”?

The writer appears to me to be trying to present to a reader (that’s you) a smooth and low-level, strongly negative portrayal of the moral character of our nation. And it was done so very quietly with just a few, short, well selected, and well crafted words in the middle of a sentence. They were boldly hidden in plain sight of everyone. It’s not very good for us, is it? Well, that’s just my personal opinion.

On Guard For Misleading Words

When we preppers are making and updating our personal SHTF response plans, we must be on guard to see the small, incremental snippets of misleading wordage. We must watch for wordage that’s designed to quietly implant another small piece of a larger false agenda policy within in our knowledge base.

Fact Of Aging and Death Better Than Opinion “News” Suggested

The real facts of aging and death appear much better than the opinion piece shown above. We, or at least most of us, are actually living longer than past generations. There are small facets of our population that are not. And that is truly a national disgrace and needs to be corrected.

We will all suffer from that failure to make good quality healthcare more fully available nationwide. All of us will carry the guilt of neglect. The great majority of our people are getting some level of good health care. It is very expensive and not good enough.

Expensive Healthcare and Medications

It is especially difficult and expensive for most of us, especially if we need more than just a few medications. This I know from my personal daily medication regime. My situation is not all that unusual. I deal with COPD, type 2 diabetes, and congested heart failure, a small aerobic aneurysm, plus a minor case of hypoxia in the right frontal lobe damage. I am very fortunate to have my medical care through the Veterans Administration, and I labored long and heartily with governmental paperwork.

Alternative Sources Available

There are many safe and sure alternative sources for the life-saving meds some of us need every day. I did, and you can do, an internet search for “alldaychemists.com”, or any other vendor you may know of. Whoever you choose, you must carefully and thoroughly check and then recheck their qualifications and prices, every time. Fully half of our medicine cabinet is from that one distributor company. We determined through web research that it is the right one for us, and they may also be good for you.

Verification Necessary

Personally do your own verifications, every time. Never make health, financial, or preparedness decisions based on assumptions. Surely never on just friendly advice from family or others. Their past success can easily be your next failure. Just one medical failure is always one too many.

Yes. It is always very good to get advice from an experienced preparedness guru type of guy as might be available, but that is never good enough. It is always important that you personally perform verification checks and accurate comparisons. After all is said and done, do your own homework.

See Also:

• Do We Have Your Full Attention Yet?- Part 2, by Old Bobbert

SurvivalBlog Writing Contest

This has been part 1 of a two part entry for Round 73 of the SurvivalBlog non-fiction writing contest. The nearly $11,000 worth of prizes for this round include:

First Prize:

1. A $3000 gift certificate towards a Sol-Ark Solar Generator from Veteran owned Portable Solar LLC. The only EMP Hardened Solar Generator System available to the public.
2. A Gunsite Academy Three Day Course Certificate. This can be used for any one, two, or three day course (a $1,095 value),
3. A course certificate from onPoint Tactical for the prize winner’s choice of three-day civilian courses, excluding those restricted for military or government teams. Three day onPoint courses normally cost $795,
4. DRD Tactical is providing a 5.56 NATO QD Billet upper. These have hammer forged, chrome-lined barrels and a hard case, to go with your own AR lower. It will allow any standard AR-type rifle to have a quick change barrel. This can be assembled in less than one minute without the use of any tools. It also provides a compact carry capability in a hard case or in 3-day pack (an $1,100 value),
5. Two cases of Mountain House freeze-dried assorted entrees in #10 cans, courtesy of Ready Made Resources (a $350 value),
6. A $250 gift certificate good for any product from Sunflower Ammo,
7. American Gunsmithing Institute (AGI) is providing a $300 certificate good towards any of their DVD training courses, and
8. Two cases of Meals, Ready to Eat (MREs), courtesy of CampingSurvival.com (a $180 value).

Second Prize:

1. A Model 175 Series Solar Generator provided by Quantum Harvest LLC (a $439 value),
2. A Glock form factor SIRT laser training pistol and a SIRT AR-15/M4 Laser Training Bolt, courtesy of Next Level Training, which have a combined retail value of $589,
3. A gift certificate for any two or three-day class from Max Velocity Tactical (a $600 value),
4. A transferable certificate for a two-day Ultimate Bug Out Course from Florida Firearms Training (a $400 value),
5. A Trekker IV™ Four-Person Emergency Kit from Emergency Essentials (a $250 value),
6. A $200 gift certificate good towards any books published by PrepperPress.com,
7. A pre-selected assortment of military surplus gear from CJL Enterprize (a $300 value),
8. RepackBox is providing a $300 gift certificate to their site.

Third Prize:

1. A Royal Berkey water filter, courtesy of Directive 21 (a $275 value),
2. A large handmade clothes drying rack, a washboard, and a Homesteading for Beginners DVD, all courtesy of The Homestead Store, with a combined value of $206,
3. Expanded sets of both washable feminine pads and liners, donated by Naturally Cozy (a $185 retail value),
4. Two Super Survival Pack seed collections, a $150 value, courtesy of Seed for Security, LLC,
5. Mayflower Trading is donating a $200 gift certificate for homesteading appliances,
6. Two 1,000-foot spools of full mil-spec U.S.-made 750 paracord (in-stock colors only) from www.TOUGHGRID.com (a $240 value), and

Round 73 ends on November 30th, so get busy writing and e-mail us your entry. Remember that there is a 1,500-word minimum, and that articles on practical “how to” skills for survival have an advantage in the judging.