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:

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.
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  1. A Royal Berkey water filter, courtesy of Directive 21 (a $275 value),
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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.




10 Comments

  1. You might want to look into arjuna for congestive heart failure. It will take a stage 3 down to a stage 1 (no symptoms). This is both research, and my personal experience.

    I did make the mistake of thinking that stage 1 meant cure. It isn’t. Had to start taking arjuna again, and this time won’t go off it.

    Arjuna is the bark of the arjuna tree from India. God gives us what we need.

    Also, hawthorne flowers (but NOT berries or leaves) will stop arrhythmia. It is hard to find as flowers, Solaray makes it. Or plant some in your yard. It makes an excellent hedge, and birds like to nest in it.

    1. sorry it was not there earlier, here is the link to the webs info google page on Ajruna..

      copy intact to google and see the happy smiling genie in the room (:-)

  2. I know a little about the story. Two scientists made the discovery that white people in America were dying years before they should be. Every other racial group in America were showing a steady increase in life expectancy as they have been for decades. Except for Russia when its society was in freefall after the collapse of the Soviet Union, no other industrialized nation has shown a decline in life expectancy.
    Here is the heart of the story that is always missing any time the story is mentioned, which is rarely: The story is not about the lack of health care or income disparity, those issues are just icing on the cake. when the two scientists submitted the story with all of the supporting data to JAMA, the Journal of American medicine, it was rejected. It did not take them months to review the article before sending it back. it did not take weeks or days, it was returned in minutes. So, here we have a study showing white Americans are dying years ahead of their time,we have a silent epidemic killing white people by the millions that is completely absent from the current national conversation and the premier US scientific and medical journal refuses to run it or spend more than a few moments deciding if they want to publish it. To this day no one at JAMA has been fired or even identified. If you substitute black or Asian or Hispanic or Jewish or any ethnicity or race other than white in this story we would be having an uproar and people would be fired and careers ended and whole new departments at colleges would be formed to address the situation.
    Old bobbert may be right about evaluating the news, but first we have to have news to evaluate. If you leave out of the story that millions of white people are dying ahead of their time the fact that JAMA refused to even run the story and sent it back to the authors in minutes and no one has ever been identified or fired or even criticised we have bigger issues than lack of health care.We live in an occupied country but don’t even know it.

    1. YOU WILL HAVE MY THANKS FOREVER. THIS RESPONSE SHOULD ENABLE OTHERS WHO PRAYERFULLY CONSIDER THESE” NEW TO US” FACTS TO RETHINK AND REDO OUR MEDICAL LIVES AND EFFORTS AND ** SUPPLIES ***.
      THIS RESPONSE ID THE REASON I AM A READER, A WRITER, AND WHY I GRATEFULLY DO THE “SB” 10 CENT REQUEST EVERY YEAR
      TAHNKS AGAIN

  3. Here’s a few indicators I use.

    “Experts/Some/Sources say” … means that they are unwilling to say who said it, but want you to think they are important people only hey have access to, in order to get you to think that way.

    “Could be/looks like/maybe/virtually identical”… they do not have enough evidence to say it as a fact and thereby risk a lawsuit over it. They want you to “think” it’s true but not enough to risk their own money.

    You pointed out the dual unrelated statements in a single sentence separated by commas.

    Replaying their own “opinion show” comments as though that is evidence or news.

    Doubling up and attacking alternative views, emotional vocal and visual queues, are other indicators but I’ll wait on part two to post on that in case you cover it.

  4. Ol’ Remus at the Woodpile Report (there’s a link right here on the Survival Blog page) has a nice collection of these little word clues. OR check the Associated Press Style Book.

    And always ask the question “What is in this for Whom?” The modus usually dictated the method.

    You’re about to be lied to when they say-
    a hand up
    a new study shows
    a poll by the highly respected
    a positive step
    are speaking out
    arguably
    arsenal
    at-risk communities
    best practices
    broader implications
    climate change
    collectively
    commonsense solutions
    comprehensive reform
    cycle of poverty
    cycle of violence
    demand action
    denier
    disenfranchised
    disparate impact
    disproportionately
    diverse backgrounds
    divisive
    economically disadvantaged
    embattled
    emerging consensus
    empower
    enhance
    evidence shows
    experts agree
    extremist
    fair share
    fiscal stimulus
    fully funded
    give back
    giving voice to
    greater diversity
    growing support for
    gun violence
    hater
    have issues
    high capacity magazine
    history shows
    impacted by
    impactful
    in denial
    inappropriate
    inclusive environment
    insensitivity
    investing in our future
    linked to
    making a difference
    making bad choices
    marginalized
    marriage equality
    mean spirited
    most vulnerable
    mounting opposition to
    multicultural
    non-blaming
    nonjudgmental
    non-partisan, non-profit
    not value neutral
    not who we are
    nuanced
    off our streets
    on some level
    oppressed minorities
    our nation’s children
    people of color
    poor and minorities
    positive outcome
    potentially
    progressive
    public/private partnership
    raising awareness
    reaching out
    reaffirm our commitment to
    redouble our efforts
    research tells us
    root cause
    sends a message
    shared values
    social justice
    solidarity with
    sow discord
    speaking truth to power
    stakeholders
    statistics show
    sustainable, sustainability
    the American People
    the bigger issue is
    the failed …
    the larger question is
    the more important question is
    the reality is
    the struggle for
    too many
    too often
    touched by
    underserved populations
    undocumented immigrant
    value neutral
    vibrant community
    voicing concern
    war on …
    working families

  5. I laugh every time I see the phrase “one of the largest” or some similar designation. It is always used to exaggerate some situation, making it seem better or worse than it actually is. Either something is the best, worst, biggest, smallest, or not. Give a ranking, like 2nd best, third biggest, fourth poorest, but not one of the _______ (fill in the blank). At what point does “one of the best” become “one of the worst”? Am I “one of the richest men in America”, since I am an American man with more than average wealth, but I am by no means Bill Gates or Warren Buffet? As the saying goes, 2nd place is first loser. Think of the Olympics, where medals are given for 1st, 2nd, and 3rd place finishers. 1st is clearly the best, while 2nd and 3rd are “some of the best”, but actually lost.

  6. Excellent real information on why we don’t live longer is in Dr. Greger’s book “How Not to Die”. Based on the world’s knowledge of real scientific research, not hype. He’s not pushing snake oil or another fad, just good solid information about the American diet. He will wean you from supplements real fast.

    1. From Bobbert hiss elk,
      I am thrilled at the knowledge and quality and genuine concern for others that we see in these first reply. WOW.. More replies of the stature we see here will enable an improvement in our collective knowledge base, thereby helping so very many families, and our single brothers and sisters, to achieve much more than just surviving the EVENT we are rapidly approaching. Of course every one submitting an entry wold like to win a prize, but these replys are the best result ever. Please continue this string

      And sorry about the innocent abuse of the rules of American english grammar, that just didn’t make it to the top of my list.
      After all, age 77 and sorta sick ain’t so bad and should count for a little acceptance, don’t cha think?
      bob

  7. After reading all the remarks, i’d like to put in my two cents. Just for the record, be sure when you visit your doctor, I hope you have a good enough relationship with them to tell them what you want them to put in your notes, but whisper to them what you want them to hear. In my case I was a little chapped to say the least when I receive a letter reminding me of some lab work for Vitamin D level. It also goes on saying,” We encourage you to have the test completed within the next 7 days. Failure to complete lab work may result in a delay in refilling prescriptions. Are you kidding me?? Blackmail????? Really. Ugh, yes OH and by the way if your trying to be proactive about maybe long term care insurance, you better remember what they wrote in your “notes” in order to qualify at a decent rate of payment into the system. Eat like a bird, drop 25 lbs. and stop eating sweets.

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