I listen to the news daily, and I know that to a great extent they are lying to us. I listen to the politicians give their little speeches and their sound bites, and I know they are lying. I watched President Trump walk quietly away from the big chair even though we continue to see proof, to this day, that there was widespread election fraud. First, the Federal Reserve told us there would be no inflation, and then when they could no longer hide the facts, they told us that it will be transitory. The government tells us that a little piece of cloth over our faces, that won’t even stop dust particles, is going to save us from a virus that is 50 to 100 nanometers in size. We can reach herd immunity with an experimental gene therapy (I refuse to call it a vaccine) that hasn’t been properly tested, and that we don’t know what the long-term effects might be. The stock market is continuing to hit record highs, so the economy is doing great. BLM and Antifa only have peaceful protests. Fences don’t work. Controlling your borders is racist. All the people illegally crossing the borders are just poor refugees from oppressed countries. There are no cartels involved, and nobody with a criminal background will come into the country. China and Russia are our friends, not our adversaries, and we need to negotiate deals with them, no matter how bad the deals are for us. America is always the aggressor, and always wrong. If it wasn’t for our imperialist, expansionist attitudes, peace would break out world-wide and everybody would hold hands and sing Kumbaya.
Am I the only one that looks at the preceding list, and wonders where common sense has gone? How can so many people believe the lies being told? How can our leaders and media continue to tell such outright lies, and expect to get away with it?
Well, my friends, the real truth is that they will continue to get away with it because the general population is too scared to hear the truth! To quote Tommy Lee Jones, “A person is smart. People are dumb, panicky dangerous animals and you know it!”
And why won’t any of our leaders tell us the truth? Because NOBODY WANTS TO BE THAT GUY! What guy? The guy that actually tells the truth to those dumb, panicky, dangerous animals and brings about the catastrophe that we are all trying to avoid.
Let’s just stop and examine a few different stories and events. Bear with me as I ramble a little bit, from one subject to another.
The EMP Commission, created in 2001, found that if an EMP weapon were used against the United States that it could result in the death of 9 out of 10 Americans, within the first year. Now, in 2021, that prediction has not changed, and there has been little to no progress in protecting the country from this weapon. Just think about that for a minute. 9 out of 10 people would mean about 298 million people dead in the U.S. alone. That is children, the elderly, the young, the old, and the in-between. That means that if you are standing in a group of 20 friends and family, that a year after an EMP, the odds are that there would only be 2 of you left. The rest of those people, your loved ones, would be dead! That’s a pretty sobering thought. For most of us it would be an unimaginable nightmare.
I only bring this up because it is a tangible and real threat. I also use it as a “worst case” scenario, because if it’s an all-out nuclear war, or an asteroid strike, there probably won’t be enough left to matter, and the dead would probably be the lucky ones.
Using an EMP as a baseline for the worst case, we can then work our way backwards, looking at other possible disasters, and maybe, possibly figure out where different ones will fall on the scale. Surprisingly enough, with our modern society, and our overwhelming dependence on both the electric grid and the internet, I have found in my mental exercises on this subject, that most large-scale disasters will lead us back to a “worst case” scenario, even if the timeline changes somewhat. At this point in our history any large-scale disruption has the potential to bring about the SHTF scenario that we all prepare for, but dread.
So why do I use EMP as a worst-case scenario? Why would 9 out of 10 Americans actually die? An EMP has the potential to wipe out our electrical grid and leave us in a grid down situation, and unlike a blackout, it would not be a temporary situation. If the EMP managed to damage or destroy those large transformers that supply power to our cities power would not be restored anytime soon, if ever. Even today, right now, with everything working, those transformers need to be ordered eighteen months ahead of time and are built in multiple countries with parts coming from all over the world. If we lost enough of them in an EMP situation the lights will go out permanently.
Electricity is literally the lifeblood of our society. Without it, water doesn’t flow from taps, sewage does not work, elevators to those 20- and 30-floor apartment buildings grind to a halt. Gas pumps don’t pump, so you can’t fill up your vehicle to escape the city, and all those trucks that bring food and other necessities to your local store on a daily basis won’t be running either. Cash registers don’t work, and you can’t use your debit or credit cards to buy anything. Even if you could use your cards, there’s a good chance that the internet will be down and you won’t be able to connect with your bank. Speaking of banks. Without electricity and the internet, they won’t be able to access accounts to tell you how many little electronic dollars you have in them. Your saving and checking accounts are gone, but on the upside so are all your bills. As a prepper we might have access to silver or gold that could be used in this situation, but 99% of the people out there won’t, and you don’t want to be waving silver coins around when people are desperate.
People can live without food for up to three weeks, but only about 3 days without water. The average city has about 3 days worth of food on the shelves. During Hurricane Katrina with all of the rest of the country pitching in and a working government, it still took several days to get water and supplies to the Superdome.
Those are all just random facts, but when applied to a national, or even regional disaster, they have chilling implications. Without electricity day four in any city is going to be gruesome. People will start to die from lack of water. Others will die from disease brought on by drinking bad water because they were desperate. The lack of sewage facilities will create a breeding ground for more disease. There will be a ring of dead and dying around every city as people try to walk out to safety, and succumb to fatigue, dehydration, heart attacks, etc. Emergency services will be non-existent as phones don’t work, and first responders are either overwhelmed, or don’t show up because they have families to try and look after as well. Protests will turn to riots, will turn into looting and burning as the cities devolve into chaos and anarchy. It’s not a pretty picture, and one most of us don’t want to think about. It truly is the “stuff of nightmares.”
Very often we stop at this point because it is simply too horrific to contemplate. But, if we are really serious about being prepared for SHTF, we need to look at the possible outcomes from this point on. We need to honestly assess what no electricity, no internet, no grocery stores, and no cars will mean for us. And this only represents the first week. Starvation, disease, despair, and a myriad of other causes will complete the prediction of 9 out of 10 dying in the first year. The riders of the apocalypse will be let loose upon the land.
Now, let’s look at popular fiction for a moment. Being on this site, I will assume most of us have read JWR’s books. There are many other authors that have dealt with financial collapse as well. I’m not going to claim that I have read them all, but I continue to read them as I discover new ones. Most of the fictional ones deal with the subject at a local, or regional level, very rarely going into the larger national, or even global consequences, because their characters in the books would not have access to that information. The books generally follow a group of prepared, or semi-prepared individuals dealing with the day-to-day struggles that they would face. Hardships are overcome, challenges are met, and our heroes, or at least most of them, survive. Happy ending! Yay! That is what popular fiction is all about. Nobody is going to read a book or buy more books from an author whose characters struggle mightily through the whole book and die a horrible death at the end. In any work of fiction, the characters get lucky breaks, and things go their way. They don’t overcome tremendous odds, and survive great challenges, just to fall down a hill, break their leg, and die, cold and alone in the last chapter.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m not picking on JWR or the other authors. I’m just saying that we don’t see the big picture in most of these books. They tend to be an encapsulated time frame, within a limited geographic locale. Even in JWR’s books, and his are set in various locations, we have no way of knowing how other parts of the country, or other countries in the world, are actually doing. We have no idea what the death toll would be. And to be honest, in this situation, most people would be so focused on day-to-day living that they wouldn’t care.
Remember, that we haven’t ever had a true financial collapse in a modern, First World nation. We most often look at the 1930s in America, or the Weimar Republic in Germany for anecdotal evidence. The “Dirty Thirties” were almost a century ago, and the Weimar Republic longer than that. Populations were not only more self-sufficient, but were more dispersed, and were not dependent on technology to survive.
Serbia? Yes, I’ve read a lot of articles by Selco, about the collapse, and the aftermath. I haven’t got his book yet, but it’s on my list. He tends to tell it like it is, or like it was. But, even when the economy collapsed, there were outside agencies that were working to try and get aid into the country. There were other countries that pledged support, both financially and in material. There was an entire world outside the country that was still producing needed supplies, and if nothing else provided hope that by crossing the border as a refugee there may be a chance for a better life.
Venezuela? Not a lot of news coming out of that country right now, but any that does come out all seems to be bad. Being as this is still a developing situation there is no way to predict how it will turn out, other than bad for the civilian population. Again, there is still a functioning world outside their borders, and with the Biden administration an open border that they can cross to hopefully escape – if they can get there.
Zimbabwe? Or, for that matter, most of the African continent. What can I say about this? It seems that it is pretty much ignored by most of the western media, and a large percentage of the population aren’t even aware of it. It hurts me as a Christian to admit, but other than their resources, it doesn’t seem that the rest of the world really cares what is happening on the African continent.
Let’s really look at what a financial collapse in the good old U.S. of A. might look like both internally and externally.
Internally the markets would crash, and the banks would fail. Paper money (FIAT currency) and all those little electronic numbers would be worth nothing. Cash may actually hold it’s value for a short time, as people continued to use it out of habit, and because they would believe that eventually it would have value again. But, as the crisis continued and as things ground to a halt, even cash would be worthless. To the chagrin of many preppers, so would silver and gold. Silver and gold can only have a value if there is a system in place that recognizes their value, or a place outside of the affected area where they can be used as money. No matter how much gold you have you aren’t going to be able to buy food from starving people.
The economy would simply vanish as people chose to stay at home with their families rather than go into work at a job that paid them money that was worthless. Trucks would not be driven. Deliveries would not be made. Stores would not be opened. Oil fields would quit producing. Refineries would shut down. Manufacturing would grind to a halt. And those all-important electrical generating stations would slowly quit producing the lifeblood of our society. Would the President declare a national emergency, and institute martial law? Probably. But to make martial law work you need resources to get the personnel to the emergency area, and the emergency area would literally be the entire country. How many of those soldiers called up would be willing to leave their families and loved ones, and how many would simply ignore the call-out? Martial law can only work in a limited area, is dependant upon the resources available, and only in a situation where the population is unarmed and can be controlled. (A situation that I don’t see happening any time soon in the U.S.A. even with Biden’s latest attempts to circumvent the Second Amendment) It’s kind of like that old saying from the 60’s, “What if they held a war, and nobody came?”
The point of this is, that without regular maintenance, replacement parts availability, and skilled technicians on call we once again wind up in a grid down situation. Not as fast as an EMP, but the end result is the same, none the less.
Externally (in the rest of the world) things wouldn’t be a lot different. But we have allies all over the world to help us, right? Wrong. Those allies would likely be dealing with their own economies collapsing. Whether the world likes to admit it or not, most of their economies are based on supplying the largest consumer in the world – The U.S.A. We are the powerhouse that drives the world’s economy. We have the reserve currency for the world. And we supply financial aid to umpteen different countries, under the guise of numerous programs to keep those countries afloat. China, arguably the second-largest economy in the world, has built its economy on supplying cheap widgets to the U.S.A. Without us, their economy might collapse as well. They might make it through because of their isolationist policies, and because they have a totalitarian government that is willing to sacrifice millions if they have to, but it’s definitely a coin toss.
Russia is again a coin toss. They depend a lot on the rest of Europe for their economy. If Europe were to financially collapse it might take Russia with it as well. They also depend on countries like Canada to supply them with wheat, and other staples. A starving population could keep them occupied for a long time.
Petrodollars have made the middle east wealthy, and if those greenbacks were suddenly worth nothing, it would devastate the region.
Now, these are just my personal opinions, and I could be totally off track. The good Lord knows there are a lot of people a lot smarter than me out there.
We have, in effect, built ourselves a very pretty and intricate house of cards. There is no way that we could have built our present society without technology. We couldn’t have built our mega-cities without complex communication systems and infrastructure. By incorporating technology into virtually every aspect of our lives we have been able to advance our civilization beyond what anybody could have ever imagined in a relatively short period of time. But, as we have incorporated that technology, we have also become dependent on it for the survival of our civilization. We must keep moving forward, always advancing, always producing more, if we are to maintain our way of life. Much like the Roman Empire, or many other great civilizations throughout history, we cannot remain static. We either grow, or we perish.
This is also one of the reasons that I don’t believe that a partial collapse is possible. Much like that house of cards, everything in our present system is so interconnected, that I don’t believe part of it could collapse without eventually bringing down the rest. If an EMP only hit part of the country, or another disaster disrupted a large enough portion of the country, the rest of the country would literally bankrupt itself in an attempt to help out. If the “Big One” finally hit California the devastation would be unbelievable, but the rest of the country would feel it as well. How do you evacuate almost 40 million people? The truth is, that you don’t, that you can’t. How do you get food, water, and medical aid to the survivors? Again, the answer is that it’s not possible on that large of scale – remember several days to get supplies to the Superdome. You will save some, but a huge number will have to face that fourth day that we discussed a couple of paragraphs ago. Even if you somehow managed to save 90% of the people, that would still leave 4 million dead that would have to be dealt with, someway, somehow. And while all that was happening the stock markets, the banks, the entire financial system would be hit so hard that they would probably not be able to absorb the damage.
By now you may be asking yourself where this is all going, and what does it have to do with the title? Well, my dear reader, it is all bringing us back to the beginning, and the first paragraph of this rambling diatribe. It is bringing us back to the lies that we are being told, and the truth that we can see behind them.
In 1941 the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor, killing 2,403 Americans. We fought a World War over it.
In 2001, 19 hijackers managed to kill 2,296 Americans in the 9/11 attacks. We invaded 2 countries and fought a twenty-year war over it.
Even if President Biden had irrefutable proof that the Covid-19 virus was produced in a lab, in Wuhan, China as a potential biological weapon, do you think we would hear the truth? If he told us that a laboratory produced virus had killed half a million Americans, and millions around the world, what then? What is the response to that? And there would have to be a response. Do we go to war with China? Do we nuke them? Or are we better off with the lies that we are being told.
If President Trump had not quietly stepped aside, and instead called on all patriotic American to “grab their guns” and rally behind him to take back our country, what would have happened? A civil war? Brother against brother? The collapse of not just our economy, but our entire country. And how many lives would have been lost? Millions? Tens of millions? Do we tear our country apart, or do we quietly accept the lies being told in the hopes of keeping our families safe and alive?
What would happen if President Biden, and Jerome Powell stood up on the stage in front of the whole country and said, “We really don’t know what we’re doing. We are really just scrambling to try and keep the economy from collapsing.” People would freak out, and panic, and the economy would collapse. It’s probably better for the general population if they keep lying to us about the economy for as long as they can.
Do the masks really protect us? Of course they don’t! But they have become a symbol that we’re all in this together. That we truly care about our neighbors and people that are “at risk.” They make us all feel like we’re actually doing something great, and heroic, and worthwhile. And they will be a huge symbol when the governments tell us that they are no longer necessary, and that we can take them off. That will be our victory symbol that we have beaten the Corona Virus, and things are returning to normal. Even if they really aren’t.
I’m a lot more cynical when it comes to the gene therapy that they are pushing on everybody. That was a straight-up money grab for Big Pharma as far as I’m concerned. Right from the beginning there was copious amounts of evidence that hydroxychloroquine worked. It has been in circulation for years, has been fully tested, and the side effects are known. There’s only one problem with it. The patents have expired, and it could be given to people for pennies a dose.
The lies continue to come at us on a daily basis, but instead of just dismissing them as lies, take a minute and look for the truth behind them. Look at what the possible consequences of the truth might be. Follow the trail of breadcrumbs, and decide for yourself if the truth might be more damaging than the lies we are being told.
We are really at a tipping point for our society, and possibly even our civilization. It could still go either way, and the smallest stumble could send us down the path of no return. I laid out why I believe that a financial collapse could be almost as detrimental to us as an EMP. It doesn’t have to kill 9 out of 10 people to lay waste to our modern society. Even if it wound up killing 5 out of 10, that’s half the population, over 150 million people in the U.S. alone. Which brings us back to the title of this discourse.
Hitler is one of the most reviled figures in history. He was responsible for about 13.6 million deaths. Stalin could claim 2 million. Idi Amin a measly 500,000. These are all figures that have gained notoriety for their brutality, and their willingness to commit genocide on a massive scale.
If our present leaders were to honestly tell the truth, it could set in motion events that could lead to a death toll greater than the totals of all those listed above. All it would really take is one small misstep. One slip that would start the panic. One small domino tipping over, starting the irrevocable chain reaction.
The possibility of causing tens of millions of deaths is an impossible burden to face for any human being.
And….NOBODY WANTS TO BE THAT GUY!