Letter Re: Last Minute G.O.O.D. Versus Well-Considered Early Relocation

Dear Editor:
John M.’s letter was excellent, polite, and to the point.

The following are my rules for townies:

1. If your water comes out of a faucet or a bottle, and you can not safely walk to a permanent backup source in less than 10 minutes every day, then you will die.

2. If you do not raise your own food, or personally know the family that you bought it from, you will either die, or be forever controlled by someone with a clipboard and a list, and you will wish you were dead.

3. If you live in the city because your job is more important than your life, then don’t bother bugging out. The only Job you are likely to get out here in the country is digging graves for people that think like you.

4. A centuries old rule of farming: It takes a minimum of 10 years of farming a piece of ground to know it. So, you’re going to compress a decade of intimate knowledge into a weekend, because you read a book? We’ll send the guy mentioned in Rule #3 out to your shack next spring.

5. Unless you have a fully stocked and equip 19th century-style working farm to escape to, with food for two years stored in place for humans and livestock, you are simply a well-intentioned refugee, or an unwelcome house guest.

6. [Forget “foraging”.] In the 1850s, (for the purpose of sizing reservations), it was determined that a skillful Native American needed 100 square miles (10 miles x 10 miles) minimum, to live off the land, per person. There was a lot more game back then, and less afraid of humans. You’re going to be competing with around 300 million hungry human bellies, every morning.

7. Ten cases of canned food fits in a 2’x2’x2′ area. Around 30 cases will give you one meal a day for a year, and fits under a [tall] bed. The gear, tools, food, and clothing needed for a family of four for a year in the wild would fill one or more semi-trailers. So you think that you’re going to effortlessly bug out with a truck and trailer at O-Dark-Thirty and survive? Stay home, or become breakfast for less dainty bellies.

Finally: There are two terms you hope never appear in your obituary: “unfortunate accident”, or “shallow grave”.

If you and your gear are not already pre-positioned on your own homestead, and your city job is just seasonal or part time for the Gov.Bux, you are probably bound to end up in one of these two categories by bugging out.

Prepare, but stay where you are, unless the emergency is a temporary natural event – Feral Farmer

JWR Replies: I concur that taking halfway measures is an invitation to becoming a statistic in a societal collapse. As I’ve stressed countless times, the best approach is to live at your retreat year-round. A marginal second choice is to maintain a fully-stocked retreat that is constantly under the watchful eye of a trusted friend or relative that can also keep your fruit nut trees watered and look after your livestock. But even then, you’ll likely lack the requisite large-scale gardening experience in your retreat’s particular climate zone. You will also lack having developed trust relationships with your neighbors–something crucial to survival. It is incredibly naive for anyone to anticipate that they can “bug out” with everything that they’ll need. Even if you are fortunate enough arrive with your vehicle and trailer intact, as “Feral Farmer” points out, you will be way behind the power curve: under-equipped, and under-provisioned. And as, John M. mentioned, those that are under-prepared will probably end up in a life of thievery, rather than watch their families starve. The goal here is to be part of the solution, rather than part of the problem.

I also concur with Feral Farmer’s observations on foraging. The hunting and even the fishing pressure will be tremendous. I’ve heard from consulting clients in California’ Coast Range that deer harvest have dropped to pitifully low numbers in the past five years, because of the depredations of Mountain Lions. (Which have been elevated to protected species status in the People’s Paradise of California.) The chances of filling just one deer tag, they say, are now slim except for anyone that has the time to willing to “hunt hard” throughout California’s short deer season. So, I ask: If this has happened when there were just a few thousand excess mountain lions, then what will happen when there are an extra 5-to-10 million deer hunters wandering around California, shooting at anything that moves? (The California deer population has already dropped from more than one million to an estimated 485,000. That is not a lot of deer to go around, WTSHTF. And what will happen to the freshwater fishing stocks, when there are hundreds of thousands of set lines being worked, year round?

Economics and Investing:

From Ben M.: Bad news for GM; China ‘to block’ Hummer takeovei

Currie and GG both sent us a link to a piece over at Zero Hedge: Here Comes Russian Bank Nationalzation “Russia is considering a banking bail-out that will go further than measures taken by the US, as fears grow that bad loans could paralyse the economy.” Oh, by the way, GG dubbed the Russian bailout “The MOABsky”

David R. flagged this data point: Dresdner Kleinwort Securities Withdraws as Primary Fed Dealer. David’s comment: “This is important because being a primary dealer was the equivalent of having a license to print money (under fractional reserve lending rules). For Dresdner to be withdrawing is bad, bad, bad news for the dollar. This is just an early warning sign but the signs are piling up. The dollar is in trouble.”

And here are four items, all courtesy of Karen H.:

China’s ships idle but Shanghai port charges ahead “This is the first time Shanghai’s shipping container business declined since it went into full-scale operation (20 years ago), it shows how deeply the financial crisis has affected the real economy,” Huang told a maritime conference in Shanghai.

Unemployed Hit the Road to Find Jobs

Romer upbeat on US economy

Selling toothpaste to Tehran

Odds ‘n Sods:

Reader “PD” pointed me to an interesting video segment on Russian survivalists.

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FG mentioned a great news segment about an 89 year-old woman and her 1964 Comet that she has driven 540,000 miles. FG notes: “She even drove herself alone to her 70th class reunion, a 3,000 mile trip! She also knows how to protect herself on her long journeys. (Check out what she carries in her handbag!)” JWR Adds: This octogenarian demonstrates the virtues of both good preventative maintenance and situational awareness!

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H.O.F. e-mailed me to mention that all 36 episodes of the post-pandemic societal collapse television series Jeremiah are now available as video streaming “instant plays”, from NetFlix subscribers. H.O.F. notes: “The MGM series was filmed in and around Vancouver, Canada, which explains why so many scenes are cold, rainy, and snowy'” And he added this warning: “There is some crude language, violence, and gratuitous bare chests, so this series is not for the kids. Oh yes, it also has a couple of anti-religious rants, but that is to be expected from the denizens of Hollywood.”

Jim’s Quote of the Day:

"The paper system being founded on public confidence and having of itself no intrinsic value, it is liable to great and sudden fluctuations, thereby rendering property insecure and the wages of labor unsteady and uncertain. The corporations which create the paper money can not be relied upon to keep the circulating medium uniform in amount. In times of prosperity, when confidence is high, they are tempted by the prospect of gain or by the influence of those who hope to profit by it to extend their issues of paper beyond the bounds of discretion and the reasonable demands of business; and when these issues have been pushed on from day to day, until public confidence is at length shaken, then a reaction takes place, and they immediately withdraw the credits they have given, suddenly curtail their issues, and produce an unexpected and ruinous contraction of the circulating medium, which is felt by the whole community. The banks by this means save themselves, and the mischievous consequences of their imprudence or cupidity are visited upon the public." – President Andrew Jackson, Excerpt from his farewell speech on March 4, 1837

Note from JWR:

Today we present a guest article by two Stratfor editors. You may recall that Fred Burton is one of my contemporaries. (He was workig in the CI/HUMINT world when I was in the SIGINT world.)

Security at Places of Worship: More Than a Matter of Faith, by Scott Stewart and Fred Burton

In recent months, several high-profile incidents have raised awareness of the threat posed by individuals and small groups operating under the principles of leaderless resistance. These incidents have included lone wolf attacks against a doctor who performed abortions in Kansas, an armed forces recruitment center in Arkansas and the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C. Additionally, a grassroots jihadist cell was arrested for attempting to bomb Jewish targets in the Bronx and planning to shoot down a military aircraft at an Air National Guard base in Newburgh, N.Y.

In addition to pointing out the threat posed by grassroots cells and lone wolf operatives, another common factor in all of these incidents is the threat of violence to houses of worship. The cell arrested in New York left what they thought to be active improvised explosive devices outside the Riverdale Temple and the Riverdale Jewish Community Center. Dr. George Tiller was shot and killed in the lobby of the Reformation Lutheran Church in Wichita. Although Abdulhakim Mujahid Muhammad conducted his attacks against a Little Rock recruiting center, he had conducted preoperational surveillance and research on targets that included Jewish organizations and a Baptist church in places as far away as Atlanta and Philadelphia. And while James von Brunn attacked the Holocaust Museum, he had a list of other potential targets in his vehicle that included the National Cathedral.

In light of this common thread, it might be instructive to take a more detailed look at the issue of providing security for places of worship.

Awareness: The First Step

Until there is awareness of the threat, little can be done to counter it. In many parts of the world, such as Iraq, India and Pakistan, attacks against places of worship occur fairly frequently. It is not difficult for religious leaders and members of their congregations in such places to be acutely aware of the dangers facing them and to have measures already in place to deal with those perils. This is not always the case in the United States, however, where many people tend to have an “it can’t happen here” mindset, believing that violence in or directed against places of worship is something that happens only to other people elsewhere.

This mindset is particularly pervasive among predominantly white American Protestant and Roman Catholic congregations. Jews, Mormons, Muslims and black Christians, and others who have been targeted by violence in the past, tend to be far more aware of the threat and are far more likely to have security plans and measures in place to counter it. The Jewish community has very well-developed and professional organizations such as the Secure Community Network (SCN) and the Anti-Defamation League that are dedicated to monitoring threats and providing education about the threats and advice regarding security. The Council on American-Islamic Relations has taken on a similar role for the Muslim community and has produced a “Muslim community safety kit” for local mosques. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS) also has a very organized and well-connected security department that provides information and security advice and assistance to LDS congregations worldwide.

There are no functional equivalents to the SCN or the LDS security departments in the larger Catholic, evangelical Protestant and mainline Protestant communities, though there are some organizations such as the recently established Christian Security Network that have been attempting to fill the void.

Following an incident, awareness of the threat seems to rise for a time, and some houses of worship will put some security measures in place, but for the most part such incidents are seen as events that take place elsewhere, and the security measures are abandoned after a short time.

Permanent security measures are usually not put in place until there has been an incident of some sort at a specific house of worship, and while the triggering incident is sometimes something that merely provides a good scare, other times it is a violent action that results in tragedy. Even when no one is hurt in the incident, the emotional damage caused to a community by an act of vandalism or arson at a house of worship can be devastating.

It is important to note here that not all threats to places of worship will emanate from external actors. In the midst of any given religious congregation, there are, by percentages, people suffering from serious mental illnesses, people engaged in bitter child-custody disputes, domestic violence situations and messy divorces. Internal disputes in the congregation can also lead to feuds and violence. Any of these situations can (and have) led to acts of violence inside houses of worship.

Security Means More than Alarms and Locks

An effective security program is more than just having physical security measures in place. Like any man-made constructs, physical security measures — closed-circuit television (CCTV), alarms, cipher locks and so forth — have finite utility. They serve a valuable purpose in institutional security programs, but an effective security program cannot be limited to these things. Devices cannot think or evaluate. They are static and can be observed, learned and even fooled. Also, because some systems frequently produce false alarms, warnings in real danger situations may be brushed aside. Given these shortcomings, it is quite possible for anyone planning an act of violence to map out, quantify and then defeat or bypass physical security devices. However, elaborate planning is not always necessary. Consider the common scenario of a heavy metal door with very good locks that is propped open with a trashcan or a door wedge. In such a scenario, an otherwise “secure” door is defeated by an internal security lapse.

However, even in situations where there is a high degree of threat awareness, there is a tendency to place too much trust in physical security measures, which can become a kind of crutch — and, ironically, an obstacle to effective security.

In fact, to be effective, physical security devices always require human interaction. An alarm is useless if no one responds to it, or if it is not turned on; a lock is ineffective if it is not engaged. CCTV cameras are used extensively in corporate office buildings and some houses of worship, but any competent security manager will tell you that, in reality, they are far more useful in terms of investigating a theft or act of violence after the fact than in preventing one (although physical security devices can sometimes cause an attacker to divert to an easier target).

No matter what kinds of physical security measures may be in place at a facility, they are far less likely to be effective if a potential assailant feels free to conduct preoperational surveillance, and is free to observe and map those physical security measures. The more at ease someone feels as they set about identifying and quantifying the physical security systems and procedures in place, the higher the odds they will find ways to beat the system.

A truly “hard” target is one that couples physical security measures with an aggressive, alert attitude and sense of awareness. An effective security program is proactive — looking outward to where most real threats are lurking — rather than inward, where the only choice is to react once an attack has begun to unfold. We refer to this process of proactively looking for threats as protective intelligence.

The human interaction required to make physical security measures effective, and to transform a security program into a proactive protective intelligence program, can come in the form of designated security personnel. In fact, many large houses of worship do utilize off-duty police officers, private security guards, volunteer security guards or even a dedicated security staff to provide this coverage. In smaller congregations, security personnel can be members of the congregation who have been provided some level of training.

However, even in cases where there are specially designated security personnel, such officers have only so many eyes and can only be in a limited number of places at any one time. Thus, proactive security programs should also work to foster a broad sense of security awareness among the members of the congregation and community, and use them as additional resources.

Unfortunately, in many cases, there is often a sense in the religious community that security is bad for the image of a particular institution, or that it will somehow scare people away from houses of worship. Because of this, security measures, if employed, are often hidden or concealed from the congregation. In such cases, security managers are deprived of many sets of eyes and ears. Certainly, there may be certain facets of a security plan that not everyone in the congregation needs to know about, but in general, an educated and aware congregation and community can be a very valuable security asset.

Training

In order for a congregation to maintain a sense of heightened awareness it must learn how to effectively do that. This training should not leave people scared or paranoid — just more observant. People need to be trained to look for individuals who are out of place, which can be somewhat counterintuitive. By nature, houses of worship are open to outsiders and seek to welcome strangers. They frequently have a steady turnover of new faces. This causes many to believe that, in houses of worship, there is a natural antagonism between security and openness, but this does not have to be the case. A house of worship can have both a steady stream of visitors and good security, especially if that security is based upon situational awareness.

At its heart, situational awareness is about studying people, and such scrutiny will allow an observer to pick up on demeanor mistakes that might indicate someone is conducting surveillance. Practicing awareness and paying attention to the people approaching or inside a house of worship can also open up a whole new world of ministry opportunities, as people “tune in” to others and begin to perceive things they would otherwise miss if they were self-absorbed or simply not paying attention. In other words, practicing situational awareness provides an excellent opportunity for the members of a congregation to focus on the needs and burdens of other people.

It is important to remember that every attack cycle follows the same general steps. All criminals — whether they are stalkers, thieves, lone wolves or terrorist groups — engage in preoperational surveillance (sometimes called “casing,” in the criminal lexicon). Perhaps the most crucial point to be made about preoperational surveillance is that it is the phase when someone with hostile intentions is most apt to be detected — and the point in the attack cycle when potential violence can be most easily disrupted or prevented.

The second most critical point to emphasize about surveillance is that most criminals are not that good at it. They often have terrible surveillance tradecraft and are frequently very obvious. Most often, the only reason they succeed in conducting surveillance without being detected is because nobody is looking for them. Because of this, even ordinary people, if properly instructed, can note surveillance activity.

It is also critically important to teach people — including security personnel and members of the congregation — what to do if they see something suspicious and whom to call to report it. Unfortunately, a lot of critical intelligence is missed because it is not reported in a timely manner — or not reported at all — mainly because untrained people have a habit of not trusting their judgment and dismissing unusual activity. People need to be encouraged to report what they see.

Additionally, people who have been threatened, are undergoing nasty child-custody disputes or have active restraining orders protecting them against potentially violent people need to be encouraged to report unusual activity to their appropriate points of contact.

As a part of their security training, houses of worship should also instruct their staff and congregation members on procedures to follow if a shooter enters the building and creates what is called an active-shooter situation. These “shooter” drills should be practiced regularly — just like fire, tornado or earthquake drills. The teachers of children’s classes and nursery workers must also be trained in how to react.

Liaison

One of the things the SCN and ADL do very well is foster security liaison among Jewish congregations within a community and between those congregations and local, state and federal law enforcement organizations. This is something that houses of worship from other faiths should attempt to duplicate as part of their security plans.

While having a local cop in a congregation is a benefit, contacting the local police department should be the first step. It is very important to establish this contact before there is a crisis in order to help expedite any law enforcement response. Some police departments even have dedicated community liaison officers, who are good points of initial contact. There are other specific points of contact that should also be cultivated within the local department, such as the SWAT team and the bomb squad.

Local SWAT teams often appreciate the chance to do a walk-through of a house of worship so that they can learn the layout of the building in case they are ever called to respond to an emergency there. They also like the opportunity to use different and challenging buildings for training exercises (something that can be conducted discreetly after hours). Congregations with gyms and weight rooms will often open them up for local police officers to exercise in, and some congregations will also offer police officers a cup of coffee and a desk where they can sit and type their reports during evening hours.

But the local police department is not the only agency with which liaison should be established. Depending on the location of the house of worship, the state police, state intelligence fusion center or local joint terrorism task force should also be contacted. By working through state and federal channels, houses of worship in specific locations may even be eligible for grants to help underwrite security through programs such as the Department of Homeland Security’s Urban Areas Security Initiative Nonprofit Security Grant Program.

The world is a dangerous place and attacks against houses of worship will continue to occur. But there are proactive security measures that can be taken to identify attackers before they strike and help prevent attacks from happening or mitigate their effects when they do. – Scott Stewart and Fred Burton, Stratfor

Letter Re: Last Minute G.O.O.D. Versus Well-Considered Early Relocation

James –
We think along similar lines, as my wife and I relocated to Central Idaho in 1995, raising and homeschooling our four children here. We’re electrically functioning off the grid, engage in animal husbandry, grow what vegetables we can, and stock up on essentials we cannot produce and always meticulously rotate the stock. And we hunt, big time.

I read the entry on your site today about the fellow who intends to travel ore than a thousand miles in a blink of an eye, and use this blur to make a life-changing decision based on distorted glances at sixty miles an hour. Though I agree with essentially every bit of advice regarding location considerations, and in particular what to avoid, perhaps you should suggest to this fellow to split his trip into two or three, perhaps even four excursions so he can really evaluate what he is looking at.

I’ve lived in the west my entire life, a witness to the destruction of Colorado as we finally fled the far reaches of the West Slope for here. Knowing that one simple mistake in terms of selecting a location can be fatal in and unto itself, we began looking in 1993 and through 1994 before making our selection. Wyoming, Idaho, and Montana. Distance from population centers was number two on our criteria list, but as you well know, the number one priority must be water.

People in the cities haven’t really a clue as to its relative scarcity. Turn on the tap. Our criteria was “live, year-around creek” on the prospective dirt, or it was scrubbed from the list. At 8.37 pounds per gallon, you can’t realistically haul enough any distance for survival if survival means growing food if TEOTWAWKI actually occurs. Maybe not enough to use just to satiate thirst if you are too far from the source.

Let’s face it. If people have to actually “Bug Out”, the “End” is happening, right there and then. Think: water, water, water, and location, location, location.

I wrote a piece about “relocation” a few years back for a Peak Oil web site that generated several thousand comments, the vast majority of them were positive. The negatives were from the Gold’s Gym-type jerks who thought I was trying to come off as some kind of tough guy, which I wasn’t. “Realism” offends people. You cut one cord short on firewood before winter and the snows get hip-deep, you are dead. Sometimes you have “Close Encounters of the Third Kind” with large critters equipped with teeth and claws. I killed a damned lion at six feet inside my barn who was upset that I was upset that he had killed my milk goats. A bear at thirty feet on top of one of our sheep who was none too happy with me either. The wolves are here constantly, and that’s just a time bomb waiting to go off. We’ve had jerks from cities show up on the place acting, and to be kind here, just a little “weird”. Occasionally and unfortunately what followed were “in your face” armed confrontations, required to convince them getting the hell out of here was a damn good idea.

Which leads to another situation that is always notably absent from writings about “Getting out of Dodge”. Why isn’t it mentioned that people are already “out there”, and even if a person chooses to relocate before the fan is blowing manure that it takes a couple of years before the indigenous outlanders accept your presence. These pre-existing folks, as you well know, traded off the easy living the cities offer for a harder lifestyle that almost guarantees austere living. The F.N.G. is a newcomer, and no one knows whether her/she is a curse or a blessing. The number of drug-laden scum that has floated in and out of here over the years is pretty amazing, let alone the flood of retirees who ain’ t worth knowing. A third of them want sidewalks along Forest Service Roads.

And then when things go south, some guy, regardless of what color collar he wore to work, abandons his 52″ widescreen HDTV, his Budweiser and the N.F.L. Package, throws his “Git-R-Done” stuff in the 4-Runner. Off he goes, carrying just enough with him to guarantee that where he ends up, thieving and murdering is going to be happening. Why? Because he’s in a panic regardless of how “cool” he thinks he is. In truth, if you don’t already live “out there”, you aren’t prepared. City folk are waiting to run, and they are running to nowhere. For that matter, half the people who are already “out there” aren’t really prepared. But City Folks simply cannot take with them what is needed long-term to survive, and even short-term if winter is upon them. So, he is going to become a thief and a murderer. Where he’s headed he doesn’t own dirt, has no roof over his head, and he hasn’t got the food to last a month. The most moral man in the world will become the worst of sinners when facing starvation. Add a man with his woman and a passel of kids, and you’ve got a desperate man. “Honey, I starved the kids!” I don’t think so.

So, what do you think folks around here are thinking anyway? Putting out the “Welcome Wagon” for an exodus of people who refused to sacrifice ahead of time? Those who have been living easy and going to Applebees every Friday night? The wife blowing money at the mall every Saturday with the rest of the “girls”? People who thought, “I’ll stay here doing the 9-5 because the woman insists, and then we’ll go if we have to.” Here’s another good one: “We didn’t want to move and have to change schools. The kids really liked it there.”

The foregoing mean that the “Old Lady” and the “kids” have been dictating his life anyway, right? You ever seen these women go through “Mall Withdrawal”? Good God, it’s a terrible sight to behold even under good conditions! At least when things are “normal” they can head over the pass for a methadone-like “Mall-Fix” up in Missoula or head to Idaho Falls. Shoot, you go and “Cold Turkey” a mall-dependent woman and h**l doesn’t even begin to describe the price that must be paid! It’s viral too, I swear.

Seriously though, is there some assumption that such “exodus scenarios” aren’t discussed by the locals down at the cafe’s in Salmon, Challis, and Elk, Bend, and North Fork over morning coffee, as well as at the Sheriffs Departments around here? My understanding is that the roads in and out of here are to be closed, which is fine by me. There isn’t much bounty here to begin with, and adding a bunch of instant vagabonds will simply be making meager pickings that much slimmer.

Fools rushing for the hills. There’s a steep learning curve and most aren’t going to make it. Best regards, and keep up the good work – John M.

Economics and Investing:

Dennis flagged this: Regulators shut 5 banks; 45 failures this year.

From Dr. Housing Bubble: Alt-A and Option ARM Economic Disaster Update: California Solution?

Ben M. sent this: China argues to replace US dollar

Qantas cancels Dreamliner order

Items from The Economatrix:

Financial Crisis Considered Top “Security Threat” to US “…the most immediate fallout from the worldwide economic decline for the United States will be “allies and friends not being able to fully meet their defense and humanitarian obligations.” [Blair] also saw the prospect of possible refugee flows from the Caribbean to the United States and a questioning of American economic and financial leadership in the world. But Blair also raised the specter of the “high levels of violent extremism” in the turmoil of the 1920s and 1930s along with “regime-threatening instability” if the economic crisis persists over a one-to-two-year period.”

Stocks Bear Market And Financial Crisis Not Over, US Regional Banks Next To Go

Epidemic of Bankruptcies Symptomatic of the Deflating Bubble

Schoon: Financial Crisis: And The Winner Is…GOLDMAN, SACHS “News of Goldman’s Sachs’ triumph arrived when Reuter’s newswire reported on June 22, 2009: “Goldman Sachs on pace for record bonuses”. At a time when the US is struggling with the greatest financial crisis since the 1930s, Goldman Sachs has triumphantly weathered the crisis. That should be no surprise for Goldman Sachs created the crisis in the first place.”

Unemployment Crisis Grips US States “There is general agreement, moreover, that employment levels and conditions of labor will not return to those that prevailed prior to the financial crisis. This is no accident. The ruling elite, led by the Obama administration, has seized on the crisis as a long-awaited chance to restructure class relations to its advantage for decades to come.”

US Economy Trending Towards An Inflationary Depression “While simultaneously supporting the Fed’s actions, which amount to little more than using chewing gum and bailing wire to keep the money and credit markets from collapsing as it creates and distributes, in arrogant, secretive, crony-capitalist fashion, a gargantuan pile of counterfeit monopoly money in an amount on par with total US GDP for an entire year, you can just sense and feel that there is now a runaway, hyperinflationary freight train rumbling down the tracks at ever greater speed that is soon going to derail and create a train wreck out of our economy.”

No “Green Shoots” of Economic Recovery with US Debt at 700% of GDP

Deflation May Derail Japan’s Recovery

The Bond Saga: It Gets More Odd

Conspiracy Surrounds $134 Billion Bond Find

Odds ‘n Sods:

This has “arbitrary enforcement ” written all over it: Alberta police can now seize armoured gang vehicles.

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A Fraud Bigger Than Madoff “In what could turn out to be the greatest fraud in US history, American authorities have started to investigate the alleged role of senior military officers in the misuse of $125 bn (£88 bn) in a US -directed effort to reconstruct Iraq after the fall of Saddam Hussein.”

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I tend to downplay American politics in my blog , since I have a worldwide readership. But the recent Democratic Party pushes for both a huge socialized healthcare system and a massive new tax system to “stop global warming” have me at my wit’s end. Here were stand, at the begriming of a deep and prolonged economic depression, the National Debt has more than doubled in the past year (to finance the MOAB), and yet the Wizards of Washington want to now run us even deeper into debt and encumber us with a trans-national tax? No Thanks! State secession is looking better, every day. As for the the new Globotax, reader H.S. summed it up nicely: “Instead of ‘Cap and Trade’, they should call it the: ‘Cap and-trade-our-jobs-to-China bill”‘. This bill was ramrodded through the House of Representatives before congressmen even had the opportunity to read the final text of the bill. I am thoroughly disgusted.

Jim’s Quote of the Day:

“The LORD will guide you continually, And satisfy your soul in drought, And strengthen your bones; You shall be like a watered garden, And like a spring of water, whose waters do not fail” – Isaiah, 58:11, NKJV

Note from JWR:

Today we present another entry for Round 23 of the SurvivalBlog non-fiction writing contest.

First Prize: A.) A course certificate from OnPoint Tactical. This certificate will be 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 between $500 and $600, and B.) Two cases of Mountain House freeze-dried foods, courtesy of Ready Made Resources.

Second Prize: A “grab bag” of preparedness gear and books from Jim’s Amazing Secret Bunker of Redundant Redundancy (JASBORR) with a retail value of at least $350.

Third Prize: A copy of my “Rawles Gets You Ready” preparedness course, from Arbogast Publishing.

Round 23 ends on July 31st, so get busy writing and e-mail us your entry. Remember that articles that relate practical “how to” skills for survival have an advantage in the judging.

The Survivalist’s Guide to Martial Arts, by “Brick”

There is focus placed on proper firearm training and the most appropriate weapons to have for various scenarios – and rightfully so.  But equally important is the ability to defend yourself in a situation when you are unarmed.  For example, in my state, even though I am licensed to carry a concealed weapon, legal restrictions prevent me from carrying most of the time.  For example, any business can post a sign forbidding concealed weapons on their premises, as my place of employment has done.  Also, firearms are not allowed in any place licensed to serve alcohol.  Fine, you might think, just avoid the bars – until you realize that this also covers any restaurant that serves beer or wine with your meal.

For these reason and a hundred others, I feel that no preparedness training is complete without learning to defend yourself while unarmed.  But even if you agree and would like to get started on martial arts to complete your preparedness training, where to begin?  What style should you study?  What type of training best suits the survival mindset and goals of protecting the lives of you and your loved ones?  In this article, I’d like to help you answer a few of those questions.  For more than a decade I’ve trained consistently in a combination of martial arts, approaching it from the mindset of not just wanting to be in better shape or win some competitions, but rather with the goal of transforming myself into a more durable survivor.  

Primer on Major Styles

To start your martial arts education, it is a good idea to get a basic idea regarding the most common types of martial arts.  There are dozens of different types of martial arts originating from every region of the globe.  In this section, I’ve focused on those arts that you will most commonly encounter in an available training format.

Karate – This is a traditional Okinawan/Japanese art dating back for centuries.  The focus tends to be on efficient, powerful strikes with the hands and feet.  There is usually very little “flash” to these techniques – the focus is on inflicting damage and getting out of there.  Karate students often engage in various types of body hardening to turn their knuckles, forearms, thighs and shins into formidable weapons and shields.  For example, a makiwara is a wooden striking post that a student will hit thousands upon thousands of times, enabling the karate practitioner to eventually punch through wood and concrete (as you’ve no doubt seen on television) with no harm to the fist.

Tae Kwon Do – A Korean martial art that gained widespread popularity after the 1988 Seoul Olympics, causing schools to pop up all over America. [Present-day] Tae Kwon Do is primarily a sport-centric martial art, with heavy emphasis placed on competition and tournaments.  Tae Kwon Do practitioners are known for their formidable kicks, as this is a major focus of the art (so much so that practical self defense is sacrificed – for example, under Olympic Tae Kwon Do rules, punches to the head are not allowed.  Not exactly a rule conducive to  practical self-defense application).

Kung Fu – Often considered the “granddaddy” of other Asian martial arts, Kung Fu has roots in ancient China and is considered to have influenced many other arts which followed.  There are dozens of different Kung Fu styles, often named and patterned after movements of different animals.  Movements tend to me more fluid and less “hard.”  Often, Kung Fu tends to venture more into mysticism with attention to direction of “chi” or “life force” to create powerful techniques (compared to karate, which is more based on the physics behind inflicting damage with your body).

Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu (BJJ) — Jiu-Jitsu is a traditional Japanese art, but over the past several decades the art has been transformed and evolved in Brazil, due largely to the efforts of the Gracie family.  BJJ is a grappling martial art, focused on controlling your opponent, maintaining favorable position, and finishing your opponent with a “submission.”  Submissions involve any number of chokes or joint locks.  The term “submission” derives from the fact that in competition, the opponent must “submit” either verbally or with a tap, or face going unconscious or suffering a broken limb.  Of course, in a real life situation, the survivalist who has applied an arm bar is not interested in whether or not the opponent has decided to give up – take their arm home with you.

Boxing – By far the most popular and well-known western martial art, boxing is entirely focused on hand strikes (in fact, only punches) limited to the waist up.  Due to the number of restrictions placed on boxers for sporting purposes (extremely limited in types of strikes allowed and targets permitted), boxing leaves a lot to be desired as a comprehensive self-defense art.  However, the hand striking techniques exhibited by elite level boxers is second to none, meaning that incorporating boxing into your martial arts training certainly has value.

Wrestling – Often overlooked as a martial art because it usually conjures image of high school and Olympic competition, wrestling is certainly both a combat sport and martial art.  Like boxing, learning only wrestling would leave you severely disadvantaged in a life-and-death situation, but when it comes to controlling your opponent and keeping yourself out of a bad spot, wrestling is extremely valuable.

Muay Thai – If you’ve seen clips of small Thai men absolutely brutalizing each other in the ring with lightning fast punches, kicks, knees, and elbows, then you’ve seen Muay Thai.  Often confused with regular kickboxing, the inclusion of knees and elbows separate the men from the boys, as these joints can be used to inflict massive amounts of damage.  Muay Thai fighters also master the art of the clinch, which is a series of techniques to get in close to your opponent and hold him in such a way that he is susceptible to any number of devastating strikes.

My Opinion on Survival Applicability

So, that’s some information on a few of the more common styles.  A common question is “which one is ‘best.’”?  This is a very difficult question to answer, as each has advantages and disadvantages.  Also, we are just speaking in general terms here, as the type of training you undergo within, say, Tae Kwon Do will vary quite a bit in different schools under the direction of different teachers.  So, based on my experiences, here is my admittedly subjective opinion regarding applicability to real life, actual defense of yourself and those you care about.

Stand-up styles (fighting on your feet):  If you are looking for one art to focus on and one art only, I’d go with Muay Thai.  The range of weapons and techniques is sufficiently broad that if you rise to the level of Muay Thai expert you will be a formidable fighter indeed.  Fist, feet, knees, elbows, shins, even your head – all available, all trained.  You may not have seen many Muay Thai schools in your area, but it is becoming more popular all the time due to success of Muay Thai techniques in popular televised Mixed Martial Arts (MMA) competitions.  In second place I would put karate.  The focus on real, direct, simple fighting techniques is perfect for real world application, as is the attention given to hardening and strengthening the body.  Next I would rank boxing.  Most fights start out simply enough – exchanging blows with fists.  An elite boxer can end the fight at this stage very quickly.  Lastly, I would rank Tae Kwon Do and Kung-fu.  These arts tend to have too much focus on sporting competition (and the associated technique restriction) or “forms” demonstrations.  That’s not to say you can’t find a school that focuses on effective self defense applications of these arts, but Tae Kwon Do and Kung-fu schools of that nature are the exception rather than the rule.

Ground fighting styles (grappling):  These days, it has become quite apparent that Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu (BJJ) is the king of the ground.  A combination of success in no-hold-barred competition and techniques that are readily adaptable to real life situations has propelled BJJ to become an international sensation.  Wrestling teaches some great ground fighting techniques as well, but for adults it may be hard to find a school or gym that teaches wrestling fundamentals, so finding a good BJJ school is the way to go (and these will usually teach some wrestling as part of the curriculum, as natural supplement to BJJ training).  However, if I had a child in school, I’d encourage him or her to pursue wrestling.  Learning those techniques during your early years can serve as a martial arts base upon which to build for the rest of your life.

Stand-up or ground fighting?  A natural division has developed among martial arts studies:  those who prefer to keep the fight standing and finish it on their feet, versus those who want to get their opponent on the ground as quickly as possible as choke them out or break a limb.  So which is better for the survival-minded student?  In my training group, we train extensively in BJJ and wrestling as part of our curriculum; however, we have the following set of rules:
What’s the first rule of ground fighting?  Don’t go to the ground. What’s the second rule of ground fighting?  Get up.

But Bill, you may ask, you’ve described how these techniques can be very effective.  Also, in the major televised full-contact MMA competitions, fighters who focus on ground fighting techniques have done very well.  This is true, but the street is not an organized competition.  It may be a great idea to spend the fight on your back working for a submission on a nice padded floor, but try it on broken glass in a parking lot.  Also, these competitions are exclusively one-on-one battles.  If I’m fighting an attacker, take him down and apply a great submission hold, that all counts for nothing when his friend comes up behind me and kicks me in the temple with a steel-toed boot.  No, in the real world, rather than be tied up and immobile on the ground, I’d rather be on my feet and aware of my surroundings, and able to run like h*** if necessary.

So, for self-defense, your focus should be on staying on your feet, fighting when necessary, and getting out of there when possible.  That said, I still HIGHLY encourage you to also learn the ground techniques.  While it may not be your focus or intent to get the fight to the ground, the fact is that the battle may well go there.  And, if it does, you do not want to be lost because the difference between someone who knows what he is doing in ground fighting and someone who doesn’t becomes apparent in about three seconds.

What I’ve described in the paragraphs above is basically the philosophy of Mixed Martial Arts.  If you can find a school near you that teaches MMA, that is the ideal situation for those looking for a comprehensive system of self-defense techniques.  Generally, these schools will have courses in a variety of the arts I’ve described above, so you can get your stand-up and ground fighting training all in one location, usually with a heavy dose of physical condition (addressed below).  If no MMA gym is available to you, then consider what I’ve said about each individual martial art and evaluate what is best for you.  But if you can expose yourself to several different disciplines at a place that is focused on combining together everything that works to defend yourself – well, I can think of nothing more applicable to someone interested in survival.

Letter Re: Keeping Cash On Hand–A Lesson Learned

Dear Jim,
I didn’t need a major nationwide SHTF moment to learn a lesson this week. (Why didn’t I listen to your advice before this happened!)
On the 15th, someone intercepted my new debit card before it reached my mailbox and cleaned out my checking account at a gas station in another state at 3:00 AM. I didn’t have much in there, as it went into overdraft, but it was all I had and I needed it to get to the end of the month. When the bank called at 10:00 AM, I assured them it wasn’t me who overdrew the account. I was told it would take 10 business days (two weeks) before they could straighten it out. In the meantime, I am locked out of my checking account and the savings account as there wasn’t enough to cover the overdrafts plus fees and my credit card through the bank is frozen. Even if someone gave me a check (loan) to cover my family over the next two weeks, the bank won’t let me cash it.
The lesson? Keep cash on hand at home!

Well, at least I learned it this month, and not later in the year when it’s possible bank holidays may occur! As panicked as I was on the 15th, I don’t know how our friends will get through it if it happens to them! (notice-they offered checks, since they didn’t have cash on hand, either)

I am happy to say that other then being penniless at the moment, I was prepared with a deep larder and enough gasoline stored to keep the car going. No one starved and we made all our appointments although there was an awkward moment with a pay-now co-payment. (if only I had started the nickel collection!) One more week to go before this gets straightened out, but we will be okay. I’m actually grateful we’re going through this now so lessons learned have the chance to be applied later when it will really count. (Cash-cash-cash-cash!) – A.C.