rawles does math 1 of 2

RAWLES DOES MATH

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note: free books.  Kinda collapse, but probably mostly militia porn https://amzn.to/2Jk9NQ0 .
Plague road trip https://amzn.to/2Jlbddh . 
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I’ve never liked Rawles, but only because of his Yuppie Scum Survivalism ( he used to pretend anyone could follow his plans by incremental investing, which was how he did it.  But recently we can all see the writing on the wall and know time is short, plus he really started pandering to the bigger ticket advertisers-the reason I love making fun of FLIR scopes ).  Not because of himself personally.  I even forgave him from being an officer, which I thought was mighty big of me ( I met few officers I actually liked, even fewer that I respected for their competence and none I didn’t fear for the ability to get me killed ). 

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Whenever I attack his logic or arguments, philosophy or positions, it isn’t personal.  I don’t envy him his success.  I say more power to him-he worked hard at it.  More power to him his concrete bunker atop a mountain, and all his pretty prepper pony gear.  If that is your thing, go for it.  But Rawles Survivalism is like Army Intelligence.  Fatally and fundamentally flawed.  Its premises are faulty.  It is almost too easy to disagree with about everything he thinks or writes about.  But I don’t hate him.  I make fun of his pimping products, but I think he truly believes what he preaches.  I can’t hate him for that.  At least he is sincere.  He doesn’t purposely tell people that which will kill them.  I’m sure Jim Jones was as sincere, is my point really.

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His latest article on the mighty powerful semi-auto owner juggernaut that should have the elite and their leftist brown shirt shock troops pissing into their jackboots is just another in a long line of faulty assumptions.  Now, I’ve already conceded that it is actually entirely possible that this time, after ninety years of nonviolently accepting whatever gun control the feds dish out, just perhaps this time it will be different and the firearm fetish boys will actually violently oppose gun control.

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It actually might be different this time since the Obammy Brigade Blacks were so empowered at an exponential rate and Whites have been so targeted the last ten years in an all out cultural war that maybe, just maybe, a few would discover testicular fortitude and actually recognize that this gun control would actually get them killed.  After all, Blacks were already allowed full on “knockout game” privileges.  It is easy to envision them given carte blanc stepping that up to killing all the Whites they see ( both giving credence to the Nat Turner fear of Negro militias armed by the ZOG, and the record companies fear of rap music legitimizing White casualties ). 

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White boys know that this time a gun ban would likely kill them.  Violently resisting is a legitimate self defense issue.   That said, everything else about his argument is problematic.  His assumptions that the military would be kept overseas, that there are no differences in gun controls, that Posse Commitatus is still observed, that all eligible fighters would fight, that most gun owners are trained-there is a long list of faulty assumptions ( the article was referenced from the Woodpile Report on 5-22-18 ).

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First, I’d like to talk about what I consider to be the big one, the exclusion of the military in the consideration of enforcing the ban.  Why does one assume that the military won’t be available.  Are we going by the Glen Beck measurement of energy availability and think there is 300 years of fracking oil left ( I swear by all the gods, if I hadn’t heard it myself I never would have believed much a boneheaded statement.  Needless to say, my tender ears were never violated by Beck again.  I’m sure his advertisers for expensive safes for expensive guns and freeze dried foods for expensive constipation are really concerned I’m no longer part of his audience )?

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Or are we going by the reality of the petrodollar decline and collapse ( remember your Seneca Cliff math-a slow rise and a sudden collapse )?  Why are we overseas?  Colonialism.  We haven’t enforced purchases from Das Homeland since our manufacturing plant all got shipped over to Japan and China, but since then we have enforced our worthless paper for black gold trade and for that the US military needed to be mostly overseas ( not to mention that we’ve never had a large domestic military-the elite are probably uncomfortable with masses of poor enlisted within Hummer driving distance of their mansions ).

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At some point, not only will it be too expensive to field that military, it also will be unnecessary.  At the pace the petrodollar is collapsing, I can’t see that day as all too far away.  Now, there is going to have to be a reason to withdraw the troops.  You can’t just say, “uh, by the way, your paper money is about to be worthless since it is no longer backed by oil”.  Oops, talk about a panic!  They need an excuse.  I can think of several, but one really good one would be “we banned guns for the children and white racist honky mofo’s are being all yucky terrorists and such and so we need our brave boys to keep the peace”.

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Perhaps low in probability, but certainly it is possible.  I’m not trying to say this WILL happen, only that the government has a long history of doing stupid crap making things worse solving another problem.  Like banning drugs since banning alcohol didn’t work.  I’ll return to that, but let’s assume the military is brought home.  Britain didn’t willingly fold up its imperial tent, but they were forced to.  We will do the exact same thing ( but on an accelerated scale since the Brits went out during energy growth and we will exit during an energy contraction ).  But rest assured we will lose our empire.

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Times flies when you make fun of Yuppie Scum.  I’ll continue tomorrow.

END ( today's related link https://amzn.to/2IVXuWE )

 

Please support Bison by buying through the Amazon ad graphics at the top of the page ( or from www.bisonbulk.blogspot.com ). ***You can make donations or book purchases through PayPal ( www.paypal.me/jimd303 )

*** Unless you are in extreme poverty, spend a buck a month here, by the above donation methods or buy a book. If you don't do Kindle, send me the money and I'll e-mail it to you in a PDF file.  If you donated, you may request books no charge.   My e-mail is: jimd303@reagan.com  My address is: James M Dakin, 181 W Bullion Rd #12, Elko NV 89801-4184

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post prepping 4 of 4

POST PREPPING 4

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note: free books.  Plague https://amzn.to/2xrfXcD .  Zombies https://amzn.to/2LGxtfY .  Not sure if it's militia porn or dystopia.  But beware, it is book 2 https://amzn.to/2JiQgzI .  Horror, but it looks cute https://amzn.to/2LKrKpu . 
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Once again, you are very welcome.  Before, I lived off grid on junk land for pennies on the preferred prepper dollar.  Okay, fine, that was completely for my benefit alone.  I’m still taking credit.  Now, I’m living post-prepping, as I embrace a life outside consumption and survive on a bare bones salary.  What is in stores is 99% of everything I’ll have for prepping ( outside the rare added coffee can full of wheat or sugar, another bag of dried fruit that only cost the electric to run the food dryer, etc. ). 

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I get the occasional e-mail notifying me to a sale, such as surplus 303 ammo for fifty cents a round.  Or I talk about the $338 register-less AR-15.  Or, I want another five thousand rounds of rimfire.  I need to resist all these.  Not because I couldn’t get them, not even because I shouldn’t get them, but because consumption is really just gayed up alcohol or opiate addiction.  You talk yourself into needing what isn’t a necessity ( “but you need the best to survive the collapse” is just another form of “today was really stressful. One drink can’t hurt”.  Note, I’m not dissing you if you self medicate for stress.  I, personally, am either 100% sober or an alcoholic, and drinking would impair my work, but I know I’m usually not like most people.  I merely use this as a illustrative device ).

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Everyone has an excuse to have a car, even though without planning to live without one you really can’t live frugally or free, and prepping is that much harder to do.  And everyone has an excuse to consume, but just like a car that lifestyle won’t be an option all that much longer.  Now, we all consume.  Even poor Turd World Nation peasants buy food and clothes.  I speak here of consumption as entertainment or stress relief.  And yes, prepping is all about consumption.  You can minimize that.  I was just as busy buying accessories for my rickety old Enfield’s as the AR fan boys are.  They buy FLIR’s and more magazines and CQB sites and all the rest.  I bought more bayonets and butt pads and etc.  I spent more on the accessories than I did the gun, as do the AR boys. 

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I just spent far less an amount, to coincide with my income.  I was earning half the national average but spending one fifth the amount on preps as compared to the Yuppie Scum Preppers.  I’m not saying He Who Enters The Apocalypse Saving The Most is the best strategy, but that if you wish to embrace a strategy for economic collapse, at some point you need to learn how to NOT consume.  The economic collapse is NOT a theory.  It is national news.  The only theory is when it gets far worse.  All other survivalist strategies are theory.  Even my beloved Malthusian bottleneck die-off.  But economic collapse is fact.

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You should be prepping for economic collapse FIRST.  And even foremost.  Far too often, we as survivalists give economic collapse very short shift so as to prep for far worse scenarios.  As in, screw my debt, I’m safe from a Soviet nuke attack.  Or, screw my retirement in a cheap location, I need to earn more to prep for the EMP or Super volcano.  The justification is always “it isn’t the odds, it’s the consequences”.  Which is great, in theory.  And I’m just as guilty of that.  I tell you to prep yesterday, since you can’t time the collapse.  That assumes the collapse is 100% guaranteed, yes? 

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But I also assume you are insuring yourself at the cheapest possible cost.  Which really is peanuts.  It is such cheap insurance it is silly to NOT have it.  So, I’m really speaking of prepping which is too expensive.  As usual.  Frugal prepping, you do not need to stay in the big city to earn big bucks.  If you prep frugal, you can easily prep for all the perceived dangers such as EMP, then hurry up and get busy prepping for the one guaranteed occurrence which is economic collapse.  And one very important leg of that stool is not just getting out of debt but getting out of needing to earn much money.

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We all consume.  You need to get to where you only need to consume the bare minimum.  And that is everything, from minimalist transportation, minimally taxed property to minimal monthly entertainment costs.  Everything.  Get frugal now and beat the rush.  I’m not suggesting you all need to get to my point in life of just needing $150 a month for food, energy and entertainment.  I could go lower, as that includes a lot of luxuries such as paid for e-mail, the web site nobody looks at, trips to visit family.  You can set similar goals, although my case is a bit extreme.

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I get “paid” to live like this in mental peace and living a minimalist stress lifestyle.  Besides JUST living thus because that is the future, it is also rewarding now, which is the only reason most of us could do it.  But I am learning it is no where near as difficult as you are lead to believe.  Just like off grid living wasn’t as hard as taught or assumed.  I don’t think the journey of learning to delay gratification is ever won, but you can be 90%+ successful quite quickly.  Once you stop earning and spending, it is mostly easier to do without most of the extras you always coveted.

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Less work to buy stuff means you get off the treadmill of justifying the stress of work by intelligently investing those earnings, our excuse for consuming ( and really difficult as a prepper, as we hurry to spend depreciating fiat currency ).  Again, we all consume, even the peasants.  You are looking to minimize that.  Invest in the collapse and then get out of consumption.  As a bonus, you are almost forced to leave the city to live cheap enough to minimize your consumption.  You can live cheaply in the city, but it isn’t as easy as if you have some junk land.  You also want to avoid the cities, as they will be the FEMA camps of the future, but that is a discussion for another day.

END ( today's related link https://amzn.to/2LurXgf )

 

Please support Bison by buying through the Amazon ad graphics at the top of the page ( or from www.bisonbulk.blogspot.com ). ***You can make donations or book purchases through PayPal ( www.paypal.me/jimd303 )

*** Unless you are in extreme poverty, spend a buck a month here, by the above donation methods or buy a book. If you don't do Kindle, send me the money and I'll e-mail it to you in a PDF file.  If you donated, you may request books no charge.   My e-mail is: jimd303@reagan.com  My address is: James M Dakin, 181 W Bullion Rd #12, Elko NV 89801-4184

*** Pay your author-no one works for free.  I’m nice enough to publish for barely above Mere Book Money, so do your part.*** junk land under a grand *  Lord Bison* my bio & biblio*   my web site is www.bisonprepper.com *** Wal-Mart wheat***Amazon Author Page
* By the by, all my writing is copyrighted. For the obtuse out there

 

 

post prepping 3 of 4

POST PREPPING 3

While I normally poo-pah the BackWoodsHome Magazine mode of prepping ( for the simple fact that a mortgage to grow your own food is a losing strategy as the banker won’t accept broccoli for your payment.  Read a little history, it won’t kill you if you just ignore dates and most names.  The Great Depression was chockablock full of Sheriff’s auctions for family farms ), I really enjoy the musings of the Green Mountain Dude ( for humps sake-the link is over at my web site ).  He is, mostly, an Apocalypse Farmer.  But unlike the idiots on twenty acres with thirty years debt, he went to go farm junk land and is debt free.  I value his insight into the apocalypse ( we disagree on Gore Warming, and being extroverted, but these are minor quibbles ).

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I trust you’ve read everything he has published.  He doesn’t write often.  Unlike myself he sees little need to contaminate the ether daily with mental diarrhea.  You can easily catch up on his writings.  He is big on devolving now to match the near future economy ( Greer did also, but was a bit pretentious and a LOT delusional with his Super Happy Slow Collapse-that did tend to color his conclusions ).  His are the clearest thoughts on an economic collapse end game I’ve encountered ( being poor tends to yank your head out of your ass ).  Heavily influenced by how Latin America is living, he also realizes with the cultural black hole in America we won’t successfully transition as they have done.

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I’ll take exactly one paragraph to encapsulate the problem.  Your car.  Yes, it is preferable to rely on a car loan than a mortgage.  Come the collapse you just stop driving, while still having a legal squat to build your hovel.  But you MUST plan now for the lack of a motor vehicle.  It is so baked into the cake, unless you believe Glen “I was an insufferable alcoholic and now I’m an insufferable born again Jesus freak so why are you listening to me?” Beck and are a Fracking Fag.  I can forgive anyone for being trapped in the Oil Paradigm.  Our entire society was constructed that way.  I’m far less forgiving if you assume the Oil Age refuses to inconvenience you by ending ahead of your schedule. 

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But let’s return to the US emulating Latin America.  At least in one aspect.  Prior to the actual imperial and civilization collapse, after the economic collapse but before the die-off, we must adapt to an imploding economy with its concurrent government benefit erasures.  Everyone will fight it, of course.  From females unable to get the courts to enforce child support to corporate CEO’s losing their gravy train billion dollar projects the government funded.  From defense contractors losing out on trillion dollar boondoggles and laying off their engineers to Social Security recipients unable to live to age 95 off of free medicine and pills.  From state pension funds no longer able to get 1% loans to Extend And Pretend any longer to civil servant Unions finally closing up shop, all state welfare is going to be cut back to the point hyperinflation makes them painless for the government to continue ( or, just cut, period ).

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But the one thing they most likely won’t ever stop until the bitter end is subsidized food.  I don’t imagine Food Stamps will continue, as the bureaucratic cost of rising inflated prices being matched with benefits will be too much, but perhaps a morphing into a WIC program for all.  A means tested commodity package for everyone every month picked up at the grocery store ( subsidizing the stores to remain open is cheaper than building commodity distribution centers or staffing them ).  Just like in Latin America where it is common to be able to buy artificially low cost staples such as corn and beans and cooking oil, there will most likely be a food program so that nobody starves.  It is the cheapest way to forestall revolution. 

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And eventually, that is going to pretty much be all that the government offers.  No more cushy contractor jobs, no more housing or diaper freebies.  No more Obammy phones, but also no more military and sewage worker pensions.  Just like our own history and that of Britain, the sons of the rich become military officers.  They don’t join for the salary but just to be housed and fed in the style above the peasants.  Once the cost per soldier drops drastically after our imperial entanglements cease, the draft has to see a return as the military also starts to emulate Latin America and uses its military to police the nation ( as we used to on the frontier in Injun Country ).  A much cheaper version of law enforcement and defense. 

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The economy is going to contract severely without the petrodollar subsidy.  The government must follow suite.  Just as huge swaths of England today have a total budget less than one of Americas “sex lives of snail” bogus research grants, our spending will fall to now unimaginable low numbers.  The path will be convoluted but the destination is pretty clear.  You can actually run a national government on very little money, sans welfare, and still provide the very basics to the poor.  In time, your only benefit from the government will be that monthly bag of flour and other assorted edibles.  And the fact that the army will send in troops after the communist guerrillas, which may or may not be a benefit.

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This isn’t just a Rush Limbaugh approved comeuppance for uppity ghetto dwellers on welfare.  The majority of us are actually dependent on the government for a check.  It is free money to them, just more debt never to be repaid except through hyperinflation, and in the end the bankers and assorted scumbag ilk get that money from us to fund more mansions in the Hampton’s, hookers and blow.  We are speaking of dismantling most of the functioning economy by withdrawing government spending, no better than northern European welfare states.  Tomorrow, let’s finish up and look at your average peasants lifestyle in this situation. 

END ( today's related link https://amzn.to/2s9QI8J )

 

Please support Bison by buying through the Amazon ad graphics at the top of the page ( or from www.bisonbulk.blogspot.com ). ***You can make donations or book purchases through PayPal ( www.paypal.me/jimd303 )

*** Unless you are in extreme poverty, spend a buck a month here, by the above donation methods or buy a book. If you don't do Kindle, send me the money and I'll e-mail it to you in a PDF file.  If you donated, you may request books no charge.   My e-mail is: jimd303@reagan.com  My address is: James M Dakin, 181 W Bullion Rd #12, Elko NV 89801-4184

*** Pay your author-no one works for free.  I’m nice enough to publish for barely above Mere Book Money, so do your part.*** junk land under a grand *  Lord Bison* my bio & biblio*   my web site is www.bisonprepper.com *** Wal-Mart wheat***Amazon Author Page
* By the by, all my writing is copyrighted. For the obtuse out there

 

post prepping 2 of 4

POST PREPPING 2

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note: if you have Netflix, watch the zombie movie "Cargo".  A much higher caliber than usual.  Almost no zombies, mostly characterization and story. Minimal SJW PC.  Made in Oz.
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We started this series of articles asking the question of what happens post economic collapse but pre civilization collapse.  An unfortunate period rarely discussed.  It is either time condensed ( “EBT card payments stop and the Evil Negro’s riot and anarchy descends upon the land” ) or ignored altogether ( “a four hundred years stair step collapse sees everyone doing splendidly”.  I’d like to add in here a very short comment.  Go to Cassandra’s Legacy blog and see the May 21 2018 article, which to me reads as moving the Roman economic collapse back at least a century if not 150 years.  You might want to rethink that stair step theory-but that could just be me ).

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I don’t mean to imply that prepping for civilization collapse is a waste.  It certainly is not, if only because we will get there fast enough ( yes, I know-in theory.  I’m assuming you understand this is all about worse case scenario planning rather than me trying to sell you on a guarantee.  I believe in my heart of hearts we will see a 99+% die-off soon, but I’m not so blind as to think I’m infallible ).  I just want to get you to see that it isn’t about working for a paycheck one day and the very next we are shooting zombie bikers.  In between is the period we are all going to hate.  Preparations are no longer possible, we are forced to eat our stores and the government is still dry humping us. 

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Not to say any of us will enjoy the post civilization collapse, but there is that silver lining where at least we can solve some problems with a suitable level of force without the government incarcerating us since we threatened their perceived monopoly on said permission of force.  Anarchy will be short lived.  It always is.  People historically choose losing freedom to losing property or their lives.  The power vacuum will quickly be filled and with the communities blessing.  Most of us look forward to a time during that power vacuum.  It is unrealistic to assume that turns out well for us, but that is the fantasy.

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If you look at survivalist or Libertarian literature, it is all about the individual having a monopoly on force.  And as wonderful as that wish fulfillment is, it is just a fantasy.  Nobody is going to grant you a monopoly on force because of a perceived natural right, and nobody who isn’t a true psychopath is going to assume power over your neck of the woods.  No one else is capable of so casually disposing of lives in order to retain power.  The White Knight benevolently ruling his subjects is just smoke up the asses of the ruled.  And we all accept that reality even as we lie to ourselves ( “Trump will make America great again, not just his personal finances” ).

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 You can very well be living in a libertarian paradise.  IF you can shoot anyone who threatens you and IF your area has no resources a much better armed foe covets.  Just remember that Might Makes Right, not moral superiority or philosophy or desire.  But for most of us, most of the time, the luxury of being able to solve our own problems by force are going to be nigh impossible.  People want security at as low of a price as possible ( it is worth saving their own ass by ceding power to others so their fighting is done for them ) and those fighting for power need a monopoly on force so as to secure their reward for providing security.

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The reality throughout history has been thus.  If you don’t give twenty percent of your crop to your personal Mafia representative, you will instead give 100% and forfeit your life to the neighboring one.  It is picking the lesser evil.  It isn’t some luxury conjured up by a philosophy pretending otherwise.  It is just reality.  You want freedom, you opt out of living in a centralized agricultural paradigm.  Be a nomad.  Or belong to a tribe of mountaintop farmers.  Or be a hermit if you can find a secluded area.  Those are your realistic choices. 

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Fantasy is your sovereignty.  Fact is you are ruled.  You can puff out your chest and declare you are free, but reality is once you exercise a monopoly on force, wait and see how the State responds.  Even in clear rule jurisdictions with defense against intruders, the court gets to decide if you used force according to THEIR rules.  Not yours.  They can jail you in clear contraction of their own laws and they do, all the time.  Any illusions of your freedom are fantasy.  Cries of “my money, I’m keeping it” can be proved as you walk into a store and try to pay with precious metal, or demand they deduct the hidden taxes.  Cries of “I’m a free and sovereign individual” can be proved as you forbid armed state representatives from judging the legality of your self defense shooting.

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The reality for after the economic collapse is probably going to be more of your meekly submitting obsequious compliance than your fierce resistance to unlawful acts with guns blazing.  Not to say you can’t bury a midnight garden intruder.  With a shovel and a bit of elbow grease you can make most problems disappear.  And that just might happen, if you kill someone in the stress of an sudden attack.  But given time to contemplate, most folks know better than to challenge the local authorities and their monopoly on force. 

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Pre-civilization collapse, you will most likely be as law abiding as you are now.  The local Sheriffs office is more than likely the mayors bully boys and are enforcing extremely high property taxes, and most likely you go along as long as there is enough food left for your families survival.  Few folks will fight without the threat of starvation ( or unless they can be tricked into thinking that not fighting will endanger their family.  If you think about it, the WWII propaganda was ludicrous on its face.  There was no way Japan or Germany posed a threat to our self sufficient nation surrounded by moats.  What must have been understood was that by not fighting the war, malnutrition of the Great Depression would have continued.  No welfare for you, in the contraction we started to enrich the elite, but if you become cannon fodder we’ll save your family.  Rush Limbaugh and Glen Beck would have approved ). 

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The government ceding power to Blacks under threat of protests is nothing more than a choice.  They choose to allow it as doing so is a hammer against the Whites.  Be compliant with your subjugation or we will let slip the Negro’s from their ghettos.  Do you doubt that this isn’t exactly what they are doing with the Muzzies over in Europe?  Give in to being a debt slave and allowing the globalists to rule you, and we won’t let the Muslims knife and rape you, AS MUCH.  Accept your forced withdrawal from the middle class as the bankers wipe out your only asset or the Darkies thin blue line will be withdrawn.

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No one thinks in those terms of course.  They just see a clear and present danger and agree to support the government for whatever protection they can get.  Such as, I’ll support the Iraq occupation because I need affordable gas to live in the suburbs far away from The Black Menace.  It doesn’t matter that the Blacks were an empowered enemy or the Muzzies were allowed in.  That is how compliance is assured.  And no one fights it because we are all well fed.  Why do you assume the future will be any different?  Continued tomorrow.

END ( today's related link https://amzn.to/2IK4LNx )

 

Please support Bison by buying through the Amazon ad graphics at the top of the page ( or from www.bisonbulk.blogspot.com ). ***You can make donations or book purchases through PayPal ( www.paypal.me/jimd303 )

*** Unless you are in extreme poverty, spend a buck a month here, by the above donation methods or buy a book. If you don't do Kindle, send me the money and I'll e-mail it to you in a PDF file.  If you donated, you may request books no charge.   My e-mail is: jimd303@reagan.com  My address is: James M Dakin, 181 W Bullion Rd #12, Elko NV 89801-4184

*** Pay your author-no one works for free.  I’m nice enough to publish for barely above Mere Book Money, so do your part.*** junk land under a grand *  Lord Bison* my bio & biblio*   my web site is www.bisonprepper.com *** Wal-Mart wheat***Amazon Author Page
* By the by, all my writing is copyrighted. For the obtuse out there

 

 

post prepping 1 of 4

POST PREPPING

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note: free books.  Plague https://amzn.to/2IVc7cM .  Zombie https://amzn.to/2IRKSUw . 
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What happens after prepping?  I don’t assume “the apocalypse”, because for a lot of us, the economy will give out before the ass of civilization does.  We can look at South America for an example, but just keep in mind that they are only a loose example.  They are so different culturally that you can’t draw too close a correlation.  I don’t use Africa because they are different in terms of resources.  Do you ever wonder why there is such a different colonial dynamic between the two?

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Central and western South America were of course colonized by the Spanish, who, in a really good example of how not to run an empire, took all their loot and wasted them on wars ( remind you of anyone else you know? ) and left the western hemisphere with little more than peasant worked agricultural areas.  They have remained this way until the present day, for all intents and purposes.  Africa has never been a great source of food surplus, sufficient to pay its own way.  The cost of colony is much higher and usually the most profitable trade is in mineral wealth ( which includes petroleum for our discussion, even though that is really only presently viable as the EROI of the worlds oil declines.  The food and minerals are both higher cost due to disease, distance and local opposition ).

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Agriculture isn’t even all that great of a deal in Central and South America.  The several empires there were in effect  mining fertility to achieve sufficient growth, infamously the Mayans using the historically aberration heavy rainfall and for the Inca’s the anchovy harvest used as fertilizer and protein source.  Much less is known about the Amazon rain forest area, thought to be biochar agriculture, but then as now logging that area is problematic.  Really, it is with good reason that the old Spanish areas weren’t good for much more than silver mining. 

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Africa is a much better producer of food and minerals ( and so much larger than represented on most maps, so there is more there than meets the one dimensional eye ).  It can get overpopulated and stay that way.  In many ways they are at an advantage long term low energy.  The eastern US which is the only sustainable area ( albeit at a much lower population density ) of the country without carbon fuel or colonial inputs could fit in any number of insignificant African countries ( the same with the non-desert Chinese land area ).  As far as the constant warfare characterizing the continent for the last seventy or so years, they differ not at all from many European eras. 

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So, while Africa suffers from a lack of a centralized power monopolizing force and enforcing a peace there, and from them being the poster child of Malthusianism, in many ways of sustainability post petroleum the continent as a whole has advantages.  They are less constrained in resources than South America.  If it wasn’t for cocaine and soy beans, the South American continent would be in far worse shape as it is, WITH carbon fuel inputs.  Coffee is currently a boon but once affluent Yuppies are forced to kick the luxury consumption perhaps not. 

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The reason I’m assuming we emulate South America rather than Africa is because we have essentially mined our fertile areas, just as the Mayans did.  Just as in say, Syria or Greece, once the area is farmed out they never recover.  We COULD recover, as the eastern US did one time previously after the 90% die-off of the agricultural Indian empires, but the population density now will see that the soil does not recover.  We also had the technology and extra energy to far outstrip the soil than the Indians ever did. 

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In that pre-civilization collapse, post-economic collapse time frame, we won’t see quick enough die-off to save the resources, but we will see enough demand on them that we strip the place of the wire in the walls.  Look, the oil is running out.  Fracking oil is licking the bottom of the bowl.  As the oil runs out we will start seeing a lack of oil based services.  Which includes long distance crops ( overseas oil and fertilizer to the Midwest, irrigation for water, train and semi to haul after oil dependent harvest, to processing facilities to turn corn into food like products, to distribution centers to energy dependent freezers and stovetops ). 

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We aren’t eating corn derivatives one day and nothing the next.  More than likely supply disruptions and exploding inflation triage the supply.  Less gets through, not just nothing arriving.  Everyone starts gardening, hunting and raising livestock.  And it isn’t organic and sustainable.  It is more than likely fast and desperate and wasteful, as it is hard to husband and plan ahead when the brats you popped for increased welfare suddenly need to be fed off your own land.  It is easy enough salvaging homes for material, clearing land for more fields, plus planting less bountiful areas with corpses to refurbish the soil. 

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But that is a luxury for after the civilization collapse.  It cannot happen while the authorities still control the area.  There is going to be a time of high population and high resource extraction.  Like South America.  Africa, being a different dynamic, being more naturally abundant in fertile land despite a much longer use ( in theory, if the first western hemisphere settlement dates are in fact correct-which looks less and less likely as time goes on ), has been able to weather the cash crops and mining and civilization collapses far better than South America.  So we look to the peasants of our own hemisphere for a better example of pre apocalypse collapse. 

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Not just from an economic viewpoint but of that of resources.  Another mistake preppers make, not distinguishing the two.  Resources create the economy, not the other way around ( “but, ‘Murica!  Ingenuity!  Hydrogen and batteries are their own fuel source!” ).  Continued tomorrow.

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consuming mass quantities 2 of 2

CONSUME MASS QUANTITIES 2

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The English did quite well for themselves Consuming Mass Quantities ( “Coneheads” reference ).  Their longbowmen were able to reach far beyond normal archery range which was a tactical advantage.  And that did take mad skills.  But that didn’t do a tinkers damn bit of difference without the logistic behind that.  Both the resources for training and the ability to mass produce the arrows needed ( a lone archer would be little more than a sniper, and about as useful for deciding the war ). 

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Then the English took that military idea and translated it over to black powder musketry.  So did every other nation.  The trick the Brits used was to have superior logistics.  They had the naval power to colonize overseas areas that gave them superior numbers of supplies.  An energy surplus.  The fact that British soldiers mastered the battlefield tactics ( taking the pike replacement bayonet and using it not just against horsemen but against fellow musketeers ) would not have gained them an empire without the colonies that provided the war machine.

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Consuming mass quantities didn’t do a damn bit of good for them however, in the next great colonial power conflict.  Their infrastructure had started to suffer as their energy supplies declined, and a empire powered by depleted coal fields cannot best a new oil empire.  All they did during WWI was to use the last of the empires wealth to make millions of artillery shells that did little to no good.  Germany was in the same boat, differing only in newer coal deposits and less need for a navy to protect its far flung colonies, giving it little advantage over the US but enough over Britain to matter. 

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Keep in mind that the Brits were already in economic decline far before the war.  Their infrastructure had already been in decline.  The war should have been a foregone conclusion, but their generals then, as ours now, didn’t know dingus about logistics other than “order, stockpile, ship”.  They give no consideration to economics, energy or ore, custom, education or culture.  They are just ordering from a catalog and making sure to have enough ships to transport.  Not that they were completely oblivious.  Most British troops fought in the middle east by the oil fields while the commonwealth troops got stuck in the trenches.

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But that was simply applying strategy to logistics ( we better secure our oil supply ) rather than only applying strategy from logistics ( we must avoid war until our energy supply is secure ).  The Brits fought from a logistical superiority during empire and then was unable to continue as they declined, stripping the wires from the walls in desperation ( as all failing empires do.  Did you know that in just two months the Petro-Dollar lost 15% of its participants?  They moved over to the Chinese system.  Granted, a one off.  But it is indicative of our loss of control.  We kicked Libya’s ass when she abandoned the petrodollar, and now we can’t stop Venezuela from doing so ).

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Let’s return to the longbow.  It would have been a Nazi Wonder Weapon, all flash and no substance as it wasn’t able to be mass produced, if the Brits didn’t have the logistics to field the weapon.  With those logistics, it made a difference in their wars.  Follow my logic here.  They had huge amounts of projectiles to use, which had to be supplied on an industrial scale.  Does this remind you of today’s soldiers and their reliance on firing mass quantities of bullets from assault carbines?  It should.

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Go back a smidge to the First Afghan War For Freedom when the Soviets invaded ( three guesses who invaded next, and the first two don’t count.  If you said “Islamic terrorists”, you are a moron and should hurt yourself, preferably by lethal anal injection ).  Did the guerrillas fight the Soviets on their own terms?  Tank to tank, thirty round magazine to magazine?  Of course not.  They didn’t have the logistics for that.  They were traveling over to Pakistan and giving local cottage industry chemists opium in exchange for 303 British rounds packed with nitrates made from old movie film.  And they fight the worlds biggest army ( well, perhaps the Chinese were bigger, but at least the biggest mechanized army ).

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Perhaps the Soviets would have stayed another decade if the CIA hadn’t given Bin Laden and ilk surface to air missiles, but they still would have lost.  Unless you literally genocide the enemy, guerrillas always win just by making the occupier Consume Mass Quantities.  They all eventually go broke.  If you fight them conventionally ( which, even had the Afghans wished to, they lacked any logistics to.  Their infrastructure was tribal, and occupying a capital with an army doesn’t make you a nation state.  Something anyone looking towards Washington DC will very soon find out ), the superior logistics will win, of course.

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Do you think the prepper with the deeper stock of ammunition will be the next military victor after the die-off?  Why?  All who  fight that group conventionally lose, but then that victor loses as soon as guerrillas need to defeated.  No stockpile is deep enough.  Without mining and factories, you have no logistics.  The same does in fact apply to defense using conventional tactics.  You consume mass quantities of ammunition.  Which, because you lack ore and energy and manufacturing facilities, will run out soon enough.

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Think about a massively awesome food supply.  Wow, five years of wheat for you and your wife.  But as soon as a squad shows up, all that is gone in a mere eight months.  With ammunition, twenty thousands rounds might be a generational supply if all you ever encounter are poachers and thieves.  But how long does that last against squad attacks?  Because you aren’t treating each round as irreplaceable, you practiced outdated tactics relying on logistics you no longer have.  You are defending agricultural land, but without the infrastructure needed to do so.  Just as wheat stocks don’t substitute for farming, ammunition stocks do not substitute for a logistics infrastructure ( odds are you won’t even be able to replicate the longbow manufacturing and training infrastructure, let alone a black powder weapon one ).

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You fight however your logistics dictate.  If you lack manufacturing, you fight as a guerrilla, not as a nation state soldier.  You don’t have logistics!  Stop training to be a soldier!

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Please support Bison by buying through the Amazon ad graphics at the top of the page ( or from www.bisonbulk.blogspot.com ). ***You can make donations or book purchases through PayPal ( www.paypal.me/jimd303 )

*** Unless you are in extreme poverty, spend a buck a month here, by the above donation methods or buy a book. If you don't do Kindle, send me the money and I'll e-mail it to you in a PDF file.  If you donated, you may request books no charge.   My e-mail is: jimd303@reagan.com  My address is: James M Dakin, 181 W Bullion Rd #12, Elko NV 89801-4184

*** Pay your author-no one works for free.  I’m nice enough to publish for barely above Mere Book Money, so do your part.*** junk land under a grand *  Lord Bison* my bio & biblio*   my web site is www.bisonprepper.com *** Wal-Mart wheat***Amazon Author Page
* By the by, all my writing is copyrighted. For the obtuse out there