Netanyahu Caught Ignoring Top IAEA

This week a letter was sent to US President Barack Obama and Prime Minister Netanyahu by Clinton Bastin, lead consultant to the IAEA and their top expert in the area of nuclear weapons design and processes.

 Guest Post By Jim Dean

The letter outlines that the IAEA has been hijacked by elements unfamiliar with nuclear weapons that seem to be “tasked” with gross misrepresentations of science and physics in order to support the concept that Iran has a nuclear weapons program.

Clinton has spent his life supporting safe nuclear energy, supporting international efforts to prevent nuclear proliferation and serving his country, initially in combat in World War II and in a lifetime of achievement at the US Department of Energy and working with a wide variety of organizations including the IAEA and president of the 900,000 member Nuclear Workers Union.

Bastin is also a retired Marine officer. Fortunately, for us all, he has been Veterans Today's top nuke consultant since I found him living right here in Atlanta with me.

My chemical engineering undergrad work was a bit dated, but he invested the time to take me through the evaluation steps, several times, until the light went on. Enriching uranium to bomb grade levels is a very complex process, but converting the material into a functioning weapons platform has another whole set of opportunities for blowing the place up.

After the Chernobyl disaster, nuclear workers worldwide banded together to create safety standards to avoid another such tragedy.

While we have some detractors who feel we are too close to Iran on this nuclear threat stuff, Clinton’s letter to Netanyahu, Obama, and IAEA Director General Yukiya Amano will prove to all that our position was based on hard Intel. We have known all along that Bibi was bluffing on the Iran bomb threat.

And while American mass media has rarely picked up Clinton's material, top Israeli military and Intelligence people have. These include such stalwarts as Meir Dagan, former head of their Mossad. The New York Times might have published some letter excerpts. Our appreciation for our own media took a nose dive when we saw them lying by omission by not giving Mr. Bastin's view national exposure. Such oversights, I assure you, do not happen by accident.

And as we go into the last weeks of the presidential campaigns here we can see that even a presidential contender with his Neocon commandos are also caught trying to ride the fake bomb threat into the Whitehouse, where they have already promised to pull the trigger, which will be an instant disaster for all the rest of us.

To launch a preemptive strike based on bogus Intel would be a war crime under the Nuremberg precedents, as it would truly be an offensive act, not really a defensive one.

But there is a double hoax in play here. We are sitting here with this totally bizarre situation where Israel, a rogue regime in terms of its huge weapons of mass destruction programs and stockpiles. The Israelis have completely ignored any international responsibility for their actions and yet have the gall to demand red lines of others.

I think it is time, people of the world, to issue Israel some red lines. And now is the perfect time. We have excerpts from Clinton's letter below, and we have General Shaul Horev, director of the Israeli Nuclear Energy Committee with his latest comment about any plans for discussing a nuclear-free Middle East soon:

"In order to realize this idea there is need for prior conditions and a complete reversal of the current trend in the area," Horev said. "This is an idea born in other areas and alien to the reality and political culture of the area. Nuclear demilitarization in the Middle East, according to the Israeli position, will be possible only after the establishment of peace and trust among the states of the area, as a result of a local initiative, not of external coercion."

But it gets worse. Horev goes back to the tradition 'victim well' with more threat hoaxes, the silly rhetoric against Iran, and this new one, that Assad would use the alleged chemical weapons against the rebels or give them to Hezbollah.

It is clear who the real threat is...Israel. And all those who support its never-ending victim parade, are actually guilty of aiding and abetting in a Nuremberg crime against humanity. If there is to be a pre-emptive strike against a dangerous aggressor, we need to re-evaluate who that really is, and act accordingly.

Clinton deserves to be heard. The world needs to know that such informed opinions have been kept out of the media because it would make us harder to manipulate with the nuclear Iran boogeyman. That in itself is part of an attack on the rest of us. It is way past time we gave them some of their own medicine, while we still can.

Following are excerpts of Clinton’s letter:
“Sure, Iran could divert a few tons of 3.5% or a ton of 20% enriched uranium hexaflouride gas for enrichment to 90+%. But what then? No one has ever made a nuclear weapon from gas. It must be converted to metal and fabricated into components which are then assembled with high explosives.”

“Israeli Consul-General for the South East United States Reda Mansour and I discussed these and related issues about nuclear technology in a March 2009 meeting. Earlier, I had provided information to him from experiences with nuclear weapons and knowledge of nuclear programs in other nations that there was no potential weapon threat from Iran's nuclear programs.”

“Soon after my meeting with Consul General Mansour, I sent information about lack of an Iranian nuclear weapon threat by e-mail to you and President Obama and discussed the issue with then IAEA Director General Mohamed ElBaradei.

Dr. ElBaradei was aware that IAEA inspectors do not understand technology for designing and producing weapons but instead rely on long 'trigger' lists of items that could - but mostly do not - indicate work on weapons. He agreed with me that there was no weapon threat from Iran's fully safeguarded nuclear programs.”

“A major problem is that very few understand the complex chemical engineering technology used to produce nuclear materials and components for weapons.

Israel's weapons are plutonium-based, implosion-type. Israeli officials do not understand the technology for a uranium-based, gun-type nuclear weapon that Iran could hypothetically build.

During discussions with officials and staff of US national security agencies and others in Washington, DC, and the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) in Vienna, Austria from 1972 to 1997, I never met anyone who understood the technology used for producing nuclear materials and nuclear components for weapons.

All chemical companies who managed and all government chemical engineers (such as myself) who directed programs for production of nuclear materials and components have left the US government, which has lost the ability to produce most nuclear materials and components for weapons and assess ability of other nations to do so.”

“Current IAEA Director General Yukiya Amano does not appreciate the limitations of inspectors.”

The Overthrow of the House of Saud and the Fate of the US Dollar

Guest Post by Anonymous

The 'black swan', according to Dr Jim Willie, may be the overthrow of the Saudi Arabian oil monarchy, which he thinks may happen within 'months'.

Saudi revolution could mean the end of the petro-dollar, the end of global oil pricing in dollars - and the collapse of the US dollar and the US treasury market, according to Willie.

Willie points out how the Chinese and Russians and BRIC and other emerging nations, have already set up a global alternative to the dollar and Western payment system, after the US so stupidly kicked Iran out of the SWIFT bank transfer scheme. The whole non-Western world saw the danger to themselves - Jim Sinclair has made this point as well - and immediately set up a by-pass to the dollar.

In Saudi Arabia, with 20 million native people (and 5 million foreigners), many of those people are poor, there is an oppressed Shia minority, and a more populist, less sectarian and less oppressive Muslim Brotherhood could replace the perhaps teetering Saudi monarchy, which is recently seeming to hide the possible murder of US-tied leading Saudi Prince 'Bandar Bush'.

President George W. Bush meets with Prince Bandar bin Sultan at his ranch in Crawford, Texas, August 27, 2002 (White House)

The Saudis have been the major Muslim party fuelling 'war on Iran' hysteria along with the US and Israel, the Saudis fuelling Sunni-Shia hostility out of viewing Iran as their great rival in the Middle East.
Jim Willie writes:

« ... Easter Sunday weekend of April 2010, a secret gathering of over 200 Arab billionaires convened in Abu Dhabi. They arrived in unmarked jets. My source was one of only two or three white faces in the crowd, invited by his clients. One result of the meeting was an accord struck between the Persian Gulf oil producers, led by the Saudis, to work toward a pact with Russia and China as protector of the gulf in return for financial cooperation, economic construction, and forward progress. The implicit message was that the Untied States would be phased out in the protectorate. In the balance would lie the Petro-Dollar defacto standard as victim. Events continue to this day in movement toward that end.

However, since the Syrian uprising, a new lethal element has entered the mix. Account will be kept brief, since it is so volatile and controversial. Just some bare notes.

The Assad family in Syria has suffered some assassinations. Apparently, the Saudis had a hand in the killings. HezBollah has vowed retaliation. Their ties to Iran might be longstanding, but perhaps are exaggerated. My view is their home is in Lebanon. In August, Prince Bandar was assassinated. He was the Saudi head of security, and long-time ally to the USGovt. The Saudi regime is concealing his death, with outdated photos and false statements. They are working toward a transition. The House of Saud has been unstable from threats to the south in Yemen. It is unstable from internal threats tied to the fundamentalists. Although cooperation and respect has been shown between Riyadh and Tehran, the Bandar hit has created an entirely new environment. The Saudi regime with high likelihood is in its final months.

America – and Western Civilization As a Whole – Was Founded On a Conspiracy Theory

Guest Post by George Washington

The Constitution, Magna Carta and Democracy Itself Are Based on the Idea that – Without Checks and Balances – Those In Power Will Take Advantage of Us

America was founded on a conspiracy theory: that Britain’s King George and his men were conspiring against the colonists.
The Declaration of Independence recites a series of conspiracies:

When a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism … The history of the present King of Great Britain [and others working with and for him] is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.

***

He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.

***

He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.

***

He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.

He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harrass our people, and eat out their substance.

He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures.

***

He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:

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For protecting them, by a mock Trial, from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:

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For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies:

***

For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.

***

He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.

He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.

The American concept of “separation of powers” is also based on the conspiracy theory that those with unchecked power will abuse it. By creating 3 branches of government, the Founding Fathers hoped to reduce abuse of power.
Political science professor Lance deHaven-Smith has documented in a soon-to-be-released book that conspiracy theories were considered as American as apple pie all through American history … up until very recently.

The father of modern economics – Adam Smith – also believed in conspiracy theories. As the New York Times notes:

Smith railed against monopolies and the political influence that accompanies economic power …

***

He saw a tacit conspiracy on the part of employers ”always and everywhere” to keep wages as low as possible.

But the centrality of conspiracy theories in Western civilizations goes back much further …
The Magna Carta – signed in 1215 – was based on the conspiracy theory that the claim of the “Divine Right” of the king and his men to do whatever they wanted was false and oppressive.
Indeed, the entire idea of democracy – going back to ancient Greece – is based on a conspiracy theory as well: that leaders who make decisions without input from the public will not treat the people as well as if they have a chance to vote. This is another form of “separation of powers”, as it creates checks and balances between the decision-making power of the government and that of the people.
Arguably, Western civilization would never have gotten off the ground with the core idea that those in power need to be checked and reined in, or they would abuse the people.

But Aren’t Conspiracy Theories Nutty?

You may have heard that conspiracy theories are nutty. But the truth is that conspiracies are so common that judges are trained to look at conspiracy allegations as just another legal claim to be disproven or proven based on the specific evidence:

Federal and all 50 state’s codes include specific statutes addressing conspiracy, and providing the punishment for people who commit conspiracies.

But let’s examine what the people trained to weigh evidence and reach conclusions think about “conspiracies”. Let’s look at what American judges think.

Searching Westlaw, one of the 2 primary legal research networks which attorneys and judges use to research the law, I searched for court decisions including the word “Conspiracy”. This is such a common term in lawsuits that it overwhelmed Westlaw.
Specifically, I got the following message:

“Your query has been intercepted because it may retrieve a large number of documents.”

From experience, I know that this means that there were potentially millions or many hundreds of thousands of cases which use the term. There were so many cases, that Westlaw could not even start processing the request.

So I searched again, using the phrase “Guilty of Conspiracy”. I hoped that this would not only narrow my search sufficiently that Westlaw could handle it, but would give me cases where the judge actually found the defendant guilty of a conspiracy. This pulled up exactly 10,000 cases — which is the maximum number of results which Westlaw can give at one time. In other words, there were more than 10,000 cases using the phrase “Guilty of Conspiracy” (maybe there’s a way to change my settings to get more than 10,000 results, but I haven’t found it yet).

Moreover, as any attorney can confirm, usually only appeal court decisions are published in the Westlaw database. In other words, trial court decisions are rarely published; the only decisions normally published are those of the courts which hear appeals of the trial. Because only a very small fraction of the cases which go to trial are appealed, this logically means that the number of guilty verdicts in conspiracy cases at trial must be much, much larger than 10,000.

Moreover, “Guilty of Conspiracy” is only one of many possible search phrases to use to find cases where the defendant was found guilty of a lawsuit for conspiracy. Searching on Google, I got 3,170,000 results (as of yesterday) under the term “Guilty of Conspiracy”, 669,000 results for the search term “Convictions for Conspiracy”, and 743,000 results for “Convicted for Conspiracy”.

Of course, many types of conspiracies are called other things altogether. For example, a long-accepted legal doctrine makes it illegal for two or more companies to conspire to fix prices, which is called “Price Fixing” (1,180,000 results).

Given the above, I would extrapolate that there have been hundreds of thousands of convictions for criminal or civil conspiracy in the United States.

Finally, many crimes go unreported or unsolved, and the perpetrators are never caught. Therefore, the actual number of conspiracies committed in the U.S. must be even higher.

In other words, conspiracies are committed all the time in the U.S., and many of the conspirators are caught and found guilty by American courts. Remember, Bernie Madoff’s Ponzi scheme was a conspiracy theory.

Indeed, conspiracy is a very well-recognized crime in American law, taught to every first-year law school student as part of their basic curriculum. Telling a judge that someone has a “conspiracy theory” would be like telling him that someone is claiming that he trespassed on their property, or committed assault, or stole his car. It is a fundamental legal concept.

Obviously, many conspiracy allegations are false (if you see a judge at a dinner party, ask him to tell you some of the crazy conspiracy allegations which were made in his court). Obviously, people will either win or lose in court depending on whether or not they can prove their claim with the available evidence. But not all allegations of trespass, assault, or theft are true, either.

Proving a claim of conspiracy is no different from proving any other legal claim, and the mere label “conspiracy” is taken no less
seriously by judges.

It’s not only Madoff. The heads of Enron were found guilty of conspiracy, as was the head of Adelphia. Numerous lower-level government officials have been found guilty of conspiracy. See this, this, this, this and this.
Time Magazine’s financial columnist Justin Fox writes:

Some financial market conspiracies are real …
Most good investigative reporters are conspiracy theorists, by the way.

But Our Leaders Wouldn’t Do That

While people might admit that corporate executives and low-level government officials might have engaged in conspiracies – they may be strongly opposed to considering that the wealthiest or most powerful might possibly have done so.
But powerful insiders have long admitted to conspiracies. For example, Obama’s Administrator of the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs, Cass Sunstein, wrote:

Of course some conspiracy theories, under our definition, have turned out to be true. The Watergate hotel room used by Democratic National Committee was, in fact, bugged by Republican officials, operating at the behest of the White House. In the 1950s, the Central Intelligence Agency did, in fact, administer LSD and related drugs under Project MKULTRA, in an effort to investigate the possibility of “mind control.” Operation Northwoods, a rumored plan by the Department of Defense to simulate acts of
terrorism and to blame them on Cuba, really was proposed by high-level officials ….

But Someone Would Have Spilled the Beans

A common defense to people trying sidetrack investigations into potential conspiracies is to say that “someone would have spilled the beans” if there were really a conspiracy.
But famed whistleblower Daniel Ellsberg explains:

It is a commonplace that “you can’t keep secrets in Washington” or “in a democracy, no matter how sensitive the secret, you’re likely to read it the next day in the New York Times.” These truisms are flatly false. They are in fact cover stories, ways of flattering and misleading journalists and their readers, part of the process of keeping secrets well. Of course eventually many secrets do get out that wouldn’t in a fully totalitarian society. But the fact is that the overwhelming majority of secrets do not leak to the American public. This is true even when the information withheld is well known to an enemy and when it is clearly essential to the functioning of the congressional war power and to any democratic control of foreign policy. The reality unknown to the public and to most members of Congress and the press is that secrets that would be of the greatest import to many of them can be kept from them reliably for decades by the executive branch, even though they are known to thousands of insiders.

History proves Ellsberg right. For example:

• One hundred and thirty thousand (130,000) people from the U.S., UK and Canada worked on the Manhattan Project. But it was kept secret for years

• A BBC documentary shows that:

There was “a planned coup in the USA in 1933 by a group of right-wing American businessmen . . . . The coup was aimed at toppling President Franklin D Roosevelt with the help of half-a-million war veterans. The plotters, who were alleged to involve some of the most famous families in America, (owners of Heinz, Birds Eye, Goodtea, Maxwell Hse & George Bush’s Grandfather, Prescott) believed that their country should adopt the policies of Hitler and Mussolini to beat the great depression”

Moreover, “the tycoons told General Butler the American people would accept the new government because they controlled all the newspapers.” Have you ever heard of this conspiracy before? It was certainly a very large one. And if the conspirators controlled the newspapers then, how much worse is it today with media consolidation?

• 7 out of the 8 giant, money center banks went bankrupt in the 1980′s during the “Latin American Crisis”, and the government’s response was to cover up their insolvency. That’s a cover up lasting several decades

• Governments have been covering up nuclear meltdowns for fifty years to protect the nuclear industry. Governments have colluded to cover up the severity of numerous other environmental accidents. For many years, Texas officials intentionally under-reported the amount of radiation in drinking water to avoid having to report violations

• The government’s spying on Americans began before 9/11 (confirmed here and here. And see this.) But the public didn’t learn about it until many years later. Indeed, the the New York Times delayed the story so that it would not affect the outcome of the 2004 presidential election

• The decision to launch the Iraq war was made before 9/11. Indeed, former CIA director George Tenet said that the White House wanted to invade Iraq long before 9/11, and inserted “crap” in its justifications for invading Iraq. Former Treasury Secretary Paul O’Neill – who sat on the National Security Council – also says that Bush planned the Iraq war before 9/11. And top British officials say that the U.S. discussed Iraq regime change one month after Bush took office. Dick Cheney apparently even made Iraqi’s oil fields a national security priority before 9/11. And it has now been shown that a handful of people were responsible for willfully ignoring the evidence that Iraq lacked weapons of mass destruction. These facts have only been publicly disclosed recently. Indeed, Tom Brokaw said, “All wars are based on propaganda.” A concerted effort to produce propaganda is a conspiracy

Moreover, high-level government officials and insiders have admitted to dramatic conspiracies after the fact, including:

• Supporting terrorists to promote geopolitical goals

• Supporting false flag terror

The admissions did not occur until many decades after the events.
These examples show that it is possible to keep conspiracies secret for a long time, without anyone “spilling the beans”.
In addition, to anyone who knows how covert military operations work, it is obvious that segmentation on a “need-to-know basis”, along with deference to command hierarchy, means that a couple of top dogs can call the shots and most people helping won’t even know the big picture at the time they are participating.
Moreover, those who think that co-conspirators will brag about their deeds forget that people in the military or intelligence or who have huge sums of money on the line can be very disciplined. They are not likely to go to the bar and spill the beans like a down-on-their-luck, second-rate alcoholic robber might do.
Finally, people who carry out covert operations may do so for ideological reasons — believing that the “ends justify the means”. Never underestimate the conviction of an idealogue.

Conclusion

The bottom line is that some conspiracy claims are nutty and some are true. Each has to be judged on its own facts.
Humans have a tendency to try to explain random events through seeing patterns … that’s how our brains our wired. Therefore, we have to test our theories of connection and causality against the cold, hard facts.
On the other hand, the old saying by Lord Acton is true:

Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power tends to corrupt absolutely.

Those who operate without checks and balances – and without the disinfectant sunlight of public scrutiny and accountability – tend to act in their own best interests … and the little guy gets hurt.
The early Greeks knew it, as did those who forced the king to sign the Magna Carta, the Founding Fathers and the father of modern economics. We should remember this important tradition of Western civilization.
Postscript: The ridicule of all conspiracy theories is really just an attempt to diffuse criticism of the powerful.
The wealthy are not worse than other people … but they are not necessarily better either. Powerful leaders may not be bad people … or they could be sociopaths.
We must judge each by his or her actions, and not by preconceived stereotypes that they are all saints acting in our best interest or all scheming criminals.

Moving by Vehicle in High Threat Environments

Guest post by Max Velocity – You can visit his website here.
 
The intent of this article is to act as an introduction with some thoughts and primers for moving your family or group in high threat environments. It is not intended to give all the answers and that would be beyond the scope of this short piece. The type of environment envisioned is a post-collapse situation where there has been a breakdown in law and order. To clarify, this article is not concerned with the sort of ‘bug-out’ movement that families may conduct in response to a localized natural disaster, where you have to get in your car with some basic equipment and move out of the impacted area. Rather, this is directed at those who find they have to move locations after a significant societal collapse has happened.

As background it is clear that to read the conventional prepper wisdom to survive any coming apocalypse you need to be in a fortified self-sustaining retreat somewhere out in the boonies, with three years of food in the basement and the ability to grow food plus animals. This is the gold standard; you will be really well positioned if that is where you are with your preparations. The reality for many is that they simply do not have that. For whatever reason, they may be in an urban or suburban environment. They may have nowhere else to realistically ‘bug out’ to. They may have a goal to achieve the retreat, but not be there yet, or have bug out land that is fairly basic and requires them to move to it following a collapse. So there may be a reality gap between those that have achieved the gold standard of location and preparations, and those that are not there yet. What I am really concerned about here is a collapse of society, the veritable ‘TEOTWAWKI’, where it all goes to chaos, the ‘SHTF’. For most of us who are not at the ‘gold standard’, we will be left to survive where we are, in our suburban homes or whatever applies to you. Now, it is true that some will be better set up than others. Reasons include location, such as an inner city one bedroom apartment versus a big house on several acres in a sub-division, or the amount of preps that you have: food supplies etc.

Everything depends on the situation and the threat that emerges, including your own personal and family situation and preparations. One key thing is not to make assumptions now, but to remain flexible. My advice is not to ‘head for the hills’ by reflex, because unless you have somewhere to go you will be out there with the rest of the refugees in the chaos. If you even have a minimal amount of preparations at home you should shelter in place and make do the best you can. This should be a low profile shelter in place where you set yourself up to draw minimum attention to yourself as the waves of chaos pass. You may be sheltering in a basement with your family, for example. Of course, if the threat changes, then you will need to adapt to it. An organized gang of well-armed marauders going house to house in your neighborhood would be an example of when to make the decision to bug out. Be flexible and don’t go the opposite of the ‘head for the hills’ mentality and die in your basement simply because you did not want to pack up and go. However, I think that it is given that for anyone sheltering with supplies in this way there will at some point come one or more challenges such as home invasion from outside groups. This will also probably apply to those in rural retreats at some point as the horde fans out looking to survive. Be ready to respond and defend yourself against these challenges as necessary. Think of how it will likely be after the event, not how things are right now. Those in the rural retreats will probably have a rude awakening when they realize that the horde has reached them and the demographics have changed!

I think that there are two main things that you have to achieve, phases if you like, in order to survive in the long term:

1) Have enough stores, firearms, tactical ability and numbers if possible, as well as a covert location in order to survive the event and the initial chaos and disorder. This is a short to medium term goal.

2) Long term, you will need to be able to live in a protected sustainable community. All prepper stores will run out in the end and the only solution to survive and thrive is to be able to produce food and protect your people and your resources.

So, unless you started in a sustainable protected retreat, you will have to survive where you are until such time as you can get to one. Remember that in a full TEOTWAWKI scenario there will be mass panic and chaos as people try to find food and survive. There will be a huge population die-off and there will likely be a delay of a year or two before food can be produced. You have to survive from the one to the other. Even after the die–off there will still be good and bad guys out there. Good guys probably living in those sustainable retreats or locations, bad guys marauding and living off what they can loot and pillage. There may be other complicating factors, such as civil war or foreign invasion. I use the TV series ‘Jericho’ as an example of this.

So, if you survived the event and were not already in that ideal retreat, you then have to move. Did you hide and protect your bug out vehicle with a supply of stored gas? Are you going to have to walk, or use other modes of transport? The key thing is that your group will have to make it to somewhere where they can be accepted by a current sustainable community, or move onto land where they can create one. This will involve travel of some sort and also the ability to defend your group while moving from A to B. If it is true TEOTWAWKI, then it could go on for years and you may have to travel to establish a farm somewhere. If you are going to be taken in by a community or small town that is sustaining itself, then you have to show your worth in some way. This can also become relevant to those who find themselves in the ‘gold standard’ prepper retreat location, because some of the factors may change to make that position no longer tenable. So, at some point it may be relevant to all that they will have to move in vehicles in a post collapse environment. Some good feedback that I have received is about communities in good defendable locations and the potential to take in good people after a collapse. The reasoning from one prepper was that although the community needed to be defended, good people could be screened and admitted and lodge with some of the elderly folk who have land but lack physical muscle to get things done. It smacks of a return to an older model of society where communities and villages mucked in together and children were looked after by the whole village while others worked the land.

If you have to conduct vehicle movement in a post collapse environment then you will need to assume an extant threat. Such a threat will take the form, in simple terms, of armed groups and individuals who will seek to impinge on you and your family’s freedom, property or life for their own ends. There could be road blocks, ambush, mobs, tricks and all sorts of threats. You will also have to consider the extent that any law enforcement remains active, which could also include emergency or martial law. For example, if you are moving you will have to assess the situations as they appear and decide whether you are facing a legal checkpoint (i.e. military/law enforcement) versus perhaps an illegal roadblock with bad intent versus perhaps an ‘illegal’ one with simply defensive intent, such as one set up by a community militia to defend a town. The types of threat are numerous and to fully define them is also beyond the scope of this article; suffice to say that the means (firearms) are out there and the intent and motive will exist for the ‘bad guys’ to wish to do you harm. This is particularly true if you are moving with supplies in a collapse situation. Therefore, you will need to consider the adoption of defensive tactics and capabilities in order to mitigate against the threat.
Please put out of your mind any assumptions that you may have already about how you will move in this kind of environment. I am not advocating the use of children as ‘shooters’, the open display of weapons out of car windows, or even the positioning of a ‘shooter’ in a sunroof. In short, this is not about going ‘Mad Max’. You will need to consider the ‘profile’ that you adopt, which means how your vehicle packet appears as you are moving along the roads and at halts, and will also have implications for the professionalism that you display. You can adopt either a ‘high’ or ‘low’ profile (or posture) and I would advocate that in this situation, as a family or group of civilians moving in a potentially hostile post collapse environment, that you adopt the lower end of the profile scale. This does not impact your defensive capability, and it could be said you make you a more inviting target if you look ‘softer’. However, you do not want to incite action against you by hostiles and there may well still be elements of military or law enforcement working out there and you don’t want to find yourself arrested or engaged by these elements because you yourselves are seen as a lawless threat. This is not a discussion about creating tactical teams or quick reaction forces, which I have written about elsewhere and will be useful in other circumstances; it is more about mitigating risk to a family or friends group moving cross country.

Consider how you can maintain a defensive capability while also presenting a low profile. For example, consider your vehicles. Families often have minivans. These are not seen as cool or tactical at all, but if you put the seats down in the back you have a huge cargo space. Loading this with supplies would allow you to carry them while not making it look so obvious, less obvious than loading a pick-up or a trailer for example. Wear your load/ammunition carrying equipment in a way that is comfortable for sitting in a vehicle but less obvious – perhaps putting a shirt over top of a load carrying vest, and keeping weapons down but accessible. If you have to get out and stand by your vehicle you can do so with your weapon in a ready position, but you can also leave it on the seat next to you and readily available, depending on the situation and the profile you wish to portray. Consider these things.

Remember that your vehicle gives you no protection. Rifle rounds will cut through the vehicle like a ‘knife through butter’. The only ‘hardened’ areas in a normal civilian vehicle are the engine block and the metal parts of the wheels. This is why if you are taking fire position next to a vehicle, you want to shelter by the engine or wheel wells; preferably you will then move away from the vehicle into a fire position in hard cover. You should consider how you may be able to change this by creating better ballistic protection in the vehicles. Wearing body armor is a help but provides little protection to the side of torso and thighs that are vulnerable to side shots as you are driving. Younger kids will also not be wearing it. You should consider how you can better ballistically protect the vehicle and occupants from this kind of threat. You can fix steel plate to the inside of doors if you have the capability. You could put all the seats down in the back of a van and put in an open top steel box with access doors to shelter the kids in. If you can’t go this far, you can consider other types of ballistic protection by where people sit, even phone books will stop a round! Spare body armor and ballistic plates lining the side of the vehicle, other types or hardened material will also work including creating a space inside the load you are carrying in which to shelter kids. You also need to know that in a normal car, the ballistic protection thing works both ways: the vehicle skin will not stop incoming rounds, which also means that you can fire out through the vehicle if you need to. Don’t worry about winding windows down, you can fire out through the glass or body of the vehicle as you need to.
Seat belts are always a good idea, but the need for them can be countered by the need to keep speed low in order to be able to view the road ahead and try to avoid threats as they emerge ahead, particularly as you come around bends. I say this not because I advocate not using seat belts, but because kid’s car seats can be a problem for protection and also getting the kids out of the car in a hurry. They keep the kids sitting up high and if there is a contact involving enemy fire everyone needs to be as low as possible in the foot wells of the vehicles. Consider not using car seats and moving at slower tactical speeds. Also consider putting seats down and having the kids sitting on the floor, or perhaps secure the car seats to strong points in the floor rather than up on the vehicle seats. Consider how you will do this.

You may be a small group of family or friends that has to move locations. The worst case is that you will move in one vehicle. You may well be limited in terms of who is trained and equipped to be tactically useful in defense of your group. Hopefully it is not just one of the spouses that is tactically able, or a single parent family moving. The time to train, prepare and get the right equipment and firearms is now. If you have one vehicle you are very vulnerable and have no tactical options or redundancy. A normal standard type family often has two spouses, kids and a couple of cars. This is still worst case but may be reality: if you have no more numbers to make up a tactical convoy then take both vehicles. One of the spouses drives the first vehicle in a recce function, perhaps carrying the stores, while the other spouse drives the second vehicle with the kids and other supplies. As you move keep a ‘tactical’ bound between vehicles, even at stops, where possible. A ‘tactical bound’ is a distance that depends on the ground and will vary, but in simple terms it is enough distance so that the second vehicle is not involved in the contact that the first one gets in to. Keep a bit of space there. Consider the use of more vehicles because it will give you tactical options and better allow you to protect the kids or other ‘protected persons’. More vehicles allow you to carry more supplies. Trailers will detract from your tactical mobility options, including reversing in a crisis, and therefore if you can move the stores into the vehicles you will be better off.

The single family unit moving is still a worst case situation that can be mitigated a little by moving in two vehicles. Ideally, you will want to get together with a group or other family(s) where you have enough ‘shooters’ and drivers to create a minimum three vehicle packet. This will allow you to create a tactical close protection packet where you have an advance vehicle, a middle vehicle(s) for the protected personnel and a rear chase or counter attack (CAT) vehicle. This will greatly enhance your tactical options, redundancy and protection of the loved ones. This could even consist of variations such as an RV in the center with the protected personnel in, with front and rear protection vehicles.

As you are driving, the driver’s job is to drive and he should preferably be capable as a ‘shooter’ but primarily the vehicle is his ‘weapon’ and the means to keep people safe. The other ‘shooters’ will be assigned observation sectors of responsibility as they move along the route. You should adopt a safe tactical speed that will give you warning of any dangers ahead and hopefully allow you to avoid them. Your primary focus should be on safety and the avoidance of danger. Invest time in route planning. Don’t be afraid to stop and move forward on foot to observe the route ahead, or turn around and go another way. Make sure you adopt the tactical bounds between vehicles and if you stop for any reason, such as to change a tire, fill up gas from your stored gas cans, or even for the night, you need to adopt a good tactical position and cover your sectors to protect the convoy. For longer term halts, such as overnight, conceal the vehicles off the road and post sentries. As you move, you will need to have any music off and consider having the windows open in unarmored vehicles in rural areas in order to be able to hear and get a better feel for the environment, particularly if you stop for any reason. But if you are anywhere where there is the potential for people or mobs then you need to have the doors locked and the windows up to reduce the risk of entry and even people getting snatched from vehicles.

If you are driving and you come under enemy fire (’contact’) then you are in the enemy ‘killing area’ also known as the ‘X’ and the key thing is to get off the X as rapidly as possible. You may take casualties but you still need to get out of there and consolidate at a secured rally point. This is where any added ballistic protection will be priceless. A problem you may have is if you have a vehicle(s) immobilized by enemy fire on the X. These situations and the counter drills are covered in detail in ‘Contact! A Tactical Manual for Post Collapse Survival’. Briefly, you have to get the personnel off the X and this can either be with a rescue vehicle moving back into the killing area under cover fire and ‘cross decking’ the personnel, or alternatively the personnel in the immobilized vehicle(s) will have to fire and move off the X to rejoin the group under covering fire. Consider that for an unarmored vehicle one of the reasons that it may potentially be immobilized is that the driver has been shot. This is not truly immobilized in the sense that the engine or tires have not been shot out. Survivability will be greatly increased by the use of run-flat tires and added ballistic protection. If the driver is shot then you may be able to rapidly pull them out of their seat into the back of the vehicle and take their place. For an automatic transmission it may be that the passenger can simply jam his foot onto the accelerator from the passenger seat and drive the vehicle out. Consider how you will do this and have a drill for it. If you can’t accomplish this quickly, then you are for all intents and purposes in an immobilized vehicle and you will have to dismount to fire positions before either being rescued or fighting out of the ambush. Be aware that any vehicle immobilized on the X becomes a ‘bullet magnet’ and you do not want to be inside it, static, for any more than a few seconds.

You will want to consider whether you are moving by day or by night. The situation will dictate but in general if you don’t have night vision equipment for driving, which means driving with headlights, then you should move during the day. This will allow you to scan and observe and your movement will also be less obvious without your headlights as it would be at night. You will need to give consideration to the threats you may encounter and drill your team accordingly. You may have to respond to roadside ambush, and this may be with the road open or blocked and with your vehicles perhaps becoming immobilized or receiving casualties. You will also have to work out how you will respond to roadblocks, both legal and illegal and what you will do if you observe them early of if you drive into one without prior warning. It is important that your practice these ‘actions on’ drills so that you will be able to respond in a crisis. You should even practice ‘cross decking’ and getting the kids out of the vehicles in an emergency, so that they know what to expect and are not surprised when you start giving them commands to ‘get down’ or get out of the vehicles. You can train this kind of muscle memory drill in the same way that kids do fire drills and ‘stop drop and roll’ at school.
If you do find yourself in a position where it is the protected vehicle that is immobilized and under fire, then there needs to be at least on adult acting as the protection person and directing the protected personnel to stay low and crawl, while the other spouse or team members provide covering fire. You should be able to identify what hard cover is (cover from fire, not just view) and also what is ‘dead ground’, which is ground that the enemy cannot see into i.e. folds in the ground and ditches etc. This will allow the protection person to identify areas where they may keep the kids while waiting for a rescue vehicle, or alternatively allow them to crawl out of the killing area in cover while others in the team fire and move. The more vehicles and team members you have in your group, the more potential there is for covering fire from the flanks of the killing area, and the more people available to fire and move and also carry any casualties. The reality of a family or group of families or friends on the move is that there will be a mix of the tactically able, the young and the old and infirm. This article has not been about tactical teams and conducting tactical operations, that is a separate subject: it is about creating a tactical capability within your group where those that are able protect those that are not. This kind of specialization will enhance the survivability of those in your group.

Max Velocity

http://maxvelocitytactical.com/

“Innocence of Muslims” Psyop is About Crushing Libya’s Growing Green Revolution

Guest Post by Scott Creighton

UPDATE: (H/T Jan) An Egyptian Muslim noticed something “odd” about all of this and posted a comment on a Reddit thread dealing with this psyop. I post his entire comment below after the original article. It’s worth reading (thanks Jan)
——
Since Chris Stevens was supposedly murdered yesterday  by some angry Muslims in Benghazi (how exactly does someone die of smoke inhalation in a car with windows? How do 4 people die that way at the same time without at least one of them thinking about rolling down a window?), President Obama has unleashed the anti-terrorism fast response team of U.S. Marines to the area to put “boots on the ground” and protect our interests in the newly formed, post regime change Libya.

I’ve been working on this story since late last night when I posted one of the first alternative news articles about the pathetic cobbled together film school video at the heart of all this called “Innocence of Muslims”. It’s been a long night.

After careful consideration I have determined that this entire, ham-handed and rushed psyop seems to have been scripted in order to create a narrative to justify President Obama putting boots on the ground in Libya to crush a real revolution that is taking place and has been growing since the United States orchestrated the fake revolution in that country last year.

Several key aspects of this situation are not being discussed at all in the MSM and I think the people have a right to know. Is this another Gulf of Tonkin event? Let’s see.



1. Blamed the Green Revolution first

“In the confusion surrounding the murders of four Americans in Benghazi, Libya yesterday, the Libyan government — which exists due to the military intervention of the US and NATO — initially left the impression that loyalists to dead dictator Moammar Qaddafi conducted the assassinations.” HotAir

At first the story was it was the loyalists who perpetrated this attack. They would be the Green Revolution which has been steadily gaining influence in Libya since the United States bombed that country back into the stone ages and set the mercenaries loose to rape and murder various other religions while stealing everything not nailed down.
In January of this year, globalist mouthpiece Franklin Lamb penned this about the growing Green Revolution “threat” in Syria in an article titled “Will a Pro-Gadhafi Revolution Topple the NTC?“…

There is clear and growing pro-Gadhafi political and military activity here and it is why NTC leader Mustapha Abdul Jalil, the other day warned against the Gadhafi children raising an insurrection. Aisha Gadhafi, given Saif’s current incarceration, is perhaps the likely leader, given her intelligence, energy and strong commitment to replace “NATO’s rebels”, vindicate her father, preserve his correct legacy, and organize a reform movement along the lines that she and some family members and loyalists were working–with the approval, she claims, of her father before his death.
Every night more pro-Gadhafi graffiti appears on street walls, buildings and around Green (Martyrs) Square. Activists, and there appear to be more every day, assert that so far the NTC has not attacked them and they feel fairly free to speak out and even organize. It is anyone’s guess how long this situation will exist before a violent crackdown and open fighting.” Franklin Lamb

The State Department has been shipping thousands of the terrorists they used to destabilize Libya over to Syria for that same purpose.  That’s well and good for their Syrian destabilization campaign, but it leaves a serious power vacuum in Libya which the Green Revolution was probably figuring could be an opportunity for them.
Now we have a dead U.S. ambassador and the justification to put Marine counter-terrorism boots on the ground in Libya.


2. Why the “Innocence of Muslims” farce?
That answer is quite simple: the last thing this administration wants to do is play into the alternative narrative that they support certain revolutions while crushing others. You can site which ever you like for that reference… Yemen, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, Palestine, Israel even… just fill in the blanks.
So they couldn’t come right out and say they needed to run midnight raids on dissident’s homes in Libya, black bagging the “leftists” in front of their kids and shipping them off to black sites or handing them over to the terrorists who run Libya now.
That wouldn’t do. We support “revolutions” these days, remember?


3. Odd Circumstances of Ambassador’s death
For the moment, I will not go into all the details of why I think the death of these men is so odd only to say that it has been reported by MSM sources and alternative ones alike, that the security forces in Libya assigned to protect our ambassador and the consulate itself, were the ones who basically handed over the victims to the mob.
Yes, that’s right, they forced them out of the consulate and moved them to a less secure location, then reportedly told the mob where they were. This startling report comes from a Libyan Interior Ministry official.

“Wanis al-Sharef, a Libyan Interior Ministry official in Benghazi, said the four Americans were killed when the angry mob, which gathered to protest a U.S.-made film that ridicules Islam’s Prophet Muhammad, fired guns and burned down the U.S. consulate in Benghazi.
He said Stevens, 52, and other officials were moved to a second building, deemed safer, after the initial wave of protests at the consulate. According to al-Sharef, members of the Libyan security team seem to have indicated to the protesters the building to which the American officials had been relocated, and that building then came under attack.” CBS

4. Bani Walid lost to Green Revolution
Just the other day the leadership of the puppet regime in Libya attempted to cut a deal with the real revolutionaries who recently retook Bani Walid and still control it today under the banner of the Green Flag. It appears the leaders of that revolution aren’t quite as willing to sell out to Western corporations as the Benghazi crowd was last year.

“Bani Walid, a town of some 100,000 residents some 150 kilometers (90 miles) southeast of Tripoli, was the last stronghold for Gadhafi loyalists, falling in October 2011 days after the leader was killed by revolutionary forces.
But Gadhafi loyalists rose up again in January and retook the town, expelling ex-rebels and dozens of their family members. It remains isolated from the rest of Libya, highlighting the weakness of a central government that lacks strong security forces to impose authority on the numerous local militia groups which dominate much of the country.” Washington Post

Conclusion
Egypt’s puppet regime is calling for more protests on Friday.
It looks to me like these two nations are about to see the endgame of the regime change gambit… U.S. forces on the ground, in country, with land, air, and sea bases being built at the cost of billions of dollars to the U.S. tax payers.

What is going to happen in Libya specifically is going to be counter-terrorism assault teams, what used to be called “death squads”, rolling in and removing the “leftist” element in the country so they can’t stage another revolution like the one Gadhafi won so many years ago.

This crappy psyop is just the opening narrative, the justification they need to rush in there with our troops to attack civilians who dare to oppose the form of government we forced on them. Is it a Gulf of Tonkin event? Did it really happen the way they claim it did? Hard to say at this point, but we know that the Green Revolution didn’t do it and in fact we know that the Libyan puppet regime are the ones who ratted out our ambassador’s location.

Considering the fact that it isn’t an isolated incident and the fact that it all stems from the ridiculous “Innocence of Muslims” psyop effort, makes me think that once again our puppets over there are simply doing what they have been told to do.

Fact is, without U.S. troops stationed in Libya, those rabbles of mercenary thugs stand little to no chance of holding the country. The VAST majority of the population supported Gadhafi and certainly does not support the terrorists who attacked them and murdered him.

It was inevitable that the U.S. would eventually have to put large numbers of troops in place in Libya to help our puppet rule while handing over the wealth of the nation to various oligarchs and multinationals.
This is just the pretext to justify it.

UPDATE 1: comment from Egyptian Muslim

[–]Callmeces 21 points 1 hour ago

As an Egyptian muslim, there are a few things I noticed here in the media(whether television or people on the web) in the past 5 days:

The video has been on the web since July, there wasn’t much done about it back then, and not a lot of people cared since that’s how this type of trash should be treated.
Suddenly the video became viral, all Islamic channels on youtube who usually share videos about Religion related stuff, they all shared this one and even some uploaded it themselves.
It was common knowledge to some of those people that this movie was an official one, that it was going to be played on 9/11 as a national thing.

The night before 9/11 it was announced that they were going to “protest” the movie.
Mubarak’s regime media(Some of them are still on air) were putting gas next to fire, they were acting really angry, some of them who never talk about these types of thing did a full show about it. Telling people that they need to show their anger.

Usually Embassies have a lot of security, the US embassy had almost NONE, which is extremely weird compared to a last week protest near the Syrian embassy tear gas grenades were fired almost instantly.

The attack in Libya was sudden for me honestly, instant RPG without protesting first or anything of that sort, I don’t understand.

Conspiracy theory and all of that I know, but there is something wrong about this in my opinion.
TL;DR: People believed it was a national fully funded american movie, that the americans were responsible for and that they were pushed into that direction.

How "Crazy Survivalists" Make The World A Better Place

Guest Post By Brandon Smith

I was recently interviewed by a journalist for a local newspaper who was developing a story on the exponential rise of the “prepper lifestyle” in America, most especially in Western Montana.  Being an outsider to the Liberty Movement, she was naturally curious as to what motivated us to make what some in our culture would see as a drastic and bewildering leap away from the mainstream.  She was equally fascinated with our willingness to travel great distances and make substantial sacrifices to live in regions like the American Redoubt.    

I will not deny, Montana has indeed become a “hotbed” of survivalism and Constitutionalism, or what the Southern Poverty Law Center would call “extremism and domestic terrorism”.  I lived in Pittsburgh for years while writing for Neithercorp and Alt-Market and rarely ran into like minded individuals aware of the tenuous status of our society.  Within days of moving to Montana, I was being recognized by complete strangers in supermarkets excited to discuss the inner workings of Keynesian monetary corruption, precious metals investment, and Alinsky disinformation tactics.  Yeah…I know…it’s weird.

After living for a while in the Redoubt, you begin to forget that there are still many people in this country that are utterly oblivious to the epic dangers around them, as well as painfully helpless in knowing what to do when those dangers land on their doorsteps.  Speaking with the newspaper reporter, and my experiences at Paulfest in Tampa, Florida, reminded me that the world has yet to be reminded of the value of survivalism.  There is still a gap, a disconnect, a psychological twitch of the masses, and it compels me to explain, yet again, what they are missing.

I had thought about using parables like the ancient Greek story of Cassandra, who was given the gift of foresight and prophecy, but also stricken with a curse which prevented anyone from believing her dire warnings.  Or the story of Noah, who was given an omen, a vision of catastrophe, and directed by God on how to save a remnant of life, while knowing that most of the people around him would perish.  And what about Galileo, who simply tried to point out the scientific operations of the universe in which we exist, only to be ostracized by his church and government?  In these modern times, however, many find it increasingly difficult to relate to mythology, bible lore, or even historical precedence.  Luckily, there is always cinema…

While considering this topic, as if by design, I stumbled upon the film ‘Take Shelter’, the story of a man who suffers from acute intuition.  His vivid dreams warn him of a nightmare event, but is he a prophet, or a schizophrenic with delusions of doom?

 

 Human beings hold within them a natural mechanism, a moral dynamo that compels them to alert others to the dangers they see silhouette on the horizon.  Every survivalist today has at one time or another felt the overwhelming weight of responsibility that comes with knowing; not believing, but KNOWING the future.  The film 'Take Shelter' illustrates the internal and external dilemmas of the survivalist in a way that is striking, beautiful, and affirming.

Prophetic dreams and spoken messages from the heavens are not necessarily required to understand the dilemmas our nation faces in the new millennium.  It does not take a psychic to see the mathematical certainty of dollar devaluation and loss of world reserve status.  The degradation of our civil liberties in the name of state security.  The formation of unaccountable supranational bodies which are quickly encroaching upon our individual sovereignty.  In fact, a person would have to be mentally blind, deaf, and dumb to NOT grasp what is happening right under their noses.  Sadly, this is where a majority of the American populace lives. 

Even at Paulfest, a convention and congregation of what I consider some of the most awake and socially aware people on the planet, I discovered that at least half of those in attendance had a minimal sense of urgency as far as a true national crisis was concerned, clinging to the assumption that they had yet more time to stab at top down solutions and political tap dancing that continually falls short of what is necessary to restore liberty.

It is difficult to retain one’s composure in the face of the astounding absurdity of normalcy bias.  The idea that today’s comforts will continue on tomorrow and forever is a powerful one.  To break such apathy requires steadfast resolve.  Sometimes, only startling and terrifying events are enough to rattle the mindless masses.  Sometimes, you just have to let the chips fall where they may, speak the truth to the best of your ability, and let the herd sort out the rest in their own good time, whatever there is left of it.  What we see as a forgone conclusion, what we passionately fight to expose, in their minds often translates into belligerence and a frightening subversion of their joyous naivety:


 


As we invade their perfect world with the dreadful facts of life, their subconscious reflex is to regard us as a tangible threat.  The first reaction is always to laugh.  Ridicule without substance is the primary defense of the ignorant.  But, what if you don’t go away?  What if your arguments are too precise?  What if there is too much clarity to your position?  What if you have a whole movement of people behind you?  What if you are a force to be reckoned with, and cannot be refuted or dissuaded?  What if logic dictates the admission that you are right, and they are wrong?

Then arises fury…

It is not uncommon for the truth tellers of an era to be labeled the enemies of society.  To be held as criminals, traitors, and terrorists.  In fact, the establishment has in the past two decades made every effort to paint survivalists as the boogeymen of our age; unstable and unpredictable wild-men hell bent on destruction in the name of some hallucinatory ideology.  Using generalizations, false associations, and outright lies, corrupt governments seek to fool the citizenry into viewing survivalists as a fringe element and a dark underbelly of their otherwise serene state sponsored existence.

In contrast, I would like to point out to the non-prepper populace the advantages of having some of us “loony” survivalists around.  Rarely in the mainstream are we ever presented with the utility of survival proponents, and how they actually serve the interests of the “greater good” to quote a phrase often used by drooling collectivists and statists who desperately try to defame the prepper subculture…

Advantage #1:  Survivalists Have Their Own Stuff – They Don’t Need Your Stuff

Survivalists have their own stuff, which means, they will likely not feel compelled to take your stuff, if, that is, you have any stuff worth having.  In the midst of a calamity, being surrounded by preppers is one of the best insurance policies a person could acquire.  Think about it; would you rather have me as a neighbor, with my guns, ammo, food supply, off-grid solar power and water, and anti-establishment angst, or, would you rather have some superficial sickly fake friendly suburban yuppie with a Mercedes, an overpriced boat, a $100,000-plus debt obligation, a repressed inferiority complex, a vicious department store-addicted trophy wife, three spoiled crusty children with a vocabulary of 80 words or less, and an empty pantry?  In a crisis, who is the real threat?  Come on!

Advantage #2:  Survivalists Keep To Themselves – Your Business Is Your Own

Have you ever lived in the metro areas of California, New York, or Illinois?  Ever notice how disgustingly nosy many people tend to become in the more socialist minded regions of America?  Neighborhood administrations that cite you for tall grass.  Permits on top of permits.  Sneers when you smoke a cigarette, even outdoors.  Environmental restrictions bordering on the insane.  City governments telling you what you are allowed to eat and drink and how much.  It’s so enraging it makes you want to wrench someone’s head off their neck and squeeze their skull like an oversized pimple.

Survivalists respect privacy.  Grow a garden on your front lawn.  Smoke your cigarettes (or whatever).  Drink your damned 2 liter mega-gulp.  Let your kids play with the water hose for hours, or open a lemonade stand.  Don’t worry; the authorities will never be told, because we don’t care.  We have far more important things to worry about.

Advantage #3:  Survivalists Are Handy

Ever have that one friend, or neighbor, or family member who just seems to have all the right answers when it comes to gardening, or solar power, or repairing that hunting rifle?  Who knows all the best camping and fishing spots?  Who always seems to be willing to go out of his way to help you set up a good emergency kit in case of that next hurricane, flood, tornado, earthquake, etc?  You may very well be working with a survivalist and not even know it.               

Advantage #4:  Survivalists Insulate A Region
The more survivalists there are in a particular area, the more likely you are to get through a disaster, whether you have prepared for it or not.  A network of survival communities offers an enormous variety of skills, an alternative economy and barter system to tap into, safety from harm during a major implosion or socially unstable times, and the ingenuity required to rebuild after the disaster. 

Let me put it this way:  who is more likely to return your environment to a livable state?  Groups of survivalists with the know-how and the desire because they actually LIVE in the region?  Or, a faceless government bureaucracy like FEMA with no meaningful ties to the community in which you live? 

Advantage #5:  Survivalists Cook Up A Mean Barbeque

Show me a survivalist that doesn’t grill like an artist.  I defy you!

Advantage #6:  Survivalists Stand Their Ground When It Counts

If you ever need someone to back you up in a terrible situation, you can’t do much better than a survivalist.  They are used to adversity.  In fact, many of us deliberately put ourselves through strenuous training environments in order to learn where we will falter.  We make a point to uncover our own weaknesses and improve upon them.  Our current comfort obsessed society is almost devoid of this characteristic.  Finding a single person who will not let you down is a gift.  Finding an entire movement of such people is a miracle.  Don’t let it go to waste…

Advantage #7:  Survivalists Are Time Capsules For Liberty

Every culture needs watchmen.  Not government paid watchmen who seek out power, but citizen volunteers who shun power.  Without such watchmen, fundamental principles can be lost or destroyed, and the people of a nation are apt to forget where they came from, and what made them successful in the first place.  Though the masses have a tendency to be lured away from the legacy of freedom which once served them towards the twisted ideologies of tyrants and collectivists, in the long run they always return, seeking the almost forgotten abundances of liberty.  When the people go searching for freedom once again, the survivalists, the enduring watchmen, will be waiting to greet them.

Advantage #8:  Survivalists Are Not Afraid To Remind Society Of Its Mistakes

It is easy to be apathetic to the criminality of government.  It is easy to cocoon one’s self inside his own little life, within the minor dramas of his family and of his job.  It is easy to turn away from the big picture and hope that the monsters of the world sort themselves out, or overlook us entirely.  Unfortunately, this is not how human history has ever been resolved.  The worst problems never disappear on their own.  Survivalists understand this and are willing to take personal risks in order to uncover the nature of the beast for anyone willing to listen.  They understand that their best chance of survival is to preempt a disaster before it ever occurs.  The value of this to the longevity of our species cannot be calculated.  Without those who can overcome the fears created by conformity, mankind is lost.  Our very future depends upon the principles of survivalism, which teaches us to embrace our individuality, love the individualism within others, stand unyielding in the face of oppression, and fight to our dying breath to see that the best in all of us is one day fully realized.


You can contact Brandon Smith at:  brandon@alt-market.com


Alt-Market is an organization designed to help you find like-minded activists and preppers in your local area so that you can network and construct communities for mutual aid and defense.  Join Alt-Market.com today and learn what it means to step away from the system and build something better.
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Audit of NY Fed Reveals Cover-Up of Global Financial Crash

Guest Post By Susanne Posel
Occupy Corporatism


Senator Ron Paul has introduced the Federal Reserve Transparency Act of 2012 ( HR459) to the upset of Ben Bernanke, Chairman of the Federal Reserve Bank. In August, the House of Representatives passed 327 – 98 on a vote which exceeded the necessary 2/3rd majority.
Paul, who is pushing for “transparency” in America’s relationship with the Fed, said that Americans are “sick and tired of what happened in the bailout and where the wealthy got bailed out and the poor lost their jobs and they lost their homes.”

The Audit legislation will direct the Government Accountability Office (GAO), which is an independent congressional agency, to oversee a full review of the Fed’s monetary policy while conducting an audit of them and their decisions will be turned over to the Federal Open Market Committee.

In July, the first audit of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York (FRBNY) was published by the Government Accountability Office (GAO). According to Senator Bernie Sanders : “As a result of this audit, we now know that the Federal Reserve provided more than $16 trillion in total financial assistance to some of the largest financial institutions and corporations in the United States and throughout the world. This is a clear case of socialism for the rich and rugged, you’re-on-your-own individualism for everyone else.”
During 2007 – 2010, the Federal Reserve banks provided “assistance” of more than a trillion dollars in “emergency loans” to stabilize the financial system.

 

A source in the Deutsche Bank explained that in 2008 our financial and monetary system completely collapsed and since that time the banking cartels have been “propping up the system” to make it appear as if everything was fine. In reality our stock market and monetary systems are fake; meaning that there is nothing holding them in place except the illusion that they have stabilized since the Stock Market Crash nearly 5 years ago.

The Deutsche Bank informant says that the cause for the bailout of the banks was a large sum of cash needed quickly to repay China who had purchased large quantities of mortgage-backed securities that went belly-up when the global scam was realized. When China realized that they had been duped into buying worthless securitized loans which would never be repaid, they demanded the actual property instead. The Chinese were prepared to send their “people” to American shores to seize property as allocated to them through the securitized loan contracts.

To stave this off, the American taxpayers were coerced by former President Bush and former US Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson. During that incident, the US Senate was told emphatically that they had to approve a $700 billion bailout or else martial law would be implemented immediately. That money was funneled through the Federal Reserve Bank and wired to China, as well as other countries that were demanding repayment for the fraudulent securitizations.

To further avert financial catastrophe, as well as more debt or property seizure threats by the Chinese, the Euro was imploded there by plunging most of the European countries into an insurmountable free-fall for which they were never intended to recover.

All the money that those banks claimed they needed to avert collapse was also sent to the Chinese to add to the trillions of dollars lost during the burst of the housing bubble on the global market.
The GAO audit states that this transfer of funds from the FRBNY to the central Bank of China was an “unusual and exigent circumstance” that warranted the “emergency authority” of the FRBNY.
Sanders points out that the FRBNY gave massive amounts of money to foreign banks and multi-national corporations. Sanders said: “No agency of the United States government should be allowed to bailout a foreign bank or corporation without the direct approval of Congress and the president.”

Under the guise of “emergency loans” waivers of banking employees and private contractors were given kickbacks. Jamie Dimon , CEO of JPMorgan Chase & Co. and member of the board of directors of the FRBNY, was given an estimated $390 billion in “aid” from the FRBNY. In kind, JPMorgan Chase was used as a money laundering institution during the mortgage-backed securities and derivatives scandal.
Dimon was given his seat on the Fed’s board in 2007. He has enjoyed his position throughout the financial crisis that his and several other mega-banks have caused through irresponsible behavior on the global stock market.

Senator Bernie Sanders, who has been calling for a revision of the Fed, told CNN’s Wolf Blitzer , “The conflicts of interest are so apparent that they’re laughable. Here you have the Fed, which is supposed to regulate Wall Street. Then you have the CEO of the largest Wall Street company on the board which [it] is supposed to be regulating. This is the fox guarding the henhouse.”
During the “emergency loans” and special privilages given to JPMorgan Chase with the receipt of trillions of dollars at “near-zero interest rates”, Morgan Stanley was allocated a $108.4 million no-bid contract to assist in the bailout of AIG.

Now, Morgan Stanley is falling apart and is classified as insolvent as stocks become worthless on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE). They are selling off non-core assets to “reduce European exposure” to hedge funds and failing financial corporations because of their participation in the mortgage-backed securities and derivatives debacle.
According to Rick Wiles : “I’m hearing rumors that another major financial house is going to implode. In fact, the name I’ve been given is Morgan Stanley . . . It’s going to be put on the sacrificial alter by the financial elite.”