This is a very interesting thread. I especially enjoyed Jade’s post since she (Is she a “she”? If not, please forgive me.) actually lived through a crisis and, rural as she was, still found it impossible to avoid thieves. Needless to say, if Jade *had* shot the thief, she’d probably be in jail today. How, then, does one stop thieves if it isn’t yet clear that the rule of law is finished?
I began buying everything I thought I might need – if it would keep – about fifteen years ago. This year I finally moved to my “bug out” location which, fortunately, I can now devote myself 100 percent to. One of the things I’ve quickly learned is that all of the things I bought, often in quantity and brought up here year after year, make the place nearly uninhabitable. My oversized 3-bay garage looks like three jam-packed storage units and one of my two bedrooms is, likewise, unusable. It’s a problem.
Now, fifteen years is a long time to prep even halfheartedly for something that hasn’t happened. Mind you, I’m glad it hasn’t happened, ecstatic that it hasn’t happened, but the years have made one thing very clear: NO ONE knows when this thing is going to implode. I mean, I was nearly as certain that we were on the brink back then as I am today, and “then” was 2003.
You’d think that all the years would have made me look foolish to those I discussed the future with at the time, people who knew I was predicting and getting ready for an economic calamity to surpass the Great Depression. Surprisingly, it hasn’t. Several who didn’t take what I was predicting at all seriously now do. (Do you suppose my strong recommendation to buy precious metals may have played a role?) Back then, references to “Great Depression II” had some serious shock value. Today? Not so much. In fact, I’d say that the fact that so many accept the possibility of a second Great Depression today is good evidence that something nightmarish IS on the way, or is here already.
Is here already? Yep. That’s because I’ve always known that economic collapse can manifest itself in two ways – well, three, but I’ll get to that a bit later. It can be a MANAGED collapse in which conditions deteriorate in such gradual fashion that people are able to adapt and survive. They can plant gardens and learn to get by with less. Or it can be a SUDDEN collapse in which we go to bed one night and, when we wake up, find that it’s already too late to get our money out of the banks. In a sudden collapse, people will die. A *lot* of people will die. It is the worst of all worlds.
I actually think what’s coming… what’s already here… is a combination of the two. We are on a bus moving at high speed. The brakes have already failed but we aren’t going over a cliff. Not yet we aren’t. But sure as the sun rises in the east, we will. There is a point when, even if the brakes begin to work, it’s just too late. And that’s where we are.
I live in a rural location. I have running water, a field, a little forest and about ten acres I can call my own. But I can see my neighbors, and I’m on a road that connects two towns and therefore gets a little traffic. That means that where I am is not sufficient. I’m in the process of building something bigger and still more rural where I won’t see my neighbors. Will it be sufficient for TEOTWAWKI? Jade’s story makes me think not – but if even it won’t be sufficiently isolated, then there may be no place on earth where a person can feel secure.
*sigh*
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This reply was modified 1 year, 7 months ago by
Decomposed.
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This reply was modified 1 year, 7 months ago by Decomposed.
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This reply was modified 1 year, 7 months ago by Decomposed.
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This reply was modified 1 year, 7 months ago by Decomposed.