9 Steps to Take Now to Prepare for the Perfect Storm of Civil Unrest

via: ActivistPost
by: Gaye Levy
August 2, 2012

According to an Army field manual “In these modern times, demonstrations, civil unrest, public disorder, and riots happen for a number of reasons. Some of these reasons are economic hardships, social injustices, ethnic differences (leading to oppression), objections to world organizations or certain governments, political grievances, and terrorist acts. An event can be triggered by a single cause or a combination of causes.”

The manual (FM 3-19.15) further states that “gatherings in protest are recognized rights of any person or group, regardless of where US forces may be operating. This fundamental right is protected under the Constitution of the US.”

These are interesting if not downright frightening times. To all but the most ignorant, government and elected officials have sold out to corporations with deep pockets and hidden agendas. The tenets of freedom from tyranny are being challenged on a daily basis. In addition, not a day goes by that a new financial or consumer scam comes in to the public eye, further eroding our trust in a system that was at one time steeped in honor and trust.

In addition to the challenge of a corrupt system of governance, we have massive unemployment and underemployment in all age groups. Cities, counties and even countries are bankrupt or close to it. Health care costs are out of control as are prescription drug costs. The food supply is being manipulated for the profit of greedy corporations.

The Perfect Storm is Brewing

Continue Reading At: ActivistPost.com

Historic Drought, Giant Dust Storms And Massive Power Grid Failures – A Glimpse Into Our Future

via: ActivistPost
by: Michael Snyder
Wednesday, August 1, 2012

This week has provided two very clear examples of why it is so important to keep on prepping. In the United States, the historic drought ravaging the central part of the country is absolutely devastating our crops.

According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, drought is affecting nearly 90 percent of all corn crops in America at this point.

This is pushing the price of corn to levels never seen before. On Tuesday, the price of corn hit another new record high of $8.20 a bushel on the Chicago Board of Trade. Over the past six weeks the price of corn has risen more than 50 percent, and it could go a lot higher as the drought continues to absolutely bake America.

Meanwhile, the massive power grid failures in India are reminding us all just how incredibly dependent we are on electricity and technology. Power was cut off to nearly a tenth of the entire global population on Tuesday, and there was quite a bit of panic about that even though power is rapidly being restored.

So what would happen to them (or to us) someday if the power went off for good?

As much as humanity would like to think that our technology has conquered nature, that simply is not the case.

Without the rain that falls from the sky, there would be mass starvation on this planet. We are not immune to drought, and there are a lot of indications that the drought we are experiencing right now is just the beginning of a longer trend.

Continue Reading At: ActivistPost.com

Nano Breakthrough Paves Way for Super Cheap Solar Panels

via: Wired
by: Klint Finley
August 1, 2012

Two things hold back the mass adoption of solar energy as a source of sustainable energy. One is the need to store and transmit excess power, a problem people like Danielle Fong are working on solving by developing innovative new ways to store power. The other is the high cost of solar panels. One of the reasons solar panels are so expensive is that it’s tricky to extract electric currents from semiconductors, the materials used to convert solar radiation into electrical energy.

Up til now, this could only be done with a few materials — usually silicon. But a new breakthrough will enable manufacturers to make efficient photovoltaics using almost any semiconductor, including cheap and abundant materials like metal oxides, sulfides, and phosphides.

A typical photovoltaic cell is built with silicon and treated with chemicals. This treatment is called “doping,” and it creates the driving force needed to extract power from the cell. Photovoltaics can also be built with cheaper materials but many of these can’t be doped chemically. But a method developed by Professor Alex Zettl’s research group at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and University of California at Berkeley makes it possible to dope nearly any semiconductor by applying an electric field instead of chemicals. The method is described in a paper published in the journal Nano Letters.

Continue Reading At: Wired.com

670 Million People In India Lose Power Amid Massive Black Out

TheRedPillGuide
July 31, 2012

A dilemma of such monumental proportions such as 670 Million People in India loosing power is something that strikes close to home.

Growing up in Puerto Rico, there were many power outages due to a large amount of tropical storms and hurricanes.  Sometimes we could go weeks without power if not longer.  Prepping 101 doesn’t get much more realistic than that.

Power outages are one of the many reasons why people should have a buffer of food & water of at minimum three months in order to be able to tackle such problems outright, and not risk being in a highly unstable and dangerous situation.

Hopefully this issue does not last long and the country can recover relatively quickly.  Either way, it serves as a great warning to those that carry a nonchalant ‘nothing could ever happen here’ type of an attitude.

670 Million People In India Without Power As Electric Grid Fails

via: ZeroHedge
Source: Reuters
by: Tyler Durden
July 31, 2012

Two weeks ago we touched upon the possibility that the US climatic deep fried black swan could soon stretch to India [9]where the Monsoon season was 22% below normal conditions for this time of year. Today India is the locus of another flightless bird sighting following an epic powergrid meltdown which left half of its 1.2 billion people without power on Tuesday “as the grids covering a dozen states broke down, the second major blackout in as many days and an embarrassment for the government as it struggles to revive economic growth… More than a dozen states with a total population of 670 million people were without power, with the lights out even at major hospitals in Kolkata.” Indicatively this is the same as every man, woman and child in America having no electricity. Twice over.”Stretching from Assam, near China, to the Himalayas and the deserts of Rajasthan, the power cut was the worst to hit India in more than a decade. Trains were stranded in Kolkata and Delhi and thousands of people poured out of the sweltering capital’s modern metro system when it ground to a halt at lunchtime. Office buildings switched to diesel generators and traffic jammed the roads.” Hopefully, two events in a row don’t confirm a trend. Although if indeed systemic, and if suddenly the Indian power infrastructure is unable to handle the local drought-related conditions, thus serving as a natural cap on economic expansion, all bets may be off as to the unlimited upside potential capacity of the BRICs.

Continue Reading At: ZeroHedge.com

The Most Often Forgotten Survival Preparations

via: Alt-Market
by: Brandon Smith
July 31, 2012

I think it’s safe to say with some conviction that in the year of 2012 the concept of survival prepping is NOT an alien one to most Americans.  When National Geographic decides there is a viable market for a prepper TV show (no matter how misrepresentative of true preppers it may be), when Walmart starts stocking shelves with long term emergency food storage kits, when survivalism in general becomes one of the few growing business markets in the midst of an otherwise disintegrating economy; you know that the methodology has gone “mainstream”.  There is a noticeable and expanding concern amongst Americans that we are, indeed, on the verge of something new and unfortunate.

Is it the big bad hoodoo of the soon to expire Mayan Calendar?  For a few, maybe, but for the majority of us, no.  That jazz is a carnival sideshow designed to make the prepping culture appear ridiculous.  We don’t need to believe in magical prophecies to know that there is a catastrophic road ahead; all we have to do is look at the stark realities of our current circumstances.  It does not take much awareness anymore to notice looming fiscal volatility, social unrest, the potential for unrestrained war, and the totalitarian boldness of our government.  I’ll take the wrath of Quetzalcoatl any day over the manure storm that is approaching us currently.

With some estimating a count of 3 million prepper families and growing in the U.S., the motto of “beans, bullets, and band-aids” is finding a home amongst legions.  However, being closely involved in the survivalist movement during the past six years and speaking with literally thousands of preppers, it has become clear to me that we still have a long journey ahead of us before we can claim true efficiency and mastery.

Continue Reading At: Alt-Market.com

Illuminati Dodge Ball

via: TheIntelHub
By Dean Henderson
July 30, 2012

The system is constantly conjuring up ways to nickel and dime you. Americans have become incredibly naïve, far too trusting of a system which proves over and over on a daily basis that it most definitely cannot be trusted.

Conversely we have become far too cynical of the people, who do heroic things every day. We must reverse this dichotomy. Trust the people, do NOT trust the matrix.

Be generous to friends, family, the people and the natural world, but learn to be stingy in your dealings with the system. This is another one of those dogmas which must be examined.

The programmers are constantly sending out their message that frugality is a bad thing. That’s not because they want you to buy your friend the next beer. You should. It’s because they want you to recklessly open your purse strings and donate all your hard earned grubstake to the matrix shopping complex.

So, take it a step further. The best defense is a good offense in any sport. Rather than being led around by the nose by the matrix ad department, be audacious and proactive.

While you make it a practice to spend as little of your freedom on their stuff, take advantage of opportunities you come across to nickel and dime the hell out of the matrix. It changes the whole power equation. Your grubstake savings will grow. And it’s fun!

Little things add up when it comes to getting the grubstake necessary to bolt the matrix. Most people have some kind of space they can use to grow a garden. So get planting.

Don’t go out and buy some fancy tiller. It won’t break up new ground well anyway and will set you back hundreds of dollars. Buy a cheap shovel and start digging. Get to a depth of the length of the shovel blade, shake the dirt from the grass and weeds, and either discard the latter so it can’t replant itself in your garden, or better yet, plant the clumps as sod in an eroded area that needs it.

It’s a bit tedious, but efficient over time. Make sure you leave the heavy clay subsoil on the bottom. It other words don’t turn it over, just get under it, pry it loose and chop it up leaving the topsoil on top where this better soil will feed the roots of your veggies.

Other than a shovel, your only expense should be garden seed. Don’t buy high dollar seed from either corporate or boutique seed dealers. Buy the 5 for $1 seed packets at the Dollar Store or your local hardware store. After your first harvest, you can gather seed, which you can then use to plant your garden next year.

This fresher seed germinates better and you can select the biggest seed and grow better vegetables. Soon you will spend NOTHING planting your garden.

As with all American pastimes, gardening has become a huge marketing opportunity for the matrix. Don’t fall into that trap and buy a bunch of needless garden tools, fertilizer or topsoil. You don’t need it. Stay out of Lowe’s and Home Depot. They are high-dollar money pits full of nothing you need.

Continue Reading At: TheIntelHub.com

Dean Henderson is the author of four books: Big Oil & Their Bankers in the Persian Gulf: Four Horsemen, Eight Families & Their Global Intelligence, Narcotics & Terror Network, The Grateful Unrich: Revolution in 50 Countries, Das Kartell der Federal Reserve &Stickin’ it to the Matrix. You can subscribe free to his weekly Left Hook column www.deanhenderson.wordpress.com

Survival tips for the urbanite: Part 1 – Nuclear Radiation

via: ActivistPost
by: Rady Ananda
Monday, July 30, 2012

Though many survivalists like to prepare for TEOTWAWKI (the end of the world as we know it), joblessness and homelessness have led me to the end of the world as I know it. With coffee in hand, I opened the warehouse door of my temporary digs to greet the dawn. Only, it’s noon, there’s a downpour, and the smell of rubber from a pile of decomposing tires greets me. This marks Month 4 in New Orleans and two years since I was laid off.

In this vein, I finally started reading Mat Stein’s two survival books, When Technology Fails (2008) and When Disaster Strikes (2011). I also headed over to Jim Rawles’ Survival Blogand Mat’s website, whentechfails.com.

Instead of a lone-wolf, Mad Max world which plays well on film, Stein reasonably argues that individual survival relies on a community of like-minded folks. So plan your survival migration or shelter with room for your core group. The essential wisdom from both books and most survival websites is to plan a strategically sound survival budget, taking into account the climate of where you expect to be after you hit the road.

Few experts would call the US a failed or fragile state given to eco-migration, but most Americans already live in toxic zones, with our land, air and water being systematically poisoned by industry. New Orleans is only one of many areas suffering from hyper-industrialization and weather destruction. Locals call the corridor from here to Baton Rouge, “Cancer Alley.”

Thanks to Corexit and the Macondo Blowout (among hundreds of other oil “spills”), Gulf seafood is unfit for human consumption, and anglers and beachcombers are suffering from a host of health issues including respiratory failure. Birds, turtles, dolphins, and other sea life are dying in mass numbers or are showing up deformed, while federal agencies insist all is well.

Continue Reading At: ActivistPost.com

Survival Basics: Preparing for a Grid Down Power Outage

via: ActivistPost
by: Gaye Levy
July 26, 2012

Recent storms in my own area reminded me that power outages resulting in a grid down can happen anytime, to anybody, anywhere. Some outages are planned, some are the result of mother nature kicking up a storm, and some are the unexpected result of a natural or man-made crisis. Whatever the reason, there are various measures you should take now to insure your comfort and safety when the power blows.

Some of the basic items you need to have on hand to get through a power outage are quite simple and are things you probably have on hand:

• Flashlights
• Batteries
• Candles
• Matches
• Blankets

This is a very short list, relatively speaking and unless you have been living in a cocoon in Siberia, chances are that these items have already been set aside so that they will be readily available when the lights blink off. And for a three or four hour outage, you will be just fine with these items.

But what if the power is lost for a longer period of time – for whatever reason – how will you cook your food? How will you keep warm? How will you insure your safety in dark? These are just a few of the issues you will face if there is an extended power outage. Add infants, the elderly or the infirm to the mix and you have a big problem on your hands.

Continue Reading At: ActivistPost.com

55 Percent Of Americans Believe That The Government Will Take Care Of Them If Disaster Strikes

via: TheAmericanDream
July 23, 2012

If a major emergency happened in the United States, do you have faith that the government would take care of you?  Amazingly, even after all of the examples to the contrary that we have seen in recent years, a solid majority of all Americans actually believe that the government will be there for them when things hit the fan.  According to a new survey conducted by the Adelphi University Center for Health Innovation, 55 percent of Americans believe that the authorities will come to their rescue when disaster strikes.  Sadly, most Americans still view the government as a “nanny state” that has both the capability and the willingness to take care of them from the cradle to the grave.  Most Americans still have faith that the government will come through for them when they need it the most.  But all we have to do is look back at what happened during the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina to realize what a crock of baloney that is.  Hurricane Katrina was a disaster that was limited to a relatively small geographic area, and yet we all saw how the response of the federal government was a complete and utter failure.  So what is going to happen someday if there is a nationwide disaster that stretches on for months or even years?  Do you really believe that the federal government will be there for you?

How is the federal government going to take care of more than 300 million Americans in the event of a major financial collapse?

How is the federal government going to rescue more than 300 million Americans if a killer pandemic sweeps the nation?

How is the federal government going to make sure that more than 300 million Americans are safe and secure if a cyber attack cripples our power grid or takes down the entire Internet?

How is the federal government going to get food and water to more than 300 million Americans if an EMP blast takes down most of the electronics in this country?

It would be easy to go on and on discussing various nationwide emergency scenarios.  All over the globe the number of earthquakes is increasing, and it would be easy to imagine an absolutely massive earthquake on the west coastor along the New Madrid fault in the middle of the country leaving tens of millions of Americans in need of basic assistance.

What would the federal government do in a situation like that?

Or how would the government handle a full-blown eruption of a major volcano in the Pacific northwest?

If the federal government could not even come close to handling Hurricane Katrina, then how in the world are they going to rescue us from something far worse?

Sadly, most Americans just roll along as if everything is going to be just fine.  Just check out some of the other numbers from the survey mentioned at the top of this article….

-44 percent of all Americans do not have first-aid kits in their homes.

-48 percent of all Americans do not have any emergency supplies stored up.

-53 percent of all Americans do not have a 3 day supply of nonperishable food and water in their homes.

Essentially, what we have got is about half the country that is completely and totally unprepared.

About half the nation is sitting back and relying on the government to make all of the preparations.

Continue Reading At: EndOfTheAmericanDream.com