Prepping v's paranoia

LOL!

Reality, what a concept!
~Robin Williams

I think the problem with the notion of "living in reality" today is that our "realities" are being intentionally; obscured, conflated, and even re-written on a daily basis, and in some cases just deleted from archives. And now we have a great many people all looking at...seeing...being spoon fed, etc., something completely different. Yet all are equally positive that what they are looking at and sharing is the one true reality.

The funny part (though not humorously so) is that earlier, before all the emotions were hijacked and fears inflated in the disinfo wars of 2016 and 2020, most of us already accepted that we couldn't count on an agendized main stream media to keep us honestly informed of our "reality" just based on who owned them and which advertisers paid their salaries. Yet now they are suddenly somehow fountains of equal but opposite irrefutable knowledge? Whose narratives are being swallowed hook line and sinker, and being far more effective at the divide and conquer game than Julius Caeser ever was. I think it's highly unlikely that anyone who is just taking the easy approach to gaining information of pushing a button and soaking up whatever the talking heads say or whatever the so-called journalists have typed out, has any more of a clue what reality is today than anyone else.

For... "The man who reads nothing at all is better educated than the man who reads nothing but newspapers"
~Thomas Jefferson

But my opinions of what may or may not be happening on various media outlets and broadcast platforms globally is also irrelevant to this particular thread, though may be discussed later in another one. At any rate, with this being the W&SS section, not the political arena or whine and cheese. maybe we should just leave our likely equally disinformed opinions and judgements based on them out of it? I know that's why the research I've gathered over the last year isn't being discussed in any of my threads. I'm just including it all in a book I've been working on since mid March.

 

We have some common ground. I am going to dissect this one and respond to the parts with my experiences thoughts and opinions.

"There is no way I'd eat that!" is a very common statement from students I have taught over the years who have never actually experienced real hunger. I even said the same thing myself as a kid before I knew better. Back when my Marine father, who also survived the great depression he was born into and My Grandfather and other relatives fighting in WW-!! before going off to fight the Communist Chinese in Korea himself, was introducing me to advanced lessons in subtropical and coastal survival in south Florida when I was 9 in 1974. That was where he had grown up. I had to eat those words later. After Dad had an accident at work, and the drug addict mother he took me from and then left me stuck with was murdered by my stepfather, and I found myself living on the streets at age 16 trying to survive and keep other runaway and discarded kids alive too. I had to eat those words right before I ate things I had salvaged from dumpsters...though some was much better and cleaner than other things. Or right before I ate alternative forms of game and fowl. Especially in the winter. Hunger may be the single most powerful motivator in the world because it is an elevated and augmented experience of fear. Just ask any of the passengers aboard Uruguayan Air Force Flight 571 from 1972. An incident my father used to point out how I may some day change my mind about what I would or would not eat.

Luckily, before their divorce I had grown up in a "prepping" environment in a military family during the cold war. Before the term prepping was fashionable. Before she became inextricably addicted to drugs, mom had been a head cashier at Kroger and we were pretty well stocked. Dad saved some of the oldest cans from that, of specific things like greens, until they were well past their date just to show me how bad cans could look when swelling, and how bad contents could smell. I agree, the experience of growing up in my family who lived through the depression and multiple wars taught me more, and impressed me more, than any books I have ever read or any media personality I have ever seen. But then I haven't intentionally watched any television programs in more than 25 years now.

This is nothing new, it's really always been that way. Whenever we would rotate our stocked goods in the 70s, we would give a lot to friends and neighbors we knew needed it. But we never let them know it came from a stockpile. We just told them it came from our pantry and they knew mom worked for Kroger. Our storeroom was a hidden room in our basement no-one ever knew existed until we sold the house and the buyers saw it. Good to make friends, bad to give too much away. We also shared what we grew in our garden in the open. But we also grew some things in 5 gallon buckets we would store in the basement overnight and take back out in the morning.

History has shown that no-one will have the ability to withstand a siege. I think stockpiling massive amounts of goods as an isolationists could be a dangerous rout to take.

My Grandfather had very similar philosophies that I still follow. Because without having some sort of plan of trying to reestablish order from the chaos if it comes, what exactly is the point of surviving? But I was also taught to not only look for allies to network with, but also to watch for the lazy and selfish who would most likely be problematic in a long term crisis or invasion situation.

 

One of my friends works as a nurse across the border in Michigan. He gets to see the reality of people dying a bunch more than before. One of my brother's friends got Covid; he's pretty damn young, didn't die, but it sure didn't help him get on with a happy life.

You cannot be prepared for any threat without seeing reality for what is is.
You cannot be prepared for flooding if you deny the floodplain you live in (if you live in an area prone to flooding, that is).
You cannot be prepared for power outages, ice storms, earthquakes or any other threat unless you learn about it.

It isn't political; politics can act independent of reality (it often does).
Reality doesn't give a crap what you or I believe. That's what makes it real.

 

I know the virus isn't political, but it's certainly being politicized. Almost as much as it is being exploited by speculators and profiteers, and on a much larger scale.

And I have friends I have known personally and worked with for nearly two decades who are virologist and respiratory therapists today, who were Charge Nurses, RNs, and LPNs when the first SARS CoV-1 came from Asia back in 2003, and the H5N1 came from Asia in 2006. It was their fear of future Pandemics and wanting to be able to help more people if they happened that inspired them to go back to school. And I've been told by all of them how this virus in and of itself isn't near as bad as it is being made out to be. I also know nurses here locally that have been furloughed because there wasn't enough work going on in the hospitals to keep them busy when they were only working on covid stuff.

I know my daughter and I both had what was guessed to be an upper respiratory infection back at the first of the year because we tested negative for flu and for strep. Our symptom were an annoying dry cough, stomach issues, feeling weak and having no energy, a loss of smell and taste, and a fever that late in the first week spiked to nearly 104 in both of us and then was gone the next day. And we felt pretty good again in another week, and another week later all was back to mostly back to normal and neither of us have had and other colds or symptoms since then. With her in school and myself having interviewed hundreds of people in 6 states in person and in groups about the covid situation in their lives since Mid March. I'm convinced I've already had it, and I'm glad I had it before the talking heads of the media had a chance to tell me how scared of it I should have been, I'm sure the fear wouldn't have been helpful in the healing process. I have several friends who feel the same way after a particularly rough round of "SHOT Flu" back in January with all the same symptoms. And we all watched the press conferences with Doctors like Dr. Ngozi O. Ezike when she openly admitted to the conflation because they wanted to track every death that involved covid but not ll who died with covid died of covid.

So I think it would be more accurate to say that our own individual realities, which are a product of our own research or lack there of, doesn't give a crap what other people believe. And I guess we'll just have to agree to disagree. Because i have been researching and documenting everything I can of the politicized and agendized events of this very irregular year. And my beliefs were solidified weeks ago.

As for Michigan, the only thing I can say here is I am extremely glad I moved out of there when I did, and I'm very thankful I don't live there anymore.

 

I do.

n2s

 

This probably belongs in PA at this point.

 

More like the DA thread .

 

Then why are you discussing it here, instead of PA?

 

Why is that?

 

Paranoid Associates

 

It didn't start that way, but maybe now it should be if we can't rein it back in.

Seems there are much more political aspects to peoples' thoughts on survival and prepping and their various motivations lately than there once were. Maybe those thoughts wanting to bubble out in threads like this is why things are being quieter around here than usual, with people holding their tongues, when there should probably be as much discussion going on in the W&SS as ever if not much more?

Because looking at where we are right now as a nation as a global community and all that is happening as a whole, with all that is being politicized.... what all has happened, where some things came from, where mitigation supplies to cope with it are coming from, how everything from global events to local politicians are effecting economies and all our futures, I think it's going to be pretty difficult to all together leave politics out of many meaningful discussions on prepping and survival for a while to come. And we here didn't choose for that to happen, at least I didn't and no-one i know did, we're just responding to the various stimuli of situations at hand, and sometimes try to have some open logical and meaningful discussions on how it may effect things like prepping and survival in some of threads as a group, rather than hiding behind the scenes just to avoid the silly insanity of the cancel culture trying to stifle conversations that include opinions that run counter to their own.

Perhaps our exciting new 2020 paradigm calls for us to just post more of our threads on survival and prepping in PA or W&C to start with now. Where people can just speak freely to start with without risking their threads being canceled or receiving infractions, and not have to walk on egg shells just to voice an honest opinion and ask honest questions.

My guess would be because the authors of posts #9 and #10 didn't like the original poster making light of it in post #3 in stating it wasn't an issue for him in the discussion, took exception to his description, and chose to make this thread about it. Possibly with the hopes and intentions of getting this thread canceled because of their differing opinions.

Lots of reasons. I was born here, I love the rivers and mountains and much prefer the warmer climate here. There are much less confused drivers on the road here... stopping at green lights, running red lights, unsure of which way they want to turn, or whether they want to drive at all or just sit at the intersection watching the traffic go by. I like the fewer mosquitoes here. And I like the Governor we have down here here much better than the one they have up there. I do miss some close friends up there that I talk to daily, and I miss the Amish people and their stores, but it just wouldn't be worth the trade off to live there, especially after the events of this year.

 

Perhaps the rules suggest posting political discussions only in PA.
And politics is not allowed on W&C.

My impression has always been this forum was to learn about survival techniques and equipment.

 

Yes, mine too. But 2020 has been pretty different from the first 20 years since Brian C started this subforum in Nov of 1999. And if all it is going to take is someone asking "why is that?" or "why are you interested in that?" or "why are you doing this?" even if it's just because they live in a different place, have a different view, and are genuinely curious...not even trying to stir the pot...and we all know how often that happens on the net... and the poster's honest answer is that has been inspired by some action of a local Mayor or State Governor. etc. negatively effecting their personal economy, to suddenly make a survival thread "go political" and be deemed to "belong in PA now", then maybe it's time to make some adjustments somewhere?

 

Well then I don't know what to tell you. I'd be interested to know what your background is and how you came to those conclusions