The importance of planning 6 Posted elsewhere -- Operation Phoenix

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Subject: The importance of planning 6 Posted elsewhere

Author:
Allen Currie

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Date Posted: 16:43:21 04/03/13 Wed

The importance of planning 6
I cannot stress enough that when planning, knowing what you are planning for is paramount. It is remarkable how little attention N. Americans pay to the consequences of our thoughts and actions. If you drop a large stone on some bodies toe, you can predict 1) (S)he will likely try to avoid the rock, or 2) will yelp and try to remove toe from under stone. Where all too many fail is in the next probable reaction, possibly a punch in the nose. Many people won’t react further until the punch is on the way.

Mankind, even when he is being irrational en masse is quite predictable. If there is a panic over available food, and the shelves are getting stripped of food, humans will buy or steal all sorts of items that they have never used and never will again for fear of missing out. In a tense situation logic circuits seem to be over-ridden by emotional cave man circuits. The army has learned this lesson well, and trains and trains so the training becomes the instinct, or tends to. Getting shot at is usually a tense situation.

Let’s deal with the massively complex situation of the US dollar becoming worthless. (Which I, with a lot of broad financial/economic experience, believe will happen. When I don’t know. You cannot print money to infinity without consequence. Lenders only lend under the assumption that they will get paid back.) The first thing that will happen is that international trade will stop, completely. The US, and much of the world has become totally dependent on other parts of the world for special parts for the final product. For example, the only factory in the world manufacturing an essential component for the steering for the cruise missile is in China. In a totally chaotic atmosphere, how long would it take to build a factory in the US to produce this part? It ain’t gonna happen in a chaotic situation. The US imports two thirds of its hydrocarbon requirements. If the rest of the world decides the US dollar is worthless, who is going to sell hydrocarbons to the US? With no hydrocarbons, there will be no invasions. With no hydrocarbons there will be no food transported into the cities. With no hydrocarbons there will be no building of new factories. Even the money printing presses will shut down. With no food, some will wait for ‘gummint’ to do something, most will get out to agitate and riot, but some will try to fill their bellies in any way they can. Or any combination of the above.

What most people refuse to look at is the domino effect. If the cruise missile part is not available, the whole cruise missile industry goes down. If the computer in a store goes out, everything shuts down. If the electricity goes off you won’t even be able to buy gas. The pumps are all electric. More insidiously, much of society operates on a “perceived entitlement”, a sense that what we have today is a birthright. If we don’t get it we have a “right” to get even with “the man”, usually by rioting, looting, or whatever.

In a word we are looking at chaos. And we built it ourselves. It was easier to jump into the SUV to run down to the corner store than to walk a block. We grasshoppers fiddled the good times away by refusing to consider the longer term consequences. So, what do we do now?
Right now, very few people are open to the idea of discussing this, let alone preparing for it. Let’s say you are a good little prepper and have laid by a stock of food, water, guns and ammo. Sooner or later you are going to run out, but more likely you are going to be out in your front yard to get some sunshine (You can’t stay inside your prison fortress forever) and an unfriendly gets the drop on you. I leave the rest to your imagination.

We need to examine carefully the now cast in stone assumptions we have as a result of having spent our lives thus far in a consumer society. We will have to find ways of sustaining ourselves in the long haul. We will have to change, and people naturally resist change, especially if it means less of what we have become accustomed to. We will individually have to become nearer to self sufficiency for when we run out of food. Survivors will have more callused hands from producing food. One does not go out into the back yard, throw out a handful of seeds and two weeks later be living in the land of plenty. All living things are fussy about their living conditions. Do you know what ALL those conditions are for all your food supplies?

Secondly, we have to get rid of this “I’m not involved” attitude. We must become a community, willing to fight and even die for each other personally. This won’t work with a “community” as large as America, or even New York city. (Even if you can define its limits.) It has to be a small community, maximum 2-300 people, where everyone is familiar with everyone else, enough so that they can rely on that person in a difficult situation. They have to know “Janet or Joe” is terrified of spiders or heights and can’t be relied on for logical reactions at height, but is very good at other things. Long term survival in the aftermath of systemic collapse will require community. A community which considers longer term consequences more than the world now does.

My novel, “Operation Phoenix”, works toward this goal in the chaotic 30 days after an economic collapse. The sequel, if I can ever get it written, will show among other things, the difficulties of actually achieving such a goal. “Operation Phoenix” is available in hard copy, download and a free sample read at www.AllenCurrie.ca

Allen

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