A little preface to this.

I originally wanted this to go into the PA1N e-zine, but seeing as it may not ever see the light of day, I figure I am gonna post this here. Mind you, these are the way I see things, but with this being RantRadio, I figure there should be an audience for it. It is long, so bear with me. I really want opinions and discussion of the things I say in the article.

So, without further preamble, I give you my article, The Tumble is Coming

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A thought is a terrible thing, and I've been having a lot of those lately.

Before I begin, you must know some things about me that those of you reading this may not know. I am in the United States Military. I grew up around the world in a number of countries, that for privacy and safety's sake, I will not list. The things that I am stating stem from my knowlege of the world as a whole and how the United States in particular has screwed itself up. I am a simplicist by nature. I crave simplicity in my life, equipment, and mind. I enjoy things that are simple. Knives, firearms, motor vehicles. All of these things have a simple nature to them. A knife is a tool, a firearm is a weapon, a motor vehicle is a fast mode of ground transportation. Now, these things have complexities that have come with technological advancement. These are things I do not need or want. A knife with only a few functions is fine. A pistol with a silencer and night sights is wonderful, though just any old pistol will do just fine. A motor vehicle should have as few moving parts and functions as is possible. The 1980 Chevy Cheyenne is my favorite vehicle of all time and range can be upgraded with the simple modification of two 55 gallon drums, some tubing and a little work. Also, this is the first article I've ever sent to anyone.

Now, onto what this article is about.

The world is a funny place. We started out discovering fire and everything has gone downhill from there. From fire we discovered comfort, the feeling that the night wasn't so terribly bad. We slowly began to not fear the night as we should. From fire came metals. Metals made killing things easier, and our population increased due to the increase in food, and lessening of casualties in collection of said food. Metals gave rise to new ways to build things. Semi-permanent structures emerged. Population growth once again gained speed due to protection from the elements. Life span increased, giving rise to people that could learn more, in the shelter of these buildings. Technology was born. Science was born. Philosophy. Everything we now use was born.

Now we come to present day, and I must say. It has gone and turned upside down. We have advertisements, making me think that I just NEED that new car. I just NEED shower gel that will make me attractive and buff. I just NEED that new food processor. I just NEED a double helping of fatty meat on three pieces of bread. I NEED... I NEED...

I don't NEED a single thing that those commercials tell me I do. I only need a handful of things. I need water, food, shelter, clothing, defense, and a way to make sure none of those things fall short. Water is relatively simple. All I need is a good filter and a water source and I can survive fine. Food is a bit more difficult. I can beg, buy or steal any that I need. If need be I can hunt and gather. Shelter is even further in difficulty, requiring activity that burns energy and water, requiring more, or a plentiful supply of the prior two things. Clothing keeps me warm when it's cold and prevents sunburn from slowing me down. As long as cloth is properly cared for and repaired, it will last a long time, and once again, I can beg, buy or steal the clothing should it become too worn. Defense is relatively simple if it were only against animals and nature. A sharp stick or piece of stone will suffice for that. People though, require more thought and expenditure of energy to keep from killing me. A pistol is the most useful thing ever created in this regard. It is compact, easy to resupply, simple to maintain, and if used only when need be, and cleaned thoroughly after each use, taking care to remove all deposits of salt and oil from my skin, the pistol will last longer than I will.

Advertisements and the governments and corporations that make them prey on a few basic things about human beings, particularly the mind of these beings. Ads for machines, such as boats, cars, motorcycles, prey on the want to be better than the rest of the human beings. These things have become status symbols rather than what they were originally intended. I want you to think for a moment about the very concept of a status symbol. It is a thing that is percieved to give an individual greater worth as a being than another person that does not have, or has a lesser model or version of that thing. What kind of insanity is this? A car, no matter how expensive, or how fast it can go, does not make someone of a greater worth as a breathing sack of meat than someone who does not even have a vehicle. Jewelry, bling, and fashion are all facets of the same thing. Fashion in particular is something I will go into later. All of these things are supposed to place us in higher standing than another in an imaginary system of life put into place to simply pry more money from us.

There is also something called "Fast Food". This so called food, despite its obvious downfalls, such as questionable nutritional content and toxicity level, is consumed at an alarming rate. This Fast Food makes it simple for the average person, of medium to low income, to get food quickly (thus the name) and in trade for this expediency and convenience, they pay a few cents more than it would cost to make something of greater nutritional value in one's own kitchen. The conveniencing and expitditing of our world has caused more harm than it has good. Instead of sitting down for a meal, people simply pop out and grab this overpriced, semi-toxic, horrid food. Fast Food is part of the crumbling of the family unit. Fast food is bad for us, though we continue to eat it.

Did you know the colors Red and Yellow cause hunger in human beings. How many signs for food or restaurants do you see with these colors? Bet you can name two really big ones.

Before I go on to television, I will get Fashion out of the way.

Clothing, by definition, is a coating of material over one's body that keeps warmth in, when it is cold, the sun off, to prevent sunburn and pain, bugs off, which can bite and cause all kinds of things, and to act as armor in general to the outside world. Fashion is a bastardization of this concept. Once again, the status symbol comes in. This clothing, in the eyes of most people, dictates what we are like. As if a piece of cloth covering my nude form will tell you what is inside my head. I wear a leather trench coat, I'm antisocial goth. I wear a basket ball jersey, I'm confused if I'm white or a gangster if I'm black. I wear a dress shirt, I'm a business man or rich. I wear a potato sack, I'm homeless. I wear nothing, I'm vain or insane. All of these things are potentially untrue, but you see people propegating the stereo types that keep these things going. Another insane concept is that fashion actually CHANGES. The status of your CLOTHING rises and falls in relation to the current trends. With the rise and fall of the status of your CLOTHING, so does your worth as a person. This is bloody insane.

I will admit that I do have a propensity to Oakley brand gear. I like their 8" SI Assault boots because they are more comfortable than Military Issue. Their SI Assault gloves have a carbon-fibre reinforced knuckle that is quite hard, with enough give not to shatter and protects my hand nicely. Their backpacks are damned near bomb-proof and have plenty of loops and clips to hold lots of stuff. My only guilty and hypocritical pleasure is my beloved pair of Pro M-Frames. They're silver with polarized lenses engraved with my name. They are my beloveds because they are customized to me (which cost a fucking arm and a leg and they aren't worth NEAR two hundred and eight dollars, but they're MINE), I like the way they look, and they hug my head like a Koala on crack. Hell, they don't even have hinges, so they are a true pain in the ass to store. Completely impractical. So, do I need any of this Oakley gear? No. I just like Oakley stuff. It looks good to me, its tough, and it fits in with my normal civilian wear. If you see a guy wearing nothing but tan with silver M-Frames, its probably me.

Now, onto the big one.

Television. Oh where to start. Well, let's start at the beginning and see where it goes from there. In the beginning we had the radio, which relayed news and information, along with entertainment nearly instantaneously between two points, though all was not connected, it still had limits on transmission distance and interference. Then came television; same concept as the radio, but picture was involved. Then adverts came on. Things for soap and things that could be used, because things were relatively still simple. Then all hell broke loose, satellite communication. All was finally connected and the audience for ads was explosively expanded. We have ads for cars that put us thousands upon thousands of dollars into debt. Jewelry, that while pleasing to the eye, is still just an adornment, unnecessary. Clothing that will be "obsolete" in a year or less. Movies to entertain us. Music to entertain us, which, like the clothing rises and falls. Pills to alter our states of mind (I'll go into that in the end). All of these things constantly bombard us.

The worst thing is we let our children watch this. We even let the television do the job that a babysitter once did. We plunk them down in front of the cartoon network and go to one of two jobs we work, simply to be able to pay for the thousands of dollars owed on the house. The thousands of dollars owed on the car. The thousands of dollars owed on the soundsystem and television. That's not even including the fast food we have to order, because between two jobs, that poor single mother doesn't have time to make FOOD. My god, man.

Children watch these things and are inundated with the ideas of these status symbols. Inundated with these stereotypical ideas of how they are supposed to act based on what they wear, where they live, what they drive. All of these things end in a cycle where a child hasn't the slightest clue what the hell they really are and simply act out what they see on television. We are creating cookie cutter human beings without the slightest intention of fixing it.

Moving on.

The pills. I must state before going into this particular section that my only experience with this phenomenon is in the Military. I have been informed that the civilian world is far better about regulation of perscriptions and that they are only given to those that need them for the proper reasons. I take the information I have recieved as reliable, and thus this section is in regard to the Military in particular.

Religion used to be the opiate of the masses. Now we give them the real fucking thing. I don't know when this started, but now, if you don't like your job, you don't like your way of life; instead of actually picking up your balls and changing it, putting in the work to make it better; be it through promotion, an MOS (in the civilian world, your job) switch, or whatever else it is that is making your life miserable, you go to a "doctor" and get prescribed a little blue pill. This makes everything ok. It makes you forget that you're working two jobs to feed yourself and still keep your "family" off of the streets. It makes it alright that you can't stand your life. You drift about in a drug-induced haze without the slightest inclination to actually get off your ass and make your life better. God knows that takes work and that pill is just so much easier to take. As you can tell I am particularly targeting anti-depressants, but the military gives out so much more than those. You can recieve top shelf opiates if you state the right things to the right doctors. You can get the medical equivalent of speed. You can get sleep pills that are horribly addictive (I have personal experience with this one). The Military will give you damned near anything your little addict heart desires, all for things that could be solved by far less damaging means.

Just like the fast food. Just like financing. Just like the television.

Comfort. Expediency.

Welcome to the world we live in.

So, we come around to me. You're probably asking yourself (actually, probably not, but since I'm saying it, you're gonna think it. Messed up huh?), "Why is he saying all this?" Well, the answer is simple. I'm writing this for my own sanity, because I've finally turned my blind eye back onto the problem and taken off the blinders. There is something terribly wrong with the world we live in, and it is going to collapse. Maybe not soon, but it is going to. All aristocracies have collapsed and that is what "culture" is becoming. A caste system. Everyone's clamoring for the top, and what happens when the bottom of a tower corrodes? It falls. It all comes tumbling to the ground. Take a look to history for the proof. Yes I know, the old cliche of "History repeats itself." It may be cliche but it is right. Every aristocracy that has existed has fallen with dire consequences. They eventually become heavy in one level or the other and become unstable. In the particular one that I am writing about and ranting about, it is the middle and upper class that are becoming heavy right now. Everyone wants a three thousand dollar big-ass-TV. Everyone wants a Ferrari. Everyone wants a ridiculously huge platinum chain with diamonds coating it. Everyone wants Prada. Everyone wants everything that they don't need. They want it to make themselves better in an intangible way. Status. They want a status that does not affect the fact that you still have to eat, shit, sleep, and breathe. They are all human and require very little, yet they go into debt, spend money they don't actually have, to elevate themselves to a higher level in the rank structure. Million dollar homes.

Have you ever held one million dollars?

Neither have the people that own those homes with those prices. Nor will they. Ever. Less than, oh I don't know, we'll estimate high, two percent maybe, of all the people in the United States will ever have a seven figure bank account. There are a whole lot of people that have that same seven figure account with a big negative sign before it though. Every time something new comes out and is proclaimed a "must have" by someone higher in this rank structure, the lower ones clambor to get it and drive themselves farther into the hole. Its a system that will, yes will, fall. Eventually there is going to be a demographic of people that are so far into debt that they and their children, to whom their debt is passed upon death, could work every day of their miserable lives to pay off and still won't be able to. When this happens, the middle and bottom of our tower crumbles and the whole interdependant system comes crashing down. Companies that manufacture the things that people go into debt for and the various entities that loan people money to get the things they're going into debt for, are suddenly assaulted with all of these bankruptcies and missed payments. The banks and loan companies and credit unions cannot function without the debt cycle. They fall. The manufacturers no longer have someone to sell their wares to because the middle class demoraphic is gone, the rich already have everything they want, and the poor can not afford the expensive things. They fall. The rich that have the majority of their money invested, watch it disappear faster then they can burn it. Its kind of funny that they will flip out, considering that the same money that they are so worried about, won't mean diddly once this fall comes. The government, seeing this massive financial crash will try to fix things, but the funny thing is, they're in debt too. The finances of not only the people, but the very ruling body of the country, become vapid. Writing a check to yourself and adding that check to what money you actually have doesn't mean you have twice as much money. It means you have twice as many numbers that are worth half as much. To those that figured it out, that's exactly what "inflation" is. Money ends up meaning nothing. If our tower is based on people's desire to be better than another person, the concrete that built it is money. Money falls, the tower falls.

I don't intend on being in this tower when it falls.

Thus, I've come up with my Bug Out Bag. It is simply a bag of supplies, with only the most basic of gear within. I won't give specifics, because it is going to be mine alone, and yours will be unique to you. It should be enough supply to sustain a couple people for a good while, and at the same time light enough and compact enough to be carried by one person for an extended period of time. Food bars, water filters, firestarters, and a basic medical kit are a start. Personalize and have a bit of fun with it. Just make sure you can still carry it after you're done. Hell, maybe your kit will become the new fashion, eh? That'd be the day...

The end is coming, my friends. It is all going to come down around our ears and there isn't a damned thing that we can do about it. There is no way to break people, as ingrained this caste system is in their minds, of their ways. It is like trying to get the entirety of the faiths of Judaisim and Islam to eat pork. You may get a few, but the majority is going to lynch you. Figure out where you would like to go. It doesn't really matter where, but I would recommend staying away from major cities unless you need supply. The caste system is only going to change, not go away, when it falls. We're going to have gangs form with their own rank structure. People with guns that have lost a lot tend to get violent. The new system will be based on blood. Those that can shoot, stab, or fight their way to the top will lead. Bartering will return and hopefully we're smart enough to keep it that way.

In a way, the end as I see it taking place is almost a beautiful thing. Everyone on a high horse is brought back down to earth. Every single person is reset to equality. Each and every person who makes it through "The Tumble" should be gracious for every single breath they take, because someone stronger than you may just decide to come along and cut your throat for the knife on your belt or the sandwich in your hands. It will usher in an age that will force change, and it is time for change, my friends.

So, in the eternal words of "V": "If you see what I see. If you feel as I feel..." Then make sure you have your Bug Out Plan. We're going to need it. The Tumble is coming.

I may not be right.
I may not be fully informed.
I am ready.
I hope this reaches people.

TodayIsTomorrow

My predecessor at the PAA was a man of strong conviction.  Those who knew him might have considered him a bit opinionated, except his opinions were based upon his perceptions of reality.  I can respect that.  So when I quote his post in its entirety, understand that he had his reasons for saying what he said about Mr. Long.

It seems approprate to include Dave's preface to Mr. Long's Essay, which I will also quote in its entirety here.


(continued next post)

Nice article. Really more of an educated rant than an article, in my opinion.

The problem here is that, we all know what the problem is, but none of us know the solution.

Unless we get the majority of the country behind us (which, will not happen. The people like their mcdonalds too much) violent revolution will not work. While this option should remain open, it should be regarded as a bad idea and put at the very end of the list of possible solutions.

Is bugging out a solution? not really. It will help those of us 'in the know' to live more comfortably, and may be the beginning of rebuilding, but it does not solve the greater problem. eventually this will all come full circle if we rebuild.

This is why everyone loves Ron Paul, for the first time in decades, someone steps forward and says 'we can fix this' instead of 'theres a problem'.

I don't have solutions either, but i'm working on it. The one thing I see, is that everyone and their dog makes a documentary these days about how screwed up everything is, and urges people to 'get involved'. Don't get me wrong, this is great, but it just seems like people are thinking too much about the problem and not enough about the solution. It's like a water main breaking, and telling everyone that the water main is broken, and they tell everyone that the water main is broken. Sure, now everyone knows and agrees the water main needs to be fixed, but the water main is still broken. No one knows how to fix the water main.

My steps to a solution - learn how to fix it. to learn how to fix it you must first learn how it works. Learn about how your system works (and i don't mean the stuff you were taught in school)  focus on the areas dealing with money, contacts, debt. notice how they are all related? once you learn one, you will find ties into the next and the next and the next.

No one can ever fully comprehend this in it's entirety, so get together with some like minded friends, all learning different things, share information. When we get enough people truly understanding what is going on and how to fix it, when these polititions bumble around and make a mess of things, the average joe can stand up and go "screw him, we'll do this ourselves"

I'm going to stop my rambling now. Hope I didn't derail the thread.

Don't get me wrong, i'm all for bugging out should it come to that, I would just rather not see it come to that. I got the bag, I got the crypto, i got the beltline kit. I'd also like to take a solid shot at maybe not having everything go to hell around me. Regardless of how independent you are, unless you live on a 100% self sufficient farm in the middle of nowhere with no one around for miles, you will still be affected by economic SHTF. I don't know if we can stop economic shtf, in the latest omg omg omg we're all gonna dye" news, Bank of america is buying out Merril Lynch http://www.cnbc.com/id/26708319  Which could cause HUGE new york stock market destableisation, this right on the heels of the fannie and freddie thing. All within a very short timespan.

To summarize, yeah, it looks like the tumble is coming. soon.

Perhaps we should arrange WOG bug out areas per community or State and area?

Any Ideas?

I would happily like to announce that I am accepting submissions for PA1N 18. You can find the relevant email addresses (myself and alienbinary for submissions, CaponeX for graphics work) at the PA1N contacts page found at the URL below.

http://www.pa1n.org/contact/

Thanks in advance for your submissions.

Trouble is, there isn't a solution to what's coming.

As Claire Wolfe so succinctly put it:  "America's at that awkward stage:  It's too late to work within the system and too early to shoot the bastards."

Because the situation thrust upon us is being perpetrated by the motivated at the top, and the ignorant and gullible at the bottom, with a solid social and economic push towards it, we who are both enlightened but not in a position to make decisions for others because we are not populous elect, we must stand by and take the pounding as it comes.

You are correct about the limitations of the BoB (Bug out Bag).  Mr. Long's vision has merit;  To find a place, a retreat, a community of like-minded people.  We talked about it in great length in the "Wog Town?" Thread.

We went through such considerations as buying property out in the middle of nowhere, the logistics of moving, the difficulties of buying land that's cheap (because it's probably cheap due to lack of available power or other resources), and the social difficulties that can result with a remote, closed societal system.

The most optimal solution we've come up with to date (and I do mean We, credit where credit is due, I didn't come up with it -- I just don't remember who did off the top of my head), is to find a small suburban community in a geographical location where housing is relatively inexpensive, and move into the neighborhood.  Then we started looking at neighborhoods.

I'm still a big fan of Ft. Collins, Colorado.  Although I have to admit, I've always wanted to live in Alaska.

What's kinda weird is that I'm actually really happy right where I'm at;  I just wish I had more land down here.  Because if I did...Florida's got an hospitable climate, both meteorologically and politically, and escaping the country is just a boat ride away.

And land can be had in Hernando and Citrus counties.

They just don't have the IT business opportunities that other places do, but we're not complete hicks, either.

Well, okay, some of us are.

I'm just saying...IT might be a little difficult to get good paying gigs down here...though I know a few people who have them.

Maybe more research is necessary, but I really, really like Florida.

Maybe we Wogs can all become snowbirds, come down here in the winter, go north in the summer.

Whenever you get large groups of people together to make a decision, someone's not going to be 100 percent happy.

That's why there are so many different places to live.  But if I could buy a couple hundred acres down here, reasonably centrally located between the smaller cities or maybe between Tampa and Orlando (Lakeland?), it IS feasible to live on property and commute.

After that, it's just a matter of logistics.

S

You found out here, didn't you?  Now you understand why I sent you the link.

S