Monday, August 12, 2013

How to Build an Urban Survival Community - Interactive

By James Madison




They want us fighting amongst each other, but instead we are going to hang together and prevail.  You can decide now whether you are going to be a survivor or a victim.

Call it a fun hobby with possible big benefits down the road, and it is on the minds of more people than you think.

The fact is, anyone who thinks he can predict the future is a fool. Anything can happen. If you have to explain "why" to a person, write them off and move down the line.

The most fundamental premise of building an urban survivor community is connecting with like-minded people, and not wasting your time on the rest. The next is communications, because when the power is out, you can't recharge your cellphone, and the towers will be down anyway. That's why anyone who is a member of yours will need to get one or more of these, or something like them, handcrank chargeable walkie talkies:

The specified range for this pair is 3 miles city, 10 miles line-of-sight.  Any experts in two-way radios and communications please jump in.

Now you are ready to hunker in place, share food and supplies, help defend each other, and in general stay alive.

How do you set up a defensive perimeter, to keep the mobs out of your area like the Koreans did during the Rodney King riots? I favor the "curtain of steel" concept. See an armed mob marching in your direction, use a bullhorn to tell them what street they cannot cross. From strategically selected firing positions on the four points of the compass, you can fire warning shots and hopefully they will go looking for easier prey.

Remember, law enforcement has broken down at such a time. There's no calling 911. There may not even be phones.

Sound out people you meet. You'll be surprised. Individual responsibilities are to build personal/family food and water stores and be armed. You can start a meetup.com group and discuss more particulars, who has the crates of toothpaste, who has the toilet paper, who has the most defensible building in a crunch. There could be a time for everyone to pull back to that position and sleep on floors and spare rooms.

Your most powerful weapon is the bond of trust and cooperation that you have made by even talking about this stuff long beforehand. Print a business card with a code name, a radio frequency, and intervals during the day when they are to tune in to this frequency. When all the fools and frat boys are shaking and crying for their mommas, you'll be checking in with each other and taking care of business.

Carry those business cards. When you meet someone and find out they understand and are thinking about it, and you like them and get a good feeling, give them the card and welcome them into the community.

How would you build your urban survival community? How do you cook? Are there grains which can soak long enough that they don't need cooking? How do you make a basic stove for cooking or heating, with charcoal briquets, out of a coffee can? What is a complete personal/family emergency stores inventory? What are your favorite emergency items (cool handcrank flashlights?) Military guys advice welcome on weapons and tactics.

Let a thousand intertwined, overlapping urban survival communities bloom across America, completely under the radar. Let's become a collapse-proof society. We're all going to be okay.

James Madison writes under this pseudonym, in the tradition of the American Revolution's Publius, in order that arguments must be judged solely on the merits. He is a graduate of an Ivy League college and a well-known writer.