You've Got Questions? We've Got Answers! The ObamaTime To-Do List @ AMERICAN DIGEST

November 12, 2009

You've Got Questions? We've Got Answers! The ObamaTime To-Do List

In the AMERICAN DIGEST comments on "Afghanistan: The Failure to Plan Is "The Plan"" reader BGR asks:

"What can we do to stop him? What can I do to fight the hordes of people who agree with Obama? Whatever are we to do?

I cannot take much more jawboning. We all know the score. What good do we do by talking to one another night after night, day after day, lamenting the truth that we see?

The invaders are taking over and we are just chewing the fat?"

And... a few comments later... Askmom answers:

BGR: There is much that you can do.
Let your elected leaders at every level know you will not be a passive observer of the dismantling of the Constitution. They need to hear from every single person or they will believe what Obama and CNN tell them - that we all WANT big government nannies to run our lives! Learn who is a friend of freedom and who an enemy, party lines or economic status regardless.
Define for yourself which other countries treasure liberty and justice, and let congress and anyone who will listen to you know that we should support and defend them, and only them.
Make a personal/family/community survival plan.
Acquire guns, ammo and the skills to use them.
Acquire an understanding of basic nutrition and first aid.
Acquire the food, water and supplies to meet those needs.
Acquire warmth and shelter that isn't dependent on the power company or on uninterrupted paychecks.
Determine the friends, neighbors, family who will hang together no matter what.
Develop a tough and resilient attitude. Have copies of the Bible and the Consitution.
Become more self-sufficient and more focused on the eternal truths of life.
Downsize and decentralize.
Stay away from people who depend on government for jobs or handouts.
Stay far away from places where most people are government serfs.
Move away from where the trouble will be and towards where the food is grown and the Patriots are.
Stop using credit, pay down debts.
Learn to cook, sew, mend, do leatherwork, raise food, keep chickens, make simple shoes, knit, can, do carpentry, fix your own vehicles.
Learn self-defense and go to the local shooting range often. You will meet a few crazy people and dozens, hundreds of Patriots.
Trade the sports car for a truck, the vacation home in a fancy place for a working farm in a plainspoken unfashionable spot or a cabin and acreage out back of the beyond.
Cash out your big-city lifestyle and become a craftsman in a small burg.
Learn to track and hunt and fish.
Run for local office. When you lose, run again, and again.
Give interviews freely and always talk about the Constitution, freedom, personal responsibility and small government.
Become part of the water board, school board, neighborhood watch, volunteer firefighters or lodge brothers.
Work with the police, firefighters, and other public security groups to be sure your area has a plan for crisis management.
Get bikes, dogs and cats.
Join or start a local barter group.
Join up with Tea Partiers, Independents, Libertarians, Republicans, ANYONE in your area that works and votes for freedom, responsibility, small government.
Document and publicize the power-grabbing, tax-wasting activities of everyone else.
Do everything possible to support local military bases, personnel, activities.
Make friends and look for common ground with everyone who loves freedom.
Figure out at least one conversational "hook" that can help a misguided Obama believer at least start to see a tiny bit of light.
And don't spend too much time online. Hit a few decent blogs for the news and the latest Patriot chat, then back to work.
There is plenty to do.

Posted by Vanderleun at November 12, 2009 9:21 PM

"Trade the sports car for a truck" STEP AWAY FROM THE ROADSTER, WINGNUT...

"Get bikes, dogs and CATS." ...AND TAKE YOUR HAIRBALL WITH YOU.

What is this guy, some kind of Commie hippie? 200 million people aren't going to move to the boonies and take up a yeoman's lifestyle; that's just nuts.

Every social activity listed above tends to mark you a crank, not a role model. Try instead

* learn to make a good martini
* build a repertoire of instructive jokes and stories
* teach the opposition's kids to become conservatives
* embarass lefties in public at every opportunity
* run over some cats with your sports car

Posted by: Mike Anderson at November 13, 2009 4:16 AM

One thing you might want to consider is getting an old car that doesn't have a lot of electronic components. In case of a nuke attack, or more likely an EMP weapon, many modern cars simply won't work.

If a relatively small yield nuclear weapon such as North Korea's were to be exploded over the U.S. at a high altitude it would destroy a great deal of our infrastructure's computer controlled systems. No lights, no water, no groceries, no American Idol.

This isn't science-fiction, it's a very real possibility.

I have an old 4-wheel drive Bronco that would survive an EMP attack and it also can run on propane gas if regular unleaded is unavailable.
I don't keep it registered or insured, but if the stuff hits the fan, that missing paperwork will be the least of my worries.

Posted by: Mumblix Grumph at November 13, 2009 6:20 AM

I tend to agree with Mr Anderson. I dunno where ask mom is from, but I'm going to guess it isn't near any major metropolitan area.

So the whole "let's go live an an Eric Sloane book" is a non-starter.

Now the other conceit in all these apocalypse scenarios is the idea that your average American town is going to turn into some version of mad-max Thunderdome or Somalia. Gerard amusingly uses the cover of the zombie survival guide for this post, but frankly, from what I've seen of disasters in this country and others, that just doesn't happen.

This is also predicated on the idea that the government will just cease to function, which it won't.

Now, if one really wants to change the society, you have to be fully engaged in, and you have to be a part of, society. Running for the hills is just another form of surrender. The people over at Big Hollywood have the right idea, which is to "take back" so to speak, popular culture.

If you're that paranoid about "Marxists" seizing your sports car, think about that for about 10 seconds. Who would actually do the deed? Police? IRS? FBI? whatever the agency, it then behooves one to then become a member of one of those organizations, to either subvert it, or to know who has to be dealt with, assuming y'all are actually wanting to pick up the gun. Which I don't think anybody reading this is.

What you're talking here is rebellion or revolution. THAT is some serious shit. The constitution specifically allows the federal government to suppress it. Be careful what you wish for.

Posted by: Eric Blair at November 13, 2009 1:53 PM

That's a good question.

We just watched as one branch of a respected US security organization allowed an avowed jihadi proselytizer be promoted through the ranks and the system has basically sprung to inaction after he had gunned down a dozen soldiers on their own military base that ended up relying on civilian law peace officers for basic force protection.

...All while special emphasis had been placed by the Department of Homeland Security to watch out for potential man-caused disaster doing veterans, Pro-life advocates, 2nd Amendment advocates, Constitutionalists, small government advocates, uppity Libertarians, 0bama dissenters, and Tea Party 'mobsters'. My god! They might protest the President's policies! They might even put suspicious bumper stickers on their cars!
NOTE: 1600 people a day are placed on the review list for the national man-caused disaster watch list.

Is that subverted enough?

Posted by: monkeyfan at November 13, 2009 4:45 PM

I got a little news for you on Major Hasan. He's a doctor. Now, I know that sounds obvious, but let me clue you in on how the Army treats its doctors: Not like soldiers. And how do army doctors treat other army doctors? Not like soldiers. They're doctors. And shrinks to boot. The whole reason Hasan was at Ft Hood was likely that he was fobbed off to there because who ever his superiors at Walter Reed were didn't want him in their hair anymore.

And every military base depends on civilian cops to police the place. The same way you don't find military cooks anymore either. That stuff got outsourced decades ago. Go blame Reagan. I know because I was in the army at the time. And despite being in the infantry, my weapon was locked up in the company arms room 90% of the time.

1600 people a day are placed on the review list for the national man-caused disaster watch list.
Really? Let's do the math on that.
Days since Obama has been President: 297
297 x 1600 = 475,200.

You really think DHS is up to the task of reviewing/watching all those people?

With 1600 more added tomorrow? And the next day? and so on?

And where are they getting the names from in the first place? The phone book? C'mon.

You are scaring yourself.

Posted by: Eric Blair at November 13, 2009 8:52 PM

You know what, I'm going to wait until the last minute on all of that stuff. Why? Because I'm a hedge fund manager. Well, not actually, but I live in the same ecosystem. I don't do cows, I do high tech computing around financial systems, and I'm not going to give up cosmopolitan sophistication and go all Rousseau noble savage just because some bobos are screwing the pooch. People say 'Wall Street' as if there's no difference between AIG and Marsh, Merrill and Stanford Bernstein. Hippies and people who still fret about Waco and Ruby Ridge are all in to the post-apocolyptic vision. Fuck em.

Instead, find out how to make radio internet relay. Hell, dig up old FIDOnet protocols. Hack squawk phones from Nextel, learn how to build a crystal radio. As a matter of fact, go play Fallout 3. That'll teach you something. While yahoos are out there composting and calling that liberty, I'll be relearning chemistry and electronics.

In the meantime, here's an fairly serious suggestion that I'll take. Remember Bill Whittle's Tribes? Let's just organize an email list of all the Greys. I'll email Bill and see what he says about it. Society doesn't devolve all at once, and smart people need to stay smart. Growing tomatoes ain't rocket science. If what you do today is useful, it'll probably be useful tomorrow. Even if you have to do it with simpler tools.

Posted by: Cobb at November 13, 2009 10:41 PM

Some of the critics of my post have assumed I want everyone to do everything thereon; such is certainly not the case. It is a menu of ideas, not a manifesto. And while I do believe people are healthier, happier AND more likely to survive in the country than in a huge metropolis, I'm not advocating abandoning cities, where I lived for many years. I just want people to look realistically at what their own situation might be in a crisis.

It is true that the hinterlands would be overwhelmed by the need for services if every person in every city immediately moved to the country. It is also true that a slow movement of the population to more rural living is completely possible and - in my mind - desirable. Current population per square mile is under 100, and hundreds of thousands of beautiful small town sites are awaiting the pioneers that will bring them to life.

Just as the super-centralization of the federal government and the power shift to it have hurt us politically, big cities have cost us in ways we don't often enough consider.

Suggesting that we become more self-sufficient does not preclude more civilized skills. A proper martini can be enjoyed on the penthouse roofdeck or the log cabin front porch equally well. Similary, the children of the heathen are everywhere available to subvert into the truth.

One thing I do take issue with. In a crisis, many sophisticated skills will be unused while basic skills are almost always needed. That's the reason they are known as "basic" skills. Further, for every computer genius, financial wizard, engineer, or doctor, we do and will continue to need a hundred people who can make the best possible meals from not much, do the phsyical repairs and cleaning, and teach the children with only the resources in their heads.

We need not suffer a total societal meltdown or nuclear attack to find this out. It is not paranoid right-wing nutcase fear of armegeddon, but the voice of experience telling us that fires, floods, acts of stupidity and large scale mechanical failures are inevitable. Not malicious, not conspiracies, but sure to occur all the same. The same precautions apply whether the mess is caused by freakish weather or Jihadi malice, and it is not isolationist delusion, but past mistakes that drive people like me to BE PREPARED.

Posted by: AskMom at November 14, 2009 6:41 AM

Re DHS review list: Eric the point is that they are not up to the task.

Furthermore, the gun ban that essentially disarmed military personnel on their own bases became policy during the Clinton era. It was one of his [Clinton's] first acts upon assuming the Presidency.

Anyway, so 'fobbing off' -and promoting mind you- a proselytizing Islamist soldier, who merited scrutiny and had openly and positively identified with our active enemies because he was getting in someone's hair, is somehow not subversion?

Get real man.

I hear variations of the "you are scaring yourself" BS all the time. This sentiment is often spouted out by [superior] people who are apparently offended that some other person might see the prudence of preparing to not be a dependent zombie when/if things go tits up. For some reason these defenders of helpless dependence on fragile systems feel it's their duty to prevent 'the stupid' from daring to assume some personal responsibility for themselves and for those they hold dear.

There's a certain loud sort of atheist that acts out in much the same way; Instead of being content at snickering silently at all the unintelligent misguided proles and going about their merry Godless ways, they instead feel compelled to 'educate' said proles away from the error of their ways. That's faith without God for ya.

I'm going with prudence...
P.S. I buy insurance too. Gasp!

Posted by: monkeyfan at November 14, 2009 11:31 AM

Eric Blair

"So, like I said, who would actually do the deed?"

You obviously don't visit England much these days. Here's just a small example of what happens to the police and the courts (not to mention the mind set of a docile proletariat that now comprises jury panels here these days, after twelve years of neo-Marxist government):

http://www.spectator.co.uk/alexmassie/5539446/is-this-the-most-enraging-story-of-the-year-perhaps.thtml

It is amazing just how quickly Stasi methods catch on once the red flag comrades impose their will on pliant bureaucrats and police who have been through the brain-washers of our police colleges.
The Long March has now left its footprints on the corridors of power and all its institutions.

From my readings as an outsider who loves your country and am grateful for the umbrella you have provided for much of my life, I see the same footprints in the Oval Office. Watch their next step - and yours!

Posted by: Frank P at November 15, 2009 1:05 AM

I found the first two volumes of "How Things Work" and at least two volumes of "Foxfire" at our local Deseret Industries Thrift Stores...

I agree with Cobb.

We are going to stumble badly, but unless some power takes the opportunity to inject a strategic exchange of the NBC kind into the mix, it will be just that - a stumble.

So: no campfire discussions along the lines of "I never thought I'd say this, but "The Postman" got it right" are likely. We aren't going back to the caves. Switching capacity and redundancy may suffer some big hits, but Mad Max will happen here just so long as the Night Riders don't run into people like me. Then we'll get back to being "civilized", which means simply that we'll act a little less human in order to survive more comfortably than we would have otherwise.

Things are going to change hard and fast. But we have, literally at our fingertips if not ingrained in our cultural memory, the first principles necessary for a working constitutional Republic.

There's only so much mileage to be had in lining the avenues with gibbets filled with statists; the sun always comes up the next day, and the best way for that day to go is if things are able to work...

I apologize for the rambling nature of this comment, but the background "WTF???" associated with paying even the most scant attention to the Obama Road Show makes it hard to organize a single calm thought.

Posted by: TmjUtah at November 15, 2009 1:15 PM

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November 12, 2009

You've Got Questions? We've Got Answers! The ObamaTime To-Do List

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