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You Despair When There Is No Woodpile

But when there is a new Woodpile Report your despair can only darken. Ol’Remus is not, as you know, a naturally cheery fellow when it comes to the future.

We live in the darkening foreshadow of a world catastrophe to be remembered for millennia to come. When it comes apart it will happen with no more warning than we have now. Each step down will be a disaster in itself, followed by worse, then worse yet, until many years later civilization becomes a fading memory told to disbelieving children. The wholly unprepared have no more than a single-digit percent chance of long-term survival.

Most have chosen their fate. Few have chosen wisely.

Big city dwellers who believe potable water and their daily bread is “a human right’, whose lives rely on contracts and connections and persuasion, who take the weather personally, who hold leisure class values even as they’re being swindled into penury, who can’t prepare a real meal at home and hire an illegal to change a light bulb—they won’t survive.

Those who live far from cities and lines of drift, who have a circle of reliable relatives and friends at a good level of self-sufficiency, who have experienced scarcity or even poverty, who are experienced and well situated to hunt and fish and garden, or are already practicing homesteaders, who value self reliance, who know their home ground intimately and have prepared realistically—they may survive.

We can’t know how events will unfold. It’s likely the first post-apocalyptic months will seem to be, if not be, the most cataclysmic. The incompetent, the deluded, the resolutely unprepared and other self-selected victims will be winnowed in huge numbers. Add to them the chronically ill and elderly, the wholly dependent tribalists of the inner city and their feral broods, and the plain unlucky.

Old vendettas will be settled, chains of revenge for revenge will begin. City utilities will fail, sewage and garbage and corpses will contribute to unchecked disease. An exposed light at night will be worth your life. Enclaves will attack enclaves no less destitute than themselves. The naturally homicidal, suddenly unconstrained, will prey singly and in groups. Some uniformed enforcers of defunct martial law will go rogue.

Longtime readers know survivalism is summed up in my Most Excellent and Inviolable Rule One: Stay away from crowds. There’s nothing in this for the survivalist. Serial gunfights and derring-do are not the key to survival. The survivalist removes himself from this pointless maelstrom, ready to defend himself and others, but aware the hard work of preparation is not over. The long-term is still ahead and there’s plenty of room for things to get worse. And worse they will get.

Comments on this entry are closed.

  • Kauf Buch September 7, 2018, 1:07 PM

    From the top of his site:
    Relax, all is well.
    I have not gone gently into that good night.
    A new Woodpile Report follows PC replacement post haste
    or double your money back.

  • fodderwing September 7, 2018, 1:16 PM

    Yay!

  • Bill in Tennessee September 7, 2018, 1:23 PM

    Yes, glad to see at his masthead that a new Woodpile Report is a’comin’ after a new PC is installed. I need my weekly dose of Ol’ Remus. My wife and I obey the maxim of avoiding crowds. Wish I could say we live off the grid and away from the mad crowd, but we’re fairly safe in the distant western outskirts of a small southern city. What little dysfunctional population we have are concentrated in two enclaves in the central and east sides of that city. Another fortuitous thing is that TN ranks high in household gun ownership, and we don’t tolerate foolishness. If and when TSHTF, the lines will be drawn right quickly here and people will violate the new norms at their peril. Anyway… good to know Remus will be around for awhile.

  • Michael September 7, 2018, 3:41 PM

    That guy has become the new “Debbie Downer”. I never intended on living forever but, to live in fear of what might come!?! Forget it! I trust that the Good Lord has a plan, and I trust in Him alone. No amount of “prepping” is going to change God’s Holy Will for you and as I tell my friends, “Ain’t nobody getting out of here alive”. Have faith and trust in God.

  • Butch September 7, 2018, 4:57 PM

    Michael – Just the punchline:

    All this time the floodwaters continued to rise, until soon they reached above the roof and the religious man drowned. When he arrived at heaven he demanded an audience with God. Ushered into God’s throne room he said, “Lord, why am I here in heaven? I prayed for you to save me, I trusted you to save me from that flood.”
    “Yes you did my child” replied the Lord. “And I sent you a canoe, a boat, and a helicopter. But you never got in.”

  • Snakepit Kansas September 7, 2018, 5:31 PM

    Michael,
    I do not believe God simply wants us to sit on our hands and wait as He will intercede in all impossible circumstances. The Old Testament tells us this over and over. I believe He gives us the ability to forge our own way regardless of the difficult circumstances. When things really get tough, we will become much more closer to animals. Food stamps and the Welcome Wagon are not going to assist you. I will not give up my faith, but know I will have responsibilities to my family, as head of the household.

    Redneck, Prepper, Paranoid, Right Winger, Bible Thumper whatever someone wants to call me, I care not. My kids can find verses in the Bible, do pretty good in the garden, and handle firearm quite well. Things will likely not go south overnight, but fundamentals of self-reliance have already been taught in my household.

  • Michael September 7, 2018, 5:36 PM

    Butch and Snakept,
    I agree 100% . We are called to live life in a prudent manner rather than a foolish manner. I only meant to say that I refuse to live in fear of what may never come. I have seen too many called from this life when unprepared spiritually yet stocked to the rafters with provisions.

  • Snakepit Kansas September 7, 2018, 5:54 PM

    Michael,
    Amen brother.

  • ghostsniper September 7, 2018, 6:43 PM

    “I refuse to live in fear of what may never come.”
    ============

    If you are hoping for heaven, rather than hell, then that is exactly what you are doing.
    SMFH

  • Michael September 7, 2018, 8:02 PM

    Ghostsniper,

    I’m sorry but, I’m a bit thick sometimes. Please elaborate?

  • SWRichmond September 8, 2018, 5:29 AM

    If I understand correctly, bands of ex-military specifically targeted well-stocked enclaves during apocalyptic meltdowns in other nations. So you might get away with hiding, or not. And what will become of your little enclave after “the unpleasantness” is decided? Do you think you will be left alone?

    You don’t really think that, do you?

    I think you will find that “we are all in this together” will take on a new meaning. I mean to win.

  • ghostsniper September 8, 2018, 10:08 AM

    “Do you think you will be left alone?”
    ==========================
    We’re not left alone now, so why would an apoc change that?

    “So you might get away with hiding, or not.”
    ==============================
    Living away from mass populations only seems like hiding to the uninformed.
    We chose to live out here and like it.

    “…bands of ex-military specifically targeted well-stocked enclaves…”
    ===============================================
    The metropolises will keep them busy for a spell.
    If they become desperate enough to come way out here a continuous hail of high velocity shrapnel awaits them and what’s there’s will become ours. We ARE the ex-military, specifically, airborne-mechanized engineers and infantry.
    Coming here will be their last mission on this earth. Onward.

  • John A. Fleming September 8, 2018, 11:19 AM

    ghost,
    1. The local constabulary will rat out who’s prepared. You can’t depend on them to keep secrets. They’ll know who’s worth coming for.
    2. By the time they get to you, they won’t be stupid anymore. They’ll have long-range spotters, and probably drones.
    3. You gotta sleep sometimes. That’s when they’ll come. That’s why it’s best to be part of a npt, but too many and you’ll be ratted out.

  • Rick September 8, 2018, 12:57 PM

    I read Woodpile but admit that I laugh at the bug out bags, trash shelters and traveling at night. I wish he had comments because I’d sure like to know his plan for his wife, kids and his elderly parents who live with him. Do they all have bug out bags?

  • Landroll September 8, 2018, 1:57 PM

    To Rick: It’s known as ‘Stand and Deliver’ as long as you can to make the target worth less than the possible loss.

  • ghostsniper September 8, 2018, 6:10 PM

    @John, we’re not as dumb as we pretend, and we’re a very small group and constantly improving. OODA loop.

    @Rick, the only plan that will work for you must be conceived and executed by you, one size doesn’t fit all. By not having comments he avoids riff raff, another version of “avoid crowds”.

  • Rick September 9, 2018, 5:44 AM

    Landroll- I understand but I also understand that if the SHTF, running isn’t going to do a family any good at all. Your only hope is a large group of friends and family in one place to guard each other and to, as you say, make the cost exceed the benefit of bothering you.

    Ghost- generally I avoid sites that don’t allow comments. There are a lot of idiots and trolls but generally I get as much or more from the comments than the original article. Takes used to be one of my favorite blogs until they stopped comments so now the only time I read anything these is if some links to an article there.,

    There is a web site, SHTF, that I used to read. The author had lived through just that, probably somewhere in Eastern Europe, and was great at popping the silly bubbles of all the guys who had dumb plans like bug out bags and buriedshipping containers. I’ve looked recently and he seems to have embraced selling SHTF courses rather than blogging about it.,

  • Sean September 9, 2018, 3:06 PM

    Some will make it prepared or no, and some will not, prepared or no. Stay loose, stay frosty, and stay flexible. Don’t be discourage and quit because some supposedly old wise head says you’re doing it wrong, and can’t possibly survive. Do what you think is best, and be good at as many helpful things as you can. Right and wrong moves will be worked out later.