Tag Archives | Survivalism

Survivalist Commune Run By Gun Company Planned In Idaho Forest

By on February 11, 2013 in News 33

A rival to Glenn Beck’s planned community? Yahoo! News reports on the Citadel, which sounds like living inside a Medieval Times theme park but with machine guns:

A group of survivalists wants to build a giant walled fortress in the woods of the Idaho Panhandle, where residents would be required to own weapons and stand ready to defend the compound if society collapses. The proposal is called the Citadel and has created a buzz in this remote logging town 70 miles southeast of Spokane, Wash.

“There is no leader,” [explains] Christian Kerodin, a convicted felon who is a promoter of the project. “There is a significant group of equals involved … each bringing their own professional skills and life experiences to the group.” Applicants for the community must pay a $208 fee, and the official website claims several hundred people already have applied.

The compound would include houses, schools, a hotel and a firearms factory and museum.

… Read the rest

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Are You Really Prepared For A Natural Disaster?

By on February 7, 2013 in News 16

As I write the The National Weather Service in Upton has issued a Blizzard Warning for the New York City area. Weather Underground advises:

A Blizzard Warning means severe winter weather conditions are expected or occurring. Falling and blowing snow with strong winds and poor visibilities are likely. This will lead to whiteout conditions… making travel extremely dangerous. Do not travel. If you must travel… have a winter survival kit with you. If you get stranded… stay with your vehicle.

But in looking through the various web-sites on disaster preparedness, there is an almost hilarious amount of wise-acreing.  There are some good sites with honest people recommending good choices,  but for the most part it is a burgoo of foolishness and hence you get my lengthy and somewhat indignant commentary on just how imbecilic and unconscionable this entire “Mad Max” industry is.

First of all, there is a bewildering array of options that virtually every site offers—who can sort through this nonsense?  Kit after kit, with option after option.… Read the rest

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Popular “Crash” Blogger Ran Prieur Throws in the Towel?

By on January 3, 2013 in News 24

Picture: Padraic Ryan (CC)

I love Ran Prieur’s blog. I’ve been following it faithfully since 2005. I had it set as my browser homepage for a few months once. I’m not sure of all the exact details, but he is “semi” retiring from blogging  and apparently no longer believes in what is commonly referred to as the “Crash” or “the Shit Hitting the Fan” or “The end of Civilization as We know it.”  He will still occasionally make posts but his section entitled “Crash Watch” is officially retired

January 1, 2013. This page is retired. Ten years ago it really seemed like the whole system was about to come apart. People who saw a crash coming were seeing things that were being ignored by people who expected business as usual. Yet we were still wrong. After seeing how little daily life has changed after the 2008 financial collapse, seven years with global oil production on a plateau, and two catastrophic hurricanes, I think the big mistake of doomers was assuming that failures would have positive feedback like a house of cards.

… Read the rest

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Scientology Has Secret Alien-Themed Doomsday Compound In The New Mexico Desert

By on January 2, 2013 in News 8

A science fiction movie sprung to life — the vast bunker is where Scientology’s elite will hide out when civilization breaks down, and the gigantic etched symbols, visible from above, likely are messages intended for the extraterrestrials who created humanity. Via Live Science:

A secret bunker hidden deep within the deserts of New Mexico is reported to be the “alien space cathedral” of the Church of Scientology, according to a BBC reporter. The site is marked by a large symbol etched onto the desert floor: two diamonds surrounded by a pair of overlapping circles, according to the British newspaper The Sun. A private airstrip, built to serve the controversial church’s leaders, is within walking distance of the symbol.

Journalist John Sweeney claims the church designed the underground site to withstand a nuclear holocaust. Hidden within the complex’s vaults are titanium caskets that hold gold disks inscribed with the original texts of Scientology founder L.

… Read the rest

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Man In China Created Fleet Of Floating Doomsday Pods

By on December 26, 2012 in News 2

The best thing to come out of rumors that the world would end this past week? A former furniture maker, Liu Qiyuan of the small village of Qiantun became obsessed with the possibility of a Mayan calendar apocalypse and was driven to build what you see below for his family. The fiberglass pods cost $48,000 each to create and are equipped with oxygen, seat belts, food, and supplies allowing 14 people to survive inside for at least two months. I foresee a future in which we all float through life in these:

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Are We All Secretly Hoping For The End Of The World?

By on December 22, 2012 in News 9

Via Salon, Daisy Yuhas on the fascination of impending collapse:

Neuroscientist Shmuel Lissek suspects that some apocalyptic believers find the idea that the end is nigh to be validating. Individuals with a history of traumatic experiences, for example, may be fatalistic. For these people, finding a group of like-minded fatalists is reassuring. There may also be comfort in being able to attribute doom to some larger cosmic order—such as an ancient Mayan prophecy.

There’s an even broader allure to knowing the precise end date. “Apocalyptic beliefs make existential threats—the fear of our mortality—predictable,” Lissek says. Lissek, in collaboration with National Institute of Mental Health neuroscientist Christian Grillon and colleagues, has found that when an unpleasant or painful experience, such as an electric shock, is predictable, we relax. The anxiety produced by uncertainty is gone.

Steven Schlozman, drawing both from his experiences as a Harvard Medical School child psychiatrist and novelist (his first book recounts a zombie apocalypse) believes it’s the post-apocalyptic landscape that fascinates people most.

… Read the rest

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Sandy Hook Shooter Adam Lanza’s Mother Was A Paranoid Survivalist

By on December 21, 2012 in News 59

Via the Independent, when preparation for civilization’s breakdown becomes a self-fulfilling prophesy:

The mother of Adam Lanza, the gunman who killed 20 children and six adults in one of America’s worst ever school massacres, was a “survivalist” preparing for economic and social collapse, it has emerged.

Nancy Lanza was a so-called ‘prepper’, part of the survivalist movement which urges individuals to prepare for the breakdown of society by training with weapons and hoarding food and other supplies. Mrs Lanza is thought to have trained her sons to shoot, taking them to local ranges.

Friends and family have portrayed Mrs. Lanza as a paranoid [individual] who believed the world was on the brink of violent collapse. “She prepared for the worst,” her sister-in-law Marsha Lanza told the Chicago Sun-Times, saying Nancy repeatedly talked about her preparations for the economic and social meltdown.

… Read the rest

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On Bringing Survivalism Into Mainstream Suburbia

By on November 20, 2012 in News 7

The New York Times examines the booming business of selling preparedness for societal breakdown, with more and more Americans worried that civilization may be on the verge of collapse in the wake of major hurricanes, blackouts, financial crisis, Iran building the bomb, et cetera. The irony is that the movement’s proponents are so obsessed with “getting ready” for the end of everything that in a sense they have already given up on our world:

The preparedness industry, always prosperous during hard times, is thriving again now. In Ron Douglas’s circles, people talk about “the end of the world as we know it” with such regularity that the acronym Teotwawki has come into widespread use.

The goal isn’t just to sell to the same old preparedness crowd. Red Shed wants to attract liberals and political moderates to a marketplace historically populated by conservatives and right-wing extremists. It’s about showing the gun-toting mountain man in his camouflage and the suburban soccer mom in her minivan that they want the same thing: peace of mind.

… Read the rest

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Rats for Supper: An Interview with Survivalist and Artist Laura Ginn

By on July 30, 2012 in News 9

Photo Courtesy of Laura Ginn

If you weren’t outside enjoying the weekend then you may remember Saturday’s post (“Let Them Eat Rat! Artist Serves $100 Rat Dinner“) about artist Laura Ginn. Ginn received no small amount of attention  about a performance art piece in which 20 attendees paid $100 each to dine on rat.

The piece, titled “Tomorrow We Will Feast Again on What We Catch”, has been a lightning rod for conversation online. Many of those commenting on a story about the piece at the NY Times referred to Ginn as “talentless” and a “hipster” and criticized her work as superficial and meaningless. We felt that there was probably more to her art than just a few dismissive comments can encompass, so We reached out to Laura for a quick interview about the piece, the response and what she plans on doing next.

I understand that “Tomorrow We Will Feast Again on What We Catch” was only one part of a longtime art project centering on survivalism and related practices.… Read the rest

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