by Ron Foster
The PREPPERS LAMENT
RON FOSTER
Dixie, Alabama, USA
© 2014 by Ron Foster
All rights reserved.
ISBN ISBN-13:
978-1497422520
ISBN-10:
1497422523
Printed in the United States of America.
Preface
About the cover.
In the fall of 1845, the potato blight in Ireland began. By 1847, there was massive death and famine. The Irish were only permitted potatoes by the English authorities, and when the potatoes perished, so did they. As many as a quarter of the Irish population either starved or immigrated under the worst of circumstances. Many of those who left Ireland never arrived at their destination. Ships were known as “coffin ships.”
British colonial policies before and during the crisis exacerbated the effects of the potato blight, leading to mass death by starvation and disease. For example, in March of 1847, at the time of the Choctaw donation, 734,000 starving Irish people were forced to labor in public works projects in order to receive food. Little wonder that survivors referred to the year as “Black ’47.” What potatoes were harvested was shipped, by the English, outside of Ireland. There is certainly some question about whether these acts were intentionally genocidal, the same questions that apply to the US policy driving the Removal Act which led to the Trail of Tears.
Famine' (1997) was commissioned by Norma Smurfit and presented to the City of Dublin in 1997. The sculpture is a commemorative work dedicated to those Irish people forced to emigrate during the 19th century Irish Famine. The bronze sculptures were designed and crafted by Dublin sculptor Rowan Gillespie and are located on Custom House Quay in Dublin's Docklands.
The photo depicts the Famine Memorial in Dublin today near the docks. These pathetically thin people are portrayed walking towards the ships on the quay, their desperate escape to anyplace. The story of the man on the right, carrying the child, is that by the time he arrived where there was soup, he discovered that he was carrying a dead child.
I’m always amazed at the degree of cruelty humans can carry out upon other humans.
As an academically influenced prepper fiction author, I have studied in depth the sociological and psychological impacts of how disasters influence the populace. Many of the post apocalyptic books I write include a specific story line that the books' title refers or alludes to. I have decided to call this particular book “The Preppers Lament”. This reflects our community. A strong central underlying theme of the books' purpose and lessons to learn is to construct or deconstruct just what that titles' implication or meaning applies to the reader’s own perspectives about surviving a disaster, as well as life in general...
Just what is a lament one might ask? Well, according to Webster’s, we find the word to be defined as:
la·ment
Verb
1. to express sorrow, regret, or unhappiness about something
2. To express sorrow, mourning, or regret for, often demonstratively
Now being a country boy that sometimes forgets some of his education on exactly what a word means decided that if something is done “demonstratively”, it must therefore be important that it be well defined and so I looked this word up also.
. de·mon·stra·tive
adj.
1. Serving to manifest or prove.
Author Note.” We preppers hope we will not have to prove our skills or depend on our preps if a disaster should manifest itself but serve ourselves and others by preparing for a perceived likelihood of inevitability”.
2. Involving or characterized by demonstration.
Author Note.” Preppers are all about involving themselves with the community and learning from and demonstrating preparedness and survival skills.
3. Given to or marked by the open expression of emotion: an affectionate and demonstrative family.
Author Note “The Prepper community as a whole characteristically tends to be open about their enjoying the sharing of knowledge and camaraderie that defines the movement.
4. Grammar Specifying or singling out the person or thing referred to: the demonstrative pronouns these and that.
“By definition we are singled out by the media and referred to as these Preppers or that Prepper and of course even those Doomsday Preppers but it doesn’t matter, we define ourselves by our actions and our deeds.
So having defined that Preppers express sorrow and regret strongly what exactly would entail qualifying some thought process specifically as a Preppers Lament?
America has become increasingly angry, confused, depressed, sick, deranged, conflicted, addicted, suicidal, faithless and hopeless. The aftermath of 9/11 highlighted how unpredictable disasters can be and how unprepared we are as individuals as well as a nation to cope should we lose any of our precious infrastructure. This is something for everyone to lament about.
The prepper movement seeks to obtain an individual or personal level of well-being by having people take control over their own destinies and try to mitigate the numerous threats we ourselves and others perceive as risks or hazards to us and our families. By preparing for ourselves to be more self- reliant, we assuage our psyche and calm our nerves.
A lot of us utilize the prepper community as a hobby and a social platform to share similar views and beliefs under the banner of preparedness. The uncertainty of what lies ahead - and our inkling to know what lies ahead - is the perfect platform for the grassroots community to take on not only personal preparedness but also influence state and federal emergency management agencies. The Prepper community is vociferous in its dire warnings that put the challenges ahead in the spotlight and in so doing, we hope in some small way that it prepares the authorities to plan to ensure that them gloom and doomer Preppers are wrong.
The orgy of ominous predictions that greets us on the internet and news drives prepper newbie’s to the internet forums and other social media daily as our community of awareness increases. Is to lament about risks, disasters, unpreparedness etc. what makes us a prepper? Surely not, most people lament about such woes and worries so it’s not exclusive to preppers.
Preppers do and will lament about those who do not prep because of many reasons. People who concern us are those that refuse to be informed about the need to prepare for disasters, people who are too lazy to prep, maybe they are just self absorbed with daily living, or maybe they are just plain naïve and out of touch, also lets don’t forget about those who for no fault of their own are economically challenged and can't afford supplies. Does speculating about whether these people are a threat to us and our preps or that we will mourn for them after a disaster makes this a “Preppers Lament”? To mourn death is to lament, remember?
But the battle to define a “Preppers Lament” is simultaneously being waged on another plane: Lament can mean to want. Every time the government creates another “crisis,” it promotes and enlarges the societal stress, the emotional instability, the cultural anxiety, the brooding anger, uncertainty, dread and growing national self-doubt and gives us yet another reason to prep. The news about natural disasters and terrorist threats fuels our prepper psyches while it drains our bank accounts for latest got to have items. Prep to live folks, don’t live to prep, please, or you will find you created your own economic collapse and living a preppers lament. For some folks, there needs to be a Preppers Anonymous like they have for shopoholics or gamblers. Remember that your mind is your biggest asset to invest in and it needs words of wisdom not dollars to enrich your survival. Your mind is better than any survival gadget you can buy.
What is your “Preppers Lament”? How about wishing you had purchased long-term storage food instead of all that out of date canned food you are hol
ding on to? How about the number of times your water storage has sprung a leak because of shoddy made containers? How do you prepare for life’s laments versus prepper laments? The one thing though that I bet none of us ever laments about is becoming a prepper
Imagine That A Coordinated Cyber Attack Has Taken Down The Majority Of The Electrical Grid In America.
Imagine That This Disaster Happened Two Weeks Ago and Your Home’s Water Quit Flowing a Week Ago.
Imagine That You Started This Catastrophe with Only a Month’s Worth of Food and Water Stored.
Imagine That Your Neighbors Only Had About Three Days Worth Of Food On Hand Two Weeks Ago And Now They Beg You To Share What They Think You Have Put away But you Do Not Have..
Imagine That You No Longer Wish To “Share” And That Today Is The Day Of Reckoning To Tell Your Friends And Neighbors “No More” And Draw A Line In The Sand.
Imagine For Instance That You Had Somehow Already Imagined This Event Or Disaster Day and Prepared For It Because You Were A Prepper.
Would Your Disaster Survival Plan Work?
What Happens If It Does Not?
What Happens To Those People Without Anything
Put Away For These Hard Times?
“Who Dies, Who Lives, And For How Long?”
Acknowledgements
SilverFire Rocket Stoves
Sun Oven
1
NOW IMAGINE IT!
David the old prepper/farmsteader considered that his community was only just now starting to experience the kind of chaos, mass confusion and social difficulties he expected from a power failure of only a few weeks duration in his part of the southern United States. Several of the large northern states industrial cities had already been off grid much longer than his state and those over populated cities had already begun to succumb to mayhem, smoke and death as society began to panic after the great cyber attack took the electrical grid down.
“Just imagine what will happen when the power stays off for many MONTHS! Common folks normally take electricity so much for granted that they fail to fully realize for themselves that without it, we are literally soon to be thrown back a century in time. I am positively sure myself, that by now a lot of people sitting are home in the dark have had time for a few minutes careful personal reflection on that particular reasonable assumption and are scurrying their asses off now to get the hell out of the cities and get themselves and their family to whatever safer place they could imagine. Didn’t much matter to some where that was, just get out of the big city and go anywhere that seemed like a more likely place to have a chance to survive. No gas (pumps) or heating oil, no more transportation of food, water shortages, failure of computers, medical equipment, banks and the monetary system, no ATMs, no TV, limited radio and other communications -- in short absolute and total chaos and panic is setting in for good and the fuse is lit. Society was going to implode.” David thought to himself a bit alarmed and wondered exactly just what indeed was the state of mind of his neighbors were in at this moment. Thinking about going, thinking about staying, thinking about robbing, thinking about looting, hunting, prepping, going crazy hell there was no telling.
“Were they still thinking more Sane than insane? “David wondered
“Were the neighbors on this dead end road remaining relatively rational or perhaps they were becoming foaming at the mouth dangerous folks to be around as starvation began to affect their minds? For that matter what was his state of mind? How was his thought processes holding up compared to those other folks whose normal realities were being shattered? He knew one thing though for himself, he was sure he could switch or adapt faster than most people to this crappy existence. He had already developed his own personal kind of “situational acceptance” of the disaster and went into his survivalist mindset and by doing so, he let his ideas of normal life and expectations of soft living go, thus greatly increasing his own chances for survival. Choosing to be a survivor is an action step that creates a mental change in the way we think and the way perceive or act towards a situation. When one chooses to be a survivor they have made the decision to distance themselves or step out of a” victims role” and are using positive energy to actively pursuing alternate means to live through the problem.” David reflected, confident his knowledge and preps would allow him to hang on as long as it was humanely possible while waiting for the electricity to come back on some year...
He squinted and adjusted his old brown eyes to the suns glare and then somewhat causally looked out the window across the old drink glass stained oak dining room table for the umpteenth time today. He looked out about 50 yards towards his driveways entrances in quasi alertness and was feeling a bit forlorn and apprehensive about his sorry state of affairs. His mind churned and it wandered constantly back to the subjects as to what he could be doing, or what he should be doing to prepare his home further for long term survival.
He dreaded the routine of keeping up this boring, as well as nerve racking, peek and watch, paranoid or not so paranoid vigilance today. He was trying to stay focused and keep an eye on the main points of access to his property. He continually grumbled all the while about the need for him to be watching out for strangers or friends to approach his prepper shack.
“Damn your soul David! You just had to go and tell a bunch of folks around here that you were some kind of a prepper didn’t you? Oh yea, you made a buck or two doing it as a marketing technique. You also enjoyed informing other folks to prepare for calamities like this and you knew the risks before hand of advising them that you practiced what you preached in regard to preparedness. Now, all of his dispersing that advice for whatever reason other than also trying to make a buck off selling prepper supplies to build up his own preps didn’t sound so smart for him to have done at this moment. No, he should have been more careful. The less interaction he had with people outside of his prepper shack, the better off he would have been now.” David muttered, while admonishing himself gloomily. He then adjusted the balance of a green camo 12 gauge pump shotgun he had leaning against the table next to him and looked back towards kitchen window in case anyone might just come in from the woods.
There are many ways to “spread the preparedness word” or get the message about prepping out without unnecessarily endangering your family by being less public. He could have been a bit less lazy and more resourceful in lowering his profile. But he had always figured that it’s kind of hard to do anything secretive at all if you want to advertise products or sell articles about survival and preparedness to the prepper community. You got to get known as an expert for it and you got to live it as a lifestyle. Also for kind hearted survivalist fools like David, it is just a simple fact that it is hard for some people to just shut up and prep and try to keep a low profile. A bunch of drinks with the boys or girls and parties on regarding survival tricks or what it takes to get an article published. For some folks like David it’s counterproductive to their incomes or their psyches to just hush. Some people make survival so much a part of who they are, that they want to share every little experience with others, just like campers or hunters often do. For many people who enjoy talking publicly about prepping and sharing survival knowledge, it is something they do to help spread preparedness warnings or mitigate a perceived risk, for others it’s just a teaching or sharing moment. In David’s case it was all the above and more as he considered it partly pure interesting entertainment to participate with the community.
Many times some people see or hear something about preppers in media, then give that thing a name such as when we break the supposed prepper taboo of operational security (OPSEC) and that’s it. The speaker is belittled and is chased away by internet trolls or sternly warned by other preppers of their impending doom by neighbors coveting the speaker’s goods in a disaster. Loose lips bring the zombie hoards or whatever. The worst thing about prepping for disaster is the stigma it gives if you let labels affect you.
Oftentimes there is much more sense behind the way that
you yourself have chosen to spread the word of preparedness and prepare for yourself, than observing some top secret doomer rational. CERT training, Red Cross, Prepper Conventions, Forums etc. are all good places to learn and interact in, just use some common sense.
David’s in your face, I am a prepper rationale was based on his belief that if you are thinking about gathering preppers in your community for when SHTF happens, then start doing it today. You do that task by talking to people and talking about how to prepare for disasters. He figured it was better to end up being with (close like family) people when SHTF or failing that, at least be known by other likeminded people that prepped and might cross his path someday, then for him to be left all alone and a stranger to others. At least they knew him as someone who cares to prepare.
David had no way for himself of knowing, or for that matter even finding out the actual magnitude of the cyber attack that had taken out most of the U.S. electrical grid. He didn’t have anywhere near enough information for him to even try to hazard a guess about the effects of the media reported scalar or cyber terrorist attack on the electrical grid. He himself wondered like many other preppers if this could end up being the real deal true cataclysmic event that ultimately caused the actual destruction of all the power grid hubs in the US. But with out any hard facts, his speculation was about as good as anyone else.