There was some big news this week that I want to address about DHS “Preparing for Civil War.”
In short, a highly respected security expert was recently approached by a DHS informant who told him that DHS is preparing for Civil War due to a collapse of the dollar, hyperinflation, and the resulting chaos that they expect to happen as a result.
The thing that has surprised me this week is, frankly, why people are surprised about this.
One one hand, the economic collapse in one form or another has been in process for several decades and it’s been the subject of novels and fiction for at least 2 decades. Over the last few years, economic collapse has changed from being a fringe concept to being mainstream and generally accepted that some sort of crash is going to happen. The main question is how bad it will be, how long it will last, and how it will play out.
On the other hand, since millions of preppers, including current and former military, law enforcement, and government employees are preparing their families for financial turmoil and breakdowns in civil order, why wouldn’t we EXPECT federal agencies to do the same?
And this isn’t a new thing. I’ve worked with guys who have done Red Cell wargaming since 9/11 and controlling the population in the event of a terrorist attack, natural disaster, or economic disaster is ALWAYS one of the factors that has to be taken into account.
When you see that unknown economic turmoil is on the horizon, one of the things that you want to game out is what your family would do in the event of civil disorder/civil war. In fact, this is one of the things that I strongly encourage people to do in the SurviveInPlace.com course.
Don’t get me wrong…I don’t get warm fuzzies about DHS preparing for civil war. I’d much rather it was local agencies who actually know and live among their population rather than some Federal agency making centralized policy for the whole country anonymously. At the same time, while I can’t flip a switch and do anything to change what DHS is or is not doing, I CAN flip a switch right now and make positive changes in my life and the lives of my family that will help make us more resilient in the event of natural disasters, manmade disasters, and economic disasters.
This is a VERY important point that I want you to understand and encourage you to embrace…there are things that are within your realm of control right now and many things that are NOT within your realm of control. You will probably never be able to do anything but prepare for and react to the things that are not within your realm of control.
What DHS and other government agencies decide to do is outside of your realm of control. You can vote for representatives who you agree with, write letters and make phone calls to your elected representatives (and I encourage you to do so), but when it all comes down to how things will play out after a disaster, it’s much more important that you take action on things that are within your realm of control.
In other words, instead of being concerned about DHS having plans for a civil war, maybe you should work on your own plan.
What’s that mean? Get your stuff in order, do it quickly, and do it in such a way that you won’t regret the time and money you spent on preparing if nothing horrible ends up happening during your lifetime.
I’ll give you some guidelines in a second, but I want to point out that this whole prepare-without-guilt-if-nothing-ever-happens concept is foundational to everything that I have written and I strongly suggest that you check out the www.SurviveInPlace.com course and or the www.FastestWayToPrepare.com course if you want a detailed roadmap to follow.
As a general guideline, become more resilient so that you can bounce back from whatever happens to the world around you. Here’s some steps:
- Figure out what it would take for you and/or your family to survive if cut off from civilization. This is harder for some than others. Accept it and deal with it if you’re in this group…as soon as possible.Here’s an example. A friend of mine who I think the world of is married to an incredible woman who takes anti-rejection medication for an organ transplant. If a collapse happens that knocks out future supply of her medication, it means that her clock has started ticking. At this point, she has the choice of denying that there’s a problem and quietly fading away or completely embracing life and squeezing as much as is humanly possible out of her remaining days.
Another example is if you’re body is decades older than your mind. In this case, you need to take inventory of your strengths, find able bodied people who fall short in those areas, and team up.
In any case, you are going to want to both stock up on water, food, heat, medical supplies, entertainment, mental health, spiritual health, physical health, and the tools necessary to provide the above AND figure out long term sustainable solutions. It’s easier to simply stock up on stuff that you use and need, but it’s much less expensive to create sustainable solutions.
- Once you’ve figured out your needs, start picking off the low-hanging fruit first. Disaster may strike next week and you’re much better having SOMETHING 100% done and usable than a bunch of items 80% done and unusable.A few pieces of low-hanging fruit are entertainment, mental health, and physical health. If you take up reading and body-weight exercises and cut out SOME TV time, you could very well end up going to bed earlier, getting more sleep, and feeling much better.
In the process, you might end up cutting back on your cable package, working out at home or outside and cutting your gym membership, not need as much caffeine to stay awake or as much alcohol to relax and save a bunch of money on subscriptions in the process.
From a grid-down perspective, you would have made yourself more resilient as well since your life wouldn’t change as much after a disaster. It’s important to note that entertainment withdrawal is a very real thing among both children and adults. In fact, in some Southern hospital systems, 80% of their ER carbon monoxide poisoning cases are kids who got CO poisoning when the electricity goes out after hurricanes because they ran generators in attached garages so that they could power their video game systems.
- Decide if doing a strategic relocation is a possibility. Successfully bugging out after a disaster is a low probability venture, at best. Between packing time, packed roads, panicked people, and getting everyone together in time to leave, you must have a plan to SurviveInPlace, regardless of how un-ideal your current situation is. If things work out and you are able to relocate to a superior position, that’s even better…but don’t count on always being able to.If you absolutely do not want to ride out a disaster in your current location and you have the ability to, you may want to seriously consider strategic relocation. Strategically relocating is moving to an area that is more survivable BEFORE disaster strikes. It’s relocating when you want to, instead of when you’re forced to.
For many, it means downsizing, simplifying, and making dramatic changes in lifestyle. This may be great if does disaster strikes, but has made many people miserable by cutting off more than they could chew too quickly. I suggest that, instead of immediately moving from, as an example, a walkable urban neighborhood to a mountain retreat that’s 20 miles from the nearest paved road, you might want to think about finding somewhere that feeds you emotionally and that allows you to start making changes that allow you to become more self-reliant like gardening, learning handyman skills, and basic “survival skills”. This might look like a 1 acre horse property close to a city, or a small farm a few minutes out of a small to medium sized city. In any case, look for a source of water that you can get access to if everything falls apart.
“Survival skills” covers a big swatch of canvas. What I’m specifically referring to is learning primitive survival skills like making fire, building shelters, hunting/gathering, etc. One of the biggest reasons isn’t because you’ll be likely to need them on a daily basis in a disaster, but because learning and using these skills helps to widen the range of conditions that your mind and body are comfortable in. If you know how to be comfortable in the woods with next-to-nothing, it’s a heck of a lot easier to be comfortable in a house after the power, water, sewer, and gas stop working. You don’t have to turn into Bear Grylls or David Morris
…you just want to condition your mind to be comfortable in a wide range of scenarios. - Focus on practical before tactical. The climax of all survival fiction is the battle between good and bad. Battles happen in real life survival situations as well, but so does eating, drinking, sleeping, relationships, hygiene, illness, injury, and other “boring” survival skills that are necessary to sustain warriors between battles that may or may not ever come.
One common element here is that these steps will help make you and your family more resilient. If you spread the message of preparedness, you can help create resilient micro-communities that will be better equipped to endure long term hardship. If you get your preparations in high enough gear, you will be able to support not only yourself, but others around you. In either case, the more stable your immediate area is, the less bad attention it’s likely to receive.
The problem for most people who see the need to prepare is that their mind gets spinning so fast with all of the potential scenarios and all of the disciplines that they are told they need to learn that they end up overwhelmed and paralyzed. It’s not a shortage of information…it’s a problem of not having a way to quickly and efficiently sift through it and prioritize the information.
That’s why I created the SurviveInPlace.com course. It’s a 12 module course that helps people create a plan to survive short, medium, and long term disasters right where they currently live…regardless of where that may be.
As things in the US started to come unhinged, I found that I was getting more requests for the absolute fastest way to go from 0 to prepared. As a result, I created the 6 module FastestWayToPrepare.com course. It overlaps some with SurviveInPlace, but people who have bought and gone through both have been happy that they did. In other words, they both stand alone as complete products that harmonize with each other.
FastestWayToPrepare.com cuts out a few sections like, “Operational Security,” “Hardening Your House,” and a great section on tactical movement in an urban area after a breakdown in civil order but goes deeper into tools to forge mental resilience and unique and inexpensive semi-secure communication solutions.
If you haven’t gone through either or both of them, I want to STRONGLY encourage you to check them out right now by going to www.SurviveInPlace.com and www.FastestWayToPrepare.com.
What are your thoughts on the announcement this week on DHS? More importantly, what are you doing THIS WEEK to get you and your family more prepared? Learning skills? Practicing skills? Stocking up on items? Have you gamed out breakdown in civil order scenarios for your family? Have you, or are you considering strategic relocation? Share your thoughts, concerns, and encouragement for other like-minded readers who are getting prepared by commenting below:
Until next week, God bless and stay safe!
David Morris
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