Shelter from the Storm

Trouble

I look around at the world and I see wars and violence occurring everywhere. I see my government making wars, bulling smaller poorer nations. I see my government stealing the natural resources of the nations it invades. I see my government using sanctions to hurt other governments around the world, taking food from the mouths of the poorest people there, and depriving the sick of the very medicines they need to survive. I see my government helping to starve poor children in Yemen to death. Despite well documented evidence that more than a million Yemeni children are starving to death from our actions there, still this government continues to wage war, helping with the seige.

I look around at home and everywhere I look I see crumbling infrastructure. The small towns are decimated. The buildings are run down and dilapidated. The roads are falling apart. I think of the millions of people without healthcare. I think of the half a million people living in the streets. I think of the millions of food insecure families. I think of the millions of desperate people working paycheck to paycheck, unable to afford a one thousand dollar emergency - and here I think of myself and I think of my family too.

I look at the environment. I see the reports about the destruction of the rain forests. I see the reports about pollution in our drinking water. I see reports about dying species. I see the reports about plastic choking the life out of our oceans. I see reports about the dying coral reefs. I see reports about dying honey bees and butterflies. I look around and I see destruction everywhere.

I am not the only person seeing these things. There are many others who see all this too. The whole world is watching, and all over the world people are putting the pieces together. People all over the world are connected now, we can share ideas and information over the internet instantly, and this has allowed us to put the pieces together. More and more of us are beginning to understand what is going on, and it's not pretty.

The system does not serve us. The governments of this world do not serve us. The system enslaves us. The governments manage and maintain the capitalist system, and in so doing they enrich and empower themselves. Whenever any group or nation tries to implement an alternative system, a cooperative system, they are crushed by the capitalist governments of the world.

That capitalism lies at the root of our problems should come as no surprise by the way, humans have understood the dangers of "the love of money" for millennia. This realization that our system of capitalism does not serve us well is not new information. A system exclusively focused on amassing and increasing capital, or money, does not ensure nor even consider the well being of the people or the environment. Quite the opposite in fact, capitalism cares only about acquiring more money. The well being of the people and the planet are entirely inconsequential.

That capitalism lies at the root of our problems is, however, only part of our predicament. The other part of the problem is that the governments of the world, particularly the Western world, are dedicated to the perpetuation of this system. The people in power derive their power from the capitalist system. The whole capitalist system favors the rich, and the way it has been implemented allows the rich to continue to perpetuate their exploitation of the poor.

The politicians elected to manage the capitalist system are put in place by the rich. Because it costs a lot of money to run an election campaign, the rich have an overwhelming advantage. They have been able to buy their candidates, and have therefore been able to gain control over the governments themselves.

So the rich control the governments, and the governments control us. The governments are incredibly powerful, and they are incredibly dangerous. The governments are able to monitor our every action and interaction. They surveil us wherever we go. They have amassed militarized police forces which stand prepared to crush any who dares to throw off their chains and stand against these tyrants. They are ready to maintain their control over the world by any means necessary. They are prepared to go to war. In fact they already are at war, and the battle is now heating up.

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Escalation

The war is already being waged, it has been for ages, but now the battle is heating up again, and it will soon develop into a major fight.

Because the people of the world are well connected now, the truth is spreading. People are beginning to understand the situation. They see what is going on, and this revolutionary trend will only continue. Word will continue to spread, and as more and more people come to understand the truth, more and more of them will begin to rise up.

They have already begun to rise up in countries around the world. We can see them coming out week after week in France. We have seen people coming out to protest in Algeria. Yellow vest protests have sprung up in other countries around Europe and the World. We have seen movements of indigenous and oppressed people protesting the government in Colombia. And the list goes on, but you get the picture: people everywhere are coming to understand the truth, and they are beginning to stand up against the tyrants. The battle is heating up.

We are also seeing, ever more clearly, the true face of the governments running the world. In France, week after week, we see these heavily armored and heavily armed soldiers attacking protesters. The soldiers come crashing against them, one wave after another. They shoot them with rubber bullets, spray them with fire hoses, and launch volleys of tear gas into their midst. We see the protesters, armed only with their words and their outrage, being attacked by the government's hired muscle every weekend. And this is going on all over the place. Wherever people are protesting, all throughout the world, we see the same kinds of militarized thugs brutalizing the people there.

We can also observe the governments of the world actively waging an information war, (and note that information war absolutely is a form of warfare). As truth tellers have had more and more success reaching people through alternative forms of media, the government has begun working to shut down these media vectors. They have been doing everything they can to shut down, obscure, or otherwise delegitimize media which does not support their narrative.

In some places, like New Zealand and Australia, they are implementing outright censorship. In others, like the United State where freedom of speech laws are somewhat more robust, they use other methods. The government leans heavily on private corporations to do the censorship for them, (and this tactic is proving to be quite effective. If you can't find the information in a Google search, then it remains pretty well hidden). They also run smear campaigns against the alternative media organizations, labelling them as 'conspiracy theorists' or 'Russian bots' or 'Venezuelan bots' or 'Assad apologists' etc. They actively persecute truth tellers, like they have done to Chelsea Manning and Julian Assange, who are both currently imprisoned.

We can see these information warfare tactics most clearly in the Venezuela situation. How government leaders like John Bolton and Mike Pompeo describe what's going on in Venezuela is very telling. They call Venezuelan President Maduro an usurper, even though he won the Venezuelan presidential election in 2018 with nearly seventy percent of the vote, and then they refer to Juan Guaido as the 'legitimate authority', despite the fact that nobody ever voted for him to be president at all.

Unfortunately for them, because we are able to get the actual information about what is going on there, we are able to understand that the language they use is completely backwards. The truth is that Guaido, with the full support of the United States, is trying to usurp Maduro.

This is just one example of the outright lies they tell when they talk about the situation in Venezuela, and the situation in Venezuela is just one useful example of this phenomenon. The point, the reason this Venezuela situation is so indicative, is that it makes clear exactly how brazen they are in lying to us. This makes it clear, we can watch in real time as they propagandize us. We can see clearly that they are waging an information war against us.

These things, the crackdowns on protests, the persecution of truth tellers, and the active information war all make it clear that a war is already underway, but what may be less obvious is that these things will continue to escalate, and that soon they will escalate very rapidly. The situation will escalate because a global financial crisis is fast approaching. This crisis will exacerbate the problems for the working classes around the world, it will push them to their breaking point. The conditions that brought out the Yellow Vests in France will soon spread to the rest of the world.

But this will not be the end of it. It would be wishful thinking and dangerous to imagine that when things come to this point, then the endgame will finally be achieved. Don't imagine that when the working people of the world join together in protest, that the governments of the world will then heed their call and collectively step down. This will not happen. The people who rule the world will not step down. They will try something else. They will start a war.

For the elites, when this situation occurs, having a nice big war will look like the perfect solution. To them, a war will solve many of their problems. First, it will give them a justification to declare martial law. They can then violently suppress the growing protest movements, and they can directly silence the dissidents with censorship. Secondly, a big war will also provide a nice big distraction from all the internal unrest. And finally, a war offers potentially massive economic gains. If the war is won, then the winning governments can essentially cancel all their debts to the defeated nations, and the whole global financial system can easily be rebooted afresh.

Recall from your high school civics class, the theory goes, that it was World War 2 that ended the great depression. This line of thinking remains strong today, that wars are good for the economy. If they are facing massive popular unrest at home due to an economic downturn, and there are hordes of protesters calling for their ouster, they will have a choice to make. They can either step down and cave to the people's demands, or they can go to war in the hopes that they will retain their power and simultaneously solve the economic crisis. Under the circumstances, they will choose war.

Don't make the mistake of thinking that these are reasonable people, and don't make the mistake of thinking that these people are empathetic or caring. The people ruling this world are entirely without scruples. They are war criminals. They start wars to gain money or power or both, killing hundreds of thousands or even millions of people in the process. They don't care. Truly they don't care if people die. They don't care about others, they only care about themselves. They only care about money and power, and they will never give up either. So given the choice, relinquish power or start a war, they will choose to start a war.

Unfortunately for all of us, this decision to start a war will not end well for any of us. This world war will be massively destructive. It will almost certainly go nuclear, but even if it doesn't, the destruction will be widespread. Unlike in World War 2, this time the United States will not be able to avoid direct attack. Our "adversaries" are well equipped, they are entirely capable of reaching us, and because of the circumstances, because our government will have started this war, this nation will be the primary target.

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Shelter

This is a lot to take in. In short, I am saying a great storm is coming. These events are coming together to create a kind of perfect storm, and in order to survive this storm, we will need to take shelter. But how can we find shelter from all these things?

We will find our shelter, first and foremost, in each other, in our community. We can get through all these things if we join together and hold on tight to each other. If we work together, and if we support each other, we can get through anything, including these events ahead.

The coming events are going to upend our lives. These events are going to reshape the world and society as we know it. The capitalist paradigm is about to implode in on itself, bringing death and destruction to the whole world in the process. What we need to prepare for right now, is planning how we can work together to survive it. We need to prepare to weather the storm.

During this storm there are going to be a number of obstacles to overcome. Because of the financial crisis there will be unemployment, displacement of people, increasing homelessness, and food shortages. Because of the war there will be further displacement of peoples, further food shortages, there will be attacks on the homeland, and there will be martial law leading to a severe curtailment of our civil liberties. These obstacles will need to be overcome.

First, we need to recognize a fundamental truth: during each of these things, food shortages, wars, and authoritarian crack downs, the worst place for anyone to be is in or around the cities.

Because of the high population density and the reliance on outside food sources, cities will be hit the hardest by food shortages. Over time, as food becomes more scarce, the people in the cities will become desperate. Mobs will form. The cities will become increasingly unsafe places to stay.

During a war the cities are also dangerous places to be. First, many cities on the coasts, especially those proximate to military installations, could be targeted directly. This is also true for cities anywhere in the country nearby to a nuclear launch site. Any of these cities will be dangerous places to stay in for the fact that this conflict could go nuclear.

During an authoritarian crackdown, once again the city is the last place to be. The cities are the strongholds of government control. Their militarized police forces are stationed in the cities, and they will have complete control within them. The bigger the city is, the more dangerous it will be to stay there.

So all these things lead to this important fact, we will need to get out of and stay away from the cities. In order to remain safe during all this turmoil, we will need to seek shelter elsewhere.

Where does this leave us then? How can we do this? Where can we find safe places to weather this storm? We can find these things in nature. We can set up our own places of refuge out in the wilderness. We can pack our things, everything we might need to survive, and we can head out into God's country.

Joining together with others along the way, we can find safe places, and we can set up camps. Maybe we find hidden places on public land, maybe some people among us have private land, whatever the case, we can find these places and we can set up camps.

By working together and pooling our resources, we become much more resilient. We can work together to procure food. We can work together to ensure there is shelter for everyone. We can work together to address any issues that come up. In working together, we find our shelter.

On a day to day basis, some people in the camp can work to gather food, other people can cook and distribute food, others can help with the children, and others can do maintenance and campsite improvements. Over time, by working together, we can build these camps in genuine places of refuge.

Remember, while we are building our camps and taking care of the daily business, organizing and ensuring everyone is taken care of, the crisis in the cities will be worsening. People will soon begin to flee the cities for the very reasons which I have already laid out. When people begin to flee the chaos and the violence, we will hopefully be able to offer them shelter from the storm as well.

For anyone who has dreamed of being part of a truly collectivist community, this will be your opportunity. The chaos of dealing with a major financial crisis and then a major war will give us a period of cover. The authorities will be wholly occupied with all their other issues, they won't have time to address a movement of people setting up secret safe havens all around the country.

As long as the country is in crisis, we will remain fairly well hidden. Only after the war is over will the government turn its eye toward us. By then we will have established a strong community network. We will have developed a sustainable way of life, and we will have come together as a people. At that time we can deal with the government collectively.

This is how we can survive the period of turmoil to come. I understand that this solution is rather unorthodox. It is however the best solution to this problem. This solution addresses the issues with displacement, unemployment, homelessness, and food shortage, and it addresses the issues of safety, from enemies both internal and external.

The trickiest part about the whole thing is knowing when to start. I don't have an answer to this... Well, actually I do, but it may not be entirely satisfying. I believe we will know the time is right because we will feel it. We will know it in our hearts that this is happening, and we will know that we really do need to escape. When that moment comes, many of us will sense it, and we will just go. We will just act.

There is a force in this universe that speaks quietly to each of our hearts. Those who listen carefully can hear it. This force inspires us to the truth, it guides us in times of trouble, and it leads us away from danger. This same force will guide us in these times that are coming. It will lead us and help us to find others. It will lead us to find safe places of refuge. It will keep us safe, even as the whole world descends into chaos around us.

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Cover photo by Cassie Boca on Unsplash.