Liberal media, White House owes preppers and survivalists a massive apology in the aftermath of superstorm Sandy

If you’re not, ask yourselves why Preppers have been slandered by the mainsteam media for years, slammed for the derogatory “stockpiling” of supplies – which may have kept you from being ready for something like Sandy.

Ask your congressman “Why?” Ask your local newspapers and TV stations, “Why?”

“Natural” disasters are part of life.

But what if the United States Government is preparing for something not not quite so “natural” and want you helpless against it?

You might find one answer in the FEMA” CAMP SYSTEM  set up “to detain US citizens in the event of an uprising or civil unrest” – or anything else we might not be ready for, like Sandy?

Today, the media owes you a massive apology (Hah! Fat chance!) because if the-preppers-are-right, they are the only ones making do  in the wake of superstorm Sandy. 

If anyone asks you what you’re preparing for, just say, “Another Sandy”.

Preppers are the new prophets,, deniers are the new homeless – the tin-foil party hats vs the Lead-lined skullcaps – who survived Sandy?

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Sunday, November 04, 2012
by Mike Adams, the Health Ranger
Editor of NaturalNews.com

(NaturalNews) In the wake of superstorm Sandy, preppers are the new prophets. Those who failed to prepare are the new homeless.

For as long as we can all remember, preppers and survivalists have been derided by the mainstream media, labeled "kooks" and "wing nuts" for stockpiling food, water, ammunition, medical supplies and emergency gear. Only paranoid conspiracy theorists engage in evil preparedness activities, we were told by the sellout mainstream media, and they've convinced many that preppers may even be terrorists.

The very word "stockpiling" has been used in a derogatory manner, as if it's somehow bad for private citizens to stockpile food, medicine and emergency supplies that might save lives in a crisis. Never mind that the government stockpiles all these things for its own survival; citizens are routinely taught that stockpiling is bad!

Suddenly all that has changed. In the aftermath of superstorm Sandy, preppers are the ones who aren't starving, freezing or begging the government to come save them with emergency supplies. Those who failed to prepare are now subjected to the chaotic, incompetent actions of the federal government which is, predictably, operating in a never-ending state of logistical failure.

An one example, in response to the ongoing scarcity of gasoline, New York announced that the Defense Department would be opening up free gas stations near areas hardest-hit, but that residents should stay away and let first responders fuel up ahead of them.

This, of course, set off a wave of confusion. It was then announced that those "civilians" (a derogatory term against citizens, used only in a police state) who were already in line could stay in line, but no "civilians" could join the line. Many people waited up to six hours for gasoline. Tempers flared, fist fights were commonplace, and state troopers had to be sent to gas stations to keep the peace.

Preppers, of course, already stored away spare fuel at home and therefore didn't need to wait in line and subject themselves to the chaos and desperation.

FEMA runs out of water

This one was easy to see coming: FEMA has run out of water to distribute to Sandy victims and is now desperately trying to find a private contractor that will deliver millions of bottles of water to the region.

That this could happen in the aftermath of a storm that everybody saw coming at least a week ahead of time is nothing short of bewildering. How could FEMA, whose only job is to plan for crisis, not have stockpiled some supplies in advance of the storm?

The answer is that FEMA is just flat-out incompetent. As described in an article by Michael Patrick Leahy:

...the agency appears to have been completely unprepared to distribute bottled water to Hurricane Sandy victims when the storm hit this Monday. In contrast to its stated policy, FEMA failed to have any meaningful supplies of bottled water -- or any other supplies, for that matter -- stored in nearby facilities as it had proclaimed it would on its website. This was the case despite several days advance warning of the impending storm.

Once again, preppers who had stockpiled water in advance of all this were sitting pretty, living on stored water supplies. Those who invested in water filters were even able to use water that would not have been drinkable otherwise.

No electricity = no heat for cooking

Even today, the power grid is down in many areas, and for all those residents using electric stoves and toasters, that means no ability cook anything... not even to boil water!

Most people simply have no backup plan for when the power grid goes down. So they become yet another victim who needs to be rescued by a government that has a terrible track record on rescues.

Preppers, on the other hand, own non-electric cookstoves such as this Zoom Dura cookstove which can burn paper, wood, small branches and almost anything flammable. It boils water, cooks meals, and kills bacteria. No batteries required.

In the aftermath of superstorm Sandy, people who own emergency campstoves or cookstoves have been able to cook meals if they also stored some food. Something as simple as a few cans of chili can be priceless in the middle of a grid down scenario. Or some quinoa, oatmeal, rice or whatever.

I know for a fact that we shipped a large number of 40-day organic survival food pails to the Northeast in the days before the storm hit. Those people have no doubt been sitting pretty with plenty of food to eat, compared to their neighbors who didn't prepare and are therefore starving or dumpster diving for food scraps.

Arming up with bows, machetes, firearms and baseball bats

Looting has been widespread in some areas, thanks mostly to the fact that police are spread too thin and can't cover all the territory. At first, the looting targeted commercial buildings, where looters made off with TV projectors, flat panel displays and valuable electronics, but it soon shifted to the looting of private homes by criminals dressed as Con Edison workers.

Citizens quickly realized they would need to fend for themselves. As the NY Daily News reports:

Ever since Sandy strafed the Queens peninsula and tore up the boardwalk, it's become an often lawless place where cops are even scarcer than electrical power and food. Locals say they are arming themselves with guns, baseball bats, booby traps -- even a bow and arrow -- to defend against looters.

"We booby-trapped our door and keep a baseball bat beside our bed," said Danielle Harris, 34, rummaging through donated supplies as children rode scooters along half-block chunk of the boardwalk that had marooned into the middle of Beach 91st St.

"We heard gunshots for three nights in a row," said Harris, who believed they came from the nearby housing projects.

Preppers, of course, already have firearms and ammo. In fact, many preppers today are investing in firearms proficiency training in order to gain combat skills. I know several firearms instructors, and they tell me their classes are jam packed, with waiting lists increasingly common.

A typical prepper owns not only a handgun, but also a combat rifle (typically an AR or AK) and a shotgun for close quarters defense. In addition, preppers stockpile at least 1,000 rounds of ammo for each. It's not uncommon to talk to preppers who have stored 10,000 rounds of ammo for each firearm they own.

These firearms, far from causing violence, are used in the defense of life and property in communities struck by disaster. People who legally own firearms are law-abiding citizens who typically work with local law enforcement to restore peace and security to local communities and help stop criminals and looters.

That states like New York restrict private citizens from owning firearms is, in a very real sense, denying them the ability to protect themselves during a crisis when the police can't protect them, either. Using machetes and bows is no match for a Glock 17 or an AR-15. While anti-gun people like Bloomberg or Obama like to say that guns "have no place on the streets of America," they are wrong. Firearms in the hands of law-abiding citizens are an essential part of restoring peace and order following any crisis. In a disaster scenario, more guns in the hands of responsible citizens really does equal less crime.

It's just common sense: When the cops are nowhere to be found, and the National Guard isn't helping out, and FEMA's lack of preparedness has made the local population desperate for supplies, a privately-owned firearm is the only remaining defense against criminal-minded looters and violent opportunities who try to prey on the weak. That's why I even published a tactical home defense guide designed to stop looters and criminals from targeting innocent victims of superstorm Sandy.

The media owes preppers a massive apology

One of the realizations emerging from all this is that the media's portrayal of preppers has been not just malicious and highly inaccurate. Preppers are not the "kooks" you see on TV shows (which the media admits are laced with pay-for-placement messages provided by the White House); they are intelligent, forward-thinking members of society who are truly a national treasure capable of saving lives in any disaster.

Preppers pick up where the police and the government drop the ball. Preppers provide food, water, emergency medicine and even local neighborhood security. They do it without being paid and without even being thanked for their contributions to society.

In the wake of superstorm Sandy, the national media -- and especially the liberal media which expresses intense hatred for preppers -- owes preppers a massive apology. Preppers create stability, safety and security in any crisis, and they deserve to be portrayed as the upstanding members of society they truly are.

The White House owes preppers a huge apology as well. Preppers and survivalists have, in the last few years, been characterized as "terrorists" by the Obama administration. The message is that anyone with a gun, some ammo and a stockpile of food is somehow "dangerous" or a threat to society. In reality, that person is the guy sharing food with neighbors and helping protect the neighborhood from violent criminal looters.

Famously, a prepper was recently put on a "no-fly list" and stranded in Hawaii because he was classified by the government as a "prepper." So hold on: Stockpiling emergency supplies makes you synonymous with a terrorist now?

Preppers are actually on the target list of the U.S. government. As an active duty National Guard member named "Soldier X" has recently revealed, the Guard is being trained to "treat preppers as terrorists."

According to Soldier X, the government is compiling lists of preppers and intends to confiscate their guns and treat them as enemy combatants in any crisis situation. So the very group the government should be thanking for providing local community stability and order is the group being targeted for arrest, detainment and possibly being sent to Obama's secret military prisons under theprovisions of the NDAA.

The federal government WANTS chaos and panic, get it?

The reality of all this is that the federal government is trying to eliminate preppers and survivalists precisely as a way to create more panic, fear and chaos. Why? Because it is from that scenario that the government can justify yet more funding for itself, more police state crackdowns and more dependency among the citizen slaves.

Remember: Every government wants to become like North Korea, where it dominates everything in society, controls all the resources and commands citizens as if they were slaves. The U.S. government is no different: Like every government, it thirsts for unlimited power.

Preppers and survivalists interfere with the growth of government power because they demonstrate the far greater power of individual preparedness. When preppers take care of themselves and don't need to be rescued by the government, they send a "dangerous" message to the rest of society: Emergency preparedness is YOUR responsibility, not the government's.

The White House doesn't like people sending that message. Neither does the liberal media which persistently pushes citizen victimization and government dependence. The very idea of thinking for yourself, taking care of yourself and being self-reliant is alien to the liberal media. And that's one reason why the liberal media is ultimately so dangerous: Many people who followed the advice of, say, the New York Times, are now DEAD in Jersey.

The bottom line: Preppers are the future of human civilization; deniers are dead

Hurricane Sandy was a walk in the park compared to what we'll see in a national grid-down scenario. As I've explained many times here on Natural News, a single solar flare (or a high-altitude EMP burst weapon) could knock out most of the national power grid.

That would thrust virtually the entire nation into the scenario we've recently watched unfold on Staten Island and certain parts of NY. Imagine fuel scarcity, starvation, water scarcity and looting unleashed on a national scale. That's what we will sooner or later face in America (and everywhere else, too).

When that scenario unfolds, it's a simple matter of fact that we're going to see the mass death of liberal media worshippers and Big Government worshippers who refused to prepare. The survivors will, by and large, be the preppers who planned ahead.

It's Darwinism at work, backfiring on people who call themselves "Darwinists" (who almost universally do not believe in preparedness). It's natural selection doing its thing. People who cannot adapt to survive do not tend to reproduce, while those who can adapt and survive are the ones left remaining to repopulate the planet.

In fact, the domination of the planet by the "prepping gene" is one of the most scientific ideas of our time. That's because crisis strikes our planet on a regular basis: Solar flares, asteroids, the spread of infectious disease and even the threat of widespread nuclear war or nuclear facility failures.

Each "wave" of crisis weeds out the ignorant unprepared masses through mass death. While those people may be in a majority right now, they and their lineage have no real future.

Interestingly, modern humanity hasn't faced a real crisis yet. By "modern," I mean the version of civilization that has bet everything on complex electronics, food supply logistics and the continued restocking of the artificial living zones known as "cities." This modern civilization has only existed for about seventy-five years -- a blink of an eye in terms of the big picture. So it hasn't been tested yet with a true global survival scenario. We are one solar flare away from being thrust back to the early 1900's.

Another mass extinction event is inevitable

Sixty-five million years ago, a single rock from space wiped out the dinosaurs. It was the most violent mass-extinction event planet Earth had ever experienced. So far, there have been five mass extinction events in the known history of our planet.

Human beings are likely going to be the sixth, through the careless proliferation of nuclear power plants, the toying with GMOs and the genetic pollution of the planet, or even through the accidental release of a military bioweapon with a 98% fatality rate.

The next mass extinction event will quickly eliminate from the planet all organisms poorly adapted to survive, which includes most New York Times subscribers. It will leave behind only those humans, plants and animals with remarkable survival adaptation skills.

The most likely survivors, it turns out, are going to be well-stocked preppers who have practiced the skills of self-reliance and sustainable living.

Survival resources

If you're serious about survival, here are some resources I recommend:

James Wesley Rawles' Survival Blog:
www.SurvivalBlog.com

I also recommend books by Rawles on Amazon.com.

Joe Nobody:
www.HoldingYourGround.com
Author page on Amazon.com

Lehman's Non-Electric Store:
www.Lehmans.com

Learn more: http://www.naturalnews.com/037822_liberal_media_preppers_survivalists.html#ixzz2BPNZZMA8

Global Food Reserves Have Reached Their Lowest Level In Almost 40 Years

Michael Snyder, Contributor
Activist Post

For six of the last eleven years the world has consumed more food than it has produced.  This year, drought in the United States and elsewhere has put even more pressure on global food supplies than usual.

As a result, global food reserves have reached their lowest level in almost 40 years.

Experts are warning that if next summer is similar to this summer that it could be enough to trigger a major global food crisis.  At this point, the world is literally living from one year to the next.  There is simply not much of a buffer left.

In the Western world, the first place where we are going to notice the impact of this crisis is in the price of food.  It is being projected that overall food prices will rise between 5 and 20 percent by the end of this year.  It is becoming increasingly clear that the world has reached a tipping point.  We aren't producing enough food for everyone anymore, and food reserves will continue to get lower and lower.  Eventually they will be totally gone.

The United Nations has issued an unprecedented warning about the state of global food supplies.

According to the UN, global food reserves have not been this low since 1974...

World grain reserves are so dangerously low that severe weather in the United States or other food-exporting countries could trigger a major hunger crisis next year, the United Nations has warned.

Failing harvests in the US, Ukraine and other countries this year have eroded reserves to their lowest level since 1974. The US, which has experienced record heatwaves and droughts in 2012, now holds in reserve a historically low 6.5% of the maize that it expects to consume in the next year, says the UN.

'We've not been producing as much as we are consuming. That is why stocks are being run down. Supplies are now very tight across the world and reserves are at a very low level, leaving no room for unexpected events next year,' said Abdolreza Abbassian, a senior economist with the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO).

But the population of the globe is much larger than it was back in 1974.  So needless to say, we have a major league problem on our hands.

The United States exports more food than anyone else in the world, and so the devastating drought that the U.S. experienced this summer is putting a lot of stress on the entire global food system.

According to Reuters, the drought hit U.S. ranchers particularly hard. Many of them had to kill off large portions of their herds because they couldn't afford to feed them any longer.

So there was a short-term surge in the supply of meat, but because herds are smaller now in the long-term the supply of meat is going to become much tighter.

So expect meat prices to start to go up significantly...

The worst drought to hit U.S. cropland in more than half a century could soon leave Americans reaching deeper into their pockets to fund a luxury that people in few other countries enjoy: affordable meat.

Drought-decimated fields have pushed grain prices sky high, and the rising feed costs have prompted some livestock producers to liquidate their herds. This is expected to shrink the long-term U.S. supply of meat and force up prices at the meat counter.

Some analysts are already projecting "a world shortage of pork and bacon" according to the Los Angeles Times...

The price of corn — a key component in livestock feed and an ingredient in powdered sugar, salad dressing, soda and more — catapulted 60% in early summer. A British trade group recently predicted "a world shortage of pork and bacon next year," which most analysts interpreted to mean that higher prices are ahead.

In the meantime, chickens and turkeys are getting more expensive just in time for the holidays. Already, chicken prices are up 5.3% from a year earlier, while the cost of turkey and other poultry is up 6.9%. Eggs cost 18% more in September than they did a year earlier.

Sadly, the truth is that food prices have already been steadily rising in the United States in recent years.  We have come to accept this as "normal", but these horrible price increases are really squeezing the budgets of middle class families and we certainly don't need food prices to start going up even faster.

One man recently came across a grocery receipt that was eight years old.  When he compared those prices to what he is paying now he was absolutely stunned...

1 can Campbells Vegetable soup was listed as $0.89
We now pay $2.19 for the same can.

Fresh Haddock Fillets were $3.99lb. Now $7.99lb.

4 litres of Skim Milk was $4.59...now $7.59.

1 loaf of whole wheat bread was $.99...now $2.99.

Fresh Green Pepper was $1.99lb...now $3.99lb.

Canned tomato juice was $0.99 a can...now $2.29 a can.

Many prices had doubled on him in just eight years.

Now that food prices are projected to start rising even more rapidly, how soon will it be until food prices double again?

Many Americans will be shocked by rising food prices, but at least for now we won't have to deal with actual food shortages like many on the other side of the globe will be soon.

At the end of August, the World Bank issued a global hunger warning...

'Food prices rose again sharply threatening the health and well-being of millions of people,' said World Bank group president, Jim Yong Kim. 'Africa and the Middle East are particularly vulnerable, but so are people in other countries where the prices of grains have gone up abruptly.'

The bank said food prices overall rose by 10% between June and July to leave them 6% up on a year earlier. 'We cannot allow these historic price hikes to turn into a lifetime of perils as families take their children out of school and eat less nutritious food to compensate for the high prices,' said Kim.

The price of food can mean the difference between life and death in some of the poorest areas of Africa.  What some African families face on a daily basis would be absolutely unimaginable to many of us in the Western world.  The following example is from a recent article in the Guardian...

On the other side of the world, Mary Banda, who lives in Mphaka village near Nambuma in Malawi, has had a year during which she has barely been able to feed her children, one of whom has just gone to hospital with malnutrition.

Government health worker Patrick Kamzitu says: 'We are seeing more hunger among children. The price of maize has doubled in the last year. Families used to have one or two meals a day; now they are finding it hard to have one.'

How would you feel if you only got one meal per day?

In many parts of India and in many parts of Africa more than 40 percent of all children have stunted growth due to malnutrition and a lack of clean water.

So if your family has enough to eat and drink every day you should be thankful for your blessings.
What makes things even worse is that the big banks have turned betting on the price of food into a giant casino game.

Many are making huge amounts of money through commodity speculation, but by driving up prices they are severely hurting millions of families on the other side of the planet.  The following is from a recent article by Heather Stewart...

The Institute of International Finance has estimated that by the middle of last year, $450bn of financial assets was invested in commodities – or derivatives, betting on future price movements.

In principle, there would be nothing wrong with financiers moving into the food market if it directed billions of dollars of investment towards expanding production, bringing new land into cultivation and developing new technologies to boost yields.

But – as the thoroughly mad market for mortgage-backed securities in the run-up to the credit crisis, and the resulting building boom across the US, illustrated very clearly – the price signals emerging from the stampeding herds of Wall street can be deeply misleading.

In a recent paper, provocatively titled 'Don't Blame the Physical Markets,' the UN's trade and development arm, Unctad, argued that the wall of money flooding into commodities has badly distorted the price signals a well-functioning market should send to producers and consumers.

The era of seemingly endless cheap food has come to an end.  In future years, there simply will not be enough food for everyone on the globe.  Some people are going to go hungry.  That is one reason why I am encouraging everyone to start preparing for the coming global food crisis.

Some experts are projecting the worst for the years ahead...

Evan Fraser, author of Empires of Food and a geography lecturer at Guelph University in Ontario, Canada, says: 'For six of the last 11 years the world has consumed more food than it has grown. We do not have any buffer and are running down reserves. Our stocks are very low and if we have a dry winter and a poor rice harvest we could see a major food crisis across the board.'

'Even if things do not boil over this year, by next summer we'll have used up this buffer and consumers in the poorer parts of the world will once again be exposed to the effects of anything that hurts production.'

Let us certainly hope for the best, but let us also prepare as if the absolute worst is headed our way.

I am busy preparing.

Are you?

This article first appeared here at The Truth.  Michael Snyder is a writer, speaker and activist who writes and edits his own blogs The American Dream and Economic Collapse Blog. Follow him onTwitter here.