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SURVIVAL IS LOOKING AFTER NO. 1 by Kurt Saxon (c)1976
Alarmists all around the country are promising disasters such
as super inflation, famine, foreign invasion, the triumph of
communism/fascism, nuclear war, etc. Unfortunately, they may be
right, even though their timing is wrong; we hope.
You have only to compare this year's food prices over last
year's; this year's quality of life is going down and the
difficulty of maintaining a decent living standard is a greater
worry to most Americans.
There are two main reasons for this which no political system
can help. One is that the Age of Exploration and Development and
the Industrial Revolution is over and the other is that the good
crop weather, world-wide, is also over, maybe for centuries.
The Age of Exploration and Development began about 1500 and
ended around 1950. From the beginning of that period the Earth was
explored, mapped, annexed, developed and exploited. Its resources,
animal, vegetable, and mineral were looted with little or no
thought for future generations. As national industries grew to
take advantage of the inpouring bounty from the hinterlands, living
standards rose, enabling more people to survive and in turn to
reproduce their kind. Human locusts spread over the Earth; born
only to exploit, rape and destroy their own environment.
"Have more babies so we can clear more land." "Have more
babies so we can mine more coal and metals." "Have more babies so
we can keep the factories running." "Have more babies so we can
take more territory from the hated enemy."
And then, about 25 years ago, the overall bounty ran out.
Some of the natural resources became scarce a century ago. Some
like coal, may last another century. But in a general sense, the
reason for existence for most of the world's population ended about
1950.
More babies are being born but there is no more land to
clear. More babies are being born but mining is automated, needing
little hand labor. More babies are being born but the world's
factories are closing down. More babies are being born but cannon
fodder, the uniformed ape, is too quickly a corpse to be worth
arming. Automated killing is all the rage.
Human quality is in demand but is becoming harder to find.
Human quantity is a drug on the market, a surplus. Governments
don't create reaw materials. Unions don't create jobs. So the
Working Class-push, pull, lift-is increasingly without purpose. As
the system breaks down, the erosion of occupations will worsen so
that even specialists will be on welfare.
So with literally billions of people made surplus by the lack
of easily accessible raw materials the idea of world-wide
institutionalized welfare has set in. "We'll just feed them until
technology creates new jobs," say the optimists.
But this is not to be. As the bounty of natural resources has
run out, the world's bountiful harvests have also ended. The
weather from 1930 to 1960 was excellent for crops. Unfortunately
for the human race, this good crop weather was abnormal and had not
occurred in the last 1000 years! Now it's over and there's no
reason to believe this freakishly good weather pattern will return
in our lifetimes; maybe not for hundreds of years.
Moreover, most of the agribusiness plants now grown were bred
for the weather conditions from the 30's through the 60's. Bad
seasons wipe them out and it would take years to replace them with
the old foul-weather, low-yield strains Granddad thrived on. Also,
the present good-weather, high-yield plant strains depend on vast
amounts of oil-based fertilizers few nations can afford today.
When bad weather hit Russia's 1973 harvests the ensuing wheat
deal wiped out our surplus. Millions of acres had been lying
unused in the Soil Bank. Brought into cultivation, they have put
off severe shortages here and made the effects of our own bad
weather less noticeable. Without all that acreage to fall back on,
Americans would be starving now.
With the world's worsening weather making increasing demands
on our crops by other countries and our own weather getting worse,
the end is in sight for the majority of humanity.
Of course, I haven't written this to upset you. After all, if
you weren't interested in survival you wouldn't be reading this.
So you aren't one of the doomed majority. You are already making
plans to save yourself and your loved ones from the worst to come.
Now that you know that the game of Huddled Masses is over you
can start looking out for Number One. Unlike the unprepared and
the unthinking, you won't have to make the sudden choice between
running away in a panic or just staying put in a totally
non-survival area.
Let's say you decide to leave your present situation one year
from now. You should be ready to leave before then if you have to
but panic makes anyone a refugee. A year will put your survival
program in its proper perspective.
If you can look at your program as simply a move to a more
rural, less commercial area you've taken the panic out of it and
friends and neighbors won't question your sanity or try to talk
members of your family out of the move.
Naturally, this present advice is mainly for people living in
major population centers. If you live in a town of 50,000 or more,
it's too commercial to have much staying power after a social
collapse.
Towns with under 50,000, in rural areas, have more contact
with life's basics and can reorganize their populations if
necessary. So a small town in a rural area is your best bet. A
patch of land and a modest home just outside a village gives the
greatest security. It won't cost you an arm and a leg and you'll
get away from the image of the leather-clad, root-grubbing savage
some survivalists suggest.
A year's planning will help you find such a town and prepare
to provide a service, food, craft or otherwise, which will make you
an asset to the community.
You may want to get a few acres and live cut off from
everyone. This is fine if you're well armed and a professional
woodcrafter already. However, this is too great a change for most
people. The inexperienced dreamer simply cannot survive alone.
Regardless of your choice, town, commune or small farm, you
must choose an area about 100 miles from any major population
center. It must also be several miles off any major highway.
Refugees streaming out of New York or Los Angeles will clog the
main highways and strip every home for miles each side of their
route like irresistable plagues of locusts.
No matter how you might think you can steel yourself against
pitiful refugees you must plan to live as far off their prospective
routes as possible. This isn't as hard as you might think. More
people are clogging the cities and only the intelligent ones are
moving back to the land.
In succeeding issues I will concentrate on survival without
savagery. You should live well while waiting out the storm. A
year or less of practical study and application of a good survival
program will help you to come through the worst ahead with strength
and dignity.
Issues following this one will have less advertisements for my
books and more reprints and how-tos from the past as well as
current information. You are invited to write in and request
subjects and formulas you want covered.
I have material enough to last for years and more comes in
daily. There is such a wide variety that anyone should be
satisfied, especially if you let me know your needs.
Further issues will also inform you of ways to earn a living
wherever you settle. You will be introduced to other survivalists
and their techniques. This $6.00 subscription may be the most
important purchase you will ever make.