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Inflation is a monetary phenomenon of too much money chasing too few goods.

It’s the result of the Wall Street owned and operated Federal Reserve’s money printing madness.

Since the 2008 financial crisis, trillions of dollars pumped up stock prices to the make super-rich and rich interests throughout the West and elsewhere richer than ever.

Corporate bosses also used Fed created money for large-scale stock buybacks to elevate their valuations.

Since Russia’s liberating SMO began, hegemon USA-dominated Western regimes exacerbated things by imposing unparalleled numbers of sanctions on the Russia Federation.

While adversely affecting its economy, European nations were more greatly harmed.

US policymakers didn’t consider how largely self-sufficient Russia is able to withstand the impact of Western sanctions.

Besides seeking to cause maximum harm to its enterprises and people, the Biden regime wants European economies adversely affected to benefit corporate America.

That’s how predatory capitalism works, exploiting other nations and vast majority of people everywhere to benefit the privileged few.

The latest US CPI showed inflation to be higher than expected.

It’s not the phony year-over-year 9.1% reported on July 13. 

As calculated pre-1990 before the formula was rigged to appear much lower than reality, it’s around 17.3% — the highest level in over 75 years, what’s unlikely to ease any time soon.

It’s not “Putin’s price hike” as the fake Biden and those propping up his illegitimacy falsely claim.

Inflation has nothing to do with Russia’s liberating SMO.

As establishment economist Milton Friedman explained long ago:

“Inflation is always and everywhere a monetary phenomenon, in the sense that it is and can be produced only by a more rapid increase in the quantity of money than in output.”

And this from Friedman:

“If you listen to people in Washington, (they’ll) tell you that inflation is produced by greedy businessmen, or it’s produced by grasping unions, or it’s produced by spendthrift consumers, or maybe, it’s those terrible Arab sheikhs who are producing it.”

“(N)one of (the above) produce inflation” because they don’t have a money-producing printing press like the Fed.

As long as there’s most money printed than things to buy, prices are pressured to rise.

The way to cool inflation is by slowing the rate of money creation.

Things have gotten so out-of-control in the US, UK and EU that most likely a stiff protracted economic downturn alone can get inflation under control.

According to analyst Doug Casey, annual US deficits are from one to two trillion.

The only way to finance them is by selling excess debt to the Fed.

And the only way it can do it is by continued money printing in amounts needed.

The Fed is the only major buyer of US debt — notably since the Biden regime confiscated around $330 of the amount held by Russia.

The handwriting on the wall should have been apparent much earlier earlier.

Nations concerned about being treated like Russia and others thinking they may be targeted one day are selling US debt, not buying it.

When the Fed buys government debt, “it monetizes (it) by crediting the federal government’s accounts with commercial banks with newly created dollars,” Casey explained.

Currency inflation pushes prices higher.

The fault is home-grown.

When occurs, currency depreciation is economically devastating.

The rich can handle adverse economic and financial conditions.

Ordinary people are harmed most.

Fed chairman and Treasury secretary Yellen are wrong.

Current US inflation isn’t “transitory.”

It’s deep-seated and not easing any time soon.

Casey believes it became “a permanent structure.”

“The state needs…massive (amounts of money creation) and credit to feed itself and its minions.”

Deep-seated inflation isn’t going away easily or soon in the US, UK or EU.

Hard times getting harder will be the bane of ordinary people throughout the US/West for some time to come.

You can also access the latest news at this address: www.whatfinger.com

“Although tyranny…may successfully rule over foreign peoples, it can stay in power only if it destroys first of all the national institutions of its own people.”

In order for tyrants to claim and retain total power, the people must become ignorant of their own history and roots, and must through propaganda and fear be so terrified as to abandon all logic and responsibility in order to seek a false safety. In this country today, history and tradition are being destroyed, while the ruling class and government have stoked immense fear based on a propaganda campaign that was used to create a make-believe threat called Covid-19. Every element is now in place to transfer all power to the state, and in order for that coup to be successful for the tyrants, all dissent and disobedience to totalitarian mandates must be squelched. The key element to accomplish this lies in the ability for the government to instill division and distrust among the people themselves; so much so, that the masses turn on each other to assure compliance to order to have a false sense of security. This leads to voluntary servitude, which is vital to the evil governing system, because once force is the only option for the state, chaos, revolution, or violent civil unrest will replace tyranny.

With this in mind, the plot to achieve an economic and technological reset is being pursued through lies and propaganda at every level, including the use of the military within the boundaries of the United States. This is happening globally as well, and in fact is far advanced in some areas of the world. This should be of extreme importance to Americans, because what is happening in other parts of the world will soon be on our doorstep, as the areas around the globe experiencing more extreme control measures are being used as tests to gauge when to let loose similar policies here. It is only a matter of time.

Next door in Canada, the military is openly using propaganda methods as training in order to understand how that population can be maneuvered into a position of total compliance. In Australia, where extreme gun control efforts in the past disarmed the entire citizenry, brutal controls are now in place to capture and contain the people so that any resistance can be eliminated. Harsh measures and mandates are also being ramped up again in the U.K. Compulsory vaccination legislation is also going forward in Australia, with possible long jail time and high fines for refusal to comply. Gun control and a state monopoly of arms and force is always a prerequisite to totalitarian rule.

Most Americans still have the ‘legal’ ability to possess weapons, but that could change with any new legislation, or emergency executive orders due to a contrived and purposely structured threat. If the people give up their arms, they would stand defenseless in the face of a heavily armed state and military. That cannot be allowed to happen.

One of the major plots to gain control over the masses rests in the development and distribution of vaccines. Trump said recently that Pfizer Pharmaceuticals had developed and successfully tested a Covid vaccine. This was an outright lie meant to gain political favor in this time of a contentious election battle. In addition, Trump had made an announcement earlier that he had deployed the military to stand ready to distribute these poisonous vaccines across the nation. This borders on insanity, and is an attempt to frighten the herd so greatly by claiming this vaccine delivery should be a military operation. But as it stands now, this government and its military, as well as all police and ‘security’ forces, are at war against the people of the United States. In other words, the new enemy of America according to the self-claimed ruling ‘elites’ and their pawns in government are all of us lowly citizens.

While we are in the midst of the most corrupt and criminal election fraud in our history, and this includes many players from both sides, but especially on the left this time around, and the entirety of the mainstream media, the masses are ignoring what is continuing to go on concerning the takeover of this country and the world. Covid-19 seems to be on the back burner for the moment, and playing second fiddle to the election circus, but that is not the case. All the nefarious agendas concerning this fraudulent virus ‘pandemic’ are not only still in place, but advancing without pause. More lockdowns are occurring in this country and globally, and vaccine plans are in place. Pfizer has openly stated that they already have a stockpile of vaccines awaiting the go ahead from the FDA, even though no serious testing whatsoever has occurred. I have stated many times that this Covid vaccine has been available for a long time, waiting for the right moment to be released on the public. Depending on the outcome of this selection by the ruling class, the entire country could be shut down almost overnight. Plans are set to increase the tyranny, and blame it on this fake virus, and regardless of who is chosen to be the next president; there will be substantial trouble ahead.

The U.S. government’s primary enemies today are the American people, all of us, especially any that question and disobey state mandates. What is planned and what is possible in the near future is staggering. New lockdowns seem imminent at this point, and could be handed down at the national level, which would vastly increase the risk of federal and military policing and martial law. Isolation from friends and family will increase, and job loss will escalate as more lockdowns occur, causing an economic catastrophe, which will lead to a digital monetary restructuring. Travel will become even more impossible, and even local borders could close or be heavily restricted. Those that refuse the forthcoming deadly vaccination will find themselves in a virtual prison, as without a vaccine or health pass, normal life and sustaining any normal life will disappear. Surveillance that is already expansive will become so invasive as to eliminate all privacy, inside or outside the home. Contact tracing will likely become a federal system, with tens or hundreds of thousands of new government workers with one mission; to spy on and report any not acquiescing to government rules. Food shortages that are already evident in many areas would dramatically worsen, causing hunger, poverty, and sickness. Parents brave enough to protect their children by refusing toxic vaccines or quarantine could have their children removed from the home. All this could easily bring about unrest, rioting, looting, and violence as well, whether purposely designed or not, and this could in turn lead to internal warlike scenarios, especially in the cities.

This is no time to be complacent, and no time to ignore these risks. Worse times are coming regardless of this political nonsense, and increased control will be prevalent no matter the final outcome of this state selection process. Wake up people, as our lives are losing all meaning, and all the joy, emotion, and love of life are being systematically destroyed in favor of technocratic transhumanism, which can only lead to a robotic existence devoid of wonder and feeling.

Extreme evil is coming, and hell is coming with it, so cowardice in the face of this evil; refusing to take risks to remain free, guarantees a deserved slavery.

On October 29, 1929, the US Stock Market crashed, surging the country into what we know as the Great Depression. During the Great Depression, countless jobs were lost, millions lost their incomes, and families started to go hungry. This was during a time when many still lived off their own homestead, and if they didn’t, they needed to start.

Situations got so desperate, hungry people made food out of almost nothing. Canned goods, flour, and eggs from your own chickens were sometimes all that was available, if anything at all. Some only had one meal per day, and went hungry at nighttime. Others ate the same food for days or weeks on end because that’s all that was available to them.

Although this happened over 90 years ago, today we prepare ourselves for all types of worst-case scenarios. We know that, of course, this Depression-era famine will happen again, so here are some recipes that your parents or grandparents made during the Great Depression out of nearly nothing.

By no means you need to follow any of these recipes exactly, just adapt with what you have.

Depression Bread

Firstly, this bread is a huge loaf made from only 4 ingredients, all of which will already be in your food reserve.

Keeping homemade bread on-hand adds to many of the dishes on this list.

Ingredients

• 5 lbs. flour
• 5 tbsp yeast
• 6 tsp salt (optional, if you have it)
• 6 cups warm water, more or less depending on your flour

Instructions

Add flour to a bowl or board and make a well in the flour mound.

Add yeast, salt, and warm water to well and knead into a dough.

Allow to rise for 60 minutes, or until doubled in size.

Add to a baking pan and make 3-4 slits with a knife on the top of the dough.

Bake at 350 degrees for about 30 minutes until the bread is nicely browned on top.

Chipped Beef On Toast

Secondly, using the bread you just made, slice off some nice thick slices to serve with this dried meat Depression delicacy.

What You’ll Need

• 8 oz. dried beef jerky
• 2 tbsp butter or oil
• 4 tbsp flour
• 4 cups milk
• Salt and pepper to taste
• Sliced homemade bread, for serving

1. Add jerky and oil to a pan over medium heat. Cook until the meat softens, about 3-4 minutes.
2. Stir in your flour and cook for 1-2 minutes. Add milk and bring to a low boil. Allow sauce to thicken for up to 5 minutes.
3. Season with salt and pepper if you have it.
4. Serve over homemade bread, toasted if desired.

Dandelion Salad

This salad can be harvested from your own backyard, just as they did in the 1930’s.

As we know, dandelions are totally edible and delicious, they just require lots of cleaning before eating.

Ingredients

• 1 lb. freshly picked dandelions, cleaned well
• 2 tbsp lemon juice or vinegar
• 2-3 tbsp oil

Guidelines

Head outside and pick the largest, freshest dandelions you can find.

Then, cover the dandelions completely in cold water and rinse 3-4 times.

Using a knife, peel off the darkest outer leaves from the root. Rinse again.

Once clean, either chop or leave whole, depending on your preference.

Add to a large bowl and season with vinegar and oil. Serve immediately.

Baked Beans

Beans are cheap, plentiful, and filling.

They were very common in the Depression era, and recently have had a resurgence with the Covid-19 epidemic.

If you do not have every vegetable used, omit without issue.

What It Is Needed

• 1 package soaked dried beans, or 2 cans of beans
• One tomato, chopped
• 1 onion, chopped
• 2 cloves garlic, chopped
• 2 tbsp lard
• Two tbsp molasses
• One cup water
• Instructions

1. Soak your beans, if using dried, overnight and drain the liquid.
2. Prepare your veggies by chopping. Omit any vegetable that you do not have on-hand.
3. Add lard to a stock pot and cook your vegetables until tender.
4. Add the beans, molasses, and water. Cook all together with a lid on for 2-3 hours or until the beans have your desired consistency. Add more water if needed.
5. Serve hot. Leftovers of this dish keep very well and can be eaten many days in a row.

Ash Cakes

Ash cakes got their name because different renditions are cooked in the hot white ash of your campfire. These are only 3 ingredients but are filling and have a great texture.

Ingredients

• ½ cup cornmeal
• 1 cup meat stock or water
• 2 tbsp lard or grease

Instructions

Mix both ingredients together in a bowl and allow to sit overnight to hydrate the cornmeal. Pat into a bread pan and refrigerate or add to your cool storage before allowing to set up.

The next day, slice into 1-inch slices and fry in melted lard. Serve hot and crispy.

Hoover Stew

This stew is an amalgamation of what you currently have in your reserve. This recipe is very easily adaptable to the items you already possess.

Essentials

• 1 box noodles
• A can of tomatoes
• 1 package of hot dogs, or 1 can of sausage or meat
• A can of corn, peas or beans
• 2-4 cups water

Guidelines

Mix all ingredients together in a pot until boiling.

Then simmer for 15-20 minutes until the noodles are tender.

If you have aromatics, onion and garlic would be a great addition.

If not, the recipe is great as is.

Potato Soup

Many of us have potatoes buried in our yards right now, saving them through winter. This is a great way to use up your potato harvest at the end of winter, but you can always use canned potatoes too.

Ingredients

• 4 large potatoes, peeled and sliced (or 2 cans of potatoes)
• 2 garlic cloves, chopped
• One carrot, sliced
• A can of meat, sausage, or hot dogs (optional)
• 3 cups water or stock
• 3 cups milk
• Any herbs you have on-hand
• Salt to taste

What To Do

Slice all your potatoes, garlic, and carrots. Add to a soup pot with the meat,  water, and milk. Bring to a boil and reduce the heat, keeping the mix at a low simmer.

Then, cook for 30 minutes until all veggies are tender.

Add herbs and salt, if using. Serve hot.

Rice Pudding

And finally, our only Great Depression dessert recipe. There aren’t many comforts during a depression, but at least this rice pudding will bring some familiarity to an undesirable situation.

What It Is Needed For This

• 1 cup rice
• 2 cups milk
• 2 tbsp butter
• 3 tbsp honey, maple syrup, or molasses
• Pinch of cinnamon

1. Combine all ingredients in a small saucepan and cook over low heat, about 20 minutes, stirring frequently.
2. Taste for doneness and cook an additional 5 minutes, tasting until desired consistency.
3. Serve warm.

Therefore, we may need our parents or grandparents’ Great Depression-era recipes sooner than we think, thanks to the increasing instability brought on by governments and the current pandemic.

Cooking with almost nothing is possible, as the 1930’s and early 1940’s taught us. All of these recipes are easily made with what you should already have in your root cellar and non-perishable reserves. Use your judgement to add or omit any ingredients that suit you.

In conclusion, the next time the economy crashes, which may be sooner than we think, keep prepared with some recipes to keep your family fed and your homestead moving forward.

You can also access the latest news at this address: www.whatfinger.com

For as long as there have been people, there’s been famine. Our hunter-gatherer ancestors developed agriculture because, although most people’s diets actually got worse when they started farming, it was easier to build up the stores needed to survive a future shortage. Famines still happened, though; bad weather, disease, or pests could destroy the crops, and that usually meant starvation would follow. Famines are described in the Bible and the works of Greek and Roman historians. They regularly devastated Europe through the Middle Ages and as late as the 1840s, when blight ravaged the whole continent’s potato crop (not just Ireland’s) and killed over a million people.

What fewer people know is that famine has also reared its ugly head in the USA – and reduced some of the earliest settlers to squalor, degradation and finally cannibalism. It was an episode that threatened the whole idea of European settlement in North America; it also contains a lot of lessons for preppers.

The Optimists

Settlement of North America by English speakers goes back to the Virginia Charter; issued by King James I in 1606, it authorized English subjects to set up colonies in a swathe of land up the East Coast from what’s now North Carolina to well into modern Canada. Would-be settlers didn’t waste much time; an expedition was quickly organized, and set sail from Plymouth on December 20 the same year. On May 13, 1607 they landed on the coast of Virginia, and established a settlement named in honor of their King – Jamestown.

The original group of settlers was small and all-male, comprising 104 men and boys. They were adventurous, confident people, determined to build a life for themselves in a vast new land. They were also almost completely unprepared, and lacking many of the skills and supplies they would need to survive long-term.

These colonists were setting out to live in a place they had never visited before and knew little about. Surely they would have made sure they could survive in the worst-case scenario of what they would find there? Well, no. They didn’t.

Virginia was unsettled, but not totally unknown. Explorers had sailed along its coast and even landed there. The Jamestown settlers knew the land was inhabited, and that led them to make some dangerous assumptions. In the end, those assumptions would destroy the colony.

The colonists had no plan to make themselves self-sufficient in food, which any prepper knows is a basic survival requirement. Instead, they planned to rely on trade with the indigenous people, supplemented by some farming and occasional supply ships from England. That was a mistake. To compound it, they chose a settlement location based on how easy it was to defend. That’s an important factor in choosing a settlement, but it’s not the only factor.

Jamestown was located on a small island in the James River, separated from the mainland by a narrow channel. That channel made the island easy to defend, but it also meant there wasn’t a lot of game on it; the settlers couldn’t rely on hunting as a food source. Much of the island was also tidal wetlands, which couldn’t be farmed, and it was close enough to the sea that the water in the James River was brackish and undrinkable. As a place to build a self-sufficient settlement, it couldn’t have been much worse.

Despite its faults, though, Jamestown grew steadily for the next two years. Only 38 of the original settlers survived the first winter, but another hundred men joined them in January 1608. More arrived in October, including the colony’s first two women, and another 250 through the summer and fall of 1609. It seemed that Jamestown was a success – but that was all about to change.

The Fatal Food Supply Mistakes

Jamestown was situated on land that belonged to the Powhatan tribe, and relations between Chief Powhatan – father of the famous Pocahontas – and the settlers had often been tense. However, by mid-1609 personal respect between Chief Powhatan and leading colonist Captain John Smith had brought a truce, and the Powhatan tribe was the main source of the colony’s food.

Unfortunately, in August 1609 Smith was badly injured in a gunpowder explosion, probably an assassination attempt. His wounds were too severe for the colonists to treat, so in October – with winter approaching – he left for England on one of the ships that had brought more settlers. The leadership of the colony was taken over by John Ratcliffe, who didn’t have Smith’s knack of dealing with the natives, and Chief Powhatan decided to end the truce.

Chief Powhatan’s strategy was simple. He’d been observing the settlers since they arrived, and knew how precarious their food situation was, so there was an obvious way to force them to leave and get rid of the colony on his tribe’s land – starve them out.

Supply ships from England throughout 1609 had brought several hundred new colonists, but they hadn’t brought a lot of food. Most of the rations that had left England had been on a ship which separated from the supply fleet in a storm and ended up wrecked on Bermuda. Jamestown had pinned all its hopes on buying food from the Powhatan, and now that source was suddenly cut off.

To make matters even worse, a drought in the summer had wiped out almost all the crops in Jamestown’s small farms. Granaries and root cellars were virtually empty. Now, deliveries from the Powhatan stopped and the tribe began killing any settler who ventured onto the mainland to hunt. Jamestown went into the winter of 1609/10 with close to 500 residents, but stores to feed barely a tenth of that number until spring.

The Starving Time

Most of Jamestown’s early history is well enough known; settlers kept diaries, wrote letters home and sent reports to the Virginia Company and the King. In fall of 1609, though, the historical record suddenly goes dark. There are few detailed accounts of what happened in Jamestown between Captain Smith’s departure for England on October 4 and the arrival of two ships from Bermuda on May 23, 1610. Why? Probably because nobody who lived through that winter in Jamestown wanted to talk about what they did to survive.

The accounts that do survive tell of desperate measures. A few Indians were still willing to supply small amounts of food – but only in exchange for essentials that the colonists wouldn’t normally even consider trading. In early winter, many Jamestown residents gave away the tools they needed to build, farm and work at their trades. Some even traded the weapons they needed to defend themselves. It still wasn’t enough.

For archaeologists, rubbish heaps are a gold mine of information. Plant remains and household rubbish can tell us a lot about how people lived in the past, but few things are more informative than animal bones. If your dog dies and you’re not very sentimental, you might throw its body in the trash – but you won’t joint it first. That winter, the people of Jamestown were cutting up their dogs and throwing the bones in the trash. By that point the horses had probably all been eaten, and when the dogs were gone cat and rat bones started turning up in the rubbish heaps. Unable to hunt, the colonists were eating every animal they could get their hands on. But soon the animals were all gone, too, and at that point truly horrible things began to happen in the starving settlement.

Dark rumors about the colonists’ desperation have made it into the history books. There are tales of freshly buried corpses – and there were many burials that winter – being dug up overnight and butchered for meat. A husband was supposedly burned at the stake for killing his wife and hiding her salted flesh in his house. Foraging parties came back a man short, and some of them probably weren’t killed by Indians. These were all just stories, though. Then, in 2012, proof was found that the people of Jamestown really did resort to eating each other.

Cannibalism has happened often enough in human history that archaeologists are familiar with the distinctive cut marks left on the bones of victims. When the skull, jawbone and one leg of a girl aged about 14 were found in the cellar of the old Jamestown fort, where the colonists sheltered from Indian attacks that winter, archaeologists examined the remains for clues to what killed her. What they found was gruesome – she’d been butchered with an ax or cleaver, and the flesh cut from her bones with a knife.

There’s no possibility that this luckless girl was cannibalized by the Powhatan and her remains retrieved later; while the Indians pillaged parts of the settlement, the fort was held by the colonists through the winter. The girl hadn’t been given a decent burial, either. Her remains were found mixed in with a jumble of other bones, including a horse, dogs and squirrels.

Did hungry colonists kill the girl for food, or strip away her flesh after she died of some other cause? We’ll probably never know. But, once the taboo against eating human flesh has been broken and the recently dead consumed, it’s not such a big step to start wondering which of the living could be eaten next.

Being Prepared

The Starving Time of 1610 is a horror story from the distant past, but it contains lessons no prepper should forget. The colonists’ biggest mistake was not being self-sufficient in food. They survived for a while on outside sources, but when those sources were cut off by conflict with the Powhatan and winter storms in the Atlantic, starvation became inevitable. If you plan to survive long term, you need to ensure that you can feed yourself from sources you control and that you have reserves to keep you going if crops fail or you’re under siege for a while. Otherwise, you could end up as a footnote in some future archaeologist’s paper about 21st-century cannibalism.

You can also access the latest news at this address: www.whatfinger.com

The mere mention of the words FEMA camps is bound to draw polar responses from our readers. Almost any topic that can be linked into a large list of what is routinely called conspiracy theories does that. It seems that no matter what the subject is if there is some form of mystery around it or the possibility that the subject is completely made up, you will have those who will argue passionately for both sides.

I think that the more sinister the underlying thought is behind the theory, the more passionate the arguing gets. If one side is seriously concerned about the risks of some dark plan to harm them, the other side will be giddy with excitement at the chance to shoot down theories and research.

For the people who believe in FEMA camps and see them as a very bad sign to watch for and fear, this topic engenders a wealth of responses and warnings about what to do if faced with the prospect. For those who think FEMA camps are a conspiracy theory, this is complete and utter nonsense, they will argue just as passionately to the contrary – that there are no such things and anyone who believes our government has plans to round people up and lock them in camps against their will is an idiot. I do agree with part of that and I’ll explain why.

What are these FEMA Camps you speak of?

To back up just a moment, for those of you who are completely unaware of what I am talking about let me give a brief explanation of what FEMA camps are. FEMA camps in this context are secretive government facilities all over the US that are supposedly being set up to house massive amounts of American citizens during a time of unrest. The closest approximation to what these camps will be like is either a prison or a forced labor camp. Some would say that’s redundant.

Why would the government set up any camps like this in the first place? There are tons of theories, but the most common is usually to house people after either a collapse of our government/economy or some massive societal problem that displaces millions and removes the ability for the public to take care of themselves. I am not going to try and convince anyone of the plausibility of FEMA Camps and that isn’t what this article is about but I would suggest that if you are curious you do your own research.

I am not advocating my position as either believing in the existence of FEMA camps or a sinister plan for their potential use or disbelief but I am sure that will be very clear as I write. What I want to do is describe how I think we could find ourselves in a situation where something very similar to FEMA camps would be possible and you would voluntarily go if you didn’t follow the steps below.

Let’s take the whole term FEMA camp out of the equation for a minute and talk about facts. In most natural disasters, there are settlements created for people who are displaced. There have been FEMA camps set up for people affected by the recent wildfires. If you look at the war in Sudan you can see refugee camps. There were FEMA camps set up for people after hurricane Sandy.

In hurricanes, there are relief shelters and people willingly go to all of these. Is it such a stretch to imagine that some event in our country could compel large numbers of people to make their way to the same types of facilities? Remember Katrina when a lot of people flocked to the Superdome? Nobody made them go, did they?

I maintain that nothing good can ever come from a situation like a refugee camp or even a relief shelter if this is on a massive scale. I am not talking about after a hurricane if your house is flooded. I am talking about a country wide problem where the only hope being offered is to make your way to a central location. I think we should all know how to avoid FEMA camps or any other camp for that matter for as long as humanly possible.

What could compel you to go of your own free will?

I think that there are a lot of reasons that people would willingly get on a bus or walk to a facility that has been set up by our government. If you think about it, things would be so much easier if people were asking to come in. Why fight with people when you can have them freely submit to whatever conditions you imposed on their stay because they were begging you to take care of them?

Reason to go to a FEMA Camp #1 – Hunger

I think this is the easiest one to predict. Let’s say there was some horrible event like an economic collapse. Now, this probably won’t play out over days or weeks, but eventually after so much time a massive economic collapse could interfere with your ability to put groceries on the table.

Let’s imagine that most people in the US lost our jobs, companies closed left and right and everyone was facing worse than depression conditions. How long could you hold out on food if there were no unemployment checks and no jobs to work? I think for most parents, the thought of their children going hungry is enough to drive you to do things you wouldn’t normally do.

This can swing to the violent side with robbery or even killing someone for food, but the path of least resistance could be the camp. If you just go to the camp, they will feed you and give you a bed to sleep in.

Reason to go to a FEMA Camp #2 – Safety

Building off the desperation subject above, I do believe if we have a collapse of society, the bad elements will rise up and join together. Criminality is a fact of life and it is an inescapable part of our history. People will be taken advantage of and bad things will happen.

If the scenario I described above happens, you could easily see gangs of people stealing, raping, and killing to either get supplies they want or simply because nobody is stopping them. If you lived under the threat of marauders invading your neighborhood and harming your family, would you consider going to the camp for safety? If you go to the camp, we will protect you and make sure nothing bad will happen. We will have security to keep any bad people from getting in to harm you and you can finally sleep safely at night. Sounds tempting right?

Reason to go to a FEMA Camp #3 – Medical/Health Needs

What if you have a medical condition that requires medicine that is no longer available? What if you are injured and the hospitals are closed or it is more dangerous trying to get to the hospital? What if your daughter is sick with an infection she received when she cut her hand on a rusty can and you don’t have any antibiotics? Would you go to the camp where they have medicine and can treat her? Would you consider the cost of her living is worth any liberties you might give up? Would you turn in your firearms to the camp for treatment for your daughter?

So how do I propose you stay out of the camps?

OK, again without going into what I think any camps might be designed for, I do think that there is a higher chance of people willingly going than being rounded up in the night. I could be wrong, but lets assume that we have an economic collapse. Maybe there is a war overseas or a biological outbreak that cripples our country and let’s further assume that going to any refugee or FEMA camp will not be good in the long run.

What can you do to avoid the FEMA camps?

1. Be able to feed yourself – I have said this multiple times before and you can’t go to any other survival/preparedness website without getting the same advice. Make sure you have extra food so that you aren’t forced to go somewhere because you are starving. How much? I normally recommend starting with 30 days, but for this to really work I think you need as much as a year of food stored up.

One year of food will enable you to last through the winter and get a garden started if you don’t have one already. Food is one of the easiest ways to prepare for any type of scenario that could affect your family. If nothing happens, you still have to eat every day.

2. Be able to defend what you have – I don’t mean counting on kindness of strangers either. If times get so bad that people are unable to feed their family, they will come for those who still can. You will need to have a means to keep your family safe and the determination to do what is necessary.

That could mean taking a life. It might just mean making a defiant stand. Either way, history shows that expecting the best of people in times of crisis is foolish and if that is your plan, you might regret it.

3. Have a plan to provide basic medical care for yourself – This can be viewed two ways. I always recommend having a more than basic medical kit for every family and the knowledge of basic first aid. You have to know how to stop bleeding and it really helps to have bandages to do that.

You have to be able to sterilize a wound and antibiotics are necessary for infections.  Your basic health is another aspect of this though. If you aren’t able to walk a few miles without getting winded, how do you expect to survive if we have a collapse? Make sure you are in great shape and that will make any stress like this easier to bear and the likelihood that you will fall by the way much lower.

I really believe that if anything bad happens like this, our society has overwhelmingly demonstrated that they desire to have someone take care of them. If that someone is the Government you will lose in some way. What will that be? Who knows – I leave that up to others to debate.

I do know this though and that is that I will do anything in my power to stay away from any situation like that. I am taking steps now to prepare my family and am doing what I can to take care of them and make sure they can take care of themselves. The alternative is not attractive to me and I only see bad things happening if we go that other, easy, safe route.

You can also access the latest news at this address: www.whatfinger.com

We Americans are an expressive lot. We like to tell the world how we feel to the world around us. We have recruited an army from China to assure that we can express our thoughts on signs, bumper stickers, and shirts very cheaply.

The things you wear and the signs you hang can affect your life in more ways than just spreading your personal mantra or message. In fact, what you hang and what you wear can make you both liable in certain situations and even make you a target in others!

The Power Of Deterrents

That said, the most powerful tools you can use when setting up real home security are deterrents. Deterrents are usually affordable, and they can be incredibly effective. They are things like cameras, locks, lights and even signs that can be used to keep criminals moving when they happen upon your home.

If your house is a just a little less appealing than your neighbors or another home, they have been casing, well, your deterrents are working. It only takes a little thought to make criminals rethink breaking into your home.

Many Americans use signs for this, but some signs are actually going to make matters worse in a break in. Do you know the five signs to avoid using on your property?

Variability In State Laws

Neither this website nor I, are offering up legal advice in this article. We are not qualified to offer this kind of advice! We are simply pointing out some issues and concerns that come about when you begin hanging certain kinds of signage on your home and property.

These are trying times and we are all looking for a little something that we can do to be more prepared for the future. We must be careful and thorough with what we do.

No Trespassing Violators Will Be Shot

This is a common sign that helps to empower the owner. A sign like this gives you the ability to basically threaten all who might step foot on your property.

Let’s be honest, when we see terrible things happening in the streets of our nation, it is hard not to be scared. Many fill that fear hole with aggression.

What’s important to remember is that you can only shoot in self defense. If you do it for any other reason you are likely going to jail! So, if someone sees your sign and disregards it, they can pretty much take whatever they want off your property and, so long as they are not posing a physical threat to you and yours, you cannot shoot at them.

Where these signs can get you into even more trouble is if you are defending yourself on your property and they can make the legal case that you are a crazy prepper who has been dying to shoot someone with your AR and even hung signs up about it!

Beware Of Dog

One of the more interesting and dangerous signs that you can put up, is the ‘Beware of Dog’ sign.

While you might be able to understand that a sign that says something like “My Rottweiler is the Security System” or something like that, will not help your case, if your dog bites someone.

However, the ‘Beware of Dog’ sign can do as much damage to your case as not having one! This is dependent on the state laws but just understand it could be an issue.

The Takeaway: If you knew your dog was vicious and the sign can prove it, when it bites you have offered up the first bit of evidence by way of signage.

Fake Security Signs

While it might seem enticing to post some fake security signs as a deterrent, be careful with this.

Seasoned criminals will know the difference between a fake sign and a real one. If a criminal spots a fake sign in your yard they will instantly know that you have no security system.

Don’t think that criminals are not well versed in the technology they might face when breaking into a home.

This could embolden someone to take advantage of breaking into your home. They will assume you are unprotected.

What About Bumper Stickers?

In this age of hypersensitivity everyone has something to say and something to hide! This can often manifest itself in the form of tee shirts and bumper stickers.

Even if your home is free of any signs, you can tell people a lot by the things you place on your bumper.

What do you think a criminal sees in an anti-gun bumper sticker? They understand that the homeowner is likely not protected by a firearm.

There are all kinds of things that criminals can deduce from the messages you plaster on the back of your parked car.

Flags

While you might not look at flags as signs, they certainly convey a message about the people who hang the flags.

Don’t believe me? What would you think if you were driving down your street and you saw an ISIS flag flying on one of your neighbor’s home? What about a swastika?

Much like the signs we mentioned, flags can both build a case against you and deter people from making your home a target. I have to imagine if you fly a flag with an AR15 on it you are not going to see a lot of incidences of looting.

It’s the same old story. There is no flag, sign or bumper sticker that gives you legal immunity. The flag you fly tells people a lot about you and you need to be aware of that.

Whether it’s a sign, a bumper sticker, or a flag, when you put a message out to the public you must be thoughtful. While your buddies might think it’s cute to be radical and dangerous in your signage just understand that kind of language can be turned against you.

Simple and effective signing with clear language can be very effective for the property owner. These signs can be used as further proof against someone who might be looting, casing or just sneaking onto your property and wrecking.

In most cases, the less you put out there the better your defense. A simple “No Trespassing” sign establishes your domain and can be used against anyone who decides to ignore the sign and be malicious.

One of the scariest things that we can have happen to us, as a society, is a breakdown in social order. More than anything, that means a breakdown in law and order; essentially a time of anarchy, even if there is still a government in place.

The rioting following George Floyd’s death has put a number of municipalities, or parts of municipalities, in just this place. Police departments are being held back from doing their jobs to avoid confrontation, leaving the streets to those who are inciting the riots and destroying their cities.

Before I go any further, let me say that it has become increasingly clear that those who are initiating those riots are not the peaceful demonstrators, who are exercising their First Amendment rights. Rather, a number of mayors, governors and police chiefs have come forth, stating that they have clear evidence that the riots have been started by imported muscle, not by local demonstrators.

Nevertheless, these cities are in danger from the riots. There are those who are calling to move those riots out into the suburbs, because “that’s where the problem lives.” Whether they are calling for a racial civil war or not, it seems clear that those voices are pushing to further the violence, expanding it out into areas where their perceived “enemies” live and work.

At the same time, there have been a number of calls to “defund the police;” to the point where protesters in Washington, DC painted that on the street in front of the White House. It would be interesting to follow the money trail on that and see who is behind that movement, but that’s not my purpose here. My purpose is that you and I are ready to defend ourselves, our homes and our families, if those riots move into our neighborhoods.

Let’s Think it Through

Before discussing specific firearms that you might want to have on hand to deal with rioters, let’s talk a minute about the defensive strategy that we need to have in place, even if that is just in our own minds.

We must remember that people in that mob are essentially invisible to the law, in that it is hard to identify them and get a conviction; but you are someone they can identify, putting you at risk. On top of that, your actions will be held under public scrutiny, which is a much harsher judge than the law.

For our purposes, the best defense is one in which you never have to fire a shot. We must remember that the law only allows us to use deadly force in self-defense. That means that the courts have to agree, after the fact, that what we did was reasonable and necessary. If you shoot in today’s political and social atmosphere, you have to realize that you might be convicted, just to appease the mob, even if it was in self-defense.

With that in mind, one thing you want to do is to intimidate the mob, if you can, rather than shooting them. We’ve seen that happen recently, as store owners have stood guard at their places of business, well armed and ready to defend their livelihood. In most cases, the riots have passed those places by, and gone on to ravage other places of business.

If you are forced to fire a shot in order to defend home and family, you’re better off if you are able to merely wound the attackers, rather than killing them. This is a risky strategy, as a wounded assailant could still cause you great harm. But on the hand, it lessens the chances of ending up in jail.

You also want to consider ballistic body armor and even a helmet, to go with whatever gun you use. The mob can kill and often does. Even if they are unarmed, there is always the possibility of them beating someone to death. That ballistic armor can even be a help against that, spreading the force of blows and lessening the chance of them causing harm.

OK, Let’s Look at Some Specific Guns

Whenever it comes to “best” guns, everyone has their own opinion. That’s a given. What I’m after here is more to get you thinking about particular types of guns, rather than specific models. While all of the guns I’m going to mention are excellent firearms, I’m presenting them more as categories, rather than specific makes and models, even though I’m listing the makes and models too. I’m also going to talk a little about specific ammo loads, in cases where I feel it is applicable.

Kel-Tek KSG

If there was ever a gun that was designed for close-range firepower, I’d have to say it is the Kel-Tek KSG.

While there are other excellent shotguns on the market, which follow the design of the KSG, this is the original. It is a bullpup shotgun, with dual switchable magazines, giving it a total capacity of 14 + 1 rounds. Seven round of each of two types of rounds, plus whatever is carried in the chamber.

A typical load for the KSG would be 00 buckshot in one magazine and slugs in the other.  That’s great for CQB, especially where breaching is necessary. But breaching is unlikely to be necessary in this case. Rather, you need the ability to defend yourself, perhaps without even killing anyone.

I would load that second barrel with a less-lethal round, like beanbags, rather than slugs. I’d also put something a bit smaller to replace 00 buckshot, such as #4 buckshot. That provides the option of starting out with something that can drive the crowd off, and then escalate firepower if needed. Even escalated, #4 buckshot is less deadly than 00 buckshot.

Mossberg 590M Shockwave

While the KSG is a great shotgun, it is a bit pricey. For those that can’t afford that, some other sort of a tactical shotgun would be great to have; something like the Mossberg 590M.

Mossberg has long been recognized as the standard for tactical shotguns. The 590M is a removable magazine-fed version of the very popular shockwave shotgun.

This removable magazine overcomes one of the biggest limitations for most shotguns, reload time. Rather than being forced to take the time to hand feed rounds into the loading chute to fill the internal magazine, you can slap a new magazine and keep going, just as you can with an AR-15 or semi-automatic pistol.

One modification I would make, to either this or the KSG, is to add a red dot sight. Most people consider shotguns to be a “point and shoot” weapon; but at the range you’ll probably be shooting, it would be good to have the ability to aim, allowing you to pick your target. You’re not going to have much shot spread and you want to make sure you can hit the right trouble maker.

Glock 21

After considerably ballistic testing, I’ve come to some definite conclusions about what pistol calibers are the best for certain circumstances. For most people, this argument comes down to 9mm vs. .45 ACP. Personally, I’m a fan of both, even though I see them as being useful for different things.

The .45 ACP round was originally developed for the US Army, who was having trouble with Moro tribesmen attacking them high on drugs. They needed a round that would have high energy transfer, increasing the chances of knocking down these tribesmen, even if they didn’t feel the hit. The .45 ACP gave them that and there really hasn’t been another round developed which matches this ability.

If we assume that any rioters will be high on at least adrenaline, if not more serious drugs, then we need this knockdown ability. The Glock 21 holds 10 rounds, three more than the 1911, which is why I’ve selected it. Glocks are also highly customizable, with lots of after-market parts available.

Springfield XDS

Such a time, when there is a chance of riots, coupled with reduced police protection, gives justification for concealed carry, if any were needed. There is always the possibility of being caught by that mob, away from home.

While I personally wouldn’t want to take on a mob with nothing more than a pistol, I’d much rather take them on with a pistol than with my bare hands.

My favorite concealed carry gun is the Springfield XDS, chambered in .45 caliber. I’ve carried other guns in the past and then settled on the XDS. Not only does it give me the knockdown power of the .45, but it does so in an easy to shoot, very reliable handgun, that’s fairly small for a .45. Mine is modified to have both tritium night sights and a laser sight, allowing me to use it any time anywhere.

The problem with this gun, as with any concealed carry gun, is magazine capacity. That’s especially true for a .45 caliber. Those fat bullets take up a lot of room, which translates to a small magazine capacity. I compensate for this by carrying two 7-round magazines, in addition to the 5 round magazine that’s in the pistol. Twenty rounds still isn’t enough to take on a mob, but hopefully it’s enough to scare them away, if nothing else.

AR-15

No matter what else you have, you should have an AR-15 as your backup gun. While I would not want to start shooting with that, due to the lethality of a rifle slug, I would want to have it leaning against the wall, loaded and ready, in case I needed a lot of firepower quickly. There are few civilian guns on the market, which can match the firepower that an AR-15 can offer us.

As for what particular AR-15 you should buy, I won’t even attempt to pick one. There are so many on the market, that it’s hard to pick out just one. Besides, my personal AR-15 is one that I’ve built myself, picking out the parts that I wanted. So I can’t tell you a brand.

More than anything, I’d say your optics are important. I’d be sure to have a red dot sight, as well as a powerful tactical light mounted on the rifle. That should take care of most circumstances. While infrared or night vision devices might be nice, you’ll lose important details in the image, so I’d probably avoid them.

You’re sitting in your recliner enjoying your morning coffee, it’s Saturday and you have no obligations, it’s your day off and your job is the furthest thing from your mind. As you sort through your morning emails the signal goes down, you try to reboot Explorer but there is nothing – that’s odd you think. Oh well you can come back to it later and then the power goes off, the computer shuts down, the air conditioner buffering you from the 85 degree morning heat outside stops and you realize things are not right.

That’s right… the Day of Reckoning has arrived and your worst fears are realized.

There is no bright glow or mushroom cloud from a nuclear blast when you walk outside to look. Your neighbors are slowly moving about the parking lots they are also wondering what’s going on.

You remain as casual as possible, you’ve rehearsed this scenario in our mind a dozen times, have driven to your “safe zone” a couple times and now it’s time to load up and get the hell out of town before the panic starts.

You pull your van into a vacant space near the front of your apartment building. You grab your dolly and take out the cases of water you have stored, then the cases of food carefully distributing them in the vans interior to avoid too much weight shifting and the cases toppling over. You coolers and ToGo bags are next and then the important items your “personal protection” you hope you never need to use.

You’re ready to go and forget the gates to your complex are electric and the power is off – what next? You remember that a few weeks before two section of the fence near the road were down and you decide it’s time to take a section out so you drive to the parking area near the road, up over the curb and across the grass and slowly you push a section of fencing down and move out onto the roadway.

People are always slow to realize what is going on and your Grundig M400 shortwave radio that was stored in your Faraday cage comes right on and you listen for the news you know is forthcoming. Your drive is almost normal, the cars on the highway are still moving freely so an Electro Magnetic Pulse was not the source of the problem or you would be traveling on your motorcycle or bicycle toward your destination.

You are headed east toward the center of the state your destination just over 50 miles out and your shortwave transmission is heard, you turn up the volume as to not miss a word.

“A terrorist has taken out the Tampa electrical transmission station with an explosive device interrupting power to over 250,000 homes and businesses. Please stay tuned for further information as the damage is assessed and provisions made to reroute power to interrupted locations.” The announcer says.

You give a huge sigh of relief knowing you were ready, you loaded up as planned and hit the road and that you didn’t panic. You saw our neighbors milling around wondering what’s going on.

If it were a major disaster you would be on your way like you were today so you hope that day never comes…

According to en.wikipedia.org– Most will assume that this article was triggered by the widely discussed Mass killings under communist regimes. IMHO this has a far less distinct topic and IMHO not a distinct topic, leaving it open to be a POV fork or coatrack. Or not a more distinct topic as Mass killings under capitalist regimes would be, if there sources/material for such. The two criteria in the title are capitalism, basically some economic attributes that nearly the whole world runs on, and genocide, which has widely varying meanings depending on the eye of the beholder. And it seems to be a collection of writers that want to emphasize that some aspect of capitalism has had some effect on genocide, per their definition of genocide. Sincerely, North8000.

At some point over the last 50 years, the bourgeoisie (in the U.S. and throughout the developed world) embarked on the first self-inflicted genocide in human history.

While the roots may go way back, the self-inflicted genocide became systematized and legalized with the 1986 National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act.

By 2001 with the publication of Autism: a novel form of mercury poisoning by Bernard, Enayati, Redwood, Roger, and Binstock it was clear that vaccines were largely responsible for the explosion in autism cases.

Faced with this news, the mainstream went all in to cover up the genocide and accelerate the pace of the destruction.

Thomas Verstraeten at the CDC took a job from GlaxoSmithKline in Belgium rather than tell the truth about the genocide.

William Thompson took a promotion from CDC rather than call a press conference to stop the genocide.

Julie Gerberding, Frank DeStefano, and Coleen Boyle at CDC aggressively covered up widespread harms to children like eager S.S. officers at Auschwitz.

Once everyone knew that methyl mercury was neurotoxic, Pharma with the blessing of FDA and CDC took most of the mercury out of vaccines and replaced it with even more aluminum — which leads to more autism cases but less severe symptoms. The genocide marched on.

A new generation of fixers including Tom Shimabukuro, John Su, and Matthew Oster at CDC as well as Nicola Klein at Kaiser Permanente dedicate their careers to hiding vaccine injury.

And now with rushed experimental Covid-19 shots, the genocide has accelerated and expanded to include adults throughout the developed world.

Responsible Parties

Harms are driven by the pharmaceutical industry. It’s gigantic — $1 trillion a year in revenue even before Covid-19. Toxic Covid-19 shots, useless treatments including Paxlovid and Remdesivir, and medicines to treat vaccine injury (including a sharp increase in myocarditis cases) will generate hundreds of billions of dollars of additional profits for Pharma. Pharmaceutical industry executives are avaricious, predatory, and they absolutely do not care who they hurt and kill. Many are also likely eugenicists who want to shrink the size of the global population.

Grifter billionaire psychopaths — including Bill Gates, Klaus Schwab, and Alain Mérieux — gravitate towards vaccines because they see the opportunity to vastly increase their wealth while inflicting pain. Their billions of dollars buy them talent — the best management consultants, the best PR firms, and the best private Psy-Ops firms. They also purchased the global public health system, the political system, and the regulatory state. They clearly want to take over the world and enslave (via chronic illness and twice yearly injections of gene modifying substances) anyone who is not a billionaire.

But the genocide also relies on the participation of bourgeois civil society. As we have seen over the last two years, bougiecrats are gleeful about participating in their own self-destruction.

Yes, Pharma propaganda, marketing, and psy-ops are very good. Over the last forty years, the average person just did not know about the dangers of vaccines. But at this point, there is more than enough information in the public square about the dangers of these products (just look around for gawdsakes!) for the bourgeoisie to opt out of shots. And yet they drive themselves to their own demise.

Self-preservation is the most fundamental of all human instincts, more primal even than sex. Yet the most educated class in human history has lost its ability to feel the urgent necessity to protect one’s own life and protect their kids from those who are harming them.

All of our elite institutions failed over the last two years. The fact that Harvard, Princeton, Yale, and Columbia require staff and students to be vaccinated with useless toxic Covid-19 shots shows that almost no one at these institutions is capable of understanding basic statistics nor risk benefit analysis. Why do these institutions even exist at this point?

I think there is a common factor that explains the participation of the bourgeoisie in their own self-destruction and the failure of all of our institutions to respond appropriately to a virus that could have been handled with existing off the shelf medicines.

We are in the midst of a mass-poisoning-event.

As I explained above, the children born after 1986 are massively over-vaccinated. But wide-scale vaccine programs began in the 1960s with polio and measles so anyone who lived through those eras may be affected as well (albeit to a lesser degree). 2,021 nuclear weapons tests during the Cold War likely made matters worse.

A strong case can be made that the societal chaos we are experiencing — from a lack of fundamental self-preservation instincts to the inability to think critically — is evidence of society-wide neurological injury. People are not experiencing ennui, they are experiencing too much aluminum (and other toxic chemicals) in their brains. There is likely a dose response relationship as well — the more shots, the more crazy things become. And with globalization and concentrated wealth, neurologically injured psychopathic billionaires can inflict unprecedented harm around the world and turn global politics into their own live action version of Orwell’s 1984.

So the task before us is this:

1. We must opt out of the crazy and say no to their toxic drugs;

2. Detox from the toxic chemicals that already exist in our bodies; and

3. Build the better sane world out of the ashes of the collapse of mainstream society.

Can a Quonset Hut be turned into an EMP-shielded home? With this reader question, the devil is in the details. If you are ready to face them, grab a napkin, sharpen a pencil and then go rent a crane: you have work to do!

First let’s see what it takes to shield something from EMP and how a Quonset Hut is constructed to determine if this building could provide a cost effective solution to EMP under the right circumstances.

I imagine that the reason that leads to this question is something along the lines of: “Quonset Huts have a steel skin, and steel is a conductor, so they must provide some shielding against EMP. Almost 200,000 of the buildings were manufactured for WWII, some are still in use by the military to this day and many others are still knocking around as surplus, so maybe this could be an inexpensive way to build a shielded home or retreat or some sort.

But the subject of EMP is complex, and a building is a major investment. For most people, it would be a considerable waste of resources to erect a building that did not serve its intended purpose.”

The (Very) Basics of How to Shield Against EMP

As you may recall from an elementary physics class (or a diligent 2-seconds of research on your “Inter-web Thingy,”) Faraday cages can be used to shield vulnerable microelectronics from EMP.

For some, but certainly not all, of our readers, that fact and perhaps how to improvise a Faraday cage from a metal trash can (or similar conductive vessel with a tight fitting lid) is about the deep end of the pool when it comes to the depth of their knowledge this particular subject.

Now, that is not a bad thing. Where that not the case, us folks toward the nerdier end of the scale might be doing something other than writing about EMP survival, so I’m good with that.

But society’s ever-decreasing attention span being what it is, that is to whom I orient this type of article, so those of you who are “Walter White-level intelligence”, and beyond, you will have to bear that in mind (or break down and buy the book.)

A Faraday cage provides EMP shielding by creating a conductive skin around what you are trying to protect. Imagine that this conductive skin helps conduct some of the flow of energy around a protected envelope, like a river flowing around a sand bar. This is a bit of an oversimplification, but I think it is an effective analogy for most people.

The idea is that most of river goes around the sand bar. You end up with a lot less intensity of water flow inside the sand bar than outside because the amount of flow that penetrates the sand bar is reduced by the (shielding effect of the) sand bar. The bulk of the flow of water is “conducted” around the sand bar like the conductive skin of a Faraday cage conducts electricity around the occupant of the cage.

Another way to say this is that the Faraday cage attenuates (or reduces) the intensity of the field strength of the EMP that is able to penetrate the shielding provided by the cage.

Back to the sand bar analogy, the shielding provided by the conductive skin of the Faraday cage is the difference in EM flow outside and inside the cage. So the cage does not completely stop or shut out the EMP, it just “turns down the volume” to point that it doesn’t “blow the speakers” (so to speak) of electronics protected by the cage. The volume of sound, EMP wave flow or sound wave flow is lower or quieter inside the cage than outside it.

This protective skin needs to have the following properties:

1. It must completely encapsulate whatever you are trying to protect. Depending of the frequency range of energy you are protecting against, the skin can be a cage or a mesh. But for our application, openings as small as a quarter inch could allow EMP inside, compromising the protected space. So mesh would have to be roughly 20 openings per inch or finer. If you are trying to shield a multisided space such as a cube, all six side would have to be shielded. I often see people forget about the floor! EMP is not like rain, you cannot just drape a space blanket over the object and call it good.

2. The flow of electrons through the skin must be unimpeded. If you join two or more sheets of conductive material to form the conductive skin, the seams where they mate must be free of non-conductive paint or any other insulation. I see people make this mistake a lot with metal ammo cans. They fail to remove the paint where the lid fits onto the box and remove the rubber gasket. Gaskets are still helpful, but they need to be conductive gaskets as opposed to the non-conductive rubber gaskets that come in the cans.

3. Any insufficiently shielded wires or other conductors penetrating the skin compromise its integrity.

4. The conductive skin must have a non-conductive layer gap of air between the skin and whatever you are protecting. If the object touches the skin or is too close to it, the electromagnetic energy can be conducted from the skin into what you are trying to protect.

5. The conductive material must provide sufficient electromagnetic shielding (measured in decibels) to protect against EMP. The thicker the conductive material, the more shielding it will provide. To shield against the field strength of an EMP generated by a nuclear weapon detonated high in the earth’s atmosphere, directly above your location, would require approximately 73dB of shielding. If the weapon was detonated hundreds of miles away, this number will be lower.

Just keep in mind that the relationship of shielding thickness to the number of dB of shielding it provides is logarithmic, so doubling the shielding layer thickness does not double the dB of shielding.This means that if you buy a Faraday bag that provides 40dB of shielding, and you put your bag inside another 40dB you don’t end up with 80dB of shielding. You would end up with less than 50dB of shielding at that level.

And to protect against a super-EMP weapon (a nuclear weapon optimized to yield the maximum amount of energy released in the form of EMP as opposed to light or heat) this number would have to be much higher. You would not be talking Mylar bags, aluminized bags or tinfoil anymore, you would need a shielding material more along the lines of an aluminum pressure cooker for that.

How Does the Quonset Hut Stack Up As a Faraday Cage?

Once assembled, a Quonset Hut is essentially a semicircular cross-section of corrugated, of galvanized steel that can be moved by crane and set on a concrete slab or wooden floor. Steel is a conductor, so won’t that offer some electromagnetic protection?

If you have been paying attention, you may already know the answer. IF the steel sections have been properly joined THEN you have a start.

Notice that the answer is conditional and that even then, a Quonset Hut can only be viewed as possible place to start or source of raw material in the form of steel. Even if the integrity of the building’s steel skin is maintained, you would still have some major issues to deal with in order to turn it into an EMP-shielded structure.

Here is what it would take to turn a “Q-Hut” into an EMP-shielded stronghold:

• Any sealant, lacquer, paint or other non-conductive material between the seams of steel sections, any holes or gaps a quarter of an inch or larger will compromise the free flow of electrons through the shielded “skin” of the structure so they would have to be stripped and replaced with conductive product.
• Any holes or gaps a quarter of an inch or larger will compromise the shielded envelope, including any windows, doors and the entire floor would not be shielded by “upside down steel half pipe” formed by the steel portion of the Quonset Hut. All these areas would need to be covered with material that meets our shielding requirement of greater than 73dB (for a normal nuclear weapon used to initiate Compton Scattering, generating a nuclear high-altitude EMP, not a super-EMP weapon.) As mentioned, 20OPI or smaller mesh could be used for the windows and to encapsulate any solar panels you add. To add solar panels to the project, please refer to my past articles on the subject starting here: How to Protect Your Solar Gear from EMP (Part 1)
• No unshielded long conductors such as electrical wiring should be attached to the building without first being shielded, shunted through EM-shielded gaskets, fitted with fast switching (less than a millisecond) surge protection with power handling in the same range as lighting protection circuits. They should also be properly grounded.
• The conductive skin should be separated from the building interior by a gap or suitable non-conductor. A non-conductive spray-on bed lining material or any other non-conductive material could be used for this purpose, just do not forget the floor!

There you go! If this does sound like a fun project, let me know, I just might squeeze you into my consulting schedule so I can see how it turns out, so shoot me an email.

Better yet, leave your comments below. Either way, I enjoy reading them, and have even been known to respond to reader questions and comments from time to time.

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