There’s a lot of happy chatter coming out of Washington lately that’s touting the wonderful economy and our more-secure position on the world stage. While these sentiments may seem legit on the surface, it’s important to remember that information can be fabricated and numbers can be padded to paint any leader or agenda in a favorable light. In reality, the exact opposite is true.
There are more wars that are occurring simultaneously than in any other period of known recorded history. Record numbers of people, including hundreds of thousands of Americans, are being forced to migrate because of natural disasters, economic desperation or political and social unrest. A new trade war is brewing that will undoubtedly make the availability of basic, everyday goods more expensive and difficult to obtain. An arms race is in full-swing between the United States, China and Russia, and the US is unfortunately lagging far behind.
All of this is happening at a time when our government is in one of the weakest and ineffectual periods in history. Violence is spinning out of control, social strife threatens to tear the fabric of this country apart, and we are losing faith in institutions that have served to hold us together. The response by the government has been to restrict freedom, expand police powers and utilize technology to keep tabs on the population and suppress dissent.
The average person is facing more threats from more enemies than we choose to admit, and our security and capacity to be free and self-sufficient is diminishing by the day. All of the good news about the direction this country is taking is little more than a smokescreen and distraction that is designed to keep us docile and hopeful enough to avoid taking to the streets in protest. However, this charade is also appearing to waver, and people are more on-edge and uncertain of their future than they’ve been in a very long time.
Consequently, this is the time to be focusing even-more on developing a self-sufficient lifestyle that will help you to ride out the coming storm. In an age where we are only a few tweets away from war, a major terrorist attack or an economic depression, we won’t have much time to react and adapt once the SHTF.
Don’t forget that it was only a few years ago that preppers tended to focus on preparing for a random, natural disaster, the remote chance of an economic collapse or a pandemic of some sorts. Now we need to worry about our food and water supplies, crazy weather, increasingly-aggressive world leaders who are taunting us into conflict and a healthcare system that is teetering on the verge of collapse.
We can’t send our kids to school without teaching them what to do in the event of a shooting, social media is being used as a weapon to undermine what’s left of our democracy, and multi-national corporations and the pursuit of unbridled capitalism is continuing to corral wealth and power at a breathtaking pace. All of these things have consequences, and they all lead to some very unfortunate ends that will catch a lot of people off-guard. Happy times are not on the horizon, in fact, some of the darkest days that the modern world has yet to experience are right around the corner.
Whether or not you agree with this assessment is up to you. However, if you look at the current state of the world, and our country, with objective and wide-open eyes, it would be nearly-impossible to ignore how close to the edge we really are. The question is how would you fare if the SHTF happened tomorrow, next week or next month. Don’t be duped and lulled into complacency like the masses. Think of this period in our history as the calm before the storm, and the storm is coming. How prepared are you to weather it once it strikes?
