Originally published at Notes from the bunker…. You can comment here or there.

Heres a couple links to what I see as a complete non-issue. I expect this to be debunked as an urban legend or something at some point but it is being reported that ‘Canadian’ is now the new term for ‘nigger’. Apparently, since you can’t use racial slurs in certain places these days the term ‘Canadian’ is being used instead. First of all, this is amusing given the … pasty whiteness….that is Canada. I think Canada has a total of six black guys in it, Five are on one of their weird football teams and the other is their coach.

My question is, who determines that it’s a derogatory term? Maybe ‘Canadian’ means ‘peaceful, polite, unthreatening’. Unless someone actually says “Yeah, I woulda said ‘coon’ but I say ‘Canadian’ instead’ how do you know whether the new term is code for something bad or something good? When I see rap stars getting onstage at some music award saying “Whassup my Canadians?” then I’ll believe it.

I mention this not because I care about racial slurs (or slurs of any kind). I figure if you want to dislike someone that’s entirely your business and they have just as much right to dislike you right back.

No, I mention it because it’s a good example of the ambiguation of zombies.

Yes, the shambling, shuffling, oh-my-god-Ive-been-bit undead. Hear me out on this one.

Romero’s zombie movies are always entertaining (although not always good). They sort of give in to that ‘survivalist fantasy’ where there are no friendly targets, you can shoot anything that moves, no one is shooting back, and you can be a one man army for as long as your ammo and gear hold out. Fun stuff. But the term, or idea of, ‘zombies’ has now become a euphemism and a mask for camouflaging your interest in preparedness.

“Hey Bob, whats with the three AR-15s and the case of ammo?”
“Never know when the zombie apocalypse is coming, Steve!”
:::Steve and Bob then share a hearty laugh together and the topic is changed:::

Or, someone wants advice on preparing for [insert name of apocalypse] but doesn’t want to come across as a freak. So, rather than asking the question about what vehicle is best for getting out of town in a hurry when the rampaging looters are, well, rampaging through the anthrax-laden radioactive fallout he’ll ask “So when the hordes of zombies are coming in waves down the street what vehicle would be best for getting me out of town?”

Zombies are the preparedness Canadians. Don’t think so? Think about this – Romero’s movies were fun. They were campy. And, true, some sucked. But there was nothing there to generate this cult of zombie fascination. We know zombies don’t exist but we talk about our guns for the zombie apocalypse, our rations so we don’t wind up like Andy in Dawn Of The Dead (remake), and what the best locations are to be safe from these hordes of ex-people. But, realistically, zombies are about the only ‘imaginary’ threat that comes closest to meeting the situations we expect in a SHTF event. We expect infrastructure failure, we expect martial law, we expect food shortages, we expect every-man-for-himself, we expect violent crowds of looters, we expect mobs of unprepared desperate people….and there is no real fictional circumstance that gives us those conditions except for when ‘the dead shall walk the earth’.

Lucifers Hammer? Yes, great scenario with many of the same elements…except for that whole ‘large parts of the world flooded’ aspect. Red Dawn? Plausible then, amazingly unlikely now. The Day After? Close. Zombies give us the aftermath we expect without the unrealistic add-ons that would otherwise make the post-TEOTWAWKI incompatible with our preps. Not clear on that? Example: Lucifers Hammer gives us everything we imagine TEOTWAWKI will look like but adds massive global flooding. Most of us don’t foresee massive global flooding in our plans for the future so a good bit of the action in LH doesn’t really seem to apply to us. But with zombies, if you remove the zombies and replace them with, say, looters or enemy troops or riotous mobs pretty much little else changes. You still have fortified strongholds, you still have an emphasis on defense, you still have society completely off the rails.

Take the guys at Zombie Squad for example. You could make an argument that their website is one of the better ‘preparedness’ sites out there if you take out the blatantly zombie-related stuff. Content on three-day bags, traversing dangerous cityscapes, etc, etc. All things that apply to the non-zombie apocalypse. But they’ll probably never get tagged as a right-wing survivalist board because, hey, theyre talking about zombies. In fact, Wikipedia covers this much better than I:

The basic concept behind Zombie Squad is that zombies are a useful metaphor for a worst-case scenario; if someone is prepared to survive the complete breakdown of society due to an uprising of the living dead, then he or she will be prepared for almost any real-world disaster or emergency conceivable. Or stated more simply, “If you can survive a zombie apocalypse, you can survive anything.” The zombie metaphor was chosen for humor, originality, and as a bait and switch for horror movie fans, science fiction fans, gamers and others who otherwise may not be drawn to the idea of disaster preparedness or community involvement. Thus the claim on Zombie Squad’s website that they are “an elite zombie suppression task force ready to defend your neighborhood from the shambling hordes of the walking dead”[1] is to be taken in the playful spirit of the site and not literally.

Their website, by the way, is here.

Alot of the things about preparedness that used to be considered ‘fringe’ or ‘odd’ have become mainstream. But, theres still always a little stigma attached to going long on your preparedness plans. Three days of food and water? Thats cool..even .gov says its a good idea. Couple coils of razor wire in the garage along with trip flares and a couple dozen cases of ammo? Crazy paranoid survivalist.  by couching our activities in the context of getting ready for the mythical zombie apocalypse we just look like sci-f/horror geeks who cant realize that ‘its just a movie’.

So, to sum it up: ‘Canadian’ means a black guy who just left the room, and ‘zombie’ means ‘I’m a somewhat low key survivalist’.

Oh, and: braaaaaaaiiiiiinnnnssssss!