Word For The Day:
Guantanadome – n. The domed sports arena where refugees are searched and then ‘detained’ for their own protection by armed guards and denied the freedom to leave.
Notes From The Bunker
Word For The Day:
Guantanadome – n. The domed sports arena where refugees are searched and then ‘detained’ for their own protection by armed guards and denied the freedom to leave.
serious question on this
I have been thinking on this subject. If you are so basically stupid or destitute to the point that you can not care for your-self that you willingly turn yourself over to the government for protection, don’t you kinda deserve what you get?
secondly, as folks that do actually look out for them selves, do we want these still warm zombies released into the wild where they will just get in our way?
I am not being a smart ass here. I am seriously conflicted in my feelings about Guantanadome.
These people have all basically said I am unable to care for myself and want the nanny-state to protect me…at this point I think they may have relinquished their right of self determination.
It is not as if the Government went out and rounded these people up and shoved them in the Dome without giving them the option to make other arrangements
I have a much bigger issue with the fed.gov, or state.gov telling you that there is a fire that might be near your home so you can’t go there to initiate the basic fire protections you have set up ‘casue the firemen are better and smarter than you.
Your thoughts?
BWAHAHAHA!
The Guantanadome is moving to Houston; did you hear?
Guantanadome is good, but I’m waiting for it to hit the Thunderdome stage.
That is dead on.
The NOLA disaster has been a good reminder of why it is good to be prepared. I live in a relatively safe area, with little chance of natural or other disasters, so it is hard for me to determine what makes the most sense as far as preparations.
Take your post from the other day: hunker in the bunker, or be portable? I’d prefer the latter I think. But I don’t know if it makes the mose sense. I have a lot of reading to do I guess.
It amuses me that they’re going to take 500(!) FEMA busses and move all these people to the Houston Astrodome. I wonder if they’re going to surround it with barbed wire first.
I’ll tell you what, I’ve been watching this very closely. And if there was anything to put the Fear of God into me and get me back on the road to preparedness, it’s been Katrina and how we’ve responded to her.
And failed to prepare for it …
Yeah, that too. Especially that.
Re: serious question on this
For a thinly veiled swipe at me, check this: http://www.livejournal.com/users/visgoth/602845.html
Re: serious question on this
see, I don’t agree with that either. I just think that some of these people are propably getting what they deserve. You , I and other LMIs would not allow ourselves to be in that position, no matter what level of poverty or infirm we were reduced to. While it is bullshit they can’t leave when they want, I would be just as happy to not having to compete with these folks for my survial.
Fortunately, I don’t live in an area where I ahve to worry about flood waters (unless it does the 40 days 40 night thing) but this shows that if you live in (or below) a flood plain an inflatible raft in the attic should be part of your survival prepardeness!!
Re: serious question on this
would not allow ourselves to be in that position, no matter what level of poverty or infirm we were reduced to.
OK, you’re starting over this instant, you have no financial assets or possessions, and you’re a quadriplegic. What now? How do you “not allow yourself to be in that position”?
I’m not trying to knock you — I’m asking a serious question. I’d like to be counted among the LMIs one day, and I wonder about preparedness when I’m old and feeble. I’ve already had a taste of a wheelchair. It’s humbling.
Re: serious question on this
planning, planning, planning. I don’t currently plan for the Quad scenerio. My planning does include the ability to bug out without relying on any existing assets.
I know 7 egress routes from my community. I know where there are horse barns on each of those routes. I know the best places to find gas or a vechicle. I know whcih of my neighbors are willing to except riders. I know which neigbors are likely to have a food stash. I know where to go if my stash of tools is lost.
I know which routes are least likely to have road blocks.
I know the best places to find wild game. I know the covert ingress egress point for those. I Hell I know which neghbors have really fat pets if it comes to that.
all that is based on completely losing the resources I have.
As a quad I would immediately develop some workable plan. should it come to turning myself over to the care of a governmetn entity then I would do so with out the expectation of having any control of my future. Once you cede self determination then you can have no expectation on exerting your will back into the process until it is given back to you.
In any survival conditions you plan to make it. The idea is to stay alive and stay free. containment, as guantanadome proves, limits your ability to survive on your terms.
Re: serious question on this
I wasn’t asking you about your level of preparedness *now*, when you have your health. You “would plan” — okay, great, so would I, or at least I’d try, and so far I’m coming up mostly blank.
I figure becoming seriously physically disabled is a lot more likely to happen to me than a natural disaster that levels a city. The former is almost certain — all I have to do is get old enough or have some bad luck. If the disaster happens when I’m in a wheelchair, what the hell? I have no idea how to plan for it. All the survivalists I know are young and able-bodied, and I’ve never heard any of ’em talk about what they’d do if they weren’t. Some day, they won’t be. And it could happen awfully darn suddenly, too. What then? I suppose I could just consider myself expendable in such a scenario, but it sort of seems to miss the point. 🙂
So far, what I’ve come up with is: if all I have left is my brain, make that brain really damned useful, so that people with bodies will trade with me. I can barter my expertise for being carted around. It’s not as independent as I’d like, but I suspect true independence is a lost cause in that scenario.
And if I’m not quadriplegic, be very skilled with my hands. Be able to move at least a little bit without that wheelchair. Be able to put together a plank on wheels from debris I find. It still doesn’t look too good from there, so hopefully there are better potential plans that could be made.
Re: serious question on this
you are spot on. That is all part of the planning. I am not goign to paln at that level becuase I don’t have to. However, know how to plan know gives me the mental agility to plan then.
Re: serious question on this
Fair enough. That’s about the message I’ve gotten from everyone so far: “gee, that’d be a problem.”
I’m glad my life does not (currently) depend on any perishable medications.
I don’t plan on dying young though, so that means I have to survive when old. And hope — hoping to stay healthy, hoping to stay out of the Dome if it were me in NO — hope is not a valid strategy, not unless I back it up with action.
Re: serious question on this
Don’t plan for things that won’t come to pass. It wastes time and creates a fatilistic attitude. I don’t plan for a hurricane becusae I don’t live any where near a body of water. If I was in NO I would not worry about preparing for a 3 day blizzard with antoher week of -30 temps.
I am not crippled, nor do I have to worry about taking care of someone that is. There for it is off my radar screen. Once something like that happens you adapt your plan to fit.
Don’t plan to hope to stay healty, ahve a good first aid kit and a way to prepare safe food and water. Water is usually availalbe in a natural disaster, you just have to have a way to make it drinkable and take your time.
Re: serious question on this
All planning depends on usable capital.
Assuming communication remains, and there is a friendly society: the one source of capital you have left in that scenario is intellectual and entertainment. Assuming people want to deal with you, the entire objective should be to acquire medical care (for whatever regeneration may be required; push stem cell research hard!) and robotics.
Think Stephen Hawking. Same end goals (massive robotics augmentation), just more initial money to work with.
So if you want to prepare for that:
It also doesn’t hurt to invest in prevention:
Re: serious question on this
Also: I’ve spent time on a respirator…and they had to teach me how to breathe before taking me off it.
Re: serious question on this
Ow. So you have experience with thinking about stuff like this.
Re: serious question on this
Trade contents of brain for other stuff like being carried around. *nod* OK. I hadn’t thought of entertainment; that’s an interesting avenue to pursue!
Investing in prevention makes sense as well. I’m already forming a plan about just how much medical education I can give myself. I doubt I’ll ever go to medical school, even if I wanted to ditch my current career, but I can get a fair bit (though more slowly) on my own. Not only would it be good knowledge to have *now*, it’d also potentially be useful brain stuff to trade.
Re: serious question on this
[trade contents of brain]
Analysis, more precisely. AI is much weaker on analogization and insight, than raw memory.
Re: serious question on this
Yeah: “contents” should read “capabilities”.
katrina
was well forcasted where it was going, and how strong it was, yet the mentality of many was to ride it out, and go back to normal. instead, it became the new nightmare for many survivors. what very much can be said is that depending on your government has created a very basic class of idiots willing to go by whatever big government approves of. the survivors are now captives of the state whom can now experiment on them all.
I rather fend for myself than be a captive lab rat!
Anything show up in your mail yet?
And , hey, ever use that ‘nothing gets past 2nd Nephi’ joke?
Yes, thank you – check will be on the way soon.
Yes – it gets a laugh among those in the know!
Re: serious question on this
I’m lurking via, although I also lurk on her blog (which I found via . So I guess this is a lurk of a lurk. 🙂 I’m starting to look into preparedness which is how I ended up here. I don’t want to have to rely on the gov’t to save me in a disaster.
You may be interested in this document from the American Red Cross: http://www.redcross.org/services/disaster/beprepared/prep.html
My youngest brother has Downs Syndrome. Many disabled people have what the ARC refers to as a ‘network’ – a group of people that can be counted on to help in a bad situation. My parents, for instance, maintain ties with several other families in their area that have disabled family members. They all know one another and know how to take care of the disabled people and how to deal with the various disabilities. There are also many neighbors and people in the community (at his school, where he works, and in Special Olympics) who know my brother. He knows that he can go to these people if he has a problem and they will help him, so if there’s ever an emergency and he can’t get to my parents, he has someone to go to no matter where he is.
There are a lot of resources available for the disabled, once you start looking. I’m sure with Katrina a lot of the non-profits who routinely deal with the disabled will bolster their information packets to go more in-depth on how to prepare for longer (more than a day or two) disasters. If you live with a disability (or are close to someone with a disability) it becomes something that you just factor in to your plans. Just like with a “normal” person, the time to gather the information, make decisions, and do the planning is well before the disaster. The only difference is that you may need to do more documentation (such as for med schedules), may need to work with a few more people to make sure your bases are covered, and may need to factor in more time in the case of an evacuation. But if you are dealing with disability in the long term, these are natural extensions of what you deal with and think about every day.
I hope that it doesn’t seem like I’m dismissive of your concerns; rather, it’s just that if it’s something you need to work with, it’s something you work with. You plan for what you need to take care of. You do the best you can with what you’ve got.