Speaker 1: Cool Zone Media, Hi everyone, and welcome to it could
Speaker 1: happen here, a very special edition of It could Happen Here,
Speaker 1: in which we are very lucky to be joined by
Speaker 1: Inland from Lift The World Is Dying and what will
Speaker 1: be the first of many crossover episodes where the folks
Speaker 1: from Strangely Tangled Wouldness are going to share with us
Speaker 1: some of their preparedness advice. Welcome to the show. Would
Speaker 1: like to introduce yourself.
Speaker 2: Yeah, thanks so much for having me, James. I'm in
Speaker 2: Man Marowin and I use they then pronouns, And I'm
Speaker 2: one of the hosts of Love Like the World Is Dying,
Speaker 2: your podcast for What Feels Like the End Times, which
Speaker 2: is a lefty prepper podcast about community and individual preparedness
Speaker 2: for disasters of all kinds. And really excited to be
Speaker 2: on the show with you. Yeah, on a different show,
Speaker 2: because you're on that show with me sometime, which is great.
Speaker 1: I don't know. Yeah, I'm bringing together the two like,
Speaker 1: I'm sure there's a superhero reference I could make here,
Speaker 1: but I don't really understand that wild say I won't.
Speaker 1: I don't either. Great, Okay, two people talking about a
Speaker 1: thing they don't understand that is what podcasts are sometimes,
Speaker 1: but not today. What are we going to talk about today?
Speaker 2: Well, what I'm really excited to talk about today is
Speaker 2: preparedness in general, how community preparedness differs from some more
Speaker 2: conventional modalities, and being really nice with that phrase.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's one way of saying it.
Speaker 2: How individual preparedness fits into community preparedness, and kind of
Speaker 2: about my own journey into prepper stuff or preparedness, which
Speaker 2: might be a new term for some people.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I like to call.
Speaker 2: It preparedness over like prepping as a term sort of
Speaker 2: because like, I don't know, Like if I say I'm
Speaker 2: into prepping, then people start to give me funny looks
Speaker 2: and think I want to live in a bunker with
Speaker 2: a thousand cans of beans and more guns than I
Speaker 2: know what to do with. Yeah, But if I say
Speaker 2: I'm into preparedness, people are like, ooh, I know who
Speaker 2: to call if I need help with something or get
Speaker 2: in a jam, you know. Yeah, Yeah, And it's kind
Speaker 2: of exactly that sentiment that I want listeners to think
Speaker 2: of when they think of preparedness is what connections and
Speaker 2: resources we have for when things go wrong, and how
Speaker 2: we are going to respond to disasters of all kinds
Speaker 2: when we're faced with them, because having a plan kind
Speaker 2: of makes things less scary, you know.
Speaker 1: Yeah, definitely, I feel safeer approaching bad things because I've
Speaker 1: approached bad things with my friends and we have gone
Speaker 1: through them and we've helped other people get through them. Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 2: I also think a lot of people engage in preparedness
Speaker 2: without really realizing this. I feel like i'd ask these
Speaker 2: questions to you on a less rhetorical basis if I
Speaker 2: didn't know them to be true. But for instance, listener,
Speaker 2: do you keep tools and a snack in your car
Speaker 2: in case you break down on the side of the road,
Speaker 2: or if your car won't start? Do you have a
Speaker 2: friend that will take a look at it for you
Speaker 2: and help you fix it. If so, then congratulations, you're
Speaker 2: into preparedness for a very specific kind of disaster. And
Speaker 2: now we just have to figure out how to apply
Speaker 2: that to other disasters, whether it's your car breaking down,
Speaker 2: the climate breaking down, or the world as we know
Speaker 2: it breaking down, because unfortunately, with the world as it
Speaker 2: is right now, as Margaret has said before, we're all
Speaker 2: preppers now. Yeah, I don't know, it's something that makes
Speaker 2: thinking about disaster just less scary, and I think that's
Speaker 2: ultimately kind of one of the best reasons of like
Speaker 2: why we should get into preparedness is because it makes
Speaker 2: things less scary.
Speaker 1: Yeah, definitely, and I think it gives you if you're
Speaker 1: doing it right, And I think this is something we
Speaker 1: can get into, Like you realize how much your community
Speaker 1: can get through if you will have each other rather
Speaker 1: than necessarily the alternative that the other modality that you
Speaker 1: talked about, it is theoretically thinking how much you could
Speaker 1: get through whilst never helping anyone. Yeah, and that's very
Speaker 1: different things. Yeah, yeah, totally.
Speaker 2: And I don't know, listeners, we're talking about kind of
Speaker 2: more traditional like bunker mentality prepping, which we'll get into Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 2: a little bit later, but that is my euphemism so
Speaker 2: far as more conventional modality.
Speaker 1: Yeah, So, like, can you give some ideas of like
Speaker 1: why people might want to get into preparedness, what they
Speaker 1: might want to be prepared for.
Speaker 2: Yeah, absolutely, so many things. The list is kind of endless,
Speaker 2: which is yeah, which is unfortunate, and I don't want
Speaker 2: to overwhelm overwhelm people, but there's just a lot of
Speaker 2: things and new things are emerging every day. But the
Speaker 2: first step of preparedness is kind of identifying what your
Speaker 2: threat model is, or really just asking yourself, you know,
Speaker 2: like what are you personally worried about for yourself or
Speaker 2: for your community, and some kind of like larger categories
Speaker 2: that we can lump that stuff into. Is I feel
Speaker 2: like what comes to mind for people immediately probably is
Speaker 2: natural disasters. They're ever more frequent, They're growing in intensity
Speaker 2: and happening in more places. People who never thought they
Speaker 2: would become climate refugees are now becoming climate refugees. I
Speaker 2: still live on a chunk of land, and like we
Speaker 2: got flooded out. We lived in a hundred year floodplain.
Speaker 2: And like, yeah, I know it's not once every hundred years,
Speaker 2: that's not how it works. But like our time came,
Speaker 2: we got flooded out. Yeah, there's my migration. This could
Speaker 2: be due to climate change, political upheaval, economic reasons, family bigotry,
Speaker 2: and obvious tie into this. Right now is everything going
Speaker 2: on with ice raids where a lot of people are
Speaker 2: being displaced and either trying to return to their homes
Speaker 2: or find new ones. And there's also like I don't know,
Speaker 2: there's like a lot of people like in more conservative
Speaker 2: states in the US, who for instance, are trans or
Speaker 2: have trans people that are in their family or in
Speaker 2: their close friend group and are deciding whether they need
Speaker 2: to move somewhere else or at least come up with
Speaker 2: an escape plan if things get worse where they are,
Speaker 2: And the same is true for like, I don't know,
Speaker 2: maintaining access to abortion. Everything is very different in very
Speaker 2: different places or very close spaces, even in the United States,
Speaker 2: And so I think a lot of people who never
Speaker 2: thought they'd need to think about migration are now thinking
Speaker 2: about it. Yeah.
Speaker 1: A big problem with how migration is reported on in
Speaker 1: America is that like people who are migrants have seen
Speaker 1: as like some kind of subcategory of humans, you know, totally. Yeah,
Speaker 1: if you're a person who can get pregnant, and you're
Speaker 1: a person who might consider, in whatever circumstances, accessing abortion,
Speaker 1: then in some states you need to be prepared to
Speaker 1: become a migrant, like a yeah, relatively very short notice, right,
Speaker 1: Like it's something that we're all closer to than we think. Yeah. Absolutely.
Speaker 2: Another big one is kind of like larger economic, social,
Speaker 2: or political collapse, you know, simply meaning that like the
Speaker 2: structures of the world, no longer mean what they used
Speaker 2: to mean. This could mean the collapse of capitalism or
Speaker 2: capitalism turning more into like literal corporate feudalism. Another big
Speaker 2: one is I'm just have this broad category of war.
Speaker 2: This could be an invasion, a civil war, a revolution,
Speaker 2: a rise in right wing militias, another rise in right
Speaker 2: wing militias, whatever. I'm kind of neglecting some more fantastical
Speaker 2: apocalypses that I'm sure we can all imagine, but there
Speaker 2: are those we might wake up as fungus, you know
Speaker 2: who can say. And then lastly, there's the current disaster
Speaker 2: that is late stage capitalism. And this one is the
Speaker 2: one that I spend the most time thinking about because
Speaker 2: it's the one that's ever present in our lives currently
Speaker 2: and kind of informs and maybe creates a lot of
Speaker 2: the other larger threats I just mentioned, Yeah, except becoming fungus.
Speaker 1: Well yet yeah maybe, Yeah, we're doing a lot with
Speaker 1: the the old whatever rfkas into idea of Ministry of health.
Speaker 1: It's not cool that health and human services. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: think this is the one that, like, this is a
Speaker 1: disaster that people don't often like see because it's slow. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it kills us slowly rather than quick and it kills
Speaker 1: us quickly. Yeah, talking of killing us slowly in it
Speaker 1: my obligation to pivot to adverts is slowly killing my
Speaker 1: soul that I have to do it anyway.
Speaker 2: Yeah, we this is new for me. We don't have
Speaker 2: these little livel like the world that is dying.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I know. I thought i'd take the first time.
Speaker 1: I'm going to leave the second one up to you.
Speaker 1: You can have a swing at it. All right, thank
Speaker 1: you Products and Services for supporting this show. We are back. Imen.
Speaker 1: Let's break it down for people in like a very
Speaker 1: basic sense. If that's okay, how do we start being
Speaker 1: more prepared? Like I imagine the first step would be to
Speaker 1: immediately go to a federal firearms license. Se is that right? Yes?
Speaker 2: That is that is the first step. It is to
Speaker 2: fill your bunker with guns. No, that's that's not the
Speaker 2: first step because you can eat them. Yes, and no
Speaker 2: jokes aside. So the first step we just talked about
Speaker 2: it before that break is determine your threat. You know,
Speaker 2: in the case of let's use earthquakes as an example.
Speaker 2: If you live somewhere with earthquakes, then your threat model
Speaker 2: should probably include earthquakes, you might prepare for earthquakes more
Speaker 2: than you might prepare for wildfires too. The second step
Speaker 2: is make a plan, which means like, when there's an earthquake,
Speaker 2: you're going to do X and Y and meet so
Speaker 2: and so at blank. Yeah, you can also include not
Speaker 2: living somewhere with earthquakes anymore as part of your make
Speaker 2: a plan, because maybe that's just the one thing you
Speaker 2: don't want to deal with. The next part is acquire
Speaker 2: the parts of the plan and so like, if your
Speaker 2: plan includes resources, which everyone's plan should include a go bag,
Speaker 2: an escape route, and any kind of equipment that you need.
Speaker 2: And at this point you're mostly ready. I maybe would
Speaker 2: add to collaborate with others. And then this step gets
Speaker 2: missed a lot. But at this point, since you're mostly ready,
Speaker 2: hopefully you can let go of some anxiety and despair.
Speaker 2: You've done the hardest part, which is to get started,
Speaker 2: and hopefully you can we can feel comfort in that
Speaker 2: if we can't forestall a disaster, that we can at
Speaker 2: least be ready for it, and then act on the plan,
Speaker 2: do the thing, and assess what you can do better
Speaker 2: next time. Yeah, that's those are my basic steps. Yeah,
Speaker 2: it is makes it seem also simple.
Speaker 1: It's so simple. Yeah, obviously we will spend a love
Speaker 1: time in the next few months breaking down each of
Speaker 1: those steps and explaining them for people. Yeah. Yeah, Like
Speaker 1: I live in a place where wildfires are common. In
Speaker 1: my time living in California, I've been evacuated for a
Speaker 1: couple of fires. I've had an earthquake, you know, I've
Speaker 1: had a fewer than natural disasters. Of course, earth quake
Speaker 1: channels had become fives they did in San Francisco. But yeah,
Speaker 1: it would not make sense if you live where I
Speaker 1: live to not have a plan for that. You would
Speaker 1: be being naive. Yeah, it's that like a story like
Speaker 1: that for you, Like, is there a thing did you
Speaker 1: did you? Like, you know, have to evacuate for a
Speaker 1: wildfire and you couldn't find your shoes like what?
Speaker 2: So one of my funny things was living on this
Speaker 2: land project and like we were we were experiencing a flood.
Speaker 2: We were experiencing what could have very easily been a
Speaker 2: flash flood, and I was trying to just convince people
Speaker 2: to leave, and I had a hard time convincing people
Speaker 2: to leave. Yeah, Like there was like water up to
Speaker 2: our chests and this is my answer now, But my
Speaker 2: answer that I wrote about for this episode is so
Speaker 2: a little bit of preliad. In the first episode of
Speaker 2: Live Like the World Is Dying, Margaret talks with Kittie
Speaker 2: Striker about anarchists, and Margaret talks about the possibilities that
Speaker 2: she's preparing for, which she identifies as kind of these
Speaker 2: four possibilities, living like the world is going to end,
Speaker 2: and that we might not survive, living like the world
Speaker 2: is going to end, and we can try to survive,
Speaker 2: living like we can prevent the end of the world,
Speaker 2: and then maybe trying to live like the world isn't
Speaker 2: going to end after all. And I got into preparedness
Speaker 2: for a lot of reasons, some of which evolved over time.
Speaker 2: It went from something that felt scary to something that
Speaker 2: feels comforting, and I hope that it can become comforting
Speaker 2: for other people. I hope that's where a lot of
Speaker 2: you can land who are listening who are either new
Speaker 2: to the concept or think that prepping is only for
Speaker 2: people who expect to need to survive for thirty years
Speaker 2: in a bunker after a nuclear, zombie, bio apokarev or whatever,
Speaker 2: eating canned beans. I'm really harping on this image because
Speaker 2: I think it's what a lot of people think of
Speaker 2: when they think of prepping. You know, beans bunker, a
Speaker 2: little battie, and the fourth maybe lesser known one billionaires
Speaker 2: or the four bees of the apocalypse, as I want
Speaker 2: to think about them, to kind of confront this as
Speaker 2: like a word, this like apocalypse. There's a lot of
Speaker 2: different kinds of apocalypses, and whether we like it or not,
Speaker 2: if it isn't already here, it's coming. And for some
Speaker 2: people it's coming swiftly, for others it's slowly, but it
Speaker 2: is coming. And billionaires are preparing for it, even if
Speaker 2: they want us to think their tech will save the world.
Speaker 2: They have all the money and resources, and they are
Speaker 2: still worried. And while they'll try to use their money
Speaker 2: in power to kind of escape the consequences becoming a
Speaker 2: billionaire has had on the world, most people probably don't
Speaker 2: have access to those kinds of resources. But what we
Speaker 2: all do have access to our social and community ties,
Speaker 2: even if it might not seem like that now. And oddly,
Speaker 2: these social ties are things that billionaires often lack, or
Speaker 2: doubt the authenticity of, or just can't comprehend Yeah, there's
Speaker 2: this article by Douglas Ruscoff. This tech consultant who gets
Speaker 2: flown out to the desert to talk to rich people
Speaker 2: about collapse, and he's surprised because they don't really ask
Speaker 2: him about tech stuff. They ask him about like maintaining
Speaker 2: social control over the people that work for them when
Speaker 2: money no longer means anything. And I'm like, I don't know,
Speaker 2: do maybe make like more authentic friendships, you know?
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, yeah, maybe don't rely on having people so
Speaker 1: subservient to you.
Speaker 2: Yeah, But I think this kind of air quotes conundrum
Speaker 2: speaks a lot to people's fears about collapse and is
Speaker 2: what gets people into a bunker mentality. You know, everyone's
Speaker 2: worried about roving bands of armed people taking what they've
Speaker 2: prepared for their own survival. And I think that is
Speaker 2: a fantasy that we don't really see happen in real
Speaker 2: life as often as we might think.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I've reported from plenty of natural and human created disasters.
Speaker 1: Actually it is the opposite of that. Like, we can
Speaker 1: talk about this another time, but it's one of the
Speaker 1: reasons I can keep doing it. Like, despite being hugely traumatic,
Speaker 1: is it's actually incredible how much people go out of
Speaker 1: their way when they're thoroughly miserable to help other people
Speaker 1: who they see is needing help. Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's a really beautiful thing. Yeah, to be a
Speaker 2: little bit of a word nerd real quick. I feel
Speaker 2: like everyone who talks about prepping has talked about the
Speaker 2: etymological origins of the word apocalypse. But it is very
Speaker 2: interesting and I think it's relevant, which is like, Okay,
Speaker 2: it's from these two Greek words appo and colliptine, which
Speaker 2: means like often to conceal, and so like a more
Speaker 2: literal translation of it is a revealing and I think
Speaker 2: that disaster really reveals things. It reveals the ways that
Speaker 2: society has really like bailed. It reveals the consequences of
Speaker 2: what living in a corporate oligarchy looks like. And it
Speaker 2: also reveals like what beautiful and powerful things people have
Speaker 2: built as communities and prepared for to give like a
Speaker 2: little bit of a positive spin on a grim, grim
Speaker 2: grim word.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Now, Like when I think about that, I think
Speaker 1: about like two years ago, I was in the Marshal
Speaker 1: Islands right where like the apocalypse has come, right, the
Speaker 1: atomic bomb has dropped on the Marshal Islands. The United States.
Speaker 1: We did that, and the sea levels a rising such
Speaker 1: that like children born there today won't die there, right,
Speaker 1: they probably won't even have their own children there, you know,
Speaker 1: twenty thirty forty years left, and I didn't see like
Speaker 1: people fighting each other for the highest point of land. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I saw people taking care of one another, thinking about
Speaker 1: how like not just like that individual, you know, they
Speaker 1: could maintain their assets, but how their community could survive,
Speaker 1: how their culture could survive, and you know, how they
Speaker 1: could keep the things the incredible hospitality is so special
Speaker 1: to them, which I thought was like very revealing compared
Speaker 1: to this sort of mindset that you see more conventionally
Speaker 1: in like prempa spaces. Yeah. Absolutely.
Speaker 2: And to finally get to my own kind of little
Speaker 2: journey into preparedness, Yeah, I wasn't a prepper until like
Speaker 2: not that long ago.
Speaker 1: Really. Yeah.
Speaker 2: When I first heard Live Like the World Is Dying,
Speaker 2: it was twenty twenty. COVID was still new. There was
Speaker 2: like extreme civil unrest because there was an uprising going
Speaker 2: on and the same fascist that's our sitting president now
Speaker 2: was our president then, and he was backed up by
Speaker 2: people like Kyle Rittenhouse who were gunning people down in
Speaker 2: streets for protesting a racist murder where I lived in
Speaker 2: entire mountain range was also on fire. Yeah, and the
Speaker 2: idea that it was the coolest summer I might ever
Speaker 2: remember was still setting in. And then I heard about
Speaker 2: Margaret doing live like the World Is Dying, and I
Speaker 2: actually refused to listen to it because I knew with
Speaker 2: every fiber of my body that things were irrevocably different,
Speaker 2: and I wanted to stick my head in the sand,
Speaker 2: you know, like, not because I was scared, but because
Speaker 2: getting prepared is overwhelming, and I didn't have any clue
Speaker 2: where to begin. Like I was a scrappy punk. I
Speaker 2: didn't have like thousands of dollars to spend on gear
Speaker 2: and stockpiling food and guns and shit, you know. Yeah,
Speaker 2: And so it felt for a while like preparedness was
Speaker 2: only for people who had a lot of money, and
Speaker 2: that I'd be left behind. But I did eventually listen
Speaker 2: to the show because Margaret's my friend and I trusted
Speaker 2: she had good things to say, and because it was
Speaker 2: a show about beginnings and I needed one. And so
Speaker 2: as I listened, I slowly started to warm up to
Speaker 2: the idea that preparedness wasn't just necessary, but that it
Speaker 2: was also very much within my reach, especially in the
Speaker 2: framework of community preparedness. Yeah, and you know who can
Speaker 2: tell you a lot about community preparedness.
Speaker 1: Who's that? I think these lovely sponsors.
Speaker 2: Or advertisements or products that we're about to hear about.
Speaker 1: I sure hope. So we are back. There was a
Speaker 1: fantastic ad transition, first of many. Hopefully it wasn't like
Speaker 1: apparently beginning ads for like some kind of gold company
Speaker 1: that is also sanctioned by God God that that is,
Speaker 1: just just to be clear, not the way to go
Speaker 1: in terms of community preparedness that the precious Metals route.
Speaker 1: This one we're not advising here. Can you explain the
Speaker 1: difference between those two modalities, because I think, yeah, like
Speaker 1: I still when Margaret was asking me if I wanted
Speaker 1: to do live like the World is dying, she was like, oh,
Speaker 1: because James is like when we did an episode together,
Speaker 1: Ande go back. She's like, oh, ye, James, like at
Speaker 1: Lefty Prepper a community preparing And I was like, WHOA,
Speaker 1: that's not me. I'm not going to be on the
Speaker 1: Discovery Channel show, you know, like where do people shoot
Speaker 1: themselves on camera? But Noy didn't too clearly kill themselves
Speaker 1: that they handle their firearms in an unsafe manner and
Speaker 1: hurt themselves totally. So let's explain, like, let's break down
Speaker 1: the good and the bad.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and there's kind of a tension between them, yeah,
Speaker 2: and between like what I'll call community preparedness and like
Speaker 2: bunker syndrome prepping.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: So the image that prepping brings to mind for a
Speaker 2: lot of people is like a right wing alpha dude
Speaker 2: in a bunker with a dragon horde of preserved food
Speaker 2: and more guns than anyone could ever use. It's like
Speaker 2: an image of one person against the world. And I'm
Speaker 2: kind of like, Okay, your fantasy apocalypse happens. You survive
Speaker 2: the nuclear apocalypse, Armed gangs rove the wastelands, food is
Speaker 2: hoarded and fought over, and you're protecting your bunker and
Speaker 2: then what, you know, what happens next? How do you
Speaker 2: build back a world alone? What is the world if
Speaker 2: you're alone? And not only like we've talked about that,
Speaker 2: we mentioned this earlier, but like, I don't I think
Speaker 2: this is not only like a fantasy, but it's not
Speaker 2: what happens. I think historically in disasters and the way
Speaker 2: that we can make it through disasters, I think is
Speaker 2: not based on how many resources we have hoarded, but
Speaker 2: based on our abilities to make and maintain community friendship
Speaker 2: and connections. You know, it's a trope, but the real
Speaker 2: horde in the bunker was the friendship all along, you know,
Speaker 2: I don't know, Yeah, but you know, we do need
Speaker 2: to learn how to produce and preserve food and build stuff.
Speaker 2: We just don't have to do it alone in a disaster.
Speaker 2: Our greatest resource is help from people that we care
Speaker 2: about and potential new friends. And it's sort of the
Speaker 2: overwhelming amount of skills that come with the bunker syndrome
Speaker 2: that I think causes a lot of people to become
Speaker 2: overwhelmed by starting to prepare. And the traditional prepper community,
Speaker 2: it's it's very right wing conservative, and it really makes
Speaker 2: it seem like every single person has to learn every
Speaker 2: skill they could possibly need in order to get prepared. Yeah,
Speaker 2: And I think part of that kind of bunker syndrome
Speaker 2: is also maybe that you have to learn all that
Speaker 2: stuff on your own because you low key think that
Speaker 2: everyone you know is going to turn on you, you know.
Speaker 1: Right, Yeah, because you've been an odious piece of shit
Speaker 1: for your entire life.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And again, make better friends, you know.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Like I used to think that like preparedness was
Speaker 1: a lot of people who'd never really experienced genuine hardship,
Speaker 1: wondering what it might be like probably is, yeah, a
Speaker 1: lot of it is, right because like if you've been
Speaker 1: just like poor or otherwise facing like like trans folks
Speaker 1: right now, right even like anyone really in their LGBTQIA area,
Speaker 1: Like it's scary right now, and you've probably found that
Speaker 1: the things are keeping going to other people, yeah, and
Speaker 1: not your pile of beans. And like I certainly have
Speaker 1: not experienced what transfercts are experiencing, but like I've had
Speaker 1: some difficult times and I've been poor, and like it's
Speaker 1: always been like other people who have come through for me,
Speaker 1: not stuff I had or even skills I have, really, Yeah,
Speaker 1: And I think there's this real divide between like there's
Speaker 1: people who are in fantasy bunker land, and then there's
Speaker 1: people who are like, yeah, either too afraid to think
Speaker 1: about preparedness or feel too overwhelmed to think about it,
Speaker 1: or think that yeah, they can't possibly do it because
Speaker 1: it's too far gone already. And I think preparedness is
Speaker 1: for everyone, you know, like we say start small, put
Speaker 1: food away every week, start to get your go back together.
Speaker 1: Just start. Yeah.
Speaker 2: And so to maybe now to find like what community
Speaker 2: preparedness is is. I think that it's what we get
Speaker 2: when we take a lot of different prins and mash
Speaker 2: them together.
Speaker 1: You know, there's like.
Speaker 2: It's like part mutual aid, it's part individual preparedness. It's
Speaker 2: principles of autonomy, solidarity, direct action, and collective decision making,
Speaker 2: and it's all synthesized into a kind of.
Speaker 1: A beautiful little alchemy. Yeah.
Speaker 2: It's kind of the most like anarchistic thing you can do,
Speaker 2: which is really fun to me.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: And I think it really means investing in the people
Speaker 2: around you so that you can all invest in collective survival.
Speaker 2: And I know we mentioned this earlier, but like there's
Speaker 2: this thing that happens during disasters that gets referred to
Speaker 2: as disaster communism.
Speaker 1: Yeah, have you heard that one? Yeah? Yeah. It doesn't
Speaker 1: mean that like Lenin emerges and leads a vanguard group
Speaker 1: to show you where the pupercation's at.
Speaker 2: No, no, no, no, It means that the logic of
Speaker 2: capital is kind of temporarily suspended and people just help
Speaker 2: each other for free, not even for barter for free,
Speaker 2: and like people like go out and just give out
Speaker 2: stuff they have in excess, even if they purchased it,
Speaker 2: and even if they're like you don't look like the
Speaker 2: kind of people I like, just give.
Speaker 1: It out, yeah, one hundred percent, Like yeah, I think,
Speaker 1: like I can think of a few, Like I can
Speaker 1: remember when thousands of people were being housed outside in
Speaker 1: the cold and when wet at the border house is
Speaker 1: not the word I would use, corlt in the desert.
Speaker 1: I was out there with my friends and like we
Speaker 1: looked like dirty crusspunk people, right, Like we were not
Speaker 1: like clean and well put together in that sense, right,
Speaker 1: Like we just scruffed totally, and that's fine, and I
Speaker 1: like being scrubbed. Yeah that's nice. But like, yeah, it
Speaker 1: was amazing to see like folks who one hundred percent
Speaker 1: do not have the same politics as me, like roll
Speaker 1: out and whatever, like set ups you know they had
Speaker 1: and like be like, yo, this is fucked luckily, Like
Speaker 1: I have some stuff that I was going to use
Speaker 1: for a barbecue next week, so I will drag my
Speaker 1: barbecue out here and cook for people or like yeah,
Speaker 1: you know people who cook for their church's bake sale,
Speaker 1: being like I have a giant ass pot, Like let
Speaker 1: me make some beans for you guys, you know, Like, yeah,
Speaker 1: I think people would be so surprised, And it's great
Speaker 1: that people have not experienced that, like because I think
Speaker 1: it's quite a traumatic thing to experience, but they get
Speaker 1: you'd be so surprised how how much? Or like I
Speaker 1: remember one time just building shelters with a bunch of people,
Speaker 1: and like everyone was pretty miserable rates of cold and windy,
Speaker 1: and like there were some Kourdish guys that uspect guys,
Speaker 1: some Chinese guys, and we're building these shelters together and
Speaker 1: like all of these people who didn't even share a language,
Speaker 1: and we're going through very difficult times. We're just like
Speaker 1: nerding out on knots together rare and just helping each
Speaker 1: other and then not doing that so they could sleep inside,
Speaker 1: doing that so little children wouldn't have to sleep in
Speaker 1: the cold. But yeah, that's the way humans behave in
Speaker 1: these situations, and capitalism or YouTube might have convinced you
Speaker 1: it's not like it is.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And I think like more traditional preppers really like
Speaker 2: get into it too, Like they'll show up, they're like
Speaker 2: I got forty chainsaws, are like like it's like every
Speaker 2: like Chud Truck's time to shine to like haul away
Speaker 2: raggage and the like. I don't know, you know, it's
Speaker 2: like I'm making it sound exciting, but what's exciting is
Speaker 2: when people collaborate autonomously and collectively for like more good
Speaker 2: than their own.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: And then kind of the problem is that like capitalism
Speaker 2: comes back in the initial fallout fads from sight and yeah,
Speaker 2: just because the disaster kind of fades doesn't mean it's gone.
Speaker 2: And there's a lot of people who kind of still
Speaker 2: have to deal with it for potentially ever. Yeah, And
Speaker 2: that's kind of like the disaster of light stage capitalism
Speaker 2: is similar. We have people who are constantly invisibilized even
Speaker 2: though it's part of their regular lives.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Can I maybe break down some of these terms that
Speaker 2: are maybe.
Speaker 1: It can be good for people, Yeah, Yeah, because I
Speaker 1: think they get thrown around about right totally.
Speaker 2: So, Mutual aid is knowing that any help that we
Speaker 2: give our community helps us by strengthening our strengthening our community.
Speaker 2: Autonomy is deciding what's best for us based on what
Speaker 2: we know about ourselves and our needs. Solidarity is unity
Speaker 2: through action and knowing that, like it's like the you know,
Speaker 2: I got your back even if you don't got mine.
Speaker 2: You know, direct action is working directly to achieve our
Speaker 2: goals instead of waiting for someone else to do it.
Speaker 2: You know, we see this in disasters like don't wait
Speaker 2: for FEMA. There's like so many people who are just
Speaker 2: out there doing autonomous relief efforts and it's incredible collective
Speaker 2: decision making, finding ways to make decisions together in ways
Speaker 2: where power isn't being like abused or accumulated. And then
Speaker 2: there's individual preparedness, which is kind of the last little
Speaker 2: thing I want to talk about. So individual preparedness is
Speaker 2: kind of like the ways that we prepare individually so
Speaker 2: that when a disaster strikes, we have our basic needs
Speaker 2: met and you know, there's a lot to learn. So
Speaker 2: it's like it's easy to get lost back in that
Speaker 2: overwhelm mentality. Yeah, but I think we can really think
Speaker 2: about it in terms of disaster since we're on that track. Like,
Speaker 2: if there's a disaster and power goes out, then the
Speaker 2: roads are less traversible. If you have all of your
Speaker 2: needs met through individual preparedness, then you're in a really
Speaker 2: good position to go help others and if everyone in
Speaker 2: your community already has prepared for their basic needs, then
Speaker 2: your whole community is prepared to take kind of the
Speaker 2: next step towards recovery. And it means that your community
Speaker 2: can now help other communities that were less prepared or
Speaker 2: more impacted by a disaster, even if they thought.
Speaker 1: They were prepared.
Speaker 2: Community preparedness is like what happens when we kind of
Speaker 2: mash all of these ideas together and start doing it
Speaker 2: not just as an individual but as a community. And
Speaker 2: this can look small or it can look big, you know,
Speaker 2: And I think a lot of people's biggest hurdle is
Speaker 2: just like kind of making a plan. And like, I
Speaker 2: don't know, your disaster plan might include you and the
Speaker 2: people you live with. It might include you and your polycule,
Speaker 2: It might include you and your whole block, and it
Speaker 2: might include your whole neighborhood. And I think there's just
Speaker 2: this like big, beautiful spectrum. And to kind of carry
Speaker 2: an example through, like some interviews that we've done on
Speaker 2: a livef the world is dying. Someone's measure of individual
Speaker 2: preparedness might include having a radio when cell networks go down,
Speaker 2: and anothers might include building communication infrastructure that they can distribute,
Speaker 2: and another maybe smaller groups idea might be agreeing on
Speaker 2: a place to meet up because they don't have radios,
Speaker 2: can't afford them, don't know how they work, and they've
Speaker 2: just said when shit hits the fan, we're meeting at
Speaker 2: the library.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's still a whole love better than like dashing
Speaker 1: around on town wondering where the people you love are. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: and it's that easy.
Speaker 2: You know, we get overwhelmed by tech, but there's so
Speaker 2: many low tech solutions to a lot of these problems.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, that's why we're doing an episode on carry
Speaker 1: a pigeon. Yeah, carrier pigeons. Are they extinct? That's passenger pigeons,
Speaker 1: different pigeons, passenger visions. Yeah. Yeah, So, like, what are
Speaker 1: some basic ways we can we can think about preparedness
Speaker 1: And we're going to cover these in more detail, right,
Speaker 1: we'll do episodes on each of these. But maybe someone's like, well, shit,
Speaker 1: I would like to get on that. What are some
Speaker 1: things people can work on? Yeah?
Speaker 2: I think it does start with kind of individual preparedness.
Speaker 2: And when I say individual, I mean, like, you know,
Speaker 2: for ourselves, But that doesn't mean we can't do individual preparedness.
Speaker 2: Parallel and like with other people. So don't think of
Speaker 2: individual as being alone. It's just we're thinking about your
Speaker 2: specific basic needs. It's and so here's kind of a
Speaker 2: checklist that we put out in a zine for strangers
Speaker 2: in a tangled wilderness called Ready for Anything. There's documentation
Speaker 2: you know, get or renewed documentation like passports, DOACA, other
Speaker 2: status cards, whatever. Get a driver's license from your state
Speaker 2: if you are undocumented, If you have other kind of
Speaker 2: permits like concealed carry permits, or medical documentation for you
Speaker 2: and your pets. Get all of those together. And you
Speaker 2: want to think about having both physical and digital backups
Speaker 2: of those things, Yeah, because digital might not work. You
Speaker 2: want to do some kind of basic just supply preparedness,
Speaker 2: which is, store three days or three weeks of food,
Speaker 2: store three days or three weeks of water, Store enough
Speaker 2: portable power to keep your phone and other essentials charged
Speaker 2: for three days or three weeks. Build yourself a go bag,
Speaker 2: stockpile prescription medication you need, keep your vehicle in good
Speaker 2: running condition with at least half a tank of gas,
Speaker 2: and get kind of any equipment stuff that you might
Speaker 2: want now because it's going to be wildly unavailable when
Speaker 2: a disaster does come.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: And then on the community side, get to know your neighbors,
Speaker 2: plan with them, help them with documentation and preparedness components.
Speaker 2: Make sure vulnerable neighbors know that you are a potential resource.
Speaker 2: Connect with activist groups locally. Build an affinity group. Maybe
Speaker 2: you and your friends are really into communication infrastructure, and
Speaker 2: when a disaster does strike, you just have that ready
Speaker 2: to go while you know some other affinity group is
Speaker 2: making sure that everyone's fed. Divide and conquer. I don't
Speaker 2: like that phrase, but it works right now, Make a
Speaker 2: plan for securely communicating and make plans for meeting up
Speaker 2: when things go wrong. And even when things kind of
Speaker 2: go wrong with your plan, you know, have a backup plan.
Speaker 1: Yeah, primary, alternate, contingency and emergency plan if you want
Speaker 1: to use the cringe military acronym. Yeah.
Speaker 2: And then these are some kind of questions that I
Speaker 2: think you can ask your community when you're trying to
Speaker 2: think about building resiliency. What disasters are dangerous do you
Speaker 2: feel like you're likely to face How can you maintain
Speaker 2: access to food, water, and communication? How will you interact
Speaker 2: with other groups? What skills do you currently have? What
Speaker 2: skills do you wish you had? Can you learn those skills?
Speaker 2: How will you foster care and address specific needs of
Speaker 2: individuals in your community? How will your community defend itself?
Speaker 2: And how can we resist despair and maintain access to joy?
Speaker 2: Which I think that last one really gets lost a lot.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, people forget about that one, but it's important
Speaker 1: even in like really dark places, like I've attended civil wars, right,
Speaker 1: Like maintaining access to joways important. Like I've sat with
Speaker 1: people in Kurdistan and sung songs and played tempbole, which
Speaker 1: is like I think the English word is ood. It's
Speaker 1: an instrument and wild drones were vomited and so we
Speaker 1: didn't want to go outside at night gy and like,
Speaker 1: let me tell you, it's a lot better if you
Speaker 1: have people to sing songs with and sitting on your own.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm putting a song bock in my go back now,
Speaker 2: that's that's happening.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: These people had a folder, like they came equipped with
Speaker 1: like laminated shit, like they were ready to rock. Golly. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's kind of what I got, you know. Yeah, that's
Speaker 1: a great place for people to start, and we're going
Speaker 1: to be covering a lot more of this stuff, so
Speaker 1: like you will hear more about water and food and
Speaker 1: all the other things that we spoke about. Will try
Speaker 1: and do at least one of these episodes a month,
Speaker 1: and then where can people find you if they have questions,
Speaker 1: if they want to listen to other episodes, maybe if
Speaker 1: the world is dying or otherwise reach out.
Speaker 2: Yeah, if you want to hear more about anything that
Speaker 2: I've talked about, then you can listen to Live Like
Speaker 2: the World Is Dying wherever you get podcasts, where an
Speaker 2: entirely listener supported podcast with zero ad breaks. And you
Speaker 2: can find more of what our publishers, Strangers and a
Speaker 2: Tangled Wilderness does, including books and other podcasts we put
Speaker 2: out at Tangled Wilderness dot org. Or you can support
Speaker 2: us on Patreon dot com slash Strangers and a Tangled Wilderness.
Speaker 2: And if you want to ask me personally about things,
Speaker 2: you can find me on Instagram at Shadowtale Artificery, where
Speaker 2: you can see other stuff that I do that isn't
Speaker 2: this cool?
Speaker 1: Thank you? Yeah, thanks? It could happen here is a
Speaker 1: production of cool Zone Media.
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Speaker 1: Thanks for listening,