John Mosby: Guerrilla Gunfighter Volume Two Now Available

I lost track of this item coming available. I knew that John Mosby of Mountain Guerrilla had finished this second volume of his Guerrilla Gunfighter series, but at that time it was not yet available on Lulu.com where he publishes his books. Here is Guerrilla Gunfighter Volume Two: Preparedness Rifle and Carbine. $60 plus shipping and tax.

Mountain Guerrilla Blog author “John Mosby” is back, with the second book in the Guerrilla Gunfighter series. Focused on practical, general-purpose applications of the rifle and carbine, this book includes critical issues such as positions, trigger control, multiple target scenarios, and drills for training for real-world use. Learn to shoot your rifle or carbine faster and more accurately. Covers not just modern semi-auto fighting rifles, but lever actions and pump guns as well. Whether you’re a new prepper, an old survivalist, or a militia member trying to make your group better, this book has everything you need to begin building a coherent training plan.

8/29/19 Update: As usual, Viking Preparedness has done a review of John Mosby’s new book. Both Mountain Guerrilla and Viking Preparedness have Patreon pages if you want to support them financially.

Black Man with a Gun: That’s Crazy Talk

David Cole at Black Man with a Gun has a short article up on mental health and red flag laws titled That’s Crazy Talk.

I was recently listening to a talk given by my friend Cheryl Todd of Gun Freedom Radio on the topic of “red flag laws,” and she said something that caught my ear. She was explaining the difficulty that trained psychology and psychiatry professionals have in predicting violent behavior, and said “we suck at it.”

Minority Report is fiction, you know.

She’s absolutely right. It does not take much research to discover that it is in fact extremely difficult to predict violent behavior in even those clinically diagnosed…by professionals…as mentally ill. It is also a widely recognized fact that mental illness does not automatically mean someone is dangerous.

So why would we get in such a big hurry to take guns from people suspected of being dangerous, as assessed by the untrained non-professional…when the professionals admit that they “suck at it,” and that the vast majority of legitimately mentally ill people are not dangerous?

And why, if the mental health of the person is in question, do “red flag laws” confiscate the gun(s) but not the person? If the person is suspected of being dangerous, why should they not be immediately confined for assessment by mental health professionals? If their mental health were really that important to us, wouldn’t we want to see that they receive immediate care? And if the safety of those around them were truly the priority, how effective is it to just confiscate the guns we know about, while leaving the supposed dangerous person free to a gun we missed, obtain a replacement gun, or substitute another weapon to commit violence? After all, you could even leave the guns right where they are if you simply take the dangerous person away from them and into treatment.

Seems like there’s an awful lot of holes in that red flag.

You just know what she’s going to do if she gets out…

It is because it actually has nothing to do with mental health or violence prevention, and everything to do with removing as many guns as possible from the hands of free, law-abiding citizens. There are already plenty of laws on the books to prohibit criminals, addicts, and those who have been legally designated as mentally ill from possessing guns. But “red flag laws” are nothing more than an attempt to throw the largest possible net over as many gun owners as possible, without the due process guaranteed by the Constitution.

And that’s crazy talk.

Charles Carroll Society: El Paso & Dayton Shootings

From Honest & fair coverage of El Paso & Dayton shootings at the Charles Carroll Society:

El Paso, Texas. El Paso, Texas is right across the Mexican border and the town of Ciudad Juárez. I have visited both. Ciudad Juárez is one of the most violent cities in the entire Northern hemisphere. In El Paso, 21-year-old Patrick Crusius, who is a white nationalist terrorist, attacked a Walmart Supercenter near the Cielo Vista Mall. Patrick Crusius used Wassenaar Arrangement Semi-automatic Rifles (WASR-10), AK-47 style civilian rifles. The civilian version is strictly semi-automatic; one trigger pull, one bullet. Just like nearly every gun in America. He had standard-size magazines (30 rounds). For some strange reason, he was wearing ear protection. Patrick Crusius murdered 20 random people and wounded 26 others in about 20 minutes. About half of those are still in the hospital. Patrick Crusius surrendered to cops.

We call Patrick Crusius a white nationalist terrorist because he left a manifesto titled The Inconvenient Truth. I have read the manifesto but have decided not to publish it. It has nothing significantly new to say. He said the Christchurch mosque shooter Brenton Tarrant inspired him. Patrick Crusius’ primary thread in his manifesto is that uncontrolled migration to America by mostly Hispanics, who vote for the Democratic Party 70% of the time, will pull the entire nation into a one-party domination like we have in California. He faults the Democratic Party for encouraging this, and he blames the Republican Party, mainly Republican business interests, for doing nothing to stop this. Thus Patrick Crusius felt his only response is violence. He said, “…America is rotting from the inside out, and peaceful means to stop this seem to be nearly impossible. The inconvenient truth is that our leaders, both Democrat AND Republican, have been failing us for decades.”…

Dayton Ohio. The Dayton, Ohio, shooter is 24-year-old Connor Betts of Bellbrook, Ohio, law enforcement officials told CBS News, and a law enforcement official confirmed this with The Daily Beast. Dayton, Ohio, is near the massive Wright-Patterson Air Force Base. I have also visited this city. He killed nine people and wounded 26 more. The shooting happened outside of a country bar known as Ned Peppers Bar, a popular nightclub, located at, 419 E 5th St, in Dayton, OH, in the city’s Oregon Historic District. There are reports that he was killed trying to enter Ned Peppers country Bar. In general, White Nationalists do not go to where White people hang out and shoot up the place. They tend to go to synagogues, Sikh temples and Black baptist churches.

It is being reported and celebrated on the dark corners of the Internet that of the nine people murdered, six were black, three white, including his sister. Since the shooting happened so fast, it is unknown if he was aiming for black men and women, or they just happened to be the first people he encountered. The Dayton Police Chief says he “does not believe it was racially motivated.” I do. I think he was trying to kill white people. He was a registered Democrat and worked at Chipotle. At this time he appears to be an Antifa-supporting far left extremist. This has all the markings of a “tit-for-tat” response to El Paso by the satanic Left…

AmPart: Living Off the Land – Gardening

JohnyMac at American Partisan is starting a series of articles on living off the land. His first installment is on the topic of gardening.

…This series of articles will cover gardening, protein raising, spirits making, among other fun things that you and your group will need to do to survive. Since we are now in harvesting time the first item will be about gardening.

I know the topic of gardening isn’t as exciting as the new XYZ carbine review however, if you think you are going to survive a job loss, economic downturn or even a SHTF scenario without food you are truly mistaken…

Let’s first talk about hitting the mountains and living off the land, ala Jeremiah Johnson. I will use my AO area as an example because it is truly rural.

We are located in a small hamlet surrounded by thousands and thousands of miles of woods among mountains and more mountains. The town of 500 or so is about 5-miles away and the residents are made up of farmers, blue collar workers, retired, and unfortunately living off Uncle Sugar too. If things went south everybody would be hunting and fishing. You must ask yourself, “how long would the critters living in these mountains last?” I remember one of the old timers here telling me that the deer and bear really didn’t come back into these hills in any kind of quantities post the Great Depression until the late 1960’s.

Once the deer, bears, and other four-legged critters were hunted out what will one do? …How many of us could gather the needed vegetables from the surrounding area? Once someone learns that you can eat cat-tail roots everybody will be digging around the ponds in the area. Again, how long will cat-tail roots last before they go the way of the game.

My point is that you nor your family will not survive. Therefore we have a garden. Not just for food today, but to practice growing food tomorrow…

Our garden is approximately 1,800 sf and is made up of raised beds with seedlings, and seeds planted directly into the tilled ground. The research that I have done is it takes about 900 sf at our latitude per person to grow enough veggies for one person. The current goal is to grow 80% of the veggies that we eat within a year. The best to that goal has been 70% due in part to the fact the vegetable garden is self-tending. We do not spend a lot of time weeding, watering, or general maintenance. I know though that if our garden was the only source of food, we would be in that garden every day weeding and doing general maintenance…

Click here to read the rest of the article at American Partisan.

Vegetable Gardening with Lorraine: Survival Gardening

AskAPrepper: Post Apocalypse Gardening

John Mosby: Guerrilla Gardening

John Mosby: Permaculture

Forward Observer: Intelligence Analyst Prepares for SHTF, Part II

From Sam Culper at Forward Observer comes part two of his SHTF planning series. For Part I click here.:

My mission is to build a network for information sharing and to bring everyone up to par in terms of preparedness and security planning.

The logic: I may be very well prepared, but if I’m not aiding the area in becoming better prepared, then we risk mission failure for the entire region. And that’s bad for us.

If you agree that building community or tribe — or as I call it, “developing the human terrain” — is important, then I’d like to invite you on this journey with me.

I started a new video series entitled “How an Intelligence Analyst Prepares for SHTF” where I’m breaking down in detail how I’m preparing locally for our future challenges.

Here is Part II:

John Mosby: The Survival Retreat Facility, Part I

John Mosby at Mountain Guerrilla has up a lengthy and comprehensive introductory article entitled The Survival Retreat Facility: Design Planning Considerations in Theory and Practice, Part One. In it he draws upon US Army Special Forces doctrine and his own permaculture preparedness view to come up some questions to ask yourself and answer in the design of your own facility/homestead/retreat/etc. This is long and chock full of acronyms, but you can do it (that is read it, at least), and you should do it.

S Army Special Forces, like the rest of the US military, has a set of doctrine regarding the establishment, maintenance, protection, and even closure, of tactical facilities, under field conditions. In current SF doctrine, those facilities are referred to as “Special Forces Tactical Facilities.” These can range from a small, partially developed patrol base for the ODA, all the way up to an SFOB (Special Forces Operating Base), or what used to be called an “A-Camp.”

Doctrinally, the role of the SF TACFAC is “to support special operations and function as a tactical and operational base.” That is, they serve as a defensive base for the operational detachment, a base for projecting offensive force outwards, and as a center for developing, improving, and maintaining relationships with the local national populace and host-nation forces.

“Over time, the TACFAC helps provide for establishment, restoration, and improvements of many local HN community and government services and systems. These essential support systems for the TACFAC and surrounding HN communities are best captured by the acronym SWEAT-MSS (security, water, electricity, administration, trash, medical, sewage, and shelter). Eventually, the SF TACFAC will be returned to the control of the HN government through a relief-in-place (RIP).”

Taking our holistic, Permaculture view of preparedness, that seems an awful lot like what our retreat locations—whether you are in a rural, suburban, or urban environment—should be, doesn’t it? After all, if we’ve realized that the idea of Ma, Pa, and the kids, all by their lonesomes, with a year’s supply of beans, bullets, and band-aids, is not such a sustainable plan after all (and, seriously, if you haven’t realized it yet….it’s really not), then we know we need “community,” either in the form of a close-knit group of friends and family—kith-and-kin—or a trusted, small village or neighborhood of people with shared values.

Whether you’re looking at the kith-and-kin clan model, or the village defense model, as your solution, one of the most-often cited “problems” that preppers and survivalists face is the lack of fellow travelers on the path to preparedness. On the other hand, if you have even just four or five people—nuclear family members, best buds, or siblings/cousins, etc—who are doing their best to prepare, and you have a location that can be secured with some effort, you can begin the development of a retreat that will double as your very own UW TACFAC, when the time comes to up the security game…

Click here to read the entire article at Mountain Guerrilla.

Forward Observer: How an Intelligence Analyst Prepares for SHTF

From Sam Culper at Forward Observer:

My mission is to build a network for information sharing and to bring everyone up to par in terms of preparedness and security planning.

The logic: I may be very well prepared, but if I’m not aiding the area in becoming better prepared, then we risk mission failure for the entire region. And that’s bad for us.

If you agree that building community or tribe — or as I call it, “developing the human terrain” — is important, then I’d like to invite you on this journey with me.

I started a new video series entitled “How an Intelligence Analyst Prepares for SHTF” where I’m breaking down in detail how I’m preparing locally for our future challenges.

It has five steps. If you follow aong with these videos and implement these concepts locally, then I believe you’ll catapult your readiness above and beyond your peers.

And I want to encourage you, if you haven’t already, to begin thinking or planning for a regional preparedness network of your own.

If you’re expecting me to talk about bug out bags and fire starters, then you’ve come to the wrong place. But if you want to learn how to develop local intelligence and how to achieve realistic expectations of the future… – if you want to learn about tactical- and strategic-level planning for those future threats, events, and conditions, – if you want to learn how to get ahead of the competition, then you’re in the right place.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ei86otQr9ss

OH8STN: Grid Down Communications for Preparedness

Amateur radio enthusiast, blogger and vlogger OH8STN (Julian) has posted a video on Introduction to Grid Down Communications for Preparedness. As he says, planning for a grid down scenario covers around 99% of the scenarios that a person may face (earthquake, pandemic, civil unrest, etc.) Julian covers a lot of useful information in the video, not just for amateur radio operators but anyone trying to prepare to communicate in such a scenario.

Here is the first video of the series:

Suggested Radio Equipment for Community Safety – but there is no “one size fits all” communications solution as pointed out in OH8STN’s video above. Julian’s video discusses some of the assumed background information of this article in more detail. This article discusses the equipment that is working for the LVA.

Book: Liberty Rising: The Murder of LaVoy Finicum

From Christian Patriots comes this article on the search for justice Liberty Rising: The Murder of LaVoy Finicum

My father bleeding out in the snow is only one small part of this story. His murder was the result of a hyped up orchestration of state and federal law enforcement in reaction to a falsified threat assessment. Many ask, “How can this even happen?”

We are starting this discussion across the country with elected officials. The idea of reforming weaponized labels is underway. We have developed a four part documentary series to use as a tool to start these difficult but necessary discussions. We are introducing people to the idea of the need for training in applied civics. My book, Liberty Rising: One Cowboy’s Ascent was written to help fund the process of our case.

We have great momentum working with the same legal team that helped bring about the 2016 Oregon occupation acquittals and the 2018 Nevada Bundy mistrial. Their work uncovered both agent and bureau acts of misconduct that had been going unchecked for decades. The information gathered from both the Oregon and Nevada trials are crowning jewels for our case, not to mention the uncovered dubious decisions during the shooting of my father, which was revealed in trial of the acquitted FBI agent.

We move forward in faith and hope that our efforts will continue to uncover and correct misconduct.

Our civil complaint, demand for jury trial in the district of Oregon was filed January 25th, 2018. Soon our deposition and subpoena process will begin. We very much look forward to this discovery process. While we understand each deposition and subpoena will demand time, toil, faith, hope, and, yes, more money, we look forward to holding out-of-control government agents, bureau agents, and organizations accountable. We also anticipate spearheading a change in the current trend of weaponized words.

By Thara Tenney

Christian Patriots

2019 NW APRS Summer Gathering, North Bend, SEP 6-8

8/19/2019 Update:

The agenda has come together, with a varied list of topics providing lots of opportunities to learn about what’s happening today in digital radio. Time has been built in to get your questions asked and answered. Open social time will be available both days to help you put a face to the voice you hear on the radio.

Before we get to the agenda we have a few housekeeping items we need to cover:

If you plan to stay overnight at Valley Camp please contact Teena at info@valleycamp.org There are a few dry camping RV sites still available, several bunks in the lodge, and lots of tent sites. There is a new Hampton Inn and Suites on Snoqualmie Ridge, we hear it is very nice and not far away.

If you have a reservation already and have to cancel please let Teena know very soon, we have a wait list

If you would like to join us for meals watch for the signup survey coming out next week. This is required so enough food can be purchased for the 5 meals that will be provided

The Tailgate Swap-meet is scheduled for 1600 – 1800 Saturday but if you want to trade or sell Ham Radio related items at any time please do so from your campsite or vehicle so as to not interrupt the presentations.

Talk-In Frequency will be simplex 146.52 (everyone uses this, right?)

The current agenda. Also available here
Friday
Anyone wanting to arrive Friday and have made your reservations we will be hosting a social time at 1900 in the large pavilion and providing dessert. If you wish to bring your favorite delectable treat to share you will be greeted warmly.

Saturday
We begin at 0700 with breakfast at the large pavilion, serving until 0830. Coffee will be served all day.
Then after a brief welcome and introduction to the event will begin:

0900 – 0945: DStar – Scott, N7SS
1000 – 1045: Digital Mobile Radio, (DMR) – Brad, N7ER
1100 – 1145: APRS – Tom, WA7TBP
1145 – 1250: Lunch (Burgers & brats)
1250 – 1300: 22nd Annual Group Photo in front of Pavilion
1300 – 1345: Balloon Launch. – L. Paul Verhage, KD4STH
1400 – 1445: HAMWAN update. – Kenny, KU7M
1500 – 1545: 9600 baud packet & DRAWS. – Bryan, K7UDR
1600 – 1800: Elmer stations, tailgate swap-meet & social time
* DStar – Scott Honaker, N7SS
* APRS – Tom Needham, WA7TBP
* DMR – Brad Estill, N7ER
* WINLINK – Bob Stephens, AF9W
* 3D Printing – Phil Moscinski, N2EU
* FL-DIGI – Bob Tykulsker, KM6SO
1800: Spaghetti feed at pavilion. Social time the rest of the evening
1900: APRS Bunny Hunt. – Tom Needham, WA7TBP

Sunday
Begins with a Pancake Feed organized by Brad, N7ER at 0730 – 0830

0900 – 0945: 3D Printing, Phil, N2EU
1000 – 1045: FL-DIGI. Bob, KM6SO
1100 – 1150: PAT Winlink. Bob, AF9W
1150 – 1300: Lunch provided
1300 – 1500: Elmer Stations and social time. This will be a great time to get specific questions asked and answered by the presenters as well as subject matter “experts” staying the weekend at Valley Camp.
We will introduce those “experts” to the group Saturday morning.

Wrap up and cleanup will begin around 1500.

Things to know

Summer Gathering is held at Valley Camp, 49515 SE Middle Fork Rd, North Bend, WA 98045, If you enter this into a GPS and it is something other than a newer model Garmin it will take you to a different place so be aware and check your Google Map to find the exact location. Sadly the Tom-Tom GPS has a bad database and will take you on a wild goose chase. Better yet use these coordinates: 47.46805° -121.68081° For us location precision nuts the GPS coordinates for a point near the center of camp are: 47.4662216 -121.6804046 (Highly accurate GPS control point) The WA7VC Banner may be out near the entrance, this will confirm you have arrived.

When entering Valley Camp please stay to the left and keep your speed at or below 5 MPH keeping an eye out for small critters and humans crossing the road and remember only you can prevent speed bumps.

Cellular coverage is spotty in camp. If your phone has WiFi calling capabilities the Valley Camp WiFi will support that service. WiFi in camp covers just about the entire camp however due to bandwidth limitations of CenturyLink’s equipment the system can not support video streaming, or OS updates. Please turn off Automatic Updates on your equipment so there is plenty of bandwidth for Web searches and emailing for everyone. Please do not use WiFi extenders or personal hotspots as these interfere with the camp WiFi. Network login information will be available in the pavilion.

Valley Camp is a No Smoking facility. If we see you smoking we will assume you are on fire and take sudden and appropriate fire fighting measures.

If you have a comfortable folding camp chair bring it along. The picnic benches are 60 year old very hard 2×12’s.

Pets – If you must bring your pet it has to stay on a 6 foot leash and stay connected to you at all times. We also expect you to clean up after it and be very careful feeding it, any spilled food attracts wild animals, some you don’t want to meet at night.

Parking while at the event – Please be aware that not all RV’s in the campground are attending the Summer Gathering so please do not block vehicles parked in front of RV’s. Parking is best accomplished west of the RV area along the road towards the Lodge and Roundhouse.

The Summer Gathering is funded only through donations of the attendees, no outside organization financially sponsors the event. Please consider what this event is worth to you and donate appropriately. In the past it was suggested that $25 per day for the event was appropriate, adding $30 for meals on Saturday, and $20 for meals on Sunday. There will be several places to leave your donations, the main one being the green MAILBOX marked DONATIONS in the shelter and if you would like to make a donation using a credit card see Teena.

Valley Camp is the conduit for all donations and it is a 501(c)3 not for profit organization.

Online donation opportunities can be found here on the first page: https://valleycamp.org

More information and a signup survey coming soon!

See you in a few weeks,

73
WA7VC Group and Friends
https://wa7vc.org/

The 2019 Northwest APRS/Digital Summer Gathering will be held on Sept. 6th through 8th at Valley Camp in North Bend, WA. WA7VC is the Valley Camp Amateur Radio Group, serving the Upper Snoqualmie Valley community since 1995.

Valley Camp is location about 30 minutes east of Seattle. (Directions from their website are located below)

Address:
49515 S.E. Middle Fork Rd
North Bend WA 98045

Coordinates:
47.4680, -121.6806

WA7VC on air contact info:

There are a number of ways to reach us either via good ‘ol RF or the internet:

70cm Simplex: 446.525 (no tone)

Echolink: Node 98045 (or Valley Camp)

IRLP: 7808

DSTAR: WA7VC B on 440.01250Mhz + 5.000Mhz

APRS: WA7VC 10 Digi-iGate 144.390

DMR: NorthBend-ValleyCamp 440.7250 + 5.000Mhz

Our on-site EchoIRLP node is powered by a Raspberry Pi. It offers the following commands:

Read the current time

Read data from Snoqualmie Falls river gauging station

Read data from North Fork river gauging station

Read data from Middle Fork river gauging station

Read data from South Fork river gauging station

We the Governed: In this City Council Race – Every Politician Is Breaking the Law

From Glen Morgan at We the Governed, In this city council race – every politician is breaking the law.

In the City of Port Angeles, the politicians expect the little people to follow the law, while they apparently don’t believe the laws apply to them.

Port Angeles, Washington State

In many cities and counties across Washington State, primary elections are in process as voters complete and mail in their ballots. In the City of Port Angeles there are two contested primary races for city council. However, in one of the council races, every politician running for office is breaking Washington State’s fair campaign practices act (RCW 42.17A). Some are not even trying to comply with the law. When every politician breaks the law, how can a voter decide which one is best to represent them?

Washington State’s all-mail in ballots were sent to every registered voter (in a jurisdiction with a contested race on the primary ballot) last week. The ballots are already trickling back into the 39 different county auditor’s ballot boxes around the state with the first scheduled announcement of election results 8pm on election night, Tuesday, August 6, 2019. Washington State law allows ballots which are postmarked before 6pm that day to count towards the final election results (as opposed to having the ballots in-hand by that date and time), so the final election results are not known in many close races often for several weeks as the later ballots trickle in from throughout the state, and sometimes local auditor offices (typically King County, but they are not alone) suddenly find “missing” ballots in car trunks and back rooms.

In the Northwest corner of Washington State, in Clallam County– the City of Port Angeles has two primary races for city council seats. A total of four seats are up for election in 2019 (out of a council of seven including the mayor). Of these, two races have more than two people who have filed to run, which is why Council position no.7 and position no. 5 are on the Primary election ballot.

These candidates need to file with their local county auditor in order to legally run for office, but they are also required by Washington State Law (RCW 42.17A) to register with the Public Disclosure Commission in order to ensure that their campaign contributions, expenditures, and other information about the candidates are open, transparent, and available to review for all voters, media, and interested citizens. Unfortunately for the voters in the City of Port Angeles, most of the politicians are running “stealth” campaigns, ignoring the law, and generally blundering through the process under the belief there are no consequences for violating the law...

Click here to read the entire article at We the Governed

Brushbeater: A Modern Look at Guerrilla Radio Equipment

NC Scout at the Brushbeater blog has a brief article up looking at some FARC equipment – A Modern Look at Guerrilla Radio Equipment.

Watching a recent media piece on the FARC, I noticed a few shots of their radio equipment they were using to communicate between camps.

Look familiar? Its a Yaesu 817 being run from a Sealed Lead Acid battery. Here’s a better shot:

Interesting layout by one of their RTOs:

The old 817 appears to be very popular among the communist guerrilla group, and if I had to guess (based on their geography) they’re using VHF single sideband and HF NVIS to relay camp-to-camp through the mountains where they operate.

I imagine they’ve learned a lot in the communications department over a half century of civil war, and it looks like they’re keeping it simple, analog and robust.

Forward Observer: SHTF Intelligence Q&A Part I

In this video, Sam Culper of Forward Observer answers questions on intelligence, security and defense.

In this video, intelligence analyst and Iraq/Afghanistan answers some of your questions on intelligence, security, and defense for our challenging future.

Q1: How do I start setting up an intelligence effort for a Mutual Assistance Group?
Q2: How can I explain the need for intelligence to my preparedness group?
Q3: How can we determine our SHTF intelligence gaps?
Q4: What are your thoughts on a “Golden Horde” scenario?

How an Intelligence Analyst Prepares for SHTF Scenarios:

John Mosby on Permaculture

John Mosby of the Mountain Guerrilla blog has some thoughts on permaculture. He’s mentioned a few times in other articles, but here are two blog posts of his where he spends a bit more time expounding upon its goodness.

First is a “From the Library” post from July 16, 2019.

I get a lot of questions about why I’m so gung-ho about Permaculture, since to the newcomer, it appears to be a “society” dominated by social justice warrior liberals. While that’s not entirely inaccurate as an observation, it’s really a simplistic approach, and ignores the inherent value of the Permaculture concept to not only survival, but tribal culture.

My general, semi-humorous answer is, I’m gung-ho about Permaculture because I’m…lazy. The ideal behind permaculture, for those unfamiliar with it, is that it is “permanent agriculture.” To whit, it involves planning and planting, in such a way that requires minimal human interference, to maintain continued useful production for decades. This is contrary to standard agriculture that requires annual replanting, fertilization, and all the related tasks and inputs that go along. I like the idea of not having to work too much to produce food, because I’m…lazy.

Really though, if we’re being serious, from a preparedness perspective, this makes sense for resilience. In a post-grid environment, I suspect I’m going to be awful busy. If I can reduce my task load then, by planting a resilient, low-maintenance food production system—a food forest—now, that seems like a no-brainer to me. It’s more labor-intensive in the front end, especially if you do it like I do, without using power equipment any more than necessary, but the back end pay out is brilliant.

In an speech he did before he died, called “Liberation Permaculture” (If you do a Google Search, you can find audio files of the speech. It’s well worth listening to.), the late Toby Hemenway, author of my favorite Permaculture book to date, Gaia’s Garden, made the point that Permaculture is really the ultimate guerrilla/insurgent/survivalist form of food production, and it is incredibly anti-totalitarian…

And the second is Permaculture for Preparedness

Permaculture is famous for its ethics and principles. These are the basic guidelines along which permaculture was codified by Mollison and Holmgren. Sadly, many readers have limited themselves to second, third, and even fourth generation permaculture teachers and writers, and much has been lost in the translation, so to speak. People have learned a shallow understanding of the tactics and techniques of permaculture, without really understanding the strategy or operational capabilities.

An example of this in preparedness can be seen in a comment I received a few months ago, in which a reader lauded the discussion of alternative energy, food production, and other aspects of daily living in a post-industrial environment, but wanted me to focus on the “partisan” aspects, by which I assume they meant the cool-guy action figure gunfighter stuff. The problem with this is something that all too often, people who have never had to plan an operation, let alone write an OpOrder, overlook: you can only “operate” so long without support in the form of food, equipment, and shelter. There’s a reason, after all, that an SF ODA has engineers and medics, as well as weapons sergeants. As a mentor in SF once asked me, “What do you call an A-Team made up entirely of Bravos?” The answer? “An understrength Ranger Platoon.”

If we approach the discussion of Permaculture from the UW perspective, the focus on Permaculture begins to make considerable sense from both an operational and a strategic perspective. If we define our UW strategy as “We don’t have to win. We don’t even have to not lose. All we have to do is make sure our supporters and the unaligned populace both know that we’ll still be here when the enemy is gone,” and we define our strategic goal as “cultural and genetic survival” rather than “individual survival,” then the permaculture approach begins to make even more sense…

Eaton Rapids Joe: Permaculture and Cheap Dates

…Another factor that makes Permaculture valuable is that it recognizes that human’s do not have unlimited ability to manage. That limit is often the factor that bottlenecks productivity. Permaculture’s solution is to break the property into “zones” based on how often then need to be attended to and order them in rational ways.

For example, the path between your door and the mail box is walked at least once every day. It is the ideal place to plant everbearing raspberries and strawberries or edible flowers. Bringing in the mail would also mean bringing in a small basket of fruit for dessert or for your morning cereal.

Conversely, “the woods” might only get visited a few times a year for gathering nuts, hunting or cutting wood for fuel and construction…

AmRRON: T-REX “News” 2019 Continues

AmRRON continues to release TEOTWAWKI Readiness Exercise (T-REX) 2019 related news. You can find the T-REX news page here. The active exercise begins on July 26th. This post will be updated as additional exercise/drill news is published.

25 July 2019 EXERCISE EXERCISE EXERCISE AmCON
QST QST ALL AmRRON OPERATORS… Commercial power and telecommunications failure is imminent, and expected within the next three to six hours. nsur uo s S. I. n net ss reor.

25 July 2019 EXERCISE EXERCISE EXERCISE*** Liberty State Beacon – Early this morning, the Securities Exchange Commission announced a bank holiday effective at the end of the business day. Additionally, all U.S. stock exchanges will be closed until Monday, July 29 at 9:00 Eastern. This comes as more ATM’s are now offline across the nation and law enforcement in several cities report an increased call load as customers make a run on banks.EXERCISE EXERCISE EXERCISE***

20190725 – 1500z EXERCISE EXERCISE EXERCISE*****AmRRON Readiness Condition has been raised to Level 2. Due to the pervasive cyber attacks on major infrastructure, coupled with increasingly widespread telecommunications and power systems failures, the AmRRON Network is preparing to activate.Persistent presence nets are in place by multiple volunteer radio operators on the HF bands. SIGCENs are mobilizing, either already establishing on-air presence or preparing for operations.
-Have plenty of cash on hand
-Store up on water and if able to do so safely, make last-minute purchases of perishable items, fuels, batteries, etc.
-If you have not been participating in on-air radio practice session, do so immediately.
-Be prepared to have your communications operational within the next 12 hours.
-Avoid metropolitan areas, public transit, and venues with crowds. -Avoid traveling beyond your vehicle’s fuel capacity to make your way safely home or other safe location.EXERCISE EXERCISE*****

*** EXERCISE EXERCISE EXERCISE

AmRRON TREX19*** 20190725 – 1500z

Early this morning, several nuclear facilities throughout the US report cyber-attacks on their PLCs and resultant reactor “scrams”. These attacks were accompanied by widespread internet outages and cell phone service lost in several regions on the country.

EXERCISE EXERCISE EXERCISE***

24 July 2019 EXERCISE EXERCISE EXERCISE*** Liberty State Beacon – In a press release earlier today from the Securities Exchange Commission, authorities announced they were still working to restore all brokerage accounts after Monday’s lockdown. While they are working diligently to resolve the problem an immediate resolution has not been identified and may require a shutdown of financial activity on the NYSE and other commodity exchanges. Across the world, financial exchanges are reacting to the announcement with record losses. Currency exchanges are fluctuating and the dollar is down by 40%. In other news, sources near a nuclear power plant in Georgia report rumors of a reactor “scram” as a result of a failed PLC and false data. Officials from the plant indicate they had some unusual readings and shut the plant down for recalibration but there is no immediate danger to the public. They expect the system to be operational again within 48 hours. Additionally in the East, power plants remain at reduced power output. Several South Eastern cities are having intermittent internet outages and Cell phone companies have announced that several of their regional hubs have been hit by a cyber-virus. EXERCISE EXERCISE EXERCISE***

EXERCISE**** ***EXERCISE EXERCISE EXERCISE***** Due to the threats to the recently reported cyber attacks on banking and infrastructure computer systems, we are raising the AmCON to Level-4. There is an increased risk to the telecommunications grid across the United States. Inventory all communications gear, update software, print reference documents, and participate in all scheduled AmRRON nets to ensure your station is ready for service. EOM EXERCISE EXERCISE*****

AmRRON Intelligence Brief (AIB) 23 July 2019 Current AmCON: Level 5
*** EXERCISE EXERCISE EXERCISE ***** 1. SEC announcement – NYSE and Chicago mercantile will delay opening for 2 hours to address cyber security measures. News reports of several brokerages are locked out of some of their accounts and are aggressively pursuing a solution. They urge clients to remain calm and not try and access their accounts until they announce a fix. Many ATM’s remain inaccessible. 2. News reports of several AEP power plants have experienced turbine failures due to PLC problems. They are rectifying the problem but will have to shut down operations for 72 hours. Expected brownouts and intermittent power outages are expected through the Mid-Atlantic states to include Metropolitan Washington D.C. and Baltimore areas. ***** EXERCISE EXERCISE EXERCISE *****

23 July 2009 EXERCISE EXERCISE EXERCISE*** Liberty State Beacon – Earlier today, multiple inside sources reported repeated attacks into commercial and private computer systems by an unconfirmed nation state. One of these sources, going by the code name “Big Al”, indicated a mutating computer virus has infected computer systems across the nation. “Big Al” reportedly works for a large bank in the IT Watch Center and has proof of this worm. He indicates that teams are in place to eradicate the worm but by the time they identify the virus, it has mutated and cloned itself to prevent eradication. Big Al stated that people should do everything they can to have cash on hand because things were going to become very bad, very soon. END T-REX TRAFFIC***

23 July 2009 Exercise,Exercise,Exercise
///MSG/// Disruptions to railroad operators computer systems have disruptions to the national rail industry. Operators have assigned personnel to manually operate switches along key rail lines but trains running these routes are forced to move at a much slower pace for safety purposes.Exercise, Exercise, Exercise. ///END OF MSG//
22 July 2009 Exercise,Exercise,Exercise

///MSG/// Liberty State Beacon – Today the Securities Exchange Commission announced both the New York Stock Exchange and the Chicago Mercantile will delay opening for two hours to address cyber security measures. Sources internal to several brokerages report numerous locked accounts and are aggressively pursuing a solution. Clients of these brokerages are urged to remain calm and delay access to accounts until a fix is announced. In a press release from the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, Chairman Maury Fifer promises the public that “everything is stable and not to do anything rash.” Mr. Fifer wants to remind the public that large withdraws from banks will only create more panic and lead to further instability. Patriot sources urge the public to have plenty of cash on hand as a reserve.Exercise, Exercise, Exercise. ///END OF MSG//
15 July 2009 Exercise,Exercise,Exercise-Traffic .

///MSG/// The Department of Homeland Security has issued a warning advising all commercial and public internet users to be vigilant for possible cyber intrusion into commercial cyber controllers, Programmable Logic Controllers (PLCs), and internet servers. All commercial and public internet users are advised to review the following document: https://ics-cert.us-cert.gov/content/overview-cyber-vulnerabilities
Exercise, Exercise, Exercise. ///END OF MSG//