By Jonathan Hollerman
If you haven’t read Equipping Modern Patriots: A Story of Survival, you have no way of knowing that the events in Alone are kicked off by an EMP attack on the United States. I don’t specify who actually attacks us, as every nuclear nation in the world could easily drive a single nuclear warhead into the Gulf of Mexico on a container ship and take down our electric grid. When it detonates high in the atmosphere over our country, it interacts with the ionosphere to create a series of electromagnetic pulses that reach from coast to coast. Essentially, it fries nearly every device containing modern electronics and microchips, including our massive high voltage transformers. Because our country is serviced by only a handful of electric grids, a chain reaction would be catastrophic.
Here’s the thing: This is not a fairy tale. This book, although a fictitious story, is based on a VERY likely scenario that is VERY likely to happen in our lifetime. We know that our electric grid has not been hardened against electromagnetic pulses, and we know that the US has enemies with the technology to pull off an EMP attack.
But an EMP is only one possible scenario for taking out America’s electric grid. A direct hit by a large solar flare, which scientists say we are long overdue for, could also overload our fragile grid. A cyber attack may be even more likely, and more imminent. Other realistic threats include pandemic, financial collapse and nuclear or biological warfare. When you add these possibilities up, you get a fairly high percentage of probability that the US will face a national emergency at some point in our near future.
In a grid-down scenario, the government will NOT be able to help you. Ready.gov recommends that every household in America have at least three days' worth of food, water, medical, and other supplies stored away in case of an emergency. This is their way of acknowledging that they will not be able to help you right away in any emergency. Think of the horrific looting, pillaging, rapes, and murders following Hurricane Katrina, after only two days without food and water in a relatively small, localized area. What do you think the government will be capable of when the vast majority of the country is paralyzed...for months or even years?
In Hollywood movies, the military often comes to the rescue with food and helps the local police keep order. The truth is that the police, firefighters, US military, and the National Guard will not be able to come to your aid if we lose the electric grid. Ninety-nine percent of the US military is wholly reliant on the civilian electric grid per DOD documents I have on my website. That report is very specific that US forces will not be able to respond to social unrest. You are on your own.
I strongly recommend planning ahead and taking precautions to ensure your family is fed should a collapse scenario come to pass. Do you carry homeowners insurance, car insurance, fire insurance, flood insurance, medical insurance, and life insurance to protect from potential calamity? Do you have a savings account or “rainy day fund” in case you lose your job or face an unexpected financial hardship? Why is putting some extra food and water in your basement to keep your family alive in an emergency considered so irrational?
The fact is, the reason people look down on “preppers” is that they don’t see the threat or want to believe it. There is plenty of evidence and reliable information available, but most have never seen it. The people, places, and media sources that most people surround themselves with dictate what information is shared and how they think and feel about the various issues facing our country. If you don’t know someone who’s into preparedness, your opinions on “preppers” are probably formed by how the craziest extremists are featured in the news and entertainment industry.
Every single client I have ever worked with has been an absolute, down to earth, normal and sane individual. So let’s be honest. People’s opinions and worries are controlled by a media that TELLS YOU exactly what you should and shouldn’t care about. Don’t believe me? I can prove it with a single question. Has gun crime been on the rise over the last 20 years or has it decreased? What is absolutely astonishing is that 56% of respondents to the Pew Research study think gun crime is on the rise, while 26% think it has stayed the same, and only 12% think it decreased. The truth: the gun homicide rate has dropped 50% in the last twenty years! Over 82% of people were absolutely wrong in their understanding of gun crime in America! Why? The media and academia have an anti-gun agenda which they have been pushing hard for a long time. It’s not like gun violence had dropped a few percentage points over the last twenty years; gun murders were literally cut in half in 20 years and yet nearly 60% of people think it’s going up!
The point I’m making doesn’t have anything to do with guns, gun control, or gun crime. The point is that the media and academia are capable of completely brainwashing a large percentage of the American population into believing things that are untrue and easily debunked by spending two minutes on Google! Look it up yourself. The gun crime data I just cited comes from a Pew Research study from 2013 titled, “Gun Homicide Rate Down 49% Since 1993 Peak; Public Unaware.”
Let’s take another example: Cecil the Lion, killed by a hunter in Africa in July 2015. Now it’s important to realize that hundreds of lions have been legally killed every year in Africa by trophy hunters and very few people have cared. The media whipped up the entire US population into a frenzy with 24-hours-a-day coverage for a week straight. People organized marches, organizations raised hundreds of thousands of dollars to protect lions, Twitter and Facebook were filled with emotional memes and memorial photos, and the hunter who shot Cecil had to go into hiding with his family, losing his livelihood after receiving numerous credible death threats.
What happened next? Nothing. The next media story came out and suddenly no one cared about the lions in Africa anymore. Everyone was then concerned about terrorism, or the plight of transgenderism, mass shootings, or something some politician said. Don’t miss this: The craziest part of the story is that by February 2016, Africa was literally getting ready to kill over 200 lions in a single wildlife reserve because the population of lions had grown completely out of control, not to mention that the reserve was severely suffering from lack of funds. The locals call it “The Cecil Effect.”
Preparedness and the risks of societal collapse are nowhere on the list of narratives the news media outlets regularly plug. On November 20, 2014, Admiral Rogers, Commander of US Cyber Command, testified before the Congressional Intelligence Committee that America’s critical infrastructure (including the electric grid) is completely vulnerable to attack by multiple enemy nations and groups who currently have the knowledge and the ability to literally “flip the switch” on our electric grid at any time. You can watch his testimony on CSPAN.org. It will blow your mind that you’ve never heard of this or the fact that the media didn’t feel it was important enough information to tell the American people. Do you know what the major media story was on November 20, 2014? The Supreme Court affirming same-sex marriages in South Carolina. You have the man in charge of US Cyber Command warning Congress about an imminent cyber attack against the US that would result in millions of Americans dying, and the media is more concerned about who is marrying whom in South Carolina.
Frank Gaffney, the President of the Center for Security Policy, had this to say about America losing the electric grid for an extended period of time after an EMP attack: “Within a year of that attack, 9 out of 10 Americans would be dead, because we can’t support a population of the present size in urban centers and the like without electricity.” Seriously–think of ten people you are close to and try to imagine nine of them dying of starvation or being murdered over the course of a single year.
It is up to you to do your own research on these various threats to our way of life because no one else is going to tell you about them. If you need a place to start, I link dozens of supporting documents and videos on my website, GridDownConsulting.com.
Please do not be one of the 95% of people unprepared when that day comes: starving, sick, and huddled in the corner of your house wondering when the government is coming to save you. You will discover that no help is on the way, with deadly consequences for you and your family. However, before you make a hasty leap and buy into some monthly long-term food scam thinking you are covered, please educate yourself on what it will really take to make it through a long-term SHTF (S**t Hits The Fan) scenario. It’s a lot more than storing up some food in your basement.
So, if you absolutely knew that there was a very real possibility that hard times would come in your lifetime, wouldn’t you prepare for them? If you knew that a flood was coming, would you head to higher ground or would you put your faith and trust in our government to come and rescue you? If you heard a tornado off in the distance, would you take cover or continue whatever you were doing? Think of prepping as “Survival Insurance.”
My main desire would be that my books help you understand the threat of a SHTF scenario and convince you that putting together a “survival insurance plan” for you and your family is the responsible thing to do. I am not suggesting that you need to drain your savings account, but you could make it part of your monthly budget. Start by getting a couple items each month. If you look at the amount of money you spend on other insurances throughout the year, “Survival Insurance” will be considerably cheaper.
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Good luck in your preps and God bless.