TEOT-WAWKI FICTION AND FACT

Author Linda Brady Traynham

Those of you who keep up with my ramblings over on Whiskey and Gunpowder know that I’ve been reviewing writings on TEOT-WAWKI, and so far I have covered two by James Howard Kunstler, two by James Wesley comma Rawes, and a horrifying one by Forstchen entitled One Second After. A fiendish friend sent me Lights Out, by “HalfFast,” and I have just surfaced from a very uncomfortable day and a half reading 611 pages on my computer screen, being too cheap to print that much out. That’s an exercise that is very hard on the eyes and the mouse shoulder.

In the kindest possible way, put Kunstler at the bottom of your proposed reading list, maybe right after Moby Dick. The Long Emergency is a typical Kunstlerian diatribe on how the most dreadful thing ever to happen to the world was a century of cheap, plentiful oil. (My nomination is the Industrial Revolution!)

World Made By Hand depressed me because it is not about good old American ingenuity and finding ways to cope. The townspeople droop around feeling sorry for themselves, complaining that they only have cornbread to eat (a rust infection prevents growing wheat), and whining about the loss of television and loved ones who died in three epidemics, basically the only disaster that befell them other than the loss of electricity. They really didn’t know when they were well off. They are wildly suspicious of a “sect” of about 75 highly religious types, and all loathe the local cattle baron who had made preparations and can generate electricity for his own selfish use and trade for wheat. Turns out Brother Jobe only sounds like every religious zealot/opportunist since Elmer Gantry. He and his band are of enormous benefit to the thankless town, and so is the Baron. When there is need or trouble, Brother Jobe always donates priceless horses and wagons and strong young men with military training. His group and the Baron repair the failing city water system–plugged up with (yech) a very large tortoise shell and a decomposing coyote. The Baron has the capability of pouring concrete pipe and donates it! Nobody from town helps, no parades, no statues, no thanks. As I said on W&G, Kunstler shows us a world without hope and I’m the sort that believes we can solve problems if we get up and work with what we’ve got. (See Essie’s great article on packrats, preppers, and hoarders.) Amusingly enough, Kunstler’s Narrator (I refuse to call him a “hero.”) yearns for a horse! You may take away our cars, but nothing will ever destroy Americans’ desire for private transportation.

I’m supposing that you’re “Can do!” people (with chuckles over BHO), and that you’ll like James Wesley comma Rawles. Start with his How to Survive TEOT-WAWKI because it is chock full of good ideas. Don’t go over to his survivalblog because my one, stunned, quick look lead me to believe it is at least half the size of the library of congress. I reinvented the wheel, never having heard of Mr. Rawles or suspected (!) that there are a lot of good books available on survivalism/preparation. I can be sorta lost in my own little world, too…

Patriot, now…is a very fact-dense 600 pages and I suggest you skip the last half unless you have a great deal more time on your hands than I do. I’m dubious about the proposition that even several well-prepared groups can defeat UN forces.

TEOT-WAWKI fiction is interesting (to me) primarily because each group makes different mistakes. Patriot starts with a large group of college students in 2000 who foresee the coming collapse and decide to work together on a retreat. I suspect several of them take up bank robbing from the amount of money they spend! They pick out 40 acres in the wilds of the NW and one couple moves there to start on armor-cladding the house and protecting the supplies. Sure enough, comes 2009 and “it” happens, and eventually all of the shareholders make it there. Gosh-a-mighty, the useful things they have accumulated! They start digging “spider holes” and setting up Observation Posts. They begin patrolling the area around them, chasing off bad guys and helping those they think deserve it. They do a fantastic job in most ways, but today I’m going to focus on flaws so that–God forbid–should you ever find yourself in the same position you won’t make the same mistake. In all the years the retreat has been occupied they have not accumulated a single head of livestock! True, they taught the dog not to chase away deer and elk, only bears, but golly! What’s hard about “We could really use a source of meat, eggs, milk, and cheese?” (Mr. Rawles makes it clear on his site that he is very much in favor of those things. I don’t know why The Group doesn’t do it.) No one has ever planted anything more complicated than an herb garden and a few fruit sapplings! They have the equipment and supplies, but they are content to eat wheatberries softened in hot water for breakfast every morning, a pot of plain rice for lunch, and the elk or venison du jour for dinner with an occasional MRE. That may be survival, but it is entirely too stark for my tastes. One of the things I discovered about myself that is apparently odd is that I seem to be the only one trying to preserve my normal lifestyle around the world falling apart. One of my first purchases was chickens and dairy goats! I buy pepper corns the way others buy bread. The Group runs out of coffee in six weeks! How idiotic is that? Each person is responsible for his or her own supplies (they take turns providing for the group) and surely they know how much coffee they drink and that it is a prime trade good? They vote on things that really don’t need it–everything, for starters. “What’s for dinner?” Sure, let’s vote on that and have the winner if the ingredients are available. How to wipe out a large, vicious biker gang that has taken over a nearby town without harming any of the inhabitants? That is not a good thing to vote on; it should be planned by those with the best grasp of military tactics, if undertaken at all. Oh…their plan works, but it takes them so long that only one little boy is left alive to be rescued and you would prefer not to hear about his experiences. All in all it’s a very good book by perhaps the foremost expert in the field, even if I don’t agree that weapons should be standardized so rigorously. Being able to swap ammunition is all well and good, but a small female is far better off shooting a gun she is comfortable with than struggling with a .45.

William Forstschen is known for his superb science fiction and “alternate history,” as in, “What if Stonewall Jackson had gotten medical attention promptly and someone else hadn’t ordered one last assault on Seminary Ridge while Robert E. Lee was ill and the South had won?” His One Second After will horrify you because it rings all too true. Deaths from lack of medication, the conditions in hospitals and nursing homes, vast numbers of refugees passing by on the nearby Interstate, and a large city nearby demanding that the town take in 5,000 of their population…the last is handled sweetly by pointing out that if the Mayor sends his hoard of 5,000 grasshoppers to eat their supplies the town is in the position to cut off water to the city. They are fortunate enough to have several older vehicles still running, retired military personnel, and a small college with kids to train for defense. When help finally arrives a year or so later 20% of the population has survived. This only sounds like a very poor result; the Colonel promising more relief quickly estimates that not more than twenty-five million of the population of the entire United States made it through.

HalfFast has done Lights Out somewhere in the middle, setting the action in a subdivision not far from Floresville, an actual small town about 30 miles Southwest of San Antonio. In his presentation, our hero is offered a place in a millionaire’s elaborate compound, but declines because he and his friend and family decide Daddy Big Bucks is entirely too bossy. (For all his preparations, his compound is taken over by bad guys.) They decide to do what they can with a gated community–and more luck than anyone in other books had. The local Kroger’s goes to a $50 limit immediately so food lasts longer, and the car parts store has what they need to get more vehicles running, for example. They have a superb Gunny to advise on defense and training, and they put together (not always without squabbling) an effective community of about 500 people.

Still…what does it take to convince people that everything has changed? Our hero looks forward to hunting season on his deer lease two months away! His friend at the gun store is extremely helpful–and well supplied–but still brooding about the requirement that he call in and check on all perspective gun purchasers. If it all goes down no one is going to be abiding by hunting laws! My biggest gripe with Lights Out is that the author just quits after 611 pages–although perhaps, who can blame him? Our hero gets elected Sheriff by a write-in vote, and the book ends with a statue in his honor many years later. Uh…what about the killer virus spreading fast from the West coast? Whodunnit it? How do we get the US government under control, it, when last seen, being very busy rounding citizens up and putting them in, ah, “holding facilities?”

If I had to rank them in order of use and length (a consideration for many of you who do not have the luxury of reading and writing all day), I’d start with One Second After to get a really good idea of just how bad an EMP-burst would be. I’m sure you know that our analysts put that as #1 on the probable threat list, followed by suitcase nukes in NYC, DC, Houston, D/FW, Chicago, and LA in roughly that order. Next I’d go with Lights Out, particularly if you don’t begrudge the ink and paper to print it out or can come up with hard copy. Forstchen is a superb author and HalfFast is quite good; his characters are pretty realistic and likeable (except for really, really bad guys) and it will give you–or your family or friends–a good grasp of how a community could work together. They, too, have too many committees and meetings to suit my taste, but we moms with aspirations to being robber barons tend to solve problems without consulting others. I’d end up with Patriot because he gets into more technical aspects that are easier to appreciate once you have read the other two.

I would like to say that you don’t need to read any of them unless you are tired of horror fiction, but the dismal truth is that if you don’t have a pretty good idea of what could happen and haven’t started making preparations, you may meet the worst fate of all: ending up a refugee with little more than what you can carry, at the mercy of the elements, lack of food, and those who will kill you casually for what you do have.

How long have you got to make basic preparations? Who can say? “I’m a dinner jacket” has threatened to teach the “arrogant world” a lesson three days from now. That’s right, this coming Thursday, the 30th anniversary of overthrowing the Shah of Iran. It could be bombast…or a homegrown version of Tienamen Square…or taking out our ships in the Med with his ancient submarines…or a freighter off the East coast lobbing a tiny nuke to explode somewhere between 40 and 400 kilometers, thereby knocking out some or all of the USA through EMP. It could be an attack on Israel, or NYC again, or even something in collusion with Our Dear Leader in North Korea. If the wheels come off in three days you’ll be very glad you spent at least $1500 at your local Sam’s or Costco. If nothing does this time you’ll have a start on basic survival stores. There is much to be said for “beans, bullets, and bandaids.” A quick Google will show you several lists of the top 100 items which will disappear from shelves first. We live in a world where the supply of food is three days in major cities (“just in time” inventory, you know) and perhaps a week in small towns. If you have a diesel or older car without a lot of fancy electronic devices, drive it next Thursday, just in case, please.

Regards,

Linda Brady Traynham

This entry was posted on Monday, February 8th, 2010 at 9:29 pm and is filed under Authors, Linda Brady Traynham, Preparedness. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.