The Survivalist Blog – by M.D. Creekmore
A couple of days ago local news channel WBRI ran a news report entitled “Survivalists deem TN Plateau prime prepper property.” It was all about the area and how preppers are buying property and flocking to the Plateau, for safety and support in the event of a collapse of the current system.
Sadly, me or TheSurvivalistBlog.net was not mentioned in the news report, despite the fact that I am the main public proponent of the TN Plateau area for preppers living in the east and the reason for the growing interest in the area among preppers.
You can watch the full news segment here…
Response from Joel Skousen author Strategic Relocation:
The WBIR TV (Knoxville) piece on survivalist interest in the Cumberland plateau was typical of the mainstream media—more interested in the opinions of a local realtor eager to take monetary advantage of the movement (who admitted he was clueless about prepping until the calls started coming in), than the substantive concerns of the prepper community. To show he is still clueless, the piece focused on his lame idea of putting a shipping container out on the property as if that would make it qualify as “survival property.”
Yes, they did cover the main concern of preppers with economic collapse and social unrest, but it was done in a rather sensationalist manner that most listeners would not have found credible. The number one reason people call me for consultation is concern over economic collapse and that’s because it is the number one reason hyped by so many survivalist opininion makers around the net. I do give them credit for seeing the economic problems: Market fundamentals are poised for a collapse in the speculative markets of derivatives, hedge funds, and precious metals contracts, but there is no credible evidence the Powers That Be (PTB) are intending to collapse the economy in order to create chaos and justify martial law. In fact, we see just the opposite.
I spend a lot of time in my weekly World Affairs Briefings to help people understand that there is zero evidence that the PTB are intent on pulling the plug on the economy—which they could do in a week by simply stopping the flow of new money. With thousands of people watching every move the FED makes, it would be impossible to collapse the economy without taking all the blame. They also fail to see how the FED still has a lot of money creation power to keep things going with moderate injections of new money–that won’t necessarily reach hyperinflation levels. And, that’s exactly what they are doing, and we’ve been living and adapting to the current 6-9% rate of real inflation for 20 years now.
It is my considered opinion that they are going to keep things bailed out until Russia and China finally pull off their long-planned attack on the West, which will collapse the economy. But waiting for war to do the damage allows the PTB come out as heros, evade the blame, and rally people into a miltarized NWO in order to prosecute the war. Then and only then do they have the global organization and muscle to create a new world currency and the control schemes they are now putting into place. But they need that big trigger event not only to evade blame, but tamp down the natural reluctance of Americans to accept a world government system. Everyone will only concerned about the government “saving us” when a nuclear attack descends upon our military—not our liberties (sadly).
The WBIR piece did make a quick mention of the nuclear target in the E. Tenn. area (Oak Ridge National Labs) but no background for it’s validity. Any showing of nuclear mushroom clouds in the modern media is meant to discredit nuclear war as a vestige of a 1950′s mentality. Nevertheless, as we read almost daily in the media about China’s growing assertiveness in the far East, it’s becoming clear to many in the mainstream that they are going to be a big problem someday. The government and the media almost never mention the Russian threat anymore which is also rearming in a major way—and that’s because they still intend to engage in more suicidal disarmament with the continuing Soviets.
I must give them credit for at least reading the relevant parts of Strategic Relocation, which they mentioned and quoted from in the piece, pointing to the advantages of the plateau: 1) that the Appelacian chain would provide the first barrier to refugees fleeing from the populous eastern seaboard, 2) that they’d be too weary from long travels to ascend the 1,000 foot plateau as the flee further Westward and will choose to stay in the more populated valleys where there are greater possibilities of finding something useful to their dire circumstances.
While those advantages still exist, and probably always will because the plateau isn’t suitable for large cities, there is a growing danger of the area being labeled as a “haven for extremists” that could taint it’s reputation and level of security in the future. I’ve always warned people not to buy into “survivalist communities” specifically for this reason. Because these developments are always short on capital and have to advertize and promote heavily in order to gain buyers, they compromise the privacy of the development in doing so. In that process, the locals find out about it and the development soon gets labeled as extremist or worse (a “domestic terror” threat)—with help from the Southern Poverty Law Conference who delights in poisoning people’s opinions about Patriots.
In my opinion, some prepper writers, with an eye for military style defense, make too much about having to be living together in a close knit compound in order to survive. In my 40 years of experience in this field, I’ve never seen one of these community attempt succeed. They are fraught with disagreements over money, strategy and leadership. Survivalists seem to be too independent to be good joiners. Yes, we do need to be mutually supporting, but just not all in the same place. I believe in informal networks for mutual support, within walking distance perhaps, but not in concentrated compounds or communities that can easily be identified and targeted by government or those who will someday resent those that have prepared ahead of time. When you aren’t locked into living and financial arrangments you can more easily agree to disagree and not have to get up and move away.
After this type of publicity, I wouldn’t be surprised if some developer puts together a “survival community” and starts marketing it on the plateau. I hope not, but that’s a possibility. Even if that doesn’t happen, the media can easily poison the area by follow up stories interviewing people who have actually moved to the plateau for survival reasons.
So, the lesson learned by this mildly negative piece, is be descrete. Don’t talk to the news media. Don’t allow yourself to be interviewed for an American Prepper TV show. Don’t go blabbing to realtors about why you want to buy property. Don’t try to convince them of your reasoning. Just give him general criteria and not the justification for it. I fear we are going to see more of these mainstream pieces and they will gradually digress into outright hit pieces—ruining many of the best prepper locations in this country, by giving them a bad reputation.
nothing like making tennesse a main target for the feds…You all should read the book “molon labe” by the author “boston t party”..its on amazon for about 12 bucks. I have read it twice. It is the top 5 of all books I have read and will really open your eyes about reality. Boston T. Party is a great author. He also has other books. He wrote one in 1995 about privacy and is a true visionary. He also has a book called “the gun bible”..over 1000 pages explaining every gun, and its history etc. The guy is beyond genius.