textfiles/survival/number

SURVIVAL IS LOOKING AFTER NO. 1 by Kurt Saxon (c)1976
     Alarmists all around the country are promising disasters such 
as super inflation, famine, foreign invasion, the triumph of 
communism/fascism, nuclear war, etc.  Unfortunately, they may be 
right, even though their timing is wrong; we hope.
     You have only to compare this year's food prices over last 
year's; this year's quality of life is going down and the 
difficulty of maintaining a decent living standard is a greater 
worry to most Americans.
     There are two main reasons for this which no political system 
can help.  One is that the Age of Exploration and Development and 
the Industrial Revolution is over and the other is that the good 
crop weather, world-wide, is also over, maybe for centuries.
     The Age of Exploration and Development began about 1500 and 
ended around 1950.  From the beginning of that period the Earth was 
explored, mapped, annexed, developed and exploited.  Its resources, 
animal, vegetable, and mineral were looted with little or no 
thought for future generations.  As national industries grew to 
take advantage of the inpouring bounty from the hinterlands, living 
standards rose, enabling more people to survive and in turn to 
reproduce their kind.  Human locusts spread over the Earth; born 
only to exploit, rape and destroy their own environment.
      "Have more babies so we can clear more land." "Have more 
babies so we can mine more coal and metals." "Have more babies so 
we can keep the factories running." "Have more babies so we can 
take more territory from the hated enemy."
     And then, about 25 years ago, the overall bounty ran out.  
Some of the natural resources became scarce a century ago.  Some 
like coal, may last another century.  But in a general sense, the 
reason for existence for most of the world's population ended about 
1950.
     More babies are being born but there is no more land to 
clear.  More babies are being born but mining is automated, needing 
little hand labor.  More babies are being born but the world's 
factories are closing down.  More babies are being born but cannon 
fodder, the uniformed ape, is too quickly a corpse to be worth 
arming.  Automated killing is all the rage.
     Human quality is in demand but is becoming harder to find. 
Human quantity is a drug on the market, a surplus.  Governments 
don't create reaw materials.  Unions don't create jobs.  So the 
Working Class-push, pull, lift-is increasingly without purpose.  As 
the system breaks down, the erosion of occupations will worsen so 
that even specialists will be on welfare.
     So with literally billions of people made surplus by the lack 
of easily accessible raw materials the idea of world-wide 
institutionalized welfare has set in.  "We'll just feed them until 
technology creates new jobs," say the optimists.
     But this is not to be.  As the bounty of natural resources has 
run out, the world's bountiful harvests have also ended.  The 
weather from 1930 to 1960 was excellent for crops.  Unfortunately 
for the human race, this good crop weather was abnormal and had not 
occurred in the last 1000 years!  Now it's over and there's no 
reason to believe this freakishly good weather pattern will return 
in our lifetimes; maybe not for hundreds of years.
     Moreover, most of the agribusiness plants now grown were bred 
for the weather conditions from the 30's through the 60's.  Bad 
seasons wipe them out and it would take years to replace them with 
the old foul-weather, low-yield strains Granddad thrived on.  Also, 
the present good-weather, high-yield plant strains depend on vast 
amounts of oil-based fertilizers few nations can afford today.
     When bad weather hit Russia's 1973 harvests the ensuing wheat 
deal wiped out our surplus.  Millions of acres had been lying 
unused in the Soil Bank.  Brought into cultivation, they have put 
off severe shortages here and made the effects of our own bad 
weather less noticeable.  Without all that acreage to fall back on, 
Americans would be starving now.
     With the world's worsening weather making increasing demands 
on our crops by other countries and our own weather getting worse, 
the end is in sight for the majority of humanity.
     Of course, I haven't written this to upset you.  After all, if 
you weren't interested in survival you wouldn't be reading this.  
So you aren't one of the doomed majority.  You are already making 
plans to save yourself and your loved ones from the worst to come.
     Now that you know that the game of Huddled Masses is over you 
can start looking out for Number One.  Unlike the unprepared and 
the unthinking, you won't have to make the sudden choice between 
running away in a panic or just staying put in a totally 
non-survival area.
     Let's say you decide to leave your present situation one year 
from now.  You should be ready to leave before then if you have to 
but panic makes anyone a refugee.  A year will put your survival 
program in its proper perspective.
     If you can look at your program as simply a move to a more 
rural, less commercial area you've taken the panic out of it and 
friends and neighbors won't question your sanity or try to talk 
members of your family out of the move.
     Naturally, this present advice is mainly for people living in 
major population centers.  If you live in a town of 50,000 or more, 
it's too commercial to have much staying power after a social 
collapse.
     Towns with under 50,000, in rural areas, have more contact 
with life's basics and can reorganize their populations if 
necessary.  So a small town in a rural area is your best bet.  A 
patch of land and a modest home just outside a village gives the 
greatest security.  It won't cost you an arm and a leg and you'll 
get away from the image of the leather-clad, root-grubbing savage 
some survivalists suggest.
     A year's planning will help you find such a town and prepare 
to provide a service, food, craft or otherwise, which will make you 
an asset to the community.
     You may want to get a few acres and live cut off from 
everyone.  This is fine if you're well armed and a professional 
woodcrafter already.  However, this is too great a change for most 
people.  The inexperienced dreamer simply cannot survive alone.
     Regardless of your choice, town, commune or small farm, you 
must choose an area about 100 miles from any major population 
center.  It must also be several miles off any major highway.  
Refugees streaming out of New York or Los Angeles will clog the 
main highways and strip every home for miles each side of their 
route like irresistable plagues of locusts.
     No matter how you might think you can steel yourself against 
pitiful refugees you must plan to live as far off their prospective 
routes as possible.  This isn't as hard as you might think.  More 
people are clogging the cities and only the intelligent ones are 
moving back to the land.
     In succeeding issues I will concentrate on survival without 
savagery.  You should live well while waiting out the storm.  A 
year or less of practical study and application of a good survival 
program will help you to come through the worst ahead with strength 
and dignity.
     Issues following this one will have less advertisements for my 
books and more reprints and how-tos from the past as well as 
current information.  You are invited to write in and request 
subjects and formulas you want covered.
     I have material enough to last for years and more comes in 
daily.  There is such a wide variety that anyone should be 
satisfied, especially if you let me know your needs.
     Further issues will also inform you of ways to earn a living 
wherever you settle.  You will be introduced to other survivalists 
and their techniques.  This $6.00 subscription may be the most 
important purchase you will ever make.