I'm not agreeing or disagreeing with you, but maybe they're just using their threads to cover all their bases. Maybe no one knows what's coming, and by the small chance, that something bad does happen, they may be able to think back to something they read and/or someone suggested on some "survival" site.
I haven't read the "Red Dawn" thread like you are so angry about, but why let it get to you?
Maybe it is someone just getting introduced to "prepping", and that's their first step into learning about being self prepared, however dumb it may sound to someone that has been doing it for years.

Just sayin...

 

I actually LOVE that movie - the original.
Haven't seen the new one.

Really a lot of good lessons there - just should'nt be the end-all.

 

Pretty much the same thing you said in your doomsday prepper thread that got merged.

So I'm assuming this is more than just a momentary irritation at a television show.

Fact is that prepping comes from realization and fear that this modern world is built on a house of cards. Once the blinders come off the limits of fear are as wide and varied as there are people in the world.

People just have to work through that personal angst until they get to the point of realizing what is likely to happen and should be prudently prepared for and everything else that will only keep driving them crazy. While they work through this the rest of us are stuck with being spectators.

 

Actually deleted that and restated it.
Didn't really want it to get lost on page 999 of an old thread.

I think this is something people need to think about and quite the opposite of a "phase". I've seen seasoned preppers stuck in this rut for years.
It actually becomes a bit of a psychological refuge - even to the point where the somewhat look forward to the fantasy becoming reality.
The "someday I'll be on top" mentality.
Prevents them from ever addressing their current issues.

Most of these people ARE prepared for Red Dawn or Patriots to some extent.
But to the constant nagging pressure of a government that is slowly enslaving them - they lack the will to resist.
It is these people who will trade you in like so many poker chips if offered the govt. Get Out of Jail Free card.

 

My red dawn fantasy is where a beautiful russian paratrooper named Svetlana falls through my roof and into my lap. The sweet love that ensues will solve world peace and world hunger at the same time.

Preparing is an evolution of mindset, we all didn't start out with a balanced approach. Everyone has that trigger or wakeup that gets them started, for some it might be a fictional movie or book.

 

Remember Spies Like Us?
The last part, where it's launch time and Chevy Chase is deep in the tents with all the Soviet babes in lingerie and fur caps.

Epic way to go.:

 

Its going to be like detriot....only everywhere

 

funny dude.
I might agree with that one...

 

Hang around this site for a while. What isn't "predictions" is tv and movie quotes. Pretty sad for a bunch of survivalists.

Ever notice that in these nimrods fantasies, the enemy's bullets always miss while theirs always hits. And cities are always magically devoid of people, while loaded with resources to plunder? LOL sheesh.

 

I will add that 45 acp is the bomb. :upsidedown:

BJJ rules as the martial art of the ages, ginko bola cures all deceases.

The list goes on and on.

But mostly I love foreigner talking about American preppers are to gun happy from countries that give little to no voice to their safety concerns.:thumb:

 

I dunno, Woody had a heck of a time finding Twinkies in Zombieland

 

#@%&$@$%&! Snowballs?

 

My fantasy ends at not having a house payment anymore. Everything else in life would be crappy.

 

Most of the ones I know in persion are.... Much more stable.

Heck. I am too.

The internets is a place to have fun while learning a little (I just was learning about making oil from sunflowers.... Don't know why I didn't think of that.....)

Don't take it too serious. Remember: "it's just the Internet"

 

got myself in an award moment thinking like that once Mike... Some guy was buying some armor inserts and 30 round mags,, and I casually asked, are you expecting the S to HTF ?
He answered No,, I am concerned about home invasion

I then said, did you know the typical home invasion is by 3 people ?

he said yes,, and I foolishly asked,, then you are planning in sleeping in body armor and having time to miss 27 times at 4 yards.. ?

I should have just kept my big mouth shut , paid for the box of #4's and quietly left... LOL

I quietly await the ridicule to follow this post... go ahead fellas,, I am a married man and quite inured to ridicule

 

actually, prepping for realistic scenarios,, hurricane, tornado, drought in the Midwest,, rampant mad cow disease.. truckers strike, oil embargo.. blizzard,, job loss,, power outage, differs from prepping for Zombie hordes , Invasion by Communists, or OBamanites,, Radiation emergencies,, Asteroids , Volcanic ash only in the amount of ammunition hoarded

so if they wish to entertain those nightmares, let them , as long as they do not skimp on the water, rice and beans, to buy the bullets

 

Bueller, while I agree that most scenarios that we will probably face won't probably end up being like Red Dawn, I do tend to think that people who post are trying very, very hard to use Red Dawn sort of "as an example of their concerns."It's like they're having a hard time communicating so they use that idea as a vague general reference for what they feel. Obviously, now that Russia has collapsed, the idea of Russian troops invading Colorado is pretty much a fictional work. But for general reference purposes it could be useful in some ways.

A good example would be the rifles and weapons used, the camouflaged clothing worn by both groups, the tactics used by both sides to avoid detection and to detect each other and so on. As new technology comes into play, Red Dawn could be updated to show how that new technology would be used by one or both sides. So, in a way, it's not quite a good training film but it's one that somebody could use to ask questions about and use as a basis for personal planning.

 

Hmmm, I have mixed emotions about this one.
Iv'e seen the Old Red Dawn and the New One, Enjoyed them both. Ive read all of JWR novels except the new one, taking a break from him as I'm reading The Going Home Series by Angery American. I enjoy them all, thoroughly. Movies, Books what ever.. They are a great escape from reality and I always learn something or they make me think of something I've never thought of before. Jeeez, even Dooms day preppers do that but we wont open that can of worms!

My point is yes all these books, TV shows and movies influence my perception of what I think things may be like post collapse but then I hear about another farm murder going on here in South Africa where 4 or 5 black guys armed with AK's and machetes brutally kill the whole family, Babies, Kids and grand parents alike.
Then everything I "think" about this Holly wood collapse is complete rubbish. Some may say the the S has already hit the fan here but I just say TIA..

Answer me this, How do you prepare for the hoards of zombies when you live in a country full of them? Where they are mostly uneducated, mostly living well below the worlds poverty line, where they survive every day on nothing. Where not all but alot resort to crime, robbery and home invasions on a daily basis just to live???


I have had post apoc fantasies since I was a kid, I just dislike the world we live in and look forward to a simpler time where food, water and security are your priorities instead of Cars, debts and jobs we all hate so much.
All my American Hollywood fantasies of the world ending dont mean **** here!
I dont think those few ounces of Silver i've stared buying are going to help much...

At the end of the day non of us know what is going to happen, Everyone preps for different reasons. We all enjoy it or we wouldnt do it.
But for something like a financial collapse, a slow decline of society I think books like patriots or going home can teach you few things and should influence ones perception in one way or another... Apart from that they are way better than watching some reality Crud on TV or just waiting for that next awesome End of days movie to come out!

Cheers!

 

Oh and WOLVERINES!!!!

 

If this bunch was marooned on an island...it'd be Lord of the Flies part 2 lol.

 

I prep for everything that can go wrong. I look at target hazards here and that is what I work to counter that. The problem is in any grid down situation wether it'd he a few families or states, it takes a while to get back to normal. If something like this happens you don't get to wake up one morning and say I'm down with this now can we go ack to how it was before?

I see far too many threads around here where people glamorize how great it wold be if SHTF broke out and romantize about the war that could happen. That is just plain stupid. There is notjing romantic about the prospects of war and life sucks when u8u see your neighbors go 3rd world.

 

It will 2 be zombies and earthquakes and other crazy thins. You dont knowz what you be jibb jabbin about man. I know dese things cause i read comix and the comix know dos thins.

 

You dont have Earthquakes in Florida..only sinkholes, consider yourself lucky, that is if a sinkhole doesnt swallow you up while your sleeping or driving on patrol.

Me, the only reason I prep is because of earthquakes and riots. Of which I have made it through several.

 

WOLVERINES!!!!

Seriously though, it ain't just preppers who do this. How many women watch a chick flick and then wonder why their man can't be as sweet as THAT guy? Or how many teenagers watch a teen flick and think that if they stand up to a bully the bully will cry and run away? How many men watch a TV comedy and think that large breasted girls will love them for being a dork or a fat, obnoxious man? How many people watched 'The Dukes of Hazzard' and think that is the proper and safe way to drive in the country? How many people think that by buying a deodorant stick will make them popular? How many people watch FOX News or MSNBC and suddenly think they are informed?

It isn't preppers so much as the culture itself that simply refuses to turn off the TV and live life instead of pretending they are. Welcome to The United States of Fantasy Land.

 

I sit back and wonder why there are more preppers today than anytime in our history. The unusually high increase in prepping has got the attention of the government and the media.

I can't help wonder why there are so many preppers.

 

I think a lot came from the recent economic hardship (collapse?) and woke a lot of people up as to how unprepared they are when the money and jobs ain't there anymore.

 

I think the thing I find most disturbing about some of the more absurd survivalist fantasies is that you don't have to go to Hollywood to find actual, real-world, documented post-apocalypse conditions that are much more informative.

Examples are all around us - the current civil war in Syria (no food, lots of displaced civilians living in tents in the winter, no commerce, no fuel, tremendous confusion, unstable living arrangements, bad water, etc.); the mega-typhoon that just hit the Philippines; rioting in Eygpt (Cairo) over the past two years that shut down commerce, inspired checkpoints from neighborhood to neighborhood, and shut off sales of groceries and gasoline; the extreme lawlessness in Brazil and Venezuela that just saw a former Miss Venezuela shot dead by the side of the road after their car hit a metal device deliberately placed in the road to disable the next car that came along, and where kidnap-for-profit occurs many times each day; FerFal's description of life in Argentina after their economy and government collapsed in 2001; and eyewitness descriptions of the wars in the Balkans involving Serbia, Croatia, and the Bosnian Muslims in Bosnia Hertzegovina, where the men from entire villages were lined up and machinegunned to fall into trenches that were dug with bulldozers.

There are no shortages of actual documented SHTF moments that are happening today from Somalia and Sudan to Syria and South America, and there are pages and pages of actual reports and video footage of what life is really like after your personal world falls apart.

But it's as if people don't want to research reality. It's much easier to simply watch a movie and assume thats what you'd be dealing with.

It sort of goes beyond "sad", to "deliberate ignorance".

YMMV.

 

All I can say is "AMEN!":thumb:

 

Brad Smith is a prepper who lives in Flyover country. He is a Master Machinist, Gun Owner and Patriot. He lives in a typical Middle Class neighborhood with his Wife Brenda and their three girls, KayDee, BranDee, Colbee and son Lee Patton.

The good for nothing socialist president was on TV telling the country they were broke. No more money for welfare, food stamps or foreign aid.

"Guess we shouldn't have hired all those Indians and illegals" muttered Brad as he looked on in shock at the TV.

His musing was interupted by a noise outside. Quickly glancing out the window, Brad sees the neighbors coming up his front walk. The neighbors are on welfare and food stamps and voted for the president.

"They're coming to take our preps!" Brad yells.

Brenda, an emergency room RN, is homeschooling the kids with her left hand while canning four hundred pounds of home grown green beans with her right yells to Brad,

"Get your gun before they get us!"

Brad goes to his gun safe and carefully considers his Bushwhacker AR15 with half twist chrome line barrel, ninety 30 round magazines and laser scope but is distracted by his twelve gauge auto-loader with extended tube magazine with a carry capacity of forty shells when his reverie is broken by the harsh voice of the neighbor outside,

"Give us yo food or we gonna come in and take it!" she yells.

Brad stands there in shock and then opens the front door and fires shell after shell into the crowd until all are dead.

"Quick! Check their bodies for loot!" yells Brenda while she plows a six thousand square foot garden in the back yard, cooks a full grown pig in the kitchen and sews eight new pairs of overalls by hand.

Brad finds six Glocks, forty magazines and plenty of gold chains and drugs on the neighbors' bodies. He was about to take the loot inside, when the City Diversity Representative came from the nearby big city and demanded to inventory and distribute Brad's preps.

Brad reaches for his AR15 Bushwhacker when his best friend the Deputy Sheriff suddenly shows up with retired Marine Corp Gunnery Sargent Crusty Pusher...

 

I'm confused.

 

Hell, I know CCW carriers that carry 50 rounds on them just for daily carry! Geesh!

 

I think most of our frustration comes from day dreamers only seeing the "good" side of their fantasies, they aren't considering the bad. You hear these people wanting a civil war but they aren't realizing the "other side" will throw everything at them that they haven't considered in their fantasy...like family and friends being casualties. Or those wanting the excitement of a zombie apocalypse, and imagining they are the only ones who never have to reload because they never run out of ammo. The world is full of people who jump into something and only look at the good without considering the bad. Look at the crap coming out of D.C.

 

I think it is wishful thinking. Real life prepping like physical fitness, financial resposibility, and education are boring and hard. Fantasizing about defending their fortified home with tacticool weaponry is fun.

 

What, no descriptions or images of the hot babes that you get once the fantasy plays out? All I can say is my prepper fantasies include thoughts that require me to go take a cold shower even if there is still power for the hot water heater. You guys seem to only think of combat scenarios. Not the super model that shows up hungry and desperate at the door looking to be taken in and sheltered. You know, more realistic situations for real disasters.

 

Mmmmm hot, sweaty, refugee sex.

Note to self: Prep more scented baby wipes and extra toothbrushes.

 

With out some level of fantasy, one can not organize a defensive strategy .
Experience does not force an enemy to fallow ones professional opinion. it takes volumes of experience to even hope to be slightly ahead of an enemy.
This is why war games are played.
Finding the holes.
If you poo poo taking an active practice to heart, laugh at the military if you dare.
This is going to be a whole lot more difficult .
No uniform.
NO SOP
No reinforcements .

If you think your so ready , I'd like to play some airsoft, with you wearing shorts only, (and a mask for safety).
Don't need no paint ball, the red dots on your skin will tell all.

Your going out to get fire wood, and some one takes you hostage, What is your protocol?
Oh ya this can never happen ,
well except in south america .
every day.
Ok Mr,"got it all together ", what's your plan ?

 

Anyone who has ever prepped firewood knows you dont go out alone. If you do, youre an idiot. Injury, snake bite, etc. Also, you dont get firewood for just one day. You go out continually and collect it to do the whole winter.

In a SHTF scenario, you go out in a group and one, maybe two, of you keep watch while the others work. Then, you switch out to give someone a break. If youre all armed, then just shoot the SOB in the brain stem.