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Authored by Steve Watson via Summit News,

The EU has attempted to defend the fact that it allowed the communist Chinese government to censor a letter it wrote before it was published in a Chinese newspaper, erasing a sentence that stated the coronavirus originated in China.

The letter, co-written by the bloc’s 27 ambassadors, was published in China’s English-language newspaper China Daily on Tuesday. However, the EU agreed to allow censors to remove the sentence, which stated “But the outbreak of the coronavirus, in China, and its subsequent spread to the rest of the world over the past three months…”

“China has state-controlled media. There is censorship, that’s a fact,” EU foreign affairs spokesperson Virginie Battu-Henriksson told reporters in an attempt to justify bowing to the Chinese censors.

Henriksson suggested that the EU reluctantly agreed to the amendment because it was better than not being able to communicate with a Chinese audience on ‘key EU issues’, including climate change, human rights and the pandemic response.

It is the second time in the space of two weeks that the EU has rolled over for Chinese censorship, having previously softened criticism of the communist regime in a report documenting how governments have pushed “disinformation” about the coronavirus pandemic.

The European Union was set to issue the report until Chinese officials “quickly contacted the European Union’s representatives in Beijing to try to kill the report,” according to two diplomats.

The EU then “diluted the focus on China, a vital trading partner.”

German conservative politician Norbert Roettgen criticised the EU’s actions, stating “I am shocked not once but twice.”

“First the EU ambassadors generously adopt Chinese narratives and then the EU representative on top accepts Chinese censorship of the joint op-ed.” he added.

“This story beggars belief,” another EU diplomat told Politico, asking “What is the point in letting yourself be censored?”

The source urged that it was an “embarrassment” for the EU, adding: “The cost of taking a stand and defending what you believe in would have been very small.”

Authored by Matthew Ehret via The Strategic Culture Foundation,

75 years ago Germany surrendered to allied forces finally ending the ravages of the Second World War.

Today, as the world celebrates the 75th anniversary of this victory, why not think very seriously about finally winning that war once and for all?

If you’re confused by this statement, then you might want to sit down and take a deep breath before reading on. Within the next 12 minutes, you will likely discover a disturbing fact which may frighten you a little bit: The allies never actually won World War II…

Now please don’t get me wrong. I am eternally thankful for the immortal souls who gave their lives to put down the fascist machine during those bleak years… but the fact is that a certain something wasn’t resolved on the 9th of May, 1945 which has a lot to do with the slow re-emergence of a new form of fascism during the second half of the 20th century and the renewed danger of a global bankers’ dictatorship which the world faces again today.

It is my contention that it is only when we find the courage to really look at this problem with sober eyes, that we will be able to truly honor our courageous forebears who devoted their lives to winning a peace for their children, grandchildren and humanity more broadly.

The Ugly Truth of WWII

I’ll stop beating around the Bush now and just say it: Adolph Hitler or Benito Mussolini were never “their own men”.

The machines they led were never fully under their sovereign control and the financing they used as fuel in their effort to dominate the world did not come from the Banks of Italy or Germany. The technologies they used in petrochemicals, rubber, and computing didn’t come from Germany or Italy, and the governing scientific ideology of eugenics that drove so many of the horrors of Germany’s racial purification practices never originated in the minds of German thinkers or from German institutions.

Were it not for a powerful network of financiers and industrialists of the 1920s-1940s with names such as Rockefeller, Warburg, Montague Norman, Osborn, Morgan, Harriman or Dulles, then it can safely be said that fascism would never have been possible as a “solution” to the economic woes of the post-WWI order. To prove this point, let us take the strange case of Prescott Bush as a useful entry point.

The patriarch of the same Bush dynasty that gave the world two disastrous American presidents (and nearly a third had Donald Trump not annihilated Jeb at the last minute in 2016) made a name for himself funding Nazism alongside his business partners Averell Harrimen and Averell’s younger brother E. Roland Harriman (the latter who was to recruit Prescott to Skull and Bones while both studying at Yale). Not only did Prescott, acting as director of Brown Brothers Harriman, provide valuable loans to keep the bankrupt Nazi party afloat during Hitler’s loss of support in 1932 when the German population voted into office the anti-Fascist General Kurt von Schleicher as Chancellor, but was even found guilty for “Trading with the enemy” as director of Union Banking Corporation in 1942!

That’s right! As demonstrated in the 1992 Unauthorized Biography of George Bush, eleven months after America entered WWII, the Federal Government naturally conducted an investigation of all Nazi banking operations in the USA and wondered why Prescott continued to direct a bank which was so deeply enmeshed with Fritz Thyssen’s Bank voor Handel en Scheepvart of the Netherlands. Thyssen for those who are un-aware is the German industrial magnate famous for writing the book “I Paid Hitler”. The bank itself was tied to a German combine called Steel Works of the German Steel Trust which controlled 50.8% of Nazi Germany’s pig iron, 41.4% of its universal plate, 38.5% of its galvanized steel, 45.5% of its pipes and 35% of its explosives. Under Vesting Order 248, the U.S. federal government seized all of Prescott’s properties on October 22, 1942.

The U.S.-German Steel combine was only one small part of a broader operation as Rockefeller’s Standard Oil had created a new international cartel alongside IG Farben (the fourth largest company in the world) in 1929 under the Young Plan. Owen Young was a JP Morgan asset who headed General Electric and instituted a German debt repayment plan in 1928 that gave rise to the Bank of International Settlements (BIS) and consolidated an international cartel of industrialists and financiers on behalf of the City of London and Wall Street. The largest of these cartels saw Henry Ford’s German operations merging with IG Farben, Dupont industries, Britain’s Shell and Rockefeller’s Standard Oil. The 1928 cartel agreement also made it possible for Standard Oil to pass off all patents and technologies for the creation of synthetic gasoline from coal to IG Farben thus allowing Germany to rise from producing merely 300 000 tons of natural petroleum in 1934 to an incredible 6.5 million tons (85% of its total) during WWII! Had this patent/technology transfer not taken place, it is a fact that the modern mechanized warfare that characterized WWII could never have occurred.

Two years before the Young Plan began, JP Morgan had already given a $100 million loan to Mussolini’s newly established fascist regime in Italy- with Democratic Party kingmaker Thomas Lamont playing the role of Prescott Bush in Wall Street’s Italian operation. It wasn’t only JP Morgan who loved Mussolini’s brand of corporate fascism, but Time Magazine’s Henry Luce unapologetically gushed over Il Duce putting Mussolini on the cover of Time eight times between 1923 and 1943 while relentlessly promoting fascism as the “economic miracle solution for America” (which he also did in his other two magazines Fortune and Life). Many desperate Americans, still traumatized from the long and painful depression begun in 1929, had increasingly embraced the poisonous idea that an American fascism would put food on the table and finally find help them find work.

A few words should be said of Brown Brothers Harriman.

Bush’s Nazi bank itself was the spawn of an earlier 1931 merger which took place between Montagu Norman’s family bank (Brown Brothers) and Harriman, Bush and Co. Montague Norman was the Governor of the Bank of England from 1920 to 1944, leader of the Anglo-German Fellowship Trust and controller of Germany’s Hjalmar Schacht (Reichsbank president from 1923-1930 and Minister of Economy from 1934-1937). Norman was also the primary controller of the Bank of International Settlements (BIS) from its creation in 1930 throughout the entirety of WWII.

The Central Bank of Central Banks

Although the BIS was established under the Young Plan and nominally steered by Schacht as a mechanism for debt repayments from WWI, the Swiss-based “Central Bank of Central Banks” was the key mechanism for international financiers to fund the Nazi machine. The fact that the BIS was under the total control of Montagu Norman was revealed by Dutch Central Banker Johan Beyen who said “Norman’s prestige was overwhelming. As the apostle of central bank cooperation, he made the central banker into a kind of arch-priest of monetary religion. The BIS was, in fact, his creation.”

The founding members of the Board included the private central banks of Britain, France, Germany, Italy and Belgium as well as a coterie of 3 private American banks (JP Morgan, First National of Chicago, and First National of New York). The three American banks merged after the war and are today known as Citigroup and JP Morgan Chase.

In its founding constitution, the BIS, its directors and staff were given immunity from all sovereign national laws and not even authorities in Switzerland were permitted to enter its premises.

This story was conveyed powerfully in a 1998 History Channel documentary entitled Banking with Hitler.

A Word on Eugenics

Nazi support in the build up to, and during WWII didn’t end with finance and industrial might, but extended to the governing scientific ideology of the third Reich: Eugenics (aka: the science of Social Darwinism as developed by Thomas Huxley’s X Club associate Herbert Spencer and Darwin’s cousin sir Francis Galton decades earlier). In 1932, New York hosted the Third Eugenics Conference co-sponsored by William Draper Jr (JP Morgan banker, head of General Motors and leading figure of Dillon Read and co) and the Harriman family. This conference brought together leading eugenicists from around the world who came to study America’s successful application of eugenics laws which had begun in 1907 under the enthusiastic patronage of Theodore Roosevelt. Hiding behind the respectable veneer of “science” these high priests of science discussed the new age of “directed evolution of man” which would soon be made possible under a global scientific dictatorship.

Speaking at the conference, leading British Fascist Fairfield Osborn said that eugenics:

“aids and encourages the survival and multiplication of the fittest; indirectly, it would check and discourage the multiplication of the unfitted. As to the latter, in the United States alone, it is widely recognized that there are millions of people who are acting as dragnets or sheet anchors on the progress of the ship of state…While some highly competent people are unemployed, the mass of unemployment is among the less competent, who are first selected for suspension, while the few highly competent people are retained because they are still indispensable. In nature, these less-fitted individuals would gradually disappear, but in civilization, we are keeping them in the community in the hopes that in brighter days, they may all find employment. This is only another instance of humane civilization going directly against the order of nature and encouraging the survival of the un-fittest”.

The dark days of the great depression were good years for bigotry and ignorance as eugenics laws were applied to two Canadian provinces, and widely spread across Europe and America with 30 U.S. states applying eugenics laws to sterilize the unfit. Eugenics’ successful growth was due in large measure to the fierce financial support of the Rockefeller Foundation and the science magazine Nature which had been created in 1865 by T.H. Huxley’s X Club. The Rockefeller Foundation went onto fund German eugenics and most specifically the rising star of human improvement Joseph Mengele.

The Nazi Frankenstein Monster is Aborted

Describing his January 29, 1935 meeting with Hitler, Round Table controller Lord Lothian quoted the Fuhrer’s vision for Aryan co-direction of the New World Order saying:

“Germany, England, France, Italy, America and Scandinavia … should arrive at some agreement whereby they would prevent their nationals from assisting in the industrializing of countries such as China, and India. It is suicidal to promote the establishment in the agricultural countries of Asia of manufacturing industries”

While it is obvious that much more can be said on the topic, the Fascist machine didn’t fully behave the way the Dr. Frankensteins in London wished, as Hitler began to realize that his powerful military machine gave Germany the power to lead the New World Order rather than play second fiddle as mere enforcers on behalf of their Anglo masters in Britain. While many London and Wall Street oligarchs were willing to adapt to this new reality, a decision was made to abort the plan, and try to fight another day.

To do this a scandal was concocted to justify the abdication of pro-Nazi King Edward VIII in 1936 and an appeasing Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain was replaced with Winston Churchill in 1940. While Sir Winston was a life long racist, eugenicist and even Mussolini-admirer, he was first and foremost a devout British Imperialist and as such would fight tooth and nail to save the prestige of the Empire if it were threatened. Which he did.

The Fascists vs Franklin Roosevelt

Within America itself, the pro-fascist Wall Street establishment had been loosing a war that began the day anti-fascist President Franklin Roosevelt was elected in 1932. Not only had their attempted February 1933 assassination failed, their 1934 coup d’etat plans were also thwarted by a patriotic General named Smedley Darlington Butler. To make matters worse, their efforts to keep America out of the war in the hopes of co-leading the New World Order alongside Germany, France and Italy was also falling apart. A As I outlined in my recent article How to Crush a Bankers’ Dictatorship, between 1933-1939, FDR had imposed sweeping reforms on the banking sector, thwarted a major attempt to create a global Bankers’ dictatorship under the Bank of International Settlements, and mobilized a broad recovery under the New Deal.

By 1941, Japan’s attack on Pearl Harbor polarized the American psyche so deeply that resisting America’s entry into WWII as Wall Street’s American Liberty League had been doing up until then, became political suicide. Wall Street’s corporatist organizations were called out by FDR during a powerful 1938 speech as the president reminded the Congress of the true nature of fascism:

“The first truth is that the liberty of a democracy is not safe if the people tolerate the growth of private power to a point where it becomes stronger than their democratic state itself. That, in its essence, is fascism – ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or by any other controlling private power… Among us today a concentration of private power without equal in history is growing. This concentration is seriously impairing the economic effectiveness of private enterprise as a way of providing employment for labor and capital and as a way of assuring a more equitable distribution of income and earnings among the people of the nation as a whole.”

While America’s entry into WWII proved a decisive factor in the destruction of the fascist machine, the dream shared by Franklin Roosevelt, Henry Wallace and many of FDR’s closest allies across America, Canada, Europe, China and Russia for a world governed by large-scale development, and win-win cooperation did not come to pass.

Even though FDR’s ally Harry Dexter White led in the fight to shut down the Bank of International Settlements during the July 1944 Bretton Woods conference, the passage of White’s resolutions to dissolve BIS and audit its books were never put into action. While White, who was to become the first head of the IMF, defended FDR’s program to create a new anti-imperial system of finance, Fabian Society leader, and devout eugenicist John Maynard Keynes defended the Bank and pushed instead to redefine the post-war system around a one world currency called the Bancor, controlled by the Bank of England and BIS.

The Fascist Resurgence in the Post-War World

By the end of 1945, the Truman Doctrine and Anglo-American “special relationship” replaced FDR’s anti-colonial vision, while an anti-communist witch hunt turned America into a fascist police state under FBI surveillance. Everyone friendly to Russia was targeted for destruction and the first to feel that targeting were FDR’s close allies Henry Wallace and Harry Dexter White whose 1948 death while campaigning for Wallace’s presidential bid put an end to anti-colonialists running the IMF.

In the decades after WWII, those same financiers who brought the world fascism went straight back to work infiltrating FDR’s Bretton Woods Institutions such as the IMF and World Bank, turning them from tools of development, into tools of enslavement. This process was fully exposed in the 2004 book Confessions of an Economic Hit man by John Perkins.

The European banking houses representing the old nobility of the empire continued through this reconquering of the west without punishment. By 1971, the man whom Perkins exposed as the chief economic hit man George Schultz, orchestrated the removal of the U.S. dollar from the Gold-reserve, fixed exchange rate system director of the Office of Management of Budget and in the same year, the Rothschild Inter-Alpha Group of banks was created to usher in a new age of globalization. This 1971 floating of the dollar ushered in a new paradigm of consumerism, post-industrialism, and de-regulation which transformed the once productive western nations into speculative “post-truth” basket cases convinced that casino principles, bubbles and windmills were substitutes for agro-industrial economic practices.

So here we are in 2020 celebrating victory over fascism.

The children and grandchildren of those heroes of 1945 now find themselves attached to the biggest financial collapse in history with $1.5 quadrillion of fictitious capital ripe to explode under a new global hyperinflation akin to that which destroyed Weimar in 1923, but this time global. The Bank of International Settlements that should have been dissolved in 1945 today controls the Financial Stability Board and thus regulates the world derivatives trade which has become the weapon of mass destruction that has been triggered to unleash more chaos upon the world than Hitler could have ever dreamed.

The saving grace today is that the anti-fascist spirit of Franklin Roosevelt is alive in the form of modern anti-imperialists Vladimir Putin, Xi Jinping and a growing array of nations united under the umbrella of the New Deal of the 21st Century which has come to be called the “Belt and Road Initiative”.

Had Prescott’s grandson Jeb (or Prescott’s spiritual grand daughter Hillary) found themselves in the position of President of the USA at this moment, it is unlikely that I would be writing this now, as I’m fairly certain WWIII would have already been launched. However, with President Trump having successfully survived nearly four years of Deep State subversion, and having called repeatedly for a positive alliance with Russia and China, a chance still exists to take the types of emergency actions needed at this moment of existential crisis to do what FDR had always intended, and win World War II.

We recently detailed how when America’s white collar work force returns to their offices, business complexes, and sky scrapers, their experience in the post-COVID ‘reopened’ work space is likely to resemble something more like an airport security check zone, complete with invasive protocols like frequent temperature checks and ‘social distancing’ and health surviellance, as well as Plexiglass eclosed cubicles and HR-style enforcement monitors. 

If all that sounds like a hassle, the WSJ has since taken up the question of America’s near-future office spaces, and the end result looks to be worse than expected. “Your every move will be watched,” the report emphasizes:

In Midtown Manhattan, thermal cameras will measure body temperatures as employees file into a 32-story office tower at Rockefeller Center. The building’s owner, RXR Realty, said it is also developing a mobile app for tenants to monitor — and score — how closely their workers are complying with social distancing.

PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP said it is preparing to launch this month a phone app for employers that traces contacts by analyzing workers’ interactions in the office. More than 50 clients have expressed interest, including some of the nation’s biggest banks, manufacturers and energy companies.

It sounds like something very close to China’s ‘big brother’ social credit scoring system which made world headlines last year, as it relies on cutting edge facial recognition software designed to permanently store a citizen profile while actively tracking individuals’ public movements. 

There’s already been reported instances of Chinese citizens being prevented from taking trains due to the system forecasting they might not be able to pay, or some other ‘pre-crime’ risks. 

And now this is getting closer to home, possibly coming to an office near you:

Advertising giant Interpublic Group of Cos . is exploring dividing its 22,000 U.S. employees into three separate groups, according to perceived health risks, which could include age. Workers could be asked to disclose medical and other personal information about themselves and, in some cases, family members…

“It is a reasonable approach, if you can get through the operational and some of the privacy and regulatory issues,” Dr. Ossmann said.

It’s certainly alarming anytime it has to be admitted that “privacy issues” are merely a pesky little something to “get through”. 

Covid-19 is taking workplace surveillance to a higher level, with some employers planning to track movements and gather personal information like never before in Western democracies https://t.co/2bjDGAEZtG

— The Wall Street Journal (@WSJ) May 6, 2020

There’s already talk of health tracking apps set up on a reward/punishment system of incentives sounding like something straight out of the dysoptian futuristic series Black Mirror.

This would further be integrated with controversial thermal imaging technology – some already set up at Amazon warehouses – capable of storing face recognition data (thought the company promises not to activate the storing software).

And it’s complete with live “guinea pigs” — rather, currently returning office employees, as the WSJ writes of one real estate company: 

RXR, the real-estate company, is testing new systems on its own employees. “We are using ourselves as the guinea pigs,” RXR’s Chief Executive Scott Rechler said.

The company aims to have its social-distancing app ready at the end of May. Workers’ movements are tracked through their smartphones — you get a higher score the more time in the office you are farther than 6 feet from another person. An individual would see his or her own score, and the employer would see aggregate data on how employees are complying with social distancing as a whole.

Comply or else what?… Yet another reason why employees would have to worry about keeping their jobs. 

And more on labeling broad groups of employees according to perceived COVID-19 risk factors: 

A worker that tested positive for coronavirus antibodies, indicating they had the infection in the past, would be considered a “Level 1” employee — the lowest risk— and could return to work when states and cities lift work-from-home orders.

Those without antibodies but who are considered a low to moderate risk would count as “Level 2.” This group would include employees who are under 65 years old, don’t live with high-risk people and don’t have chronic diseases including diabetes or hypertension. This group could potentially return to work in a second wave.

Employees over 65, or those who are pregnant, smoke, have chronic diseases or health issues would be considered “Level 3.” These at-risk employees would have to wait the longest to return, Dr. Ossmann said.

We wonder when the initial discrimination lawsuits based on how identifying characteristics are interpreted and assigned would start rolling down hill. 

But again, to see how all of this would actually play out, one need only watch episodes of the Black Mirror. What could go wrong?

Authored by Daisy Luther via The Organic Prepper blog,

If the coronavirus has inspired you to become a prepper, you’re not alone. At long last, prepping has become mainstream due to runs on supplies, shortages, and stay-at-home orders throughout the country. More folks than ever before are seeing the wisdom of having extra food and household goods on hand. It can help you through not only disasters and pandemics, but also through personal financial problems.

But delve into most preparedness websites (including this one) and it can start to get overwhelming when you read articles about civil unrest, EMPs, and existential catastrophes. You’ll see articles about guns and outdoor survival and all sorts of things in which you have absolutely no interest.

And more than that, it’s kind of overwhelming. It can make you feel like, “Wow, I will never be able to have a bunker in Montana with 150,000 rounds of ammo. I don’t even know how to build a fire. Why even bother?”

Before we get started with the “how to’s” here are a few things you should know.

All of us started at the beginning.

It’s important to know that all of us started somewhere. We all had some event that awakened us to the need to be better prepared. (To learn how some readers were inspired to get started, go here.) We all had to learn the ins and outs, read the books, and acquire the stuff.

Most of us don’t have thousands of dollars to drop on buckets of food and secondary locations. We began by just getting a few extra things when we could.

It takes some time.

Getting well-prepared doesn’t happen overnight. Even if you have a budget that is relatively unlimited, you will find that it still takes time to figure out what you need, where to get it, and where to store it.

So if you can only afford a few extra things each week, that’s a fantastic place to start. Within a month, you may have an extra week’s food supply doing things that way. Within a year, you’ve got a 3-month supply.

Rome wasn’t built in a day and neither was a prepper’s stockpile.

You don’t have to be of a particular political or religious belief to be a prepper.

A lot of folks think that most preppers are well-to-do white, right-wing Christians. While a lot of preppers do have that in common, there are a lot who do not. We don’t all live on an acreage in the boondocks and raise everything we eat.

If you feel like you don’t fit into the mold, don’t worry because let me tell you a secret: there really is no mold. We have readers of this website from all different kinds of political and religious backgrounds. We have city dwellers and suburbanites. We have folks who live off the land and folks who buy most of their food from the grocery store. We have rich readers and poor readers. We have people coming here from many different countries with many different belief systems. The thing that unites us is that we want to be prepared.

We have people who are involved in prepping for a huge variety of reasons and we, the writers and editors of this site, sincerely welcome anyone who wants to become better prepared for emergencies.

You don’t have to be a tinfoil hat conspiracy theorist to be a prepper.

A lot of folks have this mental image of some wild-eyed guy peering out of the bunker wearing a tinfoil helmet. I’ll grant you that a lot of preppers are mistrustful of the things we hear in the mainstream media. We don’t take things at face value.

But for every prepper who is certain that the New World Order is trying to take over and every event is a false flag, there are preppers who are extremely logical and scientific. There are preppers who are pro-vaccination and anti-vaccination and everything in between.

I guess what I’m trying to say here is that we run the gamut. Don’t let the stereotypes scare you away.

Don’t stay someplace you’re treated badly.

In most of the preparedness world, you’ll be welcomed with open arms. But there are a few websites and forums where you find long-time preppers who are incredibly discouraging. If you run into this issue repeatedly, don’t continue hanging out there. Getting started on a big endeavor is overwhelming enough without people like that making you feel like crap.

Around here we like to help each other with advice and suggestions. Feel free to ask any questions you might have in the comments section and you’ll probably get more than one answer from those who wish to share their knowledge.

We welcome you and we’re glad you’re here. Go here to sign up for our newsletter so you don’t miss a thing.

Now, how do you get started prepping?

Pretty much all of us have recently had a crash course in preparedness with the COVID-19 pandemic. Many people have been sheltering in place in their homes for over a month now and have seen holes in their purchases. Some folks had the unfortunate experience of going out to stock up a little too late, only to find that the shelves were bare of essentials.

An enormous factor that makes just about every disaster worse is panic. When you wait until the last minute, you’re out there with all the other folks who waited until the last minute. Tensions are high and supplies are low. This can create an unsafe situation and can leave people without the things they need to face the event that has them rushing to the store in the first place.

The goal of prepping is to avoid all that.

When you’re prepped, sure, you really want to make one last run to the grocery store or Target, but if it came right down to it and you couldn’t, you’d still be okay. You still have the things on hand that your family needs to survive an event that lasts for a few hours all the way to a few months or even a few years. (And remember what I said above? It takes a while to get to that point.) The information below contains lots of links to articles, PDF guides, and books for topics you may wish to learn more about.

What are you prepping for?

There are all sorts of events people prep for, one of which, obviously, is a massive pandemic and quarantine. Outside of your general supplies, consider prepping for power outages next. Here’s a PDF guide that will help you get ready for blackouts. and here’s an article with some guidelines.

But there are many more things and some will be unique to your area. The Prepper’s Workbook may be helpful in figuring out exactly what’s the most likely for you. Here are some more regional things to prepare for these events are common in your area:

• Tornados

• Ice storms

• Hurricanes

• Blizzards

• Wildfires

• Evacuations

• Earthquakes

• Floods

Focus on the things most pertinent to your area. Think about those most likely events and what generally occurs with them: power outages, property damage, a requirement for special shelter, a secondary disaster (like a flood that follows a hurricane, for example).

Who are you prepping for?

Think about all of the members of your family or any loved ones you might be providing shelter for during an emergency. Everyone will have unique needs and wishes. This is why checklists are a great guideline but they don’t encompass everything.

Think about these needs and stock up accordingly:

• Medications (try to get a month ahead on necessary meds if you can, even if it means paying out of pocket)

• Special diets

• Entertainment (what your 2-year-old finds fun and what your 14-year-old finds fun are very different)

• Picky eaters (I recommend indulging picky eaters if you can – the middle of an emergency is not the time for stress-inducing arguments and familiar foods can help picky folks feel more in control)

• Baby and toddler needs like diapers and wipes, as well as formula, and baby food if you use it

• Pet supplies like food, kitty litter, carriers and leashes in case of evacuation, and any medication your pet takes

These are just a few examples of special needs. Spend a couple of days with a notebook and pen close at hand and write down every single thing anyone in your household uses, pets included.

Stock up on water.

Water is near and dear to my heart, so much so that I wrote a book on the topic. (You can find The Prepper’s Water Survival Guide HERE.) I always put water at the top of the list, because without it, you’ll be dead in 3 short days. The need for an emergency water supply isn’t always the result of a down grid disaster. Recently, we tapped into our emergency water when the well pump broke. Some places have had water emergencies when the municipal supply was contaminated by stuff like industrial spills or agricultural run-off. Floods and bad storms can also sometimes cause the water supply to be tainted.

• Use containers you have RIGHT NOW and fill them with water from the tap. Put the lid on and stash them away. Don’t use milk jugs or juice jugs for drinking water, but you can use them for sanitation water in a pinch. If you can get your hands on some empty, clean 2-liter soda bottles, that will be perfect. We don’t drink soda, so we have some of the 1-gallon water bottles from the store.

• Buy some filled 5-gallon jugs of purified water.  How much you need should be based on the number of family members. The rule of thumb is 1 gallon per person, per day, but you may find you need a lot more than that when you add in pets and sanitation needs. You may be able to find these less expensively, already filled at the store. When I lived in Canada you could pick up a filled jug for less than $10, but California has all sorts of environmental rules that make these containers more expensive here. Another option is the 7-gallon Aquatainer that is designed for easy stacking. (Be sure to put this in a place where the floor can support the weight of a bunch of heavy water containers.)

• Have a way to dispense the water from the jugs.  We have a top-loading water dispenser for use in emergencies. These MUST be top loading because the bottom-loading ones require electricity to run the pump.)

• Get a gravity-fed water filter.  I use a Big Berkey, but it’s a hefty investment when you’re trying to get everything at once. If you can’t swing that, buy Jim Cobb’s Prepper’s Survival Hacks book. It has numerous DIY water filters that you can make without spending a fortune.

Food

Emergency food comes in many different forms. The first thing you have to look at is cooking methods, which we discussed above. The food you choose needs to be able to be prepared using the method you have available now, not the one you plan to get in the future.

Another important note is that your emergency food supply should be nutritious. You won’t want to fill up on empty calories when you may be making greater demands of your body. Keep in mind food restrictions, too, because an emergency situation is bad enough without an allergic reaction or intolerance illness.

There are several different ways to create a food supply.

• See what you have.  Go through your kitchen cupboards and see what you already have that could be used in an emergency. Things like nut butters, crackers, and other no-cook snacks are great options. Canned foods that only require heating are good as well. Instant rice or noodles can be added to your emergency supply. Group these items together on a special shelf or in a Rubbermaid container so that they are available when you need them. Figure out how long your supply would last your family before you go and purchase more. Figure out what shelf-stable items you need to add to balance out your supply. (Perhaps dried or canned fruit and vegetables, canned meat, jerky, etc., would provide more nutrients and variety.)

• Build a pantry. This is the best and least expensive way to build a pantry of familiar foods your family already enjoys. Make a list of what you need to feed your family for a month without a trip to the store, and without reliance on long cooking times. (This rules out beans and rice for most people.) Learn more about building a pantry that will see you through a variety of emergencies (including personal financial crises) in my book, Prepper’s Pantry. Also, check out The Prepper’s Book of Lists, a PDF guide you can print off and write on.

• Emergency buckets. The very fastest way to create an instant food supply is emergency buckets of freeze-dried food, which require only the ability to boil water to prepare. One caveat: do not go with the cheapest thing you can find. Some of those taste absolutely terrible. As well, they’re loaded with unhealthy chemicals and sodium. If you normally eat very healthfully, then move to MSG-laden freeze-dried meals, you’re not going to feel well at all in an emergency. My very favorite brand of emergency food is Legacy Foods. Legacy has standard buckets of survival food, fruits and vegetables, dairy products, and protein. The quality is very good and the meals are tasty when prepared. Keep in mind that these have to be purchased well before the emergency occurs because currently, almost every company is sold out and back-ordered for weeks.

A way to cook your food during a power outage

If the power goes out, how will you cook? You need the ability to boil water, at the very least. If you can boil water, then you can heat up canned food or prepare freeze-dried food in an emergency. Here are some secondary cooking methods, some of which you may already have.

• Woodstove or fireplace.  If you heat with wood, you’re a step ahead already, at least in the midst of a winter power outage. However, you won’t want to fire up the woodstove to cook in the summer, particularly since you may already be battling the heat without a fan or air conditioner.

• Gas kitchen stove.  Some kitchen stoves that use gas or propane can be used without electricity while others can’t. (If you’re replacing your stove, this is definitely a quality you’ll want to look for.)

• Outdoor barbecue. If the weather allows, you can fire up your propane or charcoal barbecue during a power outage and cook your feast outdoors.

• Rocket stove. There are all sorts of little emergency stoves out there which are designed to boil water quickly and without the use of a great deal of fuel. My favorites are the Volcano 3-way stove and the Kelly Kettle. You can also make an efficient stove. We made one that brought water to boil in less than 4 minutes.

Do not risk using emergency stoves designed for camping, indoors, unless the manufacturer specifically says that it can be used indoors. To do so is to risk fire, smoke damage, or carbon monoxide poisoning.

Sanitation

Another thing that can quickly become dire is personal sanitation. Depending on your situation, you may not have running water or flushing toilets. You need to stock up on supplies to make the best of these situations and keep family members healthy.

• Baby wipes. You can never have enough baby wipes. Stock up on these for hand-washing after using the bathroom, before and after food prep, and before eating. They can also be used to wipe down surfaces. You can learn more about hand and surface hygiene when there is no running water HERE.

• Cleaning supplies. You still have to keep your home reasonably clean when there is no running water to help prevent illness and disease. You can find some cleaning hacks HERE.

• Personal waste plan. You have to have a plan to deal with personal waste when the toilet won’t flush. This article tells you how to make a human kitty litter toilet, a very inexpensive solution to the personal waste issue. Waste must be handled very carefully to avoid the spread of disease and illness.

Here are the items I recommend that you keep on hand for water emergencies:

• Disposable disinfecting wipes

• Super absorbent paper towels

• Basins

• Baby wipes (These can be used for handwashing and personal hygiene.

• Your regular spray cleaner (Ours is vinegar and orange essential oil)

• Kitty litter. This soaks up messes and helps to absorb odor. (If your toilet won’t flush because you’re on a city sewer system, it can also be used as a makeshift toilet. This serious concern  and how to make this toilet is discussed here.)

Heat

If a power outage takes place in the winter, you may need a secondary source of heat.

• Woodstove or fireplace

• Propane heater (I recommend the Mr. Buddy brand – it’s safe to use indoors)

• Kerosene heater

• Natural gas fireplaces – the fan won’t work but you may be able to thoroughly heat one room with these as long as the gas works.

There are many more options. For a detailed discussion on staying warm during a power outage, check out this article.

Light

Lighting is absolutely vital, especially if there are children in the house. Nothing is more frightening than being completely in the dark during a stressful situation. Fortunately, it’s one of the easiest things to plan for, as well as one of the least expensive.

Some lighting solutions are:

• Garden stake solar lights

• Long-burning candles

• Kerosene lamp and fuel

• Flashlights (don’t forget batteries)

• Hand crank or solar lantern

• Don’t forget matches or lighters

For more information on lighting, check out this article.

Tools and supplies

Some basic items will make your life much easier during an emergency. Here are some things that are essential in the event of a power outage:

• Lighter/waterproof matches

• Batteries in various sizes

• Manual can opener

• Basic tools: Pliers, screwdriver, wrench, hammer

• Duct tape

• Superglue

• Sewing kit

• Bungee cords

• Zip ties

If you’d like to expand on the basic supplies, a more detailed list of tools and hardware can be found HERE.

First Aid kit

It’s important to have a basic first aid kit on hand at all times, but particularly in the event of an emergency. Your kit should include basic wound care items like bandages, antibiotic ointments, and sprays. As well, if you use them, keep on hand a supply of basic over-the-counter medications, like pain relief capsules, cold medicine, cough syrup, anti-nausea pills, heartburn pills, and allergy medication.

Be sure to have a couple of good medical guides on hand. I like this first aid book, this medical book, and this book of natural remedies.

If you want to put together a more advanced medical kit, you can find a list HERE.

Other Stuff

As you continue along your preparedness journey, you’ll find that there are other items that are very important to you. For example, you’ll want to build a bug-out bag for possible evacuations.

Another book you might like is Be Ready for Anything. It’s a comprehensive guide that covers 12 different disasters and prepping basics in a thorough manner.

And don’t be surprised when this mindset creates within you the itch to be more self-reliant, which means you’ll be adding gardening tools, sewing supplies, woodworking tools,  and other supplies to your stockpile.

You’ve got this!

I know this sounds like a LOT. But remember, you don’t have to do everything today. Break it down into manageable pieces. This gives you a broad overview.

You’re going to do some list-writing, so grab a notebook and pen.

• Write a master list. Now, based on this article, go through and write a list of the things that you feel are important for your family’s preparedness plan. Include the things that you already have. Organize your list by checking off the things you have.

• Organize the supplies that you have into “kits”. I have Rubbermaid tubs labeled with the contents for emergency purposes, sorted into kits for things like pandemic supplies, off-grid lighting, batteries and power supplies, etc.

• Now write a minimalist list of the first things that you must have for survival. Don’t worry if you can’t get everything at once. Start off by covering all of the bases with a skeleton kit that will get you by. This list might include some food that doesn’t require cooking (thus eliminating the immediate need for a secondary cooking method), a way to keep warm, water, a kitty litter toilet, and some baby wipes.

• Finally, write the big list. This is a list of the things mentioned in the article that you want to own. Make a copy of the list and keep it in your wallet so that if you happen by a thrift store or yard sale, you know what you need. As your budget allows, pick up one or two of these items per week. These may be higher ticket items so don’t worry if it takes you a while to get them. You’ve gotten the bare necessities, so these items will just add to your already sturdy foundation of preparedness.

Don’t panic. Start with your basics in each category and add to it as your time and budget allow.

I mentioned this earlier, but if you want more guidance to get started, here’s a PDF book to help you get prepped no matter where you live: The Prepper’s Workbook. It’s based on a course I used to offer but I think the workbook is a great way to do the exercises with a smaller time commitment and a lower price tag.

If you’d like a place to ask questions and talk with new preppers, you can join our new Facebook group here or visit our forum.

Most of all, welcome. We’re glad that you’ve joined us. You’re going to be ready the next time something like this rolls around without fighting the crowds for those last few rolls of toilet paper.