When The Music Stops – How America’s Cities May Explode In Violence

Western Rifle Shooters Association ^ | September 4, 2012 | Matt Bracken

[SCalGal]

Tell us about please. Your experience seems to be vastly different than mine. The disasters i have been in were all testimonies to politeness and neighborhood cooperation.

The street I lived on was all cooperation - but it didn't last long enough for anyone to go hungry. The emergency rooms were overflowing IF you could get there at all, and there was nowhere to get food or water. An emergency that only lasts a few days is VASTLY different than one that lasts a week or more.

I worked at the FEMA center for months after that. It was anything but civil. We had armed guards for very good reason, and I have never seen such filth in my life as from the people camped outside.

[SCalGal]

But will refugees be welcomed anywhere?

Umm, NO.

[SCalGal]

I probably have a large advantage over most of the posters as I spent 10 years on my own ranch. I pretty much had to make my own stuff with a welding torch, saws and a woderful folding knife. Even had an attachmenty for my chaisaw that made it easy to make planks from a downed tree.

THAT is a night and day difference from urban populations who store their food at the grocery store and are totally dependent on "someone else" to supply the electricity or natural gas they use for heating. If the sewage plants stop working, everything in the cities backs up - those of us on septics keep going. Think - crammed in like sardines, no running water (electricity again), no sewage treatment, no food.... no civility in short order.

The urban mindset is completely different than rural.

[buffaloguy]

Two years ago the Texas legislature passed a law that all water systems and water treatment plants had to install diesel genersators sufficient to run them during a big disaster without interruption. They are all in place now so we will have running water. Period.

This is a great advance for us and it is something that you demand from your legislator in the current session. It really will make it easier to survive. It is a huge jump.

[SCalGal]

How much diesel fuel is stored for them and how long will it last?

[EdReform]

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[Nebr FAL owner]

You are entitled to your opinion & best of luck to you .

[buffaloguy]

That sounds terrible. My experiences have been in the Midwest with admittedly Midwest sensibilities. What a difference. Or apparently so..

[SCalGal]

My experiences have been in the Midwest with admittedly Midwest sensibilities. What a difference.

Enormous differences, unfortunately. Get outside the Lost Angeles/San Francisco areas and CA is primarily rural and sensible, but TV is all about those two areas. Remember Rodney King riots? That's what we're looking at in all the big urban areas.

Suburbia is a mixed bag; some liberal, some conservative, but with the mindset of "that tree blew over, who do we call to have it cut up and hauled away"? These are people who don't do for themselves, who don't know or understand their food sources.

[buffaloguy]

FEMA had, I think the number was 600 trucks with supplies in a very large area waiting for instructions on where to go. They had been there for several days when our top county executive (The top county executive is made a judge) walked in, called all the FEMA workers into a large meeting area, stepped up on a plastic chair and read them the riot act. The air was not turned just blue but ultraviolet blue. I believe he threatened to commandeer the trucks and throw them in jail if they did not get their rigs moving immediately.

The place emptied out and a few hours later the parking lot was empty. So...I am not too thrilled with FEMA either.

[buffaloguy]

I think that they store quite a bit and they have first call on any diesel supplies coming out of the refineries. It is an extremely well thought out program and it can benefit all when the next hurricane hits.

[SCalGal]

The air was not turned just blue but ultraviolet blue. I believe he threatened to commandeer the trucks and throw them in jail if they did not get their rigs moving immediately.

I was stuck in that site for way too long.... I got to watch the FEMA workers sitting on their butts trading war stories. Apparently, the more disasters they had been to, the more brownie points they had with each other.

People affected don't give a rip - FEMA personnel are paid from our tax dollars and we were VERY unimpressed, to say the least.

The breweries provided water, red cross brought food (and were NASTY to you if you weren't a minority). Security was off shift LAPD. I never did figure out what FEMA personnel were supposed to be doing.

[Lazamataz]

This is the other one I would love to see promoted to Freeper Editorial.

Not thinking this one is in chitchat though, it's got Government and Miscellaneous topics, and without checking I thought those were in News... Would love the ability to directly promote again, you guys know I wanna see Freeper Ed work, and I'd never play games with the ability... :)

[Sidebar Moderator]

Done, thanks.

[Lazamataz]

Thanks, bubbeleh. Can I call you bubbeleh? :)

You got My Favorite Headaches piece and I sent it to FreeperEd as well, the second one is this one we're on, Travis McGee's. This one still needs to be done. Thanks!!! (seriously)

[Lazamataz]

This one is done too! You are a peach! :)

[familyop]

"They will concentrate on major intersections and highway interchanges where non-MUY suburban commuters must make daily passage to and from what forms of employment still exist. People making a living will still be using those roads to get to where they earn their daily bread."

Thanks for the ping, Tainan. Howdy, Travis. How's the water and thick oxygen? ;-)

I see a common assumption from the comments of many about the fictitious, continuing affluence of the government-supported middle class (bless their bureaucratic hearts and incomes from government). Much of the middle class has already been laid off and foreclosed with many more to fall before food stamps would be completely cut off, IMO. That occurrence, already in progress for some time, might significantly change the whole scenario.

Most of the increase in crimes in my sparsely populated locale and other western states over the past year or two has been driven by deposed individuals of the middle class (laid off, foreclosed, etc.).

Or let's pose the scenario that debt is run up all the way to bond collapse, repudiation and currency adjustment. In that case, nearly the whole remainder of the middle class (mostly government employed/pensioned/funded) would suddenly be out of work, house and all, and might also be barred from food stamps along with their ethnic neighbors. Many of the wealthy would lose their investments along the way, and many, during the end of the default process. Who would be more likely to riot--those accustomed to being poor or those much more proud and unaccustomed to being poor?

Imagine the likely bond collapse to come and the many government-supported folks to be laid off in much larger numbers. Who would be rioting?

Have fun. Enjoy the slide. Big government can't proceed with bigness without sustainable revenues from big manufacturing. Maybe the new/political/regulator class would be rioting along with their ethnic, also-government-supported friends. And really, most of them--"quasi-military" officials and the vast majority of REMF-y military folks included--can hit the broad side of a barn. But few of them qualify "expert" (which small military award does not necessarily designate experts). Maybe they need to buy much more ammo for the ranges.

Imagine a continued, slow descent into poverty for most of us--a descent without unprecedented magnitudes of violence to accompany the fall. Imagine seeing only gradual increases in crimes and many of them done by people who formerly plotted and schemed in offices rather than producing anything of value. Humbling thoughts?

Just another perspective (macro-economics, history...) and some possibilities. I'm no prophet. I gotta tell ya, though: these scenarios are fun to read and do instigate some thoughts. Thanks, buddy.

Oh. One more thing. Loved the mention of Rwanda. Maybe everyone should stock up on machetes and cultural attitudes of "developing" countries. ;-)

[MHGinTN]

Don’t go all fuzzy on us, Laz.

[MrB]

You oughta get press creds, Laz...

Then you could crash DNC functions.

[buffaloguy]

I have mixed feelings about the Red Cross.

Excellence in disasters = The Salvation Army