chaos

Starving #Venezuelans Fed Up With #Maduro: “We Want Food!”

May 19, 2016 by mac slavo

Venezuela’s problems are sure to get worse before they get better.

Right now the nation, at the hands of socialist dictator President Nicolas Maduro, is headed for the bottom.

Weeks of rationed food and electricity, a shortage of basic necessities and spiraling inflation is taking its toll, and the regime is quickly descending into all out hell.

Now, people are beyond fed up with the conditions and are moving towards support for Maduro’s ouster… that, and they want to eat… food.

It is no laughing matter. Shortages have already prompted poaching animals and looting has become widespread.

The black matter trade of goods, which stores have struggled for more than a year to keep in stock and which are rationed tightly, is an important stabilizing factor for increasingly desperate people in Venezuela.

Long lines have been the norm. Food has been in short supply. But now a new degree by Maduro is forcing people to take ration delivers at their home, door-to-door, in order to curb black market transactions.

As AFP reports:

It was around noon when a food truck rolled up… But, to the fury of the long line of people waiting out front, the cargo wasn’t unloaded. Instead soldiers took it away.

“We want food!” the crowd roared in protest, to no avail. Some tried to run after the truck.

Under the state of emergency imposed by President Nicolas Maduro, the military, along with government-organized civilian committees, ensures that food packets are delivered door-to-door in order to — as officials say — cut out black market operators.

[…]

“Here in Guarenas there were revolutionary supporters. But now the people no longer want revolution — what they want is food,” she said.

“The people are going hungry. We are tired of lining up, of killing ourselves for just a carton of eggs or some bread,” she said.

As Joshua Krause noted in his recent article, Venezuela, while far from perfect, was nonetheless fairly normal only a couple of years ago. The collapse in oil prices forced the oil rich nation into position where it could no longer sustain its system of total socialism.

Two years ago, Venezuela was a normal functioning nation, relatively speaking of course. It was by no means a free country, but the people still had a standard of living that was higher than most developing nations. Venezuelans could still afford the basic necessities of life, and a few luxuries too.

[…]

If you’re a prepper, pay close attention to what happens next. What’s playing out in Venezuela right now is the kind of worst case scenario that many of us have been preparing for in the US. It should be very informative. It just goes to show that if you live under a corrupt authoritarian government that can’t manage its resources, all it takes is a heavy ripple in the global economy to send the whole system careening over a cliff.

The emperor in Venezuela is naked, no one there is under any illusions any longer, and the empire is falling. America, you could be next.

How are your leaders dressed, and vulnerable is society really?

Get your preps together, and don’t let it happen to you if it happens here.

Venezuela, Socialist Paradise in Collapse: “Rationing Food, Toiliet Paper… Now Electricity”

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Venezuela: A Prepper’s Nightmare Come to Life: “Pay Close Attention To What Happens Next”

SHTFplan and Mac Slavo www.shtfplan.com

‘Thunderstorm Spiral’: Pentagon Trains for Underground War/Disaster In Densely-Populated MegaCities

March 16, 2016 by mac slavo

As populations grow into cities across the globe, and increasing majority of people will live in urban areas – places which quickly become very desperate and vulnerable during a major crisis.

Every prepper knows the dangers of being stuck in a major metropolitan city in the event of a major hurricane, a grid down scenario or civil unrest and societal collapse.

In such a situation, as every prepper knows, food, water and other vital resources will quickly become scarce or unavailable. The gridlock of survivors trying to get out, or get their hands on assets.

Increasingly, the Pentagon is looking at the likelihood – perhaps the inevitability – of war/conflict inside of a destabilized or decimated megacity urban center like New York.

According to the Daily Mail:

The Pentagon is calling for help from technological innovators to take on the future of warfare.

In the program titled ‘Thunderstorm Spiral,’ the US government solicits demonstrations to tackle the challenges of megacities and underground environments, which will become increasingly prevalent as populations continue to grow.

[…]

A megacity is defined as a city with more than 10 million residents. To put this in perspective, there are currently over 8 million people living in New York City.

As these numbers continue to grow within defined areas, infrastructure will have to adapt, pushing megacities toward the development of subterranean – or underground – environments.

In 2014, there were 23 megacities with ‘vast subterranean structures’; in 2025, it’s expected this number will reach 37.

To meet these needs, the Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Emerging Capability and Prototyping, Rapid Reaction Technology Office (RRTO) Technology Demonstration Program is sponsoring the request for information (RFI) issued by the Pentagon.

‘As the world’s population grows, the probability of the U.S. needing to conduct combat and humanitarian assistance / disaster relief (HA/DR) operations within a megacity (defined as a city with more than 10 million residents) also grows,’ the solicitation states.

[…]

The ‘desired capabilities’ in focus of the program include GPS techniques for underground and dense urban environments along with intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance sensors for use in tunnels.

As major American, Asian and European cities grow with extreme rapidity, urban planners have been expanding large underground facilities. Increasingly, it is not just subway systems, but shopping malls, parking lots, utilities and perhaps even residential units that are being built underground.

While this may be practical to facilitate crowded above-ground conditions, it brings new dangers for populations who could be trapped underneath in the event of a bombing, terrorist attack or major natural disaster.

Inadequate design to accommodate flooding and allow evacuation for people underground is perhaps the biggest threat facing these quickly expanding facilities.

The United Nations University has studied many of the disaster scenarios that could occur in underground spaces, noting the rapid growth of underground facilities in mega-urban areas across the world:

The rapid and extensive underground expansion of mega-cities – for subways, malls, parking and public utilities – takes place often with too little knowledge of associated risks and too few plans to minimize the effects of a natural disaster, United Nations University experts warn.

With growing land pressures in cities (which contain about 50% of all people today, seen rising to 65% by 2030), creating new space underground becomes increasingly attractive. In many places, however, studies of potential natural disaster risks are often neglected, says Srikantha Herath, UNU Senior Academic Programme Officer.

While many underground shelters can withstand earthquakes and other disruptions, flooding stands as one of the biggest and untested underground disasters cities may face in the near future:

Modeling a variety of catastrophic events is essential for building contingencies into underground infrastructure designs, including evacuations and the emergency containment and transport of flood waters, for example.”

Via underground interconnections, water can travel considerable distances away from the flood source. However, there are often no subsurface maps; underground space is usually mapped in relation to a building overhead.

Strategic relocation expert Joel Skousen and other prepping experts have warned against allowing yourself to be trapped in a major city – particularly on the East Coast – where evacuation may be nigh impossible. Being trapped underground in such a megacity only adds another layer of disaster to that recipe.

If you have your own underground structure, make sure that its design has accounted for flooding, because the possibilities are all too real.

Strategic Relocation: Where To Go When It Hits the Fan (Full Movie)

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SHTFplan and Mac Slavo www.shtfplan.com

In Collapsing Venezuela, “Paramilitaries Roaming Neighborhoods, Shooting” At Dissenters

February 26, 2016 by mac slavo

Venezuela is in complete chaos as a result of their economic collapse.

And as a result, state-rationed food and groceries have run out, prices are hyper-inflated and millions of people are waiting in huge lines for any goods that are available. Black markets have gone boom, with neighbors making necessities available to other neighbors, but they must avoid crackdown from a jealous State that is desperate to hang onto power.

The free-fall of oil prices on the global stage has snapped the South American socialist nation into sudden and harsh disaster. Venezuela has slightly more oil than Saudi Arabia, and trades the second largest volume, after OPEC, and was even more vulnerable than Russia to the economic warfare that has taken place in the last few years.

Things are very bad now, and they were already falling apart. Nicolas Maduro took over after Hugo Chavez’ death in 2013, but without the force of Chavez’ cult of personality, he has been unable to hold an already unrealistic economy together any longer – and the people are on the verge of complete revolt.

A politically weak Maduro has apparently now taken to using an iron-fist, with reports and video claim that Maduro has been backing paramilitary death squads to take out dissenters, and these execution gangs have been more or less randomly mowing down anyone they think might be sympathetic to anti-Maduro protests. This was true in the Chavez days, but this form of repression is now much more naked.

With state control of the media in Venezuela, and an unwillingness to report on the part of the international press, it is difficult to know all the facts. Indeed these developments have gone virtually unreported, but some of it has surfaced on YouTube.

The Caracas Chronicles is one of the rare sources to report what is really happening:

What we saw were not “street clashes”, what we saw is a state-hatched offensive to suppress and terrorize its opponents.

[…]

Throughout last night, panicked people told their stories of state-sponsored paramilitaries on motorcycles roaming middle class neighborhoods, shooting at people and storming into apartment buildings, shooting at anyone who seemed like he might be protesting.

People continue to be arrested merely for protesting, and a long established local Human Rights NGO makes an urgent plea for an investigation into widespread reports of torture of detainees. There are now dozens of serious human right abuses: National Guardsmen shooting tear gas canisters directly into residential buildings. We have videos of soldiers shooting civilians on the street.

And that’s just what came out in real time, over Twitter and YouTube, before any real investigation is carried out. Online media is next, a city of 645,000 inhabitants has been taken off the internet amid mounting repression, and this blog itself has been the object of a Facebook “block” campaign.

The crack down on the population of Venezuela is truly massive and very chaotic, as much of the footage shows. Indeed, a coup against Maduro may be underway, but he is not going down without a despicable attack on the people who oppose him.

Raw footage on YouTube (warning: some footage is graphic):

This video purportedly shows pro-Maduro, pro-government militia squads firing tear gas into residential apartment buildings:

Is this how things will go down in the United States in the aftermath of the planned collapse of the economy and the destruction of the American standards of living?

Though Venezuela seems world’s apart from the events in the United States, this same level of unrest can grow quickly along the lines of division that have been sharpening under President Obama’s two terms and the false “recovery” imposed by bankers intent on bringing everyone to their knees.

For now, the biggest difference is that Americans still have their guns, and the militia are still of, by and for the people.

Stay prepared, and stay vigilant!

—

Follow more of this story at The Caracas Chronicles.

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SHTFplan and Mac Slavo www.shtfplan.com

How This Man Converted “Underground Shelter Using a 20 Ft. Shipping Container”

February 24, 2016 by mac slavo

In a SHTF event, underground is exactly where many people plan to go to ride out the storm of whatever has descended upon society.

With brewing unrest and economic collapse, the elite have poured millions of dollars into luxury underground communities – many fitted to be more like five-star hotels than emergency bunkers. Even the Davos elite have expressed worry. Those with the means to do so hope to use private planes and helicopters to escape and hideaway. Continuity of Government (COG) operations have a parallel government structure in place buried in fortified mountains redoubts that can withstand all contingencies.

[Read more…]

SHTFplan and Mac Slavo www.shtfplan.com