Are You Prepared for Civil Unrest?

Do you get the feeling that we are right on the verge of chaos? With the government shutdown, the congressional budget deadline of the 17th, the EBT system under threat, and assorted “drills” that, if history proves to be any guide, could be a loose cover for an upcoming false flag, we could be looking at civil unrest in a matter of days.

These are all situations that we, as individuals, have little control over.

What we CAN control is our response to a crisis.

By planning ahead, we can avoid the fear, panic, and confusion that leads people to rush to the store and clear the shelves like a horde of hungry locusts. We can stay away from the angry masses, the rioters who will use any excuse to steal, and the hungry people who are determined to feed their kids no matter who stands in their way.

Whether the next few weeks lead to pandemonium due to the welfare strings being cut or some type of martial law, a prepared mindset, a defense plan, and a well-stocked home can help to keep you and your family out of harm’s way.

In her article Anatomy of a Breakdown, Tess Pennington wrote:

“When you take the time to understand how a breakdown behaves and how it progresses, only then can you truly prepare for it.

This glimpse into a systemic breakdown is based on an isolated, limited disaster or event where emergency responders have been deployed. I must emphasize that all bets are off if the event is wide spread, affecting multiple tens of millions of people simultaneously.”

Here are the most vital things that you can do to be prepared for civil unrest.

Get home

In a perfect world, we’d all be home, watching the chaos erupt on TV from the safety of our living rooms. However, reality says that some of us will be at the store, at school, or in the car when unrest occurs. You need to develop a “get-home” plan for all of the members of your family, based on the most likely places that they will be.

Devise an efficient route for picking up the kids from school. Be sure that anyone who might be picking up the children already has permission to do so in the school office.

Discuss the plan with older kids - there have been rumors that children could be moved by the schools to a secondary location in the event of a crisis. Some families have formulated plans for their older kids to leave the school grounds in such an instance and take a designated route home or to another meeting place.

Keep a get-home bag in the trunk of your car in case you have to set out on foot.

Stash some supplies in the bottom of your child’s backpack - water, a snack, any tools that might be useful, and a map. Be sure your children understand the importance of OPSEC.

Find multiple routes home - map out alternative backroad ways to get home as well as directions if you must go home on foot.

Find hiding places along the way. If you work or go to school a substantial distance from your home, figure out some places to lay low now, before a crisis situation. Sometimes staying out of sight is the best way to stay safe.

Avoid groups of people. It seems that the mob mentality strikes when large groups of people get together. Often folks who would never ordinarily riot in the streets get swept up by the mass of people who are doing so.

Keep in mind that in many civil disorder situations the authorities are to be avoided every bit as diligently as the angry mobs of looters. Who can forget the scenes of innocent people being pepper sprayed by uniformed thugs in body armor just because they happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time?

Stay home

Once you make your way home or to your bug-out location …. STAY THERE.

By staying home, you are minimizing your risk of being caught in the midst of an angry mob or of sitting in stalled traffic while looters run amok. In most scenarios you will be far safer at home than you will be in any type of shelter or refuge situation. (Obviously if there is some type of chemical or natural threat in your immediate neighborhood, like a toxic leak, a flood, or a forest fire, the whole situation changes – you must use common sense before hunkering down.)

This is when your preparedness supplies will really pay off. If you are ready for minor medical emergencies and illnesses, a grid down scenario, and a no-comm situation, you will be able to stay safely at home with your family and ride out the crisis in moderate comfort.

Be sure you have a supply of the following:

• Water
• Necessary prescription medications
• Food and an off grid way to cook it
• Or food that requires no cooking
• First aid supplies
• Lighting in the event of a power outage
• Sanitation supplies (in the event that the municipal water system is unusuable, this would include cleaning supplies and toilet supplies)
• A way to stay warm in harsh winter weather
• Over-the-counter medications and/or herbal remedies to treat illnesses at home
• Survival and first aid manuals (hard copies in case the internet and power grid are down)
• Alternative communications devices (such as a hand-crank radio) so that you can get updates about the outside world
• Off-grid entertainment: arts and craft supplies, puzzles, games, books, crossword or word search puzzles, needlework, journals

Be prepared to defend your home

Sometimes despite our best intentions, the fight comes to us. Even though we stay home, something about our place draws the attention of an unsavory person or group. Defense is two-fold. Your best defense is avoiding the fight altogether. You want to stay under the radar and not draw attention to yourself. The extent to which you strive to do this should be based on the severity of the unrest in your area. Some of the following recommendations are not necessary in an everyday grid-down scenario, but could save your life in a more extreme civil unrest scenario.

Keep all the doors and windows locked. Secure sliding doors with a metal bar. Consider installing decorative gridwork over a door with a large window so that it becomes difficult for someone to smash the glass and reach in to unlock the door.

Put dark plastic over the windows. (Heavy duty garbage bags work well.) If it’s safe to do so, go outside and check to see if any light escapes from the windows. If your home is the only one on the block that is well-lit, it is a beacon to others.

Don’t answer the door. Many home invasions start with an innocent-seeming knock at the door to gain access to your house.

Keep cooking smells to a minimum. If everyone else in the neighborhood is hungry, the meat on your grill will draw people like moths to a flame.

Remember that first responders may be tied up. If the disorder is widespread, don’t depend on a call to 911 to save you – you must be prepared to save yourself. Also keep in mind, as mentioned earlier in the article – the cops are not always your friends in these situations.

If, despite your best efforts, your property draws the attention of people with ill intent, you must be ready to defend your family.

Many preppers stockpile weapons and ammunition for just such an event. When the door of your home is breached, you can be pretty sure the people coming in are not there to make friendly conversation. Make a plan to greet them with a deterring amount of force.

Have a safe room established for children or other vulnerable family members.

Plan an escape route. If the odds are against you, devise a way to get your family to safety.

Every civil unrest scenario is different. You must make a personal plan based on your environment, your neighbors, and the type of situation that triggered the unrest. By thinking ahead, you’ve already increased your family’s chances at surviving unscathed.

HAPPENING NOW! TRUCKERS ROARING INTO D.C.

Big rigs invading nation's capitol to protest assault on Constitution

Dozens of big rig drivers and long-haul truckers took to the highways around Washington, D.C., Friday in a protest of the extra-constitutional activities of Congress and the president, as a weekend of planned political statements launched.

CBS reported that at one point, truckers were side-by-side-by-side-by-side across four lanes of Interstate 95 and were blocking traffic until a Virginia State Police officer pulled them over.

After talking with the officer, the trucks resumed their drive at a speed of about 40 mph, up from the 10 mph they had been going, the report said.

The truckers met at a travel plaza near Doswell, Va., to launch their protest on the Capital Beltway of what they view as an out of control government.

As the day progressed, there were no reports of significant problems, as well as no confirmation on the number of truckers involved.

WTVR reported police said as long as the truckers follow the law, there will be no interference with them.

But the station sent a reporter to a truck stop designated for a staging area, and came away with a few pointed comments about Washington operations.

“The way Congress is doing, they’ve basically throwed our Constitution in the trash,” Alabama trucker Brad Higgins told the station.

Add Stanley Levy, from Ohio. “Every time I turn around, I’m paying taxes, taxes, taxes, taxes, taxes. Come on, we’re 17 trillion dollars in debt – it’s like a credit card.”

And Tom Null from Indiana told the station, “We’re going to participate in the demonstration around the beltway in D.C. We just want to let government know that we’re tired of them doing unconstitutional things constantly. We don’t like the way the banking is going, with the Fed printing $85 billion dollars every month, diluting our money. My tires are costing 500 bucks apiece now.”

It’s just the latest in a series of citizen protests in Washington to try to get the attention of President Obama and Congress amid inside-the-beltway fights over Obamacare, funding the military, the administration’s shutdown of national parks, the poor economy and a long list of additional issues.

And it’s not the last.

The group called “2 Million Bikers to D.C.,” which held a Sept. 11 rally in Washington, clogged traffic then while expressing members’ patriotism and faith in the U.S., but opposition to the socialist agenda now being pursued.

That group has voiced its support for the “Truckers to Shut Down America,” which also has been called “Ride for the Constitution,” in a statement on their Facebook page.

The bikers also are in support – and plan to join – a rally by vets in Washington, the “Million Vet March on the Memorials, which is set for Sunday.

An online service detailing information about commutes in Washington reported there had been several accidents, and several sections where travel times were being extended, but no major closures or other impacts.

This link is to a series of traffic cameras around Washington.

One trucker from Georgia told WND that members of Congress are not keeping their oath of office to protect the nation and the Constitution.

“If they refused to obey their oath and uphold the law we the people would find a way,” said Earl Conlon. “What is important is that the truckers and patriot’s voices get heard.”

Online, the bikers group said without truckers, consumers would have nothing.

They wrote: “If you own it – a trucker brought it to where you could buy it. If you have a garden the seed for that garden came by truck. The only thing the truck didn’t deliver was the plot of ground.”

The truckers’ event had been organized loosely on Facebook pages, and sympathetic demonstrations also were planned in other parts of the country, for those unable to make the drive to Washington.

Supporters expected several thousand trucks in Washington, which because of the size of the mostly 18-wheelers, could create a significant impact on Washington traffic.

But one of the Facebook pages had more than 123,000 “likes,” which may or may not convert into high levels of participation.

“Truckers Ride for the Constitution” co-organizer Benn Pam believes that the coming together of three rallies in D.C. on the same weekend could make things interesting.

“It is about to hit the fan in big chunks. ’2 Million Bikers to D.C.’ is organizing for a protective detail for WWII veterans to monuments,” Pam said.

Pam added that it’s time for the American people to make their will known.

“The United States is now a dictatorship, ruled by the decrees of one man. Spy agencies dominate the government and the people. There is no rule of law. The Constitution is shredded,” Pam said. “It’s time to rise up.”

A reporter filed the following phone report on Friday’s convoy:

Mark Segraves of the NBC affiliate in Washington reported at midday Sept. 11 that only “about 25 people,” including activist Cornel West, were at the Muslim march, with a group of Christians about the same size nearby.

In a video interview with MRCTV, the Muslim march organizers would not fault Muslims for the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks:

However, the counter-protest by bikers, on Sept. 11, was in evidence everywhere.

Driving in from Canada and from all over the United States, the bikers, who were denied a permit for their demonstration, were flooding the capital.

At approximately 1 p.m., “2 Million Bikers to DC” Facebook page co-founder Belinda Bee posted that police had counted nearly 1 million bikers are on the streets of Washington.

The American Muslim Political Action Committee originally planned the Muslims’ march and ended up facing criticism for scheduling it on the anniversary of 9/11.

But organizers insisted the name was changed because many non-Muslim Americans “are terrified of Muslims, who are portrayed by Hollywood and the US media as fanatical terrorists.”

AMPAC also claims Muslims, too, “live in fear – of being dragged off in the night to Guantanamo and tortured, simply for the crime of being Muslim in the wrong place at the wrong time.”

Organizers refused to change the date of the march, which marked 12 years since the attack by 19 Muslims on New York City and Washington.

“September 11th, 2001 was the beginning of a new era of fear,” the organizers insisted. “Since 9/11, Americans have been terrorized by the media.”

The bikers, meanwhile, have stated their opposition to Obama’s push to “fundamentally transform” the U.S.

Radio giant Rush Limbaugh said Sept. 11 the American public as a whole did not understand what Obama was intending to do when he campaigned in 2008 with that remark.

“They had no idea that fundamentally transforming the United States of America meant turning the Constitution of the United States on its head,” Limbaugh said.

“They had no idea that transforming the United States of America meant getting rid of capitalism and replacing it with socialism. They had no idea that it meant co-opting one-sixth of the U.S. economy by the government, the health-care business. They had no idea what Obama was promising. They thought they knew, but they didn’t. Some of them may now not even know, but the bikers in D.C. know – and knew.”

'Truckers Ride for the Constitution' responds to media'

Yesterday, "Truckers Ride for the Constitution" media spokesperson Peter T. Santilli requested that Steven Nelson of US News & World Report update his article to reflect that Georgia trucker Earl Conlon is not a spokesperson for the patriot trucker group.

"Truckers Ride for the Constitution" was previously named "Truckers to Shut Down America." The group was renamed after their Facebook page was "unpublished," 

"this is about the working class getting run over by a political elite who do not know and do not care what ordinary people are going through."

Nelson reported yesterday that the truckers plan to "arrest" congressmen and slow down traffic for their pilgrimage to D.C. taking place on October 11-13. Earl isjustifiably outraged about the elected officials' disregard for the Constitution, but he not reflect the group's mission.

In an email to Nelson posted on the trucker's official website yesterday, Santilli said in part,

"We hereby respectfully request a retraction or update on the article to indicate that Earl is in no way associated with the mission of the ride. He was merely a point of contact for drivers at a meeting place for the start of the convoy. Please immediately update the article so as not to create the false perception you have portrayed in your article."

Despite the strongly worded email, Nelson used Conlon as a source again in a new article today titled, "Truckers Change Mind, Won't 'Arrest' Congressmen." This title is inaccurate, as the "Truckers Ride for the Constitution" never intended on "arresting" anybody.

The shocking thing about Nelson's article is that even after the organizers clarified on Facebook, and on their official website, and in an exclusive interview with the Examiner, as well as in a personal email to Nelson, his article from today continues to use quotes by Conlon.

He wrote,

"News coverage of a trucker protest seeking to clog the roads in and around Washington, D.C., this weekend prompted a schism between the ride's leaders."

But there is no "schism." There never was.

As co-founder Ben Pam of the 'Truckers Ride for the Constitution' told the Examiner yesterday in an exclusive interview,

"We do not intend to obstruct traffic or close down any roads."
"We are not coming to arrest anyone."

The author of the piece, Steven Nelson graciously responded to a request for comment. He said,

"I did not identify Conlon as a spokesman in either article, I identified him as an organizer, which everyone admits he was as of Monday morning."

Nelson cited a post on the 'Ride for the Constitution' website that said, "All truckers in this RIDE are directed to Earl Conlon, he is in charge." Of course, this makes sense, as Santilli wrote in his email to Nelson yesterday that Conlon is "a point of contact for drivers."

Nelson said, "Conlon claims the idea for truckers heading to D.C. was his. I haven't heard a denial of that yet. Peter Santilli is not actually going to be in D.C. and he is not a trucker." But Nelson did not speak to the founders of the Truckers group, Ben Pam and Zeeda Andrews, as confirmed today by the Examiner.

Further, Nelson stated,

"The issue at hand isn't so much about my coverage... it's more an issue of in-fighting among the organizers. Squabbling over who the 'official spokesperson' is seems pretty silly to me. The designated organizer of the trucker trek to D.C. is arguably better suited to answer press questions than an online radio host who isn't actually going to be in town."

As Ben Pam confirmed to the Examiner, there is no infighting. There is no 'squabbling.' Peter T. Santilli is a radio host, and he is the "media spokesperson." In fact, the leadership of the "Truckers Ride for the Constitution" is as united as ever to bring awareness to Americans about the plight of the truckers, and to exercise their First Amendment rights. The group wishes "to awaken the American People to the complete disregard for the Constitution and to bring a message to Congress that We The People demand to be heard."

The idea resonates, as in the past 24 hours, the Facebook page has acquired approximately 17,000 "likes," bringing Facebook supporters to over 67,000 at the time of this writing. Although the Twitter account was suspended, the hashtag for the truckers, #T2SDA is still going strong.

Zeeda Andrews is giving updates at 9:00 pm eastern time Mon thru Thurs at the Trucker's official website, "Ride for the Constitution." To call in and speak with Zeeda, the number is 218-862-9829.