James Rawles - Survivors - A Novel of the Coming Collapse

Laine added: “I agree. And for those left, I think it’ll come down to the ‘haves’ versus the ‘have-nots.’ The psychologists call that the ‘we/they paradigm.’”

“Right! In a total collapse without immediate restoration of the power grid and the economic web, basically everyone who lives in a city is doomed unless they can take over some kind of farmland. Those that live in areas without enough farmland will be have-nots. Period. I don’t care how much food that survivalists have stored in their basements. It will run out someday. In the long term, it’s grow food and raise livestock-or die.”

L. Roy continued, “But here’s my point: those teeming millions will not just starve and go away. I believe that any family who thinks they can defend a working farm against raiders just by themselves is delusional. Humans are dangerous. The fact is, they are the most dangerous animals on earth. We must never lose sight of that. We’re now surrounded by starving predators that are much more dangerous than tigers. It won’t be like that earthquake in Haiti, where the bad guys had machetes. Here in the U.S. of A., the vast majority will be armed with firearms. The ones currently without firearms will obtain them by any means necessary, including looting government armories. These are thinking and highly motivated enemies. They know how to read maps. Some of them have a grasp of hydrology and can appreciate the difference between solely gravity-fed water systems and those that need grid power. They can put two and two together. Secondly, consider that raiders-the ‘outlaw looting groups’ that they call them now in the newspapers-may be a threat for a very short period, but I really don’t see permanent groups of more than a dozen ever forming. They will be quickly replaced by much larger groups of ‘citizens’ doing essentially the same things, but much better armed and organized.”

Laine interjected, “It may just be a matter of semantics-just what they call themselves, or the flag they fly. But they’ll still be looters by any other name.”

Martin gave Lars a thumbs-up and continued: “One of my overseas stints in stratcom was in, of all places, Albania in 1998. Talk about being in the wrong place at the wrong time! A few hours after Albania’s political crisis started-which was caused by a huge national lottery pyramid scam-almost every adult male in the country procured an AKM from government stocks. Armories were the first targets looted. As the crisis started, I flew from Brussels back into Tirana packing a pistol and a sack of money, naively thinking I would be able to move around the country and defend myself, getting our in-place assets out of ‘jams.’ What a laugh. Everyone had me outgunned, and the vast majority of these yahoos had military training of some sort. I never got out of the capital city. Every road seemed to have roadblocks every few miles, blocked by armed local citizens.”

Martin carried on: “Without central authority, people don’t just starve and go away. They form their own polities-their own governments. These polities are often organized around town or city government or local churches. They may call it a city council or a committee or a senate. The bottom line is, ‘We the People’ will do whatever ‘we’ have to do to survive. That’s your ‘we/they paradigm’ in its essence, all the way to the point of xenophobia. And that specifically includes taking away NAPI’s grain or even just stored food that was prudently set aside by the more forward-thinking individual families. When things started to unravel, I realized that when-not if-a polity formed, I’d better be part of that process. If not, my refinery and my employees would be looked upon as ‘resources’ instead of part of-members of-the community.”

Laine jumped in: “You’ve nailed it at its essence. The local polity will pass a resolution-or ‘emergency order’ or whatever-and ‘legally’ confiscate anyone’s goods if they’re deemed to be ‘they’ instead of ‘we.’ If you resist, you’ll be crushed. They will have the resources of a whole community to draw upon including weapons, vehicles, manpower, electronics, tear gas, the whole works. Every scrap of government-owned equipment and weaponry will likely be used-by someone. Anyone who plans to hold out against that kind of threat is kidding themselves.”

L. Roy again gave a thumbs-up and continued. “That is why I pushed as hard as I could to get the county sheriff to set up roadblocks. I planted the seed and laid out the details, and now he thinks it was all his idea. Hey, whatever works! My fear is that the local polity that is now coalescing is almost certainly going to make mistakes. Some of these could be lethal blunders. I frankly don’t think the locals, except for a few of us, have given a lot of serious thought to facing long-term survival. They’ll squander resources and they’ll delay implementing necessary actions-like planting more food, or converting irrigation water systems into also handling domestic water, or working together to defend a harvest. Even worse, they may even decide to take in thousands of refugees from the big cities. That will almost ensure longer-term starvation.”

Laine chimed in: “A much better approach is to be an integral part of the community and use the combined resources of the community to defend all of our resources together. This would be much easier if a high percentage of the community were like-minded folks who are committed to sharing and cooperating while still adhering to the free market-nothing communistic or command-driven: you know, ‘top-down.’ I agree that any communities like ours with ag production are going to have to somehow survive while facing even larger polities, like the cities, counties, or even state governments-or people that call themselves by those names, to give themselves an air of authority and legitimacy.”

L. Roy said, “I can see that we are on the same sheet of music! I think we’ve both read some Ayn Rand.”

Laine gave a nod and grinned in reply.

Martin continued. “I saw this happen in microcosm in Albania. So I don’t expect to face a horde of lightly armed, starving individuals that will come at us on foot. No, sir! I expect to face a fairly professional, determined army formed by a government of some kind. Again, as you mentioned, the color of the flag they fly is meaningless. Small farming communities can support a few outsiders, but not very many. The community will need to both politically and, if need be, militarily deal with outside polities or we’ll face a war that we can’t win. In any case, the twin communities of Farmington and Bloomfield need to have a plan, and some resolve. I just hope we can muster it.”

“God willing, we’ll be able to shape that plan as community leaders instead of ‘resources,’” Lars added. After a moment Laine went on, “Well, my roadblock proposal is going up for a vote next week. Hopefully common sense and the new realities will prevail. Now, assuming that it does, I want to proceed immediately with blocking positions around Farmington that will at least be able to sound the alarm about approaching forces. I’m afraid we’re going to be on a shoestring budget.”

“So…?”

“So we’re going to need fuel. The locations for the roadblocks will be chosen based on holding commanding terrain, not just plopping down barricades that are in walking distance, right at the city limits. That is stupidity. So some of our ‘Committee of Public Safety’ men may have to drive several miles-perhaps up to fifteen miles-to man their duty shifts.”

Martin jumped in: “If we set up 24/7 security around Bloomfield, that means that they’ll need one less roadblock to defend Farmington: they watch the west for us, we watch the east for them. I’m all for that! That will cut manpower requirements by twenty-five percent. Sure, I’ll provide you the fuel.”