Title: How To Survive The 21st Century Fifth Edition
Author: Andrew Molchan
Date: Tue December 13th, 2005
A Preview Of The Stone Age
By Andrew Molchan
The Association’s office is in Fort Lauderdale. We were hit by two hurricanes this year. The first one, Katrina didn’t do much damage in south Florida, but the second one, Wilma, was a disaster.
The total country, over two million people, was without electricity. Probably a forth of the electronic stoplights were blown away. The pumping stations had no power, so there was no water, and no pressure to pump away the sewage. The landline phones were dead, that meant the Internet, email and faxes were also dead. Most of the cell phones didn’t work, and none of the gas stations were open because they all need power to pump gas.
My house is on a small hill, and we have a pool. So we used pool water to flush the toilets. We had a good supply of bottled water. I have a whole-house generator powered with natural gas. We have satellite TV so with electricity we had TV. However, 8 days after Wilma struck, on the day to left for the Wholesaler’s Show in Reno, the generator died on us. Fortunately, power came back to our area three days later. However, 18 days after the hurricane there were still many areas without power.
I went with natural gas because the gas company does not shut off natural gas. However, if you have a gasoline generator, as many in our area had, you are out of luck because none of the gas stations were open.
Today, many homes, and most new apartments and condos are 100% electric because it’s cheaper to build them that way. So with no power, you are 100% dead.
I bought an old-fashioned gas hot water heater so we had hot water as soon as the water pressure returned. We also have a gas stove so we could cook. However, one of my neighbors has a gas hot water heater with an electric fan, and it would not come on without electric. Even in Florida, the water is only about 65 degrees when it comes out of the tap, and it’s no fun taking a shower in 65 degree water.
I ran an electric line from our generator over to my two neighbors, and they were good until the generator went down.
In Florida you can shower if you’re brave, but in the North, during January, the water comes out of the tap at around 40 degrees. It’s dangerous to shower in water that cold. Also, in the North, even natural gas furnaces have electronic fans and thermostats, so if you lose electricity you have no heat. When a blackout comes to the North, you also lose water pressure. However, you can’t take water out of the backyard pool.
My personal doctor and I are friends. He is also the head of the biggest department at the County’s biggest hospital, Broward General. The hospital has generators but not enough of to produce the massive amount of power need by a modern hospital. There was also no water. The hospital has a reserve water tank in case of fires, so the hospital staff had to use fire hoses for water to flush the toilets. This went on for a week.
My doctor told me, “The hospital had no reserve bed capacity. Thank God there were only a few people hurt. But, if this had been a nuclear attack we’d all be back in the Stone Age.”
It’s fashionable to be pessimistic, and I usually like to be different from the crowd. However, unless Washington, both the Democrats and Republicans, and the big media, and a majority of the American people, become realistic about the world situation, I think there’s a very high probability of nuclear attacks within America.
During the last month many people have asked me. “Why the Hell do you live in south Florida?” I’ll tell you exactly why, because if the power went out for all of January and February we would not freeze to death, like the people in the North would. In Florida, in January and February, there’s lots of rainwater to drink, you can catch fish, and you could survive for a long time.
As my regular readers know, back in 1965 I predicted the American Army would lose in Vietnam. Four years ago I knew the Iraq “weapons of mass destruction” was a set up. President Bush and the CIA were not lying, they were ones lied to and set-up.
Back in the mid 1970’s I wrote: Andy’s Post WWII American Military Axiom. It said at the time. “Part one, the American military can win almost any battle, almost anywhere and against almost any enemy. Part two, the American military, with the exception of the smallest and most isolated places, cannot win any protracted war anywhere, against anyone.”
The American military can win in places like Grenada, Panama, and so forth. However, it lost in Korea, lost in Vietnam, lost the “drug war” in Columbia, and is now losing in Iraq.
Somebody might say, “What a minute, Andy, the military won the cold war with Russia!” As I see it, the Russian welfare state was the first to collapse of it’s own internal rot. The American welfare state’s collapse is still in the future, but coming.
When it comes to grand strategy, I’ve always been 1000% better than the generals and admirals in the Pentagon. So, what do I see now? I think Iraq is the end of the road for the America military. After a half-century of military defeats the Pentagon is finally going to convince the world they are grand strategy braindead.
What defeated the Pentagon is internal, intellectual cowardice. All the money and high-tech gadgets in the world aren’t any good if your fundamental strategy assumptions are all wrong, and you haven’t the courage to change them. The total power structure in America, Republicans and Democrats, military, CIA, FBI, and even the big press, have a death grip on many false assumptions, and are fighting to NOT change.
When nations refuse to honestly face their delusions, the world always gets around to change them anyway, and usually the hard way. After we leave Iraq, the fundamental grand strategy flaw will still be there. Before 9/11 America ignored the flaw, and 9/11 was designed as an attention getter. After we leave Iraq, and go back to ignoring the flaw, there will definitely be another 9/11, of some kind, to once again get our attention.
Iraq has become the wonderful training ground for the next generation of terrorists. Al Qaeda, once a very small group, has become Al Qaedaism and is spreading throughout the one billion strong Muslims. The American withdraw from Iraq, with the Islamists still holding the field, will be seen by the world as a triumph of Islamic will over America’s complicated and mainly useless gadgets, money, and grand strategy intellectual cowardice.
The American power structure marched into the 9th Crusade, and lost. It lost for basically the same reasons the West lost of first 8 Crusades. What’s most fighting to me is not the loss, tragic as this is by itself. I was in the Army, and I had people die in my arms. You never really recover, and the sense of waste grows worse with time. What’s truly fighting to me is the American power structure’s refusal to learn, and refusal to change.
The Pentagon doesn’t understand that in the 21st century military power has gone back a thousand years. The decisive weapon today is, a grassroots, young male, will to victory. A generation of American socialist public school “love of diversity” has produced a young people population that lives in America, but doesn’t think of America as their country. On the other hand, there are probably two hundred million young male Muslims willing to die for what they see as justice.
Without solutions to the core problems in the Middle East, the Islamists will go on the attack. Carried to its logical conclusion, this means nuclear attacks on the USA.
Last spring, I wrote an open letter to the total US Senate. I outlined what was happen in Iraq, and why. I outlined the solution for the Middle East. The only solution there ever will be, and one that doesn’t have to cost one American life, or much money. I predicted that neither the Republicans, or Democrats, or big press would follow the solution until AFTER something horrible happened to the USA. So, my advice to everyone is, don’t count of Washington, you should make your own preparations.
The tragedy of the Middle East is we could win. Everyone who wants justice and real peace could win. It would NOT require a lot of people being killed, hopefully none, and it would cost less than what we now spend. However, it’s a choice between what needs to be done, and ego arrogance. It’s a choice between needed changes, versus mule headed devotion to proven failure. It’s an admission that America’s trillion-dollar, high tech killing machines are basically useless, and we can’t murder our way into the world loving us.
Vietnam was different than the Middle East in many ways. However, some things are the same. We were told that Vietnam (like Iraq) was (is) a struggle for the world, for the future of universal freedom, for democracy, for justice, and for everything that was (is) vital to America. In truth, if American’s “advisors” had left Vietnam in 1962, rather than 50,000 dead American latter, what in 2005 would be so different?
The answer to the above questions is, “Not much, except a lot of people who died would be alive.” In this sense the Middle East 9th crusade is the same. The questions nobody in America’s power structure are asking: “What are we really fighting for? And, is this really worth anything at all to the daily lives of average Americans?”
If, (when) American city(s) have nuclear devices exploded in them, they will become unlivable. Hundreds of thousands (perhaps millions) of people will stream out into the surrounding countryside looking for food, water, shelter, etc. Most American cities have very large under class and criminal class populations. They’ll be out there too. So my advice, have guns and know how to use them. They will save your life.
INDUSTRY
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