I've been thinking over "the end of the world as we know it" senario's that have croped up in this forum, especially when your faced with the option of bugging in or out.
Those senario's always seem to predict mass rioting, civil diorder and general mayhem from the citizens of the city your in. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I cannot think of one incident in my limited knowledge of history where this has happened.
In World War 2 when the city of Stalingrad was laid seige to, I don't recall reading about mass riots and internal feud. Sure a lot of pain and suffering and dispair was there, even reports of canabalism, but gangs of "Mad Max" types rampaging through the city....no... People coped as best they could and made the best of what was available. Any rioting, rape and pillage is generally done by external forces invading a city - the Bosnian conflict and the awful consequences for the muslim population when the Serbs took control is an example that springs to mind- and where could the muslims run to?
In a modern day senario, the horrors of modern warfare would far outstrip the limited effects of looting by its own citizens.
So whats my point?....I'm not entirely sure my self, but the idea of bugging out whilst might sound good in theory, might mean your jumping out of the frying pan into the fire.
I know this is probably a rehash of what has been said a thousand times in a thousand ways, but has our faith in our fellow human beings really fallen so low we fell we have to cater for such eventualities?
Doesn't history provide us with enough examples of "pulling together" in a crisis to make those terrible senario's highly unlikely? ( the London blitz, 9/11, even the earthquake in Bam are all examples of people helping one another).
Anyway, sorry if its a bit off topic, I just feel maybe we think a bit too negatively in these troubled times. Please feel free to correct any historical earrors or ommissions!
Martin

There have certainly been many historical riots and breakdowns of the civil order, both in this country and abroad. I believe that you are right about peoples reactions to warfare as such but we won't likely ever face such warfare as your historical references are based upon in the developed (read nuclear) world. There will be no land invasion by thousands of soldiers made upon a nuclear power. That stopped with Hiroshima - Nagasaki. These types of warfare will be practiced as needed in countries that cannot yet protect themselves in such a definitive way. What the developed world will experience is attacks upon it's peace, security and infrastructure. These are just the sorts of attacks that could cause civil societal collapse. Think of the looting and lawlessness that was reported after hurricane Andrew. Think of the riots in LA, Boston, NY throughout the 20'th century. There are two main causes - revolutionary forces diss-affected with the govt. and disruption of normal social infrastructure that we have come to take for granted such as sewer and power. A blackout of a few days while the Radio stations stay on the air and spread audio valium about how it is an innocent mishap and will be emminently fixed is one thing but a month long blackout that knocks all local radio off the air and disrupts phone service, combined with the strategic removal of a few bridges might be enough to convince a signficant fraction of the population that the laws don't apply and it is everyman for himself. In this scenario there is no outside invading army to pull together against there is just disruption and dismay. There is no army standing outside the city waiting to pick-off any refugees headed to the hills either.

Just consider what might have happened on 9/11 if there were a simultaneous blackout, comms disruption and bombing of the major bridges off the island. Takes a bit more planning and personell to pull it off but you'd be in denial if you thought that it couldn't be done. The level of disruption would be massive and the psychological impact even worse. Then throw in a few instigators on the streets with banners and megaphones blaming the govt for it all as you might have during a presidential election anyway and you have the needed resentment and revolutionary tendancies to light the tinderbox. The community may pull together for the first week but it would take more than that time to repair the infrastructure and finish exhuming the casualties during which time things could very well get quite ugly!

I tend to agree with what you say.
An educated society with a decent government and infrastructure will most likely be much more structured and prepared to handle major calamities brought about by man or what we see in nature. I believe there will be people who will try and take advantage of the situation and profit from it by whatever means, but for the most part, in an organized society, I think the need to pack up and leave at a moments notice would be minimal. Does not mean one should not prepare for it to some extent, but short of the announcement of an asteroid headed for LA in the next 24 hours, it is kind of unlikely that people will need to pick up and run. It is obviously not the same in other countries of the world, but you plan accordingly depending upon your political, social and economic situation/stability.

The question might be what would you be fleeing from. Fires like in Oakland or Malibu, an earthquake? That is one scenario that needs to be taken into consideration more so than a total immediate breakdown in society.
Living next to a chemical plant that could produce toxic fumes in the event of a major problem, 3 Mile Island; other issues you might need to plan for a quick egress from the castle and into the surrounding hills.
Planning within reason is one thing, worrying about planning for the total immediate colapse of our society without some advanced warning (read weeks, months or years) is a terrible waste of creativity.
But, we all need to respond to what we each feel is most important for us to stay "prepared," to whatever degree.

Stalingrad. Interresting that your only example from history is a city that had already been under totalitarian PHRASECENSOREDPOSTERSHOULDKNOWBETTER. control for a generation, and had been under the Czars for a long time before that.

What most people are really worried about but are afraid to describe is the unleashing of the racial tensions fueled by our unique American history. We would have the gangs, and the angry blacks, and the marxist liberators, and all the other opportunistic "poor" who are flat out convinced that "we" have been withholding the good life from them for the last X generations and it is payback time. This does not even consider the possibility of either muslim, mexican or chinese incitment and sabatage that some conspiricists propound.
In Stalingrad the marxists had won a generation before and the city was homogenized already, rabble rousers ruthlessly stamped out.

Few if any historical precidents exist for modern western society.

Good points. However 50 years of PHRASECENSOREDPOSTERSHOULDKNOWBETTER. rule didn't mean the eastern block counrties populations couldn't or didn't rebel.
To assume every other ethnic group is going to rise up and run riot through the white areas is IMHO rather improbable. I never believed ethnic hatred ran so deep.( with exceptions to the extremists) They will have just a many problems as 99% of the rest of the population.
But yes, I suppose Stalingrad wasn't the best example- I wil have to think again and clarify my views.
Thanks to those who have responed to my post - its always amazes me what I never thought of!
Martin

This is an odd statement from a Scott. Have you been totally ignorant of the cause of the IRA? Did you miss the trouble in Chechnya or Bosnia? Is the example of the cultural hatred known and killing for generations in the middle-east something that you missed? The trouble with the US is that we not only have our own heritage of racial sepratism, exploitation and suppression that is similar to the Chechnyan / bosnian issue but we also have all of the worlds bigotted isolationist volunteer resentment factories from the jews & muslims to the English and the Irish to the Religious persecutors / persecuted to the political / economic / environmentalist wackos and we welcome them, encourage them to practice their philosophies and preach their gospel. We do nothing effective to prevent them from espousing the overthrow of the government and genocide or the like. We pretend that they can talk about this and preach about this and as long as they don't actually do these things we will be safe.

In my experience I becomre very uncomfortable when someone talks about killing me. I usually take it as a sign that they intend to do so. in America it is the act not the statement that is the crime.

Post deleted by joblot

I think the examples you cite are not really cases in which law and order has broken down completely. In Stalingrad, the Red Army ruled with an iron fist. Law and order never really came close to breaking down in Britain during the two World Wars, either.

However, I think you have a point. First of all, a complete and utter breakdown of law and order takes some pretty extreme circumstances. In modern times, one might take Rwanda or the Balkan conflicts (with their "ethnic cleansing") as examples.

Probably the best historical example I can think of would be Easter Island, which suffered a catastrophic collapse a few hundred years before the island was "discovered" by Europeans. I'm not an expert on this, but I understand that this period was one in which the population disintegrated into small tribes, living in highly fortified dwellings. They would venture out to hunt and fish either stealthily (always on the lookout for enemy war parties) or in large armed parties. Always with the risk that an enemy would attack the fortification and destroy it for whatever you had and they didn't.

Realistically, if such a total breakdown ever did occur, those who grab their BOB and take to the hills would probably end up being easy pickings for those who formed into gangs.

Perhaps we should all set up a secret rendezvous ... <img src="images/graemlins/wink.gif" alt="" />

My intent was not to start controversy over the various causes or issues at the root of the various struggles but rather to simply point out the inescapable fact of the existance of those struggles. There are individuals who for whatever reason instigate and preach hatred and violence. Often these folks garner sufficient followings to become destabilizing to the peace of a reagion and when they do their cause is still as irrelivant to the average citizen as it was before but suddenly surviving the violent environment that those struggles sets up becomes paramount in their life. This is as true in Gaza as it is in Belfast. There may be reason to argue the truth or falsehoods used to instigate this level of hate and violence and there is certainly reason to condemn it. There is more importance in not denying it. To live in denial of such circumstances and think that "it won't happen here - to me - during my life may be disasterous.

Become individually prepared at least to the level of alertness and awareness of the things that could cause disruption in your life, family, neighborhood, country. Don't deny the possibilities - evaluate them and rank them. Use that ranking to determine the priority and extent of your preparations. If you have lived in LA you would be a fool to ignore the possibilities of riot closing you neighborhood for a weekend of mayham. If you have lived in Gaza or Bethleham, or Belfast to ignore the possibilities of a bomb going off in your favorite deli is equally foolish. To ignore, deminish, deride the possibility of the racial, socio-political, or economic tensions within a multicultural society in which there are leaders on every "team" loudly proclaiming that it's all because of the other "team" mistreating us is just rampant denial. Such tensions can and have errupted in large and small ways. From drive-by shootings to total social collapse as the Balkans experienced.

Continue that it isn't worth considering, hide your head in the newspaper and finish your tea, feel comfortable that you are safe because your brothers will band about you when the enemy is at the gate; but please don't ridicule or deminish me for trying to prepare and protect myself and mine from those very "brothers" and "countrymen" who each and all could choose to belong to some minority grouping that has proclaimed itself against whatever they accuse me of being affiliated with.

MiniMe

I wrote my last rant early in the morning after a long day at work. My apologies.In the cold light of day it sounds very harsh.
I picked on one sentence you wrote and disected that, rather than your overall argument. You are, of course basically right, we all have different views on the world, and prepare for those as we see fit.
Ithink I will write my responses aftera good nights sleep from now on. <img src="images/graemlins/crazy.gif" alt="" />

I have deleted my last post for the above reasons, and also because I think it went against the spirit of this forum.
Once again my apologies.

Martin