week 6 doomsday preppers

Level 3 English - Week 6 TOBIN Apocalypse/End of the Age –Opinion Article

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Training for the End of the World as We Know It

A visit to "prepper camp," a four-day session on surviving super viruses, natural disasters, socioeconomic collapse, world war, and moreJESSICA LEIGH HESTER OCT 13 2014, 8:01 AM ET

A shot rings out in the Orchard Lake Campground. The crack ricochets off of evergreens

and elms and oaks. No one hits the ground, screams, or ducks for cover. None of the

600 campers even seems fazed by the blast piercing through the stagnant humidity.

After all, it’s just target practice.

Welcome to prepper camp.

For four days last month, the campground—nestled in a remote part of the foggy Blue

Ridge Mountains in western North Carolina—hosted a crash course in survival.

Organized by “Prepper Rick” Austin and his wife, a blogger who goes by “Survivor

Jane,” the weekend attracted participants from Tennessee, California, Kentucky, Texas,

Ohio, and Georgia. When the sole Yankee outs herself, one person jokingly threatens to

lynch her with a paracord.

Preppers have their own language. They carry “BOBs,” or “bug-out bags,” knapsacks

stuffed with provisions necessary to “get out of dodge” when “TSHTF” (the shit hits the

fan). “TEOTWAWKI” is instantly recognizable as shorthand for “the end of the world as

we know it.” But that “end” means something different to everyone. They’re not all

anticipating a rapture. Preoccupations range from super-viruses like Ebola to natural

disasters (solar flares, hurricanes) to man-made catastrophes (an ISIS attack,

socioeconomic collapse leading to utter mayhem).

They’re not all anticipating a rapture: Preoccupations range from super-viruses like Ebola to natural disasters to man-made catastrophes.

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http://www.theatlantic.com/jessica-leigh-hester/


Ultimately, preppers are united by the goal of not going down without a fight. Some,

like Rick and Jane, fled self-described “cushy, corporate lives” after a traumatic incident

—in their case, getting roughed up in a parking garage. They left Florida for a 53-acre

homestead in North Carolina, where they’ve planted “gardens of survival” designed to

look like overgrown underbrush. Others come from a long line of live-off-the-land folk

who want to continue the lineage and become less dependent on store-bought,

prepackaged foods. Most distrust the political climate here and abroad.

If a disaster happens, they fear that neighbors will turn on each other. For most

preppers, densely populated areas are nightmare scenarios. “Get you a paintball gun

with pepper-spray balls, then get to New Jersey, steal a car, and head for the

mountains,” suggests Doug, a potbellied, disheveled man staffing the Carolina

Readiness Supply tent, peddling how-to manuals and dehydrated foods. There’s a sense

of righteousness, of arrogance, of smug pity for people who don’t share the same

certainty about the impending descent into anarchy. Many people are proudly wearing

t-shirts emblazoned with the phrase “I’ll Miss You When You’re Gone.” One presenter

sums up the preppers’ rallying cry: “If someone from the city tries to come to the rural

areas we’ve settled, we’ll stand on the county line with our shotguns and tell them no.”

But the people at prepper camp are rational, reasoned, and eager to share their

knowledge and skills, swapping tips about purchasing things like German surplus

military phones—untraceable by the NSA—or night-vision goggles for spotting a sentry

standing guard in a tree. They trade tips for stockpiling antibiotics without tipping off

doctors or law-enforcement officials. These preppers are impassioned, but not hysterical

or anxiously raving about the end of days—very different from the sensationalized

caricatures portrayed on National Geographic’s hit TV show Doomsday Preppers. And

they’re not so rare as you might think: In a 2012 nationally representative survey by

Kelton Research, 41 percent of respondents said they believed stocking up on resources

or building a bomb shelter was a more worthwhile investment than saving for

retirement.

* * *

Six white tents are lined with folding chairs set up for rapt lecture audiences. In one,

the lecturer keeps his dark sunglasses on. He’s not trying to conjure an air of mystery

[…] Here, Stewart is lecturing about emergency conditioning. “You can have all the

great gear, but if you don’t have the right mindset, you’re not gonna make it,” he says.

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http://channel.nationalgeographic.com/channel/doomsday-preppers/


He poses a question that preppers reiterate again and again: How far would you go to

keep your family safe? The key is figuring out what will motivate you to fight, imagining

every possible horrific scenario, and fantasizing about it in lurid detail until you’ve

overridden your flight-or-fight response and replaced it with a carefully choreographed

plan.

This method of visualizing the worst altercation is called “battle-proofing.” Stewart’s

rationale: If you play the scenario out in your head, it becomes part of your retinue of

experiences, and you can practice reacting.

It’s not about tuning fear out. "I hope I never lose fear," he says. "Fear is a warning that

something is about to happen." Instead, Stewart wants to teach people how to harness

fear as a catalyst for action. Stewart wants to teach people how to combine physical

prowess with thoughtful rationality. “You can drop me pretty much anywhere on the

planet, and I’d be fine,” he says. “My wife would get lost in a parking lot.”

One observer’s cell phone keeps ringing. In an ironic ode to self-reliance and resilience,

the sound is the Mockingjay’s song from The Hunger Games films, which imagine what

it would be like to flourish in a post-apocalyptic world.

[…]At its core, prepping is about wanting to be self-sufficient and self-reliant. The

preppers aren’t all brawny men whose quick-twitch muscles appear ready to activate at

a moment’s notice. Some are elderly, like a well-coiffed woman in her eighties with

manicured nails and wrinkled fingers stacked with onyx-and-gold costume jewelry. It’s

hard to envision her swinging a gun, but she carries one in her tasteful leather purse.

Others are wheelchair bound, unable to navigate the grounds’ hilly terrain on their own.

[…] The gathering has the feeling of a sermon, with an impassioned question-and-

answer session conjuring an evangelical call and response. There’s a sense of solemnity,

responsibility, and chosen-ness hanging in the air. There’s also a feeling of painful

loneliness—ostracism from other family members, the awkwardness of explaining your

cache of semi-automatic weapons to a prospective lover—temporarily assuaged by this

community, where everyone understands, and agrees. “Forget about political

correctness,” Dr. Forstchen begs. “You are the future of America, and America is worth

fighting for.”

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As the fog rolls in again and lightning crackles higher up in the mountain, the crowd

retreats to tents, trailers, and cars. Suddenly, the parking lot is empty and dark, the

beam of a flashlight revealing just a swath of grass at the end of a dirt road in a small

Southern town.

http://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2014/10/welcome-to-prepper-camp/381351/2/

SUPPORTING TEXT 1

MagazineA World War II escape story

Paris has been liberated, but where is their son?

By Elinor Lipman

| OCTOBER 12, 2014

Cousin Claude was 25 years old in early 1944, an engineer, a native of Paris, and a

second lieutenant fighting for France. […] He was arrested in April of that year, not

because he was Jewish (he was, but his family had false identity cards, issued by the

Russian Orthodox Church), not because of the sabotage (undetected), but because his

phone number had been found, in code, in the pocket of an arrested classmate and

Resistance member.

In mid-August, after four months in a Gestapo prison in Fresnes, after “grueling

interrogations and assorted brutalities,” Claude was transferred to a transit camp near

Chantilly, then put on a train to Buchenwald.

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http://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2014/10/welcome-to-prepper-camp/381351/2/


Built to carry 40 men, the freight car held 127. Its doors were chained, its windows

boarded. The train stayed in the blazing sun for two days. (The railway men were

hoping to delay the departure until the arrival of Allied troops, rumored to be very

near.) By the time the train left, going east, there were already five dead among them.

Because some prisoners wore hobnailed boots, they were able to smash the boards

barring the windows. Iron bars were twisted. Claude was the fifth man to escape, first

onto the buffer between cars. When the train slowed, he jumped and ran. […] Less than

a week later, nearly 90 miles away, Paris was liberated. Claude’s younger brother,

despite a heavy heart, went to celebrate at a friend’s apartment in the suburbs. Mid-

meal, there was a commotion on the landing: A young man, presumed killed, was

miraculously home!

Neighbors and guests alike clamored for his story. Where had he been and how had he

survived? The teen explained that he’d jumped off a train, met up with another escapee,

an engineer, a graduate of the famous Ecole Polytechnique. He knew little else, just his

name: Claude Berman.

Claude’s astonished brother sped home. His parents’ initial jubilation was tempered by

fear and panic: If the teen had made it home, where was Claude? After another 48

hours, still no son, no news. Father and brother would set out on bicycles the next day

to retrace the teen’s return route.

Their departure never happened; it didn’t have to. At 6 that evening, the doorbell rang.

It was Claude, carrying a yellow rose, comme d’habitude when visiting his mother,

having begged for one at a flower shop, promising to return with payment. The delay?

He’d spent days interpreting for the first arrivals from General George S. Patton’s army

and serving as a guide, plotting detours that would evade German soldiers. The day

after his return, despite his fragile health, he asked for an appointment to a fighting

unit. “Apres la guerre dans l’ombre, je souhaitais la guerre au grand jour.” (“After

warring in the shadows, I wanted to fight in the light.”)

In his lifetime he was awarded the Legion d’Honneur, the Croix de Guerre, the Medaille

de la Resistance, and the Medaille des Evades. Claude died in February at 95. His son

and daughter gave me permission to tell his story. I had to promise I wouldn’t brag.

Elinor Lipman’s latest books are The View From Penthouse B and I Can’t Complain. Send

comments [email protected].

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TELL YOUR STORY. E-mail your 650-word essay on a relationship to [email protected]. Please note: We do not respond to submissions we won’t pursue.

http://www.bostonglobe.com/magazine/2014/10/11/world-war-escape-story/NQ35vhOBBduKbunKnIL91I/story.html

SUPPORTING TEXT 2 (HEADLINES)

October 15, 2014

ARE WE READY FOR THE NEXT ONE?

Headlines:

Paul Ryan Thinks Scientists Don't Know What's Causing Climate Change

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The Planet Just Had Its Warmest September On Record

Growth Of Antarctic Sea Ice A ‘Warning Bell' For Coastal Flooding

Coastal Cities Are Drowning, Thanks To Sea Level Rise

Which Of Your Favorite Foods Are Hiding A Massive Water Footprint?

Officials: Ebola-Infected Nurse's Dog Won't Be Killed

58-Foot Dead Whale Washes Ashore On Long Island

PHOTO: Earth's Strongest Storm Of 2014 Is A Terror To Behold

LEGO Quits Shell Over Arctic Drilling -- Who's Next?

Climate Change Brings New Military Challenges, Report Finds

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/green/

SUPPORTING TEXT 3 - CARTOON

The Opinion Pages | PATRICK CHAPPATTE

Screening for Ebola OCT. 14, 2014

Travel restrictions have not been uniformly implemented.

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http://www.nytimes.com/2014/10/15/opinion/patrick-chappatte-screening-for-ebola.html?_r=0

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week 6 doomsday preppers

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