When bad events happen, they don’t happen in a vacuum. These events are not singularities which wreak havoc and then go away, leaving us to resume our lives. They infiltrate our world at the most basic levels, leaving us vulnerable and with the sudden understanding that we are miniscule beings in a human construct that really cares nothing for us.
The tragedy of Hurricane Sandy is not the hurricane itself, but the lack of prior planning and the aftermath of devastation. What is sad is the faith that the people living in these areas put in the finite god of government, a god that has limited mercy or grace.
And they are seeing just how limited that mercy is.
Off The Grid Radio
Ep 134
Release Date November 8, 2012
Brian: Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to Off The Grid News—the radio version of OffTheGridNews.com. I am Brian Brawdy as always, here with Mr. Bill Heid. Bill, how are you sir?
Bill: Brian, good morning. I am well. Thanks for asking. Thanks for coming in today. Good to see you.
Brian: My pleasure. It’s always great hanging out with you.
Bill: It’s a pleasure—always a pleasure, as we say. I wanted to talk a little bit about… Again, we’ve talked about Sandy and by the time folks listen to this, it’ll be after the election so I guess I wanted to focus a little bit about on not one of those “we told you so” things but I think it really starts to make sense and there is… One of the reasons I wanted to bring this up again was there aren’t very many opportunities to bring to people’s attention that “Hey, you ought to be ready for something.” And I thought what we’d do today a little bit is I want to talk about the trip that we’re planning but I wanted to look at a little bit of “Hey, what are the results? What can happen?”
And all you’ve got to do is go on the internet, read your local paper and it’s full of ‘Here’s what’s happening.’ Sometimes these events—these bad events that happen—they’re not singular. In other words, they’re sort of a cascading… And if you look at New York City—I want to get your comment—if you look at New York City, it’s not just power outage. Now you’ve got cold, you’ve got garbage piling up on streets so you have a potential of disease, FEMA runs out of water. One thing—what people need to know—is you don’t just get a hurricane. There is this cascading series of events that go on with that and if you expect someone to help you, as you’ve been saying over the years, boy, you’d better have yourself handled to the degree you can so that you can go out and help your neighbor.
Brian: Not only help your neighbor Bill—and as we’ve said countless times, you’re a lot nicer guy than I am—if you’re the head of the household, you’re just not responsible for yourself. You are responsible for everyone else in that household. So if you say to yourself “Well Brian, I’m not going to worry about water. I’m not going to worry about food. I’m not going to worry about electricity and warmth and first aid,” well if that’s a responsibility that you want to pass on for yourself, God love you. It’s your life. Live it any way you want.
But when you’re responsible for a household—you’ve got other people that look to you and say, “Hey, what are we going to do in this situation?” then it’s a little different. And you look at all the stories—the people upset—they’re all ticked off because as you said, FEMA didn’t bring enough water, the cold, the damage, the people that are dislocated—all these other things. And then I go back to the New York Times article saying, “Well, big storms are why we need big government.” I wonder if he still thinks that today. With all kinds of people still without power, without heat, without water, without food, without gasoline—I wonder if they’re still thinking big government is doing good by them today.
Bill: Well, I don’t think Mayor Giuliani—former Mayor Giuliani—thinks so. He’s saying Katrina was pretty much running about the same—excuse me—Sandy was running about the same level as Katrina so he dumped a bucket of water on FEMA.
Brian: Sure.
Bill: And we talked a little bit about FEMA too. It’s made up of individuals. I mean these are people trying to do a good job in some cases and just without sufficient resources. Now I’m not sure the answer is giving them more money and stuff because there is such a layer of bureaucracy to that has to take place to get to people. In the old days people helped people, as we said and churches were a really big part of that and that’s gone today because as we… as a constant mantra, God isn’t God—the Lord God Jehovah is not God—but the government—the Hegelian government is God and so people expect God to sort of be merciful to them. And the problem with the finite God Brian is it’s only got so much grace and so much mercy. That’s the issue with this business of saying that the government is ultimate.
And I think sometimes people don’t help their neighbors because they think, “Well, the government is going to do it,” right? “The government does everything else. They run college football even, so they’re going to help my neighbor in a storm.” And boy, that’s just not the case either. I mean you really can’t depend on the government to get these things accomplished, especially really in a time of crisis like this? I mean what did we say last week, if you remember? One or two days New Yorkers are going to smile and say, “Yeah, us New Yorkers—we hang out together and we do things together and we get through these crises.” Three or four days, a little less the case—“Hey, where is the gas?” Five or six days, “It’s getting pretty cold in here.” Pretty soon there are people sharpening knives and carrying guns and looting and dressing up as the Con-Ed guys and then looters dressing up like that.
Brian: Yep. And I saw there was a story this morning of a guy dressing up as a FEMA even and he was going in and breaking into houses. You know Bill, I don’t think it’s quite fair to slam, as you and I often do, the government because in the last quarter they were busy spending a billion dollars trying to get their guy elected to the office of President. So come on. You can’t drop a cool billion and still help people out because of a bad storm. What are you thinking? That’s not right. Let them…
Bill: Well, a billion is hardly anything, Brian, anymore. I mean that’s…
Brian: Well, that’s just in the last quarter of what they’ve spent on political ads.
Bill: A billion here and a billion there and pretty soon you’re talking about real money. Remember that—when…?
Brian: Yeah.
Bill: Actually, that was a million, I think, wasn’t it—Paul Powell or whoever it was? It was an Illinois guy.
Brian: Right. Right.
Bill: Which is… People should know that’s the way some politicians think here. I won’t point any fingers at President Obama. Whoops.
Brian: Yeah. But as you’ve heard me say before, the Packs and the Jacks—they are two rivals in the same gang. It’s… You called an article to my attention this morning that said regardless of who wins the election, the EPA is teeing up 151—I think, at least according to the article—substantial regulations? It doesn’t matter who is going to win the Oval Office and who will be sworn in in January. EPA looks like it’s going to not even hit the ground running. It’s just going to keep running regardless of who we put in the Oval.
Bill: As our friend Jonathan Emord—who was on the Reagan team when Reagan won—has told us that 90% of your daily life is governed by administrative law.
Brian: Sure.
Bill: And we’re going to see a—as you say—tsunami of this once the election is over. It doesn’t matter who gets elected. Romney, if he gets elected, is not going to stop this ride over the cliff, as it were. And a lot of this stuff is really attacking the legislation—that’s the administrative law that plans… that’s going to go into effect—really is attacking… Everyone’s got the middle class in… President Obama’s saying, “I’m trying to save the middle class.” Romney—“I’m trying to save the middle class.” This is recorded before the election so we can’t… We’re not going to know but either side, the legislation that’s going through is going to further cripple the middle class. And the wealthy always will figure out a way. That’s what’s cute about this. As if…
I watch these commercials. I watched a little football yesterday and these commercials come on and we talk about “We’re just going to… We’re going to tax the wealthy just a little bit.” Well, the wealthy find ways to avoid taxes just like President Obama’s GE friends found a way to pay zero taxes, right? They don’t pay taxes. So that’s really… That’s just a version of pandering to people is saying, “Hey, let’s let them pay it.” The wealthy are clever. They figure out how to dodge, how to do this and that—and then if you really pin them into the corner they’re going to say, “You know what? I don’t need to make any money. Let’s close that plant in Pittsburgh because we just get taxed through the nose anyway if we keep it open. So let’s close it.” And how does that help jobs?
Brian: Absolutely.
Bill: So you can’t really hammer the productive side of the economy the way he’s talking about doing and sort of live to regret it, in an economic sense at least.
Brian: Well, you know we should ask our listeners. I mean what do you think about it? When you see articles about how the government is always going to be there for you, to protect you and to provide and do all these other things and then as you say, “Oh, we’re watching out for the middle class. Watching out for the middle class.” What do you all think? We’re always asking you to send us your emails and hit us up on Facebook and on Twitter. Give us an idea what you think.
I have to tell you Bill, I was watching a television show last night—I’m going to say it was the Discovery Channel but it escapes me now what channel it was on—but it was all about a doomsday scenario. If an electromagnetic pulse hits the United States, all of the planning, all of the dollars, all of the paradigm that goes into protecting the senior members of government so that there is a continuity… Forget about the rest of us down here and everything that is going to happen to us. The ones we’re willing to protect the most or the ones that have put us in the toilet we’re in—that’s who we’re going to…
That’s why I say look, when all else hits, let’s get the elected… Let’s get the elected politicians on the airplane. Oh, for goodness sakes yeah. Let’s make sure there’s a continuity of government if the entire country is hit by an EMP. Really? That’s who you want to put on the ark? The government—the Packs and the Jacks—that’s who you want to save, are the same people that put us in the situation we’re in? That’s our big plan? That’s what we’ve come up with? That’s our big plan?
Bill: Yeah, in some ways it’s the… This ark that you’re talking about—can you imagine Noah gathering politicians—two politicians instead of two…?
Brian: Sure.
Bill: …from each district or whatever and they come in and can you imagine that ark?
Brian: I’m just trying to figure out who you’d pair with Charlie Rangel, the Democrat from New York. But yeah, I get where you’re going with that. All right, there’s two but…
Bill: Barbara Boxer.
Brian: Barbara? Maybe so—Barbara Boxer. But those are the people? “Oh, let’s do everything we can. Let’s…” I think it’s Moffat Air Force Base has like six Air Force Ones that can be refueled forever and it’s just to get the senior members of government to keep the human chain going and I’m thinking, “That’s not who I want. If I get whacked, that’s not who I want continuing on in the name of humanity.” What the heck has happened to us?
Bill: Well, that’s where we are. That’s the culture because we’ve placed government as the God—again—of our society. And once you do that, you really do some absurd… You start thinking the wrong way.
Brian: Well, and look at the media. But I would say Bill, that ultimately—you know how I try to shoulder all the blame that I can—ultimately, I blame you and Jeramy and me and…
Bill: Al Roker.
Brian: Al Roker. Al Roker is… I always blame Al Roker. I just… I don’t like people that are dishonest. But so you blame… But I like blaming ourselves because here’s the deal—we watch television, we buy the stuff that’s on commercials, the news media sells those commercials—I am so sick and tired of media treating politicians like rock stars. “Oh, President Obama had a bologna sandwich today. Oh, Governor Romney was here doing this and doing that.” Just tune in now—“Oh, it’s 72 hours. Oh, 48 hours. Oh…”—what are we down now? “It’s 12 hours or this and that.” Look at what the media does to make these guys and gals rock stars but the only way… The only capability the media has is because we buy the ads. We give them the money so at some level, everyone… They want these rock stars that are politicians. You and I are responsible.
Bill: Oh, sure—if you watch. I know people would say, “No, that’s not the case” but if you watch, you’re sort of contributing to it at some point.
Brian: Yes.
Bill: People do want to know what’s going on so what do you think is a good thing…? I mean really surfing the web is probably a better idea of finding out what’s going on but you still have the same control grid now. It used to be the web—years ago—was sort of an oasis but now you’ve got such control there as well, it’s hard to get… Go to Fox News or CNN right now and what’s the news story? It’s…
Brian: Well, Bill Hemmer last night had this big screen up—“Let me show you. We’ve got a matrix. We’ve got a graphic. We’ve used calculus. We’re doing a…” Hi Jeramy—just checking your email now, are you? During the middle of the show? Yeah, log-on. So he’s got this big board up, right Bill? And he’s moving his hands and “Romney was here” and “President Obama was there” and “Biden was here” and “This guy was here” and “Now they’re going to crisscross.” 1.9 million people in New York and New Jersey still without power—you want to put something on your screen? Show me the different counties where people don’t have food, don’t have water. Do you think I give a good tokus where Joe Biden is going to land and lie 24 hours before the election goes down?
You want to do something, Hemmer? You want to help people? Then put up the people that need water, that need food, that need medical supplies. Put up on your big, handy screen… I don’t care where Ryan lands. I don’t care if he never lands again. You want to do some good? “No, I’m reporting the news.” No, you’re not. You want to do something good? Highlight all the people that still have no water, have no food, no electricity to keep themselves warm as the nor’easter bears down. You want to be a news reporter? Do it. If I want something like that, I’ll watch Entertainment Tonight. I’d have to ask Jeramy—is that even still on the air? Is Entertainment Tonight still on the air? There you go, Jeramy. Just feel free to Skype away, Jeramy. Just really—don’t worry about it.
Bill: What is with you today, Jeramy?
Brian: What is with him today? But you know what I mean, Bill? “That’s the big, breaking news. Bill Hemmer—I’m in front of the board to let you know where the four candidates landed today and oh, yeah they all happen to be in Columbus Ohio tomorrow.” Who cares?
Bill: I can’t wait to find out, as you say, where they are going to be next.
Brian: Where are they going to be next? I’m on the edge of my chair—probably because I’m reaching over to try and choke Jeramy out for checking his email during the show.
Bill: Well, by the time people listen to this, hopefully it’s over…
Brian: And we’ll have a new producer that won’t check his email while we’re doing the show.
Bill: Or possibly—it’ll be Friday—but possibly they will be still counting votes. There will be hanging chads.
Brian: Hanging chads.
Bill: Or some other thing because I think this is… This one is going to be so close that there is going to be a lot of back and forth.
Brian: Yep.
Bill: Maybe the Supreme Court will get involved. Who knows?
Brian: It’s happened before.
Bill: It’s happened before.
Brian: Sure.
Bill: What’s one scenario…? You and I talked about a scenario before where the Democrats basically… It’s locked and it’s basically “Well, you stole the other one during… for Bush too.”
Brian: Sure.
Bill: “We’re going to get you back here on this one.” What do you the chance of that happening?
Brian: You could see the… People say, “Oh, you know what? The popular vote…” I was having a conversation yesterday and someone goes, “Well Brian, it’s the cornerstone of our democracy.” Other than the fact that we’re a republic—not a democracy—I tend to get your point. We’re not a democracy. Well, if 51% of the people want this guy elected, yeah—again, we’re not a democracy. It doesn’t matter. It’s going to go to the Electoral College and like you said, maybe this is their way of going, “Hey, Gore won the popular vote once and you gave it to Bush so now just sit there and take your lumps.” I mean it’s going to be kind of weird because you and I are either going to look like savants or are going to look pretty silly come the time this airs because the cat will be out of the bag. But it could very well turn out to be that the same thing happens again, where the Electoral College goes against the popular vote and that’s the way our government is set up.
Bill: It sure could happen.
Brian: Absolutely.
Bill: It sure could happen and I think this thing is really close, as you said. Now Illinois politicians know a little more about maybe stealing close ones and so I would give… In that event, I would give President—in terms of working the system and knowing how the system works—I would give President Obama an advantage there. Other than that, it looks to be—if you look at the news—dead even. But as we said, that’s not really the news, as folks are listening to this right now. Someone… There is a new President.
Brian: Sure.
Bill: But meet the new boss—same as the old boss, as Roger Daltrey taught us. You’re going to have the same set of circumstances to deal with and I think that’s the thing that we’ve really got to get through people’s heads. This legislation is going through, the taxes are coming—no matter what—and irrespective of all the flag waving at these rallies, as you said—of the rallies that have gone past—we’re really facing kind of a brave new world. We have a brave new surveillance world, we have a brave new world on a lot of different fronts and I think to a lot of folks, it’s going to be scary.
Brian: Yeah, we have a brave new surveillance world, unless you want to turn that telescope on the EPA and get a printout of all the regulations that they have enacted in the last year. We’ve got a really transparent security system unless you ask the EPA to show “Well, here’s where all the regulations that we’ve enacted on your behalf since 2011.” And you’re right. We’ve got all the flag waving. We’ve got all the “I’m a GOP. I’m a Dem. I’m this and that” but the legislative leviathan will wake up Wednesday morning—all be the same. Bureaucratic behemoth isn’t going to go anywhere—still going to be the same. So I think people are just going to get to the point where they go, “Look, I need to be self-reliant. I need to be independent.”
I do feel for the people in New York. I’m from New York. But the bottom line is if you had a plan in advance, you wouldn’t find yourself in this scenario that you do now. Do you know…? I mean people say, “Oh, there are no paramedics coming.” Then you’ve got to know how to do your own first aid. “Well, the grocery stores—the shelves are bare.” Then why didn’t you get some food in advance? “Well, you know electricity is out so the water isn’t being pumped.” Did you fill your bathtub with water before the storm hit? I think that’s what’s so offensive—why I get so worked up at times about being treated gullible by the government—because I’m not anti-government; I’m anti-people believing that you shouldn’t be self-reliant.
Bill: And it creates quite a stir, doesn’t it, when…?
Brian: It does.
Bill: I mean and you know what we’ve been through in the past—George Soros’s guys and other people—have written about us being fear-mongers?
Brian: Sure.
Bill: Well, ask the people in New York if they should be ready. And all we’re saying is basically “Here is an insurance policy.” You don’t have to buy stuff from Solutions From Science. Figure out a way to get self-reliant, to take a step towards that. I don’t know if you can ever be 100% self-reliant but you can certainly take steps towards getting to that point.
Brian: Sure. Well, it’s like a safety belt—a seat belt in a car. Are we fear-mongers because we click in when we get behind the wheel? No, there are certain things you do in advance so that heaven forbid you’re in a crash—you’re confronted by an emergency—that you’ve got a backup plan. But look at the headlines, Bill. Look at the people without food, without water, without electricity, without heat, without gas. Look at all of it. Now you could say, “Well, we’re going to fault the federal government.” Okay, great. What are you going to fault the federal government for? “Well, they could have stockpiled generators. They could have stockpiled fuel. They could have stockpiled food. FEMA could have… I mean it’s Long Island. It’s an island, for goodness sakes. FEMA can’t get a boat in there that can make salt water drinkable?” All those things.
I’ve got a better idea. Get your own gallon jug of water. Get some of your own food. If you wait for FEMA, if you wait for the federal government to come and help you, you’re going to feel the pain of that very early on. And even if you say, “Well Brian, you know why is it so anti-government?” I’m not anti-government at all. There are just too many people to help, right?
Bill: It’s overwhelming.
Brian: It’s overwhelming for the poor folks. I mean I feel really bad. You were telling me this morning about the power—the utility workers—getting pelted with eggs in New York. I think they’re probably out there working as hard as they can. I know some of these guys. But when so many people are without power, when there are so many trees down, when so many wires—then instead of always looking outside of yourself and pointing the finger at someone and saying, “Hey, you need to do something,” well, why couldn’t you have done something in advance?
Bill: The founders of this country really had no backdrop with respect to… They had church and community. That was their backdrop. There was no… De Tocqueville wrote about this—I have mentioned this before on this show—De Tocqueville wrote that you could travel across this country during the time that he was here and never run into anybody from the government. There were people that lived out away from the city that didn’t see a government official ever.
Brian: Yeah. Same like the people in lower Manhattan. Same like people in New Jersey. Same like people in Queens. You know? The subways are flooded. Well, you know we’re not going to see a government official here. Bloomberg tried earlier last week…
Bill: Did they throw eggs at him?
Brian: No, they… I checked on that story just to confirm it. The crowd turned on them though. They were booing and hollering and everything else and security kind of moved them out of there—moved them out of there in a hurry. But again, I feel for those folks but the bottom line is have a plan in advance. If you’re waiting on someone to ride in on a white horse after an emergency and save you, you’re backing the wrong pony. It really is, Bill. As you know, it’s that simple. Have a plan in advance. Then you don’t have to worry about what the government does or doesn’t do—at least at the micro level where you are. You could say, “Well Brian, government’s got to open the bridges back up onto the island.”
Bill: And that’s what you’d let them do. That’s what you’d let them spend time doing and not taking care of people that could be taken care of by churches or community agencies or…
Brian: And I’ll bet you there are churches and community agencies working their tails off, Bill. I know they are. I don’t even have to be there. I can tell you from Katrina, I staged out of a church. I can tell you the church folks were there on the ground, working as hard as they can to help other people.
Bill: And you don’t have to pay those guys $100,000 a year to be a volunteer. They just show up because of their faith.
Brian: Yep.
Bill: Isn’t that interesting? What a concept.
Brian: Well, that’s why I’ve had it up to here—and I’m a tall, tall guy—I’ve had it up to here with this “Oh, we elect our public servants.” Name me one politician that you know that’s a public servant. Name me one.
Bill: Name me one that’s elected?
Brian: Yeah. I’m sorry. Yeah, they elected the politician and go, “Oh, I’m a public servant.” Eh, I don’t see that happening a lot anymore.
Bill: Ron Paul.
Brian: Ron… Eh… I mean you and I both know Dr. Paul. I guess you could… There are some shades of that that are true but in other ways, I think there… You should vote for people. They should get in, do their “public service” and get out—in a career—anything. Now I know we’ll get all kinds of emails. The first round of emails will be “Hey, lighten up on Jeramy. Everyone checks their Skype account.” Second round of emails will be like “Hey look, I can’t believe you’re going to slam big government.”
But the bottom line is if you do it for yourself, you don’t need a public servant. Be a self-servant. Make sure that you have a plan for you and your family and then let them work on getting the bridges back up. That’s what they’re… that’s about and they’re not even good at doing that in some cases. Ask the people in Minnesota how great the government is at watching the bridges in Minneapolis. Not too many years ago that was another thing the government was so great at. So just—good golly—just fend for yourself and by that I mean have a plan in advance. What are you going to do for food? What are you going to do for water? It’s really simple stuff, Bill.
Bill: It is and people need to start, as we said, with themselves. This is this business of sort of Kuyperian sphere government where you take care of yourself, right? “I’ve got myself covered. I’ve got my family covered. I’ve got my church group covered. Then we as a church group go out and cover our community.” And then you let the civil authorities—if you haven’t been elected to civil—you let them handle the other things, the big things. And so I think that’s a model that really worked early in our country. And you could say, “Well, things are more sophisticated now.” They’ve are more sophisticated now but the principle of that doesn’t need to be any more sophisticated.
Brian: Agreed. Agreed. And I would…
Bill: The concept of this… We don’t need bigger government.
Brian: Nope. Well, I would say just turn to your rock star reporters at Fox and CNN and MSNBC—the ones that are housed out of New York—they kept their generators going, didn’t they? To be able to report how bad it was, how many people were without power, Fox sure had a backup round of generators and all the fuel they needed to keep themselves on air, didn’t they?
Bill: They did but Bill O’Reilly didn’t at his house, as we covered before…
Brian: That’s right.
Bill: We were talking about that story with him—where he had bought a gas generator and it didn’t work.
Brian: Yep. Didn’t work.
Bill: So that’s quite an amazing thing to think about but he’s right—you’d better have… If you’ve got a gas generator, you’d better have somebody that can fix it.
Brian: That’s right. Oh, here’s the thing—and you know how…
Bill: Of course you’d better have some gas but…
Brian: You’d better have some gas but here’s my experience with violent storms and I’ve been through earthquakes, tornados, hurricanes. About… Most times 24 hours after the violent storm leaves, guess what comes? Sunlight. And I don’t want people to go, “Oh Brian, not another… Not you going off again about a solar generator.” It gets… We get a lot of bad press, Bill, as you know with Solyndra and everyone else—“Oh, some other green company going under.”
But it’s been my experience after every tornado, after every hurricane, earthquake—after every major storm I’ve been in, sooner or later the sun comes out. And the sun came out in New York a heck of a lot earlier than the gas made it back to the pumps. So if you had a solar generator, if you had the ability—and if you don’t like one of the ones from Solutions From Science then you could invest a couple hundred dollars and build one of your own, I guess—I tried that once.
Bill: You and Dave tried that one time.
Brian: Tried that once. But I’m just saying look, the sun always comes out. That reminds me of that old song—“Tomorrow…”—whoever that is. But…
Bill: Don’t sing that song.
Brian: Thank you. I don’t have the voice for it. And I know Jeramy would just Skype that audio file around. But you know what I mean? The sun always comes out. People go, “Oh, I don’t have any gas.” Look, I feel bad for you. How long do we have to harp on solar generators before you go, “That would have been a good idea”? Right? You’ve got to have a fallback plan and it’s not… It’s… We were talking last time about National Geographic and I’ll let you decide whether I go ahead and tell the recap of that story but we were not wearing tinfoil in our baseball caps. We’re not “doomsday preppers.” We just like having a plan.
Bill: I think we’re pretty normal people, really.
Brian: I think so.
Bill: I don’t think we’re abnormal. I don’t think we’re weirdoes. Now I’m glad you brought Doomsday Preppers up because we’ve got a show with some of our gear on and we know in late November, the one in Dallas—one of our customers that has our seed stuff and has our solar generators—that one’s been confirmed. And so you had another call from them. Let’s talk about it for a couple minutes. You had another strange and unnatural call from the good folks at Nat G.
Brian: Yeah, I did. I… Let me just say that my heart goes out to the producer that gave me such a hard time. He no longer works for them so I’m… I wish him the best in whatever endeavor he works…
Bill: So the guy that produced it got…?
Brian: 86’d, to use a restaurant term, which I’m sure he’s probably either a short order cook or waiting tables somewhere so I used 86’d.
Bill: He’s wearing a hairnet or a nametag.
Brian: I’m hoping so. That’s about his quality of… That’s about his ilk. That’s what he can…
Bill: Now Brian…
Brian: That’s what he can cover so he is no longer the producer so I am now back to being a huge fan and we’re going to be on sometime in early December, highlighting the Power Source, the soup bean survival, the survival seed banks. We’ve got a lot of cool gear, as you know, that I stock my rig with so that if heaven forbid I’m hit with that situation, I can jump into my camper and go. So yeah—we’ll be on a couple different times in November and December on Nat G…
Bill: I’m glad you guys are back together. I was thinking it was a little bit like Simon and Garfunkel when they split up. I think that there ought to be a reunion tour—some sort of get together and they’re back again and everybody smokes the peace pipe or something.
Brian: As long as the one guy’s out…
Bill: I hated to see it go south on you, you know? Things turn ugly in life though, right? You invite somebody into your house and you invite somebody and they’re sort of trying to catch you doing weird things and making a tinfoil guy out of you and that’s certainly what you ran into.
Brian: Yeah. Sure. And now he’s probably wrapping sandwiches in tinfoil somewhere so it’s all good and everything works out exactly the way it needs to. But he is no longer the producer and I think, as we discussed it, a part of the run-in that he and I had was that you don’t have to be crazy to have a plan. And if you call yourself a prepper, God love you. If you just say, “Look, I need to have a plan. I’m self…” That’s what I so love about the Constitution when it talks about “endowed by their creator.” That comes with a responsibility.
Bill: Oh yes.
Brian: You were given all these tools, all these capabilities. Well, what if those capabilities are your responsibilities? You don’t get to turn… You don’t give yourself a cold shoulder and go, “Oh, I’ll wait for someone else to ride in on a horse and help me.” That’s the way you’re built. You’re wired to win and I think what’s so offensive at times for me, when you look at big government types, they just discount that. They pander to that portion in all of us where we go, “Ah, it’d just be easier to have someone else take care of me.” But that’s contrary to who we truly are.
Bill: Well, it’s how we hear that thing too—“endowed by our creator”—you heard what I think is the responsible side of that. People say, “Well, that…Let’s see. I’ve got a cell phone coming and free internet and government cheese and a list of things.” Well, there is no such thing as freebies. This business of responsibility—of having responsibility on the other side—I think again, going back to the founders, they really understood this well.
Brian: Absolutely.
Bill: And that was such a part of the early documents of our country. That’s why we need to go back. I’m thinking about… You were talking about tsunamis and storms and stuff. Here we are post-election as people listen to this. There is still $1.1 quadrillion in derivatives hanging like a loose chad out over the world economy. Now if there is ever a nor’easter that comes crawling back over that and there is a series of events that create this cross-defaulting thing, you’re going to see a storm like nothing anybody’s ever seen. So use Sandy as sort of a particular example, knowing that things can happen. But these black swans don’t come like, “Oh, I guess I’ll get ready for the next hurricane.” Guess what? You probably won’t get hit with a hurricane again.
Brian: Right.
Bill: Think about where things can come from. But the rules are the same, Brian.
Brian: Sure.
Bill: Do I have enough food and water for my family? Can I get… create some power? Can I create…? Can I defend myself? Those basic issues—and then of course, can I help my neighbor?
Brian: Sure.
Bill: Those basic issues are going to stay the same irrespective. Now the problem is these storms go away, people get their power turned back on and they just forget about it, that we… I think as Americans, we have the attention span of a circus monkey.
Brian: Sure.
Bill: And so we just tend to forget things like it was yesterday. But I’m just saying don’t. Think about it. You don’t have to freak out. You don’t have to wear tinfoil. But don’t think about it in terms of “Well, this is gone now. Out of sight—out of mind. They have cleaned up those dead bodies and so now it’s something that I’m not going to worry about.” Well, be a good thinker.
Brian: Be a good thinker and just look at the grid. You know we did… We have done a couple different shows in the past about how frail—how truly fragile—the grid is. So just ask yourself if the transformers that they are going to need in New York and all these other places—if it takes a while to get there, what are you going to do in the interim? Everyone’s looking to plug in. Everybody wants the juice.
Bill: Did you see those pictures of people trying to plug in?
Brian: Absolutely. Absolutely.
Bill: Everywhere.
Brian: Everywhere. And think about…
Bill: Trying to charge their phones because everybody’s hooked on phones and I think probably books will be written in the future—in the next six months—about the sort of psychosis that develops when you’re iPad- and iPod-less—when it finally runs out—and you can’t keep doing business the way that you’ve been used to doing business in your daily life, in terms of these electronic devices. And then I think that that’s where people will start to go nuts—really nuts.
Brian: Absolutely. Well, the neurosis and the psychosis, as it builds into that—what happens when you are constantly looking outside, right? You’ve got a “Crackberry” and the iPhone and you’ve got all these other devices that are constantly distracting you. And I would say to all these people that had the phones that had their tablets that had all these other things—did you see a week out when they forecast that Sandy was coming? Are you busy getting all your downloads and all your information and all your this and that? Did you see the storm was coming? Would it have killed you to get some food, some water, some more first aid supplies? Would it really have been that much of an interruption in your week to go ahead and craft a plan to be self-reliant?
Bill: How could you do that when you’re checking on Derek Jeter’s numbers?
Brian: Yeah. Or what state Biden was going to land in today to give another one of his wild riffs.
Bill: I love this stuff but I just think it has to have its place. Everything has its place. There is… You can say, “Look, Joe—crazy Uncle Joe—landed in Timbuktu.” That’s a great thing. You can say, “Well, Aaron Rodgers had another”—I’m a Packer fan—“Aaron Rodgers had a good day.” But if that’s your gig—if that’s what you’re so passionate about… You’ve got a problem if that’s what takes over the rest of your life—if that takes over the rest of what you’re supposed to do—that responsibility side that you were talking about.
Brian: And that responsibility—I mean that’s God-given. That’s… Those are your tools. Why leave them around to rust? I think that, to me, is why when I see things like the big media, the big government constantly encouraging you to follow some carrot at the end of the stick, it’s not the way the human mind is built.
Bill: Well you know, and you touched on something really good there. I think this is ultimately a religious endeavor. In other words, you’re putting your faith in something other than government and you’re putting your faith and you’re saying, “Look…” What did Cromwell say—keep your faith in God and keep your powder dry, right? What better advice could there be than that? And that sort of… Look, God decides outcomes. Stonewall Jackson taught us God decides outcomes—that’s his… Not my pay grade, as we say. But certainly the first half of that transaction—keeping your powder dry and in Cromwell’s case, the second half—but keeping your powder dry is a pretty important thing.
Brian: I would think so.
Bill: It’s like praying and never doing anything.
Brian: Right.
Bill: We talk about this all the time and all the people… There’s a… It’s a sickness, kind of, in our culture where people pray and then they don’t… And I think Protestants especially, in many cases think because Catholics put this emphasis on works, that then you don’t have to do anything. I’m not saying that you’re getting saved by your works. I’m not saying that. I’m just saying that shouldn’t there be fruit? Shouldn’t fruit show up during an occasion like Sandy? Shouldn’t you be in a position…?
Brian: Great point.
Bill: …to help someone out? That’s how we know we’re Christians—by our love. You know the story. We’ve got stuff. We’re not going to hoard it for ourselves. We hoarded it for a while but now guess what? We give it away because when you give something away, it comes back to you too and you don’t worry about it. So you don’t have any problems giving away stuff. Yeah, you stored your stuff up but you gave it back away. That’s the fruit.
Brian: And I think that’s the brilliance of the human mind, body and the human being is that to be able to tap into those resources and then… It’s like a pebble dropping into a pond, right? As you say, the rings continue out after that happens. Help your family, then your neighbors, then your extended neighborhood and your church—anyone else that you can. There are a lot of great people doing some really good work in the northeast this morning and very few of them have government badges on. There are just too many of us for the government to help.
But do you know the one person that can help you, Bill? You. The person you see in the mirror—that’s the person responsible and I think… And I think our listeners know that. We’ve got some pretty astute listeners, if you go over the emails and the Facebook posts and the Twitter comments. We’ve got some pretty sharp knives in the drawer that follow our show and they get it so I would say that look, this would be a great link—as I asked last week—this would be a great link to pass on to some friends that might be on the fence.
Bill: And there are a lot of people on the fence, a lot of people… Just because you didn’t go through Sandy doesn’t mean that you can’t learn from it. And I think I’ve learned from it. I watched these things and I say, “Wow. What happens if…?” It’s like a chess game, in a sense because it’s not as simple as just losing your power. If this happens, what do you do with your garbage? Where do you go to the bathroom? Can I say that on the air?
Brian: Sure.
Bill: Where do you go to the bathroom? Where do you…? What do your kids do? How do you stay warm? Gee. You’d better have a plan. You’d better be able to think this through. Most people can’t.
Brian: Because they’re too busy taking it for granted. They’re too busy believing that it’s always going to be there. They are going to flick the switch or turn the dial and their lights or their heater are going to come back on, right?
Bill: And I’m just saying this too, Brian—I am going to make a prediction—I can’t say it’s in 2013. I’m not God. I don’t know this thing. But a super storm like Sandy—there is a financial super storm waiting out there. It’s not a function of who won the election. It’s not a function of Al Roker—some tropical depression coming from Bermuda or from Africa or someplace and it’s crawling over. It’s something that’s baked into the cards. We’ve said it before—it’s really not an issue of whether this is going to happen or not. The world is going to cycle out. You go through cycles—economic cycles. We are in a bust and we need… There is a bankruptcy issue here, right? Collectively, in the world. Someone needs to prick this balloon with a pin and then we’ll all get on with our lives afterward. So we’re going to have a devaluation. We’re going to have… And again, would you say that people in Sandy, their lives have been devaluated in some sense and how their standard of living is? Of course.
Brian: Oh absolutely. I think I saw a report this morning that said that thousands are going to be permanently relocated? Did you see that one?
Bill: 40,000, I read.
Brian: Unbelievable.
Bill: That were going to have to move permanently. The cost of this thing is going to be—they say– $250 billion. I’ve seen one example of that– $250 billion—one person speculated as such. So wait for the financial thing and now when the financial thing happens, the storm is not going to go away for a little while.
Brian: Right.
Bill: So here’s our next preparation. If we give people a little bit of a goal—could you last a couple months?
Brian: Sure. That’s what you need to know.
Bill: That’s really what you need to know. Not can you last a week in New York City—I hope that you can—I hope that we all can. But what would happen if you lost something—if somehow the grid goes down and you have to make it for a couple months without anything?
Brian: And your politicians are all in one of five Air Force Ones, circling above the skies of Nebraska or wherever I saw that show.
Bill: Or cashing in their gold, you know? I mean the politicians all own these hedges—guys like George Soros—they all… They tell you not to buy gold but they all own gold as hedges and so they’ve protected themselves physically, as you’ve said. They have these underground bunkers and then of course they have all the money that they’ll ever need in various forms and cashes and stashes and so forth. So they’re going to do just fine.
Brian: Sure.
Bill: But our listeners especially I’m worried about because I think it’s easy to sort of adhere to the proposition—“Yeah, I think Bill and Brian are right about this.” But then it’s like faith without works is dead. Well, if we’re right about it, take some kind of action. You don’t have to buy something from Solutions From Science. But we don’t want to see this happen to people—especially our listeners.
Brian: Sure.
Bill: And I’d like to think that our listeners could be those people that are supplied, stockpiled and ready to help.
Brian: Sure. Well, our listeners absolutely realize that your government dumbs you down, that the media dumbs you down. Our listeners are the ones that realize… They’re not taking it from the big government, big media types. They know that what they tell you… And I saw you look at all the polls today—leading up to the election or shortly thereafter—“Oh, this one’s at this and this one that’s that” and then you look into the numbers behind the polls. Shocker. Republican pollsters poll Republicans. Democrat pollsters poll Democrats. So even those numbers are skewed and you’ve just got to ask yourself “How gullible do they think we are?”
And our listeners aren’t a gullible group of folks. They get it. They understand. So that’s why I’d ask them to take this link and share it with someone else. Share it with someone that might be just a tad more gullible than you’d like and have them listen to this and go, “I didn’t think that it was all that radical to have a plan in advance.” We’re just asking people to put your seat belt on before you go on a drive. That’s all we’re doing. The things that we talk about are just safety mechanisms. They are airbag in your car.
Bill: And they’re kind of fun.
Brian: I think so.
Bill: Really. You know, I think it’s kind of fun to sort of play “What if?” and your kids certainly respond to this kind of thing. They don’t see it as a big tragedy and if you’re prepared, they’ll see it as—even your preparations—they’ll see that as kind of fun. And over the weekend—I’ll just tell you this—we had a really sort of cute… We had on or Heirloom Market program—we had a 95 year old lady here named Erma Richter and she was born the same year that Trotsky and Lenin overran the Kerensky government so that was a while ago—1917, I think it was. And she was telling me something really interesting. We had this recorded. We have this on video. And she was saying something really interesting is that when the times got tough—her dad ran a store not too far down the road from us here on Wacker—and when times got tough—this was during the Depression—there was only one currency that existed. One currency because money was no good—what do you do? Trust.
Brian: There you go.
Bill: We’ve talked about this before on the show as a historical idea, as something that should exist in our culture and trust is the ultimate currency in a crisis. So how do you get that trust? Well, you have to live a life that sort of has trust baked into it. You have to be doing things so that people trust you. When a crisis comes, that’s the only thing left—other than guns.
Brian: Sure.
Bill: And when people get their guns out, it’s kind of too late. So let’s learn how to create a culture of trust in a crisis. O’Reilly was right. You need to build a circle of people. Not just your alliance but people—community minded people—you need to build a circle that you can give back to them, they can give to you and we start to know people better and trust them better and then we get through these things by being good members of the community. And I think that’s really what—in the end of the day—that’s what we’re called to do.
Brian: Absolutely, and the question that I always ask—when you can’t call on anyone else, can you call on yourself? So using your “trust” word—when you can’t trust anyone else to save you, can you trust yourself to save you? Right? When there is no 911…
Bill: That’s a good starting point.
Brian: I think it is. What do you have to do right now to be trustworthy? And then start off by saying what do you have to do to be trustworthy to the person in the mirror? And then what do you have to do right now to be trustworthy to your immediate family? Maybe you say to your spouse. And then you take it up to the next circle, as you say—what do you have to do to be trustworthy to your family? And then your extended family and then your neighborhood and then your church and then your community.
So I like the way you reframe that, about it being trust. If you can’t trust on anyone else to come and save you, can you trust yourself to save you? And our listeners are able to answer that affirmatively, I think. I think our listeners are a pretty astute group and they go, “Yeah, we’re going to have a plan. We’re going to have a fallback plan and here’s how we’re going to implement that plan,” right? It doesn’t do any good to say, “Yeah, I want a plan.” But until you take that action, until you marry works and words…
Bill: You’ve got to do something.
Brian: You’ve got to do something.
Bill: You’ve got to take action. Even if it’s a small step, I think it’s important. Other things we want to cover? How much time do we have, Jeramy, roughly?
Jeramy: We’re at 45.
Bill: Okay, so we’ve got a couple minutes left, Brian.
Brian: How about your trip? I want to hear about that.
Bill: We’re getting ready to leave—talk about trust—I’m leaving… I’m trusting you guys with the fort while I’m gone and hopefully we can sort of Skype or communicate somehow through… when I’m in London.
Brian: Sounds like Jeramy’s Skype’s working okay.
Bill: I hear the noise once in a while. Actually Brian, I have something to announce to you. That was actually my computer and not Jeramy.
Brian: I know. It’s just so much more fun.
Bill: Jeramy has been liberated. Jeramy has been liberated from this. But we’re going to be in London, as we talked a little bit before about this—we’re going to… We’re working on a very special project and now we even have a BBC crew coming in to actually film this project. So it’s the actual recreation of a Henty novel—well, not novel… Not just someone reading it but an actual radio theater recreation and we’ve got a wonderful actor named Brian Blest, who is a Henty guy himself or a Henty boy when he was younger and playing the role of Henty. And Brian’s quite a great actor. He is a friend of Patrick Stewart’s and he looks the part and he’s a great adventurer himself, as was Henty.
And so I’ll be in the studio with Brian and a whole bunch of other actors that have been involved in some pretty big projects so that starts in a couple days. And by the time… We’ll be in the middle of that project when people here this show. And so we really invite their sort of prayers, as it were. It’s my first time involved in a project like this. I may… Hopefully I didn’t bite off more than I can chew. That’s… Jeramy knows me well enough to know that that’s a little bit of one of my motifs—“be thirsty, my friend.”
Brian: Right.
Bill: And it kind of gets out of hand once in a while but I think we’re going to cover it well. We’re also going to go to… And for Thanksgiving—as Thanksgiving approaches—I wanted to go to Scrooby, where Brewster hung out and where the Pilgrims went to church and hung out and sort of film that. I mean that’s a big part of my Thanksgiving every year is really going back and thinking about what those folks went through and then we’re going to go down to Plymouth, where they left and hang out down there for a little while too.
So part of it… I hope to sort of film some of this and create a little bit of a documentary for our listeners so they can kind of realize what we did. We’re also going to film what went on in the studio to show everybody and then eventually we’ll have this wonderful radio theater presentation to offer people. So that’s what we’re doing. I’m very, very excited about it. I’m going with my son Nick and he’s going to be doing some of the filming and just helping with the project so…
Brian: Oh cool. That’d be cool for the two of you two to be able to go and hang out for a while as well.
Bill: When he was… I’ll tell you what. When he was a senior, he wanted to go to Greece and I didn’t have any money just to go to Greece and ride bicycles around all the sites—the Areopagus and all these different places, you know? Acropolis and all that and then… So now we’re going to England on a business proposition and we’re going to try to mix a little pleasure in with it so…
Brian: Good. Well, you and I always have when we travel. We’ve always found a little bit of fun to do at the end of the day or mixing it up. So that will be great. And you’re also going to call in from England next week so…
Bill: What I’ll do is call in and we’ll get… Yeah, we’ll get a little flavor of what the Brits think about the election and the results of that and where they think things… Because when I always talk to people when I’m in cabs and when I’m talking to people—I’ll ask some of the actors what their thoughts are—and so that will be a little bit a part of our conversation as well next week.
Brian: I’m really excited to hear, I mean obviously about the show but also because you’ll be there shortly after the election—and what people think and then giving it a couple days to see what transpires in our country, what people across the pond think about the election, how we’re handling it, did it go the way they thought. So you’re going to be there at a really cool time.
Bill: It’ll be a good chance… I think sometimes we get a little provincial here. All we see is… We watch the same things over and over and over and so it’s rare that we get a chance to go outside that and really kind of have a good look at what people in the street… And I’ll go through and ask people in the streets of London just what their thoughts are. And I suppose that’s a little bit like the Republicans and Democrats. Where are you? If you’re in SoHo, you’re going to hear this. If you’re in…
Brian: Sure.
Bill: Yeah, so a little bit of that with a grain of salt but I plan on really asking a lot of people. Maybe we’ll film some of it. It’d be kind of funny.
Brian: I think it will be—to get another perspective other than just our own paradigm—what people think over there. So it’s going to be a really cool time for you to be there. Do you have a projected date as to when you think the theater might be…? I mean do you go with the hopes of wrapping the whole show…?
Bill: We’re going to wrap this whole thing up when I’m over there and again, we’ll be—as people listen to this—I’ll be in the studio with these actors working. So that’ll be a lot of fun and we’re going to wrap it up. We’ve got the script. We’ve had… Here’s something interesting too. We’re working on this Sir Francis Drake thing and we’re actually going to Drake’s home. We’re going to film some of that because this is Henty’s—the book under Drake’s flag, which is the sort of the narrative that exists here.
We’re going to really sort of look at Sir Francis Drake as well, historically. And that’s… He was a great, great man and a lot of people accuse him of being a slaver and all that. They say similar things about Columbus—he killed all the Indians and… Columbus was not a perfect man but most of what you see, hear, read is really not true so hopefully we can give you a little bit of an off the grid view of Sir Francis Drake as well.
Brian: Very cool.
Bill: What an odd thing, right?
Brian: Any other thoughts that you have before you get ready to go? I know you’ll vote tomorrow and then get ready to take off.
Bill: I love voting. I mean I know there are a lot of people that aren’t going to vote. I mean there are people that are so brazen to this whole thing—sickened by the campaigns, sickened by sort of “he said, she said” dirty politics—that they’re not going to vote. I always vote. I feel like it’s a responsibility that I have. That’s part of going back to what you said and… But once I’m done, I’m not going to hang on that. That’s not my God.
Brian: Right.
Bill: It’s certainly a wonderful tradition, a privilege, a responsibility. I was telling folks at church the other day that if you go through the heroes of the faith in Hebrews and you look at all of God’s people that have done wonderful things, not any of them ever voted for anybody. So I say if you’re in this country, you ought to vote but is it the ultimate be all? If you say you’re one of God’s people, is it the most important thing in the world? Well, I certainly think you ought to vote but you know what? After that, I’m not sure who Abraham voted for or Lot, you know? How did Lot get himself in that mess? That’s another show.
Brian: That’s another show altogether. That’ll be another theater.
Bill: He voted for that other… Anyway. You can take it away, Brian.
Brian: All right. Then here’s what I’d like to do. We really do encourage you to send us your emails, hit us up on Facebook and on Twitter because sometimes the content for the show, we take from the communication from the people that listen. And I’d also like to encourage you maybe to forward this link so that we can start extending our family and by family, I mean the groups of folks that are starting to realize that it really is about self-reliance. Self-reliance—the word “self” isn’t a four letter… Well, it is a four-letter word but it shouldn’t e a bad four-letter word. You ought to be able to rely on yourself, right? And you ought to be able to do the things you need to do in order to be able to prepare for whatever fate throws at you.
So on behalf of everyone here at Solutions From Science, our parent company and also Off The Grid News, I want to take this opportunity again to thank you for sharing an hour with us. We know time is really valuable and I can’t tell you what an honor it is to get to spend an hour of it with you and your family. Thank you so much from Thompson Illinois.