Pacific Spirit Marine Institute
Monday, April 21, 2008
Some U.S. consumers may be buying up extra bags of staples figuring the prices will only be going up in the near future. Others are buying up staples in a survival mode.
The so-called survivalists who have previously been viewed as the lunatic fringe are now being seen through what might be called a more pragmatic lens.
The NY Times ran a piece in it’s Fashion and Style section on April 6Th on the ‘new survivalists’. Is the implication it is now ‘fashionable, or stylish’ to stockpile supplies for a crisis?
CNN also ran an articlelast Sunday about ’survivalists’. A ‘former U.S. army intelligence officer’ featured in the piece has a 3 year supply of food stashed on his property; a ranch in an ‘undisclosed location.’
For whatever reason people are suddenly waking up to the fact that life as we know it is teetering on the brink of…not being what we will recognize…deciding to become more self-reliant can’t be a bad thing, or can it?
Of course we should all be responsible for our own survival during times of disaster. Anyone that has grown up in earthquake or tornado country knows there is always a possibility we could be left to our own devices for a number of days or even weeks following either.
Is the new trend toward survivalism going to lead to a nation of stingy, jaded-eye hoarders? Will people start to secretly hide sacks of rice under their beds and potatoes under their floor boards? Will they be looking at their neighbors wondering who among them they will have to fight with to protect the rice under their beds?
Will people become isolationists in their own neighborhoods and buildings in an effort to keep friends and neighbors in the dark about their stockpiles of food? Too few of us don’t know our neighbors now. Won’t the ‘every man for himself’ mentality pit us all against each other even further?
It looks to me like we are in the first stages of a total breakdown of civility. Is this the divide and conquer tactic, and if so by whom are we being divided?
Stories like this one are sprouting up all over. Costco employees snatching bags of rice from customers buggies who try to buy more than the limit. Keep in mind the limit varies. Apparently Costco is looking at ‘prior purchasing history’. At a Costco in Queens there was no limit on rice, but there was a limit on oil and flour.
Each one of these articles I’ve linked to above, reference the same ‘former U.S. army intelligence officer’. No small deal. Maybe he’s gone into the P.R. business in his spare time.
In researching this entry I found about 668,000 matches for survivalism.
Like the Boy Scouts say, “Be prepared”. But, I have to wonder if I’m prepared to defend what’s in my cupboard.
Labels: Costco, Food Crisis, Food Riots, Food Shortage, Hoarding, Rice, Survivalist, survivalism
© 2009, Pacific Spirit Marine Institute.
Food Shortages and Buying Limits Reach the U.S. Now that Mother Hubbard’s cupboard is full, will she have to shoot her dog to protect it?
