July 2016 book club thread: Prepping for a Suburban or Rural Community

[Well-Prepared Witch]

This month we'll be reading Prepping for a Suburban or Rural Community by Michael Mabee. My plan of action is to post questions every Friday for group discussion, starting July 1st (just some pre-read questions, so you start reading in July). The book has 8 chapters plus a little, so I'll pace the questions at two chapters per week. Feel free to read ahead, bring up your own thoughts and impressions, etc. The questions will just be to stimulate conversation.

I'm excited we're doing this and hope you all enjoy it!

[JohnyMac]

Thx Wellie! I am off to the Library today. 

[rah45]

I'll have to go to the library tomorrow. See if they have/can get it.

[rah45]

Well, according to the Georgia PINES library network, there is not one copy of this book ANYWHERE in the public library system of Georgia.

That sucks.

I was getting excited, too. :-(

Oh well. Maybe after you guys read it my library will have one of the other ones.

[rah45]

Okay, so while I'm here, these are the ones they DO have for me, from the list you guys had:



Just in Case: How to be Self-Sufficient when the Unexpected Happens by Kathy Harrison and Alison Kolesar
   
Lights out : a cyberattack, a nation unprepared, surviving the aftermath by Ted Koppel

The Resilient Gardener by Carol Deppe

The Knowledge: How to Rebuild Our World from Scratch by Lewis Dartnell

Deep Survival Who Lives, Who Dies, and Why by Laurence Gonzales

Five Acres and Independence: A Practical Guide to the Selection and Management of the Small Farm by Maurice G. Kains

Animal, Vegetable, Miracle by Barbara Kingsolver

The Omnivore's Dilemma by Michael Pollan




Apparently, they had everything but the book we decided on, LOL. If you guys are up for reading any of the others, that'd be fine with me. The ones on gardening aren't going to do me much good for a long time. I have neither the land, money, or time to do that right now.

[Well-Prepared Witch]

We're at Day 1 of our July book club!  We're reading Prepping for a Suburban or Rural Community by Michael Mabee. 

Suggested reading this week: preface, chapters 1 & 2

Questions to start us off:
* Why do you think the author has left Urban out of the equation?
* What do you expect will be different about the focus on community as opposed to the individual prepper?
* What do you hope to learn from reading this book?

Hope you all enjoy!

(And don't worry Rah - we'll pick one you have access to next month!)

[Well-Prepared Witch]

So is everyone enjoying the book?  Any thoughts so far?  I agree 110% that having a strong, prepared community is a good idea.  However,  I'm having a lot of trouble with the idea of getting involved to help our local community. 

As I'm reading I'm thinking of my experience in small-town politics.  I didn't actually get involved in the politics, but was on the fringes - I helped restart the local Halloween Parade, I was a member of the Moose and the Lions, and I volunteered on the Chamber of Commerce's events committee.  I worked with a lot of the local government - mayor, town council members, fire chief, etc.  I also talked to a lot of the local residents and am a member of town-related Facebook pages.

So my experience was: it SUCKS.  The people in charge, nice as they may be, are petty and play power-tripping games and get super territorial.  I HATED how 90% of the work is done by 10% of the exact same people - everyone loves complaining about what they don't like, but ask them to actually help and they disappear.  If I heard the phrase "we've never done it that way" or "no one will come if you change x" one more time I was going to scream.  Then, once you've worked your tail off and gotten something accomplished all you hear is whining, bitching, and complaints that it wasn't done right or good enough or fill in the blank.

So I take that experience - an experience that drove me out of the local community because I couldn't take it any more - and I contrast it with the idea of trying to rally my town to prepare and the task is not just daunting, not just seemingly insurmountable, but something I just don't WANT to take on. 

I'll be interested to see if he addresses these issues later in the book.  I agree that community involvement and preparedness is good.  I just... my cynical side says that it would be a complete waste of time to even try and it's easier to just do everything I can for me and mine and let the rest of the world figure it out for themselves. 

What do you think?

[crudos]

Hi Wellie, good to see you here again.

Just saw the thread, didn't read the book, but can sympathize with trying to break through a small community as an outsider. It sucks, but over time and with persistence, you will see change.

That said, have you looked into CERT?
https://www.fema.gov/community-emergency-response-teams

[Well-Prepared Witch]

Hey Crudos.  I am not sure I'm willing to put in the time and effort, but we'll see. :\

I haven't looked into CERTs, but it's an interesting idea.

[rah45]

Wellie, I just downloaded it and haven't read it yet, but I would assume that many, if not most, communities would have people like that in power. Power attracts the wrong sort of people, and it corrupts. Thus, it seems much more prudent to seek out that 10% of doers, convince them with reason that prepping is a legitimate concern, and just fly under the radar of the other 90%, excluding them from the prepping, both in its execution and its benefits. Maybe once you've secured a solid prepping base of good, reliable people who have invested too much time, effort, and funds to back out easily (thus having their support - at least for a time), you can then tell the rest of the community "leaders." Any sheriff worth his salt will love the idea - means less trouble for him if more people are prepared and not on the streets, desperate, if/when SHTF.

[Nemo]

Where did you download it.  I looked for it but could not find it.

Nemo

[rah45]

Amazon has it. Wellie was kind enough to give me a free book credit she had. I owe her one.

[Well-Prepared Witch]

I was happy to share. I wonder if Mabee will cover finding locals who are like-minded without being labeled a nutjob.

[JohnyMac]

After a week of trying to download/rent/borrow a copy, I just bit the bullet and down;oaded it from Amazon into my KindlePC. it cost $2.99.

I am on board and will start to read. Sorry for my delay.

[Well-Prepared Witch]

Just realized I didn't post the questions last week!  Sorry about that - I had a party last Saturday, which meant last Friday I was all about the baking, cleaning, and cooking!

 Anywho, how's the reading going?  Any thoughts?  What do you think of the idea of starting a Civil Defense organization (or joining a CERT, as some folks here have mentioned) or militia?  What do you think about his suggestions?

Only one more week on this book and then we'll wrap it up and see if we want to do another book.

[Well-Prepared Witch]

I just finished the book. I found it as interesting as the first time I read it and a good refresher. However, after my experiences in town I am far less inspired/hopeful about any sort of group planning efforts. It would take someone - multiple someones! - with patience, thick skins, lots of time on their hands, and enough money to at least front the group's efforts until (if) membership gets high enough to support the costs of even just the education side of things, much less the obtaining and storing of town-level preps.

I don't know. What do you guys think?

[Well-Prepared Witch]

Sooo... has anyone else read the book?  Is anyone going to jump in with their thoughts?  Do we want to try again with a different book or did this just not work for ya'll?

[Well-Prepared Witch]

Well, to wrap this up, here's my final review of the book.

http://www.wellpreparedwitch.com/br-prepping-for-suburban/

[Kbop]

Nice write up.
 

[Jackalope]

Yes, that was a very good write up. I'll have to look into purchasing a copy.