In a post in c/Canada earlier today someone asked about what they could do to prepare for difficult times ahead. As an old guy who has been around the block a time or two and also worked in emergency medicine, backcountry/high angle rescue and search and rescue along with an extensive background in food preparation and homesteading, I delved into the answer a little bit from my perspective. Others have chimed in and I have added their thoughts to the list as well. Feel free to comment your own suggestions and I will update the list.
There is always something we can do that helps educate others or ourselves that will be helpful in the coming months and years. Becoming knowledgable in an area you are comfortable with and volunteering within your community will help bring you closer to your community and also assist with the mental health challenges of constantly negative news by getting you out in public and working toward a goal.
Here is a list of tasks and learning experiences that you can take part in to help grow a civil defence force and resistance movement:
MEDICAL:
First aid. There are varying kinds. Pick one that you are comfortable with. If you love it, get as much training as you can. Work up to EMT or better. Personally I would avoid St John Ambulance due to their ties with Zionist Israel and their current Genocide/Holocaust of the Palestinian people.
Those with medical training update your trauma training and consider purchasing a personal kit.
Stock first aid supplies that do not expire and make sure your personal kit is overstocked for your family. Bandages, trauma dressings, iv drip sets, iv catheters, combat tourniquets.
Anyone considering combat should also purchase a trauma medical kit and learn how to use it. Here is a post I’ve written on how to and some tips on constructing a Personal Trauma kit for combat:
https://lemmy.ca/post/40158521
COMBAT:
Drone operation or building.
PAL for firearms. Shooting classes and/or range time.
Fitness of all kinds including self defense. The kids too. They love this stuff and it’s never too young or old, to learn about staying fit and being able to protect yourself.
Survival or wilderness experience. If you plan to volunteer in any capacity should there be combat, you should make sure this is a part of your education with first aid and weapons training. If you plan to stay in the rear watch some videos. Know some skills, have supplies and practice lighting a fire. Kids also love learning to light campfires. Get some marshmallows and make it fun. Work up to boiling water and maybe cooking something.
Swimming lessons, hand to hand combat lessons, diving lessons, boat operators course.
Consider joining the reserves.
FOOD GROWING, PREP AND STORAGE:
Cooking classes. Learn scratch food preparation and how to make “something from nothing”. Kids too. They love to eat what they cook.
How to grow, forage, harvest foods. This could be a container on your deck or your entire yard converted to garden, animals and life. You could be picking berries by a city park or learning to hunt wild game.
If you live in an HOA or a city that doesn’t allow it, go to council meetings and flood them with people who want gardens in their yards and chickens for eggs. Frame it around food security. People have been fighting for this in towns and cities all over the country. Lend your voice.
Learn food storage. Canning, dehydrating, fermenting, curing, root cellars, refrigeration.
Search out local small farms and stores to purchase from. Ask about other places in the community the operators are aware of that you could check out as well.
Hit up an ethnic food event at the local community center, city park or place of worship. Oh man the food and people can be amazing at these things. Seek out people who are different then you and interact with them especially by sharing food. You will make new friends , find great food and open doors to places you didn’t even know existed in your own community. You might even have fun.
Learn water filtration methods and purchase a reusable water filter, chemical water treatment or learn how to make a water filter if necessary.
MUTUAL AID:
Join a youth program as a leader, such as 4H, YMCA, boys and girls clubs, LGBTQ+ groups and other community service groups to help teach kids your skills.
Search and Rescue training. this can also include High angle and confined space rescue training or each can be taken individually.
Volunteer at a local mutual aid org (food banks, search and rescue, volunteer fire or ambulance, community gardens, drop in centers, youth training programs, libraries, municipal rec departments etc.)
COMMUNICATION:
Find trusted independent alternate media sources. Follow CBC News website and open source social media for news and organizing. Find trusted sources of media and know who owns them. Many news organizations in Canada are American owned and many Canadian owned news organizations are controlled by oligarch owners that align themselves with similar political viewpoints to those south of us or wish to exert control over us to further their own family wealth.
Get your data off American services. Start with your email, aka your access credentials to the internet. There are several European providers with varying features such as Posteo and Mailbox (both German). This applies especially if you are engaged in any activism. Do not do that on any service the US authorities have direct access to or can get access via surveillance treaties. The latter are changing almost daily as the US makes more and more enemies, so stay informed.
Take or offer classes on the manipulation tactics of social media and news media.
Train on HAM Radio and other alternative communication devices.
Learn, understand and use methods to discourage tracking via your online activities. Learn how to use VPN’s, TOR, security based Free Open Source Software (FOSS).
Computer programming and networking, design and 3D printing. Learn how to create local networks and self host email, entertainment, information and open source social instances for places like Lemmy and how to share these with your community and country.
Create permanent personal media backups of important information including but not limited to Wikipedia, entertainment, diy plans and Foss based software that can operate free of internet connections or obscure your location and personal information to the best of your ability.
RESISTANCE/PROTEST:
Learn protest tactics and police responses. Including how to avoid facial recognition, what to do about electronics, how to respond to police actions etc.
Join a union or strike with one.
Contact your MLA, MP, Mayor and Council about starting a civil defense League and leaving social media sites from American oligarchs as well as organizing new official areas to contact Canadians free of foreign interference and corporate greed.
Read about resistance movements and how they were accomplished. A couple of resources that can get you started are:
https://commonslibrary.org/198-methods-of-nonviolent-action/
https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/26184
https://collapsesurvivalsite.com/free-survival-books-manuals/
EDUCATION:
Learning a bit of basic chemistry. Very basic but enough that you can make certain things.
fermentation and distillation. For fuel, alcohol, extraction. The basics are simple.
Design/mechanical or machining skills.
Learn to build a PC or program a raspberry pie to do different tasks.
Learn about uses and programming for old devices like cell phones, tablets and media players.
And most of all organize. Talk to your neighbors and friends about what they are doing to prepare. Help one another. There are so many things we can do to educate ourselves and find like minded community members to start organizing. Organizing and meeting people is what makes us stronger. The rest is just a bonus.
I will continue to update this list as others make valuable suggestions.
Stay safe out there.
Thanks for this list, I will come back to see it evolve and grow even if it’s already quite long.
There is something for everyone.
I would add learning a bit of basic chemistry. Very basic but enough that you can make certain things.
And fermentation and distillation. For fuel, alcohol, extraction. The basics are simple. The above will help. And a bit of design/mechanical or machining skills will also help.
Yes, though regarding distillation the equipment is a bit specialized. Being friendly with a neighbour who has a productive still is our approach.
Hahaha we do this as well. We barter for moonshine though we don’t drink.
I don’t know how to codify this idea into something that isn’t already on your growing and already amazingly extensive list of succinct recommendations. You even have things I often see very neglected.
The idea I want to contribute is that the state of readiness, in many things you want to prepare for, takes time to cultivate and needs to be already in place by the time it’s use is needed. People who lack direct experience with the items on this list they want to focus on, often mistakenly think they can do the adapting and learning quickly, like a movie montage.
Identify the things that call to you on this list, and put weekly direct IRL effort toward them now, lay for yourself the work and belief in your own convictions that leaves you prepared if the worst comes, and distrust your brain’s tendency to mistake the thinking and talking about it for direct active engagement with your IRL goals.
Thank you! Our household has 90% of this list up and running, which we recognize is unusual, but it took decades of learning and effort and focus, and we still aren’t fully confident. We started being intentional about it in the’90s.
That’s really impressive, I hope you realize that. A little inspirational if I’m being honest, cheesy as it may sound.
Any big surprises / snags along the joirney that you wouldn’t want others to have to learn the hard way?
Oh, thanks and good question!
Well, in the spirit of the moment, don’t forget to take stock and maybe figure out how far along you are, and acknowledge your successes. Over time, they will build up, and it takes so long to do some of this stuff that you kind of forget that it is even an accomplishment. This whole thread is a good example.
Being genX, and thus cynical by nurture, it’s easy to be discouraged or give up in advance. I had to kind of gamify bits and pieces to keep going. Also, we had to adjust our risk scaling: yes nuclear annihilation is there, and fascism even in Canada (well here we fuckn are eh), but really not as likely as an earthquake or fire so start there. Likewise, living with financial risks, like contract work or job mobility is more of an art and skill than I thought, but helped with pursuing these overall goals.
And the biggest warning maybe is that I have ADHD so the jackofalltrades thing kind of works, but it requires hyperfocus then the ability to move on without abandoning a skill, so YMMV. Assess your strengths and work from there.
First principle of an emergency response: am I safe? Overreach is risky for all.
Us as well. My wife and I started by eliminating as many bills as we could and now we are pretty self sufficient. We would miss things but we would be ok.
This And (while outdated) this also has some good stuff in it.
leaving social media sites from American oligarchs
This seems like maybe the most important part. If they can tell us what to think, they can control us (or at least the majority).
Just to refine the concept a little, propaganda in capitalist society is often less ‘what to think’, and the more subtle ‘what to think about’. Define the terms and limits of allowable discourse by direction or misdirection, and most people don’t notice.
And most of all organize. Talk to your neighbors and friends about what they are doing to prepare. Help one another.
That’s the part that really hit home.
Tip for Canadians but also everyone in general: Get your data off American services. Start with your email, aka your access credentials to the internet. There are several European providers with varying features such as Posteo and Mailbox (both German).
This applies especially if you are engaged in any activism. Do not do that on any service the US authorities have direct access to or can get access via surveillance treaties. The latter are changing almost daily as the US makes more and more enemies, so stay informed.
Ah yes. I forgot this. I have done it so long ago. Thank you. I will add it.
Cheers!
One thing you’re missing is computer networking. “Programming” is extremely vague, but being able to spin up a service and get it connected to the people who need it is way more common and important.
The selfhosted communities are great for this information. Every sort of human connection, even old cartoons you stole, is important.
Signed: An American who’s also thinking about this
I am not very knowledgeable in this area. I grew up as an early user of the internet. I can build a computer but networking and even open source is foreign to me as of yet. I’ve tried in the past and I am again now but somehow it always eludes me. I’m hoping to find someone local to me to trade skills. I’m old. I don’t keep up well anymore but my kids are too young yet. I have just started them on the road to leaving American culture behind and they’re all for it…most of the time.
Also hello neighbor. It’s also important for us to remember that you are not all fucked in the head like your governing fuckwits and make friendships across the border. We must help protect our American friends who are caught in a terrible situation as well.
Know which news sources are truly Canadian owned, and which are American owned. Once you’ve narrowed that down, figure out which sources are owned by rich Canadians who might be profiting from uncertainty or hostility.
Someone has been posting in this relentlessly here in Lemmy and with good reason. A very good idea as well. The control over us by foreign entities is immense and not just focused from the US.
