Originally Posted by PALLADIUM (Post 2084968)

http://www.survivalblog.com/2009/12/...nte_predi.html

Letter Re: Gerald Celente Predicts Survivalism Will Go Mainstream in 2010

James Wesley:
The often-quoted prognosticator Gerald Celente (of The Trends Research Institute) is predicting that the Survivalist movement will go mainstream next year. In a recent issue of The Trends Journal, he wrote:

"Back in the Cold War days, survivalism meant building a bomb shelter and stocking it with enough food to outlast nuclear fallout.

Yup, had one of those built into the basement of a fine old house on Goodrich Ave. in St. Paul Minnesota. Concrete block, iron bunks, and a hand cranked ventilation fan whose sound I still remember distinctly.

In the late 1970�s, with inflation soaring, Iran raging, and gold and oil prices skyrocketing, survival meant cashing out of paper money and heading for the hills with enough ammunition and pork & beans to wait out the economic and political storms.

I was living in Portland Oregon, having gone from remodeling rich folks mansions to scraping for the occasional poor folks bathroom remo. All my money was in my pocket. That, and a full tank of gas.

In 2000, the Y2K crowd � the most recent breed of survivalists � expecting computer clocks to crash, infrastructure to break down and the world to go dark, were armed and barricaded with enough food to feed an army and enough ammunition to hold one off.

That new year's eve, had the most expensive dinner I have ever had before or since at the C'est Si Bon restaurant on the Olympic Peninsula, followed by an entire bottle of 1979 Chateau d'Yquem, shared among a number of friends. Awakening the next morning, I discovered that the illusion we called the world was still hanging around.

In 2010, survivalism will go mainstream. Unemployed or fearing it, foreclosed or nearing it, pensions lost and savings gone � all sorts of folk who once believed in the system, having witnessed its battering, have lost their faith.

Mainstream? My dear sir, remember the words of one certain Dr. Hunter S. Thompson. "When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro."

The realities of failing financial institutions, degrading infrastructure, manipulated marketplaces, soaring energy costs, widening wars, and terror consequences have created a new breed of survivalist. Motivated not by worst-case scenario fears but by do-or-die necessity, the new non-believers, unwilling to go under or live on the streets, will devise ingenious stratagems to beat the system, get off the grid (as much as possible), and stay under the radar."

"But its all right, ma, I'm only sighin'"
Mr. Robert Zimmerman

Well, it seems every good social movement deserves its day, and we are finally getting ours. Let's just hope that we don't get tarred with the same brush as the assorted Neo-Nazi/Skinhead/Racist/KKK/Anti-Semite fringe element types, as well as the relative handful of "Gray Aliens Abducted My Baby" types and "Its the End of the Mayan Calendar" Mystics. Knowing the tendencies of the Mainstream Media, they probably will try do do precisely that, by interviewing a few way-out-there whackos, and then attempting to portray them as "typical" survivalists. Lord help us. - Hal F.