ROADBLOCKS
 

ROADBLOCKS by Kurt Saxon copyright 1979
Following a nuclear war or total socio-economic collapse,
surviving city populaces will panic. Every highway out of every
sizeable city and town will be crowded with refugees. Most main
highways will become clogged to the point of disuse with wrecked
vehicles.
With escape as the only alternative to death, drivers of
wrecked, broken down or hopelessly blocked vehicles will commandeer
any available vehicle, even if they have to kill the less
aggressive drivers. Ruthless survivors will siphon the fuel from
stalled vehicles, taking also anything they can from their owners.
Between large cities and towns, homes will be looted by these
desperate escapees, moving usually singly until they reach smaller
towns. You can well imagine that any glut of such survivors
reaching a small town will be a potentially dangerous lot and will
have to be prevented from entering unchecked.
Regardless of your town's officials' attitudes toward such
probabilities, now, roadblocks will be set up after the first
influx of refugees hits. Even the most apathetic mayor will then
order martial law concerning the townspeople and especially the
refugees.
All too many officials will be mentally and emotionally
unprepared and so will be likely to impose total roadblocks,
forcing the refugees to turn back. This will be a mistake, as the
gathering of mobs of frustrated refugees will only create the kind
of Killer Caravans described in my last editorial. Such caravans
would endanger the towns, as they would destroy the counties'
farmers and resources the townsmen will need to survive.
Roadblocks can be set up which will benefit both the townsmen
and the refugees. Such roadblocks would be checkpoints and
relocation centers, rather than total barricades causing more chaos
than they were meant to prevent.
Aside from a number of criminal types among the refugees, the
majority would be only desperate, shortsighted but otherwise decent
people. There would also be many who had relatives and refuges
further on. Then, there would be many among the refugees which the
town would do well to accept, rather than turn away.
A basic consideration of any potential Warlord would be that
nearly all the manufactured goods used by the townsmen are from the
outside. Most of the processed foods are also trucked in. Any town
cut off from the outside would be in deep trouble if total
isolation were imposed.
Nearly every town is surrounded by large farms and tracts of
rangeland. The products from these would no longer have an outside
market. Nor would the monocultures, or one crop systems be
practical after the crash. Truck gardening would be the best
system, with refugees growing vegetables and small plots of grains,
rather than, say, multi-acreages of wheat, corn, etc.
The heavy farm machinery would soon break down and hand labor
would be in great demand. The best course to follow would be to
break up these large holdings into nine acre plots and settle
refugee farmers and manual laborers on them. Of course, the owners
would be recompensed by some barter system or the refugees could
work as sharecroppers.
Since the town system will have to be completely reorganized,
with cottage industries turning out everything from shoes to nails,
any skills will be in demand. Few small towns have the skilled
workers to keep it going when outside commerce is stopped.
Machinists, tool and die makers, chemists, plumbers and the
whole caste of skilled laborers will be needed in abundance. The
local skilled workers simply won't be able to handle all the work
needed to keep the town from coming apart.
All through the various volumes of THE SURVIVOR are crafts and
trades which must be applied if a town is to continue. You can't
expect the locals to be able to develop the skills to implement
them in the time needed to make life continue comfortably.
Alternative energy systems will have to be constructed to
supply every household. Steam engines will have to be built to
power machinery. The machinery will have to be built to turn out
products no longer available.
Whereas a small town of 10,000 might seem crowded now, double
and triple the population will be needed to start over. More people
will not be a crowd. Properly dispersed over the unused land, a
city-state can evolve where every pair of hands and every mind will
be usefully occupied.
Doctors and chemists can keep the hardy segment of the
population healthy, although, at first, many people will die simply
because they can't face an unfamiliar future. So don't fear
overpopulation by outsiders.
This doesn't mean that every refugee will be welcome or
tolerated. But the refugees will be a source of many of the skills
and knowledge the locals can't supply.
The roadblocks at every entrance around the town will be to
screen the refugees to determine which should be absorbed into the
population. Those with practical educations and those willing to do
physical labor should be welcomed.
Those refugees who are obvious criminals, fags, whores, bums
and sundry trash should be hanged. No need to let them go to ravage
and pollute communities outside your area. Whether you like it or
not, the crash will force a culling of the anti-social. Those
parasites who live as predators will be doomed anyway, as austerity
forbids tolerance of the predatory and dissolute.
The refugees absorbed into the community would also be a
source of supply to the town. The crash will put people on foot and
bicycles and horse carts, unless individuals convert their engines
to use methane. But most of the cars would be a communal resource.
The vehicles can be stripped of wiring, electrical components,
generators, batteries, glass, sheet metal, steel, etc., all useful
for building other things.
The best way to make a roadblock is to have junked autos
blocking the roadsides. Then, line up about ten autos, five on each
lane, staggered about fifty feet apart. That way, a refugee would
have to slow to about 5 miles an hour and zigzag through.
Many good and worthwhile people would be distrustful of
roadblocks of any kind. You must make the roadblocks impenetrable
to undesirables but as official and businesslike as possible.
Refugees who simply want a chance for life will welcome authority.
Uniformed officers manning a proper way station will be a
comforting sight to refugees who would expect to get shot or robbed
by a mob of armed civilians manning a roadblock.
A proper sign for a roadblock would read something like this:
"WAY STATION. FIRST AID. FOOD. RELOCATION CENTER. STOP AND
REGISTER." A park ranger type and a couple of uniformed police and
National Guardsmen would give the decent refugee the confidence to
cooperate.
Such a roadblock would have to be legitimate and fair. Only if
a person who stopped were an obvious anti-social type should his
property be confiscated. He wouldn't care, since he would be hanged.
There would be cases criminal types would see the roadblock
ahead, turn, and head back the other way. These would be the most
dangerous people in our decadent society. They must not live.
Chances are, they would be dopers and murderers who had looted
pharmacies to keep up their habits. They would probably have great
supplies of drugs best used to relieve suffering, of which there
would be a good deal in the town as supplies ran out. Also, they
might have innocent captives, especially girls. Such cars would
also be likely to be full of guns and ammo.
Perhaps a half-mile below the roadblock should be a series of
overturned vehicles, seemingly wrecks, but placed there to force
any returnees to slow down. Hidden at the side of the road should
be a couple of snipers. As the creeps slow to get around the
wrecks, the driver should be shot. I'd love that assignment.
When the driver was shot, survivors should be commanded to
leave the vehicle with hands raised. If they should begin firing, a
couple of shotgun blasts should finish them off. Hopefully, the
passengers would get out and surrender and any captives could be
released and taken forward and any criminals who surrendered could
be taken to town and hanged.
Anyone having a legitimate reason to return from the
roadblock, especially refugees coming from the opposite direction,
should display an official pass prominently on their windshield.
Some might be locals with business in other parts of the county.
Others might just be decent refugees who didn't care to settle in
the town and learned from the townsmen that their destinations were
impossible to reach and chose alternate destinations in the other
direction. Of course, no one should be permitted to go back at
night, since the snipers could not distinguish between legitimates
and criminals.
Roadblocks could also serve as a compassionate measure for
those who had a distant destination but were uncertain of their
chances of getting there. They could leave their children in the
town in the care of foster parents. If they finally reached their
destination, when travel became safer, they could return for their
children. If they didn't live to return, their children could be
saved to become members of the community.
The proper us of the roadblock, supervised by the right kind
of Warlord, would not only save the town, but help rebuild
civilization. Through it, professional people, such as teachers,
doctors, scientists, military veterans, etc., could be gleaned from
the otherwise doomed.
Roadblocks must never be misused. Personal property,
regardless of its nature, must not be confiscated from any decent
refugee, whether he is chosen to become a citizen of town or
decides to move on. Only if he is an obvious predator and is
hanged, should his property be consigned to the common resource pool.
It may be obvious that a refugee's property was looted from
some store along the way. Even so, he must be allowed to keep it,
again, unless he is an obvious criminal. Unless you know he killed
its owner to get it, you must let him alone.
During earthquakes, floods, and other natural disasters,
looters are shot. But with the collapse of our socio-economic
system or nuclear war, the condition of ruin may, in most cases, be
considered permanent. Therefore, if a store is ownerless and the
area is ruined, looting is simply preserving.
If a refugee has a carload of merchandise obviously taken from
a store, or even a pharmacy in a blighted area, how do you know he
killed the owner to get it? Would you have passed it up? These are
things you must consider before passing judgment. If you hang a man
for looting in a city no longer habitable, without proof of his
using force, you may be wrong.
A good way to tell if he is a legitimate opportunist is to
invite him to settle and use the goods for barter. He may not care
to stay. He may want to move on to relatives ahead and barter
there. That must be left up to him.
If you confiscate his goods and/or hang him as a criminal just
because he has goods you want, you will then be a criminal.
However, if he has a car loaded with narcotics, it might seem
pretty obvious that he's a doper who might well have killed to get
the goods.
Furthermore, he would not be willing to barter them. If he
were legitimate, he would be willing to turn them over to the
hospital or give a good reason for trading them to a hospital in a
town further away.
If he were suspect, he could be quarantined for 24 hours. If
he were a doper he would begin to get withdrawal symptoms soon.
Then he could be hanged or O.D.ed and the drugs could be turned
over to the hospital with no guilt on the part of the Warlord.
However, if he showed no symptoms of drug withdrawal and gave
a reasonable explanation for wanting to keep them, let him go. Any
doctor could tell if his stock were medicinal or chosen especially
for the doper's trade. Let a doctor decide.
If all these rules are followed, they will provide several
advantages to the community and the culture. The town can give
refuge to hundreds of doctors, scientists, tradesmen, skilled
workers, veterans and others who will be an asset to society.
By giving refuge to the best people, you'd have a city-state
which could leap centuries ahead of ours in a couple of
generations. By giving safe passage and some rations to the lesser
able and refuge to the children, you'd be establishing a climate of
humanity and compassion which could set an example for harsher areas.
Another good thing about the roadblocks would be the culling
out of some of the worst people in today's society. Unfortunately,
the worst among humans are the most tenacious to life. While the
more decent and docile will perish through lack of aggressive
spirit, the trashiest scum will bull their way through situations
you wouldn't believe. Killing them off would be doing future
generations a favor.
So a proper system of roadblocks around your town would be far
from repressive. It could mean the difference between survival and
death for our culture.
__________________

Re: ROADBLOCKS
 

What a piece of amorphous, idealistic dream-fantasy this is. Warlord? Give me a break.

Ragnarok

Re: ROADBLOCKS
 

Crap... And here I thought this article was going to be about how to defeat a roadblock.

Re: ROADBLOCKS
 

"people turning away are the worst and must be dealt with"

What a crock of shite. I'd bet most people on GIM would tyurn away from a road block like that. Chances are they'd throw you into a re-education camp if they were legit and if they weren't they'd murder you.

This guy needs a good bitch slapping to knock some sense into him.

Re: ROADBLOCKS
 

I know I would avoid it. If it was as bad as he said, it would look more like an ambush spot than a roadblock. Infact if you have snipers there shooting people, thats just what it is, an ambush area. Theres no way I would just walk into an area like that.

Which may be a good idea because it sounds like you would be hanging a lot of people.

Re: ROADBLOCKS
 

I was thinking this would be an article about how to avoid road blocks---then I read this dork wants to shot me because I wanted to pass freely to my destination. This guys lived in his own world to long.

Re: ROADBLOCKS
 

Hey, it was a fun read anyway... what makes it even funnier is there seems to be no plan for all the people in the scenario that would come in across all the surrounding land that is not paved - a much larger percentage. Oh, I forgot - every citizen in every house would be taking shifts standing watch outside with IR goggles and rifles, and shooting or hanging the trespassers. Yeah, that's it...

Ragnarok

Re: ROADBLOCKS (of the mental kind)
 

I'm not sure what you expected. When I saw it was written by Kurt Saxon, I knew where it was going. You can expect Kurt's new town to be very White, and very Christian. He might allow a few darker laborers, as long as they knew their place. :barf:

Re: ROADBLOCKS
 

You should read any crook or crap that you read about surviving because someday it might become true...... in this Micky Mouse town there in only one road going across so that's no problem.

Re: That Anglo, Saxon
 

Oh, I completely agree-there are a lot of Warlord wannabes out there. And it certainly will help in dealing with them when It Hits.

I was just surprised that it caught anyone off guard.

Re: ROADBLOCKS
 

Well Ladd like I posted before that's part of my plan, in this town 76% of the people are either on welfare of food stamps and with many druggies the only way that I can save myself or them is to take over.

Already have seven punks to start the ball rolling and working on two more, I would need at least 25 people to be able to do it.

Been working on the plan for the past five years and it will work once everything settles down.

Re: ROADBLOCKS
 

After seeing the ROADBLOCK by cops with guns preventing the people of New Orleans from leaving...why is anyone even questioning this reality? Don't expect the Welcome Wagon as you flee Hell...

Re: ROADBLOCKS
 

I don't think people around here would take to kindly to strangers coming in to steal, ect. Take just a few minutes to get people together and come up with a plan to defended the area. All these boys are hunters. Some like staying out all night with their dogs. City people would have no chance.

Re: ROADBLOCKS
 

WA? I am more afraid of those here than the ones coming from the outside, I live 6 miles from the town and withing half a mile from me I have four or five druggies on welfare.

Re: ROADBLOCKS (of the mental kind)
 

Maybe if he crawled into bed with some of that dark girl action he would be changed forever *smile*A trip to the Dominican Republic might collapse his fontal lobes. It did mine *wink*.

Yup, I want to walk right down the road into a 'safe' town and risk being shot at literally ANY WHIM of ANY SNIPER looking down the scope at me.

I am thinking warlord set up (please, dude, you won't be having access to teenaged girls, so forget about it!) will end up like the "Holdness" in the movie The Postman. At some point, someone with a long range rifle like a 300 Wheatherby or a BMG will decide it is time for a parlimentary change for the better and out goes the "warlord".
If you ask me, I think people will be banding together (for all the other reasons he stated in his article, which seem reasonable and valid) to protect themselves from 'warlords'.

Re: ROADBLOCKS
 

Will you be a Wolf, or will you be a Sheepdog?

Re: ROADBLOCKS
 

Never read Kurt before, so I was surprised and revolted. If anybody gets hanged, I nominate him since his predatory, criminal nature is on full display.

It does show you how low some people's thinking sinks though.

In a catastrophic disaster the road will not be a good place for sure. If it is nuclear, you are either dead already or can probably sit tight a while. Only very unfortunate wind direction would have you not already too irradiated to survive, but forced to hit the road immediately. And even then you'd need to have information that you were not driving into worse fallout for the road to be an improvement.

The one thing I agree with is that communities working together will survive best if the very worst should come to pass. Humans seem to do tribe and clan size social organization pretty well. These huge governments we are not so good at. But who is decent and sensible to put in a (non warlord) leadership position is easy to see in a smaller group. The old Saxon traditions of elective chiefs that some native Americans also had, or a village council, might work pretty well.

Anyone trying to set himself up as a warlord is mini-TPTB, and public enemy #1.

Re: ROADBLOCKS
 

That ROADBLOCK wouldn't hold up LONG against the .50 cal mounted on my deuce. And from more than a mile away, I MIGHT ADD.

I think the ONLY DRUG WARLORDS are maroons like Saxon. He must have missed his meds the day he wrote that.

Just goes to show you that MIGHT IS RIGHT, regardless of WHOSE MIGHT it is.

I also suggest that others consider their BUG OUT plans. We have multiple roads marked out of town. NONE of them are anything more than dirt roads. THE ONLY major road we will cross is a freeway WAY out in the middle of nowhere. Closest town is almost 100 miles in one direction and over 125 miles in the other.

And we have been swapping out our vehicles. I now have a completely functional deuce and a half. I'm in the process of buying an M1009 (military version of the Blazer) that also runs on diesel. Though both vehicles can just as easily run on waste vegetable oil.

And ANYONE coming NEAR US will be greeted with HOT HEAD. .50, .30, .357 and 00 buck...

So much for this moron's 'roadblock'...

Re: ROADBLOCKS
 

The locals around here have 50s also. Not that I think this guy is right to want to hang people.

Re: ROADBLOCKS
 

Know exacualy what you are talking about. The young people around here work but blow their money fast. Some have family with farms they should be all right for some time but others after they hunted everything out could become a big problem. I do have high ground so can see most everything.

Re: ROADBLOCKS
 

Here in Idaho there are plenty of .50 cal BMGs and your Deuce won't make it within a half-mile of a roadblock. You won't even see the muzzle signature. "Now lemme see what we got in da back 'o dis flatlander fool's deuce..."
:beer:

Re: ROADBLOCKS
 

That's what I like about the USA.

FIREPOWER!

Where everyone can (and frequently does) have access to .50 cal BMGs, Assault Rifles, Sniper Rifles and just about anything else that strikes our fancy (no pun intended).

In the event of a collapse it might be wise to hunker down until the ammo runs out. It promises to be noisy for a while.

Re: ROADBLOCKS
 

For the really sensitive Americans:

Attachment 13043

What a country!

Re: ROADBLOCKS
 

Guys! All of this talk about the big .50 is so UNPATRIOTIC. Turn them in to your nearest homeland security headquarters, with your silver and gold, or the TERRORISTS WIN!