A new blog about preparedness, survival and community — written from the left

When people think about preparations for social unrest, they might conjure images of gun aficionados clamoring for race war, hyper-individualistic libertarians rejecting society, or far-right militias perpetually threatening to overthrow the government. But the reality is that preparedness is a skill that can benefit everyone, and sadly there are shockingly few perspectives on survival coming from what one might call a "left-wing" point of view.^[1]

Such a perspective would need to focus on modern problems for modern communities—topics like digital safety, organizing skills, protest security, and reducing dependence on corporations. The perspective would need to emphasize the importance of community over the individual. It would need to emphasize mutual aid as the essential of survival and would need to educate on how to develop a variety of critical everyday preparedness skills, rejecting the fantasy of being the last man standing, alone in the wilderness as society collapses around you. This is a wide gap, and this blog begs the reader to permit it the audacity to try to fill just a small part of that gap.

The first time Donald Trump was elected, most people were unprepared for the decay of critical governmental services and the abandonment of what little remained of customer-oriented corporate values. People were caught flat-footed: what happens when a beloved community member is deported? What happens when white nationalists march through your town? What happens when the government stops funding essential services? What happens when supply chain failures lead to shortages of critical drugs?

Throughout his first term, these questions kept bubbling up to the surface. The COVID-19 pandemic showed how vulnerable and dependent we were on a system that was growing increasingly brittle. Wars in distant countries shocked a globally-connected economy in ways that had ripple effects here at home. But, after four years of uncertainty and anxiety, it seemed like liberalism and democracy might survive after all. American voters rejected Trump. French voters rejected Le Pen. Germany elected a social democratic party to power for the first time in decades. For many, those questions that kept them up at night could be put back on the back burner. Western societies fell back into complacency.

We can't assume this any longer. Trump's second term is coming. Faith in democracy is shaken. Many believe our last free and fair elections have been held. The questions are coming back again: how do pregnant people safely obtain abortion care? How can transgender people retain access to lifesaving medication? How do we defend against surveillance capitalism? How can we reduce our dependency on billionaire-owned newspapers and social media sites? How can I make it through the day without my phone? What happens if I have to flee my home?

This blog is an attempt to try to answer just some of those questions. It will especially cover:

• digital safety topics and the latest in information security
• resilience strategies for surviving economic disruption by fascist actors
• preparedness strategies for being ready for the next crisis
• survival strategies for those finding themselves in sudden precarity
• techniques for organizing communities to support each other and reduce reliance on corporations and the state
• essential skills for community mutual aid and defence

I hope you find something useful in it, and if you do, I hope you share it with your communities.