Welcome To the Survival & Self Reliance Studies Institute's Home Page!
"The spirit of the times may alter, will alter. Our rulers will become corrupt, our people careless. A single zealot may commence persecutor, and better men be his victims. It can never be too often repeated that the time for fixing every essential right on a legal basis is while our rulers are honest and ourselves united. From the conclusion of [their] war [for independence, a nation begins] going down hill. It will not then be necessary to resort every moment to the people for support. They will be forgotten, therefore, and their rights disregarded. They will forget themselves but in the sole faculty of making money, and will never think of uniting to effect a due respect for their rights. The shackles, therefore, which shall not be knocked off at the conclusion of [that] war will remain on [them] long, will be made heavier and heavier, till [their] rights shall revive or expire in a convulsion."
--Thomas Jefferson: Notes on Virginia Q.XVII, 1782. (*) ME 2:225
03/2008
Real ID Act: Security and Prosperity Partnership of
North America: Gold @$1000+, Silver@$21: Dollar Plunging: Economic
Recession, Housing & Job Shortages, Energy "Crisis" Looming: Food Prices
Rising
These are manipulated events - either intentionally (probable) or through
incompetence (possible) and you must be prepared for the consequences!
Ladies and gentlemen, in light of current events, it now appears that your self
reliant and survival preparations are about to separate you from the masses.
Congratulations on your foresight and wisdom.
For those of you getting a
late start, you've come to the right place. Here you will find all of
the information, skills and items you may need to wrest control of your
destiny from the whims of fate or the will of others.
The human world is in turmoil, the effects of millennial mismanagement by
the power elite spreading and contaminating the natural order of life.
Today, we face most predominantly an economic upheaval. Tomorrow, perhaps,
an ecological one. There are natural disasters and extraterrestrial threats
- no, I don 't mean aliens (though I don't discount the possibility), but
asteroids and comets are a fact of life. Always there looms the spectre of social injustice and
political tyranny.
There may yet be time to avert a major economic disaster. There may be a
political solution to the turmoil our government has created amongst (and in
the name of) its people . It's never too late to turn back the tide
of evil. Nor is it ever too late to return to the people those rights and
responsibilities usurped by their leadership.
Our Mission:
Throughout all of our many changes,
our mission has always remained the same: "to provide the most
comprehensive database of survival, self-reliance, and emergency
preparedness information on the internet." SSRsi is committed to this
endeavor. We hope to accomplish this goal by judiciously linking only
to relevant data on any given site which pertains to a particular
topic of interest. This allows our visitors to immediately gather the
information they want without having to slog through multiple pages. Save time, save effort and avoid
frustration ~ bookmark SSRsi today, and don't forget to tell a friend! Use
the "Contact Us" button on any page to suggest topics or sites, and please
feel free to comment on our work. As always, SSRsi endeavors to remain
Advertisement Free!!! Your support, either through donations or purchases
found on these pages, helps us to keep it that way.
MEG's Note:
You may be seeing a few "advertisements" now. They aren't
paid advertisements (unless you buy something from them and we get a
percentage), nor are they selected willy-nilly, simply to make a buck. Each
of the businesses listed is there because we believe they have a product or
service you may find of benefit in your Self Reliant or Survival
preparations. We will endeavor to keep these ads from getting annoying.
What is Survivalism?:
Survivalism is a philosophy - a way
of life – and it is as varied in its methodology as the worlds’ religious or
political theories. The primary goal of survivalism, by any method chosen,
is to increase the odds for the continued existence of its followers, when
faced with a threatening situation. Contrary to popular opinion, it is not
an "activist" tautology. Most survivalists are reserved and quiet
individuals who have lost faith in society’s ability to protect its own, and
who have taken steps to lessen their dependence upon society for aid in an
emergency situation. Survivalists realize that modern society is a long and
twisted chain of interdependency. Each link of this societal chain is
dependent upon every other link to maintain its integrity. At various points
within this chain are links that provide the rest of the chain with food,
shelter, power, water, communications, transportation, and medical and
physical protection. Should one or more links fail, those placed before and
after the broken link(s) may find themselves without these necessary
resources. Should enough of these links be suddenly broken, the entire chain
may collapse. Survivalists attempt to reinforce the chain of society by
strengthening their own links. They do this by actively learning and
practicing the necessary skills to provide or obtain the basic necessities
of life for themselves, their families and their friends. They learn to
build and maintain their own homes, provide their own clothes, find, store
and purify their own water, establish and maintain their own communications
and transportation. They learn to grow, hunt or gather their own food and
how to process and store it. They learn to produce, maintain and distribute
their own power. They learn to maintain their health through diet and
exercise, and how to avoid or handle basic injuries and illnesses. And yes,
they learn to defend themselves from aggressors when there is no one else
there to protect them. Survivalism does not necessarily concentrate on
global catastrophe or the collapse of civilization. The profile of a "true"
survivalist is someone who is concerned with planning for and avoiding the
pitfalls and dangers of daily life and short-term emergencies and disasters
of a local and temporary nature. In fact, since the frequency and likelihood
of personal and local emergencies are more common, these situations are of
primary concern. Long term and widespread disasters are of concern to the
survivalist, but they are extremely difficult to plan for. The individual
(or single family) often does not possess the resources – either
financially, materially, or intellectually – to efficiently plan for a long
term, widespread disaster.
What Does It Take To Survive?:
Alot of people have their own ideas
about survival and what it takes to survive. Whole (expensive) books have
been written on the topic. This is how I feel on the subject, with the most
important qualities listed first:
1. ) THE WILL TO SURVIVE:
Among survival experts and survival communities it is generally accepted
that the preeminent requisite for survival - beyond all the doo-dads and
geegaws and training and know-how - is simply this: the WILL to
survive. Without the will to survive, there is no hope, no desire,
and no chance whatsoever that, barring rescue from an outside source, anyone
can survive a perilous situation. It doesn't really matter what the
situation is or where it is taking place: a fire at home, a shoot-out at
work, a pile-up on the freeway, a combat mission in Iraq, or being lost and
stranded in the wilderness... without the WILL to survive, all is
lost. There are countless astonishing tales of people surviving well
beyond the expected norm - people who have had no significant survival
training, skills or tools - simply by refusing to lay down and die
when circumstances, the pain in their bodies, and the ravages of their minds
told them that there was nothing left for them to do but die. Babies,
children, women and men - few people really know how to
survive, but the common denominator among those who do is the indefatigable
desire to make it through one more day. Happily, having found
this website and actually making it this far down the page, you too have
demonstrated a certain degree of perseverance in your quest for knowledge of
survival topics. Whether this is because you actually have an interest in
surviving trying times and difficult situations, or because you are simply
doing research for a paper on "those nutty survivalists" is beyond my
ability to discern. If you are here to learn to survive, go ahead and pat
yourself on the back - for you are in fact exercising, through your own
will, that gift that nature has provided each of us: the instinct for
survival. If you are only here to research an article because you are
"curious" about what makes us tick, you might be surprised to know that most
of us are just as curious about you - and at what point it was that you
decided to turn your back on the natural inclination of self-preservation
and relegate your personal well-being to that amorphous entity (society)
that you seem so smugly content with. I have my own theory about "civilized
society" and how its insidious effect is to numb natural instinct to the
point of despair... witnessed by the rise of suicide and suicidal tendencies
in direct proportion to the size of cities... but that's a discussion for
another time.
2.) THE ABILITY TO SURVIVE:
The term "ability" might (and usually does) encompass many things, but in
this context it focuses on mental and physical freedom of thought and
action. If you can't think straight (because of dementia, intoxication,
etc.), can't think for yourself (cults, taboos, peer pressure, etc.), or are
physically restrained (shackled, imprisoned, restricted by "authority") from
acting in your own best interest, then your chances of surviving a direct
physical or environmental threat are severely limited. This does not
necessarily include physical handicaps. If the will to survive is stronger
than feelings of self-pity or helplessness, a physical handicap may only
serve to enhance other aspects of a person's capabilities - including the
determination to succeed where others might simply give up. If you are
healthy, clear-headed, free to act in your own best interest, and have a
developed will to survive, your chances are very good that you can weather
most hazards... provided that you've been paying attention...
3.) SURVIVAL AWARENESS:
Survival awareness is a developed faculty which, like a muscle, grows
stronger and better with practice. If abused, however, it can also become
"sprained," resulting in harm. Sprained awareness may result in an
over-abundance of caution, hesitancy where action is required,
indecisiveness instead of a clear sense of purpose, or - in the extreme
- paranoia, instead of a sense of assuredness and the self-confidence of
knowing what's going on around you (and which way to jump if things go
wrong). School buses stop at all rail crossings for a reason.
Sometimes things don't work the way they should, and everybody knows
that trains love to eat vehicles. We live in a wonderfully intricate world
filled with all kinds of potential hazards. In the "civilized" areas we have
traffic and crime and drive-by shootings. Various solid objects occasionally
tumble from unseen heights for no apparent reason. Buried gas, sewer, and
water lines in obvious as well as the most unexpected places. High voltage
lines and toppling construction cranes. Innocent looking stairways and
cracks in the sidewalk. Chemical plants, and aircraft that fly into
buildings. Muggers, molesters and panhandlers. In the wilderness we have
storms and crevasses and wildfires. Hungry - or just exasperated - wild
animals. Ticks and chiggers and gopher holes. Crumbling trails and
avalanches. Bad water - or no water at all. Poison Ivy, oak, sumac - and
those boys from "Deliverance." Survival awareness is about recognizing
where you are and where you are going and understanding the potential
hazards that might confront you on your journey. It's about thinking through
the task at hand and understanding the consequences of a failure to focus on
what you are doing. It's about being proactive, avoiding unnecessary risks,
acknowledging unavoidable risks, and doing whatever you can to ensure a
positive outcome. With the acknowledgement of unavoidable risk also comes a
plan for handling them, should they present, and minimizing their effect
after an event. This sounds like alot of work, huh? It's not, really.
The more you exercise your survival awareness, the more "automatic" and
effortless the correct proactive solutions become.
4.) SURVIVAL KNOWLEDGE:
Survival knowledge could be an endless odyssey. With something in the
neighborhood of 800 pages and tens of thousands of links on this site,
I'm still finding new information or things I've forgotten about - as well
as many I never knew. I'd have to say that it is, if not completely in the
realm of then right next door to, impossible to find it all, learn it all,
know it all or even compile it all. I've given it a pretty good try - but
I've got way too much time on my hands. Aside from us obsessive compulsive
types, no one should feel compelled to know everything there is to know
about survival in every conceivable circumstance. None of us operates in
every conceivable aspect of life, and so you should learn to "let some of it
go" when it comes to survival techniques. If you don't expect to be sailing
or flying or mountain climbing or hiking to the North Pole, chances are your
need for survival techniques specific to those actions and environs, while
interesting, are of little value to you in the real world. Survival
knowledge is as much about knowing what you need to learn as it is in
knowing about the topics you eventually choose. Knowing 1001 things about
tsunami survival in the middle of the Gobi desert may be a source of
fantastic amusement to the natives, but unless they are really, really
desperate for entertainment it is not going to help your chances of
survival. Knowing which mosses and lichens are good to eat in the arctic is
unlikely to keep your belly full in west Texas.
5.) SURVIVAL SKILLS:
Knowing how to start a fire, build a shelter, set a broken bone, or
fly an airplane is not the same thing as actually doing each of these
tasks. Knowledge is not skill. "Skill" is the well practiced
implementation of knowledge in the correct manner and to the exact
degree necessary to produce the desired result - under any conditions you
are like to face, with or without the preferred and recommended assortment
of tools. The only way to develop and perfect your survival skills is to
actually do them - over and over again - until they become second nature to
you.
For instance: To learn how to start fires, you begin with the easiest method
under the best of circumstances - on a clear, dry, warm day with little or
no wind, in a secure location. You learn how to set up a proper fireplace,
how to collect available fuels in your area, which fuels burn best, hottest,
longest, and produce coals or smoke. You learn about tinder, what types are
available to you, which types are best and what will work in a pinch. You
learn how to prepare a fire and then you learn how to start it. You burn
fires of various fuels and sizes, in various places, and learn how the fire
and smoke patterns change with the conditions or placement or configuration.
You learn how reflectors affect heat and light output and burn conditions.
You learn all this by doing it. In doing it - even under the best of
conditions - you learn about smoke in the eyes and lungs, flare-ups and
sparks and burns (and burn care). Cuts and splinters and blisters, and how
to treat each of them. Once you become proficient and confident in your
ability to start a fire under the best conditions with the best tools, you
begin to throw in variables: wet or cold or windy days, damp or poor quality
tinder and fuel. When you can successfully create a proper fire under
adverse conditions, with inferior material, while using the best
tools, you begin to vary the tools and methods. Eventually you will be able
to start a fire under nearly any condition, with or without modern tools and
techniques. It is then that you have acquired the survival skill of
"firemaking."
SURVIVAL SAVVY:
Survival Savvy is a combination of INTUITION (knowledge + awareness),
CREATIVITY (will + skill), and ADAPTABILITY (intuition + creativity +
ability) and is the ultimate culmination of the above five qualities
developed to a degree of confidence. With intuition, creativity and
adaptability there is little that life can throw at you that cannot be
turned on its tail and taken advantage of. Developing and perfecting these
qualities is essential to nearly any circumstance in life and, having been
once attained, cannot be lost, broken, or taken from you.
New! "Made In America"
Section!
We need to start keeping our hard earned dollars here in the United States
and we need to support our fellow Americans by spending them on
American Made Products.
Go to the "Made In
America" pages.
Purchase Links:
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(Purchasable Item links based on bug-out/preparation lists)
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