Survival Saturday: Secret Food Monopolies, the Presidential Race, and How to Start a Zombie Apocalypse

(Psst: The FTC wants me to remind you that this website contains affiliate links. That means if you make a purchase from a link you click on, I might receive a small commission. This does not increase the price you'll pay for that item nor does it decrease the awesomeness of the item. ~ Daisy)

This week, the focus is on the illusion of choice. We are presented with the same stuff wrapped up differently in nearly every facet of our lives. We’re like rats in a maze. They think they’re picking their own route, but lured with different kinds of cheese, they all end up being funneled to the same place – the place of their handler’s designation.

So, for this election, one candidate might seem like Swiss cheese, and the other might seem like cheddar, but both are moldy with something incredibly toxic. You might think that the voters are choosing, but they’re opting for the same mold in a different flavor of cheese. Real freedom is choosing none of the offerings, getting out of the maze entirely, milking your goat, and making your own darned cheese.

This illusion of choice carries through many facets of our lives, including the food we eat, the media we choose to consume (Did you know that 6 different corporations own nearly all the outlets? So much for impartiality in the press), and our much-touted  election process.

Survival Saturday is  a round-up of the week’s news and resources for folks who are interested in being prepared.

This Week in the News

Massive Frozen Produce Recall Is Only the Tip of the …ummm…Iceberg

This week, there was a massive recall of frozen fruits and vegetables. Shoppers from Costco, Walmart, Safeway, and many other grocery stores discovered that the produce in their freezer could be tainted with the listeria bacterium.  For a full list of the foods that are potentially affected, you can go here. Keep in mind that it doesn’t matter if your frozen food is organic or not – the possibility of listeria comes from contamination in the plant. With 42 brands on the list, chances are that if you have frozen fruit or vegetables in your freezer that you did not package yourself, it’s potentially tainted food. Doesn’t it seem like these recalls are happening a lot more often lately in the industrialized food business?

But when you go look at that article, there’s one more thing you should notice and that is the illusion that you have many different brands to choose from. 42 brands are on the recall list – but all of those brands are the same foods from the same plant.  That means when you’re standing there comparison shopping at the frozen food counter,  you aren’t really comparing anything but price on that particular day. The green bag and the white bag have the exact same contents, regardless of the fancy marketing. I don’t know about you, but that ticks me off and makes me even more committed to shopping at the farmer’s market and raising my own food.

If that isn’t enough to make you want to give up going to the grocery store for good, how about this? The FBI apprehended a man spraying a homemade poison mixture on food at three different grocery stores in Michigan. Law enforcement says that he hit three supermarkets (Whole Foods, Meijer and Plum Market) over the past two weeks, and it’s possible that these 15 other stores were likewise attacked. Kyle Andrew Bessemer, 29, has been charged with 4 felony counts of poisoning for spraying a mix of hand-cleaner, water, and mouse poison on produce and salads at the grocery stores.  No motive for the crimes has been disclosed.

How can you trust your food? Grow it yourself.

Did You Know That Congress Could Pick Someone Not Even Running to be the Next President?

You may have noticed that I’ve stayed out of the election hullabaloo this time around, because it’s nothing but theater.  However, this little tidbit is too interesting to pass up.

If you have been absolutely stunned at the crop of candidates for the highest “elected” office in the land, get ready to be even more surprised. But wait…it is entirely possible that neither the psychopathic killer (Hillary Clinton) or the wealthy narcissist (Donald Trump) will sit in the Oval Office.  If either of them win, nobody actually wins. If Hillary wins, all hell will break loose because she’s a criminal who ignored the folks in Benghazi and who has been accused more than once of being a stone cold killer. If Trump wins, all hell will break loose because he’s ticked off the immigrants, the women, and the Black Lives Matter people. Think riots like the ones in Ferguson, but on a national scale.

But it may not come down to that, and here’s why.

If neither Clinton nor Trump receives a majority of electoral votes (more than 270) then the 12th Amendment ensures that Congress will select the next President.  That’s right. Congress and Speaker of the House Paul Ryan, who just happens to have been the former running mate of a Presidential hopeful, could choose whoever they want to move into the White House. This is a move worthy of  the Machiavellian writers of House of Cards.

If you ever believed that your vote mattered – it doesn’t. This system has been devised from the very beginning to keep the establishment in power by any means necessary. There isn’t going to be any revolutionary victory by an independent candidate like Ron Paul or Gary Johnson. Not ever. Think about this primary and how delegates, not voters, were the ones who chose their state’s nominees. It happened more than once that the person with the most votes did not get picked by delegates, which means – if you took the time to vote, it was sadly, a meaningless gesture meant to give you the illusion that you have a choice.

This farce of a campaign is more like an episode of Epic Rap Battles on Youtube than anything else, and your opinion on it holds just as much weight.

Who do you think will pop up like a bad penny?  Mitt Romney? Jeb Bush? Someone else? I think it’s safe to say that with the way Washington does things, it won’t be anyone you’d actually want to be the President.

(Here’s an interesting open letter from a Nebraska senator about how dreadful this election really is.)

Just Because You Can, Doesn’t Mean You Should

If you’re a fan of AMC’s hit show, The Walking Dead, you might have wondered how the zombie apocalypse started. It was probably a mad scientist. Isn’t it always a mad scientist?

Right now, a series of experiments could be the trigger for a real life zombie apocalypse because the US government has approved experiments that would reanimate the brains of humans who are braindead.  They have all sorts of warm fuzzy reasons that they believe this is a good idea. They feel that this work can benefit those in comas, vegetative states, and victims of Parkinson’s and Alzheimers.

Scientists hope that their experiments can regenerate parts of the brain that no longer work. But has anyone stopped to think about exactly “what” will wake up? Will it be the same person, with the same memories, affections, and morals as before?  And what if it goes wrong and they increase the suffering of a human being who was initially trapped in a long sleep, and bring just enough awareness to make that person cognizant of his state? What if it goes wrong and what is regenerated is a brain that is closer to an animal state than a human one?

Just because you can do something, doesn’t mean you should. I certainly see this going South in a hurry.

Want more info for self-reliant lifestyles?

Learn Exactly How to Grow 25 Vegetable Garden Favorites for Maximum Harvests

Prices of 10 foods that many folks consider staples are skyrocketing. (See which foods have dramatically increased over the past few months.)  It’s more important than ever to stock up on emergency supplies NOW, before prices rise even higher. Check out Prepper’s Market for non-GMO food from a small, family-owned company.

But don’t stop there. When you consider the information above about the tainted food, the illusion of choice, and the guy poisoning food at the grocery store, don’t you think it’s more vital than ever to grow your own food? I’m determined this year to have a bounty like never before. This week’s self-reliance strategy round up is all about the specifics of growing 25 different garden favorites.

 

Click here to check out this week’s Self-Reliance Strategies!

Anything to add to Survival Saturday?

Do you have any news links you want to share? Now’s the time! What’s going on in your neck of the woods? Did you have any food in your freezer related to the recalls? Please join the conversation below.

Daisy Luther

Daisy Luther

Daisy Luther is a coffee-swigging, globe-trotting blogger. She is the founder and publisher of three websites.  1) The Organic Prepper, which is about current events, preparedness, self-reliance, and the pursuit of liberty on her website, 2)  The Frugalite, a website with thrifty tips and solutions to help people get a handle on their personal finances without feeling deprived, and 3) PreppersDailyNews.com, an aggregate site where you can find links to all the most important news for those who wish to be prepared. She is widely republished across alternative media and  Daisy is the best-selling author of 5 traditionally published books and runs a small digital publishing company with PDF guides, printables, and courses. You can find her on FacebookPinterest, Gab, MeWe, Parler, Instagram, and Twitter.

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  • Hi Daisy,
    Your scenario about Congress choosing the next president truly would go against the grain of the people who have voted for someone else. However, something even stranger may be afoot. I recently read an article from Greg Hunter’s USAWatchdog.com blog where he interviewed a former ‘Clinton insider’ named Larry Nichols, who said there may not even be an election if a crisis strikes first. Here is a excerpt from that interview:
    ‘Nichols, who is currently undergoing treatments for lung cancer, also says, “I believe President Obama doesn’t really want to leave. Now, how could he stay? It only takes a crisis. If a national crisis is declared . . . FEMA comes in. Most people don’t even know about the FEMA provisional plan. In case a meteor hits America and we go into a national crisis, FEMA has already got a plan in place ready to go where they will set up a provisional government. So, if the banks were to start collapsing, guess what Obama would do?

    He’d go to Congress and get them to vote and boom, in comes the provisional FEMA government, which makes the president . . . king.’

    Now if that isn’t a scary thought… Can you imagine how bad things would become with all of the goofy things he has proposed? And all it would take would be one crisis. How fast this country would change.

    Ralph

    • Wow, Ralph, that’s a disturbing thought with my morning coffee. 😉

      Of course, during the last election when it seemed like Obama might lose to Romney, lots of folks threw around the theory of a manufactured crisis, however, the FEMA provisional plan puts a new light on it.

      Good grief. It’s like watching a tidal wave come at us in slow motion. Will the water get us? Will we get taken out by a large chunk of debris? Carried out to sea and survive only to be eaten by a shark? Which horrible way will the country implode?

      • Yeah. Kind of hard to know what to get ready for. I guess it’s like you said, the only way to be ready for anything is to prepare for everything!

  • Always interesting, Miss Daisy. I hadn’t heard about the brain dead bit, but my husband had. I’d bet good money that there are energy practitioners who could give you all sorts of reasons this is a bad idea – and provide non-invasive options that might help without the risk of this Frankenstein type experimentation.

    • Hi, Laurie! Right? I bet the list is far longer than we can come up with at first thought. And I feel terribly for the people who are brought back this way, with no choice in the matter. Who knows how they might suffer? I read a book about 20 years ago by Dean Koontz about a scientist experimenting on this type of thing. The visions he brought back with him were torturous and eventually drove him mad. One always has to wonder how close an author’s imagination is to future reality.

  • The whole idea of a crisis causing martial law being declared & the current president staying in office is not new. The same theory went around when George W was finishing his term. Not saying it isn’t possible, just that it’s not a new idea. Elections have been a dog & pony show for a long, long time; this time it’s just sunk to the lowest level ever. I honestly cannot think of a way out of this mess. It’s like a huge “reality” show playing out right before our eyes & way too many people don’t have the sense to be totally outraged. Those of us who do & who are outraged don’t know what to do about it.

  • As an RN, the research on the brain dead is chilling. They have no choice in the matter and sadly I have seen how things are presented to families to make them agree. Too many ethical and moral ideas being disguarded in this instance. As a Reiki Master, this terrifies me. And yet I do see how desperate one would be if their loved one were brain dead and they “might” get them back, could sway a person’s decision.

    On the produce issue, we are increasing what we grow and preserve this year. Fingers crossed its a good year. We are also adding egg and meat chickens, because like you said, do you know what you’re eating?

    Thanks again for the thought provoking weekly roundup!

    Lisa

    • Hi Lisa. I am sure you’re correct about how easy it would be to sway those suffering a tragedy with a chance to get their loved one back. I don’t like this one bit, not on any level.

  • I’m a California girl, and I’ve been wanting to go home. I experienced the 7.6 quake in 1992, but it’s all about your quality of life today, not worrying about what might happen down the road, right? Then I read this article titled “San Andreas fault ‘locked, loaded and ready to roll” with big earthquake, expert says – LA Times
    Here’s the link to the article:

    http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-san-andreas-fault-earthquake-20160504-story.html

    Need a crisis? This is a doozy. Go to the link below to see the simulated ground movement. There’s also a chart showing how fast the ground will move and how much it will be displaced.

    http://earthquake.usgs.gov/regional/nca/simulations/shakeout/

    Needless to say, I’m not going home. Nope. I have no doubt I would survive if I did go and the mega quake occurred, it’s the aftermath that would be so very difficult. Total destruction.

    • Wow, those movies were terrifying. I live in the northern mountains of California, where we don’t get much in the way of earthquakes. I’d be very uncomfortable living in an area that could be subject to that kind of movement. Thank you for the links, Susan!

  • Daisy, just thank you for being you. I look forward to Survival Saturdays, and it’s nice to know that someone else sees things the same way.

  • Hi Daisy
    I eagerly await your Survival Saturday Roundup. I read it every Saturday evening to my family on the way home from Mass. We really enjoy your newsletter even the teens and the 8 yr. old. The first thing my hubby said after I read the part about experiments on reanimating the brain dead “hey, they can start on Congress members first!” Too funny. it’s a good thing I wasn’t driving, I was laughing too hard.
    We got out of the maze and the craze about 3 years ago and are loving life growing our own food and making our own power on our offgrid homestead in the south of Chile.
    Es muy tranquilo!
    Lori
    PS How come your Pantry primer is not available on Kindle?

  • This is a silent video showing what will happen when the Cascadia Fault ruptures. At the very end it shows what’s gone. Pretty much everything, definitely everything west of I-5.

    https://m.youtube.com/#/watch?v=GBVKqMeI11c

    Daisy, you would likely feel it. The threat is great, so the NW is having a preparedness exercise next month called Cascadia Rising. You can read all about it online. The base of operations will be in Boise. Thousands of military will be sent to help rescue people and recover bodies. Access will be by air and sea. To avoid the tsunami, you’d need to run a mile in 3.5 minutes. I can walk a 15 minute mile, and that’s not fast enough. Seismologists now say that when one fault goes, it can trigger others. So, there’s your crisis/apocalypse. The Cascadia triggers the San Andreas which might trigger the New Madrid. Or,switch them around. This country is on very shaky ground!

    These folks tried living off their preps and it was an eye opener.

    http://www.opb.org/news/series/unprepared/living-off-your-quake-kit-oregon-takes-on-disaster-prep/

  • If you live in California, you know Dr. Lucy Jones. She’ll be a guest on Conan O’Brien’s show tomorrow night.

  • The idea that our democracy is a ruse just makes me ill. The illusion of choice does make me want to grow my own food…but I suck at farming. We do have a co-op in our area. If we really don’t have choices and how we feel and what we want doesn’t matter…than what’s the point. Maybe we should all just drink the koolaid and get it over with? Wouldn’t that piss off those in power…. a mass suicide of lower and middle class America would leave only the elite to fend for themselves. Since they don’t know how to WORK maybe they would all suffer and die off as well. Sorry…I guess your post hit a nerve. Dramatic and not the answer I know…. but what is? 🙁

    • Be brave, Dani! Don’t drink the koolaid! Opt out of the system.Live simply. Get out of the consumer mentality.Turn off the TV. it’s a brainwasher anyway. My income is so low, I don’t pay any federal or state taxes but I am happy living on less.Can’t grow your own? Learn or pay someone who can like a CSA. Daisy has lots of other ideas on this site. You don’t have to do them all. Just start small and do one thing at a time to regain your freedom and peace of mind.

      • Lori, it was a down moment. A moment of feeling overwhelmed by how little control we actually have, and by the injustice of it all. Life does seem to be a racket these days. We do live with less, and getting less and less all the time. But it is becoming increasingly difficult to disconnect from the established lifestyle. It’s even getting more difficult to use cash, I think because the government seeks a way to track every single thing that we do. It worries me greatly. I was told I could not send a money order or a cashiers check to pay for an insurance premium because they feared money laundering. If no one accepts cash it forces us into the banking system where every financial transaction can be tracked. Forces us to pay to have our money handled and not allowed to handle it ourselves. I guess there’s a reason I am following Daisy’s blog. 🙂

  • Daisy, have you done an article on clergy response teams? If so, I missed it. If you haven’t, here’s an update.

    http://beforeitsnews.com/christian-news/2015/02/fema-activates-the-clergy-response-teams-church-pushes-congregates-to-submit-to-government-and-you-wont-believe-what-else-has-it-begun-2509022.html

    I like to listen to sermons from a church I used to attended in California. This morning I started listening to the sermon from last week, and from the title, I thought it was about Mothers Day. Turns out it was about submission, and submitting to the government.

    The sermon had very little to do with mothers, it was all about how we live in a fallen world, bad things will happen, God will judge the bad guys later and in the meantime, we need to submit. Do what they tell us to do.

    I pray for courage, wisdom and discernment. Lots and lots of all three!!

    • I have not done an article on that topic. I really hate how the government is invading every facet of people’s lives. Whatever happened to separation of church and state? IMO, pastors preaching this message are not doing the right thing. There are far too many issues with our government for anyone to just blindly submit. Thank you for bringing this to my attention!

  • Bed bugs are here in the senior citizen apt complex where I live. 3 units have been infected. Treatment is not likely to work since the landlord uses the cheapest of everything for all repairs.

    Might as well move. The bugs travel through walls, but not distance.

    Pestilence has arrived.

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