I realized that all I’ve written is bad news. Depressing news. And that sucks. But not today. Let me get that out of the way so I can move on to better things.

Lafayette has been fairly quiet(comparatively) the last 2 weeks. Fires, robberies and shootings of course, but no signs of the outlaw army I wrote about 2 weeks ago. If they are planning something, they sure know how to keep quiet. To me, that is scarier than the mobs. That said, news has been pretty sparse. The people I have been speaking to on the short-wave are diehard survivalists barricaded in their homes. They tell me that their neighborhoods are either empty or the people are staying in. The scanners stay busy, and there is an air of desperation in the voices. Civil order, or lack thereof, has reached an equilibrium of sorts, and the chaos has become an unpleasant background noise. Tolerable, but I gotta keep an ear to it.

Good(ish) news

The neighborhood has been running smoothly. People are preparing permacutlture, and food shouldn’t be a problem. Things have been running smoothly, and people are really pulling together. I am especially pleased about that. After years of hanging on the peak oil and primitivist boards, and hearing everyone say "it’ll be chaos, and dog-eat-dog trust no one times", I am very happy to report that whilst chaos reigns, people have been coming together more and more. Seems like everyday I get people coming from the neighborhoods further and further out, asking how to get organized and how to grow food and prepare themselves. I counsel the same thing: send someone here and we’ll show them permaculture, and organize yourselves!!!

I guess I need to talk about what we have here, since I have only dropped vague hints. I, and "my" tribe live in an 150 year old plantation home on about 2.5 acres. Before the shock, we ran a rock-n-roll bed&breakfast, along with a audio/visual studio and nonprofit record label. We have been preparing for collapse for about 2 years, and were fairly ready for the shock when it came. We are still not self-sufficient, but fairly close. We are just lucky that we had freezers full of meat, otherwise we would be whiny vegans now(I kid).

Prior to the shock, there were three of us living there, with my fiancee staying 4-5 nights a week. Since then we now have 14 people. The original 4, Brian his wife and daughter, Jen Rob and their son, Nils and his son, Erotica (yes that name is on her birth certificate, I checked) and her daughter Lilith. and . We are also hosting two "kids" (18 and 19, kids to me) from surrounding neighborhoods, showing them permaculture, water harvesting, and system design. The house is starting to get crowded, but I like having so many trustworthy people around.

The neighborhood is shaping up nicely. Everyone has some kind of garden, whether a few planters with clippings from neighbors’ plants, to huge ornate gardens bursting with food and fragrances. We have designed water collection systems for every home, and are about 2 weeks away from every home being self-sufficient in water. We were able to cordon off the neighborhood, with only 2 ways in or out. We have armed guards there and on patrol 24-7, and as of yet no one has acted the ass. Better safe than sorry, b/c I reckon when some really desperate people find out what we have, they’ll try to take it. But I digress.

Pretty much everyone in the neighborhood stopped going to work. I have convinced them to A. stop paying their mortgages, b/c banks can’t come dispossess them, B. use their energy to better/ feed themselves from home, and C. they could get killed just going to and from work. Not worth in my and their opinions. Means more eyes and ears watching, more hands for tough projects, and more people working to make everyone’s lives better.

They neighborhood is filled with children’s and adult’s laughter, people working together, and old animosities forgotten. Our community grows stronger everyday, and the surrounding areas are starting to get their shit together, based on how quick we were able to get organized, fed, safe and the obvious advantages to our "tribal" style of living. We are helping people out as much as we can, and it makes me feel good. Much better than I did at my real job prior to the shock, doing divorces and custody work.

Personally, I’d like to see oil and oil based civilization go the way of the dodo. Life is too good now, even with the possibility of outlaw armies, no electricity, and general chaos. I have a strong community around me, and we are close to being self-sufficient. Before the shock, everyone was isolated, overworked and unhappy. People tell me everyday how glad they are to know each other and work together, and how without the shock they wouldn’t know their own neighbors. How sad. But I can’t say I was any different. But things are different now, and that makes me happy

Oil, civilization, and the "elite", you aren’t welcome anymore. Don’t come back. 

Stay busy and safe, everyone.

This week has been crazy. With the dollar spike in prices came riots, gunfights and chaos. The phones have been out here for almost three days, so I am glad I set up Odeo and Skype accounts for everyone in the tribe. We are the only people in the neighborhood with phones, so we have been swamped by people making calls to loved ones.  I also have someone manning the short-wave and scanners almost 24-7, and the situation is becoming dire indeed. The scanner has provided us with valuable information, and we have become the "local news" source for our neighborhood. We have more and more people coming in and out of our house for info and news, and the neighborhood is really pulling together. Because of the ongoing chaos, we as a neighborhood decided to start armed patrols. I hope no one gets hurt. Everything is quiet right now, and this is the first real rest I’ve had all week. I am gonna update WWO and then get some well earned sleep.

The situation is this. Lafayette is becoming a war zone. We can see the haze and smoke of the fires from 6 miles out where we live, and the local police in our township are non-existent. Brian, the now ex-cop I spoke of last week, told me that all of the towns around Lafayette have been asked to send their police forces to help stem the chaos. Out of the 4 towns around Lafayette, only "mine" and one other have sent their police. But the reports from Lafayette are disturbing. The north-side Walmart was attacked and burned down by a group of 25 people. First, they shot some clerks and a cop. Then, they took everything they could carry, which was mostly electronics(dumbasses) and then they burned the place down. That made me angry, considering all the food and useful merch they burned.  Other, or the same, groups have attacked groceries, butchers, gas stations (4 burned in the last 24 hours), and even a half ass assault on the main police station. That one was repelled, but that means "they" are gonna try again, and try harder this time.

Things have been fairly quiet, but a neighbor caught 2 guys stealing gas last night. He warned them off but I know it is just the start. Once word gets out that we have a food, guns and knowledge, I know that "they" will come for it. We are all scared.

The scariest was what Brian, the cop I wrote about last week told me. He said that there is an outlaw army massing in Lafayette. A lot of the people in the poorer section of town have been rioting, and there have been reports of the same 30-40 people robbing or attempting to rob gun and sporting good stores. He told me that these guys are stockpiling weapons, and that the Lafayette Police won’t even go into a lot of the North side of town. The "leader" is calling himself the "Duke of Lafayette"(how original), and claims to be the LAW in town.  Watch out for this sort of thing in your area

Brian  also said a lot of the cops are getting out, and that soon law enforcement will be nonexistent in Lafayette. I need to get the last of my friends out while I can.

We have spent most of this week making a series of defensible positions, and set up a perimeter with fencing, SUVs and ditches. We did the whole block, and have been suggesting the surrounding blocks do the same thing. I hope we don’t have a need for it, but we just may, and better safe than sorry.

We are relatively unaffected by the gas spike.  We have been growing our own food for awhile, and don't worry too much about travel.  But, I am going to have to go into Lafayette  tomorrow or the next day to get out the last of my people.  I am scared, but Brian is coming, as is Jonathan, our resident martial arts expert.  Between the three of us, we can manage.  I just hope my friends are alive and well. We are gonna take my old 78 chevy pickup, burns a ton of gas but it is made of metal, so if we have to fight through we can. I hope it doesn't come to that.

WWO's, get ready for bad things in your area. Watch yourself, don't travel alone(don't travel at all!!!), and prepare a defensible area for yourself and family.   Get your neighbors to watch your back, and watch theirs!! If we all pull together, the crises can't pull us apart.

Stay alive!!! 

Now it's time to sleep.

Intertribal Economies

We have begun to establish what is called an Intertribal Economy.The short version is this.Tribes are collectives dedicated to making a living together. Food shelter security, entertainment, health, etc. Invariably, a tribe is strong in some skills, weak in others and has a some skill sets that are non-existent. By using our strengths to create surpluses, we can trade those surpluses to those tribes that lack them, whether it be food, carpentry, or merely a couple of extra hands for a few days. We have been in contact with, and begun trading with various other collectives in our area, and it has gone far to supplement our needs. Our strengths are permaculture (food surplus), materials (we inherited roughly 3 tons of wood) and security (both lessons from resident martial artists and the formation of a neighborhood watch) . So far we have traded mostly food and labor for carpentry skills, bicycles, and a very good rifle scope.

As I wrote this, I was contacted by another group willing to trade time and labor for permaculture "lessons". The more the merrier, in my opinion. Plus, the more people we can get into an Intertribal Economy, the less severe the ensuing crises will be. 

More Members

In the 8 weeks since the crises began, we have picked up more members for our tribe. We started with 5, with 2 people ready to come in. Since then, we have picked 6 more people. The house is starting to get full, but we still have room for 4-6 other people. The recent arrivals are not much in the way of skills, but they are willing to learn and work for our mutual survival and comfort. They are 2 small families, each with one child. I am happy to have children around, especially ones so young (3 and 5). We can teach them "a new way", to better live in this new world of ours. I am also trying to bring in the soon to be ex-cop, his wife and their 6 month old that I met him last night (see below). Our total members are now 11, with room for 5-6 more. Our budding tribe grows stronger, and soon we will be almost self-sufficient.

Beginning of Food Riots

Last night, I went to the store for Ice Cream. Sounds silly, I know, what with everything that is going on , but I don’t have to buy much food and I "need" to spend my money before it becomes worthless. Besides, after the real shock ice cream will be a "hot" commodity here in South Louisiana.

Anyway, I was standing in line when I heard an argument on an aisle behind me. I moseyed over to see what was up, and two older ladies were arguing about the last few cans of green beans. I looked around, and sure enough the shelves were almost empty. The ladies became more and more agitated, arguing that they both had that can in their hand and that the other snatched it out. I tried to calm them, saying "It’s just green beans, I can give ya’ll some from my home a few blocks away". They looked at me like I was stupid, and one woman used the opportunity to run off. The first woman cursed me out and then chased her to the check out. She caught her at the line and beat her ass, going so far as to use the very can the were arguing about to beat her.

I rushed to pull them apart, and so did another guy, whom I found out later was an off-duty cop. But everything started at once. People started grabbing food off the shelves, shoving, punching and pummeling each other over items. I dropped my ice cream and headed for the door. The cop grabbed me, said "come on", and started towards the biggest brawl. I decided right then that I should help him, b/c he will remember me, and cops/soon to be ex-cops are good people to have around. We went to the doors and we blocked them with shopping carts. As soon as we started, people started pushing me trying to get out. He pulled his badge and gun, and they backed up real quick. People were cursing us, shoving carts and feinting at us, but no one tried anything. I felt so stupid for brandishing a glass ketchup bottle as a weapon, but it kept them away. We held the doors for about 15 minutes until the police arrived.

Brian, the off-duty cop, thanked me for my help and we talked for about twenty minutes. It was sad. He told me about how in Lafayette, the closest big city (about 6 miles), things are getting bad. People are starting to get desperate. There have been some robberies of gas stations and grocery stores. No substantial deaths yet, but he told me about a situation that scared the crap out of me. Apparently, the local gangs are forming an army. 15 armed people robbed a grocery store. Not only did they take the money, but they stole as much food as they could carry, and were extremely violent. They shot an older couple that dared to resist, and then holed up in the store when the police arrived. They shot it out, with 11 deaths of robbers and 4 police. The captured robbers are issuing threats of mass jail break, and dropped hints that "The Block Army" is going to take over Lafayette. Scary.

Brian told me that he wants to quit the police, but doesn’t know how he’ll provide for his wife and daughter. I invited them to come check out the place, and meet the tribe. Seems like a nice guy, and his skills would be very useful. Not only does he have his own weapons, but his hobby is carpentry, which we could sorely use. I hope he comes.

What we saw was the first incident in Carencro, but I know there will be more. There have been a lot of gas thefts, and home invasions have started up. So far they have only beat people, but as they get desperate they’ll get more violent. We are gonna post watches from now on. The future is starting to get frightening, but I know we've done and are doing everything we can to survive and prosper. I am also inviting as many neighbors as possible to come and see and help, and have started permaculturing the neighborhood, in hopes to avoid the desperation that is already infecting the area. It is working, and the neighborhood has begun to pull together. I'll do everything I can to ensure it gets tight.

http://forum-archive.ishcon.org/f/17/3204.html and here http://forum-archive.ishcon.org/f/26/3570.html .

For More Info on Intertribal Economies:check here