Welcome to Thunderdome!

Has Tina Turner even spoken a word since then? I don't know.

Have you stopped to notice how popular "end of days" programs are in the past several years? The Walking Dead (my household's must see TV) is as much a survivalist program as it is scifi. In fact the "zombies" stopped being the primary enemy long ago and now simply provide the needed background stress. Your fellow survivors are the real monsters. But its not just them (and their record 16 million cable viewers for the season 4 premier). Revolution (as you mentioned Titus) is extremely popular. The program Jericho (a small mid Western town post EMP/big city nuke attack) was cancelled after the first season, and there was such a ruckus that it didn't "end" (no final episode wrapping things up) that the network actually reconstituted the show for 6 episodes to do just that. And there are a slew of "prepper" reality TV style programs. The only one of those I've seen was on Netflix titled "Doomsday Bunkers." There's only 3 episodes so far (at least on the Flix), but I find the engineering aspect of this business fascinating. This guy was knocking out a decent living building storm shelters and he parlayed that into high end bunkers, the cheapest of which is 70k. The first episode he builds one that is 1600 square feet, complete with a dining area... that's the exact size of my apartment! The price tage on that puppy? A svelte $450k. The doors can take C4 hits, the generators and air systems are triple reinforced, it's a fortress. Now, as to the mentality of people willing to spend such money....

The number one rule on that show and in the "prepper community" (and I didn't know this prior) was you never disclose your bunker or farm location, or what your supplies are. The reason is self evident. In some apocalyptic event your neighbor will kill you for a bag of Doritos, and not even cool ranch, we're talking regular Doritos. And prior to really listening to various preppers explain themselves I would have lined up to make fun. But after having heard them out, I felt like an idiot, ESPECIALLY given my address in late August of 05.' I'll explain...

These people, to the man (and it was all fathers of families with children buying the pricey bunkers), named rationale and reasonable reasons as to why they want these bunkers - #1) natural disaster. While an underground facility may not be realistic where Jambo and I live, I don't think any of us here have to be convinced of the calamity wrought by mother nature. #2) societal breakdown. They very calmly explained it as another Great Depression, collapse of the US dollar, etc, driving people to stealing or looting. Before anyone laughs, remember that unlike in the Great Depression, we live in a "Grand Theft Auto did $800,000,000 in its opening weeked" world now. Last week in Louisiana two Wal Marts got ransacked. Why? There was a snafu with the food stamp debit card which removed their limit. People with these cards called their friends and the shelves of two different Wal Marts were wiped out. It was a disaster. As soon as the snafu was corrected, full buggies and hundreds of "customers" simply abandoned the store, leaving it trashed. Wal Mart has to eat the expense (no pun intended), according to the government, because they knew better than to allow illegitimate sales. They knew these debit cards had a limit. So why did Wal Mart managers allow the deluge of faulty purchases? Simple - they very wisely assumed that if they didn't, there'd be a riot. My point? These preppers may not be right about "when" or "if" society breaks down, but they are right about what it will look like if it does... Doritos will get you killed.

So do any of us doubt the value of a prepped retreat in the face of a natural disaster? Do any of us not think that a serious financial correction is coming, at some point? These "preppers" aren't crazy (by and large). They live in major cities and they don't have a family member with a farm (like me), or have a friend with a family member with a farm (like Jambo - who has practically already plotted his residence in my phone's mapquest incase we beed to "bugout.") These guys aren't nuts, they're prepared. Since when is that a bad thing? Just think about the percentage of American farmers in the 1930's versus now. Yet people call them "hoarders" for having 6 months worth of food stockpiled. How else are they to be prepared? What if they lose their job and need to feed their family? Is losing your job such a fantastical scenario? Sure there are some loons out there, they're part of any segment of society. But above all, they're prepared. That's not crazy, that's the Boy Scout motto.

At any rate, I understand that humans have been fascinated with "end of days" long before Revelations was penned, I just find this recent upsurge fascinating. What's great about these shows - as Jambo well knows - is the post show discussion with the kids. "What would we do Dad?" What about this? If they were coming through that door, who covers it? How would we eat? Would we save the dog? To be honest (and I'm sure Jambo feels the same way), that's my favorite part of the evening, talking about what we would do. For me, all of those conversations end one way -  how long would it take, on foot, to get to that farm I mentioned. To put it simply, they have guns and gardens.... I'm in.

Before I click "publish" I wanted to more directly answer your question - what do I think a "breakdown" or collapse would look like? First, Mel Gibson is probably just mean enough to survive, so I wouldn't be surprised to see him at the post apocalyptic meeting around the burning oil drum. Secondly, I don't think under any circumstance the United States will cease to exist, but we could over time be reduced to at least a Western European status of power and wealth, if not an Eastern European status. And how rapid that decline is will dictate how volatile - or violent - society becomes in the interim. Far too often Libertarian-Conservatives fail to qualify the statement "the end of America" by noting they mean as a superpower, not as a nation. So a fiscal calamity, depending on how rapid it is, could make doomsday bunkers worth while. Short of that the only major breakdown I can see is an EMP attack. The technology exists, EMP's are real. Estimates are that in a large scale attack on the US it would leave 150 million dead in the first 6 months. You think about the percentage of farmers - as I mentioned before - today as compared with any other point in our history and you realize how helpless the citizens of every major (and medium) city would be. The kicker is - and this is not conspiracy the Senate held hearings on this in 2012 - to protect our national electric grids with some sort of suped up Faraday Cage, it would cost a paltry (for our government's spending habits) $500 million. The Department of Energy testified that to date, these funds have not been allotted and there is no protection set up to defend against an EMP disabling our national grids.

Thinking about it I guess one could add a natural disaster, but unless you subscribe to Al Gore's snake oil pitch it would only be regional. One storm won't wipe out America. Or perhaps disease. They may not reanimate into "walkers" but a large scale pandemic could make us look like a bad scifi movie for 6-12 months. But I'll stick to my two scenarios that I think are at least plausible sources of  a societal breakdown on the level of our favorite TV shows... a rapid financial collapse in the Grand Theft Auto era, or an EMP. In either case I hope Jambo has comfortable hiking boots for the wooded multi day march up Hwy 49... hehe.