Todd Pitman reporting from Japan, this is a great read and much too short. Oftentimes on forum threads, you will see these lists of survival items, especially for urban and suburban disaster scenarios. Being a journalist, he has a few other concerns as well. I have one of the power inverters he is talking about, very important item to have.
"We have survived mostly on snack food — peanuts and potato chips and canned coffee scavenged from mostly empty street-side vending machines. When we found one small food store open, it's dwindling stocks already plundered, we bought everything left that we could fit in our car — raw sausages, dried squid, bread."
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5 comments:
Good article Don,
With ought any overt dictatorship or major ghetto's the general population can't look to any established black market for everyday living items like alot of third world countries.
Japan is a good example of a very authoritarian society that seems to be easy in the reigns.
I think in places like the old Soviet Union, where there was an established black market already in place would make a good potential backup food/equipment distribution system. Following a large disaster, natural or otherwise.
Although the prices would be most likely in the astronomical range, and some people would have no means to pay besides labor/prostitution. It would defiantely would be a rude awakening for the majority population that is very "soft" because of easy daily living. I think if Japan had less affluence and stable trade, a more resilient, & defiant population would naturally develop.
Japan is turning into a good case study for a similar event in North America/Western Europe.
This is a gross example of relying on the rustics and failing to prepare. Todd Pitman and the AP team went to Japan without food or supplies and instead hoarded what little the Japanese victims had to survive on. Took as much as they could fit in their car for themselves when citizens are starving. Disgusting.
Lauren,
I can't fault your statement a bit. Journalists have always had the reputation, mostly undeserved, of doing what they do to help people. Some of them do, perhaps Mr. Pitman is one such journalist and maybe he just didn't think about anything that he or his partners were doing. I would tend to think they just don't care.
M,
Japan is interesting. They have always been easy in the reigns, even when life was much, much worse for the common man there. Here, "the squeaky wheel gets the grease." In Japan? "The nail that sticks up will be pounded down."
In Feudal Japan, the commoners never threw off their chains, I don't expect them to in the future, either.
Don
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