re: #110 ckkatz

Yup, subsistence farming. (Grown just for the farmer and his family.)

That means dropping out of the cash economy. No ability to buy diesel fuel or repair parts. Or the vinegar, or bottles required to preserve food for storage. Get sick or old and they can no longer work land. If they had any land, they have to sell it to survive for a little longer. Aka rural poverty.

I knew of a bunch of folks from my grandparents’ generation who couldn’t get out of the rural poverty trap. Anyone who grew up in rural areas probably remembers folks on the margins. There was always a bit of sharing with them. But also often they were ostracized because of concerns that they might drag one’s own family/support group down through the very thin margin of survival.

These are the sort of knobheads that Glenn Beck was selling “heirloom seeds” and gold coins on the assurances that civilization was gonna end “any day now” and they needed to be prepared to ride it out. The ones that the “End Times” assholes regularly prey upon with “emergency food” buckets filled with instant mashed potatoes and dehydrated beef stew. We’re not talking the “doomsday preppers” who have a bomb shelter in the backyard with enough supplies to last (maybe) two weeks, we’re talking the ones who think some canned veggies and a hunting rifle is all they need to get through a winter.

IOW, we’re talking the ones who are gonna be shooting their neighbors over a dented can of onions a month after shit goes down.