Along the same lines as “only break one law at a time,” here are some practical/mundane recommendations for when shit is hitting the fan, your government’s collapsing, and/or the rule of law is breaking down.
- Know your legal rights inside and out.
- Shore up vulnerabilities, e.g. outstanding warrants, busted tail lights, debts to the government/back taxes, suspended license, etc.
- Never break more than one law at a time (it bears repeating). For instance, if you’re smuggling moonshine, use your turn signal, come to a complete stop at all lights/signs, don’t blast your music, don’t drive dirtier than absolutely necessary, and for the love of God, obey the speed limit.
- Closely related: PMCS. That’s an army term – preventive maintenance, checks, and services. In the army, this involved using a literal checklist before you signed the keys out, so you got under the vehicle, checked fluid and air levels, made sure lights functioned properly, etc. This helps you avoid the law-attracting power of the Busted Tail Light charm, which can be stronger than the protective power of the Law Keep Away mojo.
- Make friends with your neighbors. If that isn’t possible, at least know who they are and who lives there. Who has chickens, who has a year’s worth of toilet paper stockpiled, who has a truck, who has a chainsaw? Who knows first aid? Who is a lawyer? When shit really hits the fan, your whole day-to-day world can in many ways get a lot smaller. It pays to know your neighbors, ideally so you can engage in some mutually beneficial cooperation or even trade if needed, but worst case scenario, at least you know who the troublemakers in the area are likely to be. Basically, strengthen community ties. People helping people on a local level, on the ground, is the best defense against economic collapse.
- Shop local where possible. You should do this anyway – putting your dollars into small business in the local economy is an investment in your community. It pays off in ways that purchasing from Amazon and lining CEOs’ pockets never can. Where you can’t shop local, shop small business. Bezos doesn’t need any more money.
- Document everything. Even if you never need it for tactical or legal reasons, today’s shit hitting the fan becomes tomorrow’s history. Your recordkeeping can be invaluable to the telling and understanding of that history. At the very least, it can make you a good ancestor to your descendants who want to understand their lineage.
If you have reason to believe you or your home might be susceptible to specific attention:
- Practice noise/light/trash hygiene (another army term – don’t give anyone reasons to look twice in your direction or to call the law on you).
- If you have reason to fear a knock on your door at whatever hour by armed people, maintain a rotating watch. That means somebody should be awake at all times. If that isn’t possible, have someone sleeping near the door and mostly dressed instead of everybody tucked away into back bedrooms in various stages of undress.
- Remember drywall is not good cover. Just like it pays to think about the safest spots in which to weather a natural disaster, it pays to think about how to weather the human-made ones too.
Saint of the Moment: Jesus Malverde
Yesterday was the feast day of Jesus Malverde. You can read more about him here, in the post describing the annual community altar service I do beginning on his feast day.
I’ve written a bit before about how saints like Jesus Malverde and Santa Muerte are not just “narco saints,” and I’m not going to go into a lot more depth about that at the moment just in the interest of time and getting this blog updated today, but for now I’ll just say that if you live in the United States and are into folk saints, it is worth your while to learn more about Jesus Malverde, because he is *the guy* when it comes to spiritual allies for this kind of crap we’re dealing with right now.
And he is not super fussy, like you have to hold your mouth just right and the moon has to be doing a certain thing when you call on him. He will accept modest offerings if that’s the best you can do, and you don’t have to set up the world’s fanciest altar for him.
You just need a clean/cleansed surface (shelf or top of dresser will do), his image (printed from the internet will do if necessary), a couple of candles (preferably green, though some people use brown), a glass for water, and a glass for libations. (Whiskey is most common, but beer works too.) If your image of him does not feature Our Lady of Guadalupe also, you should include an image of her as well.
I also recommend an odd number of small pebbles (9 is good), a small bottle of cologne (Siete Machos is good, but something like Stetson would be fine too), and a small plate for food offerings (you can give him a portion of what you’re having). Some devotees keep a small bag or box on his altar to collect loose change. The idea is that when the container is full, they give the change to the poor. I find that this is a nice habit to be in even if your method of donation to someone less fortunate doesn’t take the form of literally putting a bag of change in their hands.
You might also include an altar cloth (again, green is good) and a vase for flowers.
Jesus Malverde is one of those saints who doesn’t play around when it comes to keeping your promises and “paying” the saint. He doesn’t require the world’s fanciest offerings – you can play him a song on your guitar as an offering. or on the radio if you don’t play the guitar – but you have to keep your promises, and that has to include “paying it forward” to the poor. You can’t protest that you are poor and therefore you are exempt. If you only have a crust of bread, there is always somebody who doesn’t have even that. Remember, strengthen community ties. People helping people locally is a huge part of how communities survive crises.