Editor’s note; we normally start with a threat update, but this time a short editor’s note. We have two items submitted by members for this issue. First a report on a great new documentary on our very fragile, vulnerable electrical system. Second, one of our members wrote a very realistic and entertaining story imagining what it would be like riding out a collapse at Fortitude Ranch. It’s a very educational, worth reading, surprisingly moving good essay.
Probability of a Nuclear Exchange with China over Taiwan continues to rise
The warnings and rising indications of war with China over Taiwan are too many and obvious to be missed. A few months ago we reported Ray Dalio’s estimate of a 30% probability of war with China, and that likelihood. Dalio is the leading hedge fund founder/manager, perhaps the wisest man alive today, a successful career based on anticipating major changes and Black Swan events. That probability is rising rapidly with President Biden repeatedly saying that the U.S. will defend Taiwan (a policy left deliberately ambiguous in the past) and senior officials visiting Taiwan to taunt Beijing. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine some believe was part of an agreement with China that they would move to take Taiwan (and Iran also part of this alliance, likely to make aggressive moves in the Middle East). Our military power is great, but not adequate to fight on multiple fronts. Other researchers are now estimating the likelihood of war with China at well over 50%:
More important for China, they realize that Biden is highly likely to back down in a Taiwan fight if they escalate to nuclear weapons. Putin has repeatedly warned of Russia’s willingness to use battlefield nuclear weapons, and we must expect that China will use nuclear weapons against us. Their commitment to take Taiwan is absolute, and they can reason with high confidence that Biden will quickly back down once nuclear weapons are launched. We have a small anti-ballistic missile defense system, which provides an opportunity for China to intimidate the U.S. by launching a small nuclear strike on the U.S. which we may be able to intercept and destroy—letting China scare the crap out of us without actually detonating nuclear weapons on our soil. If our ABM system fails (and its far from 90% reliable) then China can argue that they warned us not to defend Taiwan and launched a small strike that our ABM system could have taken out. Little doubt that Biden would quickly back down to avoid more nuclear strikes on the U.S., and China may have decided that the time to seize Taiwan is now, while we have a weak POTUS and Russia is attacking the Ukraine.
Fortitude Ranch is well designed and equipped to survive radioactive fallout and the far worse threat—loss of law and order if a collapse occurs. The millions of prisoners and gang members in the U.S. are not going to behave well when a big disaster strikes and law enforcement/military are overwhelmed with recovering from a nuclear strike or dealing with widespread unrest from an increasingly divided population. If the Chinese nuclear strike is an EMP attack, detonating a nuclear weapon high in the atmosphere over the U.S. to release electro magnetic pulse and destroy our electric system, its gave over for us. Our electric system will likely go down for at least a year, and by Congressional study estimates, we could lose 90% of the population with no functioning municipal water system, no functioning economy, and no law and order as people loot, maraud, and kill to try and stay alive.
Powerful new Documentary on our fragile, vulnerable Electric system
For decades we have known that the U.S. electric grid is extremely fragile, and could be taken down, for over a year, causing the biggest loss of human life in history. A Congressionally sponsored study of EMP, Electro Magnetic Pulse, concluded that we could lose 90% of the population due to not just the grid down, but the loss of law and order, chaos, collapse that would result from no functioning economy, no municipal water systems, little food production or distribution. And yet nothing has been done. Politicians don’t get votes from trying to fix this huge Achille’s Heel vulnerability—they fear losing votes from electric rate hikes if utilities were forced to harden and fix these vulnerabilities (which are largely fixable). It is going to take a big public outcry and demand to get this fixed before it is too late, and I’m very proud to say that this effort has been launched by a Fortitude Ranch member, investor and board member: David Tice. Yes, we normally never release our member names, but David is a well-known, brilliant investor, his documentary is getting wide publicity, and he authorized this release of his name.
This documentary is vital to get the public aware of the program and motivated to fix it. Preppers and military folks have known about this horrible problem for a long time, but until there is an organized movement to pressure politicians to act, it won’t get fixed. David’s documentary, entitled “Grid Down, Power Up,” is by far the best explanation and presentation on our vulnerable electric grid ever produced—and he has a program to get people to take action to start a ‘movement’ which should generate change to fix this dangerous vulnerability.
The documentary can be viewed in the next few days at EpochTV.com and soon thereafter at www.GridDownPowerUp.com.
Please don’t just watch this: 1. Act on it by clicking on the ‘Participate’ tab and sending pre-written letters to your legislators and regulators and 2. forward this newsletter to your friends with an appeal for them to also watch this and join the movement to fix this problem before it kills most of us.
New log building at Fortitude Ranch West Virginia
The roof is now going on a new 3 story log home (4 floors with the basement) at Fortitude Ranch West Virginia.
We like building out of logs not just for the good looks and thermal mass, but their ability to stop bullets that would fly through a typical framed house.
Open House at Fortitude Ranch Tennessee, RSVP if want to attend
Construction is starting at our 6th location in southeast Tennessee in the Cherokee National Forest. Some members from FR WV are planning to transfer here and we are now accepting “Pioneer memberships”—giving you the option to join now before the location is operational to lock in the price and guarantee a spot, with your membership clock not running until after we reach operational status.
Dates and times for the Fortitude Ranch-Tennessee Open House tours are: Sat 9/10 and Sun 9/11. Tours are 10:15am or 1:15pm EDT both days. Steve Rene, COO of FR LLC will be leading the tours. Bio on following website link… https://fortituderanch.com/staff/.
If you want a FR-Tennessee room locked in “now”, here’s a key incentive offer. Due to tremendous interest, we are accepting deposits to a FR-Tennessee room of choice. This 100% guarantees the future room is yours. Two options: A. If you pay 50% of down payment at sign up, other half not due until building construction begins. B. Or if you pay full down payment at sign up, you get a 10% discount off current prices. Quarterly and annual food restock fees won’t start until 1 year after the ranch is fully operational.
We raise our membership prices yearly. If you sign up now, you have the ability to lock in a 10% pre-construction discount, PLUS lock in your membership prices to avoid future increases.
If you want to attend, please email [email protected]. Let him know which date & time you prefer, and he’ll relay directions, plus answer any pending questions. The closest town is Tellico Plains. When you email, please relay home state and cell number, along with how many attending with you, how many would be in your group if a family membership.
Fortitude Ranch Expanding with Franchising
In addition to the new Fortitude Ranch we’re starting up in Tennessee, we now expect far faster growth via franchising. We cannot expand fast enough on our own to meet demand, so we are opening franchise locations that will leverage our expertise and model, use our operating manual and our sales leads, sales force, and billing system to create their own Fortitude Ranch operation.
The cost of a new FR location is a half million to a million dollars, so partnering with an RV park or resort in a good, remote location, or finding a failed or struggling survival community that has land and some buildings may be a wise move. You will also need investors and financial backing to operate a FR facility.
Reflections on surviving the first year of the Collapse
If interested in exploring franchising, click the link on our website home page for more information. www.fortituderanch.com
by Collapse Survivor
It’s the one year anniversary of the collapse. The country is not recovering well and the Fortitude Ranch staff keeps briefing that the security threat is likely to get worse, though we still expect no attacks since our defenses are great and keep improving.
Our spirits are high, surprisingly so. We have not just survived, we have evolved and, in surprising ways, improved as people during this period of horrible death and suffering. That’s what I decided to write about and try to explain to myself and, if I ever see any of them again, my family that’s not safely here with me.
For the first several weeks we had radio reports of the disintegration of society, the explosion in violent crime as people realized the government lies and it was clear a total collapse that would last a very long time was inevitable. I had no trouble getting to Fortitude Ranch at all, roads had very little traffic since the government told people to go home and for at least 95% of the population there was nothing else they could do. Of course, the top politicians and federal officials were all cared for, whisked off to Mount Weather, Site X, Raven Rock, military bases; same with state officials who had the State Patrol mobilize to protect them while we were all left to fend for ourselves. It was not just gangs that immediately started breaking into houses, looting and killing; there were a lot of bad people robbing from the first few days. When the millions in jails and prisons had to be released, or broke out in some cases, everyone gave up hope of any semblance of law and order. These convicts had nowhere to go, nothing to eat or buy, no alternative but steal and kill or starve.
We heard of this, but largely did not see it. The staff briefed us daily, but there was no time to worry about all the horrible things happening outside our property since we worked literally almost every waking hour. I remember on our Fortitude Ranch tour before joining he said that they’d work our rear ends off the first few weeks, but then we’d get a lot of free time. I’d say it was more like a month plus of constant work; chopping down trees and stacking them into our defensive walls, hunting and constant fires for smoking jerky, tilling earth and planting a huge expansion in the gardens, and of course guard duty.
It was very easy to sleep at night the first month. I was so exhausted when I finally got to lay down I was out in minutes. But when we did start getting free time and the dozens of discussion and training and special topic meeting groups formed, and we found ourselves in dramatically better physical shape, I found falling asleep difficult again, my mind flooded with thoughts and worry. That was until I learned probably the most important thing about surviving a collapse—controlling your thoughts, disciplining your mind to reject worry and focus on the good we could do, completely ignoring the horribly bad out there we were helpless to influence.
I’ve learned a huge wealth of knowledge on farming, hunting, and real life skills my great grandparents knew, but we had all forgotten. But the most important thing we learned was proper mindset. It’s hard to explain, but critical to understand, and a major reason I’m writing this. The Peterson’s gave a good example or analogy of the right, proper, positive survival attitude from something they had experienced called “Marriage Encounter.” It’s a program run by the Catholic Church for couples who have been married for years but find themselves growing apart and less allure with their spouse since there is nothing new to discover about your partner. Marriage Encounter teaches that “Love is a Decision.” You get married when you fall in love, emotions dominate. But as a couple’s relationship ages, and usually stagnates, marriage can fall apart. Marriage Encounter helps strengthen them by teaching couples that having married and built a life together they need to commit to spending time on it and make an absolute, disciplined decision to stay in love. As Mrs. Peterson explained, you stop thinking that I’m supposed to feel the excitement of our first love and be content with a perhaps different kind of love; the love of devotion, absolute commitment to your life partner. Maybe this is harder to explain than the commitment to good survival attitude and mindset.
I knew this would be hard to convey, but I’ll try again: we strongly believe that having a good spirit, keeping your morale up, staying sane when you know that your past lifestyle is forever gone and probably most of your friends and family outside are suffering or already dead, is a decision you make, a commitment you make. For example, we follow the rule, you never talk about old friends and family you no longer know are alive or dead, you don’t waste a minute worrying about the bad things that we know have happened, or suspect have happened. We stay busy, still with lots of Fortitude Ranch work and guard duty, but also with dozens of groups that have formed and hold meetings in the common areas or outside. And we coach and help each other keep in good spirits, disciplined in not allowing thoughts or conversation to wander into speculation about the horrors still going on outside our safe walls.
We’ve gotten quite good at this, with the exception of Mrs. Dunbar who still breaks down over her daughter. We’ve learned to never use that word around here. If a conversation ever starts to drift the wrong way, many jump in to steer it back to a here and now, ideally uplifting topic.
So while it was hard the second month to sleep at night, with my thoughts drifting into bad worries about Darius and my other loved ones, I’m in surprisingly good spirits despite the continued lack of progress with recovery or hope of a return to prior good fortunes. Yes, I still sometimes have to fight off bad thoughts, but I’ve gotten quite good at forcing my thinking to thankfulness for where I am, the fantastic new friends I’ve got, the physical, mental, and even character improvements that have really transformed me, changed us all. Of course I’m still outraged at our irresponsible government and the horrible losses we’ve experienced, the lost quality of life that I doubt the next several generations will get to experience. But we are better people now, and most of us admit, almost feel guilty, that we are in many ways happier and more content now than we were before. Kevin is absolutely enthused with the change. He must have had a pretty lonely or unrewarding life before, because he literally loves the lifestyle and society at Fortitude Ranch Texas.
For Rosy and Luna, the ranch guard dogs it is indeed heaven here. Mr. Munson did a fun study of how often they were petted daily, observing them at four times during the day for a 15 minute period, then calculating that they were petted over 500 times a day by over 150 different people. The chickens are also far better off. There are not just ten times the number at the start of the collapse, but they have free range of the property now with no fear of coyotes or hawks. They know to stay with us when we’re outside the walls during daylight in the fields or hunting, or herding the sheep. Some of the kids even help them obtain bugs.
For the relatively few school kids here, we all think their lives are likely better now than pre collapse. The vicious peer pressure of schools is completely absent, and the perversions of Facebook and social media are another very welcome absence courtesy of no electric grid or Internet. They have classroom learning, but most of their day is life learning—farming, animal care, hunting, vehicle maintenance, food preparation, skills that build character far better than any school. The student-teacher ratio is reversed—we have far more adults teaching than students learning (and we do have several adult learning groups in history, political science, quantum physics and several book clubs). Most adults teach a course, sometimes competing with someone else for a teaching slot.
I’ve been teaching English, and got so busy with all my group activities that I was falling behind on my commitment to journal and write more. I foolishly asked the Ranch Manager if I could write while doing guard duty. That was rejected with wicked looks of disdain, and I still suffer the embarrassment of Chiefs of Watch checking up on me. I can see them scanning to see if I’ve smuggled in a notepad; an embarrassment that may never go away.
Overall, life is not just far better for chickens, sheep and guard dogs, kids—it’s better for most of us. We have never had a real marauder attacks, just 2 incidents. The third week, a small group stupidly pushed onto our land with no scouting and were quickly slaughtered. The staff followed the Fortitude Ranch O Manual and buried their bodies in shallow graves near the chicken coop so they could feast on the bugs and worms they produced. Two months ago a big marauder group passed us by on the other side of the creek. We detected them almost an hour out and the Fortitude Ranch staff did a silent call to arms (normally a gun fire or fog horn sounds alarm and we all rush to our assigned defensive post). They repositioned defenders to the south walls and deployed the Quick Reaction Force to open high ground as a further show of force. The plan was to just remind them of how capable we were, which they surely knew since they’d been raiding the area for a week. But when they stopped and their leadership group started studying us, the plan changed. The Ranch Manger ordered three snipers in the tall log tower to take aim and they took three simultaneous long distance shots. At least two hit bad guys, hopefully their top leader, and they quickly moved away.
We know there are some big and very bad marauder groups out there, but we also know that they’d get slaughtered coming at us with all our defensive walls and now 100 feet of wide open ground to traverse with no cover to reach our walls. Staff emphasizes that they’d not just need a 10 to 1 manpower advantage, but even if successful in killing all of us, they’d lose more dead and wounded than us. If it was a Marine or Army unit we’d be worried, but these marauders are trying to stay alive, not blindly obey orders to charge. So we feel very safe and overwhelmingly grateful that we are not starving, not suffering and in so many ways, enjoying a quality of life superior to our prior lives of material abundance.
Those are the key points I wanted to record. I’ll write again soon and record some other observations on this new life.
Fortitude Ranch Sales Associate to contact for information on joining FR
If you are interested in joining FR, please use the map below to see which sales associate covers your area and contact them at the email address provided.
