by Tate, Glen
The two-week period at the State Auditor’s Office between resignation and his last day was weird. The bureaucrats there started unloading on him since they knew he was leaving. All kinds of little things that had been festering for a while came out. A few of his soon- to-be former co-workers actually raised their voices with him. He couldn’t wait to get back to helping people for real again. He also couldn’t wait to start broadcasting Rebel Radio.
A few weeks later, Rebel Radio was taped. The show consisted of the WAB guys knocking back a few beers on the air and just saying whatever they thought. No holds barred. Exactly what they thought. WAB knew things that no one else knew because they were insiders. They knew exactly how bad the state’s finances were because they got the briefings. They interviewed citizens getting screwed by government; the stories were amazing. No one else was saying the things they were saying.
The number of downloads grew each week. It was becoming a pretty big deal. Most of the listeners were in Washington State because they described facts specific to that state, but they were noticing downloads from computers in other states, too. Rebel Radio tapped into something out there: rage at increasingly unjust government. They had fans, at least among the little people out there getting screwed, who had no one else telling them exactly how things were.
Rebel Radio wasn’t loved by all, however. It made the State Auditor’s Office look bad because that agency was supposed to be helping people, but Rebel Radio described why they weren’t. The people in the State Auditor’s Office made no secret that they would shut down the podcast if they could. It frustrated them that they couldn’t. They were so angry at the criticism that it was a little creepy. They really, really hated the people doing Rebel Radio, especially Grant. Despite the voice synthesizer, they suspected that Grant was one of the podcasters and hated him for sharing his inside knowledge of their failures.
The Governor’s Office openly talked about how they could legally shut down Rebel Radio. No one in state government could come up with a way to shut them down. Things were getting mean. In the past, it would have been absurd to say that the Governor’s Office would be talking about how to silence criticism, but things were getting nastier and nastier.
The state budget deficit was ballooning. The “recession” meant less economic activity, which meant less tax revenue. Despite far less taxes coming in, the state kept spending money. And more money. Washington State was a smaller version of California: chasing out businesses, falling tax revenue, and massively increasing spending.
The people doing it were being re-elected by huge margins. The voters loved having more stuff. They could not comprehend the debt they were running up. Besides, the “rich” paid for it all, right?
In these tough times, the government employee unions demanded more money. They insisted on pay raises. They even wanted more for their gold-plated pensions. They said that with the losses in the stock market that had previously paid the interest on their pensions, the state must put in more money so they would not suffer a decline in pension payments. In the mind of government employee unions, the taxpayers needed to pay more to them so they wouldn’t suffer any losses from the stock market — like all the taxpayers had. The Legislature and Governor, all elected with the money donated by the unions, were happy to do so. The voters, at least enough of them to swing an election, seemed to be OK with it. Actually, voters in the largely agricultural eastern half of the state were not OK with it. But the conservatives in Eastern Washington were just a small part of the population, so they didn’t count when it came to politics. Most voters in Washington State had been told for several decades how underpaid public employees were (which was no longer true), so many of them thought the recession was a chance for the unions to “catch up” with the private sector on pay and benefits.
Of course, with unemployment going up, the government scrambled to create more “safety net” programs. State unemployment benefits were increased. The federal government was handing out several billion dollars in aid to the state. That would allow all this spending without any consequence. For a while, until eventually even the feds realized they couldn’t keep shoveling money to the states and started cutting back on aid. Now what? The state budget deficit would be about half of all the money they had control over. About half of the state budget was spent on federally mandated things like Medicaid, and the state portion of other entitlements that couldn’t be cut. Half of all the money? No more federal money and no more accounting gimmicks. The state had to, for the first time ever, actually consider cutting.
State workers were asked to take furloughs, which was a week or two off each year without pay. “Essential” services, about 40% of the employees, were exempt from the furloughs.
Union representatives responded as if state workers were being executed in the streets. They ginned up huge protests and angrily demanded a stop to the cuts. Most people in the dwindling private sector looked on in amazement. They had either been laid off or knew plenty of people who had, but these government employees were going nuts over taking a tiny pay cut.
Instead of making real cuts, the government demanded more money. It raised every tax it could. It started charging “user fees” for the most absurd things. Every government permit — and there were hundreds of them needed to conduct daily life — came with a price tag. Registering a car now had a new fee of several hundred dollars. Fire departments started to charge to respond to 911 calls. Counties started to require inspections of appliances to ensure they were energy efficient and charged a hefty “inspection fee.” Cities started charging a license fee to owners of dogs, threatening to take unlicensed dogs and euthanize them. It was like the government thought it was entitled to as much of the people’s money as it demanded. Grant remembered the meeting at the Governor’s Office when they said exactly that.
But the people, for the most part, just stood by and watched. They didn’t want to get involved. A surprisingly high number of them were getting government money in one form or another. Almost half of households were dependent, in whole or in part, on government benefits. They wanted to keep theirs.
The rest of the people who weren’t getting government benefits didn’t want to rock the boat because they didn’t want to be “extremists” or be called “greedy.” Besides, they had enough to eat (actually, too much, in most cases), there were plenty of good reality shows on TV, and they didn’t really understand politics, anyway. All they knew is what they learned in school: government needed more money to do great things for the little guy and business was greedy.
People assumed that the WAB would be looking out for big business. Not true. Big business and small business had radically different interests. Big business could get the government to write regulations and tax laws to put their small-business competition out of business. Big business was run by CEOs who, by and large, were products of the liberal education system and the Seattle cocktail party circuit where one chats about how awful Republicans are.
Small business, on the other hand, actually wanted government to be limited. The taxes, regulations, and stupid paperwork requirements were killing them.
Big business and government got even cozier during the “recession.” At the federal level, the Administration, with ample help from the Republicans, bailed out GM, Chrysler, AIG, Goldman Sachs, and just about all the other big corporations.
The same was true at the state level, but the help was in different forms. Big business in Washington State got all kinds of state contracts for “stimulus money” projects to build roads and government buildings, and to buy many things big business sold. For example, the big car dealers’ association got the state to buy millions of dollars of “fuel-efficient” cars for the state motor pool, which didn’t actually need any new cars. Big business returned the favor, donating almost all their corporate contributions to the ruling Democrats and the few Republicans in office. Big business would help the politicians in other ways, like PR stunts disguised as meetings between bu
siness leaders and the Governor with the business leaders praising the Governor. The state returned the favors by imposing requirements on businesses that only large employers could afford to comply with, thus reducing the number of small businesses and thereby reducing the competition big businesses faced.
This was soft fascism; government and large corporations helping each other to the detriment of everyone else. It was still fascism though — just without the little mustache and the genocide.
“Are we the only ones who see what’s going on?” Grant asked Brian one day.
Brian sighed. “Pretty much. Most people don’t know or care what’s going on. They’re pathetic. But they’ll get what they deserve.”
Grant decided to have “the conversation” with Brian.
“You know, Brian, this whole thing is going to come crashing down,” he said. “Soon, too. Maybe a year, maybe five. But, soon.”
Brian looked relieved. Finally someone was saying what he was thinking, but he thought it was too outlandish to say out loud. “I know,” Brian said. “The government is out of money and they can’t stop spending. The only thing that will stop them is bankruptcy. It’s going to get ugly.”
They talked about the civil unrest that would come from the cuts and the protests of all the people dependent on government money. They talked about how the government would crack down on dissenters like them. Not haul them off or anything, just start auditing their taxes and that kind of thing. Soft fascism; not the little mustache stuff.
Grant didn’t tell Brian about the preparations he had been making. It wasn’t time yet. But he did say to Brian, “If things get crazy, we need to stick together. You, me, Tom, and Ben and our families.”
Brian nodded, solemnly. He couldn’t believe they were having this conversation, but he was glad they were.
Chapter 30
Foreign and Domestic
Grant had two ARs; the standard A2 and his customized M4. What to do with the A2? Having two ARs was important. There was a phrase among preppers that “one is none and two is one,” meaning that a backup is always necessary.
At Capitol City Guns, Grant saw a .22 conversion bolt for an AR. Just by popping out the bolt and putting in the .22 bolt, an AR became a .22 rifle. This allowed cheap and realistic training, and provided a lot of fun.
Manda didn’t know about Grant’s guns. She knew he had some but had never seen them. He needed to get her proficient on the AR. “Every girl needs to know how to use one nowadays,” Grant told her.
Cole was still a little spooked by loud noises so Grant would wait to get him shooting. The .22 conversion bolt would be perfect for Manda’s training. It had no recoil and was quiet. What better way to introduce a fifteen year-old to ARs?
“Hey, Manda, want to shoot a real live Army gun?” he asked her one day.
“Are you kidding?” she asked. “Do you have one?”
That was the beginning of Grant and Manda’s Sunday afternoons at the shooting range. She quickly became very good with the AR in .22. The light recoil made it perfect for training a new AR shooter. Shooting the AR with the regular 5.56mm ammo after that was no big deal for her. She even learned how to field strip the AR. She loved the fact that she had a thing to do with her dad, and she could keep it secret from her mom. Lisa would have spazzed out if she knew Grant was teaching Manda to shoot an “assault rifle.”
Next, Grant got her shooting the AK. She was good at that, too, but it had more recoil for the fifteen year-old and the folding stock made it harder to aim. However, she could shoot an AK no problem, and she loved it.
It got even better. The AK-47 had a cousin, the AK-74, which was the rifle the Russians used. The AK-74 shot the smaller 5.45 x 39 cartridge, which, like the AR’s 5.56 x 45, had little or no recoil. And AK-74s were light, about half as heavy as an AK-47. On top of all that, the AK-74 had a short “European” sized stock for smaller Europeans.
Light, short stock, and virtually no recoil. The perfect gun for Manda, and any other smaller person. It was a “wives and kids” gun.
The AK-74 was cheap. The Russians made millions of them, and they were about $400. A person could put a cheap red-dot sight on and have a fine rifle with an optic for about $500. Magazines were dirt cheap, about $10 a piece. And, to top it all off, ammo was absurdly cheap. A person could get a metal tin, called a “spam can” because it looked like one and was opened with a can opener, of 1,080 AK-74 rounds for $120. All of this meant that a prepper could get an AK-74 with a basic red-dot sight and over 1,000 rounds of for half the cost of an AR-15 without an optic or any ammunition.
Since they were so cheap, Grant got two AK-74s — one for him and a matching one for Manda. She loved shooting it. One time she said, “Daddy, I did all my homework. Can we go shoot the AK-74s? Please.”
Grant got one spam can at a time with the expense-check envelope money. Pretty soon, he had four spam cans (over 4,000 rounds) at home and another four at the cabin. He got ten magazines for each rifle. It was the cheapest SHTF battle rifle to be found. And it was so much fun to shoot.
Now it was time to tell Manda what was in all those green square cans in the garage marked “5.56” “7.62” and now “5.45.” Grant was glad he gently and slowly broke the news to Manda that her dad was a “survivalist.” He could only imagine if he had just announced one day, “I have stored a bunch of food and guns. I think the world is ending.”
He now considered Manda a full partner in prepping. They talked about the details of their prepping and planned it out together. They also talked about how the country was disintegrating. At least he could talk to one person about this. Too bad it was a fifteen year-old instead of his wife and friends.
Grant had to make sure there was a check on his emotions and that he was making rational decisions. He was dealing with such heavy thoughts — the collapse of the country, food shortages, protecting loved ones from uncontrolled violence — that he had to have something in place to make sure he didn’t overreact. Fear should never rule decision making. Grant figured Manda could be his reality check. Looking to a teenage girl for emotional clarity wasn’t the best option, but given that she was the only one who he could tell about all this, it was his only option.
One day at the shooting range, he said to her, “Manda, I want to make sure I’m approaching prepping rationally. I don’t want to get emotional and buy a bunch of food or guns every time there’s a dip in the stock market. Prepping isn’t a crutch; it’s a logical plan to handle bad times. So here’s the deal. Any time you think I’m not doing something logically, you have permission to say, ‘Dad, you’re wrong.’ But you need to be able to then say, ‘Here’s why.’ Deal?”
Asking a teenager if she wants permission to tell her parent when they’re wrong?
“Of course Daddy,” she said. “Nothing you’ve done so far has been weird.”
It turns out lots of other people, a few million, were having the same concerns as Grant.
Capitol City Guns was lucky to have opened its doors when it did. During the various recent ammo scares, customers felt they needed more guns, ammo, and accessories. They would return to the place where they got their first guns, as they responded to the Federal Reserve’s continued printing of absurd sums of money, the increasing crime rate, and all the other signs of what might be coming scared more and more people. They kept buying guns; lots and lots of guns.
During this time, an estimated one to three million AR-15s were manufactured, sold, and put into American civilians’ hands.
Some thought that there were about as many civilian AR-15s, or maybe more, than the military’s stockpiles of military-version M-16s. Americans bought hundreds of thousands of tactical shotguns and millions of pistols during this same period. Billions of rounds of ammunition were also moved from warehouses to Americans’ gun safes, ammo cans in garages, storage sheds, and sock drawers. All of this didn’t count the tens of millions of scoped hunting rifles and hunting shotguns already existing in the United S
tates. Estimates were that there were over 100 million firearms in the country. They were in closets, night stands, and attics all across the nation.
Not only guns and ammo, but sophisticated gear was flying off the shelves. Stores like Capitol City were stocked with night vision scopes and body armor. There were millions of extremely well-armed American civilians. Most of them were not trained as soldiers, but they had decent gear and could train later.
The military and law enforcement knew this. The vast majority of them never thought about trying to take over the country. However, a tiny percentage of them — the political ones who wanted to get promoted — planned out how to do it under the guise of “contingency planning.” Those planning a takeover realized that it wouldn’t be a cakewalk. It would be a nasty, brutal civil war with guerillas killing them for years and years. No army — not even the U.S., which had the most powerful military in the history of the Earth — could possibly take over and occupy the country.
Another reason it would be hard for the military to totally take over is that many in the military and law enforcement hated the politicians who would order them to try to take control. It would be a hard sell for a politician to tell a soldier or cop, “Go kill your neighbors and stand a good chance of getting killed yourself — all so I can have more power.” Of course, some in the military or law enforcement would use the “crisis” as an excuse to grab their own power. It had happened for all of human history; America was no exception to the laws of human behavior and history.
Others would be in-between. Some in the military and law enforcement would go along with the politicians at first; there would probably some genuine crises to protect people against. But after a while, they would increasingly refuse to shoot and imprison Americans if that’s what they were ordered to do. Therefore, eventually most in the military and law enforcement would probably not be part of an attempted takeover. In fact, a good portion of them would actively fight against the politicians trying it.
