ZOMBIE ATTACK MAY BE IMMINENT!
Yesterday my wife and I drove
to Augusta to
renew my driver’s license; we ate lunch at the Great Wall Chinese Buffet and
afterward went to our favorite store - Barnes and Noble Booksellers.
After checking out all the
books on sale I perused the magazine section.
There was an obvious trend in both books and magazines for the sale, of
‘survivalist’ genera.
The survival mentality is
nothing new; this following has been around since the fifties and sixties when
movies about Martian attacks and nuclear attacks encouraged a fantasy of
survival after the end of civilization.
Today, motivated by movies
like The Walking Dead, there is a larger following then ever, and this is
reflected at the book stores and magazine stands.
Survivalist groups seem to be
a spin-off of the militia movement, or vice versa. The idea of putting on your cammies,
grabbing your Bushmaster M-15 and heading for your ‘bug out shelter’ feeds the
fantasies of Mad Max wanna-bees.
Survivalist
picture themselves in military attire, fighting off the looters and saving the
young beautiful women (sorry – never the older or fat women) who will be
forever dependent on them and reward them with sex and respect.
There are corporations that
feed this fantasy with books, magazines, equipment and internet sights. In survivalist internet stores and
catalogues you can purchase everything from freeze dried food to water packets
with a twenty year shelf life, to weapons, to techno-equipment and even buckets
to defecate in.
The magazine I looked at was
full of high tech survival equipment: watches, cell phones, GPS, flashlights -
most of it requiring batteries (manufacturers obviously aren’t planning on a
long term survival situation.)
People who live these
fantasies find solace and acceptance in the company of other like-minded role
players. They are not alone, for they
fall into the same category as UFO probees, big foot hunters, militiamen and
ghost busters…
It must be like living in
the brain of Michele Bachmann: a Neverland of conspiracies and paranoia where Captain
Hook rules the oceans, crocodiles tick like alarm clocks and civilization is
defended by the few, the brave, the prepared – in their bug out bunkers.
the Ol’Buzzard
