Whoa.  The title of this blog piece will offend a lot of good people; maybe you’re one of them.  Here’s why I say that the Fourth of July means nothing to me.  It has to do with the difference between America and Amerika.

The Fourth of July is a celebration of America – “the land of the free.”  In America, people could live their lives without ever thinking about government because it had such a small role.  Free from ridiculous government intervention, people started businesses or worked at good jobs, raised their families, owned modest but comfortable houses, put their kids through college, lived in a decent and moderately religious society, and could feel proud that they lived in the greatest country God ever created.  Seriously.  The greatest.  I know this because I used to live in America and saw the goodness of America with my own eyes.

But America is no more.  I won’t list off all the reasons.  But you know – deep, deep in your heart – that America doesn’t exist anymore.  You hate to admit, but it’s gone.  Gone.  The sooner you come to that realization, the better off the transition will be in your mind to what is coming next.

What replaced America?  Amerika.  Much like the difference between the two spellings, on the surface Amerika pretty much looks like America.  We still have malls and professional sports teams and all that.  But when you look past the surface, there are enormous differences.

Amerika is about “free” stuff from the government.  Health care and welfare and mortgage assistance and … the list goes on.  Amerika is about how people can get the government to force other people to pay for their stuff.  In the process, Amerika has become materialistic and shallow.  Amerika is also about a staggering loss of civil liberties.  Amerika kind of looks like a capitalist economy, but it’s actually a liberal corporate elite making huge sums of money from foreign workers while people here can’t find decent jobs.  That’s Amerika.

I hate Amerika.

When I see people waving flags on the Fourth of July, it looks like a celebration of Amerika to me.  Now, you might be waving the flag and celebrating America.  If so, I have tons of respect for you because you’re keeping the dream alive about America, and we’ll need people like you to remember America to give us a template for when we rebuild Amerika after the Collapse.

I look at flag waving on the Fourth and – with great remorse and sadness – see Amerika.  The country currently represented by that flag is Amerika, not America.  There is nothing to celebrate about Amerika.  In fact, seeing that flag reminds me how much we’ve lost.

As readers of the 299 Days book series know, I pretty much chronicle what happens in each of the 299 days of the upcoming Collapse.  The entry for July fourth is just another day in the lives of the people in the books; they do not wave the star and stripes.  In fact, most of the people in the books reflect on July fourth about how America turned into Amerika and they’re deeply saddened.

That’s how I feel and why the Fourth of July means nothing to me.

I miss America.

Whoa.  These turned out even better than I thought they would. Here’s the link to them if you’re interested.

This is the nightstand at the real cabin.

People are always asking me about other books I like.  Mark Goodwin has written several really great ones that I think 299ers would like.

His latest three-book series is the Days of Noah.  It’s about a man in a collapsing, end-times America.  His previous series was the three-book Economic Collapse Chronicles, which was more a prepper series than an end-times one.  The Economic Collapse Chronicles are outstanding.  In fact, the audio version of the Economic Collapse Chronicles was narrated by Kevin Pierce, who is the 299 Days narrator.  Listening to Kevin do Mark’s books is how I picked him for mine.

Here is a link to Mark’s books.

I also note that Mark was kind enough to put me in the acknowledgments for the first book in the Days of Noah series.

I hope you enjoy these books.

“Glen”

Here’s a cool idea I came up with that maybe you can use.

I have my rifles in those Bore Stores silicone gun sock protectors, you know, like this:

Bore Store gun socks have a velcro enclosure at the end:

But the gun socks all look alike in the safe.  So I had Tactical Tailor make some specialized name tapes for me that go on the velcro closure at the end of the gun sock:

You’ll note a little velcro tab at the far right end of the name tape; this allows the velcro end of the Bore Store to close.  You end up with this:

I color code each type of rifle and use different colors of stitching to tell the guns apart at a glance:

If you’re interested in getting some of these, contact Tactical Tailor and ask for Caitlin.  (I don’t make any money off of this; it’s just a cool thing I’m sharing with 299ers.)