Episode-1703- Joel Skousen on Strategic Relocation
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Joel Skousen is a prior service Marine officer and fighter pilot and is intimately familiar with security and defense issues. During the 1980s he served as the Chairman of the Conservative National Committee in Washington DC.
Mr. Skousen is best known however, as one of the pioneers in the survival/preparedness movement, having written the first edition of his Secure Home book clear back in 1979. His main career for the last 45 years has been to design high security residents and retreats across North America.
His design work is extensive including, safe rooms and alternative power systems. He is the author of four books, three on his special design innovations in security architecture and Strategic Relocation and one on law and government, his books include…
- Strategic Relocation – North American Guide to Safe Places (2012)
- The Secure Home – (2010).
- The High Security Shelter – (2013)
Joel Skousen is also the publisher of the World Affairs Brief—a weekly internet news analysis service. He is a political scientist, by training, specializing in foreign policy, as well as the philosophy of law, free market economics and US Constitutional theory. He possesses a broad background in various disciplines which allows him to analyze geopolitical issues from personal experience.
Joel also served as the Executive Editor of Conservative Digest where he developed numerous sources around the world. Mr. Skousen travels widely and reads and speaks multiple foreign languages–enabling him to access a wide range of foreign reports.
Resources for today’s show…
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- Wolves – By Garth Brooks
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Well crap there goes my plans for the next hour. I will stop what I am doing and sit down and listen to Joel Skousen.
I agree Matthew, I was going to do a wood run tonight. Now a late night…
Very good insight… makes a person think…. Thanks Jack!
Wow, Jack! Great show. Reminds me of episode 1468: “The World Won’t End, but Yours Could.” Glad to see you getting back to the basics in these newer episodes. Looking forward to more of the same.
Well…
I didn’t expect such devastation, but I suppose it would make sense to take out the grids. I can enjoy the beauty of the stars for only so long before I start missing the convenience of the electric light.
I really didn’t think it would be only five or so years either. I thought the process would be slower and more gradual. I am a little more worried now, but I don’t feel helpless, or hopeless. I’ll be getting his book to find out where I can be reasonably safe around here, in Missouri. Though moving out of state is an option. I have family here, but I also have family in Ohio and Michigan.
Thank’s Jack, for inviting Joel on the show, even though I hope it won’t be as bad as he thinks it will. I am at least on a higher alert to push forward with survival preparations a little quicker.
Thank’s for all you do.
Jack and Joel,
This show put a lot of fear in my bones. But also motivates me to take my preparation to the next level. I pictured a long economic downturn as the most likely scenario to be prepared for, but Joel seems very confident that warfare on our home turf is a high likelihood.
I think this show will also motivate me to really focus on enjoying the next few years (while I further prepare) in case all this fun and games and prosperity comes to a rapid halt.
Thanks for discussing this heavy topic.
Good observation, Jack, regarding war by proxy vs. full on war on the soil of TPTB. I like Joel Skousen a lot, and he make a lot of sense. But his pitch is a tough pill to swallow, as it requires to bet the farm on a nuke war. Then, again, we had 2 world wars in the last century, a third in this century is not too much of a stretch. The other side of me says, who benefits from world governance. Why would the elusive PTB kill the goose of the golden eggs, i.e. affluent societies of the west that are already over taxed, controlled and surveilled. Something just does not add-up in that logic. But power hungry psychopaths don’t have much logic, either.
I like Joel as well but the truth is he sells to a specific fear and has been selling to that one fear for well over 30 years. Just sayin. I will have follow up on it for today’s show.
Intense. Great episode! Will be checking out more materials from Skousen.
I like listening to Joel on occasion as I like to throw on the tin hat every once in awhile. I don’t mean that in a bad way, either. I think most of us don’t think about stuff like this, so it’s nice to think outside the box a bit. I do think Joel sells to a fear based audience, but I’m not saying he’s totally off base. Is what he predicts possible? Yes. Is it probable? I guess that’s what’s up for debate…
I think you will like my follow up on it today.
I am glad to hear you are doing a follow up. I’m only 25 minutes in and I’m deep level of conspiracy a little hard to swallow and a bit unusual for your show. However, with his extensive security experience, I am interested in hearing what advice he has for securing my home.
three quick points i like to make
1. I do not agree with his reason why there will not be hyperinflation .i not saying there will or will not be hyperinflation just that I do not agree with his reasons.his reasons are totally irreverent.
2. He has this idea that there is some intelligence behind what there are doing no there isn’t its hubris incompetent stupid.
3. There was only about 15minutes in which i learned something.
In response
1. Actually he made a very good case for this. Our nation will never see the type of hyperinflation used to scare people into buying gold, the math simply doesn’t work out. It is not the only reason but it is a good one. Really think about it, QE3 didn’t even really move the inflation needle. This nation is in the middle of a long slow collapse. Lots to disagree with in Joel’s spiel, but this isn’t one of them.
2. Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity. Hanlon’s Razor. I tend to agree with you on this point.
3. Good you learned more in that 15 minutes than most people learn in a week.
I liked this episode. I listened to a similar briefing that he did a few years ago with a certain individual who’s name I won’t mention here but most probably know his name… I like the subject matter given that I want to leave the east coast within the next few years. I also enjoyed the episode because about 30 minutes in I was smiling to myself because I know Jack is probably getting flooded with emails from people freaking out and I can already hear Jack telling everyone not to freak out and calm down on the next podcast.
In my humble opinion I would argue that the nightmare scenario discussed about another massive war would be the plan B of the globalists, not plan A. The world is already racing towards a 1 world government in another hundred or 2 hundred years politically, and you could argue that it already is there in the realm of money/finance so going with the war option would require a lot of risk they likely don’t need to incur. They probably can keep using the safer, but slower, progressive strategy they’ve been using for the last 50-100 years.
Just look at the topic of government surveillance as an example. Poll after poll shows a large majority of Americans don’t care about the fact the fed is spying on them. The Snowden revelations produced no mentionable riots or protests that you’d think would’ve happened.
People grumble a bit about getting frisked and xrayed when getting on planes but comply with that too.
Police are increasingly getting wearable body cameras that will in the next 5-10 years I estimate be connected real-time to some facial recognition scanning database that will be able to notify the officer in real time to, which will allow the officer to arrest anyone that ends up in that database and the American people will celebrate the technology because it will be marketed for our safety (the robocop remake a few years ago has a Hollywood example of this).
So why risk nuclear war, which will cause an incalculable number of unintended and unpredictable consequences, when they can continue using the strategy that’s working?
Nevertheless, I still see a lot of value moving to lesser populated areas and areas that have a higher than average population of folks who value freedom and liberty more than illusions of security at the price of Liberty.
Yep I think Tuesday will be a Jack’s version of strategic relocation on a solo show. And you were right about the next show, give it a listen. I had to follow this up.
As a kid growing up in the 70’s and 80’s during the cold war we always had it in the back of our minds and worried about WW III and nuclear war. I haven’t thought much about this since the soviet collapse. This is an episode that makes a guy re-think the future and ones preps. Great interview Jack would love to see this guy come back for another interview in the future.
Anyone know what the ending song was?
Wolves by Garth Brooks, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4zDnYjxgVnk&list=PLskKWhn-LBThHL8ttmywjkcmWvS6sLmPg&index=54 forgot the link will add it now.
Jack, I thought this was an excellent show – regardless of whether one believes the globalist or catastrophic future events Joel stated – because some “catastrophe” will most likely happen to all of us at least once.
Shows like this that you have done over the years on preparedness have caused me to think about my home and lifestyle in light of various possibilities and then to make realistic modifications (many of which served me well during Hurricane Sandy).
I would rather prepare from a realistic viewpoint (doing what I can do at my age and with my finances and health) rather than pretend all is well and always will be well.
Thanks, again, Jack,
Paula H.
I served on strategic missile launch crew during the Cold War. Absorbing a first strike was discussed and “launch on warning” was the rule. 40+ years ago we could calculate the potential impact during the boost phase. Placement can change during this phase so forces are ratcheted up in anticipation and brought down if post boost phase data indicates a different impact point. Interesting that the secondary authorization was removed. “Looking glass” would be slightly less useful now days. Interesting points and gave a new reason to dust off the foil headgear. Well for old times sake anyway. Great interview once again. Keep up what you’re doing Jack.
Hey Timmo, IYO what’s the most realistic nuke war movie? IMO it’s the BBC production called THREADS (1984)
I really liked this show – even though I didn’t accept everything he said.
I know in the TSP community we like to talk down on “tin hats”, looking into the abyss of the EMP attack, Doomsday Preppers, etc, but I think a little bit of end of the world stuff like this every now and then is great for the modern survivalists’ soul. Most of us probably came this way by thinking about these kinds of huge catastrophes.
One show idea that I think would be kind of fun would be to talk to a guy like Skousen on what the survivalist world/industry was like back in the 70’s or whenever it came about.
IMO the only worry we have for a nuke going off somewhere in the western world will be at the hand of the crazy muslims. Why? Easy. They are the only people that DO want to die. MAD does NOT apply to them. (i.e. Iran, ISIS, etc.)
I was a little disappointed by this episode, Jack did a lot to try and steer Joel into the right direction but the man kept going back to conspiracy theories, which I don’t begrudge him but I don’t think the reason for civil unrest matters, it is that its happeing, wether its nuclear war population displacement or unjustified shooting by a cop(at least according a large enough group).
I think Joel could do well to focus on the actionable, which I am very sure he is an absolute expert in, instead of theorizing on why we will have civil unrest or any other disaster, personal and otherwise.
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-01-09/north-south-korea-brink-war-loudspeaker-dispute-spirals-out-control-again
So long as we keep poking people with sticks, I believe it is just a matter of time before someone sends a nuke on a sub to one of our ports. Sometimes our actions seem as if we are trying to make it happen.
Those who have undue influence/control over the government and economy by definition have a high interest in maintaining the status quo. They ARE the status quo. Would it make more sense for them to increase their power & control through incremental steps while keeping the status quo intact, or to shatter a huge piece of the status quo in the expectation they can corral the various factors and chaotic events to their favor? The latter option is typically what insurgents and lesser powers that are outside the status quo resort to… chaos and extreme disruptive events by their nature does not favor groups whose power and livelihoods depend on the status quo. Combine that with Hanlen’s Razor as previously mentioned by Jack (“Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity”), and it would point to Mr. Skousen’s assumptions being a rather small possibility. We might have the possibility of a nuclear exchange in the next decade, but more likely as a result of miscalculation, desperation, or misunderstanding of an adversary’s intentions.
One of the things that made it hard for me to take Mr. Skousen with full seriousness was his emphasis or belief that his scenario is a CERTAIN future. I could take him more seriously if he argued that it was one of several highly probable scenarios (even though I’d disagree on that point) and one worth guarding against, but like Jack said in his follow-up it seems Joel has a long-held belief that he feels he needs to prove even if some evidence is to the contrary. Even smart people (sometimes ESPECIALLY smart people) can fall in love with ideas, theories, and beliefs and pursue them even when evidence piles to the contrary.
Still, even though I find his analysis/prediction to be a relatively small probability and his single-mindedness to be off-putting for me, there was still good information here and there to be had. I think all of us here should be grown-up enough to take things (even when heard/read here) with a grain of salt, and separate the wheat from the chaff when appropriate….
This sounds like a repeat of his interview with Alex Jones
A bit over the top, surprised Jack was as quiet as he was
Tried to steer it a bit, then gave up and let him talk. Followed my rule to let guests speak and not debate them.
The show on the 12th reveals a bit of important information about this guy.
Yes I noticed that as well, good job. I did like it however. As with everything; balance.
Just came across this article today; it seemed timely:
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/12/science/as-us-modernizes-nuclear-weapons-smaller-leaves-some-uneasy.html?_r=0
” The United States military is replacing the fixed tail section of the B61 bomb with steerable fins and adding other advanced technology. The result is a bomb that can make more accurate nuclear strikes and a warhead whose destructive power can be adjusted to minimize collateral damage and radioactive fallout. “