Doomsday Preppers: Christine and John Sellers

Up next we have John and Christine Sellers, from Pennsylvania. They’re right-wing ‘newbie preppers’ in that they only jumped on the bandwagon a year and a half ago, and now their basement is full of 15,000 pounds of canned food, napkins, and toothbrushes.
Since they’re worried about the ‘collapse of the dollar’, instead of riding their Harleys around they’ve apparently decided to “forego luxuries” in the present to increase their chances of survival in the future. I like the sound of that, but the execution of their plan is horrible.
Because unfortunately, unlike Mr. Wayne or Chris Nyegres, who saw wine and stone arrowpoints as having real value post-disaster, this couple’s idea of “alternative” currencies don’t sound very alternative…“gold, silver, guns, and ammo.” Oh, come on. You’re Homo sapiens, you’re supposed to be creative and inventive, but that’s the best you can come up with? Technological inflation aside, those are the exact same things that Our Culture has been valuing for the last six thousand years—the same culture, I might remind you, that’s led to the collapse of your dollar. You’re not accomplishing anything productive by hoarding the things that your collapsed dollar represented.
And so, they go to the pawn shop and drop several thousand dollars on old silver coins which they bury behind their barn, so that they “can get to the silver stash without being seen from the house”, which they seem to think will somehow ensure their survival. Lady, (since it seems like you wears the pants in this relationship), maybe you should focus on how—should your home be “commandeered”(which is properly a nautical term)—to get to your food hoard instead? You’re selling your Harleys (because “you can’t eat your bike”), but you’ve sunk thirty grand of green paper into just another form of inedible ‘value’? I don’t get it.

Hey, there’s a different food bucket ad.

The husband drops a few more thousand dollars behind his wife’s back so they can have their very own shipping container—which they apparently think will instantly promote them from novice preppers to veterans, or something? This might be further proof that people who self-identify as preppers don’t really understand how they’re still fitting into the whole Machine. Folks, as long as you continue to compare yourselves to others and what they have (and desire to have what they have for yourself) instead of making do with what you already have, you’re still buying into capitalism and keeping up with the Joneses. As long as ‘preparedness’ (which let’s loosely define as the desire to be able to weather any kind of storm—natural or human-caused) is dependent on how much money one has spent or what one has stockpiled, it’s doomed to result in a bunch of deluded folks with dreams of rebuilding…*eye twitch*

And once again, the experts say get a garden, and learn to hunt.