The Mainstream Media at Work Demonizing the Prepper Movement… Again

Most of you have probably, read the sensational headline printed in the Tampa Bay Times; “Valrico doomsday prepper plotted confrontation with government agents, FBI says”  and the “news” report of what the FBI claims is going on.

First off, I don’t live in that area nor do I know any secret details of the case, nor do I have any “anonymous sources”  and don’t know anymore, details of the case than what we are being told in the article, however, I can elaborate on the news report, and give my two-cents about what is going on – let’s start with this excerpt from the article…

A federal gun probe erupted into a manhunt in a rural stretch of Valrico on Monday, as authorities attempted to arrest a man accused of building unregistered destructive devices as part of an end-of-times plan to kill government agents.

Folks, preppers don’t prepare for the end-of-times, because the end of time, is just that – the end… period. My preparation for the end of time, is that, I’ve been saved, baptized, and try to live a good clean life, while trying to help others. I don’t prep for the end of time, I pray. What I do prep for is the end of the world as we know it – as we know it, that is the defining term here.

Let me say it again, preppers don’t prepare for the end of the world - preppers / survivalists prepare for the end of the world as we know it… There is a huge difference.

Martin Howard Winters, 55, remained at large late Monday. He and five other people were indicted June 5 by a federal grand jury on sealed charges that arose from an investigation of a group called the River Otter Preppers, which Winters headed, according to court records.

I’ve never heard of a group called the River Otter Preppers, nor do I know, Mr. Winters, so I can’t comment on his character, his guilt or innocence,  but I do know that when you are targeted, the media, will paint you (even if you’re innocent)  into a monster.

I’ve often read and watched TV  “news reports”  where the reports would string a list of terms and titles together trying to connect each one to the other – like a racist, survivalist, KKK member got caught today, painting graffiti or some other nonsense…

Take this recent headline for example – “Tea Party Followers Kill Police In Las Vegas Killing Spree”  the news report starts out; “The alleged killers liked Ron Paul, the Freedom Works Tea Party, they listened to far right propagandist Alex Jones, and supported a third-party candidate for Governor”.

You see how they like to find the worst individuals possible and connect them in the media as members of  groups that they dislike and or disagree with, they do this to further their own personal agenda. If one news reporter goes out and rapes a sheep, does that make all news reporters sheep rapists? According to their logic it does…

So by reading that headline and the following article, most people would come away thinking that these killers represent the Tea Party, Freedom Works, and Alex Jones and  therefore those must all be bad organizations and people, that are best avoided – after all they all must want to kill police, because these two did it and they represent those groups…

It’s total bull crap, but the average dumb as a stick, American swallows the  line of crap in one big gulp of stupidity…

Further down into the “news report” it reads;  He also liked militant Tea Party off-shoots like Three Percenter Nation and Operation American Spring.  He expressed an affinity for gun groups, including the NRA, Nevada Firearms PAC, and the National Association for Gun Rights. You see how that they tie them all together in the mind of the readers and then to the shooters….

Even further down we see the media tie the killers to those believing in “conspiracies” about gun confiscation, (how can it be a  conspiracy, when the president of the United States has said, publicly, that is what he would like to see happen)  Benghazi “conspiracies” Climate Change denial “conspiracies”, and of course they have to throw “racism” into the mix.

Jerad Miller shared, reposted, commented on, and added a multitude of far right issues, everything from conspiracies about gun confiscation, Benghazi conspiracies, Islamophobia, Climate Change denial, birther racism, and much more.

So as you can see, so far they have implied that if you’re a member of  The Tea Party,  Freedom Works or the NRA or if you know what happened in Benghazi then you also must be a racist and a cop killer that likes to dress up like fiction characters from a comic book… Yep, they must all be a bunch of nut jobs and everything that they say is wrong and a conspiracy…

Okay, now back to FL according to the article…

Last October, Winters told an FBI undercover employee that he had spent $200,000 on his preparations and that he had buried 60 AR-15 firearms in four barrels in the ground, the record states. They toured the neighborhood, and Winters pointed out bunkers that he keeps on three east Hillsborough County properties, two on Williams Boulevard and one on Spring Road.

He talked about shooting government agents in the back, first snagging them with fishhooks that would pop out of air-pressured pipes mounted on the eaves of porches. “Winters will then shoot the agents while they are entangled in the hooks,” Special Agent Ronald Monaco wrote in the affidavit.

An unidentified FBI employee spent months in talks with Winters and wrote that he also talked of shooting tanks of propane gas to kill government agents as they entered his property.

Sounds like a real nut right… but like I said, at the beginning of this article, I don’t know anymore about the case than what I’ve read, but I do know that people reading the “news report” will now think that “preppers” aka “survivalists” must all want to kill cops, when nothing could be farther from the truth.

Preppers only want to be prepared for a disaster, be it natural or man-made and to protect their families and not be a  burden on society – getting into a shoot-out with police is the last thing any real survivalist / prepper wants to do.

Another thing that I can’t figure out was why, Winters was riding around town with a FBI agent and showing him his bunkers, gear and talking about committing illegal acts and activities…

There are two lessons to take away from this – # 1 don’t commit illegal acts and # 2 consider everyone that you talk to as a being an FBI agent or informant – no matter who they are or how long you’ve known them.

M.D. Creekmore [send him mail] is a full-time blogger and preparedness consultant. He currently lives completely off-grid somewhere in the Appalachian mountains and is the author of 31 Days to Survival and The Dirt Cheap Survival Retreat both published by Paladin Press. To connect with M.D. Creekmore please visit his Survival Blog.

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