2025 Civics Embiggening Plan

Due to recent events, I thought it would be good to brush up on my knowledge of government and government accessories. I have a list of 12 books I’d like to get through this year:

Group 1:

Group 2:

Group 3:

Group 4

Most of the these choices are set for the year, although I might replace the Government and Politics of the Middle East and North Africa with just a general history of the region.

I have picked for next year Arendt’s Origins of Totalitarianism, just not enough room for it this year.

I got a little banner as a tracker, looks like I’m making good progress, so far. I think I’ll be happy if I finish even at least just 4 out of the 12:

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I prefer the crazy, one-post threads of yore.

https://www.amazon.com/Peoples-History-United-States/dp/0060838655

Intended as an addendum to History books, not as an only source.
Can also read books that criticize this book. Some people view it as dangerous in some way.

Classic. I’m currently midway through this one and it’s quite good.

Does anyone have practical book suggestions for what to do when things go south?

Not like full on gold and guns apocalypse, but ordinary things like:

When is the best time to leave the country?
What to do in a police state?
When and how to dodge a draft?
How do I hide a family in my basement?
How to use money to help people when this or that happens?

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Watch The Killing Fields?

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Indeed, the first Civics were very small, but they been embiggened a lot over the years

You have connections. I don’t really have any place to go.

Yes, the first gen civic was much smaller than the current Mini Cooper 2 door.
https://www.caranddriver.com/features/g15381133/honda-civic-models-history/

I don’t have specific suggestions, but there are a LOT of prepper books / prepper-ish fiction books of varying quality that, if you can suffer through the author’s political or religious stance, can inspire some thoughts.

Shortly before it’s clear that it’s time to leave the country. Once it’s clear that you need to leave the country, presumably many other people will have had the same realization, creating challenges in actually leaving, either due to immigrant/refugee resources becoming overloaded or due to destinations restricting access because of that overload . Presumably, if this were a desired course of action because of the MAGA regime, you would want to have already identified a viable destination and have real preparations well underway.

Keep a low profile. Asking “what to do in a police state” even pseudnonymously on an online forum is probably a bad idea. Get in the habit of leaving your cell phone at home, powered on, when you go out. Carefully, and mostly passively, identify similarly-minded folks (both in views and in discretion) in case you need help from others, and figure out how to get in a pattern of interacting with them in ways that are difficult to monitor.

Being old and documented as having chronic health issues is probably a good way.

Cash is king, as long as the currency has value, and if you have an established pattern of being more of a cash person than a credit/electronic transaction person. Doing something with a nontrivial amount of cash if you otherwise have a pattern of using cards/electronic transactions would draw unwanted attention.

If you’re concerned about currency being devalued in the future, you’d want to have a nice stockpile of silver, perhaps a little gold, and portable, durable trade goods. I’ve seen recommendations that having a stockpile of common-caliber ammunition for trade purposes could be useful in the event of societal collapse, but it might be problematic in a police state scenario.

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Also:

Which I have not read, but is at the top of my less than practical list.

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I had a thread on the AO about democratic backsliding, never read the book, but I assume it was inspired by that, or a promo article on it, that seems like the right timeframe.

I think I would become too depressed about it if I read it now.

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What about just picking up a few thousand Euros? Maybe open a foreign account and keep a thousand Euros cash in a safe at home? Are things going to be so bad that dollars and Euros will both be worthless?

Bitcoin, foreign denominated ETFs, etc. But when SHTF physical is what you want, so always good to keep a bit of that around.

If you’re confident that “things going south” would be US-focused and not-so-bad that international commerce survives, then yes, strong international currency would be fine.

However, if you wanted to prepare for the possibility of a SHTF-type scenario where organized domestic commerce suffers a near-collapse, and/or to inoculate against the possibility that Europe (or whatever international currency you might consider) also takes a hit in currency valuation… precious metals should retain purchasing power (to the extent there is stuff to purchase / perhaps requiring the use of a black market in some scenarios), and in a total collapse or war scenario… people are willing to do a LOT for a roll of good toilet paper.

Do you not have banks like Wise that allow you to hold multiple currencies in the same account? I have GBP/EUR/USD accounts with them.

Nice thing about Wise is that its an internet bank (mostly used to get better FX rates when converting to other currencies) so its already decentralised (No main physical location just a banking license).

A little more than 1 month in, making steady progress:

A few books crossed my path that looked interesting, dunno if they’ll make it into the 2026 plan but we’ll see: