It didn’t take long after the attacks on the power substations in Moore county, North Carolina for the old Civil Defense guys in the ham radio community to start ranting about the “Shit Hitting The Fan” in their email lists. Talking about how State emergency response groups are woefully unprepared or – more to their point – disconnected from the ham radio community.
While we disagree with the statist approach to their solutions, they’re not wrong about the problems. If power, Internet, and cellphone systems all go out, that leaves people vulnerable. Elderly people, people with disabilities, people living with food insecurity, etc. You know, the working class.
Prior to 9/11, the number one threat to national security in the eyes of United States government was not from Islamic Extremists, nor “Illegal Aliens”, nor “The Chinese”, but from American white supremacists. The anti-Black racism, homophobia, xenophobia, and hatred of poor people that existed before 9/11 never went away. Instead, it was redirected towards a War on terror, a War on Drugs, and a War on “Illegal Immigration”. The hatred was focused on external perceived threats to cishet white male Christian hegemony.
So now, there are power substations being attacked, likely by white supremacists.
In the case of Moore county, North Carolina there’s a possibility that the ideological target was the local LGBTQ+ community due to a drag show that was happening at exactly the same time. The physical target, however, was anyone who uses electricity.
While the motivation for the attack in Moore County is yet to be confirmed, the plausibility of terrorist attacks on critical infrastructure targeted at marginalized communities in both the present and future is very real. Regardless, the effect is the same.
Due to the known fact that many police and their ilk are either fascists or simply sick bastards in their own right, it should be understood that state-based solutions to communications outages are neither tenable, nor necessarily desirable for many people.
With that said, it may be obvious to us that having a ham radio base station at the local police department monitoring for emergency traffic may not be so desirable. What may not be obvious is that police departments tend not to want people calling them over the radio either.
https://unicornriot.ninja/2022/the-far-right-fascination-with-the-electric-grid/
So what is to be done? The short, very general answer – and probably the most important – is to build dual power in the form of networks of solidarity and mutual aid. But here are a few ideas.
What already exists? NCPACKET, APRS, solar panels, batteries, flashlights, candles, heaters.
What should we build? As always, build community, bases of knowledge, networks of mutual aid and solidarity.
What does that look like? Queering ham radio and building Community mesh networks.
Pick up some FRS, MURS, GMRS or CB radios for your friends and neighbors. Come up with a comms plan and practice.
