Ep. 515 - Exploring Homesteading, Preparedness, and Community: A Freedom Cell Network Update

In just two and a half years, the Freedom Cell Network has seen remarkable growth, now boasting a membership of 39,746 individuals at the time of this recording.  Are you intrigued by the idea of joining this network?  Tune in to learn how you can connect with like-minded individuals both virtually and in your local area, and take the first steps toward creating your own Freedom Cell. 

Join us in this episode as we delve into the world of homesteading, preparedness, and community building.  Rob takes us on a journey through his experiences with the Freedom Cell Network, from his first experience with it in early 2021 to where it stands today.  Discover the evolution of this decentralized network and Rob's future aspirations within it. 

Don't forget to explore the show notes for convenient links to all the resources discussed in this episode. Find out how you can get involved and embrace a life with greater personal freedom. 

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Connect on Social Media!


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Cover Photo Credit:   Freedom Cells

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Discussion Links:

Ep. 309 - The Merry-Go-Round of My __________ Life
#5 of the Top 5 Episodes in the Show History

Ep. 114 - The Freedom Cell Network
#4 of the Top 5 Episodes in the Show History

John Bush: Agorism and Decentralization to Counter the Great Reset

Agorism

Freedom Cells
Freedom Cells are peer to peer groups organizing themselves in a decentralized manner with the collective goal of asserting the sovereignty of group members through peaceful resistance and the creation of alternative institutions.

Freedom Cell Manual - Working Draft

Thou shalt not commit logical fallacies - (https://yourlogicalfallacyis.com/)

Medina County Middle-Cadre Freedom Cell Network (FCN)

• Medina County Middle-Cadre Freedom Cell Network - Telegram Group

The State of Ohio Meta-Cadre

• The State of Ohio Meta-Cadre - Telegram Group

The Survival Podcast - Episode-148- Bug Out Planning and Documentation

The Survival Podcast - Episode-474- Disaster Probability, Impact and Commonality

The Survival Podcast - Episode-1654- The Basics of Prepping for the Real World 

Transcript

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SPEAKER_02 0:00

If we stand together, we'll never fall.

unknown 0:08

We can make a difference.

SPEAKER_00 0:10

Hi there and welcome back to another episode of the All Around Growth Podcast. My name is Rob Kaiser and I am your host. Today is Tuesday, September 12th, 2023, and this is another episode of a show where we continually talk about personal growth and development in seven aspects of our life: financial, physical, personal development, family, spiritual, social, and career. We talk about growth and development of the homestead here at York Meadow Farm and a number of other things as we approach the three-year anniversary of this show. And as we get closer to the three-year anniversary of the show, we are doing a little bit of time travel and revisiting the top episodes of the show, the top episodes all time, the ones that were most popular with the audience. Last week we covered episode 309, the Merry Go Round of My Professional Life, an episode that was originally released on March 21st, 2022. And if you missed last week's episode, I'll go ahead and link to that along with the original episode 309 in the show notes. And today we are going to revisit episode number 114, an episode titled The Freedom Cell Network. And that episode was originally published on March 9th, 2021. This is the fourth most popular episode, and it's actually tied with the very first episode, an introduction to the all-around growth podcast. So we're going to revisit that next week on the show. But today we're going to talk about the Freedom Cell Network, which was, like I said, episode number 114, published on March 9th, 2021. And I'm going to share, like I said, I'm going to link to this episode so you can listen to the original episode. And I will share my experiences with the Freedom Cell Network and my thoughts on the Freedom Cell Network today while revisiting the show notes from that episode and kind of reflecting back on where we are about two and a half years after this original episode was released. Now, for those of you who aren't familiar with the Freedom Cell Network, Freedom Cells are peer-to-peer groups organizing themselves in a decentralized manner with the collective goal of asserting the sovereignty of group members through peaceful resistance and the creation of alternative instructions. There are some guidelines and some concepts and a bunch of notes about the Freedom Cell Network if you're interested in this. And what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna play a little bit of a video where John Bush talks about the Freedom Cell Network. But before I do that, I think it's worth pointing out that the Freedom Cell Network and the concepts of agorism go hand in hand. And for those of you who may not be familiar with what agorism is, agorism is a social philosophy that advocates creating a society in which all relations between people are voluntary exchanges by means of counter economics, engaging with aspects of nonviolent revolution. That may not be the best definition of what agorism is. That's a definition that I pulled from Wikipedia, and we all know that Wikipedia is not necessarily the best source of information or the best way to obtain a solid definition on things, but I think for the purposes of this discussion, it is sufficient. So to provide a little bit of additional detail on what freedom cells are and the purpose that they serve, I'm going to share with you a little clip of a recording from John Bush where he talks about agarism and the Freedom Cell Network, and I will link to this recording in the show notes. And for your reference, I am beginning the recording at approximately nine minutes and eight minutes and fifty-seven seconds to be specific. So here, without further ado, here is what John Bush has to say about the Freedom Cell Network and specifically the problems that can be addressed by the Freedom Cell Network and the solutions that it provides. So let's hear what John Bush has to say.

SPEAKER_01 5:07

At the end of the day, I believe the solution lies in community, in networks, in people working together for mutual aid, for mutual defense, and achieving common goals. And that's exactly what we're aiming to do with the Freedom Cell Network. Freedom Cell Network, it was an idea I came up with in 2014, right around this same time when I'm starting to hypothesize and strategize what is it? There's so many people, this voluntarist community, right? A lot of folks that are into the idea of anarchism, which is the absence of rulers, right? And we're like, we want to live free, but there's so many people that don't live free and that continue to participate in these coercive paradigms, even though they don't want to. I started thinking, well, what what is it that we're missing here? And I came to the conclusion that it's strength in numbers, right? The lone wolf, the lone guy that's not going to pay his taxes, or that tries to stand up to the police officer that's brutalizing someone. He gets a felony, he gets arrested, he has his property taken away. But what if there's 10,000 of us, which there is now, 13,000 actually, in the Freedom Cell Network? What if there's a hundred thousand of us? What if there's a million of us that all are working together, right? And as I talked about earlier, there's this dual paradigm where we want to protect ourselves and insulate ourselves from traditional tyranny and from the incoming technocracy that's growing at such an alarming rate. But we want to create alternatives and we want to create an environment, we want to create institutions and systems and networks where we as human beings can live together and we can fulfill our nature as free, beautiful human beings, right? And that's what the Freedom Cell Network used to do. It's essentially agorism in action because we're building an agora, we're building a market, we're building a community, a network of free people that are cooperating together, and it's a very beautiful thing. It all centers around the intercadre group of approximately eight people. We choose the number eight. There's some research by this guy, John David Garcia. He found that eight people is the optimal number of people for maximum creativity. So you get your group of eight, intercadre group, work together on common goals, having food storage, uh coming together, and having a network of people that can defend one another if they need to, having off-grid communication, having encrypted communication, having a bug out plan. The goals are really up to you. We just like to start by encouraging those goals because we're living in some trying times and it's good to be prepared. But you could have a Freedom Cell group that works together on homeschooling for the kids. Your goals are we're gonna chip in and buy a homeschool curriculum. We are going to divvy up the time that's spent with the children teaching the children. We're going to do a weekly field trip, we're going to have a weekly meeting with the parents so they can do a support group and talk about what's working in their family, what's not working. We can share ideas. You can have a spiritual freedom cell group where the goals are we're going to do yoga together, we're going to meditate together, we're going to all read this great book by Tik Not Han together and discuss it, right? And uh, we're going to have a little accountability group. You can have a mastermind for entrepreneurship. You can do whatever the heck you want, but the point is working together with a small group can really enhance the effectiveness and creativity and help you to implement and achieve goals, right? But here's where the magic comes in. Take that group, intercadre group around eight people, and you link up with seven other groups of around eight people.

SPEAKER_00 8:32

Okay, so there you go, guys. That's the general gist of it. Now, I could continue playing the recording where John Bush talks about the intercadre and then the additional seven groups that you would connect with to form a middle cadre, and then listen to him talk about the middle cadres connecting with seven other additional groups to form a metacadre. But I'm not going to do that. Like I said, I will link to this recording titled John Bush Agorism and Decentralization to Counter the Great Reset, which was originally recorded and released on January 26th, 2021. And I will link to that in the show notes for your reference if you are interested in this. Now, you may have noticed that John Bush said at this time we are a group of 10,000, 13,000 to be specific. And in January of 2021, the Freedom Cell Network did number approximately 13,000. At this time, the Freedom Cell Network, according to their website, which is freedomcells.org, numbers 39,746. Okay, so where am I at with the Freedom Cell Network in September of 2023 compared to uh March 9th of 2021? We are two and a half years from this original recording from when I initially spoke about the Freedom Cell Network, and here is where we're at. Okay. Um I first learned of the Freedom Cell Network, I created several groups on the Freedom Cell website. I also created several groups on Telegram, and one of the groups that I created on Telegram was the Medina County Middle Cadre Freedom Cell, the State of Ohio Metacadre Freedom Cell, and there is also a chat for the State of Ohio Metacadre Freedom Cell, which I think Tony created to serve as a platform for unrelated freedom cell discussion. Um and uh that's not as active, and there's not as many members in the other groups. But for the Medina County Middle Cadre Freedom Cell, there are 22 members in the Telegram group, and for the State of Ohio Metacadre Freedom Cell, there are 88 members in the Telegram group. On Freedom Cells itself, freedomcells.org, the groups that I am involved in, and the groups that uh I have helped create, if you will, um are as follows. There is a group called Medina GSD, and that is an acronym for Get Shit Done, which is kind of a little hashtag, a little acronym that comes from the Survival Podcast, um hosted by Jack Spearco. That's something that he had come up with, and something that a lot of people utilize in their own vernacular when talking about what it is that they're doing in that in their life. Um, there is also a group, the Medina County Middle Cadre Freedom Cell Network group on freedomcells.org, and there is also the State of Ohio Metacadre Freedom Cell Network. Now, this group, the Medina County group, was active two months ago, and the Ohio Metacadre group was active eight months ago. There are 29 members in the Medina County Freedom Cell Network group, and in the State of Ohio Metacadre group on Freedom Cell Network, there are 26 members there. Now, like I said, this group was active two months ago. There hasn't been a whole lot of activity in these groups. Now, why is that? Um I don't know. I will say that when I first learned of the Freedom Cell Network in 2021, I thought it was an awesome idea. And I began coordinating events locally. We would meet at a local bar. Uh, the one we met most often at was uh either PJ Marley's uh PJ Marley or Sully's. And uh at the very first event we had uh four people maybe six people show up, and we just had a good discussion about the Freedom Cell Network, the concepts behind it, uh a lot of things that John Bush talked about in this video: agorism and decentralization to counter the great reset. You know, as many of you know, in early 2021, we were still dealing with the ramifications of the COVID time. There were a lot of concerns about you know what was going on, how we could interact with people, and a lot of people were upset with some of the ways in which we were told we could and should interact with people. And um that was the nature of the discussion. Uh, we would have these meetings routinely, and since it was two and a half years ago, honestly, I can't remember if it was monthly or weekly or what, but the second meeting we had four people, the third meeting, only two showed up, and the last meeting, I was the only person there. And at that point in time, um, I think I hosted one other meeting. Again, I was the only one there, and I decided to put a stop to hosting events that no one was attending. Now, why was no one attending? I'm not really sure. Was I doing a good job promoting it? Probably not. Um, was I consistent enough with hosting these events? Uh, probably not. Like I said, we only had four or five actual meetups, and um a lot of people are more comfortable interacting online and discussing these things than actually getting out there and connecting in person. Now, if there was a larger event taking place in the Medina County area or throughout the Northeast Ohio area, it would likely be a little different. I don't want to go so far as to you know try to coordinate something throughout the entire Northeast Ohio area. I felt more comfortable connecting with people in the Medina County area and then organizing a couple of groups for statewide connectivity with people. One thing that I was very much interested in at that time was forming my own, not my own, but but getting connected with people in an inner cadre. And again, like John mentioned, an inner cadre consists of approximately eight people, and that is a singular freedom cell, a small group that's local to you and your own common goals. And like John said, those goals could be homeschooling, the goals could be spiritual, the goals could be you know about food. And I think the nice thing about this is that the ideas behind the Freedom Cell Network very much align with the ideas behind this podcast. You could have a Freedom Cell Network that is aligned around financial freedom. You could have a Freedom Cell aligned around physical freedom, you know, personal development, family, like homeschooling, spiritual, like John mentioned. It could be a strictly social event where you just want to get together and talk about this. You know, socializing, freedom. Or it could actually be a freedom cell that is created to specifically talk about how to grow business and connect with other like-minded people where you conduct business. There, there's a lot of freedom with regard to how freedom cells are organized, and at that time I was interested in forming and trying to connect with people to form a true inner cadre, and the reality is it that idea just kind of faded into the background, it was put on the back burner, so to speak. Uh, the telegram groups did and are somewhat active. Um the Medina County group, which was active two months ago on freedomcells.org, was active last month. The last post was on August 18th, 2023. And the state of Ohio, Metacadre, Freedom Cell, or the Metacadre, uh, rather, is a group on freedomcells.org that was active eight months ago, and the chat on Telegram was last active on August 31st. Technically, uh, it was last active in July with a very real post. We do have a bot in there that helps verify people that joined to ensure that they are not bots, and that is a bot that was developed by Ramiro Romani from the Freedom Cell Network, who is pretty good with tech and helps those of us that use various aspects of technology like Telegram to communicate to ensure that we are not getting spammed out by different bots. So we use a bot to counter the bots. Okay, so there you go. You've got an intercadre of eight people. The idea is that once you've got approximately eight people forming a freedom cell, you connect with seven other freedom cells to form a middle cadre, which eight and eight is about 64. And then once you've got your middle cadre, you connect with additional middle cadres, and you've got a metacadre, and a metacadre group is going to number around 500 people. Now, one of the cool things that is still active is there is a Google Doc that is a manual of sorts, it's a working draft, and it's the link is still valid. And the way that this document is introduced, it reads as follows: this is a living document that will turn into a manual for Freedom Cells groups. Please use the comment function for any feedback you may have. Thanks. Note that we are learning as we go, and some strategies may work better for some groups than others. One of the goals of the Freedom Cell Network is to be a living institution that is self-correcting and evolving. As individuals and groups learn best practices, they are encouraged to share those with the network as a whole so that other cells can learn from them and become more effective. Excuse me. Now, like I said, I'm going to link to everything that I've mentioned here in the show notes for today. I will link to the local Ohio telegram groups, I will link to freedomcells.org, and I will link to I'll link to everything I discussed. And um, you know, within that Freedom Cell manual, there are some guidelines for basic etiquette. I'm gonna cover those uh as well just so you can kind of understand why. What we're looking at with regard to freedom cells. We've there are seven guidelines, and the guidelines for basic etiquette when interacting with the freedom cell network and people within the freedom cell network are one be respectful, two, be open-minded toward alternative opinions. Three, don't attack people. If you are having a debate, criticize the argument instead of attacking the individual. For example, add homonym logical fallacy at the link below. Four, refrain from using derogatory language. Five, familiarize yourself with the basic logical fallacies to promote constructive and reasonable discussion. See your logical fallacy is dot com. And that link is still active, and I will link to that in the show notes as well so you can learn more about what logical fallacies are. 6. Help to create a welcoming space for newcomers. And seven, be proactive and solution oriented. It's important to stand for something rather than solely against something else. And I think seven is really one of the key things that is important when we're talking about freedom, when we're talking about living a life that is outside of the norm, living a life that is a little bit different. You know, we all interact with people in life who constantly talk about all the things that they're opposed to. They're opposed to this, they're opposed to that, you know, they're being oppressed by this institution, they're being oppressed by these people, they're being, you know, but how many people spend a lot of time talking about the things that they stand for, the things that they are in support of? Not many, if you really think about it. And that's why I wanted to revisit this particular episode. That's why I wanted to revisit these top five episodes, because there was something within these top five episodes that resonated with the audience out there, and that's why they are the top five. Apparently, there's something out there within this concept of freedom cells that strikes a chord with people. We're missing something in our lives. We understand that there's something going on out there that we can't really pinpoint. This is one way that we can develop our communities and get involved with people who are of like mind. Now we're not going to find all the people in all the groups and have or be in complete agreement with all of the opinions with everyone everywhere. And that's why there are these guidelines for basic etiquette. We've got to be respectful, we've got to be open-minded toward alternative opinions. We've we you know we've got to keep all of this in mind as we continue to seek and grow our community in order to form our own inner cadre. And as I revisit this today, I realize that that was something at one point in time that I was very interested in. And despite the fact that it went on the back burner, it is still something that I am interested in doing. So here's here's the deal. Medina County is in northeast Ohio, and there's eight people. I'd reached out to a few people in the past, a few people expressed interest, but for whatever reason, collectively, we could never really make it happen. And I think one thing that would be nice is to connect with some people locally that are interested in this idea of an intercadre and at the very least meet monthly to form and discuss the common goals that we have. Okay, and those common goals, for me, are probably going to be something related to uh general preparedness, right? I'm I I'm not the kind of guy that would consider myself uh a prepper in the the the way that it's portrayed on television, but the reality is I'm a prepper, okay? Um I try to have some fuel stores. I I have a generator. Um I try to and I'm in the process of building and developing a homestead and having the resources available here to support my family and the small community of people who work on and around the land so that when things get tough, we can all rely on and count on each other to, you know, get through those tough times. And you know, we had some storms recently, and uh certain people lost power. We didn't, um, but I was able to lend out the generator that I had, all of the extension cords and the adapters and various things that I had to this individual and help him out because he was without power for four days, if I'm not mistaken. Now that left me without a generator, and that kind of leads me to this concept of preparedness where two is one and one is none. If I had a spare generator, I could have lent that out without even thinking twice about it. But I've only got the one, so I will be getting that back soon enough, along with everything else I lent him to make sure that he could keep his various refrigerators plugged in and do everything that he needed to do to support his family. But those those are common goals that I have. Um, and I think one of the things that I'm going to do is link to an episode of the survival podcast that is kind of a prepping 101, kind of a primer for prepping. I don't remember the show right offhand. I've made a note of it in the past, and it's something that I want to revisit. And I think that working with people locally to form an inner cadre would be optimal. But one other idea that I might have is forming a virtual intercadre because I know that I've connected with a lot of people online, and of the network that I've connected with online, I've formed some pretty close relationships with people, people who I've not yet met in person. I look forward to the time and the opportunity when I can meet them in person, but I have a lot in common with them. I've had phone calls with them, uh an extensive discussion via online messaging and whatever platform, be it Facebook, Telegram, both, email, so on and so forth. And I think for those of you who are out there who are interested in these concepts of a Freedom Cell Network, having a virtual inner cadre would be something kind of cool. So if you are one of those people out there and you are one of the people that may be one of the ones that I'm referencing right now, and you're listening to this, and you're interested in forming a virtual inner cadre, then let me know. You can reach me on telegram at t.me slash allaround growth along with the rest of the podcast community. That's where we're most active. You can also drop a message on the link that will be shared on Facebook or Instagram or Twitter. I try to share most of the episodes there as well. And let me know that you are interested in participating in a virtual intercadre. Let's get this thing going, let's hold each other accountable, and let's see what we can do about forming a virtual intercadre, and also try to see what we can do about forming an intercadre with real people in real life. Eight people, one freedom cell, a small group local to you, and your own common goals. And in the virtual intercadre, we can talk about the common goals that we have, we can talk about the action steps that we're taking, meetings that we're having, why they're working, why they're not, and just get some good overall dialogue going. And maybe the virtual cadre is already formed with the Telegram group at t.me slash allaround growth. I don't know. But nevertheless, join us on social media. I would definitely encourage you to join us on Telegram. Go to your internet browser, t.me slash allaround growth. Get involved in the dialogue there. That's where we're most active, and it's a great place to be. There's a great community of people who are also involved in other communities, a lot of people who are interested in these concepts, and it's a great place to connect with people if this episode leaves you with a desire to learn more about that which was discussed today. So, with that, guys, I'm gonna go ahead and wrap it up. I'd like to thank you for listening. I look forward to the next episode where we're going to talk about the introduction to the all-around growth podcast, where I was at that at that point in time, the goals that I had at that point in time, where we're at now, and where we're going in the future. So stay tuned for that. Have a wonderful day and a wonderful week ahead. This is Rob Kaiser, and thank you.