Merchants Say The Apocalypse Is Good For Sales

Never know when you might need that blowgun. Or that book of tips, called “The Breath of Death,” on how to use it to the most deadly advantage.

Then there are the gas masks, books on urban warfare and tank trap construction, underground fallout shelters that double as wine cellars and containers for burying at least a year’s food in the front yard.

After all, you’ve got to be prepared when your own government comes to get you.

That, anyway, was the pitch made at Preparedness Expo ‘95, a paranoia-fest extraordinaire where vendors cashed in on public fascination with the Ruby Ridge and Waco debacles.

Vendors played to the fear, some even while making fun of it.

Brad Logue, dressed in battle fatigues and wearing face camouflage paint, knew a hot market when he saw one. “We are doing better this year than ever before.”

He offered everything from army fatigues to combat rations and gas masks at his Expo booth, set up at the Seattle Center exhibition hall.

Next stop for Logue: the Soldier of Fortune show in Las Vegas.

“Most of us know the United Nations isn’t going to get us, take our guns, and put us in concentration camps. But some people here do believe that.”

Like some of the other vendors, for instance.

“All you have to do is look at Waco, Ruby Ridge and the LAPD and know that your government is out of control. That it will plant evidence, kill you, and say it was in self-defense,” said Joel Wallach of San Diego, who was hawking alternative medicines.

“The average person has understood that for a long time.”

Promoting Powell

Colin Powell is hot in Seattle.

The general and maybe politician drew hordes of admirers at book signings in Puyallup and Seattle Thursday. People stood in line for hours in driving autumn rains just to get his autograph.

Dave Barber of Washington Citizens for Colin Powell has already kicked off Powell’s campaign for the presidency.

“This guy’s clearly running and we need to get organized so he can win,” said Barber, a City of Seattle employee and Democrat who took time off from work to recruit volunteers at the book signings to kick off a Powell for President campaign.

The organization also bought ads in every major newspaper in the state to drum up support and money for a Powell presidential bid.

About 4,000 people already have agreed to volunteer for Powell, Barber said.

All this when Powell hasn’t even said if he’s running. “He’s got charisma,” Barber explained.

Million-dollar contest

Impoverished tribes that say they need slot machine gambling to survive will wage a $1 million campaign for Initiative 651, which would permit unrestricted gambling on tribal land.

Leaders of the Spokane, Shoalwater Bay and Puyallup tribes painted a dark picture at a recent news conference in Seattle of poverty among Indians.

Voters will have to sort out the poverty described by the tribes and the fantastic cash tribes nonetheless have poured into the campaign.

Two tribes, the Puyallups and Spokanes, already have put more than $500,000 into the measure to get it on the ballot, state records show.

And another $500,000 probably will be spent on the campaign before it’s over, campaign organizers said.

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