Sunday, November 04, 2012

The Irrepressable Tides of History



Thom Hartman has spoken often of a book called "The Fourth Turning" and the main article of this blog is on that subject and we'll get to it.  But first I'd like to remind everybody of the sort of narrow minded hypocrites that actually are attracted to Mitt Romney.  Judy called in the middle of the afternoon to complain more about government people from the city coming in to inspect her house, and of course it’s all Obama’s fault.  Judy says she implicitly trusts Romney’s character.  What did I tell you?  She also went on a rant against monetary paracites in California tilting the elections tword the democrats.  She said that people are liars and irresponsible.  She again said virtually the whole of the Media can’t be trusted because it’s all part of a long-range Bolshivick Communist ploy to tear down the morals of America and institute a Socialist system.  There were a lot of thoughts I had, but I knew the quicker I ended this conversation, the better for me.  Judy talked about "What was better for America.  It's funny how both of us claim to have the same moral guidepost and arrive at such opposite conclusions.  I reminded Judy that I too have suffered economically during these past four years with the renters rebate gone, medical co pay tripples, and prices generally up all around.  This is just she tried to intone that I was "one of these liberals who just votes democratic because they're only looking for a hand-out.  Judy's fondest desire is to endeavor to pidgeon hole her adversaries as "shallow", which I have never been, but Judy is not one to be dictated to by the Fact Checkers, either.  Saturday in class Dr. Levy betrayed his apprehension about whether Romney would be elected President when he said, "And next week if Obama gets reelected don't you dare gloat.  I don't want to see eye rolls or anything!  Cowards have been "fore arming themselves" since Maurice in "The Heiress" getting Katheryn a promise that no matter what her father, Austin, said, that she would always stick by him.  So Austin faces down Maurice and declares, "So you fore armed yourself by securing a promise like that from my daughter, did you".  And then he added a rather poignent thought.  He said "She should not be pleading for you, but rather you should be pleading for her".  If Obama wins it is in spite of every lie and deceit and trickery in the book, and every terrorist act of bigotry and hatred.  It is despite the fact that my adversaries have probably out verbiaged me five to one and still could not win.  It is despite the fact that I have often been cowed and kept silent for fear of belittlement, however unwarrented.  And now Dr. Levy says, "Don't gloat".  I'm not going to agree to that!


Strauss & Howe wrote these words in 1997. They had predicted the arrival of another Crisis in this time frame in their previous book Generations, written in 1990. This wasn’t guesswork on their part. They understood the dynamics of how generations interact and how the mood of the country shifts every twenty or so years based upon the generational alignment that occurs as predictably as the turning of the seasons. The last generation that lived through the entire previous Crisis from 1929 through 1946 has virtually died off. This always signals the onset of the next Fourth Turning. The housing bubble and its ultimate implosion created the spark for the current Crisis that began in September 2008, with the near meltdown of the worldwide financial system. Just as the stock market crash of 1929, the election of Lincoln in 1860, and the Boston Tea Party in 1773 catalyzed a dramatic mood change in the country, the Wall Street created financial collapse in 2008 has ushered in a twenty year period of agony, suffering, war and ultimately the annihilation of the existing social order.

We have experienced the American High (Spring) from 1946 until 1964, witnessing America’s ascendancy as a global superpower. We survived the turbulent Consciousness Revolution Awakening (Summer) from 1964 until 1984, as Vietnam era protests morphed into yuppie era greed. The Long Boom/Culture Wars Unraveling (Fall) lasted from Reagan’s Morning in America in 1984 until the 2008 Wall Street/Federal Reserve spawned crash. The pessimism built to a crescendo as worry about rising violence and incivility, widening wealth inequality, and the splitting of the national consensus into extremes on the left and right, led the country into a winter of discontent. The Global Financial Crisis (Winter) has arrived in full fury and is likely to last until the late 2020’s. It will be an era of upheaval, financial turbulence, economic collapse, war, and the complete redefinition of society, as the existing corrupt status quo is swept away in the fury of powerful hurricane winds of change. History is cyclical and we’ve entered the most dangerous season, when the choices we make as a nation will have profound long lasting implications to the lives of future unborn generations.
The linear thinkers and so called progressives who believe that history charges relentlessly forward and human ingenuity overcomes all obstacles as the world becomes progressively richer, advanced, and humane ignore the lessons of history that have been re-written every 80 to 100 years for centuries. Generational theory is so simple that even an Ivy League intellectual economist, corrupt congressman, or CNBC anchor bimbo could grasp the basic concept. The four turnings in the ongoing cycle of history match a long human life. There is a reason we forget the lessons of the past. Those who remember the lessons die off after 80 years. The linear thinking status quo keep predicting an improving economy based upon their beliefs that the next fifteen years will proceed in a similar fashion to the last fifteen years. They refuse to acknowledge we’ve entered a new era that cannot be reversed to a previous point in time. Once you’ve experienced the harsh bitter winds of the Winter, you have to deal with months of depressing darkness, harsh conditions, and stormy weather before experiencing the return of the warm breezes of Spring. The tranquil days of autumn are long gone. This dynamic can be clearly visualized by comparing our economic situation in 2007, prior to entering this Fourth Turning, to our economic situation today:
There is nothing normal about our current economic situation. The unfunded liabilities at the Federal, State and local levels of government accumulate to over $200 trillion. Do the facts detailed above lead you to believe we can return to pre-2007 normal in the near future, or ever? Not only has the economic situation of the country deteriorated enormously, the very culprits who created the disaster are more powerful than they were before the global catastrophe caused by their criminal risk taking. The largest Wall Street banks control 74% of all the deposits in the country, up from 66% in 2007, and double the levels from the mid-1990’s. These bastions of capitalism wield all of the power in this country, dictating who wins elections, who writes the laws, and who benefits from the distribution of wealth. Only in a corrupt, crony-capitalist, citadel of kleptocracy could the perpetrators of the greatest theft of national wealth in the history of mankind be rewarded with taxpayer financed bailouts, the ability to borrow an unlimited amount of fiat currency at 0% from a Central Bank they control, write the new banking regulations and be applauded by their corporate mainstream media for becoming even Too Bigger to Fail. This Fourth Turning will ultimately come down to a clash between the people and the Wall Street filth.

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