Embracing Realism with an Attitude of Pessimism and a Foreboding Sense of Fatalism

By Doug “Uncola” Lynn via TheBurningPlatform.com

 

We perceive our civic challenge as some vast, insoluble Rubik’s Cube. Behind each problem lies another problem that must be solved first, and behind that lies yet another, and another, ad infinitum. To fix crime we have to fix the family, but before we do that we have to fix welfare, and that means fixing our budget, and that means fixing our civic spirit, but we can’t do that without fixing moral standards, and that means fixing schools and churches, and that means fixing the inner cities, and that’s impossible unless we fix crime. There’s no fulcrum on which to rest a policy lever. People of all ages sense that something huge will have to sweep across America before the gloom can be lifted – but that’s an awareness we suppress. As a nation, we’re in deep denial.

– Straus and Howe (1997):  “The Fourth Turning”, FIRST EDITION page 2

 

The books Generations (1992) and The Fourth Turning (1997) by historians William Strauss and Neil Howe identified and categorized recorded cycles of history across multiple cultures and eras.  Both books analyzed the timelines of historical events and correlated them to specific life cycles identified as generational “types”.   Strauss and Howe addressed the concept of time in the context of both circular and linear perspectives.  In so doing, they described the “saeculum” as a “long human life” measuring approximately 80 to 90 years and comprised of four turnings, each lasting around 20 to 22 years.

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CORRUPTION, CHAOS, CONFLICT – FOURTH TURNING ERUPTS IN 2024

“Americans today are increasingly polarized, as if they constitute two separate nations.” Strauss & Howe – The Fourth Turning

broken American flag

“THESE are the times that try men’s souls. The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of their country; but he that stands by it now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman. Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered; yet we have this consolation with us, that the harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph.”Thomas Paine – The American Crisis

Thomas Paine wrote these words 247 years ago, in the most historic year in our history – 1776. That was during the first American Fourth Turning. It’s not a coincidence we are now in the midst of our fourth Crisis period in U.S. history, as they arrive like clockwork every 80 years or so, the length of a long human life. Paine’s American Crisis began in 1773, ignited by the Boston Tea Party and the British reaction to this revolutionary act of defiance. Our current Millennial Crisis was triggered by the Federal Reserve/Wall Street/Government created financial disaster in 2008 and subsequent outrageously desperate, totalitarian, un-Constitutional, extreme acts designed to keep the ruling class in power, while impoverishing and enslaving the masses in a surveillance state techno-gulag.

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Blobocracy

Guest Post by Jim Kunstler

Neocon war is unpopular, ugly, venal. Worst of all, it is unsuccessful – meaning instead of ending in triumph and celebration, it persists as a confusing, contradictory and costly problem multiplier. …Neocons are the Dylan Mulvaneys of American politics, albeit with less sincerity and self-awareness. Karen Kwiatkowski

The American Revolution was a long emergency, too. Try to see past the elegant uniforms, the dashing horsemen, and the beautiful, unspoiled country to imagine the darkness of uncertainty those people lived in, trying to go their own way against an implacable, distant authority. This holiday we admire the birth of that new nation, though it has aged into a monster repudiating its finest achievements: liberty and the rule of law. The DC Blob is the new distant, implacable authority, and many of us are not happy with it.

By happenstance lately, out and about, I met up with several old friends and attempted to check-in with where they stood on these matters — how are things going in our country? The phrase our country seemed to make their heads snap back a little and their eyes goggle. Their answer, uniformly, was “Trump, Trump, Trump,” issued as a sort of barking. Trump’s criminal insults to democracy must be stopped, was the drift.

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RISE TO REBELLION – A FOURTH TURNING PERSPECTIVE

“I do not say that democracy has been more pernicious on the whole, and in the long run, than monarchy or aristocracy. Democracy has never been and never can be so durable as aristocracy or monarchy; but while it lasts, it is more bloody than either. … Remember, democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts, and murders itself. There never was a democracy yet that did not commit suicide. It is in vain to say that democracy is less vain, less proud, less selfish, less ambitious, or less avaricious than aristocracy or monarchy. It is not true, in fact, and nowhere appears in history. Those passions are the same in all men, under all forms of simple government, and when unchecked, produce the same effects of fraud, violence, and cruelty. When clear prospects are opened before vanity, pride, avarice, or ambition, for their easy gratification, it is hard for the most considerate philosophers and the most conscientious moralists to resist the temptation.” John Adams

Ten Great Revolutionary War Paintings, 1775-1790 - The American Revolution Institute

“A Constitution of Government once changed from Freedom, can never be restored. Liberty, once lost, is lost forever.” John Adams

I have bookshelves filled with books I haven’t read yet. I’m a collector of books who doesn’t have much time to read but plans to spend my waning years catching up on all the reading I’ve been unable to do while working, blogging, and raising a family. Still, I always have one or two books on my nightstand being read in fits and starts. After finishing a Grisham novel, I sought another book to occupy my time from my living room bookshelf. I grabbed Rise to Rebellion, a Jeff Shaara historical novel I had purchased at a used bookstore in Wildwood, NJ many years ago.

I don’t know why I chose that book from the dozens of options on the bookshelf, but it seems to have been a wise choice given the current state of affairs in the world. I always find the wisdom and courage of our founding fathers to be a beacon of light in the darkness slowly engulfing the world as we approach the denouement of this Fourth Turning, the fourth, and hopefully not last, in U.S. history. Probably without knowing it, most of Shaara’s historical novels revolved around events during the first three Fourth Turnings.

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ARE PUTIN AND XI GRAY CHAMPIONS?

“Long, long may it be, ere he comes again! His hour is one of darkness, and adversity, and peril. But should domestic tyranny oppress us, or the invader’s step pollute our soil, still may the Gray Champion come” ― Nathaniel Hawthorne, The Gray Champion

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“Who is this gray patriarch? That stately form, combining the leader and the saint…could only belong to some old champion of the righteous cause, whom the oppressor’s drum had summoned from his grave.” – Nathaniel Hawthorne

There is a misunderstanding regarding the Gray Champion of this Fourth Turning. The misunderstanding revolves around thinking there is only one Gray Champion, they are hugely popular, always do the right thing, and are universally admired for their leadership traits. Nothing could be further from the truth. In previous Fourth Turnings, there have always been multiple Gray Champions, often at war with each other, who were not popular or necessarily good men.

What they always are is single-minded, tenacious, ruthless, and intent on winning at any cost. Their followers are inspired, and their enemies despise them. There is no middle ground when it comes to opinions about Gray Champions. They generally don’t fight the battles, but shape the strategy, inspire the troops, or mobilize the citizenry to action.

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FOURTH TURNING 2022 – BAD MOON RISING (PART FOUR)

In Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3 of this article I examined the power of propaganda and the use of fear to invoke a mass formation psychosis on millions of weak-minded victims of global elitist psychopaths weaponizing a flu as part of their plot to Reset the world as lords of a global fiefdom, with the lowly peasants owning nothing and being happy to be permitted to live. The trillions in debt created by central bankers and debased political hacks, play acting as wise all-knowing leaders, are also part of the plan to crash the global economy and further the aims of these globalist billionaires and their parasitic front men.

The third segment of this unholy trinity has been the engineered civic decay spawned by the traitorous deeds of politicians, who have encouraged the invasion of over two million illegal freeloaders, aided domestic terrorists (BLM & Antifa) in burning and looting our cities for a year, facilitated the teaching of degeneracy to our children, and have pitted family against family, friend against friend, employer against employee, over a Big Pharma experimental therapy that doesn’t do anything but enrich those peddling it, injuring and killing millions, and tearing the last vestiges of our civil society to shreds.

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FOURTH TURNING 2022 – BAD MOON RISING (PART THREE)

In Part One & Part Two of this article I laid out how those in power have used the power of propaganda and the psychology of fear to weaponize a flu to further their Great Reset agenda, while ensuring an economic and financial collapse through the issuance of trillions in unpayable bad debt. In Part Three of this article, I will examine how the civic decay in our society, created by the ruling class, will coalesce into a bloody firestorm of death and destruction during the remaining years of this Fourth Turning.

“One does not establish a dictatorship in order to safeguard a revolution; one makes the revolution in order to establish the dictatorship.”George Orwell, 1984

“The masses never revolt of their own accord, and they never revolt merely because they are oppressed. Indeed, so long as they are not permitted to have standards of comparison, they never even become aware that they are oppressed.”George Orwell, 1984

There had been a theory discussed a few years ago regarding the nature of Fourth Turnings alternating between externally focused and internally focused. It is more about the key drivers, as all Fourth Turnings are impacted by domestic and foreign influences. Even though the sample size is small, this Fourth Turning appears to be following the alternating pattern. The American Revolution was driven by conflict with a foreign power (Great Britain), with another foreign power (France) tipping the scales in favor of the patriots. The Civil War was almost entirely a domestic internal conflict, with Great Britain not fully supporting the Confederacy, and tipping the scales in favor of the North. The Great Depression was created by global central bank machinations, with World War II almost entirely fought on foreign soil, leaving the U.S. as the unchallenged leader of the free world after 1945.

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FOURTH TURNING 2022 – BAD MOON RISING

“Try to unlearn the obsessive fear of death (and the anxious quest for death avoidance) that pervades linear thinking in nearly every modern society. The ancients knew that, without periodic decay and death, nature cannot complete its full round of biological and social change. Without plant death, weeds would strangle the forest. Without human death, memories would never die, and unbroken habits and customs would strangle civilization. Social institutions require no less. Just as floods replenish soil and fires rejuvenate forests, a Fourth Turning clears out society’s exhausted elements and creates an opportunity.” – Strauss & Howe – The Fourth Turning

Coronavirus: Is Germany doing enough to slow the outbreak? | Germany | News and in-depth reporting from Berlin and beyond | DW | 14.03.2020

“Institutions will be increasingly bossy, limiting personal freedoms, chastising bad manners, and cleansing the culture. Powerful new civic organizations will make judgments about which individual rights deserve respect and which do not. Criminal justice will become swift and rough, trampling on some innocents to protect an endangered and desperate society from those feared to be guilty. Expect a loss of personal privacy. Fourth Turnings can be dark times for the free spirit: Just as one kind of official may have new authority to do something for you, another kind—some hastily deputized magistrate—may have new authority to do something to you.”Strauss & Howe – The Fourth Turning

It’s been almost a year since my annual look ahead at the upcoming year. Last year’s article FOURTH TURNING DETONATION was a big picture overview of where we stood during the thirteenth year of this ongoing Fourth Turning Crisis. I had given up trying to make specific predictions because the twenty-year length of a Crisis period does not lend itself to specificity within a given year. My comment at the beginning of the article was:

“Predicting the actual events which will occur over a short-term time frame is a fool’s errand, so I prefer to try and discern the direction and amplitude of the ongoing Crisis to gauge how we should prepare for what is coming.”

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Global Elite “Fear A Rebellion Is Brewing”, Says CEO Of Large Doomsday-Bunker Builder

Authored by Mac Slavo via SHTFplan.com,

According to the CEO of one of the world’s largest doomsday bunker builders for the elitists, those who are in power currently fear a “rebellion” of those who they are ruling over.

Ron Hubbard, the CEO of Atlas Survival Shelters, while being interviewed by The Canadian Prepper tells us right away, the ‘bunker building business‘ is exploding as the elitists begin to fear the masses waking up.

We know we are slaves, and those who have followed this blog know we aren’t “losing freedom” but we never had freedom.  What we are losing is the illusion that we are free. But the rest of humanity is finally waking up and evolving past needing masters to enslave them and steal the fruits of their labor.

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IT’S A FOURTH TURNING: WHAT DID YOU EXPECT?

“Reflect on what happens when a terrible winter blizzard strikes. You hear the weather warning but probably fail to act on it. The sky darkens. Then the storm hits with full fury, and the air is a howling whiteness. One by one, your links to the machine age break down. Electricity flickers out, cutting off the TV. Batteries fade, cutting off the radio. Phones go dead. Roads become impossible, and cars get stuck. Food supplies dwindle. Day to day vestiges of modern civilization – bank machines, mutual funds, mass retailers, computers, satellites, airplanes, governments – all recede into irrelevance. Picture yourself and your loved ones in the midst of a howling blizzard that lasts several years. Think about what you would need, who could help you, and why your fate might matter to anybody other than yourself. That is how to plan for a saecular winter. Don’t think you can escape the Fourth Turning. History warns that a Crisis will reshape the basic social and economic environment that you now take for granted.” – The Fourth Turning – Strauss & Howe

What You Should Know About Getting Snowed In - CLC Lodging

“In retrospect, the spark might seem as ominous as a financial crash, as ordinary as a national election, or as trivial as a Tea Party. The catalyst will unfold according to a basic Crisis dynamic that underlies all of these scenarios: An initial spark will trigger a chain reaction of unyielding responses and further emergencies. The core elements of these scenarios (debt, civic decay, global disorder) will matter more than the details, which the catalyst will juxtapose and connect in some unknowable way. If foreign societies are also entering a Fourth Turning, this could accelerate the chain reaction. At home and abroad, these events will reflect the tearing of the civic fabric at points of extreme vulnerability – problem areas where America will have neglected, denied, or delayed needed action.” – The Fourth Turning – Strauss & Howe

I’ve been pondering this Fourth Turning in articles since its spectacular onset in September 2008, with the Wall Street/Federal Reserve initiated global financial implosion. The description above is apt, as this ongoing two-decade long storm gains intensity and our freedoms, liberties and rights are slowly extinguished as the electricity flickers and our modern civilization reverts to a more brutish state of antipathy among competing tribes, based on race, gender, class, party, geographic location, and now medical status.

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One if by Land, Two if by Sea, Three if from within thee

Submitted by Known Associate

Via American Greatness

‘We Will Not Pay’

Warren climbed the wide steps from Marlborough Street to the door of the Province House, the old mansion with its Tudor-style chimney stacks and ornate gables built a century ago by a wealthy Boston merchant. But for generations now it had been the residence of the royal governors of Massachusetts. For a moment he studied the large royal seal affixed over the door, a reminder of the awesome empire that the governor represented, then looked above it to the eight-sided cupola crowning the mansion, noting the weathervane at the very top shifting in the breeze. It had always fascinated him as a child, the beaten copper weathervane of an Indian with its glass eyes and feathered bonnet, the Indian’s bow drawn, the arrow pointed in whichever direction the wind pushed it.

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WHO IS SHAKING THE JAR? (PART 2)

In Part 1 of this article I documented the never ending false narratives used by those shaking the jar to keep us at each other’s throats. I will now show how 2020 was a turning point in history, with an accelerating decline of our empire in progress.

FOURTH TURNING ECONOMICS (PART TWO) – The Burning Platform

The numerous examples of how those holding the jar shake it to generate conflict and chaos to achieve their Machiavellian ambitions pales in comparison with what they accomplished during the fateful year of 2020. They began shaking the jar at hypersonic speed by weaponizing the annual flu, giving it a scary name and then faking data to scare the entire world into lockdowns and mandatory masking, even though “science” said neither of those “solutions” worked against viruses. And the science was right.

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FOURTH TURNING DETONATION (PART TWO)

In Part One of this article, I discussed the dramatic events that shaped 2020 and will continue to have a major influence on the direction of this Fourth Turning moving forward. The immense power of Mordor on the Potomac seems to be unassailable, but the little people still have a chance if they utilize their skills and intelligence to the utmost.

dc-mordor | Political Film Blog

Now that Trump has been defeated and cast into oblivion by the forces of Mordor on the Potomac, those who have some knowledge about generational theory and the course of previous Fourth Turnings have lamented Trump is not the Grey Champion and they were misled by believing he was their hero. How could he be the Grey Champion if he lost? I do not profess to be an expert, as I am just trying to understand the underlying forces driving this Fourth Turning towards its climax, but losing a battle in a long war does not disqualify Trump as a Grey Champion. The Grey Champion character was born from the writings of Nathaniel Hawthorne.

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“Who is this gray patriarch? His hour is one of darkness, and adversity, and peril. That stately form, combining the leader and the saint…could only belong to some old champion of the righteous cause, whom the oppressor’s drum had summoned from his grave.”Nathaniel Hawthorne

Continue reading “FOURTH TURNING DETONATION (PART TWO)”