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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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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Lots of Little Thomas Paines (But No General Washington)

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About a year-and-a-half ago, a man named Vincent commented on one of my YouTube political music videos by posting, “You wrote a GREAT letter of resignation to that ridiculous, feckless university. You’re another Thomas Paine. I salute you, sir!”

The video, titled “Take Your Mask and Your Vax (and Shove ‘em Where the Sun Don’t Shine),” was part of an essay that I wrote describing how a university client of mine had fired me from my work-at-home job because of my refusal to get the Biden-mandated COVID vaccine. My essay contained a letter of “resignation” that the university required me to write (to justify their firing of me, from their Orwellian perspective). I worded that letter as a protest statement, which the YouTube commentator seems to have liked, prompting his Paine analogy.

Needless to say, I am no Thomas Paine! But I was flattered and amused by the man’s nice comment.

Where are the protests supporting Trump?

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FOUR HORSEMEN OF THE APOCALYPSE ON THE MARCH

“The least-bad scenario is a hard landing, global recession worse than the 1930s. The worst-case borrows from the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse: war, famine, pestilence, and death.” – Kenneth S. Deffeyes

Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse - Wikipedia

“When hopes and dreams are loose in the streets, it is well for the timid to lock doors, shutter windows and lie low until the wrath has passed. For there is often a monstrous incongruity between the hopes, however noble and tender, and the action which follows them. It is as if ivied maidens and garlanded youths were to herald the four horsemen of the apocalypse.” – Eric Hoffer

I don’t pretend to be a biblical scholar or have any particular expertise in interpreting scriptures, and certainly not the Book of Revelation, supposedly written by John of Patmos during the reign of Roman emperor Domitian sometime between 81 AD and 96 AD. But I did suffer through twelve years of Catholic school, with plenty of time reading the bible for homework assignments. I know many people take everything in the bible literally. I do not adhere to that understanding. I believe most, if not all, of the bible is parables and symbolism written by men as a means to guide early Christians in how they should live their lives. The wisdom imparted by these writers is vast and deep. The Book of Revelation is the most apocalyptic, mysterious, and prophetic.

I would agree with scholars who say Revelation does not refer to actual people or events but is an allegory of the spiritual path and the ongoing struggle between good and evil. But, as our modern-day world seems to be coming apart at the seams, the battle between good and evil is reaching a zenith, only seen at crucial turning points in history.

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THIS DAY IN HISTORY – Thomas Paine publishes “The American Crisis” – 1776

Via History.com

“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 his country; but he that stands 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.”

Continue reading “THIS DAY IN HISTORY – Thomas Paine publishes “The American Crisis” – 1776”

QUOTES OF THE DAY

“There can be no criminal intent in resisting injustice.”

Lysander Spooner

“War has all the characteristics of socialism most conservatives hate: Centralized power, state planning, false rationalism, restricted liberties, foolish optimism about intended results, and blindness to unintended secondary results.”

Joseph Sobran

“There’s nothing more dangerous than someone who wants to make the world a better place.”

Banksy

“When extraordinary power and extraordinary pay are allotted to any individual in a government, he becomes the center, round which every kind of corruption generates and forms.”

Thomas Paine

QUOTES OF THE DAY

“In government, the scum rises to the top.”

Friedrich Hayek

“Foreign aid is taking money from the poor people of a rich country and giving it to the rich people of a poor country.”

Ron Paul

“I’m afraid, based on my own experience, that fascism will come to America in the name of national security.”

Jim Garrison

“No country can be called free which is governed by an absolute power; and it matters not whether it be an absolute royal power or an absolute legislative power, as the consequences will be the same to the people.”

Thomas Paine

QUOTES OF THE DAY

“The problem is that democracy is not freedom. Democracy is simply majoritarianism, which is inherently incompatible with real freedom. Our founding fathers clearly understood this.”

Ron Paul

“The ideal tyranny is that which is ignorantly self-administered by its victims. The most perfect slaves are, therefore, those which blissfully and unawaredly enslave themselves.”

Donald James

“It is the duty of the patriot to protect his country from its government.”

Thomas Paine

“Every government is run by liars and nothing they say should be believed.”

I.F. Stone

QUOTES OF THE DAY

“The greatest fallacy of democracy is that everyone’s opinion is worth the same.”

Robert A. Heinlein

“Historically, much of the motivation for public schooling has been to stifle variety and institute social control.”

Jack Hugh

“Governments lie; bankers lie; even auditors sometimes lie: gold tells the truth.”

William Rees-Mogg

“War is the gambling table of governments, and citizens the dupes of the game.”

Thomas Paine

QUOTES OF THE DAY

“The strength and power of despotism consists wholly in the fear of resistance.”

Thomas Paine

“No country can squander itself to prosperity on the ruin of its taxpayers.”

Herbert Hoover

“You don’t have a right to a house, you don’t have a right to a job, you don’t have a right to medical care.”

Ron Paul

“Financial dependence on the state is the foundation of modern serfdom.”

G. Edward Griffin

QUOTES OF THE DAY

“In individuals, insanity is rare; but in groups, parties, nations and epochs, it is the rule.”

Friedrich Nietzsche

“Equality – stupid in theory, evil in practice.”

Dave Smith

“When extraordinary power and extraordinary pay are allotted to any individual in a government, he becomes the center, round which every kind of corruption generates and forms.”

Thomas Paine

“After a shooting spree, they always want to take the guns away from the people who didn’t do it. I sure as hell wouldn’t want to live in a society where the only people allowed guns are the police and the military.”

William S. Burroughs