Fourth Turning – Page 11 – The Burning Platform

An Offer You Can’t Refuse

By Doug “Uncola” Lynn via TheBurningPlatform.com

We read to know we’re not alone.

Although that particular truism is often mistakenly attributed to the author C.S. Lewis, it was actually William Nicholson who wrote those words in his 1989 play “Shadowlands”, a story about C.S. Lewis.

Indeed. The power of words. And perhaps many of us out here in the interwebic blogosphere write to know we’re not alone as well.

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Especially during times like these.

We use words to comfort and curse, to encourage, to promise, to teach, buy, sell, debate, learn, manipulate, lie, share, seduce, pray, preach, promote, warn, and even survive.

In the aforementioned play, “Shadowlands“, there is another quote that many now reading this may also find relevant to our times:

….pain is God’s megaphone to rouse a deaf world. Why must it be pain? Why can’t he rouse us more gently, with violins or laughter? Because the dream from which we must be wakened, is the dream that all is well.

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The Conspiracies are Broad and Deep

By Doug “Uncola” Lynn via TheBurningPlatform.com

The major premise for tactics is the development of operations that will maintain a constant pressure upon the opposition

– Saul Alinsky, “Rules for Radicals”

Accuse your enemy of what you are doing, as you are doing it to create confusion.

– Marxist maxim

Who controls the past controls the future. Who controls the present controls the past.

– George Orwell, “1984”

I’m just a normal guy who started a blog three years ago, so I won’t claim to be officially credentialed for political commentary. I’m not a boots-on-the-ground reporter or even a writer, per se, although I was published nationally before my blogging career; just primarily pursuant to business and technical concerns. Regardless, given our times, I feel I’d be remiss for not sharing my personal observations – even if that is all I have: observations. Hence, the blog.

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Technological Trends are Arrows Pointing Toward Inevitability

By Doug “Uncola” Lynn via TheBurningPlatform.com

In the movie “I, Robot” the actor Will Smith played a detective who distrusted robots. But all of the other characters in the film believed he was paranoid because, after all, what could possibly go wrong? And therein lies the irony of technology today: The human mind can conceive of the most imaginative ways to apply science while simultaneously ignoring the warnings from history and the pernicious potentialities of Pandora’s Box.

The fifth article I posted on my blog was dated three years ago today. It was titled “How to Transplant a Human Head” and remains, even now, as one of my favorites; perhaps because it so directly addressed the Pandora’s Box of my own fear. In that article, it was described as follows:

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The Physics of Karma Transcends the Perfidy of Billionaires

By Doug “Uncola” Lynn via TheBurningPlatform.com

When I was in second grade, my class took a field trip whereby we walked through a cemetery and the county fairgrounds. We were strongly advised not to throw rocks by our gym instructor who was assisting our teacher on the trip. He was a large muscular man and had a Swedish-sounding name. He said to us kids: “Don’t even THINK about throwing any rocks! If any of you do, you will be in big, big, BIG trouble!”

Well, he should have never given me the idea. Because while walking through the fairgrounds, there were so many metal roofs on the buildings. So I picked up a round heavy stone and lobbed it as high as I could before it landed on what sounded like a giant cymbal.

“Who did that?!” screamed the teachers as over 20 tiny fingers pointed my way. The big gym teacher suddenly loomed over me, blocking out the sun. “Why did you do that?!” he asked me in a loud voice.

Of course, I had no answer for him other than “I don’t know” which I stated simply while squinting up at him. But I remember the feeling very well. Today, it would be summarized as: “Because, F*CK you, that’s why”.

Thus began my life of crime.

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DEMORALIZED, DEPRESSED, DETACHED & DEFIANT

I’ve now been running The Burning Platform blog for over ten years. It’s been over eleven years since I wrote my first article – Why We Need Ron Paul – in May 2008 during the Republican primaries. I really thought I could change enough minds through my writing to influence voters and help wake up people to the truth about our deteriorating financial situation. I would send op-eds to my local paper, and they would publish them. My articles on Seeking Alpha in 2008/2009 were the most read and commented on their site.

My assessment of the Wall Street banks, coming financial crisis and recession were accurate enough that I was being sought out by Glenn Beck on CNN, Neal Cavuto on Fox, and Maria Bartiromo on CNBC to be interviewed on their shows. I didn’t want that kind of attention, since it would likely have negatively impacted my day job – which actually supported my family.

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Everyone Wants to Win and Nobody Likes Being Wrong

By Doug “Uncola” Lynn via TheBurningPlatform.com

The axiomatic adages contained in the title of this article would be labeled as common sense by most Americans; especially Americans because, in the United States, everyone loves a winner. It’s also true no one ever wins by being wrong – unless in the instances of dumb luck or corruption and these never ensure long-lasting success.

Of course, the inverse of this article’s title would be: Everyone wants to be right and nobody likes to lose. And, particularly, in America, the land of the free and the home of the brave. The shining city on a hill.

Such are the stories we tell ourselves.

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There is No Actual Law or Justice in the B.E.A.S.T. System

By Doug “Uncola” Lynn via TheBurningPlatform.com

In recent decades, public confidence in our institutions has declined. Our governing class has often been paralyzed in the face of obvious and pressing needs. The American dream of upward mobility seems out of reach for some who feel left behind in a changing economy. Discontent deepened and sharpened partisan conflicts. Bigotry seems emboldened. Our politics seems more vulnerable to conspiracy theories and outright fabrication.

– Former President George W. Bush – October 19, 2017

People young and old will puzzle over what it felt like for their parents and grandparents, in a distantly remembered era, to have lived in a society that felt like one national community. They will yearn to recreate this, to put America back together again. But no one will know how.

– Strauss and Howe: “The Fourth Turning”, FIRST EDITION, page 252

Once in a land of plenty, free people united together to create one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. They worked hard. They innovated, created, and prospered. Before long, however, a group of greedy men secretly met on a remote island and developed a scheme to capture the entirety of the nation’s wealth.

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Politicians Promote Murder, Mayhem, & Terror to Propagandize Political Agendas & Consolidate Power

By Doug “Uncola” Lynn via TheBurningPlatform.com

In his 1991 book, “Behold a Pale Horse”, former United States Naval Intelligence Briefing Team member William Cooper warned of a secret initiative by the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency. In this sinister plan, described by Cooper near three decades ago, a project called “Orion” was revealed whereby drugs and hypnosis were to be used on mental patients coerced into shooting children in schools. The plan was to inflame the anti-gun lobby and cause middle class Americans to beg their government “protectors” into obliterating the 2nd Amendment.

The government encouraged the manufacture and importation of military firearms for the criminals to use. This is intended to foster a feeling of insecurity, which would lead the American people to voluntarily disarm themselves by passing laws against firearms. Using drugs and hypnosis on mental patients in a process called Orion, the CIA inculcated the desire in these people to open fire on schoolyards and thus inflame the antigun lobby. This plan is well under way, and so far is working perfectly. The middle class is begging the government to do away with the 2nd amendment.

– Cooper, Milton William. (1991). “Behold a Pale Horse”, Light Technology Publications, page 225

On June 28, 2001 William Cooper told of Osama Bin Laden’s connections to U.S. intelligence and even predicted 911. Eight weeks after the Twin Towers fell in New York City Cooper was shot and killed at his home in Eagar, Arizona while resisting arrest.

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FOURTH TURNING ECONOMICS (PART TWO)

In Part One of this article I laid out the unsustainable economic conditions which will drive the next phase of this Fourth Turnings and detailed the economic factors which drove the previous three American Fourth Turnings.

Strauss and Howe, when writing The Fourth Turning in 1997, did not know the exact circumstances and events which would propel the next Turning. But their study of economic and demographic trends along with the attitudes of generations and historical precedents in prior Fourth Turnings, led them to conclude the driving factors of this Crisis would be debt, global disorder and civic decay.

As I watch what is currently happening in this country and around the world, it is evident to me they nailed it. The volcanic eruption in 2008 unleashed a torrent of molten lava, which continues to flow along channels of distress, but is currently threatening to burst free of these channels and wreak worldwide financial and physical devastation. A multitude of possibilities described by Strauss and Howe below are already happening or will happen in the next few years.

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FOURTH TURNING ECONOMICS

“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

The quote above captures the current Fourth Turning perfectly, even though it was written more than a decade before the 2008 financial tsunami struck. With global debt now exceeding $250 trillion, up 60% since the Crisis began, and $13 trillion of sovereign debt with negative yields, it is clear to all rational thinking individuals the next financial crisis will make 2008 look like a walk in the park. We are approaching the eleventh anniversary of this crisis period, with possibly a decade to go before a resolution.

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Did U.S. Attorney General Barr Just Trade James Comey’s “Memogate” for “Spygate”?

By Doug “Uncola” Lynn via TheBurningPlatform.com

Awakened Americans realize the nation’s system of justice now remains at a crossroads. Either the Deep State cabal including the likes Comey, Clapper, Brennon, McCabe, Clinton, Strozk, Page, Ohr, and others will continue on their book tours and talk show circuits – or they will face prosecution at the whim of U.S. Attorney General William Barr; as the country now awaits reports from Inspector General Michael Horowitz on FISA Abuse and corruption in the Department of Justice; U.S. Attorney John Huber on Clinton Foundation illegalities; and U.S. Attorney John Durham on the origins of Russiagate.

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Five Faulty Premises of Russiagate

By Doug “Uncola” Lynn via TheBurningPlatform.com

Having watched some of the questions to former Special Counsel Robert Mueller by congress on Wednesday July 24, 2019, as well as Mueller’s dithering deflections – it was obvious the entire affair was another distraction; more of the same ongoing circus show.

Of course, no minds were changed. Those on the Left still consider Trump to be a comprised capitalist pig guarding his tax returns with all the fervor of any good Manchurian Candidate and those on the Right still viewing Mueller as a tyrannical tool of the Deep State.

After Mueller’s live testimony, this blogger listened to roughly thirty Americans calling into CNBC with their comments. Of those callers, only three were in support of Trump and with the rest of them effusively expressing gratitude to Mueller for his service in revealing Trump’s threat to American Democracy.

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America’s Well-Documented Decline Amid Wars in the Air

By Doug “Uncola” Lynn via TheBurningPlatform.com

In 1976, some of the families sharing older ancestral lineages in my hometown were asked to march together in our bicentennial parade. Although I was at an age where I found it somewhat embarrassing, I did enjoy waving at my friends and schoolmates along the way. Especially the girls.

Although the Saccharine Seventies manifested as a tarnishing patina on the silver platter of Norman Rockwell’s America, much of the shine still remained then in my hometown; even in the years before Ronald Reagan’s repolishing as the table was set again for his 1984 “Morning in America” commercial.

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It Is What It Is

By Doug “Uncola” Lynn via TheBurningPlatform.com

I was in a gathering of folks when a dispute escalated between a husband and wife over what has now become the title of this article. During our discussion someone recited those words and the wife divulged how much she hated that statement. After quietly listening to the exchange for a few moments, the husband spoke up and said: “Well that must be more proof of how opposites attract, because I LOVE that phrase and I say it all the time!”

Which may have been part of the reason why the wife disliked the expression, but I wasn’t about to go there.

Instead, I mentioned how that particular shibboleth of sorts was surely defined in the minds of the beholders. On the one hand, its utterance could be an excuse – even a fatalistic expression derived from laziness or defeatism. Or, like the purveyor of produce in Ayn Rand’s epic tome, “Atlas Shrugged” – when Dagny Taggart asked the grocery vendor why she didn’t move her product from out of the sun and into the shade and her reply was: “Because it’s always been that way”.

Oh, the world sucks? Of course it does. Why bother.

It is what is.

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Time Passages & Fears Emergent

By Doug “Uncola” Lynn via TheBurningPlatform.com

A few months ago I had this dream. I’m driving alone at highway speed on a causeway over a large body of water. The road was just a few feet higher than the rippling waves. Suddenly, I noticed a black mini-van about fifty yards to my left, bobbing on the water’s surface. The hood and front wheels were submerged and its tail-end began to rise as the vehicle sank in a manner similar to the scene from Titanic – it was going down bow first.

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