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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2023: FOURTH TURNING MEETS MASS FORMATION PSYCHOSIS (PART 2)

In Part 1 of this article, I laid out the mass formation psychosis theory postulated by Mattias Desmet in his book The Psychology of Totalitarianism and how totalitarian minded politicians and bureaucrats manipulated the masses by creating the covid crisis. Now I will focus on how this will impact the Fourth Turning we are currently trying to survive.

FOURTH TURNING: CRISIS OF TRUST – The Burning Platform

Decades of social indoctrination and degraded ability to think critically has left most people hopelessly unable to resist the vitriolic opinions of those under the spell of coronavirus mass formation. Even though they didn’t necessarily believe the covid narrative, especially when it became clear only the very old (especially when tyrant governors inserted infected patients into nursing homes) and the very obese actually died with covid, these people still went along. Even the CDC admitted only 6% of deaths were attributable to covid alone.

Based upon research like the Milgram Experiment, we know average people will obey authority without question, even when they know their actions are causing pain. The conformity research done by Solomon Asch explains why a huge percentage of the global population just conformed to what appeared to be a majority opinion. Asch’s experiment had 8 test subjects, but 7 of them worked for Asch. They asked them which line was the same length as Exhibit 1. The 7 Asch employees answered C. Only 25% of the case subjects consistently answered A. They were cowed into giving a patently absurd answer due to peer pressure and lack of faith in their own judgement.

Solomon Asch study social pressure conformity experiment psychology

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FOURTH TURNING WINTER OF DEATH

“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.

Worst Storms of All Time - The Ground Blizzard of 1977 - WorldAtlas

“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.” – Strauss & Howe The Fourth Turning

It was less than a year ago on December 16, 2021 when our dementia patient in chief was instructed by his handlers to lie, obfuscate and demonize critical thinking Americans who refused to become victims of the Big Pharma, Fauci promoted, untested, unsafe, ineffective gene therapy by declaring “we are looking at a winter of severe illness and death for the unvaccinated — for themselves, their families and the hospitals they’ll soon overwhelm”. Biden’s vaccine mandates were overturned in the courts. The unvaccinated did not die from Covid. Very few people died from Covid. Some really old and infirm people on death’s doorstep died with Covid. Some very unhealthy obese people died with Covid. But even 95% of the old and unhealthy survived Covid.

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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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FADING SMILE OF A DYING EMPIRE

“All that is human must retrograde if it does not advance.” – Edward Gibbon

“Woe, destruction, ruin, and decay; the worst is death and death will have his day.” – William Shakespeare, Richard II

We moved to our corner of Montgomery County, Pennsylvania twenty-seven years ago. We raised our three boys here. We spent hundreds of hours on local baseball fields, in hockey rinks, in school gyms for basketball games, concerts, plays and donuts-with-dads. It’s still a nice place to live, with virtually no crime, decent roads, and reasonable property tax rates. But I would have to say there has been a degradation in the overall quality of life in my community, which is consistent with the downward spiral of our society in general. When we planted our roots in this community it was still more farm-like than suburban. Family farms and open space were more prevalent than housing tracts, strip malls, fast food joints and cookie cutter commercial buildings. A beautiful farmhouse a few miles from our home, freshly painted white, proudly displayed the iconic yellow smiley face. It symbolized good times.

We’ve been driving on this road for twenty-seven years on the way to baseball games, hockey practices, the car dealer for service, and lately to our gym, as we try to fend off father time.  Driving by that barn in the early days would always brighten your day. A bright yellow smiley face against a white background represented a positive, happy view of the world.

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ARE PUTIN AND XI GRAY CHAMPIONS? (PART 2)

In Part 1 of this article I examined previous Fourth Turnings and the Gray Champions who won and lost, but made a difference in the course of history. Now I will try to peer through the fog of disinformation, lies, and false narratives to try and determine which Gray Champions will make a difference in this Fourth Turning.

Ukraine: The United States are now fighting a proxy war with Russia - REBEL

The U.S. and NATO are playing with fire by poking the bear. This is no longer a limited conflict between Russia and the Ukraine. In the early days of the conflict, there were constant talks between both sides, with the possibility of a negotiated resolution. The American Empire nixed those talks. The neo-cons, representing the interests of the military industrial complex uni-party, see an opportunity to further enrich themselves, while believing they can bleed and weaken Putin. But who is really being weakened in the long run?

Russian Ruble Value in US Dollars, May 10, 2022

Putin’s military operation began on February 24. Oil was $93 a barrel. It is up 13% and despite economic sanctions, Russian oil revenue is higher, and the ruble is at a two year high versus the USD and Euro. Natural gas prices are up 69%. Diesel prices are up 89%. Gasoline prices are up 29%. Wheat prices are up 31%. The stock market is down 5% and at a one year low. As an exporter of oil, natural gas, and wheat, is Russia really suffering from these price increases, or are the citizens of the EU and U.S. bearing the brunt of the pain? Russians are paying $2.80 a gallon for gasoline, while Americans are paying $4.65 per gallon. Who’s winning this proxy war?

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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 (PART 2)

In Part 1 of this article I laid out how the global elite have used this covid flu to manipulate the weak minded into a fear induced mass psychosis as a key element in their Great Reset plan to control the world and keep you technologically enslaved under lock and key. Now I will try to decipher how this mass hysteria might play out over the course of 2022 and beyond.

“Americans today fear that linearism (alias the American Dream) has run its course. Many would welcome some enlightenment about history’s patterns and rhythms, but today’s intellectual elites offer little that’s useful. Caught between the entropy of the chaoticists and the hubris of the linearists, the American people have lost their moorings.” Strauss & Howe – The Fourth Turning

Federal Reserve Just Declared the American Dream is Dead for Most Americans

“The most effective way to destroy people is to deny and obliterate their own understanding of their history.” ― George Orwell

The American Dream, where all Americans, no matter the circumstances of their birth, had a legitimate opportunity to live a better life than their parents, based upon their own intelligence, work ethic, and good fortune, is an illusion in today’s world. The ruling elite have stolen the wealth of the nation and its citizens. This was not an accident, but a plan implemented over many decades, accelerating after Nixon closed the gold window and opened the door to unlimited amounts of debt being created out of thin air and backed by nothing.

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Dear Remnant: The Best Things in Life are Free

By Doug “Uncola” Lynn via TheBurningPlatform.com

An online friend and fellow blogger posted an article on his website last month entitled: “It’s a Fourth Turning, What Did You Expect?”.  Since then, the question has roiled in my mind and my answer remains: “not this”.  Recent events and circumstances are NOT what I expected because, honestly, they are more bizarre than I would have imagined.

Keep in mind the words you’re reading were typed by someone who has been waiting for the bombs to drop since high school. I’ve always had a sense of doom – perhaps due to my curious mind and my innate willingness to apply logic. As a result, I went Galt in the spring of 2011, or about 6 months before Ann Barnhardt, the commodities broker who joined Galt’s Gulch upon typing her epic letter against the corrupt collapse of MF Global.

As a member of Strauss and Howe’s Nomad Generation, my personal alarm bells went off around the time of the Judge Bork non-confirmation and the concurrent Black Monday, in 1987. Next came the stained blue dress, hanging chads, 911, The War on Terror, TARP, and Obamacare. By that time, I figured the jig was up.  Then, it was the Benghazi/YouTube clownshow and by the time the red line in Syria was crossed, I was nestled into my allegorical “bunker” waiting for the TV screens to go static.

Now, Covidism? Nope. Definitely not the Fourth Turning I expected.

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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.

Image for post

“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

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FOURTH TURNING DETONATION

“Americans today fear that linearism (alias the American Dream) has run its course. Many would welcome some enlightenment about history’s patterns and rhythms, but today’s intellectual elites offer little that’s useful. Caught between the entropy of the chaoticists and the hubris of the linearists, the American people have lost their moorings.” – Strauss & Howe – The Fourth Turning

This is not freedom': militarized US Capitol a sign of forever wars coming home | US Capitol breach | The Guardian

“The ancients believed that each cyclical extreme, mirroring the hopes and fears of the other, helps generate the other. The night longs for the day, the day for night. In war, people yearn for relief from strife, leading to peace. In peace, people yearn to champion what they love, leading to war.” – Strauss & Howe – The Fourth Turning

When I started thinking about my annual beginning of the year article in early January, I tried to formulate a catchy title. Knowing we have entered the thirteenth year of this Fourth Turning, with the intensity of the crisis reaching an unparalleled level since November 4, I decided upon Fourth Turning Detonation. I immediately thought that might be too dire and figured I would change it later. After the first few weeks of the new year, I now think it might be grossly inadequate to describe what is coming in 2021.

It is easy to get distracted by the daily gyrations, ceaseless media propaganda, political theater, false narratives, and delusional beliefs of both the left and right, as this military empire built on debt and deceit spirals towards its fiery cataclysmic climax. Opposing forces have gathered themselves into position focusing on defeating their domestic enemies, with the left seeming to have strategic advantage but led by hubristic dullards, while numerous foreign adversaries circle like hungry vultures ready to pounce on the dying beast of an empire.

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QUOTES OF THE DAY

“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

“… we have settled into a mood of pessimism about the long-term future, fearful that our superpower nation is somehow rotting from within.” Strauss & Howe – The Fourth Turning

“The more we persist in believing time to be linear, the more we fear that the path to the future might now be linear downwards.”Strauss & Howe – The Fourth Turning

“The ancients did not fear the seasons of nature (or history) changing as much as they feared them stopping, leaving the world in a perpetual state of cold or hot (or anarchy or despotism).” Strauss & Howe – The Fourth Turning

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FOURTH TURNING ELECTION YEAR CRISIS

“The next Fourth Turning is due to begin shortly after the new millennium, midway through the Oh-Oh decade. Around the year 2005, a sudden spark will catalyze a Crisis mood. Remnants of the old social order will disintegrate. Political and economic trust will implode. Real hardship will beset the land, with severe distress that could involve questions of class, race, nation and empire. The very survival of the nation will feel at stake. Sometime before the year 2025, America will pass through a great gate in history, commensurate with the American Revolution, Civil War, and twin emergencies of the Great Depression and World War II.” – Strauss & Howe The Fourth Turning 

How a contested election could send the U.S. into a constitutional crisis - MarketWatch It's not the chairman of the Joint Chiefs' job to remove Trump from office if he won't leave.

“There is no darkness but ignorance. The devil can cite Scripture for his purpose.” William Shakespeare

I read The Fourth Turning in 2006, after seeing it described in John Mauldin and Doug Casey’s newsletters as an uncannily accurate assessment of American history based upon generational configurations which recur on eighty-year cycles, a long human life. Strauss and Howe wrote the book in 1997 and used their generational theory to predict the Crisis that would begin in the mid-2000’s and come to an indeterminate climax in the mid-2020’s.

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FOURTH TURNING ACCELERATING TOWARDS CLIMAX

“At some point, America’s short-term Crisis psychology will catch up to the long-term post-Unraveling fundamentals. This might result in a Great Devaluation, a severe drop in the market price of most financial and real assets. This devaluation could be a short but horrific panic, a free-falling price in a market with no buyers. Or it could be a series of downward ratchets linked to political events that sequentially knock the supports out from under the residual popular trust in the system. As assets devalue, trust will further disintegrate, which will cause assets to devalue further, and so on. Every slide in asset prices, employment, and production will give every generation cause to grow more alarmed.” – Strauss & Howe – The Fourth Turning

Economists Predict Great Depression II for US Economy: Fast or V ...

I’ve been writing articles about the Fourth Turning for over a decade and nothing has happened since its tumultuous onset in 2008, with the global financial collapse, created by the Federal Reserve and their Wall Street co-conspirator owners, that has not followed along the path described by Strauss and Howe in their 1997 book – The Fourth Turning.

Like molten lava bursting forth from a long dormant (80 years) volcano, the core elements of this Fourth Turning continue to flow along channels of distress, long ago built by bad decisions, corrupt politicians and the greed of bankers. The molten ingredients of this Crisis have been the central drivers since 2008 and this second major eruption is flowing along the same route. The core elements are debt, civic decay, and global disorder, just as Strauss & Howe anticipated over two decades ago.

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