“A
Crisis mood does not guarantee that the new governing policies will be well
designed or will work as intended.
To the contrary: Crisis eras are studded with faulty leadership
and inept management—from President Lincoln’s poor record of choosing generals
to President Roosevelt’s colossal blunders with such alphabet soup agencies as
the AAA, NRA, and WPA.
What makes a Crisis special is the public’s willingness to let
leaders lead even when they falter and to let authorities be authoritative even
when they make mistakes.
Wars become more likely and are fought with efficacy and finality.
The risk of revolution is high—as is the risk of civil war, since the community
that commands the greatest loyalty does not necessarily coincide with political
(or geographic) boundaries. Leaders become more inclined to define enemies in
moral terms, to enforce virtue militarily, to refuse all compromise, to commit
large forces in that effort, to impose heavy sacrifices on the battlefield and
home front, to build the most destructive weapons contemporary minds can
imagine, and to deploy those weapons if needed to obtain an enduring victory.” – Strauss
& Howe – The Fourth Turning
- ………….
………Strauss and Howe’s analogy of what a Fourth Turning would be
like is very much apt to what we are experiencing at this very moment, just
replacing blizzard with pandemic.
“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.” – Strauss & Howe – The Fourth Turning
I would venture to say this Crisis is truly reshaping the basic
social and economic environment we have taken for granted for the last few decades.
This week, the same corrupt politicians who rammed through TARP and bailed out
the criminal Wall Street banks in 2008/2009 and threw you under the bus, will
pass a massive $2 trillion stimulus package written by banking and corporate
lobbyists that no one voting on it has read – let alone the American public……….
……The propaganda media will tout the few thousand bucks thrown
at the plebs who have lost their jobs and the billions in loans to keep small
businesses afloat. Meanwhile, the Wall Street bankers and the mega-corporations
will receive trillions in bailouts either directly from the taxpayers or behind
the scenes from the Fed. The very same executives who used debt to buyback $7
trillion of their own stock will be rewarded for their outrageous greed and
stupidity by being bailed out by you – AGAIN.
…….I’m seething with anger at how the financiers and central
bankers have destroyed my country and the economic future of my children. We
are experiencing a never-ending corporate coup and a deeply entrenched Deep
State foiling any attempts to reform the system.
…… Our economic situation was already unsustainable before
our leaders purposely chose to create this second Great Depression. The country
had very little debt entering the twin emergencies of the Great Depression and
World War II. We don’t have that luxury this time. These desperate fiscal and
monetary measures will not work. Trust in the financial system is plummeting.
Tens of millions are seeing their retirement savings evaporate in a matter of
weeks – again.
As the domestic situation
worsens, what will our reckless, arrogant, egomaniacal leaders do? They will
capitalize on the anger towards China and try to provoke a military engagement
with them, and probably Russia through NATO. Nothing like a war to distract the
people from being screwed by their leaders. Plus, it would have the added
benefit of employing disgruntled young men as cannon fodder – oh I mean heroes.
……Strauss and Howe were
certainly accurate in their assessment of the risks on the horizon. Up until
now, this Fourth Turning seemed rather sedate and slow moving. But decades
worth of events just happened in the last three weeks and we are headed into a
whirlwind of trouble, with the fate of our country hanging in the balance. Are
you ready to fight for a better future? It’s time to decide. It’s time to take
control away from those who have failed us.
