Civil War 4T and this 4T

[Drakus79]

I wrote a new article comparing this Election to the elections of the 1850s.

http://drakus79.tumblr.com/post/14814224...y-election

[Eric the Green]

I certainly agree with your re-dating of the civil war cycle.

I certainly disagree that the Democrats have become "The Establishment," since Bernie did not win. No, that's a deception which the Republicans are trying to pull. But it's patently absurd. The salient point about the DNC is that it essentially adopted Bernie's views. That is the salient point, not the supposed patriotism of the slogans or the fact that Hillary has been in office a long time. The Establishment is the bankers and the corporate elite, the 1%, and not the politicians we elect. And to the extent that The Establishment is the politicians, it is the Republicans who represent that elite, and only that elite. Trump's supposed appeal to the working class is pure deception-pull-wool-over-eyes foolery. Trump represents his class, and his policies would boost his class more than those of any previous candidate. That is patently obvious.

Trump's xenophobia is also typically Republican. Trump did not take over the Republican Party, or change it. The appeal to southern and hard-hat racist fears and prejudice has been the Republican appeal for 5 decades now. There's nothing new to it at all. Trump may have departed from Republican orthodoxy on some issues, most-notably trade, and in very limited ways on a few other things. But that doesn't matter. Bush was pro-immigration, which was also unlike the views of most Republicans. McCain was a maverick who supported action on climate change when he ran. Bush the First even originally called Reagan's economic policies "voodoo." There's usually a bit of variation among Republican candidates. The only major difference between Trump and previous Republican candidates is his outrageous lack of qualification for being president-- due to his background, personality and character as well as his demagogic approach. Most Republicans, though unwilling to change their views very much, found a way to vent their frustration with the status quo--- which they themselves uphold and maintain--- by voting for this clown.

Nice attempt though. Stimulating and articulate.

[MillsT_98]

Wow, that was a fascinating article.

But the problem with libertarianism is that it allows an abuse of power by big businesses, which is what Democrats (mainly progressives like Bernie Sanders) are trying to fight. The early 2010s marked the rise of the Tea Party, which seemed uber-libertarian (at least with economics and government), but many people who opposed the Tea Party opposed the corruption of big business that comes with deregulation. This is why libertarian doesn't work and I will not support it.

To quote Anthony '58:

(07-23-2016, 03:51 PM)Anthony Wrote: There is no such thing as a doctrinaire libertarian.

"Libertarianism" is the biggest fraud in American political history.

If Trump wins, we might see the deregulation of businesses to such an extent, which is bad for the middle class, because the rich will get richer and make everyone else poor. People who aren't elite will become serfs, just like the slaves to the plantation owners before the Civil War. Maybe the Republicans will become like the classical liberal "left" and the Democrats will become the big-government conservative "right". But I doubt the Republicans will become the Party of Lincoln once again.

[MillsT_98]

(07-30-2016, 10:28 PM)Eric the Green Wrote: I certainly agree with your re-dating of the civil war cycle.

Wasn't there something in the old forum saying that the Civil War 4T actually started in 1848 just like Drakus said?

[Eric the Green]

Some people including me said that, yes. I like to claim that I was the first.

Except for "libertarians are not doctrinaire," I too agree with Anthony's statement. Their notion of "freedom" is severely and fatally distorted and flawed. Libertarians, whether from the Party, or whether they support the Libertarian notions of the Republican Party, are supporters of allowing business to do whatever it wants. "Interference" in or regulation/taxation of the economy is considered "big government," and Drakus makes no distinction between the use of "big government" to restrain business power and behavior, and other uses of "big government."

But the real "big government" of our age is business. When allowed to be "free," it creates monopoly and oligarchy. It corners markets, stifles competition, drives out smaller and less greedy competitors, gouges and endangers consumers, destroys our environment, exploits workers, ruins the economy with speculation, and buys the government. These are gross violations of our freedom. Naturally, the rich and powerful corporate business powers want their "freedom," and use that slogan to deceive us into giving it to them. You might just as well give "freedom" to criminals! Capitalism, if it is to work through its inventive and entrepreneurial spirit to spur economic growth, must be allowed, but must be regulated and taxed. Welfare, education and safety nets must be available to all, because business does not provide for those it excludes from the oligarchy and leaves behind and in poverty. Jefferson understood the perils of concentrated wealth to our democracy. It cannot be allowed, or democracy declines and comes to an end. Lincoln understood the crucial role of government investment in infrastructure, just as Elizabeth Warren and Barack Obama do today. Business does not "build" society. Libertarian candidates like Gary Johnson are hopelessly lost in 18th century ideology, and such ideology has never served us well without modification from more leftist ideas.

It takes a broader and smarter view of our society to avoid the popular trap of libertarianism and libertarian Republican slogans, and look beyond its notions of "freedom" and "big government." We have not gotten out of the trap. Until we do, we are doomed as a society.

[MillsT_98]

I hope that Hillary Clinton, if she's elected, will understand this crucial balance between the growth of the free market and regulation so that businesses do not become too large and power-hungry. I hope that she will continue the vision of Lincoln and Jefferson, and ensure that democracy, economic growth, and civil rights will continue. Maybe this vision will become the policy of the new left, as this was the policy of the Democratic Party decades ago.

[pbrower2a]

Perhaps even more significantly, Democrats may have redefined what conservatism means.The new conservatism emerging at the Democratic National Convention this year will likely arise from middle-income groups that have rejected the GOP for its anti-intellectualism and ethnocentrism.  Immigrants and their recent descendants comprise much of the petite-bourgeoisie of small-business owners in America. The new conservatism will respect rationality and learning, practices that the right wing of the contemporary GOP deride.

Republicans used to get a reliably high proportion of small-scale entrepreneurs, but their tax policies have basically established a flat tax on business income.  People cashing out on giant fortunes, people getting gigantic bonuses, or people getting high salaries for treating subordinates badly effectively pay the same tax as a family owning a modestly-successful mom-and-pop restaurant.

Should the Republican Party wither during the latter years of this Crisis Era with the Democratic Party becoming an unwieldy (but still literally democratic -- think of the African National Congress in South Africa) single party, then it will split. Such happened after the Federalists and Whigs faded into oblivion. One Party may become a coalition of libertarians and religious believers while the other becomes a coalition of supporters of an activist government. Maybe we will end up with "Christian Democrats" and "Social Democrats".

America will get a narrow window for major reforms of the political order (closing the seams in our Constitutional system of government) and our culture (especially in education).  Figure that the government might heavily subsidize either technical or vocational education or a prescribed course of liberal arts (the assumption, of course, that such can improve its students) while offering little for any other schooling. The watered-down grad school that is the Multiversity will have to go; it has churned out too many cold-hearted narcissists.

We will likely see high marginal taxes on large unearned incomes and very high salaries.

[guwill]

(07-30-2016, 10:28 PM)Eric the Green Wrote: I certainly agree with your re-dating of the civil war cycle.

I certainly disagree that the Democrats have become "The Establishment," since Bernie did not win. No, that's a deception which the Republicans are trying to pull. But it's patently absurd. The salient point about the DNC is that it essentially adopted Bernie's views. That is the salient point, not the supposed patriotism of the slogans or the fact that Hillary has been in office a long time. The Establishment is the bankers and the corporate elite, the 1%, and not the politicians we elect. And to the extent that The Establishment is the politicians, it is the Republicans who represent that elite, and only that elite. Trump's supposed appeal to the working class is pure deception-pull-wool-over-eyes foolery. Trump represents his class, and his policies would boost his class more than those of any previous candidate. That is patently obvious.

Trump's xenophobia is also typically Republican. Trump did not take over the Republican Party, or change it. The appeal to southern and hard-hat racist fears and prejudice has been the Republican appeal for 5 decades now. There's nothing new to it at all. Trump may have departed from Republican orthodoxy on some issues, most-notably trade, and in very limited ways on a few other things. But that doesn't matter. Bush was pro-immigration, which was also unlike the views of most Republicans. McCain was a maverick who supported action on climate change when he ran. Bush the First even originally called Reagan's economic policies "voodoo." There's usually a bit of variation among Republican candidates. The only major difference between Trump and previous Republican candidates is his outrageous lack of qualification for being president-- due to his background, personality and character as well as his demagogic approach. Most Republicans, though unwilling to change their views very much, found a way to vent their frustration with the status quo--- which they themselves uphold and maintain--- by voting for this clown.

Nice attempt though. Stimulating and articulate.

I am shocked by your statement that the DNC has essentially adopted Bernie's views. The TPP is official DNC platform. A 15/hr minimum wage and universal healthcare are nowhere to be seen. The bankers have OVERWHELMINGLY been funneling cash into the Hillary campaign. Hillary has a stated policy goal of overthrowing the Assad regime, and the Obama administration has started airstrikes in Libya again. The democrats are the war party. They represent the bankers and the military-industrial complex. I apologize for this coming off as somewhat insulting, but are we watching the same election? How can you make any of those claims?

[Bob Butler 54]

(08-05-2016, 11:52 AM)guwill Wrote: I am shocked by your statement that the DNC has essentially adopted Bernie's views. The TPP is official DNC platform. A 15/hr minimum wage and universal healthcare are nowhere to be seen. The bankers have OVERWHELMINGLY been funneling cash into the Hillary campaign. Hillary has a stated policy goal of overthrowing the Assad regime, and the Obama administration has started airstrikes in Libya again. The democrats are the war party. They represent the bankers and the military-industrial complex. I apologize for this coming off as somewhat insulting, but are we watching the same election? How can you make any of those claims?

I'm not so confident that the GOP has fully flipped to being the peace party.  Bush 43 went into Afghanistan and Iraq and started building bases and embassy complexes.  There was all sorts of talk about invading another country after Iraq was stabilized.  If you judge from his building programs, Bush 43 intended to turn Iraq into a puppet state and forward base for further aggression.

This policy is now thoroughly discredited.  Neither the Republicans nor the Democrats are going back to serial preemptive unilateral nation building.  We simply don't have enough boots on the ground available to occupy the Middle East and fight off the inevitable insurrections.  I don't anticipate either party starting a full out ground war without very good answers to Powell's Questions.  Drone strikes, air strikes and special forces squads, sure, but not a full out war.  

The Republicans were isolationist until the live reporting of the London Blitz.  When Mao won the Civil War in China, the Republicans blamed the Democrats for not going in and fighting on the Nationalist side.  Truman should obviously have gotten us involved big time in a land war in Asia.  From that point until Bush 43, the Republicans were generally the war party, voting strong military budgets, talking tough on Communism, though there were Democrats in the White House when we engaged in Korea and Vietnam.  

That's a long tradition by US standards.  I'm not sure things have really changed.  I don't know that we'll be sure where they are really coming from until they are in a position to call the shots.  I suspect some of their current policy is to oppose anything that Obama does.  Currently, Obama seems in their eyes to be weak on terror and too strong in using force against terror.  At the same time.  Different Republicans will take turns attacking him from either side depending on what is in the current news cycle.

I think the Middle East is an ugly mess.  Bush 43 took out Saddam.  Things have gone to pot since.  Saddam was a totally immoral tyrant, but at the same time he was the lid on the pressure cooker.  Bush 43 started the process of bringing the troops home, and Obama continued that.  There was little choice on that short of vastly expanding the US Army and Marines.  There is a certain ratio of occupying forces to occupied population.  If you don't meet that ratio, you can't suppress the insurrection.  Given Republican refusal to raise taxes to support the force required, Iraq was not winnable.  

Assad is another Saddam, though less successful at it after Saddam fell.  With 20 20 hindsight, it might have been better for peace in the region if we left Saddam in power, but Assad is not maintaining peace in the region.  He's a good sized part of the reason the area is unstable.  His rule is intolerable.  The locals will be revolting until he is gone.  There will be no peace until he is gone.  I sympathize with the goal of removing him.

But I don't see us putting massive numbers of troops on the ground.  I don't think either party will want to do so without enough allies for a successful occupation, and that isn't likely to happen.  No one wants to occupy the Middle East these days, for good reason.

Thus, I anticipate sustained status quo, not that I'm pleased with the status quo.

[guwill]

(08-09-2016, 06:27 AM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote:

(08-05-2016, 11:52 AM)guwill Wrote: I am shocked by your statement that the DNC has essentially adopted Bernie's views. The TPP is official DNC platform. A 15/hr minimum wage and universal healthcare are nowhere to be seen. The bankers have OVERWHELMINGLY been funneling cash into the Hillary campaign. Hillary has a stated policy goal of overthrowing the Assad regime, and the Obama administration has started airstrikes in Libya again. The democrats are the war party. They represent the bankers and the military-industrial complex. I apologize for this coming off as somewhat insulting, but are we watching the same election? How can you make any of those claims?

I'm not so confident that the GOP has fully flipped to being the peace party.  Bush 43 went into Afghanistan and Iraq and started building bases and embassy complexes.  There was all sorts of talk about invading another country after Iraq was stabilized.  If you judge from his building programs, Bush 43 intended to turn Iraq into a puppet state and forward base for further aggression.

This policy is now thoroughly discredited.  Neither the Republicans nor the Democrats are going back to serial preemptive unilateral nation building.  We simply don't have enough boots on the ground available to occupy the Middle East and fight off the inevitable insurrections.  I don't anticipate either party starting a full out ground war without very good answers to Powell's Questions.  Drone strikes, air strikes and special forces squads, sure, but not a full out war.  

The Republicans were isolationist until the live reporting of the London Blitz.  When Mao won the Civil War in China, the Republicans blamed the Democrats for not going in and fighting on the Nationalist side.  Truman should obviously have gotten us involved big time in a land war in Asia.  From that point until Bush 43, the Republicans were generally the war party, voting strong military budgets, talking tough on Communism, though there were Democrats in the White House when we engaged in Korea and Vietnam.  

That's a long tradition by US standards.  I'm not sure things have really changed.  I don't know that we'll be sure where they are really coming from until they are in a position to call the shots.  I suspect some of their current policy is to oppose anything that Obama does.  Currently, Obama seems in their eyes to be weak on terror and too strong in using force against terror.  At the same time.  Different Republicans will take turns attacking him from either side depending on what is in the current news cycle.

I think the Middle East is an ugly mess.  Bush 43 took out Saddam.  Things have gone to pot since.  Saddam was a totally immoral tyrant, but at the same time he was the lid on the pressure cooker.  Bush 43 started the process of bringing the troops home, and Obama continued that.  There was little choice on that short of vastly expanding the US Army and Marines.  There is a certain ratio of occupying forces to occupied population.  If you don't meet that ratio, you can't suppress the insurrection.  Given Republican refusal to raise taxes to support the force required, Iraq was not winnable.  

Assad is another Saddam, though less successful at it after Saddam fell.  With 20 20 hindsight, it might have been better for peace in the region if we left Saddam in power, but Assad is not maintaining peace in the region.  He's a good sized part of the reason the area is unstable.  His rule is intolerable.  The locals will be revolting until he is gone.  There will be no peace until he is gone.  I sympathize with the goal of removing him.

But I don't see us putting massive numbers of troops on the ground.  I don't think either party will want to do so without enough allies for a successful occupation, and that isn't likely to happen.  No one wants to occupy the Middle East these days, for good reason.

Thus, I anticipate sustained status quo, not that I'm pleased with the status quo.

Bob, I think you inadvertently summarized what I consider a core problem in our country: we are convinced there are only two parties. My post had nothing at all to do with the GOP, they were not even mentioned, and your response went right to the GOP (assuming them the only other option). In this election cycle, even with two of the most despised candidates in history, we still cannot seem to get past that. If every independent actually voted independent, that would be the end of it. It is quite depressing. Each generation has less party affiliation, so I am holding out hope that the millenials can save us.... 

[Odin]

(08-09-2016, 10:26 AM)guwill Wrote: Bob, I think you inadvertently summarized what I consider a core problem in our country: we are convinced there are only two parties.

In a first-past-the-post simple-plurality electoral system with an elected head of government independent of the legislature like we have here in the US a two-party system is completely natural, it is not an establishment conspiracy like some morons like Jesse Ventura want you to believe. American political parties are equivalent to party coalitions in parliamentary countries.

[Einzige]

Quote:the Democrats started as the party of Andrew Jackson, a figure whose background and positions were not too dissimilar from Donald Trump’s, whose ideals were populist, whose voting base was made mainly of the working class, and who had very protectionist trading policies.

Rubbish.

Jackson came from an extremely impoverished Ulster Irish community in North Carolina; Trump's father was a New York business magnate. Jackson and the early Democrats were hardcore laissez-faire free traders; Jackson deplored the protectionism of the Whigs, as did the South altogether.

The only similarities between Trump and Jackson are stylistic ones. His campaign is VERY strongly in the Whig and especially the post-McKinley Republican tradition.

At no point in history until the 1980s was the Democratic Party the more protectionist one. Franklin Roosevelt was a tremendous free trader; Jack Kennedy created the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade. Dick Gephardt Democrats were the exception, not the rule.

[Eric the Green]

(08-05-2016, 11:52 AM)guwill Wrote:

(07-30-2016, 10:28 PM)Eric the Green Wrote: I certainly agree with your re-dating of the civil war cycle.

I certainly disagree that the Democrats have become "The Establishment," since Bernie did not win. No, that's a deception which the Republicans are trying to pull. But it's patently absurd. The salient point about the DNC is that it essentially adopted Bernie's views. That is the salient point, not the supposed patriotism of the slogans or the fact that Hillary has been in office a long time. The Establishment is the bankers and the corporate elite, the 1%, and not the politicians we elect. And to the extent that The Establishment is the politicians, it is the Republicans who represent that elite, and only that elite. Trump's supposed appeal to the working class is pure deception-pull-wool-over-eyes foolery. Trump represents his class, and his policies would boost his class more than those of any previous candidate. That is patently obvious.

Trump's xenophobia is also typically Republican. Trump did not take over the Republican Party, or change it. The appeal to southern and hard-hat racist fears and prejudice has been the Republican appeal for 5 decades now. There's nothing new to it at all. Trump may have departed from Republican orthodoxy on some issues, most-notably trade, and in very limited ways on a few other things. But that doesn't matter. Bush was pro-immigration, which was also unlike the views of most Republicans. McCain was a maverick who supported action on climate change when he ran. Bush the First even originally called Reagan's economic policies "voodoo." There's usually a bit of variation among Republican candidates. The only major difference between Trump and previous Republican candidates is his outrageous lack of qualification for being president-- due to his background, personality and character as well as his demagogic approach. Most Republicans, though unwilling to change their views very much, found a way to vent their frustration with the status quo--- which they themselves uphold and maintain--- by voting for this clown.

Nice attempt though. Stimulating and articulate.

I am shocked by your statement that the DNC has essentially adopted Bernie's views. The TPP is official DNC platform. A 15/hr minimum wage and universal healthcare are nowhere to be seen. The bankers have OVERWHELMINGLY been funneling cash into the Hillary campaign. Hillary has a stated policy goal of overthrowing the Assad regime, and the Obama administration has started airstrikes in Libya again. The democrats are the war party. They represent the bankers and the military-industrial complex. I apologize for this coming off as somewhat insulting, but are we watching the same election? How can you make any of those claims?

The DNC went a long way toward Bernie in their platform, enough to satisfy Bernie. You seem as if you want to have everything you want in a platform of a political party that represents over half the people. I don't think it's possible. Maybe the Green Party would come closer to your views. It doesn't stand much chance of winning this year, though. I am very opposed to TPP too, and am glad Hillary has come out against it. I hope she sticks to it. I thought the DNC agreed to the $15 minimum wage; Hillary did.

Bernie was satisfied that the DNC platform on healthcare brings us closer to universal coverage. It is far better than what the Republicans propose. I don't know where you get the idea that the bankers are backing Hillary and the Democrats. Why do Democrats pass reforms to break them up, and Republicans oppose these reforms? Stuck as we are with this two party duopoly for the moment, one side is clearly better. I think there's just a lot of nonsense from the left about Hillary and the Democrats these days, and I am on the left.

I disagree with the far left on some of this war stuff. The IS needs to be defeated fast, and I support bombing them, in Libya or Syria or wherever they may be. And I support doing it with care, as opposed to Trump's approach of bombing civilians. I don't want unnecessary wars of choice, but to oppose every US military action is foolish, and I disagree. Democrats are not the war party; Republicans are still the war party. Trump might talk of "ending nation building." George Bush Jr. did that too, remember? Off he went to war anyway. An unstable moron who talks of torture and insults our allies is not someone I want in charge of America.

But thanks for your opinion. I'm sure we agree on many things.

[Ragnarök_62]

Burning Platform Wrote:CIVIL WAR II – FOURTH TURNING INTENSIFYING (PART I)
“History offers even more sobering warnings: Armed confrontation usually occurs around the climax of Crisis. If there is confrontation, it is likely to lead to war. This could be any kind of war – class war, sectional war, war against global anarchists or terrorists, or superpower war. If there is war, it is likely to culminate in total war, fought until the losing side has been rendered nil – its will broken, territory taken, and leaders captured.” – The Fourth Turning – Strauss & Howe -1997

As we enter the final stretch of this vitriolic, deplorable, venomous, propaganda saturated, deceitful, rigged presidential election spectacle, it becomes painfully obvious this Fourth Turning is careening toward bloodshed, bedlam, confrontation, and civil war. The linear fixated establishment, who fancy themselves intellectually superior to the irredemables, are too blinded by their sociopathic, increasingly audacious subversion of the Constitution, to grasp the level of rage and disillusionment of a white working class that has been screwed over for decades.
As the Wall Street shysters frantically accelerate their embezzlement of what remains of middle class wealth, with the Fed and the corporate media propagandists as their wing-men, the country devolves into a corporate fascist state. The disposition of the nation grows dark like the sky before an approaching deadly blizzard. As passions boil over and violence portends, this Fourth Turning hastens towards a bloody decade ahead with an uncertain climax.

If you think this is just hyperbole, you either haven’t studied history or your cognitive dissonance and normalcy bias prevent you from seeing the unavoidable societal altering clashes, which occur like clockwork on an eighty year cycle, when the portents are right in front of your eyes. Historian Arnold Toynbee’s great war cycle that arise every 80 years or so, aligns perfectly with the Fourth Turning generational theory. Great wars occur when the generation that doesn’t remember the last catastrophic war ascends to leadership of the country.
We are eight years into a Crisis period which won’t end until the mid-2020s. As this bitterly vicious presidential campaign accelerates towards a finale which will leave the country divided and irate, the hostile opposing forces will be seeking revenge, retribution, and retaliation no matter the outcome. There is no doubt the regeneracy is well under way.
“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 
It was five years ago I spent a couple fascinating hours with Neil Howe, co-author of the Fourth Turning, during the Occupy Wall Street protests. He thought the protests were all passion and no depth, engineered by anarchist Boomers. He was right. I thought OWS might be the start of the regeneracy, but it flamed out quickly. It was only a foreshadowing of what was to come. Whatever event or movement created the regeneracy, it would be driven by the toxic combination of debt, civic decay, and global disorder.
Neil was particularly worried about the Federal Reserve zero interest rate policy and how it was ruining our economic system, creating disincentives to saving and encouraging warped, debt driven speculation. And that was in 2011. The Fed keeping interest rates near zero on behalf of a corrupt establishment for the last eight years has been the primary factor in creating the anger, disillusionment and revolutionary spirit driving the regeneracy.
No critical thinking human being can deny this tumultuous presidential election and its equally turbulent primaries have been fueled by the dreadful self-serving response of the establishment to the 2008 Wall Street created financial collapse; the geopolitical anarchy created by U.S. interventionism in the Middle East; the civic decay created by a failing government educational system; rampant debt financed materialism enabled and encouraged by the financial/media complex; and racial division facilitated by the president and his social justice warrior brethren.
The rescue of Wall Street and destruction of Main Street by the Fed, Wall Street and the captured politicians of both parties in Washington D.C. has created the angry, acrimonious, throw the bums out mood boiling over in flyover America. The widening Grand Canyon gap in wealth between the haves and the have nots, produced by solutions from sociopaths in suits has reached the pitchfork and torch level.
The linear thinking ruling class has been in denial since this Crisis catalyzed in September 2008. Their looting, pillaging and ransacking campaign, designed to enrich and empower a small cadre of shadowy, powerful, wealthy men, had been successful for decades. When you control the currency and interest rates; rig the financial markets; buy the politicians; write the laws and regulations; own the corporate propaganda machines known as the mainstream media; operate a high tech surveillance state; create a dumbed down populace through government school indoctrination; and distract the masses with iGadgets, reality TV, hero worship, professional sports, social media, irrelevant cultural issues, and literally thousands of other modern day bread and circuses; you become arrogant and careless.
These sociopaths are so consumed with their ravenous fleecing of the middle class, waging wars for profit, and shredding the Constitution, they failed to recognize 2008 for the seismic earth shattering event that will change everything. The mood of the country shifted like tectonic plates beneath the nation. The mood continues to grow dimmer, as the peasants grow poorer and the modern day aristocracy (Wall Street bankers, corporate executives, corrupt politicians, shadowy billionaires) accumulate obscene ill-gotten wealth through their complete capture of the system. This perverted, degenerative, criminal degradation of our society is powerfully summed up by Jesse from Jesse’s Café Americain:
“Not all sociopaths wield knives and knotted cords. Some wear suits, and are exceptionally intelligent and articulate, obsessively driven, and are able to use and undermine the law and the rules for their advantage, like weapons.  It is never about the win, never about the money.  It is about the kill, the expression of their hatred, about elevating themselves with the suffering of others. Bind, torture, kill.  Not only with ropes and knives, but also with power and money, and the subversion of law.  Lawlessness is their addiction, their will to power.
When societies become lax and complacent, these sociopaths can possess great political power through great amounts of unprincipled money.  And over time they become almost anti-human, destroyers of all that is good, all that is life, all that offends their insatiable sickness with its goodness.  They twist the public against itself, and turn a broad sweep of society into their killing grounds. This is the undeniable lesson of the last century.  There are monsters, and they walk among us.”
Neil Howe has noted in previous articles the catalyst, climax and resolution of Fourth Turnings can be specifically dated. But the regeneracy is more of an era than a date. With only three previous American Fourth Turnings, I imagined the regeneracy to be a specific event where the American people, faced with growing peril and danger, put aside their differences and rallied around a strong leader to build something new. Boy was I wrong.
In retrospect, the American people were numbed by the Great Depression and the bloody initial battles of the Civil War. They just let FDR and Lincoln do whatever they needed to do. The regeneracy marks a growth in centralized authority and resolute governance at a time of great risk and urgency. I believe this era of regeneracy began at the outset of the presidential primaries early in 2016.
Based upon the reaction of the citizens in the last ten months, the dire problem facing the nation, perceived as the largest threat to our future, happens to be the Deep State establishment currently ruling the country. The captured mainstream media and grey beards running both political parties were completely stunned, horrified, and irate at the unprecedented success achieved by the two anti-establishment candidates, Trump and Sanders.
This election was supposed to follow the script as planned and coordinated by the establishment, with Hillary Clinton defeating Jeb Bush and continuing the corrupt status quo policies agreed to by the bought off leaders of both parties. They badly miscalculated the mood of the country and the whirlwind of change seeking to sweep away the stubborn remnants of a crooked, decrepit, putrid, existing social order. This collective middle finger to the establishment could only happen during a Fourth Turning.
This regeneracy is well under way and is poised to transform and replace the very foundation of this crumbling empire of debt, delusions, and denial. The unanswered question is what happens next. I posed that question to Neil Howe five years ago and he said the specific events of a Fourth Turning are unknowable, but the reaction to those events by the generational cohorts is consistent over time.
We are seeing the reaction of critical thinking Americans as they come to the realization the system is rigged against them. A revolutionary spirit is once again rising among the deplorables. I also asked Neil about the theory Fourth Turnings alternate between external conflicts and internal conflicts. He found the subject fascinating, but didn’t think there were enough data points to make a determination.
Based on the current path of this Fourth Turning, I’m now convinced of this alternating sequence between advancement cycles and atonement cycles. The advancement cycles can be seen as establishing, whereas atonement cycles are disestablishing. It is apparent each Fourth Turning alternates between an external struggle and an internal struggle. The American Revolution was a struggle against an external oppressor – Great Britain.
The Civil War was an internal struggle between the industrial North and the agrarian South. The Depression/World War II struggle was mainly against an external threat – Germany, Japan, and Italy. The American Revolution established our country. There was optimism and elation as a new republic, forged under an enlightened Constitution and led by judicious intelligent men, was born. It was clearly an advancement cycle.
The Civil War disestablished states’ rights, slavery, agrarian society and Constitutional rights. It was an atonement cycle for our actual and implicit sins. There was no glorious high. The resolution felt more like defeat, with the country exhausted, bitter and angry. The country had exhausted itself, spilling the blood of over one million men. The new High after an atonement cycle is like a cold miserable rainy dark Spring.
The Great Depression/World War II Fourth Turning established a new world order led by the United States. As the only major country left unscathed by the ravages of global war, the U.S. became the producer for the world, whose dollar was unquestioned as the currency of global trade. The new High was unleashed with fanfare and adulation. It was like a delightfully warm Spring, with flowers blooming and children frolicking.
All signs point toward this Fourth Turning being a life or death struggle between the ruling class of sociopathic bankers, corporate elites, and sleazy politicians versus the oppressed and infuriated middle class. The lying, deceit, rigging, deception, theft and other crimes perpetrated by the ruling elites will be atoned for. The heroic patriotic revelations from Edward Snowden, Julian Assange, and Bradley (Chelsea) Manning proving the government and politicians to be lying, corrupt, immoral, sociopathic traitors to the Constitution have undermined the last vestiges of trust in the system and the establishment. The alignment of generational dynamics will provoke the responses to events moving forward. We have been badly led. A silent coup by Deep State perpetrators has led to the complete capture of our economic, financial, judicial and political systems.
A vast swath of the populace has been lured into living beyond their means. The existing system is unsustainable. The Boomer generation does not want to yield on their perceived entitlements. The Millennial generation is saddled with un-payable debts, living in their parents’ basements, working the night shift at Ruby Tuesday. Generation X is trapped in the middle of this generational struggle. The huge economic imbalances, created by politicians buying votes and engineering wealth inequality to benefit the few, have built up over decades like flood waters behind a weakening levee. When the levee breaks the morally bankrupt criminal social order will be swept away in the raging torrent to follow.
Winter will eventually turn into Spring, but it might be a bitter, gloomy, austere Spring. Every Fourth Turning brings on forecasts of imminent doom, but that is also a trait of Prophet (Trump, Clinton) Generations. It’s how they feel about the prospects of their imminent die off; they expect the entire world to go with them. The 2008 financial crisis was horrific, scary and an eye opener for those who blindly believed what they were told by their establishment zoo keepers. The regeneracy has begun; trust in the system has further disintegrated; this presidential election has further deepened this distrust of the entrenched establishment; and the coming bust for stocks, bonds, and real estate will knock out the supports for the dwindling remaining trust in this crooked system.
“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.”
Eventually, all of America’s lesser problems will combine into one giant problem. The very survival of the society will feel at stake, as leaders lead and people follow. The emergent society may be something better, a nation that sustains its Framers’ visions with a robust new pride. Or it may be something unspeakably worse. The Fourth Turning will be a time of glory or ruin.” – Strauss & Howe – The Fourth Turning
The next ten or so years will be atonement for decades of bad choices, corrupt leadership, living beyond our means, waging wars of choice across the globe, believing blatant falsehoods, exhibiting willful ignorance, ignoring facts, and failing to uphold the Constitution. Don’t think you can escape the consequences of this Fourth Turning. It doesn’t matter whether you lived according to a moral code, avoided debt, worked hard, paid taxes, and generally lived an upstanding honorable life.
The death and destruction headed our way will engulf the innocent as well as the guilty. I’m reminded of the penultimate scene in Clint Eastwood’s dark, brooding, vengeful western Unforgiven when Little Bill Daggett laments to “killer of women and children” William Munny that he doesn’t deserve to die this way. Munny responds, “deserves got nothin’ to do with it.” Then he pulls the trigger. This is the kind of future we will be dealing with, whether we like it or not.

In Part Two of this article I will use recent polling data to assess where the most likely sparks will arise to start the civil war conflagration which will accelerate the crumbling of the American Empire. To reinforce the obvious, Fourth Turnings NEVER de-intensify. They end after the spilling of much blood, incomprehensible destruction and the total defeat of the vanquished.

[Ragnarök_62]

(11-03-2016, 09:09 PM)X_4AD_84 Wrote: Got a link for that?

Yes.
http://www.theburningplatform.com/2016/1...ng-part-i/

[quote=
In any case, "corporate Fascism" ... blah, blah, blah. And so, as the remedy, hey, let's elect a good old throw back fascist, who's supported by the GRU! Thaaaaaaaaaaaat's the ticket!

[/quote]

Nawwww, I have a better idea.  I prefer:

1. Using whatever virtual Molotov cocktail handy to burn the establishment to smithereens.  You know stuff like buying stuff at thrift stores, making my own tobaccy, and otherwise just opting out of the con$umer economy.


2. You got the "Corporate Fascism" right.
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-11-03...ive-donors

3. GRU?  Uh, no.  Here's a gem from the source, man.

https://sputniknews.com/us/2016101310462...ia-emails/

[Eric the Green]

The coming civil war may engulf us. The question is how will boomers lead and how will millennials move things. And will Xers screw things up as fully as they can, or become the constructive and capable managers of the change.

My predictions have been made, and if my prediction that Hillary wins comes true, I will continue to put them out there.

Some salient points. I appreciate the Burning Platform essay. I am not quite as pessimistic as he, because I want to believe there are still vestiges of idealism left among the boomers. Some of us still feel as youthful as if it was still 40 or 50 years ago, and our time is just now coming. So why would we all just blow it on whining about taxes and income? The Woodstock Generation is still around. We were not about insecurity then.

As in previous 4Ts, the economic collapse comes first in time. If anything, the war that follows has stimulated the economic blood and powered us into the next 1T and 2T. I am predicting this again. Sure, the "system" is a house of cards built on greed and deception and not enough has been done to correct it. A damp recovery moves forward in spite of the Republicans' best efforts to stop and reverse it. Much will depend on whether Trump gets in and screws it all up. The markets are jittery because they know that unproductive volatility and incompetence are not good even for the owners and managers of the system. They might even have been happier with Bernie Sanders. So, I expect a recession around 2019, but it will be coupled with a green energy boom, or at least a boomlet. The transition will be under way, disturbing the markets and the old dirty industries, but stimulating the new ones.

The 2020s will be a decade of change, and probably of war. The economy will likely recover more fully, powered by whatever warmaking industries get going as well as green energy. But what kind of war? Probably both kinds, because a major outbreak will occur in Asia (probably middle east; maybe Asia too) at the end of 2020 that will require the USA to help but not intervene. Another terrorist war or further movement against dictators will be in the works. It may take some time to resolve the current upheavals and deal with related new ones. US intervention is likely in 2025-2026, to be resolved around 2028-29.

What about a civil war? You may know I have predicted this possibility, based on my cosmic crystal ball, for 4 decades at least; long before people started talking about red states and blue states or even militias. Our country is polarized much like in the 1850s. The issue and the geography is less clear-cut than in 1860, so for some the divide may be bridgeable. There are things the two sides agree on. One lady author proposes that some of the red state folks agree with taking money out of politics and stopping pollution. We may agree with revising trade policy. And agreements on infrastructure and entitlements may be possible, at some point. There are several ways in which the bridge may not reach far enough however.

1)social/religious issues like abortion; attachment to traditional culture amid relentless change
2)The main one: the meme of less government, lower taxes, trickle-down economics. This belief stalemates government and frustrates all attempts to solve problems.
3)the above also powered by the racist dog whistles; many resent social programs their taxes sometimes pay for because they supposedly help those "who are lazy and don't work;" in other words, other races and genders. Poor and middle class angry older white men have been conditioned to blame these others competing with them for the pie that the bosses have diminished with their trickle-down economics scheme. These feelings are strongest in the same red states where traditional religious culture is strong; a deadly combo.
4)gun fanaticism; part of the same culture. The fanatics are afraid that the libruls are coming to take their guns away. They try to deceive the people by talking about "freedom" and "the constitution," just as the trickle-downers talk about their phony "freedom" too. Gun control, change to the Heller decision, and/or bans on assault weapons, or attempts to disarm or confiscate the stockpile of some militia group, could tick them off.
5)part of the same current revolt against other races is "anti-globalism" and resurgent nationalism, which is gaining traction now. But this is one are where it's possible for the two sides to agree, if the target ends up being corporate rather than internationalist, multi-cultural globalism.

So what I have predicted is a right-wing violent rebellion, which the alt-right is openly calling for nowadays, and which Trump is fanning the flames for. But I think it can be put down rather quickly, to the total and deadly detriment of the rebels. The armed forces would back the state. I would expect the last embers of the flames would be put out within a year or two, in the period around 2025-2028. At the same time, I think the rebels will be resisting very rapid progress that had been moving in the 2020s, threatening all their values and ideology, and so the 2020s will also be a Revolution, led from the top, if we are so fortunate.

The other possibility is a left-wing Revolution against a corporate master government, which would be more likely if I am wrong and the economy collapses. But it will take defections to the Left from the armed forces in order to succeed; occupations of Wall street and such will not bring the monolith down. For that reason, I think a right-wing rebellion is more likely; it is already talked about and seems in the cards. A left wing rebellion seems more likely to end in defeat for the Left than a right-wing one, leading to a declining banana republic that makes the Gilded Age seem to be made of copper instead of gold.

So, I predict civil war and world war all at once, but not another economic collapse. But it may actually be a milder 4T than the previous four. That's because America in this 4T is in the last phase of the American High; we started out in a very prosperous and powerful place, and those conditions are still largely in place. And Boomers may be more peace-oriented than previous prophets, and SOME of them will make good leaders who can see beyond the obvious and work to heal some of the divisions. And the world should be able to come together once it is determined to do so, using force and diplomacy to put an end to the bloody middle east and asian upheavels and institute justice. 4Ts are times when things are resolved, at least for a while. I think they will be.

One reason for my prediction is that, contrary to those who say the American Revolution began a mega-saeculum, I go by the 500-year cycle of civilization, which has an impressive, long background in history, and we are still in the Renaissance phase of THAT cycle, since it is international, not national; and since it started around 1892; not 1776. So we're not in a "mega-unravelling," and the fortunes of the USA itself are not the main issue. This also takes into account the fact that our civilization and its cycles are The West, NOT the United States of America, and that the new cycle represents the birth of world civilization out of the world wars. And the founder of the previous cycle of OUR Western Civilization was Henry the Navigator and NOT George Washington.

http://philosopherswheel.com/fortunes.htm

If Trump wins, however, my predictive abilities are in doubt, and all bets are off.

[pbrower2a]

I see the 2016 election as a contest between one totalitarian ideology (Mussolini-style, amoral fascism) and liberal democracy. Donald Trump has no problems exploiting the gullibility of the Religious Right even if he is a profoundly amoral man. That's how poseurs are: they hide their faults extremely well. Had Ted Cruz won the nomination we would be offered a sort of clerico-fascism, basically a Christian version of Iran.

Liberals well know what the stakes are: a political system in which economic elites are permanently entrenched in power, in which people not tied to the elites find their opportunities as employees severely limited. Government employees? Of course, budget-cutting measures in the name of improving education and law enforcement would be applied, and a cop or teacher who fails to toe the line on politics might be laid off. The civil-service protection against having to be a political hack to get and hold a job would be gone. Own a small business? The economic choices would favor the giant corporations, so one might be able to own a business only if the giant corporations that have paid into the campaign and bought the lobbyist whores find no meaningful competition.

Racial, ethnic, religious, and sexual minorities have been rejecting Trump, so expect their middle class to feel the brunt of political and corporate decisions.

News media would increasingly look like GOP Pravda -- excuse me, FoX News. Where I live I might start relying upon Canadian radio for objective news. If you are in Florida you might DX for your news in the delightful accents of Caribbean English accents of Jamaica and the Bahamas, and not solely for the attractive accents. (Forget Cuba, for obvious reasons). Smart American kids from about San Francisco to New Orleans would have a very good reason to learn Spanish: Mexican radio, which will have far better pop music and more objective news than American swill.

America could easily become like the Marxist stereotype of early-capitalist pathology. In Marx' time such indicated the failure of capitalists to recognize the need for a consumer society to transform a sullen and resentful proletariat into a reliable and complacent market for the bounty of the modern potential of productivity. A return to the patterns of extreme indulgence for elites and deprivation to non-elites (gold commodes for vulgar capitalists like Donald Trump and cholera for the poor) would indicate a deliberate denial of the bounties of modern capitalism to any but the elites. It would also end up quickly in a pre-revolutionary situation. Like Marxists, liberals are secularists, anti-racists, egalitarians, and internationalists; seeing the plutocratic elites (including industrialists, financiers, big landowners, corporate executives, and sell-out intellectuals as the enemies who could never be challenged at the ballot box, liberals might try some fusion of Jefferson and Marx.

We liberals win now or we get no chance as liberals until a fascistic regime starts a War for Profit that results in the victors deciding that California kids might need exposure to origami and bonsai trees, Bach and Beethoven (who are very popular in Japan), as well as the sort of educational rigor that an orderly, intellect-respecting society needs. Just look at what sort of orderliness and respect for intellect would be necessary in a country with the topography of New Zealand and the population of the eastern half of the USA -- and you can imagine what sort of culture the Japanese would impose on a people infamous for a free-wheeling culture whose anti-intellectualism had fostered fascism. Or that they need the delights of Bach and Goethe or Puccini and Petrarch, depending on who the occupiers are in Georgia or Massachusetts. That suggests practically an inversion of the Second World War, with the United States of America having become the Evil Empire.

America under Donald Trump will be an Evil Empire. I can say this without fear because I have objectively decided what life under fascism will be like and will know what exits are available. I know the miserable and lethal consequences, and anyone who fails to recognize that there are fates worse than death may not know who Elie Wiesel and Alexander Solzhenitsyn were. Let us not learn what Elie Wiesel and Alexander Solzhenitsyn could have taught us by what we experience in America in a system that mocks Jefferson, Lincoln, and Martin Luther King.

OK. We need more educational rigor in the schools so that kids can exercise critical thought and have the vocational aptitudes that give them real choices in life. We need to recognize that formal education is the only situation in which many kids have any real chance of learning values other than striving for the ephemeral, costly delights in primary colors. We need to debunk superstition and make kids able to reject totalitarian propaganda even if it comes wrapped in an American flag (like FoX Propaganda Channel). We need civil courage. It is not enough to be able to at fire machine gun at a deputed enemy on fear that if one retreats one will be shot; we must show the courage to reject evil that adopts patriotic garb. But in the meantime we have the easiest possible course of action to thwart tyranny in America. Go out and vote.

Vote your conscience -- vote for what is best for all Americans. I may have given up on under-educated white people in America this time. I know how you are likely to vote if you are non-white, non-Christian, non-Anglo, or non-straight and as part of the middle class you have some stake in the political and economic order. If you are white, Anglo, Christian, straight, and middle class, then vote your culture and your economic interests. Vote like the well-educated black, Asian, Hispanic, Jewish, Muslim, and gay parts of the American middle class with whom you have the same interests in economics and the same respect for education and achievement.

Prepare to repeat such in 2020. The Right will most likely be back with something slicker and less objectionable in personal life than Donald Trump in 2020. Probably 2024 as well. Protecting democracy with your vote is far easier than storming Omaha Beach or Okinawa... or defending Gettysburg against Pickett's Charge... or facing the noose as did Nathan Hale.

Whatever your age, gender, ethnicity, faith, region, class, or sexual preference, you have only one set of votes to offer your country -- perhaps so that true American patriots do not need to be the likes of Nathan Hale or Sophie Scholl in this Crisis Era.

[Ragnarök_62]

Burning Platform Wrote:In Part One of this article I laid out the case against the criminal establishment and how the regeneracy is being driven by the anti-establishment sentiment sweeping across the land. This atonement Fourth Turning will de-establish decade’s worth of delusional decisions. This election has destroyed the last vestiges of trust in this fraudulent system.

This dysfunctional rigged presidential election reflects the tearing of the civic fabric at points of maximum susceptibility. As a country we have neglected, denied, or delayed necessary action on a plethora of vital issues threatening our long term viability as a nation. The deferral of difficult painful decisions has been a ploy of the ruling class, allowing them to further siphon the wealth of a dying empire, while maintaining control over the masses through laws, regulations, taxes, surveillance, intimidation, technology bread and circuses, and mainstream media propaganda.
This is a country truly divided, much along the lines of the first Civil War. The divisions aren’t just along political party lines, but race, education, geography, gender, age, class, religion and ability to think critically. The presidential polls (IBD) reveal many of these divisions clearly:

Race:            Whites – 52% Trump; 37% Clinton
   Blacks/Hispanics – 14% Trump; 74% Clinton
Education:   High School/Some College – 54% Trump; 35% Clinton
   College Degree or More – 37% Trump; 51% Clinton
Geography:  Urban – 31% Trump; 60% Clinton
   Suburban – 43% Trump; 43% Clinton
   Rural – 55% Trump; 35% Clinton
Gender:       Male – 50% Trump; 38% Clinton
  Female – 39% Trump; 50% Clinton
Age:             Young – 37% Trump; 46% Clinton
 Middle Aged – 47% Trump; 45% Clinton
 Old – 48% Trump; 43% Clinton
Class:          Upper – 40% Trump; 52% Clinton
 Middle – 44% Trump, 43% Clinton
 Working – 50% Trump; 41% Clinton
 Lower – 20% Trump; 57% Clinton
Religion:    Religious – 49% Trump; 41% Clinton
 Non- Religious – 25% Trump; 63% Clinton
The narrative used against Trump is women won’t vote for him. The IBD data proves that unequivocally false. White women favor Trump 46% to 41% over Clinton. It’s the racial divide in this country which is borne out by the data above. Uneducated blacks and Hispanics living in urban ghettos with household income under $30,000 are overwhelmingly the primary constituent of Clinton and the Democratic Party.
They subsist on entitlements doled out to them by Democrat benefactors who have successfully enslaved them in welfare dependency, while keeping them uninformed through government run indoctrination centers. They continue to vote for their continued enslavement because they have lost their self-respect and hope for a better life. These are the people demanding more as compensation for their skin color, while being egged on by our first black president. The rural and suburban whites are content watching from afar as blacks murder each other in the Democrat controlled “gun free” urban ghettos, but if they try to bring their social justice demands into white gun owning America, shit will get ugly real fast.
Clinton has an odd coalition of supporters, as college educated, upper class, high income Americans support her over Trump. This is where her status quo establishment credentials are revealed. She is a big business, Wall Street bank, military industrial complex candidate for no change. Neo-cons, bankers, globalists, academics, and others sucking off the government teat, support any candidate who will sustain their rackets. The Wikileaks revelations and FBI disclosures exposed the sordid underbelly of liberal politicians and a fawning discredited media.
It seems conspiracy theorists were right all along. Politicians collude with the media, rig elections, lie to the public, smear their opponents, and break laws without remorse or shame. The American public’s view of career politicians and the smarmy media talking heads is now at an all-time low. The regeneracy is being driven by this warranted mistrust for all things establishment.
Next week we will know whether a regime change has taken place. A Trump presidency would surely mark a drastic transformation from the existing decrepit social order. But the Deep State is not going to relinquish their power, wealth and control without a fight to the finish. They will activate all of their remaining allies on Wall Street, in the media, running government bureaucracies, and running the military industrial complex to stonewall and defeat Trump’s agenda. If that fails, they will attempt to assassinate him.
A Clinton win would aggravate the building societal pressures, as the Trump supporters and most of the young Sanders supporters would refuse to recognize her as their president. She would assume power while under investigation by the FBI and Congress. The poisoned atmosphere in Washington D.C. would lead to a Constitutional crisis. Would her sociopathic nature lead her to start a war with Russia to distract attention from her criminality? The election of either candidate is likely to trigger events leading to Civil War II.
“This new regime will enthrone itself for the duration of the Crisis. Regardless of its ideology, that new leadership will assert public authority and demand private sacrifice. Regardless of its ideology, that new leadership will assert public authority and demand private sacrifice. Where leaders had once been inclined to alleviate societal pressures, they will now aggravate them to command the nation’s attention. The regeneracy will be solidly under way.” – The Fourth Turning – Strauss & Howe
No matter who wins the election, they will not have anything approaching a mandate. There are 219 million eligible voters in the U.S. Only 125 million or so will actually vote on November 8. The winner will likely chalk up about 58 million votes. Therefore, almost 75% of eligible voters in the country will not have voted for the next president. The country is as fractured as it was in 1860. The polling data reveals the major fractures.
The upper class is perfectly fine with things as they are because they own most of the financial assets, work directly or indirectly for the Deep State, or depend upon the government and/or Wall Street for their bloated salaries and bonuses. If you’re winning the class war, why would you want to change anything? It’s hard not to win when the game is rigged in your favor by your fellow .1% cronies. As Buffett noted, it is a class war and his class is winning. The lower classes are too ignorant and dependent upon the state for their survival to seek any change – other than protesting or rioting for more free shit.
It’s the demoralized, disillusioned, angry working middle class who have been pillaged by the ruling class through taxes, outsourcing their jobs, and Federal Reserve created inflation. With real median household income languishing at 1989 levels, it’s those in the middle who have lost the most. The 0% interest rates have punished senior citizens and middle class savers, while $3 trillion of QE benefited financial industry millionaires. The next financial collapse, which is baked into the cake, initiated by the policies designed to benefit the .1%, will push class warfare into the streets.
The revelation in the polling data which is likely to drive the next chapter of this Crisis is the huge disparity in voting preference between white, married, rural, religious households and the urban, black, fatherless households, along with the white single non-religious households. The Black Lives Matter movement represents the first cohort, while the social justice warriors represent the second cohort.
It was white middle aged married couples with children who were the backbone of this country from its founding until the 1970s. The husband went to work at the factory or office, the wife raised the children, and they went to church as a family on Sundays to give thanks for their blessings. They worked hard, helped their neighbors, volunteered, saved for a rainy day, disliked debt, required little if anything from the government, and lived peaceful moral lives. Until the 1960’s most black families lived similar existences.
The traditional family unit has been under assault for decades by liberals. The media bombardment about personal fulfillment, egocentric glorification, materialism, and status has been aimed at undermining the family, keeping the masses in debt, and making more people dependent upon the state. The welfare state, initiated in the 1960s, has led to the ghettofication and enslavement of blacks.
The warped welfare system encourages fatherless homes, dependency rather than self-reliance, loss of self respect, and learned ignorance. The traditional family unit is scorned and ridiculed, despite centuries of proof it is the best method for economic advancement and cultural stability. This continued attack from liberal politicians, soulless corporations, elitist academics, and depraved media has pushed the white working middle class to the maximum limit of their tolerance.
With the Soros backed Black Lives Matter terrorist organization creating havoc across America and spurring black men to slaughter police officers, they have pushed their Obama inspired reparations agenda too far. If they venture far from their Democrat created and run urban ghettos into white rural America they would encounter legal gun owners who can shoot straight.
The race war would be over quickly with no doubt regarding the winners. Conservative and moderate whites are sick and tired of the liberal agenda of black victimhood. Their response to the black community is: stop having 75% of your children out of wedlock, open a book, get educated, and get a job. Life is hard. Get used to it. No one is owed anything.
Whites are also tired of the left wing politically correct phraseology which changes an illegal immigrant into an undocumented immigrant. If you came here illegally, you broke the law, and you’re a criminal. Deportation is the consequence of your crime. Opening our borders to an influx of illegal South American immigrants, potential Syrian terrorists, and others who don’t believe in our values is a recipe for disaster.
They don’t learn our language, integrate into our communities, and increase the stress on our already fraying social safety net. When you already have $200 trillion of unfunded welfare obligations, why would you willingly add to that unpayable debt? Conservative whites believe in living within our means, the rule of law, and the Constitution.
The other flashpoint likely to ignite is the pushback against the belligerent social justice warrior class. White working class families watch as delicate academic sensibilities are triggered by the use of words they don’t like. Hate speech becomes any speech liberals disagree with. Watching spineless university administrators cower at the approach of vitriolic screeching social justice bullies is met with disgust and bemusement by white normal Americans.
Bending over backwards to meet the demands of degenerates, freaks, feminazis and psychopaths for new rights is seen as repugnant by average working class Americans. Their perverted agenda doesn’t matter to people trying to raise kids and pay their bills. Average Americans are tired of this shit. The pushback will be sudden and violent, when it comes.
It is clearly apparent to me this Fourth Turning’s primary driving force will be the domestic conflict between the Deep State establishment, the deplorables, and irreconcilable factions within the country. To linear thinkers, self-proclaimed progressives, corrupt politicians, subservient government workers, myopic media and those reliant upon the government for their sustenance, the thought of civil war in the United States is inconceivable.
Civil disorder would likely occur after a financial collapse of epic proportions. With stocks, bonds, and real estate at bubble proportions, interest rates already at zero, the country already in recession, inflation rising, deficits poised to breach $1 trillion per year over the next decade, Obamacare imploding, and real incomes stagnant, the coming economic implosion will make 2008 look like a walk in the park.
Once a chaotic financial collapse gets underway, it will be near impossible to stem the tide. Think back to the chaotic days of September 2008. Our $60 trillion of total credit market debt won’t matter until it matters. The cascade of bad debts will evaporate the remaining trust in our financial system.
Whether by accident or due to cyber-attack, a breakdown in our electronic based economic system in which store shelves go empty, fuel becomes scarce, and the electronic transfer of welfare benefits ceases, would create mass chaos in the streets. The 300 million guns in this country would get some use. Revenge, retribution and settling scores would be the order of the day.
With our just in time supply chain, a grid failure or breakdown of electronic ordering, payment and communication would bring the nation to its knees within one week. Millions would perish within a few weeks. Our civilized society would become uncivilized overnight.  The downside of a society that stresses individualism over community would be borne out.
Cooperation, teamwork and shared sacrifice would be required to survive. The government would attempt to utilize the military and national guard to maintain order. A large portion of the country would rightfully blame the government and the corrupt establishment for causing the collapse. With their families also starving and no means of getting paid, will police, national guardsmen and the military continue obeying the orders of government leaders who caused the collapse?
Either due to the financial collapse or more overreach by the Federal government, the possibility of secession is real. It’s been attempted before and the conflict was bloody and earth shattering. There really are two Americas. The east and west coasts are dominated by the liberal elites who look down their noses upon the flyover country of ignorant deplorables. The .1% mostly resides in gated enclaves, penthouse suites, and luxury beachfront mansions.
They show nothing but contempt and disdain for the average American, living in Middle America or the South. The feeling is mutual amongst the working class towards the liberal elites who rule the country. Most of the 300 million guns are concentrated in the Midwest and South. With this amount of firepower and millions of Americans with nothing left to lose, those attempting to retain power will be at a distinct disadvantage. I believe armed vigilantes will hunt down those responsible for the destruction of the American economy and invoke their own justice.
As trust in government and institutions wanes and economic hardship deepens, the issue of states’ rights is likely to gain traction amongst a large swath of the critical thinking citizenry. The animosity between factions in this country is at historic levels. Large swaths of the country feel no kinship to the elitists on the coasts.
Civil war, secession, and the nation breaking into sectional regions of common benefits are unlikely to occur until the existing social order collapses under the weight of un-payable obligations. That time is approaching rapidly. The existing social order will be replaced by something new, but not necessarily better. That will depend on the choices we make and the leaders we follow.
“The risk of catastrophe will be very high. The nation could erupt into insurrection or civil violence, crack up geographically, or succumb to authoritarian rule. If there is a war, it is likely to be one of maximum risk and effort – in other words, a total war. Every Fourth Turning has registered an upward ratchet in the technology of destruction, and in mankind’s willingness to use it.” – Strauss & Howe – The Fourth Turning
No matter who wins the election next week, turmoil and trouble will befall our crumbling empire of debt. The three drivers of this Fourth Turning – debt, civic decay, global disorder – will continue to provide the impetus for change, conflict and the sweeping away of the morally bankrupt establishment. The empire builders planted the seeds of their own destruction. Their arrogance and hubris led them to abscond with too much, promise far more goodies than they could possibly deliver, execute military overreach – bankrupting the country and creating enemies across the globe.
The zombie economy is moribund, the productive people have been pillaged, and the bread and circus act is running on fumes. The American welfare/warfare state is crumbling. The ruling elite are desperate. They don’t want their Ponzi scheme to end, but they always fail. It’s a confidence game, and the game is over. The economic crisis is foreseeable to anyone with their eyes open. This empire will crumble and fall, just as others before throughout history.

Darkness has descended upon our land. Storm clouds gather on the horizon. All generations have played a part in the catastrophe that lies before us. This is what happens during Fourth Turnings. Everyone in our crumbling empire will need to atone for its sins, whether they deserve to or not. Life isn’t fair.
Each individual needs to get their shit together now. Each generation’s rendezvous with destiny awaits. There are no guarantees. The myth of American Exceptionalism will not protect us from the choices we’ve made. We are not the shining city on the hill. God will not shield us from the consequences of our actions. The fall of the American empire will be painful, but it doesn’t have to be fatal. Our choices will matter.

“But Empire building also bears the seeds of its own destruction. The closer a state comes to the ultimate goal of world domination and one-world government, the less reason is there to maintain its internal liberalism and do instead what all states are inclined to do anyway, i.e., to crack down and increase their exploitation of whatever productive people are still left.
Consequently, with no additional tributaries available and domestic productivity stagnating or falling, the Empire’s internal policies of bread and circuses can no longer be maintained. Economic crisis hits, and an impending economic meltdown will stimulate decentralizing tendencies, separatist and secessionist movements, and lead to the break-up of Empire. We have seen this happen with Great Britain, and we are seeing it now, with the US and its Empire apparently on its last leg.” – Hans-Hermann Hoppe

Link: http://www.theburningplatform.com/2016/1...ng-part-2/

[pbrower2a]

Recognizing the often racist, sexist, and other 'deplorable' characteristics of the post to which Ragnarök_62 replies:

When politicians win on identity instead of quality, then we have a big problem. Identity politics often manifests itself in patronage schemes that drain the Treasury and ultimately those who pay the taxes and get little in return. Yes, poor white people get little from government except perhaps welfare -- which is terribly ungenerous. Education? If they get it as do all others, then they generally do not use it well. Just check the thread comparing the achievements of the states in quality of life. Statistically, Hispanics in Virginia and blacks in Maryland fare better in quality of life on the large scale than do white people in West Virginia.

Welfare exists to keep people from being seen starving on the street. People on welfare can stay inside and watch TV in an apartment in a housing project while getting fat on chips and sodas that ensure that one will not reach retirement age. The kids may know nothing else.

(Yes, there are poor kids who may subsist on welfare for a significant part of their lives but have parents who insist upon achievement in school, which may explain large parts of minority contingents of the middle class. Act in contradiction of degrading conditions and one might escape them).

If Barack Obama found himself in a cozy relationship with the military-industrial complex to the surprise of us all, it is because he was trustworthy and decent enough that if he needed a political favor that served the national interest, like whacking Osama bin Laden, he could get it. Hillary Clinton promises much the same. The military-industrial complex might distrust Donald Trump as reckless and mean-spirited.

Many of the 'upper class' are well-paid government employees like public defenders, school administrators, and hospital personnel who know where the money comes from. Some well-off small-business owners may be grocers whose income comes heavily from food stamps or medical professionals whose income comes from Medicaid and Medicare -- and they are not going to kill the goose that lays the golden eggs.

[Eric the Green]

The particular mixture of right-wing and left-wing views espoused by Burning Platform will not fly as a regeneracy. Knocking welfare and immigrants is pro-Establishment in the extreme.