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Buffalo Springfield -- For What It's Worth
"Power is not a means, it is an end. One does not establish a dictatorship in order to safeguard a revolution; one makes the revolution in order to establish the dictatorship." --George Orwell
Battle lines are being drawn. Since there are very few Americans left who experienced the last American Crisis from 1929 to 1946, the majority of Americans are being blindsided today. The housing collapse which began in 2005 was the spark that has ignited a Crisis that will conclude in glory or collapse. The non-thinking gullible masses believe the lies they are being fed by politicians, bankers and mainstream media. When the majority of Americans think the Gettysburg Address has something to do with the Post Office and don't know the old dudes on the Nickel and Dime, you cannot expect them to recognize what awaits them based on history. The initial spark has triggered a chain reaction which has resulted in government actions which will create further emergencies. The known problems of unsustainable debt, civic rot, and global chaos have been festering for decades. They will now coalesce into a violent denouement. Strauss and Howe wrote their book, The Fourth Turning, in 1997. These are their chilling words describing the onset of the next Crisis:
"It is unlikely that the catalyst will worsen into a full-fledged catastrophe, since the nation will probably find a way to avert the initial danger and stabilize the situation for awhile. The new mood and its jarring new problems will provide a natural end point for the Unraveling-era decline in civic confidence. As the Crisis catalyzes, these fears will rush to the surface, jagged and exposed. Distrustful of some things, individuals will feel that their survival requires them to distrust more things. This behavior could cascade into a sudden downward spiral, an implosion of societal trust.
If so, the implosion will strike the financial markets -- and, with that, the economy. Aggressive individualism, institutional decay, and long-term pessimism can proceed only so far before a society loses the level of dependability needed to sustain the division of labor and long-term promises on which a market economy must rest. Through the Unraveling, people will have preferred the exciting if bewildering trend toward social complexity. But as the Crisis mood congeals, people will come to the jarring realization that they have grown helplessly dependent on a teetering edifice of anonymous transactions and paper guarantees. Many Americans won't know where their savings are, who their employer is, what their pension is, or how their government works. The era will have left the financial world arbitraged and tentacled; Debtors won't know who holds their notes, homeowners who owns their mortgages, and shareholders who runs their equities -- and vice versa."-- The Fourth Turning -- Strauss & Howe
Amazingly, they wrote these words twelve years ago, well before the housing meltdown sparked this Crisis. The precision of their prediction is eerie. The mood of this country has clearly changed. The talking heads in the mainstream TV media and so-called journalists in the dying mainstream newspapers heap scorn upon Americans who have been voicing their concern and anger at town hall meetings and tea party protests. They refuse to acknowledge that the mood of the American people has revolutionized in the last year. Politicians continue to pass programs, bailouts, and bills that the American people overwhelmingly oppose. The anger continues to build as our elected representatives, who are completely controlled by corporate and banking interests, pass laws that favor these interests at the expense of the American people. The fabric of the country is tearing before our very eyes.
THOUSAND PEOPLE IN THE STREET
What a field-day for the heat
A thousand people in the street
Singing songs and carrying signs
Mostly say, hooray for our side
It's time we stop, hey, what's that sound
Everybody look what's going down
-- Buffalo Springfield -- For What It's Worth
