The Pending Implosion of the US; What's the Fix?

In a recent email correspondence with Georgia Beardslee (a KSCO Santa Cruz  radio personality), she asked what to do with the downward spiral of our country,; "The question is, how do we fix it?  It is like a cancer that has metastasized!" This was my answer.

I do not believe there is a fix.  With some $80 trillion in debt, laws piled on laws (Obamacare has grown from 2700 pages to 20,000 pages) . The US was an experiment in self rule that may in it's present form run it's course. In the book the 4th turning it explains that as history has unfolded there were 4 distinct epochs (see attached for some exerts). We are now entering the 4th turning a time of tearing down and knocking out the dead wood before a time of rebuilding. I belive what is important is to keep the belief in the rugged individualist alive. The day will come when we will need to rebuild and our founding fathers have already written the documents for us (there is nothing going on in the US that our founding fathers didn't warn us about).  As the US economy has descended in Crony Capitalism our government has decompensated (a term used in psychology to define a mental person losing control) into a form of fascism. It is a truism that the larger government grows the more corrupt it becomes. When the US government finally implodes we will once again need to form state governments and they will need to answer to the will of the people; our time is coming soon to save our country when the collectivists once again fail. 

 So we just need to be here for each other; like the early Christians that spread the word of the gospel, not by evangelizing but helping and feeding the poor, so those looking for a better way started looking at what the Christians had that led them to their love and caring of their fellow man.

Here is a small section from the Forth Turning; I highly suggest you read this book.

The reward of the historian is to locate patterns that recur over time and to discover the natural rhythms of social experience. In fact, at the core of modern history lies this remarkable pattern : Over the past five centuries, Anglo-American society has entered a new era—a new turning—every two decades or so. At the start of each turning, people change how they feel about themselves, the culture, the nation,and the future. Turnings come in cycles of four. Each cycle spans the length of a long human life, roughly eighty to one hundred years, a unit of time the ancients called the saeculum. Together, the four turnings of the saeculum comprise history's seasonal rhythm of growth, maturation, entropy, and destruction:

The First Turning is a High, an upbeat era of strengthening institutions and weakening individualism, when a new civic order implants and the old values regime decays.

 The Second Turning is an Awakening, a passionate era of spiritual upheaval, when the civic order comes under attack from a new values regime.

The Third Turning is an Unraveling, adowncast era of strengthening individualism and weakening institutions, when the old civic order decays and the new values regime implants.

The Fourth Turning is a Crisis, a decisive era of secular upheaval, when the values regime propels the replacement of the old civic order with a new one.

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. Yet this time of trouble will bring seeds of social rebirth. Americans will share a regret about recent mistakes— and a resolute new consensus about what to do. The very survival of the nation will feel at stake. Sometime before the year 2025, America will pass through a great gate in history...  But in the crucible of Crisis, that will change. As the old civic order gives way, Americans will have to craft a new one. This will require a values consensus and, to administer it, the empowerment of a strong new political regime. If all goes well, there could be a renaissance of civic trust, and more.

 Strauss, William; Howe, Neil (2009-01-16). The Fourth Turning (Kindle Locations 154-156). Crown Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.

What Would Fascism Look Like in America?

What would fascism look like in the America? First, as an American citizen, you have to divorce yourself from the concept that American is defined by our Democratic Republic. Unlike most countries, the United States has always been defined by our form of Government. Ask an American what it means to be an American, and the most common answer is it means we are free. Ask someone from another country and they would say, it means they were born there. Also, must European countries have seen many different forms of government, represented by their associated political party; example are Socialists, Communists, Fascists, Social Democrats and Greens are typical parties that often reform a European government. Our founding fathers believed in and created a very restrained democracy in favor of personal liberty. Benjamin Franklin defined a democracy as, “Two lions and a goat discussing what's for dinner”. The Constitution set up the nuts and bolts of our form of government. Included and attached as a “Bill of Rights”, are enumerated individual rights, that take president over the majority rule of a Democracy. For fascism to work in America, we would have to give up on the idea of Individual liberty and embrace “Collectivism”. Stephen Grabill and Gregory M. A. Gronbacher define Collectivism as “ the theory and practice that makes some sort of group rather than the individual the fundamental unit of political, social, and economic concern. In theory, collectivists insist that the claims of groups, associations, or the state must normally supersede the claims of individuals”. In other words, you will no longer define yourself as an individual, but part of large collective. Your value will be defined by your contribution to the state.

Now I hear you thinking, “that doesn't sound like a good idea”. Well lets continue on and look at the positive side of fascism. In the Broadway musical 1776, John Dickinson from Pennsylvania remarks, “most men without property would rather protect the possibility of becoming rich, than face the reality of being poor”. What Dickinson was talking about is the middle class protecting the rights of the rich. But what would happen if the middle class finally figured out that they were never going to get rich. Fascism does not prohibit people from becoming rich, but it does control the level of wealth and weighs it against the health of the state. Fascism does not strictly control the means of production as communism does, as it realizes industry is usually run by people who know what they're doing. So rather than replace all the CEO's and mangers with fascist party members after a company is nationalized, quite often the same managers will be put back in control with fascist overseers. Also, fascism is not “each according to his ability, each according to his needs”. Fascism recognizes and rewards innovation and hard work. Would you be willing to give up personal liberty and free market capitalism for a state controlled job that offerers excellent benefits and rewards hard work? Fascism will not give you the same opportunities to become rich, but it will guarantee, that as long as you benefit the state, you will be taken care of. How would that sound with an unemployment rate of 15-25%.

With fascism you will no longer be a autonomous voting citizen, you will be part od a collective; there will no longer be a Congress, there would be a Board of Directors; there would no longer be a President, there is a CEO, and the CEO will be a very popular guy. He will be charismatic and appeal to your sense of responsibility and national pride.

In 1997 William Strauss and Neil Howe wrote a prophetic book on America called “The Fourth Turning”. The premise of the book is history is cyclical and repeats itself through 4 repeated “Turnings”, every 20-25 years. According to the writers, we are leaving a period of Unraveling and entering a period of Crisis where the rotting foundation of the American society will collapse and a new robust America will emerge. He likens this Crisis period to the America Revolution, the Civil War, and the Great Depression/WWII.

The writers say that sometime in the early 2000’s we will enter the “Millenial Crisis”. This period will be ushered in by what the writers referred to as “Crisis Catalyst”. This crisis, ala 911, will not worsen into a full-fledged catastrophe, “since the nation will find a way to avert the initial danger and stabilize the situation for a while.”…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 tenticaled: Debtors won’t know who holds their notes, homeowners who owns their mortgages, and shareholders who runs their equities-and visa versa.

“At some point, Americas 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 the most fundamental and real assets. This devaluation could be a short but horrific panic, a free-falling price in the market with no buyers.”…”As assets devalue further, trust will further degenerate, which will cause assets to devalue further, and so on.”

Within 10 years of the catalyst, “a national election will produce a sweeping political realignment, as one faction or coalition capitalizes on a new demand for decisive action.”…”The winners will now have the power to pursue the potent, less incrementalist agenda about which they have long dreamed and against which their adversaries had darkly warned”….”Regardless of it’s ideology, that new leadership will assert public authority and demand public 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.”

In the end the crisis will end in a climax; “Decisive events will occur- events so vast, powerful and unique that they lay beyond today’s wildest hypotheses. These events will inspire great documents and speeches, visions of a new political order being framed. People will discover a hitherto unimagined capacity to fight and die, and to let their children fight and die, for a communal cause. The Spirit of America will return, because there will be no other choice.

I will leave you with another quote from Benjamin Franklin: Those who would trade in their freedom for their protection deserve neither'