Strauss & Howe The Fourth Turning
The skies are darkening and a cold wind is beginning to blow. Autumn began with bright skies and warm breezes, but the atmosphere has gotten bitter as swirling winds rip the remaining leaves from the trees. Winter is approaching rapidly and it gives all indications that it will be a bitter, dangerous, harsh time for all Americans. We wish we didn't have to face the coming trial, but there is no avoiding it. Generational moods are transitioning, and a Crisis will envelop the country for the next twenty years. Courage and fortitude on a level not seen since World War II will be required. The celebrity circuses like the Michael Jackson funeral, Britney Spears comeback tour, and Brangelina's latest adoption will seem so trite during the coming Crisis. Wearing a blue rubber wristband and putting a yellow ribbon on your Mercedes SUV will not cut it. Previous 4th Turnings in U.S. history have involved total war. Deaths during the American Revolutionary War were approximately 50,000. Total deaths during the Civil War were 600,000. Total deaths during World War II were 73,000,000. How many people will die during the coming Crisis? No one knows the answer in advance. An integrated global economy, combined with nuclear weapons, advanced military killing machines, terrorists, and peak oil appears to be a recipe for death on a colossal scale.
Anyone who doesn't sense a turning in the mood of the country is just not paying attention. There is a foreboding feeling that something is dreadfully wrong with our country. For those addicted to cable television, we are about to leave the sheltered, superficial, coddled world of Housewives of Orange County and enter the frigid, dangerous world of The Deadliest Catch with 40 foot waves and the threat of a watery death at any moment. A dramatic event will soon shock the nation into action. The catalyst for the Crisis will likely be a sequence of events that will shift the mood of the country. The 1st event will be seen as the financial system meltdown in September 2008. The 2nd event will be viewed as the government's reaction to the crisis. The remarkable sweeping steps taken by Ben Bernanke, Hank Paulson, Tim Geithner, and Barack Obama have further weakened the U.S. financial system and left it vulnerable to the next sudden shock.
The approaching Crisis will be sparked by known existing threats that have been ignored and discounted by our Baby Boom leaders. These known threats include titanic current deficits, colossal unfunded future liabilities, and unavoidable Peak Oil. As the economy continues to hemorrhage jobs, Congress will do what they do best and spend billions more on stimulus pork. As the National Debt approaches $15 trillion in 2012, a spectacular collapse of the U.S. dollar becomes more likely. By 2012 the world will realize that Peak Oil is a fact. As demand outstrips supply, prices will rise dramatically. This is when a catalytic event is likely to plunge us into a harsh Winter of darkness and death. As the U.S. economy begins to collapse under the weight of debt and oil shortages, a terrorist attack using nuclear or biological weapons on U.S. soil would plunge the country into chaos. Other possible triggers could be a natural disaster such as an earthquake that destroys significant portions of California or a hurricane that destroys oil rigs and refineries in the Gulf of Mexico. Significant oil shortages will bring commerce to a halt. Food shortages would occur within a week of oil supply disruptions, as most of the food in our stores must be delivered by truck. As real unemployment reaches 25%, interest rates soar, and the dollar becomes worthless, civil unrest will breakout and the Department of Homeland Security will be called upon to fight and imprison its fellow citizens.
Past Crisis periods were marked by Prophets leading and Heroes sacrificing (Gandalf & Frodo) as the soldiers of the Crisis. In 2012 the country is likely to turn to a Baby Boom President with strong leadership skills such as Newt Gingrich or someone who will appear out of nowhere (Abraham Lincoln was an unknown two year Illinois Congressman). As the U.S. domestic crisis deepens, Russia and China will attempt to take advantage of U.S. weakness by expanding their influence and control in Eastern Europe and Asia. Countries with domestic problems always turn outwards for a real or created threat to rally the nation. With the oil crisis getting worse, the U.S. will go to war in order to secure the precious supplies needed to run our economy. With China also seeking oil supplies a military conflict with China and Russia is quite possible. If the conflict turns into a cyber war of destroying satellites and disrupting computer communications, world leaders could be fighting blindly. If one of these leaders panics and decides to launch some of their nuclear arsenal, the world could be changed beyond all recognition. This scenario seems impossible today. On October 24, 1929 when the Stock Market crashed, did anyone foresee a twelve year Depression with 25% unemployment, a World War that killed 73 million people, and the creation and use of an atomic bomb in the following sixteen years? The impossible becomes possible during a Crisis.
A Crisis can end positively or negatively. Our previous Crisis periods have resulted in new golden ages. If the leaders we choose are strong, wise, and judicious and the Millennial generation can rise to the occasion as their GI generation grandparents did during our last Crisis, we can rejuvenate our national destiny. Winter always turns into Spring. But, Strauss & Howe offer a chilling warning:
"History offers no guarantees. Obviously, things could go horribly
wrong the possibilities ranging from a nuclear exchange to incurable
plagues,
from terrorist anarchy to high-tech dictatorship. We should not assume
that
Providence will always exempt our nation from the irreversible
tragedies that
have overtaken so many others: not just temporary hardship, but
debasement and
total ruin. Losing in the next Fourth Turning could mean something
incomparably
worse. It could mean a lasting defeat from which our national innocence
perhaps
even our nation might never recover."
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