So, Thomas Paine wrote in 1775 in his publication of “The American Crisis.” Not so well-remembered today are the words that followed that famous quote:
“Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered; yet we have this consolation with us, that the harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph.”
At that time, Colonial America was passing through the early stages of a “Fourth Turning,” an historical time of crisis that occurs roughly every eighty years.
As a point of reference, a First Turning is a period of renewal; one in which a historical crisis has ended. The populace has risen to the occasion, thrown off tyranny and conquered social, political and economic tribulation. Having done so, they now create a renewal, based on hard work, personal responsibility and moral integrity.
A Second Turning occurs a generation later, when the rewards of a First Turning have resulted in prosperity and stability. Those new adults who have grown up during a First Turning will be well-off and will seek to pursue high-mindedness and social concerns. Along the way, they will also pursue self-indulgence. (A deterioration begins.)
In a Third Turning, again a generation later, complacency sets in. Politically, those individuals who are sociopathic (a clinical aberration, estimated at about 4% of any society at any given time) tend to rise in political spheres, replacing the older generation of responsible people. They tend to raise taxes, increase social welfare programmes and increase government spending in every way – really, any excuse to seize increased power over the populace.
Then, in a Fourth Turning, again a generation later, power having been seized, the sociopaths seek total power – the elimination of all freedoms, to be replaced by totalitarian rule.
Historically, in a Third Turning, a complacent people make it possible for sociopaths to take power. In a Fourth Turning, the sociopaths exert that power.
It matters little whether the excuses put forward by political leaders are climate control, racial equity, CBDCs, cancel culture, owning nothing, digital IDs, transhumanism, vaccine mandates or a Green New Deal, the objective is singular: total dominance of the ruling class over the subservient class. Any excuse will do, if it has totalitarian rule as its outcome.
In any Fourth Turning, those who are more thoughtful and forward-thinking will begin to make sense of the ruse, but find themselves being heavily criticized by all and sundry. The media will do all within their power to slap down those who denounce the ruling class. But more to the point, the greater proportion of the populace will remain in their slumber and resist the awakening strenuously.
It is at such a time that the few who have figured out the ruse experience their greatest challenge – whether to speak out or whether to just go along.
This group must struggle in the darkness to a great degree, as the majority of the population fight against an awakening, as it disturbs their complacency and is too horrendous to contemplate.
The latter half of a Fourth Turning becomes a chaotic and confusing period – one in which many people desperately hope to just get along, whilst those who are more visionary become increasingly aware that their freedoms are being flushed away on a wholesale basis.
And, whilst it is the smaller, more visionary group that creates the spark of change, it is, historically, a different and unlikely group that actually creates substantive change in the latter half.
The group that turns the tide is the group that I often (unflatteringly) refer to as the hoi polloi – the average guy.
At some point, the average guy, who simply wanted to be allowed to get on with his life – go to work, mow the lawn, sit on the couch with a six-pack and watch the game – has had his life so disrupted by the ruling sociopaths and their increasingly manic oppression that he accepts that he must turn off the TV and do “something.”
He is not a leader, but he is a joiner.
When, in Ottawa, Canada, a few truckers staged a small demonstration, and the average guy saw it on the news, he got in his truck and joined. He may have had no real idea of how events might develop; he simply added what weight he had to the effort.
But the very fact that he is the average guy – that the bulk of the population is made up of average guys, makes their collective weight greater than those who may have been more inspired thinkers, and – more importantly – greater than the weight of the oppressors.
As simplistic as a convoy of Canadian truckers may be, their numbers become their strength.
More to the point, they carry with them the sympathies of other average people, who come out to cheer them on, bring them food and donate money.
Not surprisingly, their achievement is brief, as it’s so simplistic, but they do succeed in bringing about temporary change, setting Government back on its heels.
Then, a few farmers in the Netherlands hear about the Canadians and decside to drive their tractors into the city, and it happens again.
And it keeps happening.
Throughout history, it’s been the same. In 1775, when Paul Revere rode into Lexington and Concord, it’s quite unlikely that he shouted courageously, “To arms! To arms!” That would have been treason and treason was one of only three capital offenses at that time.
More likely, he went to a few back doors and spread the word quietly. After all, the people of America were at that time British. The hoi polloi of the day – especially those of middle age or older – were relatively successful and had a lot to lose. They did not approve of revolt and were willing to pay the small stamp tax that had triggered it. They argued vociferously in the House of Burgesses to “just get along.” But a few firebrands kept up their challenge and, eventually, they were joined by farmers and shopkeepers who, like the truckers, had had enough and decided to do “something.”
For those of us who saw the warning signs early – decades ago – the first half of the Fourth Turning has been extraordinarily distressing. The Globalists have been thorough in their planning and have successfully executed the removal of freedoms with great stealth that we assumed any “thinking” person should have seen coming.
But most people are not thinkers. Most people “go along.” They continue to go along, right until the moment that…. they don’t.
Thomas Paine was correct. “These are the times that try men’s souls.” Paine was a visionary who, through his writing, attempted to bring about an awakening.
An awakening happens only gradually, but the point arrives when the common man has had about enough. He may not be intellectually inspired, but his collective weight is, and throughout history, has been the turning point.
“As a point of reference, a First Turning is a period of renewal; one in which a historical crisis has ended. The populace has risen to the occasion, thrown off tyranny and conquered social, political and economic tribulation. Having done so, they now create a renewal, based on hard work, personal responsibility and moral integrity.”
For whom, the black slaves they owned or the Native American population they were determined to exterminate? What a myopic crock of shit.
A glimpse of reality:
"...Though some other new states followed suit, the Revolution failed to end the institution of slavery in America. Instead, the economy’s reliance on slavery proved to be a defining element in the creation of the new United States government."
or...
"European enslavement of American Indians began with Christopher Columbus’s arrival in the New World. The slave trade expanded with European colonies, and though African slave labor filled many needs, huge numbers of America’s indigenous peoples continued to be captured and forced to work as slaves. Although central to the process of colony building in what became the United States, this phenomena has received scant attention from historians.
Indian Slavery in Colonial America, edited by Alan Gallay, examines the complicated dynamics of Indian enslavement. How and why Indians became both slaves of the Europeans and suppliers of slavery’s victims is the subject of this book. The essays in this collection use Indian slavery as a lens through which to explore both Indian and European societies and their interactions, as well as relations between and among Native groups."
"Almost from the time the first colonists arrived in North America, their relationships with the native people were troubled. The Indians believed that the Earth gave them everything they needed and couldn’t be bought or sold. Because of this philosophy, most tribes didn’t develop permanent settlements or believe they owned the land.
Europeans, on the other hand, embraced the concept of land ownership and quickly staked their claims. Their weapons and horses offered a significant advantage over the Indians’ defenses. The Europeans brought diseases, such as smallpox, which devastated Indian tribes. Indians fought back when the Europeans took their lands, but every tribe was eventually defeated. Some tribes were completely destroyed!
Andrew-Jackson
Fun Facts
After the Lewis and Clark Expedition, Americans were filled with the hope of new lands and prosperity. Many of them wanted to go west.In 1830, President Andrew Jackson, along with Congress, passed the Indian Removal Act. This law gave the government power to seize Indian lands and force the Indians to move west of the Mississippi River.The Cherokee, Creek, Choctaw, Chickasaw, and Seminole Indians, known as the Five Civilized Tribes, lived in the southeast United States. These Indians had tried to adapt to European ways. They lived in settlements, attended church, sent their children to school, and wore traditional “white men’s” clothing. In spite of this, they were forced to leave their homes. The Cherokee Indians of Georgia walked thousands of miles to Oklahoma. Twenty-five percent of them died along the way. The journey was called “The Trail of Tears.”The Seminole Indian tribe in Florida resisted the U.S. government for several years. From 1817 to 1858, the Seminoles engaged in three wars with the U.S. military. During this time, over 3,000 Seminole Indians were moved west of the Mississippi. But about 300 Seminoles escaped into the swamps where they hid until the late 1800s. They finally emerged in the early 1900s and began openly working and trading in Florida.In 1970, the government gave the Seminole Indians $12,347,500 for the lands that had been taken from them."
Date: August 05, 2022 at 10:15:49 From: chatillon, [DNS_Address] Subject: Re: this is your idea of spirituality?
That's one way to look at it.
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Date: August 04, 2022 at 06:30:58 From: shadow, [DNS_Address] Subject: Re: Navigating the Fourth Turning
Well, I can certainly agree that if these aren't the times that try our souls, I don't want to see what will... ;)
But reading this piece, written by an anarcho-capitalist Catholic, in which he's characterizing how he sees this country's economic "evolution" from Colonial times in these "First, Second, Third, Fourth Turnings" terms...it seems that based on them, you are elevating this entirely intellectual, subjective, conceptual overview of his as a Spiritual one...?
If that's not the case and I'm mistaken, can I ask how that's wired for you, how you see this as Spiritual?
Date: August 04, 2022 at 12:16:07 From: shadow, [DNS_Address] Subject: Okay, going back to this exchange with CC, where I left off w/her...
...because, seriously, I shouldn't even have acknowledged Nevada's *rushing-to-her-aid-all-unneeded* interjections let alone given him so much energy of response...lol...
You've got it, cc. By all means. You don't need to hurl vengesnark at me to have an end to this conversation, though obviously it wouldn't have been as much fun for you. ;)
While I do not agree at all with the speculative article you posted either in substance or context, and it does not align with my own context of understanding and experience of what Spirituality comprises, I acknowledge that to you, these ideas *are* Spiritual. I sincerely would have loved to know how you, yourself, experience that but given you gave me crickets and snark, all that remains is to withdraw from further exchange. ;)
Date: August 04, 2022 at 12:48:51 From: Nevada, [DNS_Address] Subject: pretty sure you were not interested in a "spiritual" discussion...
You've got it, cc. By all means. You don't need to hurl vengesnark at me to have an end to this conversation...
I respect that you have reached an interesting level of "spirituality" in your life and posts here, what I don't really understand is the disrespect you show for others that have differing perspectives of spirituality to offer.
Spiritual lessons in life are everywhere to be found...
...maybe it would be helpful for you to broaden your spiritual horizons a bit to smooth the edges a tad.
It's actually a much bigger spiritual world out there than you seem willing to allow.
Date: August 04, 2022 at 13:29:40 From: shadow, [DNS_Address] Subject: You're making a spectacle of yourself here pal...
Aside from religious/spiritual beliefs that rationalize causing harm to others, or seeing other humans as higher/lower than oneself...anyone who's frequented the spiritual board for these past 20+ years *knows* that understanding and supporting each person's individual spiritual path, regardless of resonances or differences I find to them, is my personal inclination and priority. Celebrating diversity is a core instinct in my soul and cherishes spiritual diversity equally.
And, yes: The scope of religious perspectives that *do indeed* purport/support causing harm to others under certain circumstances specifically outlined or in general, and that purport/support exclusivity, seeing some as inferior and others superior, one of more value than another, *is definitely a pretty large one*...! lol But to me, one relinquishes the right to their own freedoms and rights whenever they choose to disappear the rights and freedoms of others. End of.
So! Unless you'd like to try and make a case for persuading me to honor and respect religions and beliefs that DISALLOW offering others the respect, rights and freedoms they deserve (in which case, by all means, point up how awful you think it is that they're *outside* that wide diversity I celebrate)...then you can take your condescending, smug and inaccurate claims of my spirituality, and what I ALLOW, respect and honor and honor in that of other's paths, and consider it summarily and appropriately dismissed...
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Date: August 04, 2022 at 11:43:53 From: Nevada, [DNS_Address] Subject: Re: Navigating the Fourth Turning... how you see this as Spiritual?
That is, when we focus on God, we no longer find ourselves in displeasing circumstances. We begin to grasp the idea that God created life to be enjoyed, and that He is moving through everything. We begin to notice how He is always touching lives, whether they belong to Him or not. We suddenly notice the footprint of His Kingdom in all sorts of odd places. We start to smell the fragrance of His Presence in both the most common and uncommon of situations. He is truly everywhere.
Remember this, because when we say that some things are sacred and others are not, we are cutting down the territory that God loves to move in.
The truth is His creativity is unfettered. You will find Him in the same marketplace as the heathen, the atheist, and the agnostic. He will put His own music into their world and his own images onto their movie screens. He will use all people, as well as His own.
We share an important secret. He is the King of love and an absorbing inspiration to everyone, everywhere. Please don’t assign Him a territory to suit your religious beliefs. Instead, learn the joy of seeing His footprints everywhere. Detect the fragrance of His Presence even on the most surprising of people. It will make your day, and it will make Him smile.
It’s a holy and important secret, and we share it with Him.
Date: August 04, 2022 at 17:12:14 From: chatillon, [DNS_Address] Subject: Re: Navigating the Fourth Turning... how you see this as Spiritual?
Beautifully said. The only thing I'd change is to substitute the neutral pronoun 'It' for 'He'. "God", for me, is That which is the ground of all being.
As far as subjective need to insist on someone following a certain line of thinking, or when another's line is considered faulty or lacking (or simply not understood/misunderstood) and when there are many paths to the divine, that is where I bail.
Date: August 04, 2022 at 18:45:44 From: Sue/Seattle, [DNS_Address] Subject: Re: Navigating the Fourth Turning... how you see this as Spiritual?
All the he/him bothered me as well. Actually to personify the divine at all I find bothersome
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Date: August 04, 2022 at 11:56:00 From: shadow, [DNS_Address] Subject: Re: Navigating the Fourth Turning... how you see this as Spiritual?
OMG dude...lolololol...
No. This offers no substantiation wattage for reframing the context and substance of this exchange between cc and myself, save from what your own subjective need to see it as such provides...
...lol... ;D
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Date: August 04, 2022 at 08:42:18 From: chatillon, [DNS_Address] Subject: Re: Navigating the Fourth Turning
Do not each of these 'turnings' deeply affect the souls, and thence the spirits, of those living through them?
Date: August 04, 2022 at 09:22:08 From: shadow, [DNS_Address] Subject: Re: Navigating the Fourth Turning
CC, for me it's true that literally everything even remotely significant, that we live, is designed to deeply affect our souls and spirits, experientially...so utilizing that phrasing to help me see how to you, Rockwell's (conceptual) musings of these "turnings," or phases of economics as he sees them, stand out for you as notably Spiritual isn't translating...
Date: August 04, 2022 at 10:19:45 From: shadow, [DNS_Address] Subject: Re: Navigating the Fourth Turning
Whoa, baby -- check the wicked snarkback attempt on Karen's behalf!...lol...but still, pretty low score given it's entirely out of substantive context and given your lost opportunity to clarify for many of us how you see Lew Rockwell's intellectual spectulative essay as Spiritual...
...but I doubt you genuinely care about any of that and, since you could find no answer to my last, we get...this.
Date: August 04, 2022 at 10:47:05 From: shadow, [DNS_Address] Subject: Re: Lew Rockwell's intellectual spectulative essay as Spiritual...
Oh, what a surprise.
Actually, lizardman, I don't give a flying anything at all if I spazzed on the name of the person who wrote it, or where it's from: I was questioning *the material itself,* and how cc sees it as spiritual, seeing as you've obviously (intentionally) "missed" that...lol... So, sorry pal, no score on this one.
Nor on your second erroneous paragraph.
And how lovely, that you found it fascinating and worth contemplating...except, you know, that's not what this is about.
Now, let's see what happens... Will he go for trying to turn this thread into an endless deflection epic on this board, as well, as per his usual m.o.? Or will he acknowledge his dead end and spare us further here?
Date: August 04, 2022 at 11:06:58 From: Nevada, [DNS_Address] Subject: ...what could be more spiritual than the evolution of man?
...overcoming adversity and growing stronger?
Most people that "question material" at least take time to try to understand it. I suspect you went directly to "question mode" followed by snark and trash.
That's a proven recipe for missing a lot that life here has to offer.
Date: August 04, 2022 at 11:52:32 From: shadow, [DNS_Address] Subject: What could be more deflective than a post from you?
Honestly, Nevada. I'm already dizzy, but I'll try for just one, just for you,.
The gentleman who wrote those words put forth a speculative essay on how he sees masse economics changing and shifting from Colonial times. (It was I who misapplied the word "evolving" to his speculations there, and now I heartily withdraw it as inaccurate in favor of the words, changing and shifting.) To use the term evolution here is to suggest that this man's subjective opinion of what, exactly, comprises human *evolution* and how that's reflected in his conceptual "turnings" context is true in a broad-brush generalized way. I absolutely disagree with his characterizations along these lines.
So, given this correction, your saying, "What could be more spiritual than the *evolution* of man overcoming adversity and growing stronger?"...falls completely apart. This man's intellectual, subjective and personal speculation around how our economics as a nation have shifted and changed over so many years has nothing whatsoever to do with Spirituality, as I understand it...and I wasn't the only one noting that. I genuinely wanted to know how cc saw it that way, but of course, crickets and snarkback (drawing on something having nothing to do with her, since she had no valid answer) was all I got.
Your endless attempt toward dissing me falls flat here, as well. Your snap assumption/retort that I'd have needed more time than I did to consider at depth what he was saying is nothing but more desperate need to spin me and my input as invalid... It's incredibly juvenile, and aside from the one or two here who gleefully celebrate when they think you've landed one on me, always utterly inaccurate and ridiculous...
Date: August 04, 2022 at 12:28:04 From: Nevada, [DNS_Address] Subject: Spirituality, as I understand it...
...is obviously different than "I" presently perceive it, and probably different than Chatillon.
That's why the world is flexible enough to entertain all of our viewpoints at any given point in time and all of us advance as best fits our needs in the moment.
All of us can learn from the other...
...and do.
What Chatillon posted is as relevant to "spiritual progress" as anything I've seen posted here recently so what's the big deal? Just because it didn't speak to "you" doesn't mean it didn't have a lot to "say" to those willing and able to "hear"?
Date: August 04, 2022 at 12:39:56 From: shadow, [DNS_Address] Subject: Quit picking fights with me, Nevada.
You've conveniently disregarded that I wasn't the only one questioning in this way, by the way...lol...
I've ended this exchange begun with cc WITH cc. I've acknowledged that engaging you at all was an error in better judgement, let alone indulging that longass diatribe...and though your compulsive spin momentum may require you to go on for awhile still about this, for the charge to dissipate enough to land back on Earth, you'll forgive me if I let you do that by yourself, I'm sure...
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Date: August 03, 2022 at 15:09:35 From: Mitra, [DNS_Address] Subject: Re: Navigating the Fourth Turning