Full Article: The Burning Platform

WHAT DO WE DO NOW?

As this vitriolic, unpredictable, outrageously entertaining presidential campaign enters its final stages I find myself pondering what happens next. I was reminded of the last scene in the 1972 movie, The Candidate. The movie is about a young untested non-politician candidate for U.S. Senator in California who puts his fate in the hands of a veteran political operative and overcomes a double digit polling deficit to win a huge upset victory. His entire focus during the campaign was to win. In the final scene of the movie he is standing among the celebrating campaign staffers and the fawning press corp. with a befuddled look on his face. He grabs his political consultant campaign manager and pulls him into a room. As the press break into the room he asks, “What do we do now?” The question goes unanswered and the movie ends.

The chattering class on the boob tube is enthralled and aghast at every seizure, collapse, and deplorable comment by the two most disliked presidential candidates in U.S. history. The establishment and their corporate media mouthpieces are perplexed and irate that Donald Trump has overcome their propaganda campaign to be leading in the polls with 51 days to go. He is a non-politician who was behind by double digits in the polls a month ago. He hired professional political operatives who have molded his message, while his opponent has been lying about her health, lying about selling access while Secretary of State, and denigrating blue collar middle class Americans in campaign speeches. The momentum is clearly in his favor and absent a major gaffe during the debates he could win an unlikely come from behind victory in November.

No one knows for sure what will happen over the next 43 days to impact the outcome of this highly improbable race between a reality TV star parody and a walking corpse propped up by her establishment cronies in the media, Wall Street, military industrial complex and smoke filled backrooms of D.C. The sole focus of both campaigns is to disparage and destroy their opponent. The negative attack ads will fill TV screens 24/7 for the remainder of this scorched earth fight to the death. The debates will be nasty and venomous, with accusations being hurled maliciously and with gusto. The corporate press corp., being the mouthpieces for the establishment, has done their utmost to scorn, ridicule and attempt to derail Trump’s march to the presidency.

They are shocked and stunned by the failure of their propaganda campaign. The basket of deplorables not inhabiting the liberal bastions of NYC, Washington DC, LA and SF are ignoring the unabashed media crusade to destroy Trump. Trust in the dying legacy media is at all-time lows. The linear thinking establishment has failed to acknowledge the cyclical nature of history and will now reap the whirlwind of consequences for their corrupt, greedy, traitorous actions.

The myopic media is so fixated on the minutia and trivialities related to the terribly flawed personalities of these Boomer candidates ascending to the throne of the American empire, they fail to step back and understand the real dynamics at work. When you comprehend the undercurrents of history it allows you to interpret the current mood of the electorate using the perspective of the Fourth Turning. This election is taking place in the eighth year of a crisis period which is likely to last through the next decade. Written in 1996, Strauss & Howe’s opus has been eerily prescient in predicting the start of and progression of the fourth crisis period in America history, all separated by approximately 80 years – a long human life.

“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 

This Crisis was catalyzed by the housing bubble that reached its peak in 2005, leading to the worldwide financial collapse in September 2008. There is no denying a Crisis mood overtook the country in 2008 and after a temporary lull brought about by the unprecedented money printing scheme by the Federal Reserve and central bankers across the globe, the mood has been darkening rapidly as this election approaches. The fabric of the country is being shredded along racial, class, religious and party lines, as real hardship spreads across the land.

The Soros backed Black Lives Matter has turned into a domestic terrorist organization spurring young black men to ambush and slaughter police officers and innocent bystanders. Radicalized Islamic terrorists are committing mass murder, setting off bombs, and attacking non-believers. The corporate oligarch class, the Wall Street cabal, and their puppets at the Federal Reserve have effectively impoverished and destroyed the working middle class. Both political parties have shown their true corrupt colors as anti-establishment candidates Sanders and Trump generated enthusiastic support to the chagrin of the party bosses.

As we approach the midpoint of this Fourth Turning the regeneracy propelling the next phase appears to be an anti-establishment tsunami of epic proportions engulfing the nation and sweeping away the existing social order in a torrent of bile, venom, accusations and the shrieks of social justice warriors. Hillary’s deplorables are committed to expurgating the institutional cancer pulsating through every corpuscle of this terminally ill empire of debt.

Taking back control of a country, which has been captured in a silent coup by Deep State players of both parties, liberal and conservative ideologies, and corporate interests, has become a relentless quest of the debased and defrauded middle class. The Deep State traitors are driven solely by an unquenchable thirst for wealth, power and control, regardless of the impact on average Americans.

The darkening mood of the country has cast a shadow over this election, as the corrupt political establishment and their corporate media collaborators are failing in their unrelenting propaganda campaign to destroy Trump. The “experts”, pollsters, and pundits are shocked and appalled that a loud mouthed non-politician TV personality could possibly be on the verge of winning the presidency.

These linear thinkers can’t understand why their playbook of lies, misinformation, pointless social justice issues and a myriad of other inane distractions aren’t working this time. They fail to acknowledge that history is cyclical and we’ve entered the phase when generational cohorts are aligned for dramatic sweeping change. The data is there for all to see, but those benefiting from the current perverted paradigm will not be swept aside without a bloody fight.

Based on recent Gallup polls, the establishment probably realizes they’ve gone too far, but their insatiable desire for mammon and supremacy over the levers of finance, politics, and corporate share cropping, has blinded them to the reality of the devastation they’ve wrought on Main Street America. Average American families have seen their standard of living relentlessly driven into the ground by Federal Reserve created inflation designed to benefit their fraud loving Wall Street benefactors, greedy corporate executives, and psychopath politicians who’ve promised voters $200 trillion more than they can deliver. Good paying blue collar jobs have been shipped overseas by Ivy League MBA CEO’s who use wage arbitrage models to calculate how to optimize their stock price and executive bonuses. This is why the real median household income is lower than it was in 1999 and about equal to what it was in 1989.

For those not occupying academic ivory towers or gleaming office palaces in downtown Manhattan, life in the trenches is brutal, back breaking and untenable. With no wage growth in a quarter of a century, crushing healthcare costs due to Obamacare, rents skyrocketing as home prices have been artificially boosted to save Wall Street bankers, government run education and financing leading to a millennial debt crisis, and a Federal Reserve destroying the finances of senior citizens, savers, pension plans, and bondholders, how could anyone other than myopic oligarchs and their cronies expect average Americans to keep taking it without fighting back?

Is it any wonder that 73% of Americans are dissatisfied with the way things are going in the country? This is a massive decline from the 71% satisfied readings of the late 1990’s and early 2000’s. Do you think this might have something to do with the depressionary economic conditions being experienced by the majority of Americans since 2001?

Considering the Wall Street banking cabal has been ransacking, pillaging and defrauding the American people since 2000 with their fabricated internet boom and the largest control fraud in world history – their mortgage/housing Ponzi scheme, it is entirely logical for tens of millions of hard working Americans in flyover country to be outraged and ready to throw the bums out. The propagandists who have worked tirelessly to consciously and systematically manipulate the public mind through social engineering in government controlled public schools, mass media messaging, and the constant use of fear by government apparatchiks, believe their control of these societal mechanisms is beneficial for our country and the world.

This “invisible government”, the true ruling power in this country, has used their Bernaysian propaganda techniques to mold the minds, desires, beliefs, ideas, and tastes of the masses for decades, but they’ve gone too far, stolen too much, and pushed the average American to the brink. The middle class is steadily being destroyed, along with hope for a better tomorrow, as reflected in Gallup polling data.

The former middle class citizens of this country aren’t sure who screwed them over because they have been busy trying to make a living, while simultaneously being distracted by iGadgets, 700 cable TV stations, social media, sports and myriad of other bread and circus diversions. They’ve been brainwashed to believe the two organized political parties offer them a choice. The two parties are co-conspirators in the creation of this welfare/warfare empire of debt.

Since 2000, we’ve had eight years of a Republican president, eight years of a Democrat president, with both parties having control of Congress at various points over the sixteen years. The national debt, after 211 years of this country’s existence, was $5.7 trillion in 2000. Both parties are responsible for the 342% increase over the last sixteen years to $19.5 trillion. Democrats agreed to never ending warfare in exchange for Republican support for an expansion of the entitlement state. Meanwhile, the country’s GDP only rose 79% over the same time frame.

The puppet politicians in Washington D.C. have only done what their “invisible government” puppeteers have instructed them to do. They don’t answer to the voters or their local constituents. They answer to Wall Street bankers, the military industrial complex, mega-corporation CEOs, and shadowy billionaire oligarchs who fund their corrupt existence. These feckless politician hacks could never have added $13.8 trillion to the national debt in the last sixteen years and run the country’s unfunded welfare liabilities to $200 trillion without the Wall Street controlled privately owned Federal Reserve manning the printing presses and manipulating interest rates to enrich their “invisible government” benefactors. They have inflated away 97% of the dollar’s purchasing power since their shadowy creation in 1913. They are single biggest reason real wages have not advanced since 1971. They are the reason the top 0.1% now have the highest percentage of the national wealth since 1929.

Make no mistake about it, everything the Federal Reserve has done since the Wall Street created worldwide financial collapse in 2008 has been to benefit their Too Big To Trust Wall Street owners, the rich and powerful oligarchs, and the biggest borrowers on the planet – the U.S., Japan and EU governments. The $3.8 trillion of QE was funneled into the vaults of the Wall Street bankers so they could pretend their insolvent balance sheets were solvent. The true purpose was to drive stock prices higher in order to subsidize Wall Street, corporate executives, and the .01% who own most of the stocks, while giving the appearance of economic recovery.

The inflation created by QE drove the middle class standard of living lower as energy, food, rent, home prices, health insurance, tuition costs and taxes rose relentlessly. Wall Street and their establishment crony capitalist parasites hit the jackpot in this rigged game, while Main Street lost again.  The Fed’s easy money policies are why since 1999 home prices have risen 76% while household median real income has fallen by over 1%. Pricing millennials out of the housing market has led to the lowest home ownership rate since 1965.

Luckily, the Fed and Wall Street concocted a scheme whereby Wall Street used the free money provided by the Fed to buy up millions of foreclosed homes at fire sale prices and rent them back to the poor schlubs who had been recently evicted by the very same Wall Street banks. The engineered shortage of home inventory led to soaring rent costs for everyone. This is called winning by the establishment.

Reducing interest rates to 0% again benefited those with the most debt: Wall Street banks, mega-corporations, and the U.S. government. It destroyed the finances of senior citizens living off their savings, penalized people for saving, and incentivized heavily indebted consumers to borrow more. How did allowing Wall Street banks to borrow at 0% so they could charge consumers 15% on credit card balances and 6% on auto loans benefit consumers? Did the government enslaving young people in $1.3 trillion of student loan debt with only low paying service jobs available at graduation, benefit anyone other than for profit diploma mills?

The Fed supposedly instituted their ZIRP as an emergency measure during an economic conflagration not seen since the Great Depression. According to the government and the Fed, we are now in the seventh year of an economic recovery with low unemployment, record corporate profits, household income jumping the most in history, and the stock market at all-time highs. If this fantasy narrative was true, the Fed’s discount rate would be 3% to 4% – not .25%. We are lost in a blizzard of lies.

At this point in the cycle only the truly cognitively deficient, Ivy League professors and lapdogs for the ruling class believe the tripe, disguised as government sanctioned economic data, being peddled by those desperately trying to retain hegemony over the country. The real people living in the real world know unemployment is not 4.9%, but north of 15%. They know inflation is not really 1.1%, but north of 5%. They know GDP is a warped measure of economic health, as soaring healthcare expenditures boosts it and using a real measure of inflation would reveal recessionary readings. They know Obamacare has driven their health insurance costs higher and made their care worse. They know “free trade” agreements like NAFTA and TPP result in their jobs being shipped overseas by corporate conglomerates. They know taxes and government fees ceaselessly march higher. They know the government has spent $4 trillion conducting an unwinnable war on terror by waging undeclared wars around the world and we’re less safe than we were in 2001.

Our leaders have made all the wrong choices. The American people have allowed a small cabal of powerful deceitful men to stealthily capture the financial, economic, political and social levers of power in this nation. The result will be depression, violence and ultimately war.

“History offers no guarantees. If America plunges into an era of depression or violence which by then has not lifted, we will likely look back on the 1990s as the decade when we valued all the wrong things and made all the wrong choices.” – Strauss & Howe – The Fourth Turning

The darkening angry mood in the country is self-evident. Race relations are deteriorating rapidly. Cops are increasingly seen as the enemy or just revenue generating shakedown artists for their establishment bosses. Home grown Islamic radicals have been inspired by ISIS and other Muslim terrorist organizations (created, funded, and armed by the U.S. government) to slaughter the American infidels, while our government actively attempts to allow more into our country.

As Snowden revealed, the Deep State has created a surveillance state because they see “the people” as the enemy. They realize the militizaration of police forces and conducting military assault exercises in U.S. cities is not to protect them, but to protect the Deep State. The social justice red herrings are meant to distract the populace and keep them chasing their tails, while the looting and pillaging of the nation’s wealth continues unabated.

Honest, hard-working, traditional, family oriented households, not ensconced in the liberal elite bastions of NYC, DC, LA, or SF, have lost trust in politicians and their fellow Americans. The largest percentage of Americans in history distrusts all politicians and the government institutions run by these corrupt sycophants. Conservatives think liberals are brain dead. Liberals think conservatives have no heart. The social fabric of the nation is in tatters.

There is absolutely no desire for compromise on any issue. The insurgent crusades of Sanders on the left and Trump on the right have shattered establishment illusions they could continue to hand pick captured cronies who would do their bidding. The linear thinkers in the mainstream media are stunned their propaganda campaign to destroy Trump and elevate the choice of the establishment – Clinton – has failed miserably. It shouldn’t be a surprise based upon the Gallup polling data.

With an ongoing depression for the majority of American households, extreme dissatisfaction with the course of the country, and complete distrust of establishment politicians, it would be highly unlikely for the people to select the ultimate corrupt establishment lackey as their next president. While Trump draws tens of thousands to his rallies, low energy sickly Clinton can barely fill a high school gymnasium.

Despite outspending Trump 10 to 1 on negative ads, Trump is either leading or tied in national and key state polls. Considering the establishment controlled media is probably skewing the polls and the huge silent majority isn’t telling the truth, Trump’s lead is probably larger than being reported. The panic among the Wall Street, Hollywood, and Silicon Valley elite is palpable. The anger and disillusionment of the majority is being channeled by Trump in a crusade to sweep away the existing social order. There is no escaping the Fourth Turning.

“Don’t think you can escape the Fourth Turning the way you might today distance yourself from news, national politics, or even taxes you don’t feel like paying. History warns that a Crisis will reshape the basic social and economic environment that you now take for granted. The Fourth Turning necessitates the death and rebirth of the social order. It is the ultimate rite of passage for an entire people, requiring a luminal state of sheer chaos whose nature and duration no one can predict in advance.” – Strauss & Howe – The Fourth Turning

Unless the Deep State can rig the election or arrange for something unfortunate to befall Mr. Trump, we are likely to have a president Trump on November 8. When viewed within the context of the Fourth Turning, it is entirely logical that a cocksure Prophet Generation leader would emerge as a response to the anti-establishment regeneracy mood surging across the land. Being a libertarian minded realist, I realize the coming challenges will not be met with less government intervention, less government spending, or less money printing by the Federal Reserve. The era of procrastination and half measures is over.

“The era of procrastination, of half measures, of soothing and baffling expedience of delays, is coming to its close. In its place we are entering a period of consequences.” – Winston Churchill

Donald Trump and the country he will lead will be dining on a banquet of consequences for the remainder of this Fourth Turning. Trump has been a master of sound bites. The “Make America Great” slogan has resonated with the masses, but slogans won’t pay the interest on the $20 trillion national debt, make good on $200 trillion of unfunded entitlement liabilities, honor government pension plans that are $4 trillion underfunded, or turn $1 trillion annual deficits into surpluses. No candidate has ever been elected by promising to cut entitlements and asking the voters to tighten their belts and be prepared to sacrifice. They promise them more goodies.

Trump has promised to cut corporate and personal income taxes. Who doesn’t like lower taxes? He will cut regulations. Sounds good. He will expand government childcare subsidies. Sounds expensive. Not a peep about Social Security, Medicare, or defense spending. In fact, Trump declares he will rebuild the military. Cutting taxes and regulations, while starting a trade war, will not pay for itself.

Deficits, which are already on automatic pilot to reach $1 trillion in the next few years, will be driven higher. Voodoo economics didn’t work in the 1980s and it won’t work now. This isn’t a TV reality show where the happy ending can be scripted. I picture Trump making his glorious acceptance speech at 11:00 pm on November 8, striding backstage after the speech, turning to Steve Bannon and asking, “What do we do now?”

When I started writing articles about the economy, banks, military industrial complex and corrupt politicians back in 2008, I still naively believed the system could be changed from within. I thought Ron Paul’s vision could save the country. But after watching politicians double the national debt, TARP passed by corrupt politicians of both parties when 90% of their constituents were against it, not one criminal banker prosecuted for the biggest fraud in world history, a president waging undeclared wars all over the world, a national healthcare plan passed against the wishes of the people, and a rogue Federal Reserve implementing disastrous monetary schemes to enrich Wall Street while throwing seniors under the bus, I realized this rigged system is unfixable.

Trump may have the best intentions, but he will be foiled at every turn by his enemies in both parties, along with the ingrained establishment government apparatchiks running the hundreds of useless government agencies. The media will skewer his every statement. Wall Street and corporate America will threaten his agenda if it negatively impacts them in any way. The “invisible government” might decide it’s time to pull the rug out from beneath the overvalued markets, resulting in a crash. The civil chaos is likely to spread as Soros funds the violence. He will be tested by foreign powers. The Middle East is guaranteed to explode in chaotic violence.

Trump may have second thoughts about taking the helm of U.S. Titanic after it has already hit the iceberg. History is cyclical and we are only halfway through this Fourth Turning. The risk of catastrophe over the next decade is high. I have studied history and believe we will be confronted with economic, social, and military upheaval on par with the Great Depression/World War II crisis and the Civil War crisis. We are doomed to repeat history, whether we’ve studied it or not, because human failings span across the ages. Whether we meet the deadly challenges ahead will decide the fate of our country.

“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

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