As we enter the final gunlap for the US presidential elections we have this as food for thought. Hopefully this will not be a SHIT HITS THE FAN moment. If your tired of being fucked over by the political class this may be the time you have been waiting for….
From The Burning Platform
Your thoughts please……
CIVIL WAR II – FOURTH TURNING INTENSIFYING (PART I)
“History offers even more sobering warnings: Armed confrontation usually occurs around the climax of Crisis. If there is confrontation, it is likely to lead to war. This could be any kind of war – class war, sectional war, war against global anarchists or terrorists, or superpower war. If there is war, it is likely to culminate in total war, fought until the losing side has been rendered nil – its will broken, territory taken, and leaders captured.” – The Fourth Turning– Strauss & Howe -1997
As we enter the final stretch of this vitriolic, deplorable, venomous, propaganda saturated, deceitful, rigged presidential election spectacle, it becomes painfully obvious this Fourth Turning is careening toward bloodshed, bedlam, confrontation, and civil war. The linear fixated establishment, who fancy themselves intellectually superior to the irredemables, are too blinded by their sociopathic, increasingly audacious subversion of the Constitution, to grasp the level of rage and disillusionment of a white working class that has been screwed over for decades.
As the Wall Street shysters frantically accelerate their embezzlement of what remains of middle class wealth, with the Fed and the corporate media propagandists as their wing-men, the country devolves into a corporate fascist state. The disposition of the nation grows dark like the sky before an approaching deadly blizzard. As passions boil over and violence portends, this Fourth Turning hastens towards a bloody decade ahead with an uncertain climax.
We are eight years into a Crisis period which won’t end until the mid-2020s. As this bitterly vicious presidential campaign accelerates towards a finale which will leave the country divided and irate, the hostile opposing forces will be seeking revenge, retribution, and retaliation no matter the outcome. There is no doubt the regeneracy is well under way.
“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
It was five years ago I spent a couple fascinating hours with Neil Howe, co-author of the Fourth Turning, during the Occupy Wall Street protests. He thought the protests were all passion and no depth, engineered by anarchist Boomers. He was right. I thought OWS might be the start of the regeneracy, but it flamed out quickly. It was only a foreshadowing of what was to come. Whatever event or movement created the regeneracy, it would be driven by the toxic combination of debt, civic decay, and global disorder.
Neil was particularly worried about the Federal Reserve zero interest rate policy and how it was ruining our economic system, creating disincentives to saving and encouraging warped, debt driven speculation. And that was in 2011. The Fed keeping interest rates near zero on behalf of a corrupt establishment for the last eight years has been the primary factor in creating the anger, disillusionment and revolutionary spirit driving the regeneracy.
No critical thinking human being can deny this tumultuous presidential election and its equally turbulent primaries have been fueled by the dreadful self-serving response of the establishment to the 2008 Wall Street created financial collapse; the geopolitical anarchy created by U.S. interventionism in the Middle East; the civic decay created by a failing government educational system; rampant debt financed materialism enabled and encouraged by the financial/media complex; and racial division facilitated by the president and his social justice warrior brethren.
The rescue of Wall Street and destruction of Main Street by the Fed, Wall Street and the captured politicians of both parties in Washington D.C. has created the angry, acrimonious, throw the bums out mood boiling over in flyover America. The widening Grand Canyon gap in wealth between the haves and the have nots, produced by solutions from sociopaths in suits has reached the pitchfork and torch level.
The linear thinking ruling class has been in denial since this Crisis catalyzed in September 2008. Their looting, pillaging and ransacking campaign, designed to enrich and empower a small cadre of shadowy, powerful, wealthy men, had been successful for decades. When you control the currency and interest rates; rig the financial markets; buy the politicians; write the laws and regulations; own the corporate propaganda machines known as the mainstream media; operate a high tech surveillance state; create a dumbed down populace through government school indoctrination; and distract the masses with iGadgets, reality TV, hero worship, professional sports, social media, irrelevant cultural issues, and literally thousands of other modern day bread and circuses; you become arrogant and careless.
These sociopaths are so consumed with their ravenous fleecing of the middle class, waging wars for profit, and shredding the Constitution, they failed to recognize 2008 for the seismic earth shattering event that will change everything. The mood of the country shifted like tectonic plates beneath the nation. The mood continues to grow dimmer, as the peasants grow poorer and the modern day aristocracy (Wall Street bankers, corporate executives, corrupt politicians, shadowy billionaires) accumulate obscene ill-gotten wealth through their complete capture of the system. This perverted, degenerative, criminal degradation of our society is powerfully summed up by Jesse from Jesse’s Café Americain:
“Not all sociopaths wield knives and knotted cords. Some wear suits, and are exceptionally intelligent and articulate, obsessively driven, and are able to use and undermine the law and the rules for their advantage, like weapons. It is never about the win, never about the money. It is about the kill, the expression of their hatred, about elevating themselves with the suffering of others. Bind, torture, kill. Not only with ropes and knives, but also with power and money, and the subversion of law. Lawlessness is their addiction, their will to power.
When societies become lax and complacent, these sociopaths can possess great political power through great amounts of unprincipled money. And over time they become almost anti-human, destroyers of all that is good, all that is life, all that offends their insatiable sickness with its goodness. They twist the public against itself, and turn a broad sweep of society into their killing grounds. This is the undeniable lesson of the last century. There are monsters, and they walk among us.”
Neil Howe has noted in previous articles the catalyst, climax and resolution of Fourth Turnings can be specifically dated. But the regeneracy is more of an era than a date. With only three previous American Fourth Turnings, I imagined the regeneracy to be a specific event where the American people, faced with growing peril and danger, put aside their differences and rallied around a strong leader to build something new. Boy was I wrong.
In retrospect, the American people were numbed by the Great Depression and the bloody initial battles of the Civil War. They just let FDR and Lincoln do whatever they needed to do. The regeneracy marks a growth in centralized authority and resolute governance at a time of great risk and urgency. I believe this era of regeneracy began at the outset of the presidential primaries early in 2016.
Based upon the reaction of the citizens in the last ten months, the dire problem facing the nation, perceived as the largest threat to our future, happens to be the Deep State establishment currently ruling the country. The captured mainstream media and grey beards running both political parties were completely stunned, horrified, and irate at the unprecedented success achieved by the two anti-establishment candidates, Trump and Sanders.
This election was supposed to follow the script as planned and coordinated by the establishment, with Hillary Clinton defeating Jeb Bush and continuing the corrupt status quo policies agreed to by the bought off leaders of both parties. They badly miscalculated the mood of the country and the whirlwind of change seeking to sweep away the stubborn remnants of a crooked, decrepit, putrid, existing social order. This collective middle finger to the establishment could only happen during a Fourth Turning.
This regeneracy is well under way and is poised to transform and replace the very foundation of this crumbling empire of debt, delusions, and denial. The unanswered question is what happens next. I posed that question to Neil Howe five years ago and he said the specific events of a Fourth Turning are unknowable, but the reaction to those events by the generational cohorts is consistent over time.
We are seeing the reaction of critical thinking Americans as they come to the realization the system is rigged against them. A revolutionary spirit is once again rising among the deplorables. I also asked Neil about the theory Fourth Turnings alternate between external conflicts and internal conflicts. He found the subject fascinating, but didn’t think there were enough data points to make a determination.
Based on the current path of this Fourth Turning, I’m now convinced of this alternating sequence between advancement cycles and atonement cycles. The advancement cycles can be seen as establishing, whereas atonement cycles are disestablishing. It is apparent each Fourth Turning alternates between an external struggle and an internal struggle. The American Revolution was a struggle against an external oppressor – Great Britain.
The Civil War was an internal struggle between the industrial North and the agrarian South. The Depression/World War II struggle was mainly against an external threat – Germany, Japan, and Italy. The American Revolution established our country. There was optimism and elation as a new republic, forged under an enlightened Constitution and led by judicious intelligent men, was born. It was clearly an advancement cycle.
The Civil War disestablished states’ rights, slavery, agrarian society and Constitutional rights. It was an atonement cycle for our actual and implicit sins. There was no glorious high. The resolution felt more like defeat, with the country exhausted, bitter and angry. The country had exhausted itself, spilling the blood of over one million men. The new High after an atonement cycle is like a cold miserable rainy dark Spring.
The Great Depression/World War II Fourth Turning established a new world order led by the United States. As the only major country left unscathed by the ravages of global war, the U.S. became the producer for the world, whose dollar was unquestioned as the currency of global trade. The new High was unleashed with fanfare and adulation. It was like a delightfully warm Spring, with flowers blooming and children frolicking.
All signs point toward this Fourth Turning being a life or death struggle between the ruling class of sociopathic bankers, corporate elites, and sleazy politicians versus the oppressed and infuriated middle class. The lying, deceit, rigging, deception, theft and other crimes perpetrated by the ruling elites will be atoned for. The heroic patriotic revelations from Edward Snowden, Julian Assange, and Bradley (Chelsea) Manning proving the government and politicians to be lying, corrupt, immoral, sociopathic traitors to the Constitution have undermined the last vestiges of trust in the system and the establishment. The alignment of generational dynamics will provoke the responses to events moving forward. We have been badly led. A silent coup by Deep State perpetrators has led to the complete capture of our economic, financial, judicial and political systems.
A vast swath of the populace has been lured into living beyond their means. The existing system is unsustainable. The Boomer generation does not want to yield on their perceived entitlements. The Millennial generation is saddled with un-payable debts, living in their parents’ basements, working the night shift at Ruby Tuesday. Generation X is trapped in the middle of this generational struggle. The huge economic imbalances, created by politicians buying votes and engineering wealth inequality to benefit the few, have built up over decades like flood waters behind a weakening levee. When the levee breaks the morally bankrupt criminal social order will be swept away in the raging torrent to follow.
Winter will eventually turn into Spring, but it might be a bitter, gloomy, austere Spring. Every Fourth Turning brings on forecasts of imminent doom, but that is also a trait of Prophet (Trump, Clinton) Generations. It’s how they feel about the prospects of their imminent die off; they expect the entire world to go with them. The 2008 financial crisis was horrific, scary and an eye opener for those who blindly believed what they were told by their establishment zoo keepers. The regeneracy has begun; trust in the system has further disintegrated; this presidential election has further deepened this distrust of the entrenched establishment; and the coming bust for stocks, bonds, and real estate will knock out the supports for the dwindling remaining trust in this crooked system.
“This might result in a Great Devaluation, a severe drop in the market price of most financial and real assets. This devaluation could be a short but horrific panic, a free-falling price in a market with no buyers. Or it could be a series of downward ratchets linked to political events that sequentially knock the supports out from under the residual popular trust in the system. As assets devalue, trust will further disintegrate, which will cause assets to devalue further, and so on.”
Eventually, all of America’s lesser problems will combine into one giant problem. The very survival of the society will feel at stake, as leaders lead and people follow. The emergent society may be something better, a nation that sustains its Framers’ visions with a robust new pride. Or it may be something unspeakably worse. The Fourth Turning will be a time of glory or ruin.” –Strauss & Howe – The Fourth Turning
The next ten or so years will be atonement for decades of bad choices, corrupt leadership, living beyond our means, waging wars of choice across the globe, believing blatant falsehoods, exhibiting willful ignorance, ignoring facts, and failing to uphold the Constitution. Don’t think you can escape the consequences of this Fourth Turning. It doesn’t matter whether you lived according to a moral code, avoided debt, worked hard, paid taxes, and generally lived an upstanding honorable life.
The death and destruction headed our way will engulf the innocent as well as the guilty. I’m reminded of the penultimate scene in Clint Eastwood’s dark, brooding, vengeful western Unforgiven when Little Bill Daggett laments to “killer of women and children” William Munny that he doesn’t deserve to die this way. Munny responds, “deserves got nothin’ to do with it.” Then he pulls the trigger. This is the kind of future we will be dealing with, whether we like it or not.
In Part Two of this article I will use recent polling data to assess where the most likely sparks will arise to start the civil war conflagration which will accelerate the crumbling of the American Empire. To reinforce the obvious, Fourth Turnings NEVER de-intensify. They end after the spilling of much blood, incomprehensible destruction and the total defeat of the vanquished.
The Dominoes Fall
I’ve often remarked that a person can be frugal, moral, and responsible in nearly any environment. However, while those qualities render one functional and perhaps successful within the context of the prevailing system in “normal” times, they do not serve as total protection against catastrophic events affecting that system from the negative internal or external sources mentioned. Whatever happens to the collective is going to end up affecting everyone within the collective in direct proportion to the severity of the events.
I don’t know to what extent I believe in long wave cycles. These four turnings seem to be a parallel or corollary to Kondratiev’s four economic seasons, the winter season of which seems to have been staved off by such techniques as zero percent or negative interest rates, and the various manufactured “bubbles”. We have also most certainly witnessed profound societal changes just within the past ten years.
It would seem that the aspiring religious “prophets”, with whom we are so familiar, are by no means the only purveyors of gloom and doom on the scene. What remains to be seen is whether the long wave theorists are any more accurate in their forecasts. As we’ve witnessed of the psychics, past accuracy does not necessarily guarantee future accuracy.
One thing we can know for certain: any bad emerging circumstances will be exploited by the purveyors of Armstrongism, and will be falsely bent and spun to make it appear that they are fulfillments of the Armstrong prophecy mold, exerting undue influence on the lives of some of the people who are either curious or in search of solutions. Adverse times always render greater numbers as vulnerable to the charlatans.
BB
Excellent response Bob. We have the doom and gloom prophets involved in everything now days. The question will be as we move forward, will they be right and at what point? And yes, the armstrong promoters will exploit whatever happens here in the collective.
As Micheal Savage says, we are in the second American revolution. I believe that he is correct.
More here.
And a video….
What’s happening now? I like to learn about the here and now. It’s useful. You can always go back in your mind and into the past and reframe the meaning of your experiences, but the present is now and what you learn and do now will build experiences that will go with you into tomorrow. Good or bad.
You guys are more optimistic than me. When Julian Assage said he has evidence that should put her in prison, I figured that the evidence was about stealing money, corruption to gain power, and commiting murders to leave no loose ends. It should be obvious that there is a strong cliche of neocons backing her up. But what possible reasons could they have for justifying their acts of corruption in order to gain the executive branch at all costs? Could it be a new strategy of dealing with Iran, but in a covert way? Israel would benefit greatly. Or is it the Qatar pipeline which the neocons can benefit from while at the same they can marginalize the Russian economy even more? Are the neocons so desperate to get their way that they will risk WWW3? If they want to go to war with Russia they have backed the right clown. I think I now understand why wikileaks let this evidence trickle out. If it all came out on the same day, no body would have believed it. Trump would have been destroyed by the MSM as the dirtiest politician of all time, and the American people would all see it that way too. Imagine that, the dirtiest politician is the one that never held office before, or even ran a campaign for office. The blackout in the MSM now is precisely what they would have got if all of the evidence came out all at once. But it didn’t come out all at once, it trickled out. I think that helped in exposing the cronyism of the MSM.
I had thought that Hillary’s corruption would reach all the way up to murder. But what she and her inner-circle of cronies have done has gone well beyond theft and murder. Have you ever wondered why HRC has never been convicted for breaking laws? Slick Willy too. The Clinton’s can add to their death toll little by little. And they can continually get away with it. Who is backing these people up? And how have they enabled them to escape charges and indictments?
“If that f – – – ing bastard wins, we all hang from nooses! Lauer’s finished…and if I lose it’s all on your heads for screwing this up.” HRC
That is true!
LGBTQ Nation.
“We protect gay people – so why not child molesters?” Antonin Scalia
NAMBLA too?
Did Justice Scalia grow a conscience?
A pool has closed.
2016-02-09 20:56
2016-02-13 20:44 Emails show that Dan Schwerin — Clinton’s speechwriter — deliberated with other staffers over whether they should release a statement on his death.
NYPD detectives and a NYPD Chief, the department’s highest rank under Commissioner, said openly that if the FBI and Justice Department fail to garner timely indictments against Clinton and co-conspirators, NYPD will go public with the damaging emails now in the hands of FBI Director James Comey and many FBI field offices.
“What’s in the emails is staggering and as a father, it turned my stomach,” the NYPD Chief said. “There is not going to be any Houdini-like escape from what we found. We have copies of everything. We will ship them to Wikileaks or I will personally hold my own press conference if it comes to that.”
The NYPD Chief said once Comey saw the alarming contents of the emails he was forced to reopen a criminal probe against Clinton.
“People are going to prison,” he said.
“If that f – – – ing bastard wins, we all hang from nooses!” HRC
Back to Haiti.
Laura Silsby, who runs a personal shopping company and has a chequered financial history, is scheduled to appear in front of a U.S. judge in an unfair dismissal case involving one of her former employees this week. But she will not make that date, as she remains locked up in a squalid, mosquito-ridden jail on the island until the case against her, and her fellow Baptists, is heard.
The situation is viewed so seriously by the Americans(who specificly?) that former President Bill Clinton, now a United Nations special envoy, has arrived in Haiti to negotiate a solution. Aaww, Bill has a bleeding heart, how sweet.
Laura Silsby was found guilty in Haiti of child trafficking in 2010, after she attempted to cross the Haiti-Dominican Republic border with 33 Haitian children — all but one of the children had at least one living parent and were not orphans. Nine others who were arrested along with her were freed, thanks to the efforts of the Clintons.
“Along with the Haitian justice system, some observers excused the missionaries’ actions, even though they rose to the level of child trafficking. They did so essentially because we place such little value on the integrity of poor families; the idea that the missionaries were acting to ‘save’ these children justified the damage they would have caused to the children and their families,” Shani M. King wrote for the Harvard Human Rights Journal. “In this way, the Silsby case offers a window into international and domestic child placement schemes that disrupt poor families and disregard traditional forms of child placement.”
Hillary has a LONG history of interest in Ms. Silsby. Wikileak emails dating back till at least 2001 have been found in her archives discussing Laura’s NGO (EmailID 3776).
NLCR founder Laura Silsby remained incarcerated in Haiti. Her trial began on May 13 and the prosecution sought a 6-month prison term. On May 17, she was found guilty and sentenced to the time served in jail prior to the trial.
Jorge Puello Torres, Silsby’s legal adviser, was later arrested for running an international sex trafficking ring. Torres was accused of luring girls from the Caribbean and Central America into prostitution by offering to make them “models.”
In 2011, he was sentenced to three years and one month in federal prison for “alien smuggling.”
“Laura had claimed she planned to build an orphanage in the Dominican Republic, but authorities in the country said she never submitted an application for this purpose. They instead located to Haiti,” the Redditor wrote.
Clinton’s top aide Huma Abedin’s husband is currently under investigation for sexting a minor, and Bill Clinton flew on convicted pedophile Jeffrey Epstein’s private jet (which is called “The Lolita Express”), the whole inner circle deserves scrutiny.
In the minds of most people, CP is far worse than murder. “Wow what a wonderfull way to blackmail!” HRC
What frightens me now, is the real, truly powerfull people who are covertly backing her up. They gotta already know what she would do if she won. And yet, they are continuing to play this to the river with a showdown where they can never show their cards because they cheated. And they are now severly pot-committed. They must force the American people to fold. But how? Michelle Obama severed all ties with HRC with no comment, twelve hours before the story about the NYPD warning the Feds and DOJ to not drag their asses in serving a indictment, hit the press. That could be a good sign. That Obama was ignorant of this cancer. We can hope. But he is still going to be dragged through all their shit. If HRC’s most powerfull backers are trying to hide in her shadows because they played in the pool too, we could be on the edge of disaster! Later that same day, CBS news reported serious warnings about possible terrorist attacks in some of our largest cities.
What are these “Spirit Cooking” dinners?
“Don’t be silly, it’s only art. You christains really get on my nerves. POTUS will not allow that to happen any more. You’ll see!” HRC
How about Islam? Didn’t you say this not too long ago?
“I think Sharia Law will be a powerful new direction of freedom & democracy for the women of Libya. All my life I’ve fought for women’s equality & now that I’m the most powerful woman in America, I’m proud to have brought about this change to the repressive Khadaffy regime in Libya….” “We came, we saw, he died!”(Spoken when she was Sec. of State)” HRC
“That’s a rumor! It’s not to be found in any public speech or interview ever given by Myself, nor any document written by Me, in searchable online databases.” HRC
But you have employed Islamic terrorists who have beheaded children to wage war by proxy. Was the “White Helmets” your idea? Or did Mullah Gulen teach you that one.
HRC is like a whore that rides atop the biggest “Black-mail Machine” the world has ever known!
All of the above is just the tip of the iceberg.
Oh shit, there’s more!
Tim Kaine Liar/Jesuit/CIAOperative with Dark Past.
Whoever did the subtitles for what Kaine was thinking, nailed it in my opinion.
Jesuit motto: “men for other”
“Go forth and set the world on fire.”
Believe it or not the LaVoy Finicum drama is also entangled with the Clinton Foundation.
But, I digress. I’m burned out on this crap. I can’t do anything about it, except feel grateful to Julian Assange. What if he had met that predator drone that HRC wanted to send to him? None of this would have come to light.
“Don’t worry, be happy”
I’m serious! Think about all those bad decisions you made in your past. Were you in a good mood or a bad mood? I think it is pretty universal that we tend to make bad decisions when we are in a bad mood and better decisions when we are in a much better mood. So, start from there, that is putting yourself in a better mood to start.
Good god, you read much of the same stuff I do + even more.
I know what you mean. All this crap Hitlery and her so called husband do it terrible. Wikileaks has been a real eye opener. And talking about these child molesters in office, lets talk about the Bush’s. Both of these assholes were child molesters.
From a commenter on Amazon we read (back in 2000):
The Tranceformation of America is a shocking book, but one which, I have to believe, contains much truth. I saw and experienced much of that sort of thing (not to the same degree) in Massachusetts during the Reagan/Bush years. I saw high-level academic, media, political and church figures engaged in a collusive sexual abuse, exploitation, manipulation (terror) network, which included voyeurism, surveillance, twisting of information, lying and slander, pillage and even worse (if they could get away with it). I have to believe that actual slavery, abuse of children, indulgences on every level, and crime (as described in this book) are true. Those who – through the media – project themselves as being the most respected are, in fact, the most wicked. What is especially timely about this book is that Ms. O’Brien mentions George Bush Sr. and Jr. repeatedly, and we are facing an election with George Bush Jr. If the American public were to read this book, they would never let him into office. According to Ms. O’Brien, he participated in – and covered for his father in – mind-control activities, abuse of adolescent females, implementation of New World Order police tactics (Lake/Mount Shasta compound in California), cocaine, heroin and white slavery trafficking, and money laundering. He was an integral part of the New World Order plan of creating chaos and mass mind control to dupe the masses, so as to usher in elite rule. One has to question how he could be spontaneously declared the front-runner and pick of the Republican establishment from day one, when he had done nothing. Was it because he will facilitate their excesses and wrongdoing – because he’s their man??? It is very frightening territory – and this is a frightening book. All the more so because other “mind-control slaves” have come forth, and written books about this. There is a lot of information on the internet about these matters (Brice Taylor). I am just hoping he does not get elected – but one wonders how one can trust anyone, with such high-level crime running things. This book names names (Senator Byrd, the Bennett brothers, Ronald Reagan, Loretta Lynn, names from the Clinton administration, etc.), it names places (Bohemian Grove in California, NASA, military bases, Harvard, Patrick Leahy’s mountaintop home, etc.) Every member of the public should read it.
–Trance: Formation of America by Cathy O’Brien and Mark Phillips.
I sometimes wonder if the old WCG doesn’t serve as a microcosm for what is happening in our present, both nationally and internationally. Two factors would seem to be relevant in both the church and secular cases: 1) Man’s ability to convincingly fake sincerity, and 2) The ability of a group to present a facade of integrity.
So long as these two elements remain intact, an organization stands supported, and is able to move forward. However, when the full depths of evil and hypocrisy are exposed and explored, all falls apart. I have to remember that it ended up being the reformers of the old WCG who precipitated its demise. Too many people were invested in the past status quo to embrace the reform of the visionaries. The old guard had bought too thoroughly into the facades to realize or acknowledge that anything had even been radically wrong. Finding themselves unable to agree on a singular vision as to how best to preserve the “sanctified” status quo, they too unwittingly ended up being instrumental in its unravelment.
I hope I’m wrong, but I’m beginning to see a classic move from the game of Checkers. The opponent has moved his checker in between two of ours, in a largely open space. Now all we can do is choose which one we will allow to be jumped.
BB
“The Tranceformation of America”
Have you read “Persuasion Engineering”? It’s a great book, in the way it teaches you. The writers use the same model that they are talking about. Less explaining and more being, through behaviour modification. The downside is that anybody, good or bad, can use these techniques for their own reasons or agenda. So, it’s best to learn about them and gain some proficiency and skill in using these techniques yourself. Like a hammer, you can use it to build or destroy. And all to often, most people will not be thinking of what’s in your own best interest, only theirs.
“I sometimes wonder if the old WCG doesn’t serve as a microcosm for what is happening in our present, both nationally and internationally.”
It is the same process. The only difference is the content.
Two factors would seem to be relevant in both the church and secular cases:
1) Man’s ability to convincingly fake sincerity, and
2) The ability of a group to present a facade of integrity.
I’m not quite sure what you are implying but I’m feeling risky and I’ll jump to a conclusion. Everybody has a reality strategy. Some people have a great bullshit detector, while others don’t. HWA was a great bamboozler, but most people that heard him didn’t fall for his shit. HWA sold utopia, dreams, great expectations, superiority, etc. which is what most people want. He had none of that, but he still managed to project that false image that other people had bought into. More people join the house of cards, with each new card risking a collapse. See, he was only good at convincing others, that’s it. Once the volcano of cognitive dissonance could no longer hold the pressure, all of those contradictions needed to project away from HWA and his cult to somewhere else, scapegoats and the ‘outside world’. Eventually, that viscous cycle will cause people to be no more than ornaments to put on his tree. You don’t smile because you are happy, that would be selfish, you smile so HWA will be happy. I’ll close with personal responsability. You can never get enough of it. Learning to be true to yourself first, will lead you into better and more authentic relationships.
“More people join the house of cards, with each new card risking a collapse. See, he was only good at convincing others, that’s it.”
The acog’s are just that. A ponzi scheme where the member always land up holding the bag. Its all his fault when everything turns to shit. The only difference from a financial ponzi scheme is that the acogs promised payoff comes when your dead and into the next life and not next week.