Today I want to share with you some thoughts from a book I’m reading entitled The Fractured Republic.
In the beginning of Chapter Two, Levin nails the difference between the “Golden Era” of 1945-1963 and today.
Americans on both the Right and the Left have a sense of nostalgia for the Golden Era. It was a simpler time, many say, where Americans enjoyed better living and greater security.
The Golden Era, Levin writes, “enjoyed relative cultural cohesion, low economic inequality, high confidence in national institutions, and widespread optimism about the nation’s prospects.”
Today, we lack cultural cohesion. We’re a multi-ethnic and multi-cultural society with a substantial political faction dedicated to dismantling the historically dominant power structure. It’s already leading to conflict.
Today, we have high economic inequality. The Federal Reserve policy of low interest rates and cheap money, along with their dedication to re-inflating home prices and the stock market, has led to record wealth creation by the nation’s richest people… all while our country’s immigration policy has imported millions of poor, low skill immigrants who drag down wages for America’s working class citizens. Of course we have inequality — the political class encouraged it.
Today, we have low confidence in national institutions. The scandals emanating from the Justice Department and the IRS show how these institutions often become politicized to ‘reward our friends and punish our enemies.’ Many Americans have simply stopped trusting government to ‘do the right thing’ and it’s no surprise. Regardless of which party wins the 2020 presidential election, roughly half the country will be angry and resentful.
And do we, today, have widespread optimism about the nation’s prospects?
America is losing its place as the economic, cultural, military, and technology leader of the world — something that’s actually been decades in the making. This decline is going to have profound implications not just for national security, but also for the standard of living and quality of life for Americans.
The economy is undoubtedly booming right now, but we know there’s going to be significant trouble ahead.
The federal government is facing a $183 trillion shortfall over the next 30 years for social security, medicare, medicaid, and general budget deficits. The money will come from your wallet, it will get printed, or it won’t get spent. Any of these choices is going to have serious economic and social implications.
This is that ‘perfect storm’ scenario and we run the risk of these trends crashing together soon.
I just finished re-reading The Fourth Turning.
This book was written in the 1990s, and the authors predicted that we would enter a conflict phase of the generational cycle in the mid-2000s, which would culminate in the early 2020s.
That time is now here.
And the authors, all the way back in the 1997, wrote something so simple yet so profound:
“It’s time to trust our instincts. Think seasonally and prepare. Forewarned is forearmed.”
I’ll be making a major announcement soon about the future of Forward Observer and some cool things we’re launching this month.
It’s indeed time to ‘Think seasonally and prepare’.
I’ll have more soon. Until next time…
Always Out Front,
Samuel Culper
Can’t help but think there are two elements that kind of underly what your saying in this post.
There is a growing insurgency, or rather an open source leaderless movement of people, who I like to call the honorable resistance, who have or are in the process of withdrawal of their consent for the structure of society, ie the systems of government local state and federal.
This no less because of it’s diminutive seeming origins, or maybe in spite of its grass roots dynamic, is a sea change in thinking and activity, a paradigm that flies below TPTB’s radar for the most part, because it is of such an underlying nature, I believe is beginning to have an effect in the larger scale.
Of course, those who control the approved messaging and narratives are of an entirely different demographic, and are you could say blissfully ignorant of this activity and its subtle effects.
The other element is the crisis of legitimacy, along the lines of the ancient Chinese Mandate of Heaven philosophy about the powers of the self anointed elites who hold political power of the day presently.
The honorable resistance is made up of a myriad of people, most tend to be rather high on the common sense/intelligence scale and self reliance/sufficient mindset. Actualization is a prime component, action, as in it is the act itself that counts, get er done mentality. Lot of motive power along with a certain American style of audacity, defiance of the statist quo’s diktat and agenda.
Talking people who create tangible things, wealth, use barter, trade, exchange of resources and labor, or tools, equipment, skills and knowhow, predominately in a more or less agrarian orientated area of activity and way of life. Many are or have learned various skills, trades, they home school, build off grid elements into their lives, discover the providence of Faith, family, tribe, to add to their repertoire, and their added value as people who accomplish the hard things, are comfortable with manual labor, who share common praise and value with hand crafts, locally produced goods, who become actively valued members of small communities or “tribes”.
Not for nothing the Colonial Era of our forebears was a time of great creativity, art, agrarian productivity, of self determinism, of classical thinking, and great faith in the codes and precepts of 2000 years of Greco/Roman Christian culture and its history.
These are mighty powerful elements of a demographic that is discreet, commited, with a sense of both past, and present and how all these elements compose sustainable and holistic way of life. Much adaptation and improvisation takes place which enriches the whole and individual.
I personally can attest to much of the above in my AO in the WV mountains. And by inference and extrapolation, hear of, read about, and deduct this honorable resistance is on the rise.
I think many, as they make it thru their steep learning curves, and grasp the implications of this way of life is a constant learning and maturing process, begin to go from a form of preparational survival, to surthrival.
Among the small tribe I belong to, we tend to be very partial to the home made, home grown and home raised, that the bounty of the Earth, and the connections to our rural environs and God are very powerful things, that we cherish these things above all other. it makes us very independent minded, perseverance is a virtue, hard work is a reward in itself.
We are a very strong demographic, yes a tiny plurality, but we are legion I suspect. At some point as our numbers grow, and we begin to grok we are a plurality, it is them we become A Legion.
We can not be denied, in all ways of the meaning.
The dichotomy of the urban/metro demographic, it’s focus on “cultural” and social ideological warriorism is kind of the ultimate in navel gazing and barn blindness. Each to their own of course. But this demographic is missing a lot of very essential life sustaining elements. Never mind the resources of sustainable nature. Very fragile when the stuff stops being delivered, the stuff breaks down and there is no one to maintain and fix it.
They have pretty much no idea what the future holds for them at a certain point as things evolve as they are.
But my point here is the honorable resistance is a force in its self in its own right. How do I explain it here. It is a manifest thing.
I think the best definition would be regarding Consent. Very unique interesting thing Consent. It can not be taken, only given. Hold a .45 to my head, threaten you will put a boolit thru my head is I refuse to comply with your demands, if I refuse my to give my Consent to you. You can shhoot me if I refuse. I’m dead. But I still am a Freeman. You can kill me but I die free. I die resisting your tyranny, or whatever. BFYTW.
It is the indomitable thing. There is no need of a major plurality, or a minor majority, even a small plurality, there is nothing like a tiny plurality of dirt people who refuse to give up. Who never say die.
It is the most legitimate thing imaginable. The only legitimate power. No tyrant can ever possess such power, no State, nothing or nobody, but the soveriegn Freeman.
I believe the tyrant bith fears such power like none other, and is jealous, insane with hate & envy over such ultimate power, highly held contempt of such inherent natural legitimacy.
That has to be a dynamic all outside of its diminutive origins.