21st Century Breakdown

The Burning Platform ^ | February 23, 2010 | James Quinn

[parsifal]

Political leaders and the mainstream media have been blindsided by the sudden mood shift of the country in the last few years. The reason they have been blindsided is they believe world history is linear. Liberals have now begun referring to themselves as progressives. These people think the world only progresses. The facts indicate otherwise. History is cyclical. History is replete with grand empires like Rome, Spain and Britain. It is also replete with Dark Ages, depressions and wars. Strauss & Howe have established that history can be broken down into 80 to 100 year Saeculums that consist of four turnings: The High, The Awakening, The Unraveling, and the Crisis.

[The Comedian]

Sometimes you get a winter, some times you get an ice age.

Your entire post was brilliant. Consider writing a short book on this theme, and I'll be the first to pre-purchase it!

Frowning takes 68 muscles.
Smiling takes 6.
Pulling this trigger takes 2.
I'm lazy.

[parsifal]

Yeah! Teddy Roosevelt was a progressive.

parsy, who says, “Nancy Pelosi, You are not a progressive!”

[The Comedian]

Sometimes you get a winter, some times you get an ice age.

Your entire post was brilliant. Consider writing a short book on this theme, and I'll be the first to pre-purchase it!

Frowning takes 68 muscles.
Smiling takes 6.
Pulling this trigger takes 2.
I'm lazy.

[parsifal]

I remember one of my high school teachers telling us during WWII, he served in the Navy. Whenever Japanese pilots were able to parachute out of their planes, the gunners used to try to hit them. They figured if they survived, they would just be back.

As I recall, Patton(?) wrote the same about German snipers. If they sniped, they did not get to surrender. They got shot, hands over their heads or not. Patton, though, thought the Dresden bombing was an atrocity.

And FWIW, Patton used to ride around with John Singleton Mosby, the Gray Ghost, and I think the last confederate who they permitted to surrender a year or so after the war. Custer once hung some of Mosby’s “Partisan Rangers”. Mosby promptly hung some of Custer’s men, permitting one young lad to go tell Custer. The hangings stopped.

parsy, who used to read a lot

[Little Bill]

The book has been written, think 1932. Thanx to our dear FRiend LS and contributors. The parallels are amazing.

[SE Mom]

Your post articulates what I’ve sensed for...months or maybe a little longer. I visualize it by “watching” the iceberg and the Titanic inching towards each other...you see something dreadful is inevitable- but you’re not sure what exactly, it will look like.

A small example of the oddness of things is a chat I had yesterday with a neighbor about Iran/Israel etc. He asserted it’s all going to be ok because America and Israel will stick together as we always have- that we will keep arming Israel etc. I explained that is not the case- this president and his adminstration are decidedly pro Palestinian. He kept saying “ America won’t let this or that happen”....I said- this is NOT the America you’ve always known. It was a startling moment- hearing him say that and my realizing, for the first time in my life (babyboomer age) no one can depend on America to do, be and stand for certain things we’ve always done, no matter who was in office..or what the politicians were up to.

[The Comedian]

Karl Denniger over at Market Ticker has been saying the same thing. He’s even warned the cops they had best get to work on the crooks, financial and otherwise, or they’re likely to be toast. A long screed. I’ll find it and link it. fromlori may have posted it yesterday.

Excellent.

parsy, who has to get some bullets for his Mosin Nagent

I am huge into blended metal commodities myself.

Frowning takes 68 muscles.
Smiling takes 6.
Pulling this trigger takes 2.
I'm lazy.

[Mariner]

"I think everyone feels it, like an undercurrent of electricity humming. I know I don’t know exactly what is happening, but SOMETHING is. As my cousin (who regrets her hysterical vote for Obama) expressed it, there is a “deep sense of foreboding.” I feel it, and I see it on people in the grocery store. The skeptic in me steps back and wants to say “This is just silly, things have been ‘scary’ before.” And truth be told, the longer things are going along ‘normally’ (albeit with lack of jobs), the more I question if I am just hysterical. But I cannot turn lose of the undercurrent of being on the edge of something. And completely unsure of what that ‘something’ is."

The sense of impending doom is humming throughout the world.

[who_would_fardels_bear]

This four-part-repeating cycle idea is not new.

"The Fate of Empires" written by John Glubb Pasha had this theory.

Likewise "When the Empire Strikes Out" by Goetz.

There was a book that came out in the early nineties with this theme claiming the end was near. If I remember right the four archetypal ages favored the businessman, then the poor, then the warrior, and then the artist/priest. I guess we would be transitioning from the age of the businessman to the age of the pauper right about now.

Evidently that book was a bit premature. I wish I could remember the title though. It was written by an Indian gentleman probably based on Glubb Pasha's theories.

[parsifal]

Fascinating. I don’t recall ever reading about Glubb, although I did read a book about the Long Range Desert Patrols or something. Frankly, I am years behind on my serious reading and doubt I can ever catch up.

Toynbee awaits, in the room out back. Along with a gadzillion others. So many books. So little time.

parsy, who says thanks for shoring his memory the other day!

[who_would_fardels_bear]

Since a lot of us are underwater on our mortgages it's rather appropiate for us to turn to someone named ...

Glubb
Glubb
Glubb
Glubb

[parsifal]

Its all how one looks at things. I prefer to think of it as “Yankee bankers are upside down on their collateral”

You seem to be one who would enjoy the historical info here:

http://www.affil.org/consumer_rsc/usury.php

Dante was onto something.

parsy, who shows fatique