The Death of Common Sense

.By Darryl Robert Schoon
this time of trouble will bring seeds of social rebirth. Americans will share a regret about recent mistakes -- and a resolute new consensus about what to do.


The destruction of America’s economy happened in plain view of Americans and yet the political process failed to prevent what all could see was happening.

The present process serves those in power. This is not to say that all politicians are compromised. It is to say that all politicians must work within a compromised system, a system that encourages politicians to lie to an electorate that will punish them at the polls for telling the truth.

La vérité est morte. Bientôt, ce seront également les mensonges.
The truth is dead. Soon, so too, will be the lies.

We are in the midst of a systemic breakdown, a breakdown not confined to the economy, politics or other now failing systems, e.g. healthcare, education, etc. Such breakdowns always occur at the end of eras, when one epoch gives way to another. Such are the times in which we live.

THE FUTURE


Give me back the Berlin wall
give me Stalin and St Paul
I've seen the future, brother:
it is murder.
Things are going to slide, slide in all directions
Won't be nothing
Nothing you can measure anymore
The blizzard, the blizzard of the world
has crossed the threshold
and it has overturned
the order of the soul
From The Future, lyrics by Leonard Cohen, 1992

We are at a great gate in history. What brought us here will not take us to another destination. If we want change, we must want the change that will bring the change that we want. Sound bites and slogans until now how been sufficient for most. In the future, when food, water, and shelter become more important, the difference between sound bites, slogans and the truth will become more apparent.

These historic times have been predicted by some just as the current economic collapse has also been predicted. Though predicted only by a few, such predictions are the only road maps we have in these consequential times.

In the 1990s, American historians William Strauss and Neil Howe made the following prediction in The Fourth Turning published in 1997:

The next Fourth Turning is due to begin shortly after the new millennium. 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.

Yet this time of trouble will bring seeds of social rebirth. Americans will share a regret about recent mistakes -- and a resolute new consensus about what to do.

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.

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 efforts -- in other words, a total war.

David Hackett Fisher in The Great Wave (published 1996) and Buckminster Fuller in The Critical Path (published 1981) also predicted this current crisis and collapse. In the early 1900s, Ludwig von Mises predicted the collapse of today’s credit-based economies; and, more recently, John Exter in the 1950s and 1960s warned of the same as did Antal Fekete and others.By Darryl Robert Schoon
Jan 13 2009 12:13PM

www.drschoon.com

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