This essay was segregated from the previous discussion first because it just takes too much space in a post and time to read (much less to write) comparative history. But secondly, this essay will be political. Comparative history is, I am realizing, subjective and political. Still, events, however you characterize them as good or bad, simply occur. If the reader and myself can see past my personal bias (highly conservative), perhaps the objective repetitive event can be seen. I apologize for the lack of civility and hope it will be overlooked for the sake of, as Lord Bacon would say, "considering."
My entire journey has been driven by 'happenings' that I cannot explain. I find my last name, then first name in the telestic encoding of "The Tunnel Thru the Air" and, uncomfortably, consider it the 'fat tail' of the normal distribution of probability. And then I realize my street address would be spelled in the encoding to assure me it wasn't chance (see the 7th Prophecy series HERE). I'm standing near the Great Tree and hypothetical '13th stone' in Green-Wood Cemetery last Sunday and my son-in-law calls me up to just behind Mr. Ganns gravestone where, unintentionally, he notices his birthday and my daughter's birthday on the stone exactly behind that Mr. Gann's. And when I return to the hypothetical 13th stone, I look at the dates on the stone and the top date is the day and month my son passed (see HERE). His date of passing reduces to 999. Mr. Gann's birthdate of June 6, 1878 reduces to 666. Here's a pictorial of those two events:
[Note, the die of the 13th stone is off its base by a good 5 inches. That is a big monument; hundreds of pounds. It is the only monument I have seen that was so offset. There are scrape marks on the base where it slid sidewards but there aren't any marks on the face or rear of the stone indicating it had been knocked sidewards by lawn equipment. I do not understand the meaning, if any. Mark that as random but very disconcerting.]
So, I sit down in my easy chair to read the many, then contemporaneous, 1848-1849 essays on their revolution and what was the first thing I read (from History.com, 2010, written by staff)?
The first thing I notice is the date; the month and day I was born. It just keeps happening. It should not be lost on the reader that the year, 1848 plus 168 years (the period of the MOT and 1/15th of the Biblical "Great Week") is.....2016. And 2016 is the last year of the MOT and, perhaps, the last year of the Great Week when reckoned from "the Exile." Perhaps 2016 the end of an Biblical epoch.
The second thing I notice is the wording that "history...of society is the history of class struggle." There wasn't a qualification of "economic history" or "religious history." It is simply, the "history of society" is "class struggle." I take from that, there is not an inconsistency between the 1848 class struggle between the aristocracy and working class when compared to the religious struggle between Islam and the infidel of 2016 (remember, 2016 is mid 2015 to mid 2016 per the Map of Time or MOT). There isn't a difference between the 1848 class struggle and the struggle between those of us branded the "white privilege" class versus all others. There isn't a difference between the 1848 class struggle and the 2016 struggle between those in the U.S. aristocracy (as government is considered by many in its elevation of perpetuation over principle) and its dependents versus those of us not in government (including the dependents of government). Simply, class struggle characterizes the history of society.
With those first thoughts, I will treat the following two of five descriptions of the 'year' 2016 as a single theme comparing conditions in and around 3 years; 1848, 1932 and 2016 :
- As was the character of the world 168 years (one of 15 periods of the Great Week) prior to 2016 in 1848, "revolution" is not to be considered "remote."
1848 and surrounding years. As previously discussed, the beginning of the MOT, 1848, is known as the "Spring of Nations," "Year of Revolutions," etc. I doubt anyone doubts revolutions emerge from anything other than discontent and, so, what were the conditions that lead to the discontent of 1848? Run a search on the "Great Famine" and you'll quickly find that on the order of 1 million Irish died when the potato crop was infected and failed in the mid 1840s. That's 1 million Irish out of some population that was likely not an enormous number. Similarly, the entire European continent was deeply depressed in famine and consequent unrest. The famine lasted years and is noted to have stretched from the mid 1840s to and including the "Year of Revolutions."
Famine giving rise to revolution. Not so novel a concept, but file that in your attic of ideas for now.
Naturally, persons living on the margin were pressed to the point of starvation while the aristocracy may have lost ground but were hardly, we would think, faced with such consequence. Amid the contrast of suffering versus abundance, we have developed the ideal circumstances wherein the 'organizers' of unrest are in the sweet spot of their conditions in which their profession thrives.
And there we find Friedrich Engels and Karl Marx. Early on, 1818 Prussian born Karl Marx wrote for a liberal democratic newspaper in Cologne but it was closed for its outspoken opinions. With that Marx moved to Paris in 1843, then the focus of socialist thought. As a co-editor of a Parisian newspaper, Marx adopted the more extreme form of socialist thought. He also met Friedrich Engels whose political thought was the same. We might expect Marx' rhetoric was as inflammatory in Paris as it was in Prussia because he was expelled from Paris in 1845.
Marx and Engels reunited in Brussels in 1847, establishing the "League of the Just," a secret society of German revolutionaries, and developing their communist philosophy. Shortly thereafter, Marx was commissioned by the newly renamed "Communist League" to document the manifesto of communism. On February 21, 1848, the "Communist Manifesto" was published and the next day, February 22, 1848 the Paris revolution began (the two events are not directly related as copies of the Manifesto were, on February 22, not distributed in Paris). [An inquiring reader might look at the dates on the hypothetical 13th stone above for the date, February 22. I could write that off as random, but I no longer believe in coincidence.]
Professional struggling class organizers creating revolution out of dire societal circumstance.
Obviously, we have organizers pitting the lower classes against the wealthy.
We have in 1848, as well, the organization and exposition of socialist and communist thought.
The revolutions of 1848 failed in that year but found their successes in Lenin's Russia, Mao's China, Catro's Cuba and on.
1932 and surrounding years. The mid point of the 168-year MOT, is also the low point of the stock market decline from the great market high of September 1929. The crash of 1929, much as the Great Famine in mid 1840's Europe, set the conditions that prevailed in 1932; unemployment, soup lines, depression...
Can anyone, with good face, contest the assertion that the first year from the 'right beginning' of the MOT or 1933, marked the year in which the United States' government began a 'transformation' from small government to large government? President Franklin D. Roosevelt introduced and had enacted his first "New Deal" to be followed by in 1935 by the second "New Deal."
Out of the "first 100 days," the "New Deal," the second "New Deal" and later acts, the U.S. Federal Government grew by the Works Progress Administration, Agricultural Adjustment Administration, Tennessee Valley Authority, the National Labor Relations Board, the Social Security Administration, the Home Owner's Loan Corporation, Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, Securities and Exchange Commission.... Whew.
Of all that, the United States economic conditions staged little recovery and, in 1937, relapsed into depression. By many if not most economists and historians, it was not until the stimulus of productivity occasioned by World War II did the U.S. emerge from depression.
FDR was an adept politician. Many of his great advancements were decried as unconstitutional and his reaction to prevent their being overturned by the conservative Supreme Court was to threaten to "pack the Court" with liberal justices.
As well, FDR used his pulpit to further polarize the populace in a campaign, right or wrong, to hate the industrialists, bankers and wealthy interests. All's fair in love and politics as the wealthy branded FDR a Marxist-Leninist. However, much as we might take choose sides of the fence, the objective view would be the rhetoric pitted the struggling classes against one another.
Was 1932, the mid point of the MOT, the beginning of a quiet revolution born out of dire social times (unemployment, poverty, famine...)?
As in 1848 where organizers pitted the classes against one another, the President did so.
I could make much more of the Depression years, but the thread of thought seems persuasive in my albeit biased view. Besides, it's better for each to ponder the similarities and differences to explore the validity of the MOT and/or the concept of history repeating itself.
2016 and surrounding years. In 2016 we are faced with many class struggles in both Europe and in the U.S.:
- Black Lives Matter versus White Privilege (more-so in the U.S. than Europe),
- Islam versus the Infidel (more-so in Europe that the U.S.), and
- An alliance of workers, government dependents (welfare and Federal government employees), and the 'new aristocracy' including Congress and, again, Federal government workers versus those not in those classes.
The first two of the above struggles are obvious. I will avid treatment of the former two themes but they are self explanatory in my opinion.
In the third instance we have an interesting class struggle of an alliance of the government dependents and Congressional representatives. Think about this. Never has food stamp enrollment been greater. As the welfare grows, so grows the index of poverty. As government grows so grows the wealth of the the other class of Federal dependents; those who work for the Federal government. By most measures, the per capita wealthiest city in the U.S. is Washington DC. And what real and consumable good does Washington produce? Computers, no. Cars, no. Food, no.....
Washington DC is the new aristocracy; itself an alliance of a dependent class, that being the wealthy (by national standards) Federal government worker and the Congressional representatives (inclusive of not only Democrats but Republicans). The key is perpetuation of the rulership status quo to retain one's job.
To this scenario of struggles we add a professional community organizer; President Obama.
The further swing of the pendulum to socialism. Where the 1848 revolution advocating socialism in Europe failed, the quiet revolution to government dependence in about 1932 began. The quiet revolution continued with Obamacare and out-the-closet Obamaphones marketed on street corners by or tax payer paid advertisements for food stamps. If you do the term, Obamaphone, do a search.
Judge by the fruits of labor; is the measure of socialism tipped toward the side of complete free enterprise or toward government control by the Federal government controlling 80% of the mortgage market, 100% of the Student loan market, a large portion of the health care and health care insurance market (Obamacare, Medicare and Medicaid).... What portion of the economy do these industries represent? Very large and increasing. More during FDR's tenure rather than less, more during Obama's tenure rather than less. Can a dispute be credibly lodged otherwise?
The aristocracy that exists to perpetuate itself. No, not the same birth right aristocracy as might be found in 1848, but an institution that exists to perpetuate and reward itself. Democrats understand the key to re election is greater government generosity. Republicans will not confront expanding government for fear of not being re elected.
There is one missing seed to support some form of revolution; hunger. Hunger existed in 1848 and in 1932, but it does not exist as it might have in the famines of the 1840s or the soup lines of the 1930s.
*****
The argument is this; do we find the following common elements among the first year of the MOT, 1848, the mid point of the MOT, 1932, and the present:
- Class struggle,
- Active promotion of class division and entitlement,
- A clearly defined aristocracy, and
- Hunger.
I believe the United States lacks only hunger. Add the last element and, it would seem, the conditions exist to support revolution.
How is it plausible this country that feeds a disproportionate portion of the world's population might be unable to feed itself? A story comes to mind.
I was waiting to check out at the local low end grocery store and every lane was backed up. People were being turned away and counseled at the store's customer service desk. There was a a problem with the Electronic Benefit Card system. Welfare recipients could not use their EBT cards to buy food, cigarettes or beer. The outage lasted only a couple hours as I understand it and was region as opposed to national.
The story (and it was real) provides two considerations:
- In an any network, failure occurs at the networks weakest link in the network. The U.S. has plenty of food so how would people go unfed; the inability of the network to distribute money to the government dependents. This does not have to be an EBT failure. I recall the CNBC feed of the pre opening floor of the NYSE the day that day in 2008 when overnight letters of credits financing of GE and others failed. A CNBC announcer asks a floor broker, "What is the mood on the floor?" The response is, "We're all calling home to tell our wives to go to the bank an withdraw all the cash they can...go to the bank, go to the ATMs...get cash." Inter party credit had failed. Banks could not honor respondent or any bank's obligations. The great interdependent, modern economy could not operate without inter party and counter party credit. Could the failure be as simple as a terrorist attack on the Washington clearing apparatus of the Food Stamp program? Would the great mythological U.S. dollar meltdown be the weakest link? Would a U.S. debt downgrade melt the monetary framework. I sense many weak links.
- Most importantly, would you want to live in an urban area when the lowest rung on the socio-economic ladder cannot be fed? Even for a single day?
In the final part 5 of this series I will provide what I believe is a clue left by Mr. Gann in how this 2016 scenario "works out." Remember page 82 of "The Tunnel Thru the Air:"
"...remarkable events..."
Jim Ross
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