The Cycle of American History

It begins like this: Listen ....

There are Seasons in Nature

Spring
The cycle of seasons begins.
New life bursts forth. Flowers bloom. There is rapid growth.
It is the best time of opportunity to plant seeds that will produce a crop.
And a very important principle begins to unfold:
We always reap exactly what we sow, more than we sow, and in a later season.

Summer
Summer is when the new growth hardens off.
There comes an awakening to how fruitful the year could be.
Sometimes it's too wet, or it's too dry; or, sometimes it's too hot, or maybe too cold.
Pests and Diseases infect the crops.
The farmer "feels the need" to take some kind of action to correct the problems.

Autumn
Autumn begins with a harvest.
And new buds begin to form for the next growing season.
But soon everything unravels.
Leaves fall off the trees. Frost begins to kill off the annual plants.
Perennials die back to the ground. Life goes dormant.

Winter
Winter is the coldest season and the last phase of the cycle.
The nights are long. The cold wind howls. The ground is frozen.
It is a struggle to survive. It's expensive. It seems like it will never end.
Life lays dormant.
However, Winter is also the season when new buds finish developing for Spring.

Then the cycle begins again.

There are Seasons in American History

Something oddly similar to seasons in nature has happened in four time periods of American history. Each time period listed represents a cycle. There are four seasons inside each cycle that fog in and out of each other after roughly 20 to 30 years. When the fourth cycle is finally over, the four cycles combined will have acted as seasons themselves in one great big cycle. The Time periods are: 1. 1694-1783 with the end of theAmerican Revolution
2. 1783-1865 with the end of the American Civil War
3. 1865-1945 with the end of World War II
4. 1945-Present with The War on Terrorism?

Within each of those four time periods the exact same four things happened.

The Four Cycles:

^{PLEASE NOTE:
These are very abbreviated examples. Hopefully they will paint the picture in your mind's eye.}

THE HIGH TIME
The cycles all began with a High period for the elite class of society. If you were among the elite, and if you could exploit the current economic opportunity you made out really good. It was usually done at the expense of others.

The 1st Cycle, for example, featured something called Extravagant Land Grants. The elite took advantage of the Indians in the most reprehensible ways; like getting a Indian drunk on Rum and then guiding the pen in his hand to sign away thousands of acres. Some of the grants were up 700,000 acres. That's pretty big for the family farm. Most just sat on the land driving the price up. People worked it as slaves or indentured servants. Check out Pennsylvania's "Walking Purchase" and New York's "Midnight Survey" for a couple of eye openers.

The 2nd Cycle began with the Industrial Revolution and "Manifest Destiny". The elite exploited factory workers including children and women for a profit. The seed was planted for monopolies in industry. The Cherokee Indians were driven from Georgia to Oklahoma in the "Trail of Tears".

The 3rd Cycle starts right out with the Guilded Age and a arrogant little upper class belief called "Social Darwinism". It was the period of Robber Barons with Railroad, Steel, and Oil monopolies.

The 4th Cycle launched with the Age of Suburbia. The Interstate Highway System was built and caused development at every intersection. The Military Industrial Complex used American boys as for cannon fodder in exchange for huge corporate profits.

THE AWAKENING
Then there came an Awakening to some sort of social injustice or religion. If you happened to be in a group that was being exploited you started to wake up. There was a "feeling" that something needed to be done to correct a problem. For some the answer was to find religion. For others it was just plain "Get-even-with'm-ism".

The 1st Cycle finds the Indians complaining to the colonial governments about being swindled. It became a serious problem for New York, Pennsylvania and Virginia. Growing prosperity prompted fears that the devil was luring society into pursuit of worldly gain. It produced a religious reaction that came to be known as the Great Awakening. Some of that Awakening had a lot to do with imported Rosicrucianism from Europe. Freemasonry started to enter the political system of Colonial government as another import from Europe.

The 2nd Cycle featured another reaction to growing secularism. There was a fear of Freemasonry and the Illuminati. Another religious revival soon spread westward. Utopian Societies like the Shakers and others emerged. It was called the Second Great Awakening. Socialists complained that industrialization created the need for radical social reform. Capitalists disagreed. Slavery became a big issue.

The 3rd Cycle found people complaining that America was no longer the land of opportunity. The rich got richer and you had to bow down to them. Trust busting became a big political issue. Powerful International Bankers created the "debt money system" called the FED. Unions formed to protect labor rights. There were riots at factories. Machines began to replace workers. There was a lot of poverty in the urban areas. And once again there was a wave of evangelism featuring the likes of Billy Sunday.

The 4th Cycle awakened with the the Civil Rights Movement, Race Riots, the Hippies, and Vietnam. Remember "Peace, Love, Drugs". Suburban kids resented and rebelled against their parents. I remember a "Born Again" bible revival when I was in the Army. Farmers resented buying retail to sell wholesale.

THE UNRAVELING Next there was a general Unraveling - socially, economically and politically.

The 1st Cycle featured everything spiraling out of control after the French and Indian War. Colonial Script was outlawed and replaced by the "debt money system" created by the Bank of England. Taxes were imposed. People divided and chose sides. Some folks wanted freedom, some wanted to keep the security of what they knew; and most were more than willing to kill each other over it. Families split. Neighbors argued. Even the Iroquois confederation split apart because of it.

The 2nd Cycle saw basically the same thing happening. Things spiraled out of control with the Abolishionist Movement and the balance of power in Congress. Families split again. Neighbors argued again. And once again it was about freedom or security. Northerners wanted security. Southerners wanted freedom.

The 3rd Cycle unraveled with economic and political events surrounding World War 1 and the Great Depression which had a lot to do with the "debt money system". Then came the New Deal, Nazism, Japanese Imperialism. Things spiraled out of control as the security of America was threatened.

The 4th Cycle is unraveling now with 9-11, the Global War on Terrorism, the War in Iraq, the War in Afghanistan, the War in Bosnia, the never ending Korean War and Drug War, not to mention corporate corruption and spinning the economic statistics to gain political advantage of the moment.

THE CRISIS Then there was a Crisis with a major war.
Nothing like these wars had ever happened before.
Each war was bigger than the one before it.

The 1st Cycle - The American Revolution

The 2nd Cycle - The American Civil War a.k.a. The War of Northern Aggression

The 3rd Cycle - World War II

The 4th Cycle - The apocolyptic war that will probably happen in the Baby-Boomer's retirement years if the pattern continues.

CONCLUSION

High, Awakening, Unraveling, Crisis -- Just like -- Spring, Summer, Autumn, Winter

Each crisis was unique and much bigger than the one before it.

Each crisis changed the world and completed a cycle.

If the pattern holds, then we are about to enter the Winter Crisis of the Winter Cycle of American history. The last time that happened was the apocalyptic THIRTY YEARS WAR, which began the evolution of the entire process by way of the English Civil War and the creation of the "debt money system" with the Bank of England in 1694.

Money As Debt

It ends like this: Po-teet-weet?

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Last updated 3.2.2008