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Keeping Up Morale In The Fourth Turning

Keeping Up Morale In The Fourth Turning

Authored by Samantha Biggers via PeakProsperity.com,

During this part of the cycle, many of us have experienced some fairly extreme isolation due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Regardless of how serious…

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Keeping Up Morale In The Fourth Turning

Authored by Samantha Biggers via PeakProsperity.com,

During this part of the cycle, many of us have experienced some fairly extreme isolation due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Regardless of how serious you believe the disease is, the isolation, fear, and paranoia it has caused have led to some major consequences to the psyche and overall well-being of billions of people worldwide.

The first nine months of the pandemic, I spent hunkered down on our property in the mountains of North Carolina. We stopped going to major stores, including grocery stores, on January 31, and we have not been back. Part of the reason for this was that after nine months of isolation on our mountain, I became pregnant with our first child. At this point, we thought adoption many years down the road was the only way children would play a part in our lives.

All of a sudden, I was deemed as being in a high-risk group. Going to prenatal appointments and ultrasounds had to be done alone. It was 20 weeks before my husband even saw a picture, and that was only because they print them out for you. I have to admit I was a little scared of pregnancy during COVID-19. Pregnant women are four times more likely to need hospitalization and a ventilator, for example. The long-term effects on a fetus are unknown.

That is my story. I think I have handled it better than average because even before lockdown, we tended to keep busy at home and didn’t enjoy going out to shop. Most people are not like that. It is probably not good for anyone to stay at home for months at a time without going anywhere at all or seeing people besides immediate family.

Crime In 2020

Murder rates went up drastically in many major cities. NYC saw a 40% increase, Chicago murders increased 50%. Los Angeles saw a 40% rise. Practically any major city saw at least a 30% increase. Nationally murder rates went up 37.5% Source: NPR

According to the CDC, there were 81,000 overdose deaths in 2020. This is the highest number ever recorded in the USA. Compare this to 70,980 in 2019. Source: CDC

Homelessness increased dramatically due to increased substance abuse.

So how does the average person deal with this while staying strong for those that depend on them?

Take charge of your food security.

It is a good idea to have some extra food put back so you can be prepared for shortages, higher prices, and even civil unrest. Being prepared with some extra food can ease some of the stress and anxiety during uncertain times. Eating well helps boost morale during difficult times.

Growing some of your food can help take the bite out of rising food costs. With signs indicating that hyperinflation is upon us, anything you can do to produce some of what you eat is going to help. Gardening and outdoor activities can help with your mood and encourages exercise that can help you sleep better.

Find enjoyable activities to take your mind off what seems like an overwhelming situation.

Everyone needs something that they do that is enjoyable and helps relieve stress. At the beginning of the pandemic, I took a little time and money and created a more prolific home library. I keep around 100 books on hand and rotate them out. Some I sell back online while others I donate. I buy a lot of used books online. Local libraries usually have a system where you can check out ebooks and read them remotely. Amazon has a program called Kindle Unlimited is an affordable way to have unlimited ebooks on hand.

Kids and teens need something to keep them occupied. It is a good idea to start a “morale box” for them. Take a simple storage tote and start putting items in it that are engaging and thoughtful. This is something you can do overtime as you can afford it.

Try to stay strong for those that depend on you.

Times are tough for a lot of people. It can be incredibly challenging to put on your game face and be strong. Those that have dependents need to try as hard as they can. Negative emotions and letting yourself get too low will harm those around you. If you notice yourself slipping into the blues, the sooner you deal with it, the better. Don’t ignore your mental state. Try to work through it by finding solutions before it causes more trouble for you and those close to you.

Remember that a lot of people have been through some rough 4th turnings. While it may take some time, there are usually better times ahead.

Responsible use of vices can be helpful.

Everyone has a vice. While indulging too much can cause trouble or damage your health, responsible use of vices can be a fantastic morale booster. Plenty of people enjoy a glass of wine or have a cigar once in a while to relax.

Some vices can be harder to get during uncertain times, so it is wise to have a few put back. Here are a few common ones to consider.

  • Alcoholic Beverages

  • Tobacco

  • Chocolate

  • Specialty foods and beverages

Your vice might be something that doesn’t fit in those categories. Some people like to knit like crazy or write in a journal.

Enjoy making or listening to some music.

Music can help get you through some hard times. Who hasn’t listened to music to encourage relaxation, physical activity, or to remember good times and fond memories?

I keep an emergency radio on hand that can read and playback music and audiobooks. A Kaito emergency radio will work when other devices will not, and the speaker is big enough so that the sound will fill a room rather well.

If you don’t want to pay for music, you can find some free music that is not copyright protected online.

Video calls can help people stay in contact during times of isolation.

While nothing can replace being in the same room with someone, it is far better than nothing. Video calls are a great way to stay connected with relatives you want to support and check-in but live too far away for regular visits. Be sure to call and check in on relatives that live alone, especially those that are older. An occasional call from you likely brightens their day more than you realize. If they have a cell phone, you can help them learn how to do video calls if they don’t already know how to.

Online Counseling Services

I have read mixed reviews of online counseling services. I think that part of the reason reviews are mixed is that some people have a harder time working through their issues than others. Some may also do better with a real physical presence to help guide them through their troubles. Do remember that online or virtual counseling is an option for you if you are suffering from any type of mental illness or hard times. Costs vary, of course, by the company and session length.

Try to stay busy.

While some people have difficulty stopping and relaxing, others have difficulty not being bored or inactive. Keeping busy helps time pass and makes it harder to dwell on dark things. A sense of purpose and achievement is essential to the human psyche. If some people in your household are not doing much, try to give them something to do.

Take steps to improve your home defense. Feeling safe and like you have some control of your situation improves morale and mood.

With crime on the rise throughout the United States and civil unrest erupting at the drop of a hat, you need to consider how good your home defenses are. Here is a shortlist of home defense measures you can take.

  • Fences and fence spikes

  • Driveway alarms

  • Cameras

  • Window security film

  • Window locks and alarms

  • Become proficient with whatever weapons you choose.

For more advice on home security and defense, check out my article “Home Defense Methods and Strategies”.

What news sites are you reading? How much time are you spending on them?

I find it hard to look away from the news at times. While I favor alternative media sources like Citizen Free Press and ZeroHedge, I also check in on the mainstream sites to see the current stories and the propaganda of the day.

I think we can all agree that 2020 and 2021 have been one strange event after another. It is important to tune out and not dwell on it more than you should. Checking the news a few times a day is one thing but spending a ton of time staring at one outrageous and upsetting thing after another is not good for your mental health. Consider that you could be spending that time on something more productive or even just relaxing?

Remember that good news rarely gets reported. There are plenty of positive events occurring in daily life that you won’t hear about. Think about what is good in your own life. What are you grateful for?

Stop living in the past. Look to the future.

I hear many people saying “when things go back to normal” and dwelling on a way of life that we can never truly go back to. Things have changed. We have to consider what we can do to make things better in the future using the resources and abilities we have. To be successful at anything, we have to be somewhat realistic. We cannot rely on too much magic to solve our problems for us.

In “The Fourth Turning,” Strauss and Howe state, “Avoid post seasonal behavior, by terminating habits that were appropriate for the prior turning but are not for the current one.”

This is excellent advice. Continuing the habits of the prior Turning will result in increased stress and possible hardship for you and your family.

Don’t try to take on the problems of the world. Ask yourself what you can do to help solve issues within your community.

The Fourth Turning was written in 1997 during the unraveling 3rd Turning. Strauss and Howe were right when they wrote, “Come the Fourth Turning, national survival will require a level of public teamwork and self-sacrifice far higher than American’s now provide.” They also advise not to attempt to use community teamwork to solve national problems.

In short, taking on too much results in failure all too often. Organizing and making improvements on a small scale is much more feasible. Plus, if many communities do this, then suddenly, you have large portions of the country that have improved.

Try to be kind. During COVID-19, behavior in general society and politeness were kicked to the curb. Make an effort not to turn into that person.

When people are stressed, their actions and politeness can quickly deteriorate. Consider Asheville, NC, during the pandemic. Before the pandemic, it was a thriving small city that relied heavily on tourism and a vibrant downtown nightlife. A lot of people made their living in the food and service industries. When restaurants were forced to serve outside, take-out only, and enforce state regulations regarding masks during lockdown, many staff decided that they would never work in the industry again.

Why?

Because customers became abusive over minor things. Suddenly due to the new rules, people were looking for an excuse to complain or refuse to follow guidelines that restaurants were forced to enact or risk losing the ability to make a dime. Customers walked out on bills, became violent, etc. Then the protests started downtown. Protesters targeted hotels and restaurants. This led to more abuse towards staff trying to serve customers and provide them with the best experience while following current rules and regulations.

It has become widely accepted to get offended whenever one chooses, or at least people are walking around in battle mode, just knowing that they will inevitably offend someone. The reaction is likely to be over the top.

If someone boils over, try to get away from them. Don’t fuel the ridiculous lack of decency and manners that is all too common in the 4th Turning.

Realize that you can only help someone so much. The other person has to want to improve.

I have lost count of how many people over the years the people I had to give up on. That sounds awful, but the fact is that people have to want to make improvements. You cannot do all the work for them. Let’s examine the drug crisis in the USA to offer an example. Many of us know someone or know of someone that has become an addict. If not, we at least see people on the street that have a problem. The sad thing is that some of them have no authentic desire to change. Some people have chosen to live that way. Some people prefer living a nomadic or homeless lifestyle too. Helping people and giving them a chance to pull themselves up is great, but there reaches a point when it is wise to admit that your efforts are not effective and that you are likely being used.

The drug and homeless situation is going to get a lot worse before it gets better. You need to be prepared to make wise choices for your family’s safety, security, and overall well-being. Try to help people when you can, but set some limits.

What strategies have you found most useful for weathering this Fourth Turning?

Tyler Durden Sun, 07/18/2021 - 14:19

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Looking Back At COVID’s Authoritarian Regimes

After having moved from Canada to the United States, partly to be wealthier and partly to be freer (those two are connected, by the way), I was shocked,…

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After having moved from Canada to the United States, partly to be wealthier and partly to be freer (those two are connected, by the way), I was shocked, in March 2020, when President Trump and most US governors imposed heavy restrictions on people’s freedom. The purpose, said Trump and his COVID-19 advisers, was to “flatten the curve”: shut down people’s mobility for two weeks so that hospitals could catch up with the expected demand from COVID patients. In her book Silent Invasion, Dr. Deborah Birx, the coordinator of the White House Coronavirus Task Force, admitted that she was scrambling during those two weeks to come up with a reason to extend the lockdowns for much longer. As she put it, “I didn’t have the numbers in front of me yet to make the case for extending it longer, but I had two weeks to get them.” In short, she chose the goal and then tried to find the data to justify the goal. This, by the way, was from someone who, along with her task force colleague Dr. Anthony Fauci, kept talking about the importance of the scientific method. By the end of April 2020, the term “flatten the curve” had all but disappeared from public discussion.

Now that we are four years past that awful time, it makes sense to look back and see whether those heavy restrictions on the lives of people of all ages made sense. I’ll save you the suspense. They didn’t. The damage to the economy was huge. Remember that “the economy” is not a term used to describe a big machine; it’s a shorthand for the trillions of interactions among hundreds of millions of people. The lockdowns and the subsequent federal spending ballooned the budget deficit and consequent federal debt. The effect on children’s learning, not just in school but outside of school, was huge. These effects will be with us for a long time. It’s not as if there wasn’t another way to go. The people who came up with the idea of lockdowns did so on the basis of abstract models that had not been tested. They ignored a model of human behavior, which I’ll call Hayekian, that is tested every day.

These are the opening two paragraphs of my latest Defining Ideas article, “Looking Back at COVID’s Authoritarian Regimes,” Defining Ideas, March 14, 2024.

Another excerpt:

That wasn’t the only uncertainty. My daughter Karen lived in San Francisco and made her living teaching Pilates. San Francisco mayor London Breed shut down all the gyms, and so there went my daughter’s business. (The good news was that she quickly got online and shifted many of her clients to virtual Pilates. But that’s another story.) We tried to see her every six weeks or so, whether that meant our driving up to San Fran or her driving down to Monterey. But were we allowed to drive to see her? In that first month and a half, we simply didn’t know.

Read the whole thing, which is longer than usual.

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Problems After COVID-19 Vaccination More Prevalent Among Naturally Immune: Study

Problems After COVID-19 Vaccination More Prevalent Among Naturally Immune: Study

Authored by Zachary Stieber via The Epoch Times (emphasis…

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Problems After COVID-19 Vaccination More Prevalent Among Naturally Immune: Study

Authored by Zachary Stieber via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

People who recovered from COVID-19 and received a COVID-19 shot were more likely to suffer adverse reactions, researchers in Europe are reporting.

A medical worker administers a dose of the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine to a patient at a vaccination center in Ancenis-Saint-Gereon, France, on Nov. 17, 2021. (Stephane Mahe//Reuters)

Participants in the study were more likely to experience an adverse reaction after vaccination regardless of the type of shot, with one exception, the researchers found.

Across all vaccine brands, people with prior COVID-19 were 2.6 times as likely after dose one to suffer an adverse reaction, according to the new study. Such people are commonly known as having a type of protection known as natural immunity after recovery.

People with previous COVID-19 were also 1.25 times as likely after dose 2 to experience an adverse reaction.

The findings held true across all vaccine types following dose one.

Of the female participants who received the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine, for instance, 82 percent who had COVID-19 previously experienced an adverse reaction after their first dose, compared to 59 percent of females who did not have prior COVID-19.

The only exception to the trend was among males who received a second AstraZeneca dose. The percentage of males who suffered an adverse reaction was higher, 33 percent to 24 percent, among those without a COVID-19 history.

Participants who had a prior SARS-CoV-2 infection (confirmed with a positive test) experienced at least one adverse reaction more often after the 1st dose compared to participants who did not have prior COVID-19. This pattern was observed in both men and women and across vaccine brands,” Florence van Hunsel, an epidemiologist with the Netherlands Pharmacovigilance Centre Lareb, and her co-authors wrote.

There were only slightly higher odds of the naturally immune suffering an adverse reaction following receipt of a Pfizer or Moderna booster, the researchers also found.

The researchers performed what’s known as a cohort event monitoring study, following 29,387 participants as they received at least one dose of a COVID-19 vaccine. The participants live in a European country such as Belgium, France, or Slovakia.

Overall, three-quarters of the participants reported at least one adverse reaction, although some were minor such as injection site pain.

Adverse reactions described as serious were reported by 0.24 percent of people who received a first or second dose and 0.26 percent for people who received a booster. Different examples of serious reactions were not listed in the study.

Participants were only specifically asked to record a range of minor adverse reactions (ADRs). They could provide details of other reactions in free text form.

“The unsolicited events were manually assessed and coded, and the seriousness was classified based on international criteria,” researchers said.

The free text answers were not provided by researchers in the paper.

The authors note, ‘In this manuscript, the focus was not on serious ADRs and adverse events of special interest.’” Yet, in their highlights section they state, “The percentage of serious ADRs in the study is low for 1st and 2nd vaccination and booster.”

Dr. Joel Wallskog, co-chair of the group React19, which advocates for people who were injured by vaccines, told The Epoch Times: “It is intellectually dishonest to set out to study minor adverse events after COVID-19 vaccination then make conclusions about the frequency of serious adverse events. They also fail to provide the free text data.” He added that the paper showed “yet another study that is in my opinion, deficient by design.”

Ms. Hunsel did not respond to a request for comment.

She and other researchers listed limitations in the paper, including how they did not provide data broken down by country.

The paper was published by the journal Vaccine on March 6.

The study was funded by the European Medicines Agency and the Dutch government.

No authors declared conflicts of interest.

Some previous papers have also found that people with prior COVID-19 infection had more adverse events following COVID-19 vaccination, including a 2021 paper from French researchers. A U.S. study identified prior COVID-19 as a predictor of the severity of side effects.

Some other studies have determined COVID-19 vaccines confer little or no benefit to people with a history of infection, including those who had received a primary series.

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention still recommends people who recovered from COVID-19 receive a COVID-19 vaccine, although a number of other health authorities have stopped recommending the shot for people who have prior COVID-19.

Another New Study

In another new paper, South Korean researchers outlined how they found people were more likely to report certain adverse reactions after COVID-19 vaccination than after receipt of another vaccine.

The reporting of myocarditis, a form of heart inflammation, or pericarditis, a related condition, was nearly 20 times as high among children as the reporting odds following receipt of all other vaccines, the researchers found.

The reporting odds were also much higher for multisystem inflammatory syndrome or Kawasaki disease among adolescent COVID-19 recipients.

Researchers analyzed reports made to VigiBase, which is run by the World Health Organization.

Based on our results, close monitoring for these rare but serious inflammatory reactions after COVID-19 vaccination among adolescents until definitive causal relationship can be established,” the researchers wrote.

The study was published by the Journal of Korean Medical Science in its March edition.

Limitations include VigiBase receiving reports of problems, with some reports going unconfirmed.

Funding came from the South Korean government. One author reported receiving grants from pharmaceutical companies, including Pfizer.

Tyler Durden Fri, 03/15/2024 - 05:00

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‘Excess Mortality Skyrocketed’: Tucker Carlson and Dr. Pierre Kory Unpack ‘Criminal’ COVID Response

‘Excess Mortality Skyrocketed’: Tucker Carlson and Dr. Pierre Kory Unpack ‘Criminal’ COVID Response

As the global pandemic unfolded, government-funded…

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'Excess Mortality Skyrocketed': Tucker Carlson and Dr. Pierre Kory Unpack 'Criminal' COVID Response

As the global pandemic unfolded, government-funded experimental vaccines were hastily developed for a virus which primarily killed the old and fat (and those with other obvious comorbidities), and an aggressive, global campaign to coerce billions into injecting them ensued.

Then there were the lockdowns - with some countries (New Zealand, for example) building internment camps for those who tested positive for Covid-19, and others such as China welding entire apartment buildings shut to trap people inside.

It was an egregious and unnecessary response to a virus that, while highly virulent, was survivable by the vast majority of the general population.

Oh, and the vaccines, which governments are still pushing, didn't work as advertised to the point where health officials changed the definition of "vaccine" multiple times.

Tucker Carlson recently sat down with Dr. Pierre Kory, a critical care specialist and vocal critic of vaccines. The two had a wide-ranging discussion, which included vaccine safety and efficacy, excess mortality, demographic impacts of the virus, big pharma, and the professional price Kory has paid for speaking out.

Keep reading below, or if you have roughly 50 minutes, watch it in its entirety for free on X:

"Do we have any real sense of what the cost, the physical cost to the country and world has been of those vaccines?" Carlson asked, kicking off the interview.

"I do think we have some understanding of the cost. I mean, I think, you know, you're aware of the work of of Ed Dowd, who's put together a team and looked, analytically at a lot of the epidemiologic data," Kory replied. "I mean, time with that vaccination rollout is when all of the numbers started going sideways, the excess mortality started to skyrocket."

When asked "what kind of death toll are we looking at?", Kory responded "...in 2023 alone, in the first nine months, we had what's called an excess mortality of 158,000 Americans," adding "But this is in 2023. I mean, we've  had Omicron now for two years, which is a mild variant. Not that many go to the hospital."

'Safe and Effective'

Tucker also asked Kory why the people who claimed the vaccine were "safe and effective" aren't being held criminally liable for abetting the "killing of all these Americans," to which Kory replied: "It’s my kind of belief, looking back, that [safe and effective] was a predetermined conclusion. There was no data to support that, but it was agreed upon that it would be presented as safe and effective."

Carlson and Kory then discussed the different segments of the population that experienced vaccine side effects, with Kory noting an "explosion in dying in the youngest and healthiest sectors of society," adding "And why did the employed fare far worse than those that weren't? And this particularly white collar, white collar, more than gray collar, more than blue collar."

Kory also said that Big Pharma is 'terrified' of Vitamin D because it "threatens the disease model." As journalist The Vigilant Fox notes on X, "Vitamin D showed about a 60% effectiveness against the incidence of COVID-19 in randomized control trials," and "showed about 40-50% effectiveness in reducing the incidence of COVID-19 in observational studies."

Professional costs

Kory - while risking professional suicide by speaking out, has undoubtedly helped save countless lives by advocating for alternate treatments such as Ivermectin.

Kory shared his own experiences of job loss and censorship, highlighting the challenges of advocating for a more nuanced understanding of vaccine safety in an environment often resistant to dissenting voices.

"I wrote a book called The War on Ivermectin and the the genesis of that book," he said, adding "Not only is my expertise on Ivermectin and my vast clinical experience, but and I tell the story before, but I got an email, during this journey from a guy named William B Grant, who's a professor out in California, and he wrote to me this email just one day, my life was going totally sideways because our protocols focused on Ivermectin. I was using a lot in my practice, as were tens of thousands of doctors around the world, to really good benefits. And I was getting attacked, hit jobs in the media, and he wrote me this email on and he said, Dear Dr. Kory, what they're doing to Ivermectin, they've been doing to vitamin D for decades..."

"And it's got five tactics. And these are the five tactics that all industries employ when science emerges, that's inconvenient to their interests. And so I'm just going to give you an example. Ivermectin science was extremely inconvenient to the interests of the pharmaceutical industrial complex. I mean, it threatened the vaccine campaign. It threatened vaccine hesitancy, which was public enemy number one. We know that, that everything, all the propaganda censorship was literally going after something called vaccine hesitancy."

Money makes the world go 'round

Carlson then hit on perhaps the most devious aspect of the relationship between drug companies and the medical establishment, and how special interests completely taint science to the point where public distrust of institutions has spiked in recent years.

"I think all of it starts at the level the medical journals," said Kory. "Because once you have something established in the medical journals as a, let's say, a proven fact or a generally accepted consensus, consensus comes out of the journals."

"I have dozens of rejection letters from investigators around the world who did good trials on ivermectin, tried to publish it. No thank you, no thank you, no thank you. And then the ones that do get in all purportedly prove that ivermectin didn't work," Kory continued.

"So and then when you look at the ones that actually got in and this is where like probably my biggest estrangement and why I don't recognize science and don't trust it anymore, is the trials that flew to publication in the top journals in the world were so brazenly manipulated and corrupted in the design and conduct in, many of us wrote about it. But they flew to publication, and then every time they were published, you saw these huge PR campaigns in the media. New York Times, Boston Globe, L.A. times, ivermectin doesn't work. Latest high quality, rigorous study says. I'm sitting here in my office watching these lies just ripple throughout the media sphere based on fraudulent studies published in the top journals. And that's that's that has changed. Now that's why I say I'm estranged and I don't know what to trust anymore."

Vaccine Injuries

Carlson asked Kory about his clinical experience with vaccine injuries.

"So how this is how I divide, this is just kind of my perception of vaccine injury is that when I use the term vaccine injury, I'm usually referring to what I call a single organ problem, like pericarditis, myocarditis, stroke, something like that. An autoimmune disease," he replied.

"What I specialize in my practice, is I treat patients with what we call a long Covid long vaxx. It's the same disease, just different triggers, right? One is triggered by Covid, the other one is triggered by the spike protein from the vaccine. Much more common is long vax. The only real differences between the two conditions is that the vaccinated are, on average, sicker and more disabled than the long Covids, with some pretty prominent exceptions to that."

Watch the entire interview above, and you can support Tucker Carlson's endeavors by joining the Tucker Carlson Network here...

Tyler Durden Thu, 03/14/2024 - 16:20

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