How Many July 4th Celebrations Do We Have Left?

 How Many July 4th Celebrations Do We Have Left? - by Michael Snyder- http://endoftheamericandream.com/how-many-july-4th-celebrations-do-we-have-left/ I hope that this Independence Day was the greatest Independence Day that you and your family have ever experienced. Personally, I had the opportunity to spend some time withfamily over the past several days, and that helped to rejuvenate me. We should be thankful for times like these, because we will not always have them. In fact, at the rate that America is falling we may not have too many July 4th celebrations left. Just aboutevery major decision that our leaders make is self-destructive, and if we stay on the road that we are currently on our nation is not going to survive. So let us hope for some sort of a great awakening to happen soon, because the clock is ticking. In a recent article, Jeff Lukens pointed out that when nations finally die they tend to do so “with surprising speed”… When nations die, they do so with surprising speed. Ernest Hemingway made a similar observation when a person in his novel was asked how he went bankrupt, and his reply was, “Gradually, then suddenly.” Nations are built upon classical values — perseverance, self-reliance, and honor. A great nation is one whose values have made it unusually prosperous. In its latter days,the nation becomes hollowed out and burdened with a costly, top-heavy government. The middle class is expected to provide generosity to the masses. Over time, traditional values fade away, and everyone seeks to live off everyone else. The United States shows aspects of a once great power past its prime. It is socially and politically divided, aware of the necessity for changes, unable or unwilling to makethem, and losing the conviction in the shared goals that earlier invigorated it. Sadly, he is quite right. Our core values have been fading away for decades, and at this point most Americans realize that something has gone horribly wrong. In fact, a recent Gallup poll discovered that a whopping 87 percent of us rate the overall state of America’s moral values as either “poor” or “only fair”… A record-high 50% of Americans rate the overall state of moral values in the U.S. as “poor,” and another 37% say it is “only fair.” Just 1% think the state of moral valuesis “excellent” and 12% “good.” We know that we are deeply sick, but we don’t have the willpower to turn things around. In addition to the moral decay that we see all around us, Americans are also losing faith in the things that are supposed to unite all of us as Americans. Another Gallup survey that was recently conducted found that only 29 percent of Democrats and only 33 percent of Independents are “extremely proud” to be Americans at thispoint. Patriotism is in decline, and this is especially true among our young people. As a result, fewer and fewer of them want to serve in our all-volunteer military, and this isstarting to cause major problems. Our “all-volunteer force” has been shrinking, and so if a major war were to erupt we would likely see a draft be instituted… Because of its cost, the AVF is too small to handle a major war or emergency. When faced with two medium-size campaigns, in Iraq and Afghanistan, the AVF was seriously challengedto provide sufficient troops, despite constant mobilization of reservists, the enlistment of local allies, and the deployment of copious contractors. A major conflict would break the AVF—an open secret in defense circles, but something that few in Washingtonwant to discuss. Over the past year of fighting, Russia and Ukraine have both taken casualties equal to at least half the active-duty U.S. Army. (U.S. military doctrine says that a force is destroyed after sustaining 30 percent casualties). Selective Service,subject to even less scrutiny than the AVF, remains on the books because if we ever enter into another major conflict, we will need a draft again. Could you imagine how our young adults would respond if such a thing actually happened? There would be riots all over the country. Right now, so few young people want to enlist that the U.S. Army isn’t even coming close to meeting their recruiting targets… The result is that 2023 is likely to be the worst year for military recruiting since the AVF began. Most of the services have already said that they will fail to hit theirrecruiting targets. The Army, short 15,000 recruits last year and facing the same shortfall this year, is shrinking. The Army’s top enlisted leader, Sergeant Major of the Army Michael Grinston, recently warned that trying to do more with less is putting “anenormous strain” on soldiers and their families. In order for an all-volunteer military to work, a significant portion of the population has got to deeply believe in the core values that the country represents. But what are America’s core values today? The guy in the White House and his family have made millions of dollars by doing favors for foreigners, and our deeply corrupt news networks don’t seem to care very much. The values that Joe Biden says that he represents are diametrically opposed to the values of our founders. At this point, the White House is literally seething with evil, and so it shouldn’t surprise us that the Secret Service just found cocaine in the White House library… A game of Internet Clue has broken out on social media as Americans share memes about the cocaine found at the White House over the holiday weekend. Mystery ensued on Tuesday following reports that a suspicious white powder that turned out to be the narcotic was found at the White House library on Sunday, sparking a hazmatsituation and forcing an evacuation. The discovery came two days after recovering addict Hunter Biden, 52, was last seen at the White House, and internet trolls took joy in speculating on the culprit. During his lifetime, Hunter Biden has consumed mountains of cocaine, and so there is lots of speculation that he was responsible for bringing it into the White House. Hopefully that is not true, because it would be really bad news if he was experiencing a relapse. Of course the White House library is under video surveillance 24 hours a day, and so the Secret Service should be able to easily determine who brought cocaine into that room. But if it was Hunter Biden, I am sure that the story will be hushed up and brushed under the rug. In Washington, deception and lies have become more common than the truth, and most Americans are entirely convinced that this will never change. But one way or another, change is coming. No government that hates the truth will stand for long. And as James Howard Kunstler has aptly observed, truth will ultimately prevail even if America does not… Hard times will produce strong men and women with a bias toward reality, which naturally tends to comprise things that are truthful. Untruth will be consigned back to itstraditional category: Evil. It will be shunned, as it should be. Nations come and go and perhaps America, as a federation of states united as one, will go. Many of the self-evident truths that were born with her will remain to be honored one way or another,in some region of this large land-mass, or another. Events await. Facing our time of dark uncertainty, we have a lot to think about this Fourth of July, a very solemn holiday. We certainly do have a lot to think about. Time is running out. Will America wake up in time?