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Quote: As state officials and lawmakers urged the shutdown of a Tyson Foods pork-processing plant in Iowa, managers at the plant reportedly placed bets on how many would end up getting sick.

That is one of the many new allegations leveled against Tyson Foods in an amended lawsuit filed Wednesday. The corporation kept its Waterloo, Iowa, plant open even as local officials urged its shutdown early in the pandemic.

As a result, about 1,000 employees contracted COVID-19, five of whom died. That includes Isidro Fernandez, whose family filed the suit against the meat empire this year.

Tyson Foods has since suspended the individuals reportedly involved, per a statement issued Thursday afternoon by the company. "We expect every team member at Tyson Foods to operate with the utmost integrity and care in everything we do," said Tyson CEO and president Dean Banks in a statement. "If these claims are confirmed, we’ll take all measures necessary to root out and remove this disturbing behavior from our company."

Hello, long time lurker, first time poster here.

Been thinking a lot lately about how to prepare for 1) the coming Crisis climax, and 2) the coming High. In The Fourth Turning, S&H make reference to acting or behaving "pre-seasonally" -- that is, in a way that reflects or demands the nature or needs of the upcoming turning. (I think I've got that term right; please correct if I'm wrong. Too lazy to check the book.) Indeed, this is part of what is needed to bring it on. And it's not necessarily a deliberate choice in all cases; many typical members of a generation act this way based purely on instinct.

I am a 1989 Millennial in Canada and I'm more or less convinced that a cold civil war fueled by digital disinformation is coming south of the border within the next couple of years.

I don't have to do much, personally, to prepare for an outright civil American conflict up here in my snowy neck of the woods. My countryfolk have the privilege of being influenced by American culture but not directly impacted by its fallout. Yes, we have our share of problems as well, but not nearly at the same intensity.

What I *would* like to prepare for, however, is the High. Even before reading S&H, I've always been civic-minded. I would like to position myself and my family to take the best advantage of and contribute positively toward the coming High. I look forward to being part of the new GI Generation, fighting for and subsequently benefiting from massive civic improvements. I'm sick of following and ready to lead.

I predict (and hope) that the Green New Deal in the US will be the cornerstone of the High. This carries some obvious practical implications (say goodbye to oil and gas), but I'm curious if anyone has any thoughts on other aspects of the coming High that should be expected, and how Millennials can position themselves to come out the tail end of the Crisis ready to rebuild society.

One example of what I'm talking about related to the Green New Deal would be the increased reliance on electricity (for car charging, home heating, and so on), and therefore the increased pressure on existing electric grid infrastructure. Some of the grid infrastructure we rely on today is nearing a century old, and occasional power outages simply will not be acceptable anymore. Is a complete North American electric grid re-construction effort undertaken over many years and creating millions of public sector construction jobs (in addition to all the green energy generation jobs) something we can expect? Just one thought. 

Another thought that is less practical and more social is how to better unite as a culture and as a generation. I'm becoming exhausted at anything that is even remotely divisive or even corrective. Even at work, when colleagues disagree about the best approach to do something and it basically winds up never getting done or getting done in a half-assed way to be a "compromise"... I feel like one person or a small team should just do the job, get it done, and so what if it's not perfect? At least it would've accomplished something. We can improve it as we go in real time, in response to real demand, rather than trying to make something perfect from the get-go and ultimately self-sabotaging. I can't wait until I am able to make more executive decisions at work. Especially when in the simplest terms, everyone has the same goals -- it's only the minutiae that people squabble over.

I'm curious to hear anyone else's thoughts on acting pre-seasonally or preparing for the end of a Crisis and beginning of a High. Thanks!

The map... well, data for it. 

https://uselectionatlas.org/TOOLS/genusm...&NE3=0;1;6

... and the map 
The 2020 Presidential election. This will largely (most likely) be filled in on November 4:





Definitive wins:

Solid D (maroon) / solid R (navy) -- margin 10% or higher. 
Strong D (red) / strong R (blue) -- margin 5% or higher but under 10%.
Bare D (pink) / bare R (light blue) -- margin under 5%

Not decided:

conflicting data: white
D lead (pale orange); R lead (pale green) 

Put the data in the image and you will have a map. Note that I have extracted this from a blog that uses the old red for Democrats and blue for Republicans. "Red" used to imply the more socialistic party and "blue" the more capitalist party.

Something I would throw at y'all: Biden winning breaks the Rs and polarization, and this crisis era comes to end in a consensus/clear way, we will have experienced one of the greatest achievements of human history:

The Boomers will be the first generation to never experience existential war.  In my opinion, much of the "goal" of the humanities has been this moment.  To build a society that reaches its crisis era and DOESNT end up killing each other.

If I ever were to write an autobiography this is no doubt the title I would give it.  Have mellowed a lot since, but I once had big dreams of becoming what has often been known as a ladies' man, one of those who could get just about any woman he wanted. Figured this would be the time to bare my soul on this because I will turn 76 next month, and it is highly doubtful that anyone suddenly becomes an overnight success at this at such an advanced age.  In fact it has only been in the past couple of year that I have heard the word mysogony bandied about. I was the opposite of a mysogonist, as I was one of these guys who liked women too much.

Not sure if there is any common word for my "disease", but it all began actually when I was still a child and there were television hosts at the time who would give lots of flattering compliments to their female guests. Also in old movies where, for example, a man will meet a woman say near a hotel or office elevator. They talk for a few minutes, then he would ask "How about dinner tomorrow night?", and she accepts. I was total flabbergasted that the dating game was nowhere near this easy in real life.  But, in the heyday of pre-Internet dating services, I was in a bunch of low-budget services which were, like, pay as you go. Eventually I swore off of them when the new breed of services which came around circa 1990 became so expensive that the average single person can't really afford them. I would also occasionally go slumming and hoping to meet a woman spontaneously that I could possibly spend some time with. But I did avoid as best I could those that were looking just for money. During the rather brief Midwest summer I would often hit the lakefront beaches sometimes along with a male buddy who was convinced that this was the best place at which to meet eligible single women at. Both of us tended to shun the bar scene which was then at its peak. For some reason I still haven't to this day figured out I was the one who was nearly always told to get lost. Did better at organized singles dances though as there were a few I met there I might have been able to marry had I chosen to pursue.

Speaking of marriage, this was something I was actually quite desperate for in the early days. No doubt this was because by the time I finally got out of "captivity" (two different boarding schools) I was 25 nearing 26 and most women in those days were already taken, or it least it seemed so. This was around 1970. I joined a local social club geared toward single adults but never had much luck persuading anyone to date me from there, and in fact was confronted that I was scaring the girls away. To this day this has been a source of vast disillusionment, and painful that some actually seemed to think I was some sort of monster. And this was many years before all the sexual harassment hysteria began. If one were to say that I was using this and a couple of other singles groups to find dates, I am guilty as sin.  In that group I would see many of the guys putting their arms around and even kissing some of the women despite not actually being in a steady relationship. Yet when I would attempt it I would always get called onto the carpet and lectured.

It wasn't until the late-1990s that I learned about Asperger's Syndrome, a condition of social awkwardness that pretty much lasts a lifetime. Of course in my younger days I thought it was something that I could beat and had as much to offer someone as anybody else. These words would not come out of my mouth today. My actions in this regard did lead to confrontations with police on a couple of occasions and nearly landed me in jail once. I know for a fact that still I was able to get away with a lot more at that time than would ever be possible today.

Today, while I sometimes will browse through the Internet dating sites I haven't really done much of anything as, especially since Craig's List discontinued their personals sections, there is hardly any place online where you can do so for free. You can browse, but if you wish to contact anyone you have to pay up. In nearly all cases the billing recurs monthly and those fees can add up big time. Maybe if I ever get the majority of my bills paid off, or better yet win the lottery.  I also more and more tend to stay away from situations that could be confrontational and I wish to avoid controversy when at all possible.  While I never was physically abusive, I could very often lash out verbally if I felt I was being mistreated, such as if one cancelled a date abruptly when I felt that she didn't have a good reason to do so.  On pins and needles when a date was made, wondering if the gal was really going to keep it. As time went along the percentage of cancelled dates tended to increase as well as the increase of rejections at events such as singles dances.

Would love to hear any thoughts on this, as well as if the term Ladies' Man in itself is more derogatory these days than it once may have been. And does it really take the holy trinity of lots of money, killer good looks and designer clothes to make a successful Ladies' Man? And all the qualification different and more stringent than they may have been in the past?

https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/20...-z-begins/

Does this article make anyone else as mad as it makes me?

It seems stupid but they just got it wrong.  The millennials end in 2000/2001, and by cutting the generations off incorrectly they've made ALL of their research related to the generations wrong or flawed.  And since the whole world copy and pasted this crap, the whole world is researching and thinking about generations wrong.

All because this guy was lazy one day.

Anyone that wants to join me in rebutting him on twitter and using the #pewlies where logical please join me.  It seems dumb but he pays attention to twitter (as does Howe) and doesn't have a lot of folks actively engaging with him.  The chance we get a request heard to change the years (at least get the shit off Wikipedia for petes sake) is pretty high!

#PEWLIES

I've been perusing the Reddit generation channels (Millenials (ghost town), GenZ (really just millennials), and generationology (wild place where discussion is prohibited, especially dissenting discussion).

I"m finding two main arguments that people who refuse to believe in Strauss Howe wield on repeat.  I don't really understand the arguments, but thoughts on the most effective (kind) debunking approaches?

1.  I was born in 2002, there's no way someone born in 2018 is more like me than someone born in 1998!

My complex rebuttal is that formative years (0-5) matter and that being raised in positive 90's for even a couple of those years leads to differences from someone born under very different parenting styles post-9/11.

2. Refusal to believe someone can have a child or nephew (? seriously) of their same generation.

This one just makes me scowl.

One of the main ideas I’ve been tossing around is the notion that generations start and end with a MOMENT THAT CHANGES THE NATIONAL MOOD. Sorry for the all caps. Those moments also start the new turnings . 

Moments : 

End of world war 2 -> Boomers (we can win !)
JFK dead -> Gen X (Deep cynicism )
Morning in America -> Millennials (optimism )
9/11-> Zoomers (overly protected and coddled )

There's a general impression in this forum that the worst of the Crisis is behind us and we're on the verge of entering the next High, without much of a crisis ever actually happening.  I've realized that the reason for this is that people here have no concept of what the next High is actually going to be like.

There's a vague idea among many people here that the next High is basically going to be like the unraveling, except with some laundry list of liberal improvements, like racism having disappeared or big corporations being forced to behave themselves and pay workers more.  But this isn't what it will be like at all.  It can't be, because that's not what a first turning is like.

First turnings are culturally conservative. They are a time of conformity.  Yes, the divide between wealthy and poor is less, but this is not because people are more liberal, but because everyone, including large corporations, is expected to do what's best for the group instead of what's best for themselves.  The last awakening began with hippies doing their own thing in the parks, and ended with big companies doing their own thing and not having to follow any particular rules or standards.  By the High this process has been reversed.  Companies do what's best for society, and so do individuals, because everyone must conform.

There will be a repolarization of male/female sex roles.  Men and women will be seen as fundamentally different, and these differences will be accepted and even celebrated.  This doesn't mean a return to the 1950s system where women were not allowed to work most jobs, but it means that any ideas that men and women are the same will be abandoned.  Feminism as a movement will not exist, unless it is repurposed to point out the value of being a woman (under society's new consensus on what it is to be a woman).

People will respect social institutions, respect the government, the press, the police, and so on.  This doesn't mean that these institutions will fundamentally be better than they are now or were in the past, but the time for criticism of them will be over.

We are a long, long way from the above.  How do we get there from here?  The answer is, we don't.  We can't go directly from here to there.  The only way to get there is for the crisis to be so large that everyone comes together to solve it, and then the spirit of coming together lasts once the crisis is over. 

I'm guessing this will take some sort of revolutionary or civil war in the U.S.  It might be something else, but it won't be "and then Joe Biden was elected and a vaccine was found for covid-19 and everyone lived happily ever after".