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Why is it that all the Boomers who have attained high office so far (Trump, Clinton, Bush, etc) seem to only display the very worst tendencies and traits of their archetype (narcissism, impulsive behavior, ruthlessness) rather than the best (creativity, moral vision)? Why at this point have we not seen a Boomer leader who has the characteristics of a Lincoln or FDR? Are all the good Boomers too decent to get involved in politics and are instead artists, musicians, teachers, etc?
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Perhaps creativity and moral vision are in the eyes of the beholder. The reason we haven't seen one who has the characteristics of a Lincoln or FDR yet is because we haven't had the crisis war yet. Whichever boomer is in charge when the crisis war hits will then have those characteristics, as long as they win the war.
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(12-02-2017, 04:21 PM)GeekyCynic Wrote: Why is it that all the Boomers who have attained high office so far (Trump, Clinton, Bush, etc) seem to only display the very worst tendencies and traits of their archetype (narcissism, impulsive behavior, ruthlessness) rather than the best (creativity, moral vision)? Why at this point have we not seen a Boomer leader who has the characteristics of a Lincoln or FDR? Are all the good Boomers too decent to get involved in politics and are instead artists, musicians, teachers, etc?
Warren's point is well-taken. I don't agree that Bill Clinton only had the worst tendencies; he was a good president in many ways. But similar results happened with prophet generation leaders in previous saecula before the war and crisis climax happened. Only the prophet war leaders are remembered as great gray champions; the others were mediocre at best. We might hope that there is no war this time, but given our involvement already in recent years in fighting abroad, our growing civil divisions, and the record of past 4Ts, the chances are not good to avoid it entirely. It may turn out to be less catastrophic than most previous crisis wars; we can hope.
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(12-02-2017, 08:14 PM)Eric the Green Wrote: It may turn out to be less catastrophic than most previous crisis wars; we can hope.
You can hope, but with nuclear weapons around this time, my money is on "more catastrophic".
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12-05-2017, 11:43 AM
(This post was last modified: 12-05-2017, 11:46 AM by pbrower2a.)
(12-03-2017, 01:48 AM)Warren Dew Wrote: Perhaps creativity and moral vision are in the eyes of the beholder. The reason we haven't seen one who has the characteristics of a Lincoln or FDR yet is because we haven't had the crisis war yet. Whichever boomer is in charge when the crisis war hits will then have those characteristics, as long as they win the war.
There's little constituency for murder, rape, torture, kidnapping, or theft even if they are done with artistic cleverness. I question whether many people mourned the death of Charles Manson or Salvatore Riina, the latter a horrible gangster who killed judges and prosecutors for going after him. I cheered the demise of both.
Donald Trump would be an unmitigated disaster as a war leader. Crisis wars go badly when the leader of one;s side is a crassly-immoral or amoral character Sure, Churchill and FDR waged war as ruthlessly as their fascist enemies, but it is easy to see why the Allies won: they left the Germans, Italians, and Japanese with nothing to fight for and gave them the right to perform the duty to put their lives and their economies back together. Here is an illustration of an address to an enemy from someone as wise (FDR) as Donald Trump is foolish, as it was dropped in propaganda leaflets upon German cities.
In his radio message of December 24th, 1943, President Roosevelt declared:
Quote:"The United Nations have no intention to enslave the German people. We wish them to have a normal chance to develop, in peace, as useful and respectable members of the European family. But we most certainly emphasize that word "respectable" - for we intend to rid them once and for all of Nazism and Prussian militarism and the fantastic and disastrous notion that they constitute the 'master race'.
"Britain, Russia, China and the United States and their Allies represent more than three-quarters of the total population of the earth. As long as these four nations with great military power stick together in determination to keep the peace there will be no possibility of an aggressor nation arising to start another war. But those four powers must be united with and co-operative with all the freedom-loving peoples of Europe, and Asia, and Africa and the Americas. The rights of every nation, large or small, must be respected and guarded as carefully as are the rights of every individual within the United States of America."
Donald Trump is a cruel, corrupt, vindictive man. For those severe faults of character I cannot trust him as a leader as an American leader. Just think of how I would think of him from overseas.
The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated Communist but instead the people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists -- Hannah Arendt.
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