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Since not only did 9/11 not cause the Culture Wars to wind down, but the Culture Wars have actually ramped up since then (Lawrence vs. Texas, Obergefell v. Hodges, "partial-birth abortion," the continuing drive to defund Planned Parenthood), I theorize that with 9/11 began a unique hybrid 3T-4T, which I expect will end with a financial catastrophe in most likely October 2019 (something I have been predicting for literally two decades), leaving us in a pure 4T, which could commence as early as this November, if "The Map" holds up and the Republicans get to 60 seats to Senate, or to 59 and the Republicans can induce Maine independent Angus King, who currently caucuses with the Democrats, to cross the aisle.
"These, and many other matters which might be noticed, add a volume of unofficial declarations to the mass of organic utterances that this is a Christian nation" - Justice David Brewer, Church of the Holy Trinity v. United States, 1892
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...or another possible interpretation: an unusually-slow transition from a 3T to a 4T instead of the usually-abrupt one.
A 1929-like or 2008-like market crash (they were very similar in cause and level of destruction after a year and a half) could be even more protracted than the 2008-2009 meltdown. Personal, public, and commercial debt are far higher while savings are practically non-existent. We have been spending our grandchildren's inheritances for about fifty years, and we could easily end up with no means of meeting an economic meltdown. There will be little to borrow for the usual infrastructure projects that put people to work in construction products and supplies for those construction projects. Selling stuff off? What if there are no buyers of something like the Interstate Highway System?
Whether the Republicans get to a filibuster-proof Senate will matter little, and it is practically impossible unless Donald Trump should get and remain especially popular. I can see Republicans picking up Senate seats in states that Trump won handily of the 2016 election marks a radical shift in public attitudes. But did that radical shift stick?
...After Trump, America will need a Lincoln or an FDR to set things right. As for the right-led Culture Wars... the Right has largely lost those. Obergfell v. Hodges is settled. If anything, the Right may have tried to use antipathy toward same-sex marriage in 2004 to win one Presidential election, only for it to backfire about ten years later.
The Hard Right has ethnic and religious bigotry, superstition, and economic inequality to offer for a country that shows little use for this.
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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(05-17-2018, 08:11 AM)Anthony Wrote: Since not only did 9/11 not cause the Culture Wars to wind down, but the Culture Wars have actually ramped up since then (Lawrence vs. Texas, Obergefell v. Hodges, "partial-birth abortion," the continuing drive to defund Planned Parenthood), I theorize that with 9/11 began a unique hybrid 3T-4T, which I expect will end with a financial catastrophe in most likely October 2019 (something I have been predicting for literally two decades), leaving us in a pure 4T, which could commence as early as this November, if "The Map" holds up and the Republicans get to 60 seats to Senate, or to 59 and the Republicans can induce Maine independent Angus King, who currently caucuses with the Democrats, to cross the aisle.
Do you feel as though the financial malaise you are predicting will be severe enough as to make the 1930s Great Depression seem like a walk in the park, as many have speculated that something like this could happen? Don't wish it to happen but that's what it may take to undo the philosophy of Money as God.
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(05-17-2018, 02:40 PM)beechnut79 Wrote: (05-17-2018, 08:11 AM)Anthony Wrote: Since not only did 9/11 not cause the Culture Wars to wind down, but the Culture Wars have actually ramped up since then (Lawrence vs. Texas, Obergefell v. Hodges, "partial-birth abortion," the continuing drive to defund Planned Parenthood), I theorize that with 9/11 began a unique hybrid 3T-4T, which I expect will end with a financial catastrophe in most likely October 2019 (something I have been predicting for literally two decades), leaving us in a pure 4T, which could commence as early as this November, if "The Map" holds up and the Republicans get to 60 seats to Senate, or to 59 and the Republicans can induce Maine independent Angus King, who currently caucuses with the Democrats, to cross the aisle.
Do you feel as though the financial malaise you are predicting will be severe enough as to make the 1930s Great Depression seem like a walk in the park, as many have speculated that something like this could happen? Don't wish it to happen but that's what it may take to undo the philosophy of Money as God.
At least we know what to do about another reprise of the sort of economic meltdown that followed panics of 1857, 1929, and 2008 -- if we have the means (savings and tax authority).
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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(05-17-2018, 03:03 PM)pbrower2a Wrote: (05-17-2018, 02:40 PM)beechnut79 Wrote: (05-17-2018, 08:11 AM)Anthony Wrote: Since not only did 9/11 not cause the Culture Wars to wind down, but the Culture Wars have actually ramped up since then (Lawrence vs. Texas, Obergefell v. Hodges, "partial-birth abortion," the continuing drive to defund Planned Parenthood), I theorize that with 9/11 began a unique hybrid 3T-4T, which I expect will end with a financial catastrophe in most likely October 2019 (something I have been predicting for literally two decades), leaving us in a pure 4T, which could commence as early as this November, if "The Map" holds up and the Republicans get to 60 seats to Senate, or to 59 and the Republicans can induce Maine independent Angus King, who currently caucuses with the Democrats, to cross the aisle.
Do you feel as though the financial malaise you are predicting will be severe enough as to make the 1930s Great Depression seem like a walk in the park, as many have speculated that something like this could happen? Don't wish it to happen but that's what it may take to undo the philosophy of Money as God.
At least we know what to do about another reprise of the sort of economic meltdown that followed panics of 1857, 1929, and 2008 -- if we have the means (savings and tax authority).
Have said many times that today's society would have a much more difficult time handling a Great Depression than the people alive at that time did. More of them knew how to grow their own food, etc. Do you feel that if this does happen it will make housing much more affordable again, and perhaps a comeback of rooming house situations?
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(05-17-2018, 08:12 PM)beechnut79 Wrote: (05-17-2018, 03:03 PM)pbrower2a Wrote: (05-17-2018, 02:40 PM)beechnut79 Wrote: (05-17-2018, 08:11 AM)Anthony Wrote: Since not only did 9/11 not cause the Culture Wars to wind down, but the Culture Wars have actually ramped up since then (Lawrence vs. Texas, Obergefell v. Hodges, "partial-birth abortion," the continuing drive to defund Planned Parenthood), I theorize that with 9/11 began a unique hybrid 3T-4T, which I expect will end with a financial catastrophe in most likely October 2019 (something I have been predicting for literally two decades), leaving us in a pure 4T, which could commence as early as this November, if "The Map" holds up and the Republicans get to 60 seats to Senate, or to 59 and the Republicans can induce Maine independent Angus King, who currently caucuses with the Democrats, to cross the aisle.
Do you feel as though the financial malaise you are predicting will be severe enough as to make the 1930s Great Depression seem like a walk in the park, as many have speculated that something like this could happen? Don't wish it to happen but that's what it may take to undo the philosophy of Money as God.
At least we know what to do about another reprise of the sort of economic meltdown that followed panics of 1857, 1929, and 2008 -- if we have the means (savings and tax authority).
Have said many times that today's society would have a much more difficult time handling a Great Depression than the people alive at that time did. More of them knew how to grow their own food, etc. Do you feel that if this does happen it will make housing much more affordable again, and perhaps a comeback of rooming house situations?
The economy seems to be going too well to crash so soon, even though the prosperity is very thin. I had predicted the 2008 crash, and have predicted that it will be the worst in the lifetimes of people today. The worst we can expect in 2019 is a recession, possibly a mild one. If it's enough to scare people into voting Trump and Republicans out in 2020, then as productive policies get restored over the following 3 or 4 years, a boom time could develop. This might even continue if, as I predict, controversy and conflict could ramp up at mid-decade.
Well, ya herd it here 
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America around 1930 was much more agrarian than it is today. Nit industrial workers also had it harder and expected to work harder and longer to solve economic problems first of business owners and bosses before solving their own problems. America was more raw in its economics, with fewer things that it could give up just to scrape by.
People can make it do or do without. But what they do without takes away someone else's income stream, whether that income stream goers to some fat-cat or to a marginal worker in a service or retail business,
How a political system reacts to an economic meltdown reflects the moral character of that leadership and its wisdom, and what we now have is the worst possible. Corruption and an ethos of profits first are the essence of Trump economics. The GOP goes along.
Were there a meltdown of the character of the early 1930s, there would be more things that people could give up -- the service and leisure sectors. Golf, an expensive practice of the middle class, was one of the easiest things to give up. Instead of golfing, people found that they could take hikes or watch TV. At a worse point, they give up cable TV and watch broadcast channels instead. Satellite radio? They can find a broadcast of NPR or (gaak!) Rush Limbaugh on free-to-receiver radio. They can cut back on spending on live sports, theater, and amusement parks.
Whatever people thought were expensive, like travel and cable TV, they can make cutbacks. They can even send fewer greeting cards. Most people have collected large numbers of prerecorded disks of music and video, and they may return to those. Dust off old books and to to the library instead of paying for overpriced best-sellers? Of course.
It's the service sector that gets hit first now. People might eat out less, but they still need some food. If they still have jobs, they will commute. If they commuted fifty miles one way to a job that they lost, then they will look for lower-paying work locally... and end up commuting less.
Maybe people can even cut back on rent from moving from high-rent places where the intellectual action is and the best-paying service jobs are (like California and the urban Northeast) to lower-cost places in which to live.The assessment that some urban wrecks in the Rust Belt are grim, dreary, joyless worlds (ask me about much of the Rust Belt) ignores that on the difference between paying more for rent in California than one can earn doing oil changes or changing tires in some places in which there is nothing to do as entertainment except watch TV as entertainment is enough to make one think of moving to some economic Hell where one can survive on much less. I know people who have done such -- going from the white-collar world to the gritty area of bare necessities.
But back to the sort of leadership that we have. Donald Trump is an execrable leader, someone who thinks that the ideal world is one whose focus is the enrichment and indulgence of his class of plutocrats. That fits a Marxist stereotype of capitalism, and as we all know, Marxist rhetoric has no attraction unless the social order fits Marx' depiction of a capitalist plutocracy under the rule of crass exploiters -- that profits are everything and people are nothing but tools of the plutocrats. The VP who is set to succeed him believes in a more theocratic order compatible with plutocracy -- that the Common Man can satisfy himself with the promise of pie in the sky when he dies so long as he suffers adequately for the Master Classes of ownership and the managerial elite.
Note well that Donald Trump ran with the use of the vague but vapid slogan "Make America Great Again". So it is for someone like Donald Trump (the arbiter of the meaning of such a phrase) to establish what it means. Back to the "Good Old Days" 00 but for HIS social class of profiteers -- lower taxes, lower wages, little regulation, and a higher share of income going to economic elites. There will be less reliance upon education and more upon toil under harsh conditions. Sure, there will be more work -- if wages plummet enough, there will be more work available. For Mike Pence, who may be President in the event that bad habits kill the President, it means that the authoritarian family 'informed' more by theological promises of a better Hereafter than by economic rewards in This World.
It is a raw deal, the sort that a political order can maintain only if it goes authoritarian and is able to rig the political process to preserve the current share (actually non-sharing) of power.
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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(05-18-2018, 02:52 AM)pbrower2a Wrote: America around 1930 was much more agrarian than it is today. Nit industrial workers also had it harder and expected to work harder and longer to solve economic problems first of business owners and bosses before solving their own problems. America was more raw in its economics, with fewer things that it could give up just to scrape by.
People can make it do or do without. But what they do without takes away someone else's income stream, whether that income stream goers to some fat-cat or to a marginal worker in a service or retail business,
How a political system reacts to an economic meltdown reflects the moral character of that leadership and its wisdom, and what we now have is the worst possible. Corruption and an ethos of profits first are the essence of Trump economics. The GOP goes along.
Were there a meltdown of the character of the early 1930s, there would be more things that people could give up -- the service and leisure sectors. Golf, an expensive practice of the middle class, was one of the easiest things to give up. Instead of golfing, people found that they could take hikes or watch TV. At a worse point, they give up cable TV and watch broadcast channels instead. Satellite radio? They can find a broadcast of NPR or (gaak!) Rush Limbaugh on free-to-receiver radio. They can cut back on spending on live sports, theater, and amusement parks.
Whatever people thought were expensive, like travel and cable TV, they can make cutbacks. They can even send fewer greeting cards. Most people have collected large numbers of prerecorded disks of music and video, and they may return to those. Dust off old books and to to the library instead of paying for overpriced best-sellers? Of course.
It's the service sector that gets hit first now. People might eat out less, but they still need some food. If they still have jobs, they will commute. If they commuted fifty miles one way to a job that they lost, then they will look for lower-paying work locally... and end up commuting less.
Maybe people can even cut back on rent from moving from high-rent places where the intellectual action is and the best-paying service jobs are (like California and the urban Northeast) to lower-cost places in which to live.The assessment that some urban wrecks in the Rust Belt are grim, dreary, joyless worlds (ask me about much of the Rust Belt) ignores that on the difference between paying more for rent in California than one can earn doing oil changes or changing tires in some places in which there is nothing to do as entertainment except watch TV as entertainment is enough to make one think of moving to some economic Hell where one can survive on much less. I know people who have done such -- going from the white-collar world to the gritty area of bare necessities.
But back to the sort of leadership that we have. Donald Trump is an execrable leader, someone who thinks that the ideal world is one whose focus is the enrichment and indulgence of his class of plutocrats. That fits a Marxist stereotype of capitalism, and as we all know, Marxist rhetoric has no attraction unless the social order fits Marx' depiction of a capitalist plutocracy under the rule of crass exploiters -- that profits are everything and people are nothing but tools of the plutocrats. The VP who is set to succeed him believes in a more theocratic order compatible with plutocracy -- that the Common Man can satisfy himself with the promise of pie in the sky when he dies so long as he suffers adequately for the Master Classes of ownership and the managerial elite.
Note well that Donald Trump ran with the use of the vague but vapid slogan "Make America Great Again". So it is for someone like Donald Trump (the arbiter of the meaning of such a phrase) to establish what it means. Back to the "Good Old Days" 00 but for HIS social class of profiteers -- lower taxes, lower wages, little regulation, and a higher share of income going to economic elites. There will be less reliance upon education and more upon toil under harsh conditions. Sure, there will be more work -- if wages plummet enough, there will be more work available. For Mike Pence, who may be President in the event that bad habits kill the President, it means that the authoritarian family 'informed' more by theological promises of a better Hereafter than by economic rewards in This World.
It is a raw deal, the sort that a political order can maintain only if it goes authoritarian and is able to rig the political process to preserve the current share (actually non-sharing) of power.
For more on the "more work" syndrome I would like to invite you to check out the new thread I began just yesterday titled "Why Technology Failed to Produce More Leisure". About a half century ago we were all but promised that the new technology then still looming on the horizon or at best still in its infancy would lead us toward a world of shorten work hours and increased leisure. Instead, since around 1980 we have mostly gone in the opposite direction.
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(05-18-2018, 02:40 AM)Eric the Green Wrote: (05-17-2018, 08:12 PM)beechnut79 Wrote: (05-17-2018, 03:03 PM)pbrower2a Wrote: (05-17-2018, 02:40 PM)beechnut79 Wrote: (05-17-2018, 08:11 AM)Anthony Wrote: Since not only did 9/11 not cause the Culture Wars to wind down, but the Culture Wars have actually ramped up since then (Lawrence vs. Texas, Obergefell v. Hodges, "partial-birth abortion," the continuing drive to defund Planned Parenthood), I theorize that with 9/11 began a unique hybrid 3T-4T, which I expect will end with a financial catastrophe in most likely October 2019 (something I have been predicting for literally two decades), leaving us in a pure 4T, which could commence as early as this November, if "The Map" holds up and the Republicans get to 60 seats to Senate, or to 59 and the Republicans can induce Maine independent Angus King, who currently caucuses with the Democrats, to cross the aisle.
Do you feel as though the financial malaise you are predicting will be severe enough as to make the 1930s Great Depression seem like a walk in the park, as many have speculated that something like this could happen? Don't wish it to happen but that's what it may take to undo the philosophy of Money as God.
At least we know what to do about another reprise of the sort of economic meltdown that followed panics of 1857, 1929, and 2008 -- if we have the means (savings and tax authority).
Have said many times that today's society would have a much more difficult time handling a Great Depression than the people alive at that time did. More of them knew how to grow their own food, etc. Do you feel that if this does happen it will make housing much more affordable again, and perhaps a comeback of rooming house situations?
The economy seems to be going too well to crash so soon, even though the prosperity is very thin. I had predicted the 2008 crash, and have predicted that it will be the worst in the lifetimes of people today. The worst we can expect in 2019 is a recession, possibly a mild one. If it's enough to scare people into voting Trump and Republicans out in 2020, then as productive policies get restored over the following 3 or 4 years, a boom time could develop. This might even continue if, as I predict, controversy and conflict could ramp up at mid-decade.
Well, ya herd it here
But yet didn't you predict that the crux of the current crisis wouldn't manifest itself till the turn of the decade. If your prediction is correct then we have a little more than a year and a half to go.
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What the most horrible crashes need is a bubble economy in which speculation in securities and commodities becomes the Only Game in Town. Then, speculation crowds out investment in job-creating activities... and when the bubble bursts, there is nothing to replace the nearly-fraudulent activity of speculation. Investment in plant and equipment (which creates the industrial jobs necessary for a solid economy). Tax policies are attuned to feeding the frenzy in speculation, and public investment wanes except in the facilitation of the speculative bubble.
People fail to realize that the investment in a bubble is sheer waste of capital -- until the bubble bursts. By then the tax base has so shriveled that all that can rescue the economy is huge borrowing.
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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(05-18-2018, 03:08 PM)beechnut79 Wrote: (05-18-2018, 02:40 AM)Eric the Green Wrote: (05-17-2018, 08:12 PM)beechnut79 Wrote: (05-17-2018, 03:03 PM)pbrower2a Wrote: (05-17-2018, 02:40 PM)beechnut79 Wrote: Do you feel as though the financial malaise you are predicting will be severe enough as to make the 1930s Great Depression seem like a walk in the park, as many have speculated that something like this could happen? Don't wish it to happen but that's what it may take to undo the philosophy of Money as God.
At least we know what to do about another reprise of the sort of economic meltdown that followed panics of 1857, 1929, and 2008 -- if we have the means (savings and tax authority).
Have said many times that today's society would have a much more difficult time handling a Great Depression than the people alive at that time did. More of them knew how to grow their own food, etc. Do you feel that if this does happen it will make housing much more affordable again, and perhaps a comeback of rooming house situations?
The economy seems to be going too well to crash so soon, even though the prosperity is very thin. I had predicted the 2008 crash, and have predicted that it will be the worst in the lifetimes of people today. The worst we can expect in 2019 is a recession, possibly a mild one. If it's enough to scare people into voting Trump and Republicans out in 2020, then as productive policies get restored over the following 3 or 4 years, a boom time could develop. This might even continue if, as I predict, controversy and conflict could ramp up at mid-decade.
Well, ya herd it here
But yet didn't you predict that the crux of the current crisis wouldn't manifest itself till the turn of the decade. If your prediction is correct then we have a little more than a year and a half to go.
Yes, but what is described by Strauss and Howe as the "crisis climax" won't arrive until the last 4 or 5 years of the Fourth Turning, which will start in 2025. So what happens in 2020 will be, as the Parkland student Ryan Deitsch said (and as I already described the 2020s), revving up the engines. While the 2020s won't be just like the 1960s, it will resemble that decade in the way that things unfold. Take a listen to this exciting speech and how it ends.
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(05-17-2018, 08:11 AM)Anthony Wrote: Since not only did 9/11 not cause the Culture Wars to wind down, but the Culture Wars have actually ramped up since then (Lawrence vs. Texas, Obergefell v. Hodges, "partial-birth abortion," the continuing drive to defund Planned Parenthood), I theorize that with 9/11 began a unique hybrid 3T-4T, which I expect will end with a financial catastrophe in most likely October 2019 (something I have been predicting for literally two decades), leaving us in a pure 4T, which could commence as early as this November, if "The Map" holds up and the Republicans get to 60 seats to Senate, or to 59 and the Republicans can induce Maine independent Angus King, who currently caucuses with the Democrats, to cross the aisle.
60 GOP seats this fall is a really tall order. Republicans have held 60 or more senate seatsjust twice in American history: 62 seats in 1869-71, and 61 seats in 1907-9. The last time they had 60+ percent was 1923-25. The most they have had since is 55, on several occasions, most recently 2005-7.
.-
Since 1980 the average number of Republican and Democratic senators has been the same at 49.6 each. Congressional elections generally go against the president's party. The generic ballot, presidential popularity and natural Republican geographical advantage* suggests that the most likely outcome from the election is a 0-3 seat pickup for Republicans, with the Republicans maintaining control, but falling far short of 60.
*Republicans tend to win sparsely populated states with a high ratio of senators to voters because such states are more rural.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Party_divi...Senate.png
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05-19-2018, 07:33 PM
(This post was last modified: 05-19-2018, 09:40 PM by pbrower2a.)
(05-19-2018, 05:36 PM)Mikebert Wrote: (05-17-2018, 08:11 AM)Anthony Wrote: Since not only did 9/11 not cause the Culture Wars to wind down, but the Culture Wars have actually ramped up since then (Lawrence vs. Texas, Obergefell v. Hodges, "partial-birth abortion," the continuing drive to defund Planned Parenthood), I theorize that with 9/11 began a unique hybrid 3T-4T, which I expect will end with a financial catastrophe in most likely October 2019 (something I have been predicting for literally two decades), leaving us in a pure 4T, which could commence as early as this November, if "The Map" holds up and the Republicans get to 60 seats to Senate, or to 59 and the Republicans can induce Maine independent Angus King, who currently caucuses with the Democrats, to cross the aisle.
60 GOP seats this fall is a really tall order. Republicans have held 60 or more senate seatsjust twice in American history: 62 seats in 1869-71, and 61 seats in 1907-9. The last time they had 60+ percent was 1923-25. The most they have had since is 55, on several occasions, most recently 2005-7.
But it seemed eminently possible going into the 2016 election. Of course Donald Trump has been a horrible President, and the idea that his Party could pick up most of the Senate seats of incumbent Democrats (Stabenow in Michigan, Baldwin in Wisconsin, Casey in Pennsylvania, Brown in Ohio, Nelson in Florida, Donnelly in Indiana, McCaskill in Missouri, Heitkamp in North Dakota, and Tester in Montana) and the one Democratic seat that now involves an appointed Senator (Smith in Minnesota; appointed pols are usually vulnerable) in states that he won in 2016. Having won eight such seats and making gains in the House, the Republicans would have a filibuster-proof majority in the Senate, and the Republican Party could truly make America great again -- in human suffering in a country in which monopolists get control of pricing, welfare disappears (unless you call crony capitalism 'welfare'), wages plummet, and management can get away with brutality just short of the type that exists with concentration camps. If you still believe Rush Limbaugh -- that is all wonderful.
At least if one is young one who has some good work habits could go to a country that still has opportunity and prosperity for more than a few, learn the local language, and race ahead of Americans who stay in the Corporate States of America... which America might as well be called in such a scenario. People old and broke, like me? There would be little to live for.
But the Republicans have gone too far to the Right while the demographics are going Left... and that creates its own political instability. Welcome to the Fourth Turning, this time in earnest.
Quote:Since 1980 the average number of Republican and Democratic senators has been the same at 49.6 each. Congressional elections generally go against the president's party. The generic ballot, presidential popularity and natural Republican geographical advantage* suggests that the most likely outcome from the election is a 0-3 seat pickup for Republicans, with the Republicans maintaining control, but falling far short of 60.
*Republicans tend to win sparsely populated states with a high ratio of senators to voters because such states are more rural.
We have an agonizing five and a half months to watch history unfold in America. We all have our hopes and fears. For me this could be a matter of life or death. It is that serious. America could become the nightmare of a repressive, hierarchical, and inequitable social order; with a heritage of militarism unusually severe for a democracy and great resources under command of people of limitless greed and cruelty, America could become the greatest nightmare that the world has ever known. Sure, it would not be as morally objectionable as Hitler's demonic Third Reich or Stalin's hellish Soviet Union... maybe the Germany of Wilhelm II or Italy under Mussolini, only with nuclear weapons in great quantity.
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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"repressive, hierarchical, and inequitable social order"? Where people from the wrong side of the tracks can make a career only in the military?
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(07-11-2018, 01:46 PM)Hintergrund Wrote: "repressive, hierarchical, and inequitable social order"? Where people from the wrong side of the tracks can make a career only in the military?
You got it. That's how the elites fill up the cannon fodder ranks. Heaven forbid folks like the Bushes, Cheneys, Clintons, and all of those stupid neocons' spawn stay safe.
---Value Added 
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(07-11-2018, 01:46 PM)Hintergrund Wrote: "repressive, hierarchical, and inequitable social order"? Where people from the wrong side of the tracks can make a career only in the military?
...and it is still a raw deal, as the pathologies of repression, hierarchy, and inequity in a society receive accentuation in its armies and navies. There could be plenty of opportunity to be the 21st-century equivalent of a galley slave.
Bad social orders such as Iran under the corrupt mullahs and Iraq under serial mass-murderer Satan Hussein are prone to treating soldiers as cannon fodder, even resorting to human wave attacks. Good social orders dislike war and use their soldiers more economically, preferring that soldiers survive to fight another day -- and to not need replenishment by green troops and rapidly-advancing junior officers who get fed into the meat-grinder.
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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07-12-2018, 01:53 PM
(This post was last modified: 07-12-2018, 02:17 PM by Eric the Green.)
(07-11-2018, 11:21 PM)Ragnarök_62 Wrote: (07-11-2018, 01:46 PM)Hintergrund Wrote: "repressive, hierarchical, and inequitable social order"? Where people from the wrong side of the tracks can make a career only in the military?
You got it. That's how the elites fill up the cannon fodder ranks. Heaven forbid folks like the Bushes, Cheneys, Clintons, and all of those stupid neocons' spawn stay safe.
None of the Clintons, of course, belong in the company of the Bush and Cheney group.
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(05-19-2018, 07:33 PM)pbrower2a Wrote: (05-19-2018, 05:36 PM)Mikebert Wrote: (05-17-2018, 08:11 AM)Anthony Wrote: Since not only did 9/11 not cause the Culture Wars to wind down, but the Culture Wars have actually ramped up since then (Lawrence vs. Texas, Obergefell v. Hodges, "partial-birth abortion," the continuing drive to defund Planned Parenthood), I theorize that with 9/11 began a unique hybrid 3T-4T, which I expect will end with a financial catastrophe in most likely October 2019 (something I have been predicting for literally two decades), leaving us in a pure 4T, which could commence as early as this November, if "The Map" holds up and the Republicans get to 60 seats to Senate, or to 59 and the Republicans can induce Maine independent Angus King, who currently caucuses with the Democrats, to cross the aisle.
60 GOP seats this fall is a really tall order. Republicans have held 60 or more senate seatsjust twice in American history: 62 seats in 1869-71, and 61 seats in 1907-9. The last time they had 60+ percent was 1923-25. The most they have had since is 55, on several occasions, most recently 2005-7.
But it seemed eminently possible going into the 2016 election. Of course Donald Trump has been a horrible President, and the idea that his Party could pick up most of the Senate seats of incumbent Democrats (Stabenow in Michigan, Baldwin in Wisconsin, Casey in Pennsylvania, Brown in Ohio, Nelson in Florida, Donnelly in Indiana, McCaskill in Missouri, Heitkamp in North Dakota, and Tester in Montana) and the one Democratic seat that now involves an appointed Senator (Smith in Minnesota; appointed pols are usually vulnerable) in states that he won in 2016. Having won eight such seats and making gains in the House, the Republicans would have a filibuster-proof majority in the Senate, and the Republican Party could truly make America great again -- in human suffering in a country in which monopolists get control of pricing, welfare disappears (unless you call crony capitalism 'welfare'), wages plummet, and management can get away with brutality just short of the type that exists with concentration camps. If you still believe Rush Limbaugh -- that is all wonderful.
At least if one is young one who has some good work habits could go to a country that still has opportunity and prosperity for more than a few, learn the local language, and race ahead of Americans who stay in the Corporate States of America... which America might as well be called in such a scenario. People old and broke, like me? There would be little to live for.
But the Republicans have gone too far to the Right while the demographics are going Left... and that creates its own political instability. Welcome to the Fourth Turning, this time in earnest.
Quote:Since 1980 the average number of Republican and Democratic senators has been the same at 49.6 each. Congressional elections generally go against the president's party. The generic ballot, presidential popularity and natural Republican geographical advantage* suggests that the most likely outcome from the election is a 0-3 seat pickup for Republicans, with the Republicans maintaining control, but falling far short of 60.
*Republicans tend to win sparsely populated states with a high ratio of senators to voters because such states are more rural.
We have an agonizing five and a half months to watch history unfold in America. We all have our hopes and fears. For me this could be a matter of life or death. It is that serious. America could become the nightmare of a repressive, hierarchical, and inequitable social order; with a heritage of militarism unusually severe for a democracy and great resources under command of people of limitless greed and cruelty, America could become the greatest nightmare that the world has ever known. Sure, it would not be as morally objectionable as Hitler's demonic Third Reich or Stalin's hellish Soviet Union... maybe the Germany of Wilhelm II or Italy under Mussolini, only with nuclear weapons in great quantity.
There is at least one more Democratic Senator in a state won by Trump: Manchin of West Virginia.
He is leading in the polls, as is Brown, Baldwin and Tester. The most vulnerable of them seem to be Donnelly, McCaskill, Nelson and Heitkamp. It's certainly possible that in a blue wave year the Democrats could hold all of them. The gun control movement could boost Nelson in Florida. But we'll see. Republicans are trailing in senate polls in Nevada and Arizona right now, where Trump's cruel attacks on hispanic immigrants are arousing opposition. Another Republican seat in AZ is inactive now; another election could happen there soon. Beto is about 5 points behind Cruz in heavily-hispanic Texas. The Republican seat in Tennessee could be vulnerable. Democratic Senate control by one vote is necessary to have a chance to keep Trump from appointing any more right-wing extremists to the Court.
The House is a tossup. It appears that whichever Party gains control, it will be a close margin.
I agree with Brower's assessment of Republican control if it continues much past 2020. Until then, the rising blue wave could still have a chance of stopping the slide. Anthony is an aspiring prophet, as I claim to be, and he says an economic meltdown in Oct 2019 could make this 4T a pure one. I have said that the next recession, which I think I agree with him on the date, will not be as severe as the one in 2008. I say we were in 3T until that one in 2008, and in 4T since; but that this 4T is similar to the one that started in 1850, which the authors thought was anomalous enough to call it a 3T and shorten the 4T to 5 years in 1860-65. So even though I say the years from 2001-2008 were 3T, and since 2008 is 4T, there's enough reason to compare the situation of the 2010s to the "anomalous" 1850s.
Note that I predicted the great recession of 2008 decades in advance, including in the videos that I assume you have all seen, and it did happen, and to the month that I predicted on the T4T forum. I also predicted it would be the start date of the 4T, which is still not agreed to by all, but is still agreed to by the author of turnings, Neil Howe.
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07-12-2018, 03:52 PM
(This post was last modified: 07-12-2018, 03:53 PM by David Horn.)
(07-12-2018, 01:53 PM)Eric the Green Wrote: (07-11-2018, 11:21 PM)Ragnarök_62 Wrote: (07-11-2018, 01:46 PM)Hintergrund Wrote: "repressive, hierarchical, and inequitable social order"? Where people from the wrong side of the tracks can make a career only in the military?
You got it. That's how the elites fill up the cannon fodder ranks. Heaven forbid folks like the Bushes, Cheneys, Clintons, and all of those stupid neocons' spawn stay safe.
None of the Clintons, of course, belong in the company of the Bush and Cheney group.
I have to disagree there. Bill was the ultimate DINO and Hillary was as fluid as a river. Note: Bill never served. Neither did Cheney or Trump. W served in the Texas Toy Air Force, flying obsolete planes that would never be called into service … but he did serve, sorta. As far as I know, none of the other Bushes served (except GHWB, of course).
John Kerry served in one of the most dangerous jobs in the military of his time. Bob Kerrey got the MoH. McCain's history is so well known that saying more is a waste of time. None of these folks needed to serve. They had the wherewithal to avoid it.
It's hard to make generalizations, though the Neo-Cons have a virtually blemish-free record of military avoidance.
Intelligence is not knowledge and knowledge is not wisdom, but they all play well together.
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(07-12-2018, 03:52 PM)David Horn Wrote: (07-12-2018, 01:53 PM)Eric the Green Wrote: (07-11-2018, 11:21 PM)Ragnarök_62 Wrote: (07-11-2018, 01:46 PM)Hintergrund Wrote: "repressive, hierarchical, and inequitable social order"? Where people from the wrong side of the tracks can make a career only in the military?
You got it. That's how the elites fill up the cannon fodder ranks. Heaven forbid folks like the Bushes, Cheneys, Clintons, and all of those stupid neocons' spawn stay safe.
None of the Clintons, of course, belong in the company of the Bush and Cheney group.
I have to disagree there. Bill was the ultimate DINO and Hillary was as fluid as a river. Note: Bill never served. Neither did Cheney or Trump. W served in the Texas Toy Air Force, flying obsolete planes that would never be called into service … but he did serve, sorta. As far as I know, none of the other Bushes served (except GHWB, of course).
John Kerry served in one of the most dangerous jobs in the military of his time. Bob Kerrey got the MoH. McCain's history is so well known that saying more is a waste of time. None of these folks needed to serve. They had the wherewithal to avoid it.
It's hard to make generalizations, though the Neo-Cons have a virtually blemish-free record of military avoidance.
I thought the comment by Rags was about providing wars with cannon fodder. The Clintons can't even hold a candle to the Bush/Cheney cabal in that department. But it's true about who avoids service. That's much less significant though. Doing service you can avoid is heroic, but avoiding it seems like a good idea to me too. But if you avoid it, and then send others, that is not so admirable.
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