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Election 2020
(01-04-2020, 09:08 AM)David Horn Wrote:
(01-04-2020, 03:07 AM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote:
(01-04-2020, 12:59 AM)pbrower2a Wrote: It just got worse... and worse... and worse.

And trending.  To keep making the case more solid, all the Democrats need to do is wait.  The problem with that is Trups's attempt to distract by being an ever worse president.  How long will the Republicans trash the Republicans by letting him stay in power?

I can't see the Republicans walking away from Trump, until he becomes toxic in his own party.  He can have a zero percent support level outside the GOP, but  inside is all they see.

They are going to stick with him until he loses, even in a narrow loss of the Presidency. The Republican party is to a large extent the TEA Party that still wants a Christian and Corporate State and still will want it after Trump is off the scene. 

The current GOP is a semi-fascist, authoritarian Party, and nothing will change that until it finds itself on the brink of irrelevance. It has sought to maintain a 3T agenda of extreme inequality and as a rear-guard for anti-rational opposition to rational science. Such is inconsistent with the usual values of a Civic generation gaining power as rational, egalitarian, progress-oriented people. They want a better world for their children, and they are not going to let poverty and superstition get in the way. Of increasing importance in American life will be the model minorities who will be more influential in shaping American culture. 

The upcoming 1T will be have elements of endorsement of and grudging acceptance for the results of the 4T in reshaping the world...and largely a repudiation of 3T values. Should there be endorsement of the 3T, then it will be of the good stuff... like the music of George Gershwin. People will not be doing the crazy stuff, and they will utterly repudiate the bad business, bad politics, and bad mass culture of the 3T. Business will be conducted to improve the lot of the many instead of get-rich-quick (and get-ruined-faster) speculation of the sort that made the Crashes of 1929 and 2008 near-certainties. If you are thinking of housing, someone like the fictional George Babbitt who built and sold houses that people couldn't really afford in the 1920's and the Double-Zero Decade (the eighty-year rule strikes again; Babbitt was coherent in the 1920's and the Double-Zero Decade -- but people just did not do things that way from the 1930's to the 1990's). People will tolerate economic activity best described as long-term, low-yield, and predictable again. Sports will be more civic ritual than narcissistic excess. To be sure, I expect Boomers to follow the GI and Silent in staying physically and intellectually active into their 80's and 90's, unlike the Missionaries who rarely lived so long -- which might mitigate the trend toward the lack of controversy in public life. I expect the youth music of the 1T to parallel what it was in the 1950's: more whimsical than angry, cerebral, or cynical. 

"Mister Sandman... bring me a dream"



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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I’m not going to address Trump for once.  I can go pretty much with your rejection of him and the GOP.

But I am not sure at all you can bring the Industrial Age turnings into the Information Age.  My current perspective…

The Boomer idealist generation was split.  Rather that a single point of view getting ready for the transformational crisis, the split idealistic generation guaranteed nothing moved, not only in the unraveling, but in what would have been the crisis as well.

Everything transformational the Blue Boomers were going to do was done in the Awakening of their youth.  In the process they left behind a future shock which left the Red Boomers refusing change hard.  If either group “won” for a time, the independents would lean away for a term or two, giving the other faction power.  Thus, a see saw of power back and forth.

There was no regeneracy with the boomers holding onto power pushing the new values using force.  Thus, the crisis never really fit the old Industrial Age pattern.

We may have a transformation time coming back again.  The progressives had their ascendancy from the New Deal through Great Society.  The conservatives pretty much froze things from Nixon though Trump.  But it will not be so much a crisis as the boomers have pretty much aged out of power.

It may have elements of a 1st turning.  As McCarthy rejected communism in the last 1T, I could easily see lying politicians being very unpopular for a time.  Trumpism will be rejected.  The spirit of OK Boomer could mesh in with a rejection of short term greed and dominance of ecological thinking.  There would have to be a massive infrastructure project, very 1T, to rebuild the energy infrastructure.  Something of the old generations might catch, even if the transformational crises doesn’t.

But we will have to see if Sanders or Warren caches fire and takes 2020.  There is some chance for a true crisis yet, even with crisis wars being obsolete and the idealists split.
That this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom, and that government of the people, by the people, for the people shall not perish from the earth.
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Real Clear Politics polling average
Biden29.4
Sanders19.4
Warren14.8
Buttigieg7.9
Bloomberg5.8
Yang3.4
Klobuchar3.0
Booker2.3
Gabbard1.9
Steyer1.8
Castro1.1 (dropped out)
Delaney0.8
Williamson0.3
Bennet0.1
Biden +10.0

There's lots and lots of Boomers still in power. Even Silents. Plenty of time for the Crisis which is only half over to get more active and severe. It was always going to unfold this way; I predicted it. The split among Boomers, and Xers too, and white millennials, just indicates the double rhythm; this crisis is primarily domestic like the civil war, which had the same sort of divisions. Our crisis is already called the cold civil war. That may be its lasting title. Things are right on schedule!
"I close my eyes, and I can see a better day" -- Justin Bieber

Keep the spirit alive;
Eric M
Reply
(01-04-2020, 03:35 PM)pbrower2a Wrote: The only two Democratic Senators running for re-election in 2020 in states that Donald Trump won are Doug Jones, who got elected under freakish circumstances unlikely to be replicated in Alabama, and Gary Peters, the only other freshman incumbent Democrat up for re-election in any state in 2020, and in a state that had gone for the Democratic nominee for President every year beginning in 1992. Others are in states that Hillary Clinton won. 

Doug Jones has little to lose by voting to remove the President. The only way in which he wins if is if he gets a re-match with Roy Moore, who probably cannot win the Alabama primary this time considering what a pompous a$$ he was the last time. Gary Peters would lose a primary challenge if he voted to keep Donald Trump. If I were a Republican I would be more concerned about Collins in Maine, Gardner in Colorado (both in states that voted against Trump), McSally in Arizona (got appointed after losing a Senate election), Tillis in North Carolina (approval polls are abysmal), Ernst in Iowa (Iowa is a legitimate swing state and a clean government state), and Georgia (Democrats have been getting closer every year, and two R seats are up, one by an early retirement).  

Michigan increasingly looks like a freak win for Trump in 2016 on about the scale that Indiana was a freak win for Obama in 2008. All but one poll that I have seen, and that one looks as if it is contaminated with the results of a poll connected by a right-wing political journal, show Trump losing Michigan decisively. 

I recognize that you consider Donald Trump so wonderful that he should win a landslide with promises of imposing a new feudalism in America... but you don't even know your own state well for its political attitudes.  Minnesota was close to going for Trump in 2016; it is not now. 

If I were a Republican I would not brush off the 2018 midterm election so easily. Democrats won absolute majorities of House votes in a midterm election in states that have 284 electoral votes and an unambiguous plurality in another state (Arizona) with eleven electoral votes. I see that for now as a floor for any Democratic nominee for President. Add to that -- Trump is underwater in approval in four electorally-large states (Florida, Georgia, North Carolina, and Ohio) with 78 electoral votes. I see him winning all of those or losing all of them. Then there is Texas, which looks iffy.

Republicans usually do better in midterm elections than in others. If I see any analogue to 2018 as a midterm, then it is to 2006, a portent of the near-landslide by Barack Obama. The tea Party voters who haven't died off are still there, but their numbers are not increasing. Millennial voters, about 60-40 D are replacing older voters on the whole about 52-47 R in the usual turnover of old and young voters by about 1.5% a year. 

Trump may be solidifying his base, but he is offending everyone else. It may not matter that those who never voted for him and never would are becoming even more intense in their contempt for him, and that such will not hurt him more in the 2020 election. It's what is in between that matters.  A hint: Goldwater and McGovern both had enthusiastic bases.
I didn't brush off the 2018 election. I understand the reason why they lost the House in 2018. I still voted Republican because I understood what was going to happen if/when the Democrats regained control over the House. Me, I learned about a decade ago, you don't give the benefit of the doubt to the Democrats these days because the liberal Democrats are dumb/needy enough to do and support whatever it takes for them to have a chance to remain in office these days. Yes. The future looks bright for the Democrats as long as the country remains together like it is now. What's the chances of that at this point? I'd say slim to none by the end of this decade. What's going to you? Don't know and don't much care at this point. Nope, the Tea Party ain't dead. The Tea Party is alive and well and largely represents our Millenials. You see, being raised by a very street smart generation who doesn't really give a shit about liberal rules or liberal policies who doesn't have much love for socialism or much time for liberal people or liberal politics in general who laugh and think about how much money we could make off the fools and clueless people who support/ feel they can rely on the liberals these days. I'm sorry to say, my liberal neighbor is a bit of a head case. You see, she bought in to liberal belief while most of the folks her age stuck with their own beliefs Right now, the only difference between them and us is that we have higher integrity and scruples. Of coarse, scruples don't apply and integrity doesn't much matter when dealing with/ eliminating a bunch of liberal scumbags. I already proved that over a decade ago. So, what happened to that big old forum that you were associated with in the past?
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(01-05-2020, 06:33 AM)Classic-Xer Wrote:
(01-04-2020, 03:35 PM)pbrower2a Wrote: (deleted for brevity)

I didn't brush off the 2018 election. I understand the reason why (Republicans) lost the House in 2018. I still voted Republican because I understood what was going to happen if/when the Democrats regained control over the House. Me, I learned about a decade ago, you don't give the benefit of the doubt to the Democrats these days because the liberal Democrats are dumb/needy enough to do and support whatever it takes for them to have a chance to remain in office these days. Yes. The future looks bright for the Democrats as long as the country remains together like it is now. What's the chances of that at this point? I'd say slim to none by the end of this decade. What's going to you? Don't know and don't much care at this point. Nope, the Tea Party ain't dead. The Tea Party is alive and well and largely represents our Millenials. You see, being raised by a very street smart generation who doesn't really give a shit about liberal rules or liberal policies who doesn't have much love for socialism or much time for liberal people or liberal politics in general who laugh and think about how much money we could make off the fools and clueless people who support/ feel they can rely on the liberals these days. I'm sorry to say, my liberal neighbor is a bit of a head case. You see, she bought in to liberal belief while most of the folks her age stuck with their own beliefs. Right now, the only difference between them and us is that we have higher integrity and scruples. Of coarse, scruples don't apply and integrity doesn't much matter when dealing with/ eliminating a bunch of liberal scumbags. I already proved that over a decade ago. So, what happened to that big old forum that you were associated with in the past?

Republicans lost the House because Trump was a lousy President. The 2018 midterm election was not a landslide; Republicans made gains in the Senate on net because of Democrats holding Senate seats that they won in 2012 against complete fools or have held onto in states drifting R and finally lost. Even so, Democrats won the majority of the total vote for US Senators. A vote for Trump is basically a vote for a reversion to the Gilded Age, a time in which nothing mattered except the gain, indulgence, and power of economic elites for which people got promises of pie-in-the-sky-when-you-die.

All politicians promise what they can get away with promising; Republicans have gotten more aggressive and reckless with such in recent years. Just think of global warming. It would be more convenient to not shovel so much snow, to not use so much heating fuel, and to be able to go on Sunday drives on more winter days with knowledge that the temperature will get closer to 55F than to -5F. I don't particularly like Michigan winters, but for that I might soon spell relief F-L-O-R-I-D-A, as many do where I live. I know what harsh, snowy winters do: they protect upper-level ground water, and the last April thaw supplies copious water to germinating plants. I have never been in Winter Wheat country, but the trick is that the crops get their start in the late summer and are partially grown before they grow for harvest after winter is over. They too need winter snows to protect the soil moisture during the dormancy of the plants.  Agriculture remains the cornerstone of all healthy economies except for such places as Saudi Arabia that extract fuels or minerals cheaply for a small population.There is no technological or medical fix for hunger. When people get hungry, the economic and political order collapses. Maybe we can adjust to slow and (probably) inevitable global warming, but abrupt warming will be an unmitigated disaster for perhaps hundreds of millions of people.

I follow the numbers, and I see a reality very different from yours. I also recognize that the Millennial Generation has often endured severe hardships in part because of vindictive, right-wing politicians who saw poverty as the key to creating prosperity by compelling people to work longer and harder for less. Oh, if only people would suffer more for the Master Class who owes them nothing -- and remembers to smile even more! As a liberal Boomer I could predict the consequences; the Millennial Generation has often felt the consequences. 

Socialism? The Marxist-Leninist variety that seizes the property and runs it? Marx ignored that bureaucratic elites could exploit the common man just as severely as could capitalists, feudal lords, and even slave-owning planters. Government ownership and operation of businesses has rarely proved effective and has shown itself to be chary of innovation -- just like private monopolies. The only rationale for government ownership of business is of natural monopolies or of entities that cannot be run on a profit-and-loss basis. I would be satisfied with "capitalism with a human face" at this point. 

You may have some scruples, and you may stand for a community that does far more for people in distress than the distant shareholders and dismissive executives.
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.


Reply
(01-04-2020, 09:15 PM)Eric the Green Wrote: Real Clear Politics polling average
Biden29.4
Sanders19.4
Warren14.8
Buttigieg7.9
Bloomberg5.8
Yang3.4
Klobuchar3.0
Booker2.3
Gabbard1.9
Steyer1.8
Castro1.1 (dropped out)
Delaney0.8
Williamson0.3
Bennet0.1
Biden +10.0

There's lots and lots of Boomers still in power. Even Silents. Plenty of time for the Crisis which is only half over to get more active and severe. It was always going to unfold this way; I predicted it. The split among Boomers, and Xers too, and white millennials, just indicates the double rhythm; this crisis is primarily domestic like the civil war, which had the same sort of divisions. Our crisis is already called the cold civil war. That may be its lasting title. Things are right on schedule!
I'd say you're a bit ahead ( a decade or so) of the game or schedule as far as where you seem to believe we are at right now. You say/ seem to believe that we are a decade into the 4T right now. Me, I happen to believe that we are nearing the end of the preparation phase and more or less a decade way from the beginning of a rough 4T era for the liberal believers. I don't know whether you'll still be living as the blue system of social and racial preference implodes or you'll be born but you'll be here to directly experience the end one way or another. Yes, we have two different societies with different values (one values this, the other values that instead), two different social structures with two different sets of rules (one earns, the other is granted, two sets of moral guides and principles (one is written stone, the other changes with the seasons and largely driven by emotions), two distinctly different ideologies and two different views of America ( One bad/ one good) and two different understandings of it's government role and it's role in the world. I'd say the Cold Civil sounds about right. I'd also say that goal should be to keep it cold/cool vs heating it up. Honestly, I don't really care if I see a bunch of dumb Democrats dying for doing something really stupid or a bunch of dumb liberal supporters dying or being drug out of office or losing their lively hoods and their homes and their national identities for supporting them.
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(01-04-2020, 09:15 PM)Eric the Green Wrote: Real Clear Politics polling average
Biden29.4
Sanders19.4
Warren14.8
Buttigieg7.9
Bloomberg5.8
Yang3.4
Klobuchar3.0
Booker2.3
Gabbard1.9
Steyer1.8
Castro1.1 (dropped out)
Delaney0.8
Williamson0.3
Bennet0.1
Biden +10.0

There's lots and lots of Boomers still in power. Even Silents. Plenty of time for the Crisis which is only half over to get more active and severe. It was always going to unfold this way; I predicted it. The split among Boomers, and Xers too, and white millennials, just indicates the double rhythm; this crisis is primarily domestic like the civil war, which had the same sort of divisions. Our crisis is already called the cold civil war. That may be its lasting title. Things are right on schedule!
I'd say you're a bit ahead ( a decade or so) of the game or schedule as far as where you seem to believe we are at right now. You say/ seem to believe that we are a decade into the 4T right now. Me, I happen to believe that we are nearing the end of the preparation phase and more or less a decade way from the beginning of a rough 4T era for the liberal believers. I don't know whether you'll still be living as the blue system of social and racial preference implodes or you'll be born but you'll be here to directly experience the end one way or another. Yes, we have two different societies with different values (one values this, the other values that instead), two different social structures with two different sets of rules (one earns, the other is granted, two sets of moral guides and principles (one is written stone, the other changes with the seasons and largely driven by emotions), two distinctly different ideologies and two different views of America ( One bad/ one good) and two different understandings of it's government role and it's role in the world.

I'd say the Cold Civil sounds about right. I'd also say that goal should be to keep it cold/cool as possible vs heating it up. Honestly, I don't really care if I see a bunch of dumb Democrats dying for doing something really stupid or a bunch of dumb liberal supporters dying or being drug out of office or losing their lively hoods and their homes and their national identities for supporting them.
Reply
(01-05-2020, 04:05 PM)Classic-Xer Wrote:
(01-04-2020, 09:15 PM)Eric the Green Wrote: Real Clear Politics polling average
Biden29.4
Sanders19.4
Warren14.8
Buttigieg7.9
Bloomberg5.8
Yang3.4
Klobuchar3.0
Booker2.3
Gabbard1.9
Steyer1.8
Castro1.1 (dropped out)
Delaney0.8
Williamson0.3
Bennet0.1
Biden +10.0

There's lots and lots of Boomers still in power. Even Silents. Plenty of time for the Crisis which is only half over to get more active and severe. It was always going to unfold this way; I predicted it. The split among Boomers, and Xers too, and white millennials, just indicates the double rhythm; this crisis is primarily domestic like the civil war, which had the same sort of divisions. Our crisis is already called the cold civil war. That may be its lasting title. Things are right on schedule!

I'd say you're a bit ahead ( a decade or so) of the game or schedule as far as where you seem to believe we are at right now. You say/ seem to believe that we are a decade into the 4T right now. Me, I happen to believe that we are nearing the end of the preparation phase and more or less a decade way from the beginning of a rough 4T era for the liberal believers. I don't know whether you'll still be living as the blue system of social and racial preference implodes or you'll be born but you'll be here to directly experience the end one way or another. Yes, we have two different societies with different values (one values this, the other values that instead), two different social structures with two different sets of rules (one earns, the other is granted, two sets of moral guides and principles (one is written stone, the other changes with the seasons and largely driven by emotions), two distinctly different ideologies and two different views of America ( One bad/ one good) and two different understandings of it's government role and it's role in the world.

I'd say the Cold Civil sounds about right. I'd also say that goal should be to keep it cold/cool as possible vs heating it up. Honestly, I don't really care if I see a bunch of dumb Democrats dying for doing something really stupid or a bunch of dumb liberal supporters dying or being drug out of office or losing their lively hoods and their homes and their national identities for supporting them.

It's a matter of interpretation. I see us deep into a Crisis mode, and if Obama successfully stalled an economic meltdown potentially as damaging as the one of 1929-1932 by getting the economy moving about half-way into the meltdown (analogous to the spring of 1931, when people were not yet speaking of a Great Depression), we had a political struggle between liberals and believers in a pure plutocracy, the latter offering Jesus as compensation for economic suffering. Never mind that Jesus stood for bringing dignity to the poor and opposition to institutional corruption. The Right seemed to fully consolidate power with the election of Donald Trump, as pure a crony capitalist as there is. Many of us liberals thought ourselves all but defeated. 

Trump has proved to have abused the mandate that he got. OK, he lost the popular vote but won the critical votes, perhaps with some help from political bosses facilitating his win and with some possible aid from a Great Power hostile to democracy there and elsewhere. Maybe Obama slowed what seemed inevitable in 2017... but history rarely turns out as one expects.

At this point I see liberals much more decent, much more learned, much more rational, and much more knowledgeable about the Constitution and international law. Liberals have found themselves in the unlikely role of allies of the diplomatic corps, senior military officers, the intelligence services, and federal law enforcement. They also have the smarter parts of the media on their side, at least for now. If you really want to know what is going on, just watch the introductions to Saturday Night Live. The skits invariably skewer the President and his stooges. Comedy makes the best analysis of news because it can expose hypocrisy and dishonesty as little else can.

A year from now, one will be able to tell what happened from the lead in Saturday Night Live. Should Trump win and strengthen the position of the GOP to the extent of Republicans winning the House, then expect NBC to have sacked the current writers and comedians and replaced them with people more amenable to Trump. Liberals will be the ones mocked as losers, as will foreign leaders who are scared of a wave of the future in which people like Trump and Bolsonaro are the heroes. Of course the comedy will be weak, and maybe SNL will finally die unless it can make much of celebrity foibles or other such fluff. Comedy fares badly in dictatorial and despotic societies. What happens if we have a new Democratic President, and the GOP faces huge losses in the Senate? Maybe SNL will have a different problem -- to not kick Trump even more. It is bad form to kick someone when he is down unless he is an ogre. 

I speak of Saturday Night Live because (1) it is free, and not on pay cable, (2) it has been in existence for more than half the time in which television has been in meaningful existence in America, and (3) it is accessible. If I had children I would let them stay up to see the lead because it has an insight on history... but then it would be off to bed. The kids would be in pajamas while watching it. Ordinarily I would have kids under 14 in bed at 9 PM if I had any. I have an authoritative style -- firm but knowledgeable, and kids do not need to watch entertainment TV. If my grandfather born in 1912 and raised on a farm was no worse for the lack of television in his day. Even if he had only an eighth-grade education... he read.
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.


Reply
(01-05-2020, 03:10 PM)pbrower2a Wrote: Republicans lost the House because Trump was a lousy President. The 2018 midterm election was not a landslide; Republicans made gains in the Senate on net because of Democrats holding Senate seats that they won in 2012 against complete fools or have held onto in states drifting R and finally lost. Even so, Democrats won the majority of the total vote for US Senators. A vote for Trump is basically a vote for a reversion to the Gilded Age, a time in which nothing mattered except the gain, indulgence, and power of economic elites for which people got promises of pie-in-the-sky-when-you-die.

All politicians promise what they can get away with promising; Republicans have gotten more aggressive and reckless with such in recent years. Just think of global warming. It would be more convenient to not shovel so much snow, to not use so much heating fuel, and to be able to go on Sunday drives on more winter days with knowledge that the temperature will get closer to 55F than to -5F. I don't particularly like Michigan winters, but for that I might soon spell relief F-L-O-R-I-D-A, as many do where I live. I know what harsh, snowy winters do: they protect upper-level ground water, and the last April thaw supplies copious water to germinating plants. I have never been in Winter Wheat country, but the trick is that the crops get their start in the late summer and are partially grown before they grow for harvest after winter is over. They too need winter snows to protect the soil moisture during the dormancy of the plants.  Agriculture remains the cornerstone of all healthy economies except for such places as Saudi Arabia that extract fuels or minerals cheaply for a small population.There is no technological or medical fix for hunger. When people get hungry, the economic and political order collapses. Maybe we can adjust to slow and (probably) inevitable global warming, but abrupt warming will be an unmitigated disaster for perhaps hundreds of millions of people.

I follow the numbers, and I see a reality very different from yours. I also recognize that the Millennial Generation has often endured severe hardships in part because of vindictive, right-wing politicians who saw poverty as the key to creating prosperity by compelling people to work longer and harder for less. Oh, if only people would suffer more for the Master Class who owes them nothing -- and remembers to smile even more! As a liberal Boomer I could predict the consequences; the Millennial Generation has often felt the consequences. 

Socialism? The Marxist-Leninist variety that seizes the property and runs it? Marx ignored that bureaucratic elites could exploit the common man just as severely as could capitalists, feudal lords, and even slave-owning planters. Government ownership and operation of businesses has rarely proved effective and has shown itself to be chary of innovation -- just like private monopolies. The only rationale for government ownership of business is of natural monopolies or of entities that cannot be run on a profit-and-loss basis. I would be satisfied with "capitalism with a human face" at this point. 

You may have some scruples, and you may stand for a community that does far more for people in distress than the distant shareholders and dismissive executives.
No. I can't blame him for a failure by the Republican party at the time. The Republican party lost the House because it didn't have a short term plan in place to fix our issues with Obamacare.  So, who are the liberal professors and teachers who should have stopped preaching the value of socialism and stop speaking as if it's the greatest system on earth the day after the Soviet Union collapsed and disappeared from the earth. Oh that's right, we've still got the Peoples Republic of China and some other third world countries still hanging around lending them hope these days. So, whose job should it be to shut them up and get rid of them or replace them with temporary educators/socialist recruiters from one of them countries? I really don't think it should be us. I think it should be the job of Democrats since they are now being associated and directly viewed as being their problem these days. Where are all your center rights these days? Do our liberal institutions even have center rights around these days or has the Left succeeded in getting rid of them? I've noticed they've been coming down pretty hard on what's left of their police forces. I don't think that's good but that's blue America so who gives a fuck.
Reply
(01-05-2020, 06:28 PM)pbrower2a Wrote: It's a matter of interpretation. I see us deep into a Crisis mode, and if Obama successfully stalled an economic meltdown potentially as damaging as the one of 1929-1932 by getting the economy moving about half-way into the meltdown (analogous to the spring of 1931, when people were not yet speaking of a Great Depression), we had a political struggle between liberals and believers in a pure plutocracy, the latter offering Jesus as compensation for economic suffering. Never mind that Jesus stood for bringing dignity to the poor and opposition to institutional corruption. The Right seemed to fully consolidate power with the election of Donald Trump, as pure a crony capitalist as there is. Many of us liberals thought ourselves all but defeated. 

Trump has proved to have abused the mandate that he got. OK, he lost the popular vote but won the critical votes, perhaps with some help from political bosses facilitating his win and with some possible aid from a Great Power hostile to democracy there and elsewhere. Maybe Obama slowed what seemed inevitable in 2017... but history rarely turns out as one expects.

At this point I see liberals much more decent, much more learned, much more rational, and much more knowledgeable about the Constitution and international law. Liberals have found themselves in the unlikely role of allies of the diplomatic corps, senior military officers, the intelligence services, and federal law enforcement. They also have the smarter parts of the media on their side, at least for now. If you really want to know what is going on, just watch the introductions to Saturday Night Live. The skits invariably skewer the President and his stooges. Comedy makes the best analysis of news because it can expose hypocrisy and dishonesty as little else can.

A year from now, one will be able to tell what happened from the lead in Saturday Night Live. Should Trump win and strengthen the position of the GOP to the extent of Republicans winning the House, then expect NBC to have sacked the current writers and comedians and replaced them with people more amenable to Trump. Liberals will be the ones mocked as losers, as will foreign leaders who are scared of a wave of the future in which people like Trump and Bolsonaro are the heroes. Of course the comedy will be weak, and maybe SNL will finally die unless it can make much of celebrity foibles or other such fluff. Comedy fares badly in dictatorial and despotic societies. What happens if we have a new Democratic President, and the GOP faces huge losses in the Senate? Maybe SNL will have a different problem -- to not kick Trump even more. It is bad form to kick someone when he is down unless he is an ogre. 

I speak of Saturday Night Live because (1) it is free, and not on pay cable, (2) it has been in existence for more than half the time in which television has been in meaningful existence in America, and (3) it is accessible. If I had children I would let them stay up to see the lead because it has an insight on history... but then it would be off to bed. The kids would be in pajamas while watching it. Ordinarily I would have kids under 14 in bed at 9 PM if I had any. I have an authoritative style -- firm but knowledgeable, and kids do not need to watch entertainment TV. If my grandfather born in 1912 and raised on a farm was no worse for the lack of television in his day. Even if he had only an eighth-grade education... he read.
Yes. I can see that you guys seem to be pretty deep into crisis mode. But don't allow your feelings to determine where the rest of the country is at right now. So, which liberals are you referring to, the fake liberals or the real liberals. Hint...I've never got into a heated exchange with a real liberal. Hint.. if Eric is a liberal then I'm gay. I got into fights with socially conservative Democrats and so called liberal Democrats (Quasi Socialists) and liberal Democratic believers/supporters/followers and liberal activists and anarchists.
Reply
(01-06-2020, 02:53 AM)Classic-Xer Wrote:
(01-05-2020, 03:10 PM)pbrower2a Wrote: Republicans lost the House because Trump was a lousy President. The 2018 midterm election was not a landslide; Republicans made gains in the Senate on net because of Democrats holding Senate seats that they won in 2012 against complete fools or have held onto in states drifting R and finally lost. Even so, Democrats won the majority of the total vote for US Senators. A vote for Trump is basically a vote for a reversion to the Gilded Age, a time in which nothing mattered except the gain, indulgence, and power of economic elites for which people got promises of pie-in-the-sky-when-you-die.

All politicians promise what they can get away with promising; Republicans have gotten more aggressive and reckless with such in recent years. Just think of global warming. It would be more convenient to not shovel so much snow, to not use so much heating fuel, and to be able to go on Sunday drives on more winter days with knowledge that the temperature will get closer to 55F than to -5F. I don't particularly like Michigan winters, but for that I might soon spell relief F-L-O-R-I-D-A, as many do where I live. I know what harsh, snowy winters do: they protect upper-level ground water, and the last April thaw supplies copious water to germinating plants. I have never been in Winter Wheat country, but the trick is that the crops get their start in the late summer and are partially grown before they grow for harvest after winter is over. They too need winter snows to protect the soil moisture during the dormancy of the plants.  Agriculture remains the cornerstone of all healthy economies except for such places as Saudi Arabia that extract fuels or minerals cheaply for a small population.There is no technological or medical fix for hunger. When people get hungry, the economic and political order collapses. Maybe we can adjust to slow and (probably) inevitable global warming, but abrupt warming will be an unmitigated disaster for perhaps hundreds of millions of people.

I follow the numbers, and I see a reality very different from yours. I also recognize that the Millennial Generation has often endured severe hardships in part because of vindictive, right-wing politicians who saw poverty as the key to creating prosperity by compelling people to work longer and harder for less. Oh, if only people would suffer more for the Master Class who owes them nothing -- and remembers to smile even more! As a liberal Boomer I could predict the consequences; the Millennial Generation has often felt the consequences. 

Socialism? The Marxist-Leninist variety that seizes the property and runs it? Marx ignored that bureaucratic elites could exploit the common man just as severely as could capitalists, feudal lords, and even slave-owning planters. Government ownership and operation of businesses has rarely proved effective and has shown itself to be chary of innovation -- just like private monopolies. The only rationale for government ownership of business is of natural monopolies or of entities that cannot be run on a profit-and-loss basis. I would be satisfied with "capitalism with a human face" at this point. 

You may have some scruples, and you may stand for a community that does far more for people in distress than the distant shareholders and dismissive executives.

No. I can't blame him for a failure by the Republican party at the time. The Republican party lost the House because it didn't have a short term plan in place  to fix our issues with Obamacare.  So, who are the liberal professors and teachers who should have stopped preaching the value of socialism and stop speaking as if it's the greatest system on earth the day after the Soviet Union collapsed and disappeared from the earth. Oh that's right, we've still got the Peoples Republic of China and some other third world countries still hanging around lending them hope these days. So, whose job should it be to shut them up and get rid of them or replace them with temporary educators/socialist recruiters from one of them countries? I really don't think it should be us. I think it should be the job of Democrats since they are now being associated and directly viewed as being their problem these days. Where are all your center rights these days? Do our liberal institutions even have center rights around these days or has the Left succeeded in getting rid of them? I've noticed they've been coming down pretty hard on what's left of their police forces. I don't think that's good but that's blue America so who gives a fuck.

The GOP idea is to price people into the grave if they are no longer valuable to their bosses or lack assets, or to make medical debt inheritable even after the assets that the deceased had are gone. The added profit is to be achieved through an insurance system that operates on a cost-plus basis. 

Practically nobody in the United States believes in the Marxist-Leninist model of socialism in which the government owns the assets and then determines what workers get through central planning. If you are thinking of China -- the People's Republic of China is arguably as pure in capitalist practice as it could be. Sure, it still has images of the radical Mao Zedong everywhere and still has Commie symbols, but the system has gutted Marxism in practice. It is a good thing that the insane socialism of Mao is gone in China. Regrettably the dictatorship remains. 

Gutting a wacky socialist like Mao and keeping his image is one thing. I am more scared of Americans who gut the political principles upon which America is founded and needful principles that have arisen since then. I am troubled with a Party that claims to be the Party of Lincoln yet guts his principles in favor of a President who has shown a desire to act as a despot. What is worse -- gutting Mao's lunatic ideas on economics or gutting Lincoln's "new Birth of Freedom"? 

...So where are the center-right people? Donald Trump has made them politically homeless. What passed as the Center-Right in the South was never strong, Southern politics eventually splitting between (largely) blacks who are quite liberal on economics and ethnic equity and agrarian racists who were never comfortable with such.  The center-right in the North believed in limiting government activity, but also in competitive economics in business to keep Big Business honest.

Here is one explanation: everyone is for Big Government if such serves his purposes. Some on the Left believe that it takes Big Government to ameliorate the plight of the poor and that such is an ethical imperative. I can imagine a big issue of the upcoming 1T as the smoothing of regional divides of wealth and poverty. There will be practical reasons, including the harsh divide between people having to pay a high price for living where the opportunities are (let us say Silicon Valley) and a different price for living where the opportunities are gone (let us say, St. Louis). Big Government is necessary for a garrison state that delivers great profits to military contractors. It also serves those who see the government as Uncle Sucker, subsidizing its bloated projects in which the taxpayers absorb the risk of default but the investors get monopoly profits with the aid of a government that enforces the will of the monopolist. Under such a system, people are either victims, exploiters, enforcers, or rebels. Trump stands for that, as do (so it seems) the bureaucratic elites that have become a quasi-aristocracy that systematically prevents entry by capable people and competition by anyone else. 

Victims, exploiters, enforcers, and rebels... that sounds familiar -- as in Russia at the outbreak of WWI.
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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(01-05-2020, 04:05 PM)Classic-Xer Wrote: I'd say you're a bit ahead ( a decade or so) of the game or schedule as far as where you seem to believe we are at right now. You say/ seem to believe that we are a decade into the 4T right now. Me, I happen to believe that we are nearing the end of the preparation phase and more or less a decade way from the beginning of a rough 4T era for the liberal believers.

We are close on timing.  We have gone through the unravelling plus a lot of pre regeneracy crisis.  If this is the preparation phase, I could agree.  We are all too familiar with each others positions, but no regeneracy that puts the progressive ideals dominant has occurred.  The closest to that was Obama’s passing of health care, which resulted in the loss of congress and the rest of the progressive agenda stalling.

I am inclined to believe that a new progressive period is coming.  1). You cannot leave problems unsolved forever.  The problems only get worse.  2)  I still believe in cyclical rhythms.  There should be some sort of alternation between conservative and liberal thought.  3) I see the demographics argument, with the progressive viewpoint held by an ever increasing majority.

This does not imply the new progressive period is apt to go on forever.  Politicians are apt to take any agenda too far.  The shoe will eventually be on the other foot.

On the other hand, I see the boomers as split.  They are a force for stalemate not a force for change.  This is much of why the preparation phase, what I call the see saw, continued.  Whenever the middle saw either side moving towards implementing their agenda, the other side was given power.  Neither party could sustain their agenda.

You are also seeing violence as much more likely than I.  The spiral of violence seems pointing towards no violence.  Nukes and a belief in legislators are rendering crisis wars obsolete.  There is a willingness to implement the progressive agenda through legislation rather that hold a crisis war well after the awakening.  Thus, the conscious revolution with its major legislation passed stands as our only mode of what to expect in an Information Age awakening.

Thus, I am seeing a transformational turning coming up, one which ties to do the progressive agenda.

I am not sure it will be more awakening than high.  In the last high, McCarthy ran an anti communist movement which tried to step on communism as one form of progressive thinking.  The movement ended by exposing it’s underside on TV.  But, the idea that the old values can be squashed is typical of the high.  The lessons learned in the past crisis are hammered home with emphasis.  

The OK Boomer expression is one such influence, the idea that certain red boomers have had more than their share of time to spread a greedy way of thinking.  It has already taken hold.  Bush 43 and Trump both lied regularly to the people.  The notion of not getting caught by lying politicians might well reenforce the OK boomer meme.  I can see Truth making a comeback in the near future.

This would combine aspects of an high and an awakening as up for the next turning.  It would be as transformational as highs used to be, but no crisis war needed.

I do see the Tea Party as being ahead of the Democrats in rejecting the Establishment Republicans.  The Tea Party is apt to reject an establishment figure, which is why they are clinging so tightly to Trump.  The Tea Party is still hoping to find someone to make the Reagan unravelling memes work, and failing.  Trump talked a good game in rejecting the establishment, but has run an establishment administration.  Meanwhile, the country looks to be in a place where the see saw has been tipped, where the Republicans cannot win a primary election without Trump’s base, but they cannot win a general election as most people have rejected Trump.

But the Democratic establishment is still intact.  They are still at least as much for the elites as for the people.  What I am not sure of is Democrats working more for the people than for the elites and their campaign dollars.   The “We must defeat Trump” movement is too much a “We must stick with serving the elites” movement.  It is not clear that this bunch is going towards a true regeneracy.

We will see.  The boomers are not quite aged out of power.  A radical Democrat winning 2020 could produce something like a true S&H crisis.  It would still be more legislature based than crisis war based.  The transformation would be more like the last awakening than the American Revolution, Civil War or WW II.  That does not yet seem guaranteed, though there are the three arguments for it happening eventually.
That this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom, and that government of the people, by the people, for the people shall not perish from the earth.
Reply
(01-05-2020, 03:59 PM)Classic-Xer Wrote:
(01-04-2020, 09:15 PM)Eric the Green Wrote: Real Clear Politics polling average
Biden29.4
Sanders19.4
Warren14.8
Buttigieg7.9
Bloomberg5.8
Yang3.4
Klobuchar3.0
Booker2.3
Gabbard1.9
Steyer1.8
Castro1.1 (dropped out)
Delaney0.8
Williamson0.3
Bennet0.1
Biden +10.0

There's lots and lots of Boomers still in power. Even Silents. Plenty of time for the Crisis which is only half over to get more active and severe. It was always going to unfold this way; I predicted it. The split among Boomers, and Xers too, and white millennials, just indicates the double rhythm; this crisis is primarily domestic like the civil war, which had the same sort of divisions. Our crisis is already called the cold civil war. That may be its lasting title. Things are right on schedule!
I'd say you're a bit ahead ( a decade or so) of the game or schedule as far as where you seem to believe we are at right now. You say/ seem to believe that we are a decade into the 4T right now. Me, I happen to believe that we are nearing the end of the preparation phase and more or less a decade way from the beginning of a rough 4T era for the liberal believers. I don't know whether you'll still be living as the blue system of social and racial preference implodes or you'll be born but you'll be here to directly experience the end one way or another. Yes, we have two different societies with different values (one values this, the other values that instead), two different social structures with two different sets of rules (one earns, the other is granted, two sets of moral guides and principles (one is written stone, the other changes with the seasons and largely driven by emotions), two distinctly different ideologies and two different views of America ( One bad/ one good) and two different understandings of it's government role and it's role in the world. I'd say the Cold Civil sounds about right. I'd also say that goal should be to keep it cold/cool vs heating it up. Honestly, I don't really care if I see a bunch of dumb Democrats dying for doing something really stupid or a bunch of dumb liberal supporters dying or being drug out of office or losing their lively hoods and their homes and their national identities for supporting them.

No, I am with Strauss and Howe and the planetary cycles, and am convinced the year 2008 began the 4T. Also, since our 4T resembles the civil war saeculum, the 2010s resembled the 1950s. Except we are not even at 1860 yet. The sh*t really hits the fan during the climax years between 2025 and 2029. But it won't go on any longer. The timing of the next 2T's beginning in circa 2047 can't be denied, because Uranus and Pluto can't be denied, just as they couldn't be denied in the sixties. So if you want a decent-lasting and more-conservative 1T, you guys had better give up in 2029 and go along. Things may get a bit rougher then for the true liberals like me, but the new consensus will hold like it did in the 1950s.

4Ts have NEVER been conservative. The liberal side always wins. You right-wing believers will see your system and your 40-year retrograde motion end, as we restart progress again in 2022. Your stones will return to dust. Your outdated neo-liberal views will be left behind. The free market will be regulated and taxed appropriately again, the rich who don't earn  and never did will have to learn to pay their share again, and racism, sexism and xenophobia will fade away. Fossil fuel barons and other capitalist lords will have to submit to science and justice and be required to be fair to all people and all living things. "We're in this together" will revive and assume its rightful true-Christian moral place. Guns will be controlled and semi-autos banned. The last major USA war may well be fought, as the peace movement grows again. The religious right will have less power over politics and the supreme court.

I hope you gun-toting right wingers will not have to die and have all your guns taken away in order to wake up, and I hope we can keep the civil war cold. And if you guys want to secede, I'd say we'll leave the door open fer ya.

Democratic Presidential Nomination
Biden29.3
Sanders19.9
Warren14.4
Buttigieg7.7
Bloomberg5.6
Yang3.4
Klobuchar3.0
Booker2.3
Gabbard2.0
Steyer1.9
Castro1.1
Delaney0.9
Williamson0.3
Bennet0.2

Biden +9.4

Moderate candidate Michael Bennet is one of the few candidates remaining in the race with a negative horoscope score. I'd say he should quit now before he falls through the floor and has another stroke or something. He cannot win anyway; he has a Saturn Return due in 2023.

http://philosopherswheel.com/presidentialelections.html
"I close my eyes, and I can see a better day" -- Justin Bieber

Keep the spirit alive;
Eric M
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(01-06-2020, 05:02 AM)Classic-Xer Wrote:
(01-05-2020, 06:28 PM)pbrower2a Wrote: It's a matter of interpretation. I see us deep into a Crisis mode, and if Obama successfully stalled an economic meltdown potentially as damaging as the one of 1929-1932 by getting the economy moving about half-way into the meltdown (analogous to the spring of 1931, when people were not yet speaking of a Great Depression), we had a political struggle between liberals and believers in a pure plutocracy, the latter offering Jesus as compensation for economic suffering. Never mind that Jesus stood for bringing dignity to the poor and opposition to institutional corruption. The Right seemed to fully consolidate power with the election of Donald Trump, as pure a crony capitalist as there is. Many of us liberals thought ourselves all but defeated. 

Trump has proved to have abused the mandate that he got. OK, he lost the popular vote but won the critical votes, perhaps with some help from political bosses facilitating his win and with some possible aid from a Great Power hostile to democracy there and elsewhere. Maybe Obama slowed what seemed inevitable in 2017... but history rarely turns out as one expects.

At this point I see liberals much more decent, much more learned, much more rational, and much more knowledgeable about the Constitution and international law. Liberals have found themselves in the unlikely role of allies of the diplomatic corps, senior military officers, the intelligence services, and federal law enforcement. They also have the smarter parts of the media on their side, at least for now. If you really want to know what is going on, just watch the introductions to Saturday Night Live. The skits invariably skewer the President and his stooges. Comedy makes the best analysis of news because it can expose hypocrisy and dishonesty as little else can.

A year from now, one will be able to tell what happened from the lead in Saturday Night Live. Should Trump win and strengthen the position of the GOP to the extent of Republicans winning the House, then expect NBC to have sacked the current writers and comedians and replaced them with people more amenable to Trump. Liberals will be the ones mocked as losers, as will foreign leaders who are scared of a wave of the future in which people like Trump and Bolsonaro are the heroes. Of course the comedy will be weak, and maybe SNL will finally die unless it can make much of celebrity foibles or other such fluff. Comedy fares badly in dictatorial and despotic societies. What happens if we have a new Democratic President, and the GOP faces huge losses in the Senate? Maybe SNL will have a different problem -- to not kick Trump even more. It is bad form to kick someone when he is down unless he is an ogre. 

I speak of Saturday Night Live because (1) it is free, and not on pay cable, (2) it has been in existence for more than half the time in which television has been in meaningful existence in America, and (3) it is accessible. If I had children I would let them stay up to see the lead because it has an insight on history... but then it would be off to bed. The kids would be in pajamas while watching it. Ordinarily I would have kids under 14 in bed at 9 PM if I had any. I have an authoritative style -- firm but knowledgeable, and kids do not need to watch entertainment TV. If my grandfather born in 1912 and raised on a farm was no worse for the lack of television in his day. Even if he had only an eighth-grade education... he read.
Yes. I can see that you guys seem to be pretty deep into crisis mode. But don't allow your feelings to determine where the rest of the country is at right now. So, which liberals are you referring to, the fake liberals or the real liberals. Hint...I've never got into a heated exchange with a real liberal. Hint.. if Eric is a liberal then I'm gay. I got into fights with socially conservative Democrats and so called liberal Democrats (Quasi Socialists) and liberal Democratic believers/supporters/followers and liberal activists and anarchists.

We are in a Crisis mode, and this one has a President attempting to impose revolutionary change that faces severe resistance. Time will tell who the "real" and "fake" liberals are. At this point the liberals are doing the unlikely role of protecting a political heritage that they rarely get the chance to defend from fellow Americans. I see Donald Trump as extremely authoritarian, indeed to an extent far beyond the authoritarian tendencies of any prior President. 

The contest is not between tradition and socialism; it is between Constitutional government and executive despotism. This Crisis could resolve as early as November 2020, and you can figure the best way that I believe that it can turn out.
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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(01-06-2020, 11:08 PM)pbrower2a Wrote: The contest is not between tradition and socialism; it is between Constitutional government and executive despotism. This Crisis could resolve as early as November 2020, and you can figure the best way that I believe that it can turn out.

We have a crisis like constellation of generations, though the boomers are well and truly split and aging soon out of power.  We have not yet had a regeneracy, where the progressive agenda is fully empowered.  We did have something like a Ft Sumter / Pearl Harbor moment in September 11, but we did not fully mobilize as a result. We had the feeling that we could not change the world through use of military force.  We would not send a massive enough number of boots on the ground.  

It is sill possible to vote in 2020 for constitutional government and against executive despotism without endorsing a full progressive agenda.  If Biden remains on top, a Democratic government doing the will of the elites may happen.  We will have a values change which centers on continuing constitutional government without addressing the full progressive agenda.  What happens in 2024 and beyond will be up in the air.

That does not leave me fully satisfied.  Eventually, yes, the three arguments for a progressive time are apt to win out.
That this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom, and that government of the people, by the people, for the people shall not perish from the earth.
Reply
PBS and American Experience just put out a special on McCarthy and McCarthyism.  It seemed a good enough illustration of the times,  It was not an obvious retelling which subtly was trying to echo todays headlines.

But it told that tale of a lying bastard who knew how to play the press for power while there was no lack of people who tried to speak truth, an no lack of folk waiting on the inevitable fall.  

One thing was made clear.  You did not go after the Army during Eisenhower’s years in power.  Bad move.

It was somehow familiar.

PBS American Experience McCarthy Link
That this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom, and that government of the people, by the people, for the people shall not perish from the earth.
Reply
(01-06-2020, 11:35 PM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote:
(01-06-2020, 11:08 PM)pbrower2a Wrote: The contest is not between tradition and socialism; it is between Constitutional government and executive despotism. This Crisis could resolve as early as November 2020, and you can figure the best way that I believe that it can turn out.

We have a crisis like constellation of generations, though the boomers are well and truly split and aging soon out of power.  We have not yet had a regeneracy, where the progressive agenda is fully empowered.  We did have something like a Ft Sumter / Pearl Harbor moment in September 11, but we did not fully mobilize as a result.  We had the feeling that we could not change the world through use of military force.  We would not send a massive enough number of boots on the ground.  

It is sill possible to vote in 2020 for constitutional government and against executive despotism without endorsing a full progressive agenda.  If Biden remains on top, a Democratic government doing the will of the elites may happen.  We will have a values change which centers on continuing constitutional government without addressing the full progressive agenda.  What happens in 2024 and beyond will be up in the air.

That does not leave me fully satisfied.  Eventually, yes, the three arguments for a progressive time are apt to win out.

The Boomers will age out of power in the course of the 1T. Boomer leadership will be essential in conducting the needed actions during the remaining crisis years. But their division and that of the other generations in the USA today underscore the essential nature of this 4T as a cold civil war, much as the transcendental generation was divided during the hot one.

I suspect the congress will have more power during the remaining years of the 4T. It's possible the presidency may even be abolished, especially if Trump is re-elected. Such a change seems far fetched now, but once a 4T really gets going, katy bar the door. If Biden wins, I expect he may be forced to bend to the progressive tide. How strong it is depends on the people.
"I close my eyes, and I can see a better day" -- Justin Bieber

Keep the spirit alive;
Eric M
Reply
(01-07-2020, 02:50 AM)Eric the Green Wrote: The Boomers will age out of power in the course of the 1T. Boomer leadership will be essential in conducting the needed actions during the remaining crisis years. But their division and that of the other generations in the USA today underscore the essential nature of this 4T as a cold civil war, much as the transcendental generation was divided during the hot one.

I suspect the congress will have more power during the remaining years of the 4T. It's possible the presidency may even be abolished, especially if Trump is re-elected. Such a change seems far fetched now, but once a 4T really gets going, katy bar the door.  If Biden wins, I expect he may be forced to bend to the progressive tide. How strong it is depends on the people.

A so called cold civil war seems to say no regeneracy, no crisis war, and transformation by legislature.  This would not be a typical Industrial Age S&H pattern.
That this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom, and that government of the people, by the people, for the people shall not perish from the earth.
Reply
(01-07-2020, 03:01 AM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote:
(01-07-2020, 02:50 AM)Eric the Green Wrote: The Boomers will age out of power in the course of the 1T. Boomer leadership will be essential in conducting the needed actions during the remaining crisis years. But their division and that of the other generations in the USA today underscore the essential nature of this 4T as a cold civil war, much as the transcendental generation was divided during the hot one.

I suspect the congress will have more power during the remaining years of the 4T. It's possible the presidency may even be abolished, especially if Trump is re-elected. Such a change seems far fetched now, but once a 4T really gets going, katy bar the door.  If Biden wins, I expect he may be forced to bend to the progressive tide. How strong it is depends on the people.

A so called cold civil war seems to say no regeneracy, no crisis war, and transformation by legislature.  This would not be a typical Industrial Age S&H pattern.

Well, we're in the Information Age now, right? (and greenpeace age)

Welcome to the new style 4T.
"I close my eyes, and I can see a better day" -- Justin Bieber

Keep the spirit alive;
Eric M
Reply
(01-06-2020, 06:10 PM)Eric the Green Wrote:
(01-05-2020, 03:59 PM)Classic-Xer Wrote:
(01-04-2020, 09:15 PM)Eric the Green Wrote: Real Clear Politics polling average
Biden29.4
Sanders19.4
Warren14.8
Buttigieg7.9
Bloomberg5.8
Yang3.4
Klobuchar3.0
Booker2.3
Gabbard1.9
Steyer1.8
Castro1.1 (dropped out)
Delaney0.8
Williamson0.3
Bennet0.1
Biden +10.0

There's lots and lots of Boomers still in power. Even Silents. Plenty of time for the Crisis which is only half over to get more active and severe. It was always going to unfold this way; I predicted it. The split among Boomers, and Xers too, and white millennials, just indicates the double rhythm; this crisis is primarily domestic like the civil war, which had the same sort of divisions. Our crisis is already called the cold civil war. That may be its lasting title. Things are right on schedule!
I'd say you're a bit ahead ( a decade or so) of the game or schedule as far as where you seem to believe we are at right now. You say/ seem to believe that we are a decade into the 4T right now. Me, I happen to believe that we are nearing the end of the preparation phase and more or less a decade way from the beginning of a rough 4T era for the liberal believers. I don't know whether you'll still be living as the blue system of social and racial preference implodes or you'll be born but you'll be here to directly experience the end one way or another. Yes, we have two different societies with different values (one values this, the other values that instead), two different social structures with two different sets of rules (one earns, the other is granted, two sets of moral guides and principles (one is written stone, the other changes with the seasons and largely driven by emotions), two distinctly different ideologies and two different views of America ( One bad/ one good) and two different understandings of it's government role and it's role in the world. I'd say the Cold Civil sounds about right. I'd also say that goal should be to keep it cold/cool vs heating it up. Honestly, I don't really care if I see a bunch of dumb Democrats dying for doing something really stupid or a bunch of dumb liberal supporters dying or being drug out of office or losing their lively hoods and their homes and their national identities for supporting them.

No, I am with Strauss and Howe and the planetary cycles, and am convinced the year 2008 began the 4T. Also, since our 4T resembles the civil war saeculum, the 2010s resembled the 1950s. Except we are not even at 1860 yet. The sh*t really hits the fan during the climax years between 2025 and 2029. But it won't go on any longer. The timing of the next 2T's beginning in circa 2047 can't be denied, because Uranus and Pluto can't be denied, just as they couldn't be denied in the sixties. So if you want a decent-lasting and more-conservative 1T, you guys had better give up in 2029 and go along. Things may get a bit rougher then for the true liberals like me, but the new consensus will hold like it did in the 1950s.

4Ts have NEVER been conservative. The liberal side always wins. You right-wing believers will see your system and your 40-year retrograde motion end, as we restart progress again in 2022. Your stones will return to dust. Your outdated neo-liberal views will be left behind. The free market will be regulated and taxed appropriately again, the rich who don't earn  and never did will have to learn to pay their share again, and racism, sexism and xenophobia will fade away. Fossil fuel barons and other capitalist lords will have to submit to science and justice and be required to be fair to all people and all living things. "We're in this together" will revive and assume its rightful true-Christian moral place. Guns will be controlled and semi-autos banned. The last major USA war may well be fought, as the peace movement grows again. The religious right will have less power over politics and the supreme court.

I hope you gun-toting right wingers will not have to die and have all your guns taken away in order to wake up, and I hope we can keep the civil war cold.

Democratic Presidential Nomination
Biden29.3
Sanders19.9
Warren14.4
Buttigieg7.7
Bloomberg5.6
Yang3.4
Klobuchar3.0
Booker2.3
Gabbard2.0
Steyer1.9
Castro1.1
Delaney0.9
Williamson0.3
Bennet0.2

Biden +9.4

Moderate candidate Michael Bennet is one of the few candidates remaining in the race with a negative horoscope score. I'd say he should quit now before he falls through the floor and has another stroke or something. He cannot win anyway; he has a Saturn Return due in 2023.

http://philosopherswheel.com/presidentialelections.html
Well, I hope we don't have to use them for that purpose. But if we do, it's good to know that we'll still have them. Here's your big problem, I've never viewed or recognized you as a liberal the entire time we've been posting together. Hint...A liberal is not limited to one or possibly two positions or solutions and is not limited as far as the amount of options either. In my opinion, you are a left wing reactionary/ conservative. I assume that you are just using the term liberal for marketing and fund raising. I mean, if its liberal, associated with liberal then liberals are more likely to financially support or go along because everyone knows or has been taught that liberal is good. Like I've said, you guys got/had a pretty good gig going on. I mean, it pays your bills right. Gee, for only 19$ a month, I can support a poor family of polar bears. I get a picture of them and a monthly progress report too.
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