Who else would like politics to be humdrum?

[Anthony '58]

While I'm not old enough to remember when Truman and his "vital-center liberals" (as Arthur Schlesinger Jr. called them) "dueled" with Eisenhower's "modern Republicans" for control of the country, I sure hope that I live long enough to see that arrangement - or something closely resembling it - return.

But this, of course, will require the Culture Wars to end - and so long as the fires of Roe v. Wade and what if anything to do about it continue to rage, that will clearly not happen.

[pbrower2a]

I prefer that politicians win elections for doing real good in a district and not for following the Party Line of out-of-state interests. Earmarks allowed moderate Democrats to hold Senate seats in some very rural states by delivering farm subsidies and some desirable projects. In the place of pols like those we now have those who have been accepting political "Kochaine" for expounding on the sick idea that no human suffering can ever be in excess so long as it serves the power, indulgence, and gain of economic elites. Such an ideology is consistent with a fascistic regime that entrenches crony capitalism and condemns anyone weakly-connected to that elite to personal despair.

When politics serves constituents instead of out-of-district interests bankrolling their campaigns, politics becomes more pragmatic and less polarized. That's how things used to be, and the current paradigm is no improvement.

[David Horn]

(01-13-2022, 03:26 PM)Anthony Wrote: While I'm not old enough to remember when Truman and his "vital-center liberals" (as Arthur Schlesinger Jr. called them) "dueled" with Eisenhower's "modern Republicans" for control of the country, I sure hope that I live long enough to see that arrangement - or something closely resembling it - return.

But this, of course, will require the Culture Wars to end - and so long as the fires of Roe v. Wade and what if anything to do about it continue to rage, that will clearly not happen.

I think you miss the point here.  Most of America is monolithic in the political sense of the term.  I've lived in Blue areas and Red areas, and the lonly chane I've seen in my 50+ adult years is an ongoing decline in tolerance by both for the other.  Of the two, the Blue areas support more rational ideas of how we soujld lieve, and the Red areas are simply ready for a fight.  Yes, our culture wars exacerbate the problem, but it's been there for a long, long time.  

Don't hold your breath for a return of comity.  That takes a massive crisis to trigger, and, so far, our crisis is mostly virtue signaling and demogoguery.  If it turns violen, then the aftermath will be you desire ... or ashes.

[Eric the Green]

(01-14-2022, 09:48 AM)David Horn Wrote:

(01-13-2022, 03:26 PM)Anthony Wrote: While I'm not old enough to remember when Truman and his "vital-center liberals" (as Arthur Schlesinger Jr. called them) "dueled" with Eisenhower's "modern Republicans" for control of the country, I sure hope that I live long enough to see that arrangement - or something closely resembling it - return.

But this, of course, will require the Culture Wars to end - and so long as the fires of Roe v. Wade and what if anything to do about it continue to rage, that will clearly not happen.

I think you miss the point here.  Most of America is monolithic in the political sense of the term.  I've lived in Blue areas and Red areas, and the only chance I've seen in my 50+ adult years is an ongoing decline in tolerance by both for the other.  Of the two, the Blue areas support more rational ideas of how we should live, and the Red areas are simply ready for a fight.  Yes, our culture wars exacerbate the problem, but it's been there for a long, long time.  

Don't hold your breath for a return of comity.  That takes a massive crisis to trigger, and, so far, our crisis is mostly virtue signaling and demogoguery.  If it turns violent, then the aftermath will be (as) you desire ... or ashes.

We are certainly up to our ears in crisis already, and it's been building up since 2008. Decisions being made now, by the supreme court to throw out vaccine mandates, and 2 DINOs to block voting rights and build back better, will ramp up the crisis even more. Fire and flood are already at every citizen's doorstep. Our democratic republic is at best on life support. The pandemic now threatens to sicken and kill us all. All because of bad decisions we and our leaders have made and are making. War threatens from abroad too against Russia and China as well as the Islamic terrorists. We'll see if the growing crisis goes even more massive, but as of now I don't see how it could do anything else-- and very quickly. And we have only 7+ years now to turn it all around, and the next 3 seem already to be taken away from us, and perhaps all 7.

I am more and more pessimistic. The reform era I forecast for this decade is being reversed as we speak. Even if the voting rights bills pass, they may not be strong enough to end gerrymandering, which will take the House away again in 2022 from the people and turn it over to the Proud Boys and the oligarchs. The massive progressive turn I thought the Millennials would make seems to be blocked or forgotten. So yeah, I wouldn't hold your breath for a return to comity. The way we're going, the only thing we can look forward to is escalating disaster, and no further chance for redemption or reform.

[Anthony '58]

Democracy should not be 51 wolves and 50 lambs deciding what's for dinner - and the only reason that we are in this situation is because of the New Left of the 1960s and the backlash they provoked, which directly led to Reaganomics, which has remained palpably intact for four decades despite having been debunked as totally fallacious.

And a comparison to the situation that we're in and the situation that Ukraine was in 80 years ago is eerily analogous: In the wake of the Holomodor, when the Nazis facilitated Operation Barbarossa in 1941, the Ukrainians regarded the Nazis as the enemies of their enemies, and therefore, their friends. This in turn led to the Ukrainians regarding the Jews as the enemies of the enemies of their enemies, and therefore, their enemies too - which is why the Ukrainians enthusiastically collaborated with the Nazis, volunteering to guard Nazi death camps like Treblinka and Sobibor, and participating in such massacres as the one at Babi Yar.

In a similar vein, those who voted for Ronald Reagan openly cheered Reagan's mass firing of the air traffic controllers in 1981, on the same theory that the enemy of the enemy of my enemy is my enemy, too.

[David Horn]

(01-27-2022, 05:30 PM)Anthony Wrote: Democracy should not be 51 wolves and 50 lambs deciding what's for dinner - and the only reason that we are in this situation is because of the New Left of the 1960s and the backlash they provoked, which directly led to Reaganomics, which has remained palpably intact for four decades despite having been debunked as totally fallacious.

It's a bit disingenuous to blame the Civil Rights and anti-war left of the 60s for troubles today, but backlash is always to be expected ... and it came.  The lessons that needed learning from that debacle: build a majority coalition, or, if that's impossible, make certain that your opponents can't build one either.  The genius of the right: they pitted the poor whites against the poor minorities.  As long as that holds, and the poor-white coalition still has enough power to rule, nothing will change.

[Eric the Green]

(01-27-2022, 05:30 PM)Anthony Wrote: Democracy should not be 51 wolves and 50 lambs deciding what's for dinner - and the only reason that we are in this situation is because of the New Left of the 1960s and the backlash they provoked, which directly led to Reaganomics, which has remained palpably intact for four decades despite having been debunked as totally fallacious.

And a comparison to the situation that we're in and the situation that Ukraine was in 80 years ago is eerily analogous: In the wake of the Holomodor, when the Nazis facilitated Operation Barbarossa in 1941, the Ukrainians regarded the Nazis as the enemies of their enemies, and therefore, their friends.  This in turn led to the Ukrainians regarding the Jews as the enemies of the enemies of their enemies, and therefore, their enemies too - which is why the Ukrainians enthusiastically collaborated with the Nazis, volunteering to guard Nazi death camps like Treblinka and Sobibor, and participating in such massacres as the one at Babi Yar.

In a similar vein, those who voted for Ronald Reagan openly cheered Reagan's mass firing of the air traffic controllers in 1981, on the same theory that the enemy of the enemy of my enemy is my enemy, too.

If the people had been wise, there should have been no Reagan backlash to the New Left. The New Left had almost no power. 

I don't think there was much of a backlash against the New Left. But there was a backlash when taxes got too high, and when people were convinced by such demagogues as Reagan that blacks and other poor people should not get support from their tax money. It was a reaction not just against the New Left, but the entire liberal agenda, which was dominant, including high taxes on rich people, massive government projects, the dishonest and deadly war in Vietnam, and civil rights and the Great Society that supported poor people and the environment. The right-wing also contributed to the breakdown of this faith in government through the Watergate scandal, the CIA scandals and other scandals. The conspiracy theory culture begun by Mark Lane and the JFK assassination conspiracy theory in 1966 also ramped up in the 1990s and further spread skepticism of government.

I saw a documentary called "The First Angry Man" yesterday about Howard Jarvis, who started the tax revolt in 1978. His influence and his tax revolt was great nationwide, but was soon superceded by Ronald Reagan who was already a well-known anti-tax, anti social-government politician and who won the presidency in 1980. His momentum was also given by the neoliberal economists. 1978 was also the year of Jonestown and of the Moral Majority social-conservative right-wing religious movement, also adopted by Reagan and the Republicans, as well as the Iran takeover by the Islamic religious-right and the resulting nationalist backlash and scandals.

The thrust of "Reaganomics" was reaction against taxes and welfare. Jarvis was a former member of the John Birch Society; he was a right-wing extremist who was against his taxes going to support black people. Some taxes were indeed too high in California, especially property taxes that were ballooned by rising home prices that were driving people out of their homes. Some reform was needed, and to that extent the backlash was justified; but the legislature was too slow as legislatures often are. This tax revolt and racist resentment was the main driver of the reaction and the backlash. The legislature proposed an alternative only after the Jarvis-Gann initiative was already on the ballot. The legislature's proposal was called Proposition 8, an alternative to the Jarvis-Gann Proposition 13. I voted against Prop.13 and in favor of Prop.8. Both passed, but Prop.13 got more votes and so became law instead of Prop.8.

What was concealed until just prior to the election was that Jarvis was a huge owner and landlord of apartment buildings, and that Prop. 13, though it made massive cuts to property taxes for individual homeowners, as long as they stayed in their homes, also made huge tax cuts for corporations and huge landlords. The result of Prop.13 was decline in the schools and other services and infrastructure. When Reaganomics got going, boosted in part by the nationwide tax revolt started by Jarvis, inequality got going and wealth was concentrated more and more into the 1% richest people. 

That was the real agenda of Prop.13, neoliberalism and Reaganomics, along with racism and depriving people of the support that government provided and the restrictions on labor unions. CA had been a big government state, which supported free college and projects that brought prosperity and excellent education to the state and led to the formation of space and aeronautics industries and the computer industry of Silicon Valley.

Now CA is trending the other way, back toward the liberal agenda, as parcel taxes and property tax rates have gone up, since for several decades now people have routinely voted to tax themselves here to support schools and other services, especially in urban counties like the Bay Area. Property values have kept rising high, so the state is flushed with cash because property taxes go up upon the sale of homes as per Prop.13. CA Governor Jerry Brown, who had opposed Prop.13 in 1978, but pledged to make it work when it passed, and who was a frugal spender and skeptic of big government projects, came back into power in 2010 and supported an initiative to raise income taxes that passed. 

CA, which voted for its former governor Reagan (elected in the 1966 midterms) by a huge margin in 1980, became a strong "blue state" in 1992 with Clinton and has been so ever since. Restrictive initiatives aimed at hispanics by Republican CA Governor Wilson helped move the rising hispanic voters into the Democratic Party. But red states continue to support Jarvis/Reagan/neoliberalism, and the neoliberal Republicans are desperate to cheat and gerrymander the purple states to stay in power while the majority of voters are trending the other way nationally. But the people have withdrawn support from Democratic presidents after just 2 years or less in power ever since the 1966 and 1978 midterms, and this is happening again, and so whatever Democratic reforms are possible must be done this year. Politics may not be boring, but it sure is frustrating.

Such right-wing, anti-government backlashes are to be blamed mostly on the people who vote for them, not usually on the needed and helpful liberal and New Left agendas, and which always deserve support--- even though some mismanagement of them may contribute to a backlash, which may be justified-- if moderate and temporary.





Howard Jarvis’s 1978 ballot initiative, Proposition 13, changed everything in the nation. “The First Angry Man” unpacks the campaign that slashed property taxes in California and launched a nationwide tax revolt that continues unabated today. In the 40 years since Proposition 13, the nation has witnessed historic growth in economic inequality and the unraveling of America’s safety net.

[David Horn]

(01-29-2022, 01:27 PM)Eric the Green Wrote: Howard Jarvis’s 1978 ballot initiative, Proposition 13, changed everything in the nation. “The First Angry Man” unpacks the campaign that slashed property taxes in California and launched a nationwide tax revolt that continues unabated today. In the 40 years since Proposition 13, the nation has witnessed historic growth in economic inequality and the unraveling of America’s safety net.

'They' say that California always leads the way, for good or ill. Look close to home for the next iteration in the American saga.

The only good that comes from being at the bottom: everything's up from here. Things will get better eventually if not soon.

[beechnut79]

(01-30-2022, 09:01 AM)David Horn Wrote:

(01-29-2022, 01:27 PM)Eric the Green Wrote: Howard Jarvis’s 1978 ballot initiative, Proposition 13, changed everything in the nation. “The First Angry Man” unpacks the campaign that slashed property taxes in California and launched a nationwide tax revolt that continues unabated today. In the 40 years since Proposition 13, the nation has witnessed historic growth in economic inequality and the unraveling of America’s safety net.

'They' say that California always leads the way, for good or ill.  Look close to home for the next iteration in the American saga.  

The only good that comes from being at the bottom: everything's up from here.  Things will get better eventually if not soon.

Wasn’t California also the first, or at least one of the first, to implement a nearly universal indoor smoking ban statewide?

[pbrower2a]

When politics was about doing for people instead of to people it was dull.

Then again there is the old Chinese curse, "May you live in interesting times".

[David Horn]

(01-30-2022, 11:16 PM)pbrower2a Wrote: When politics was about doing for people instead of to people it was dull.

Then again there is the old Chinese curse, "May you live in interesting times".

Apparently, no one cares whether we succeed as long as it's entertaining.  Have we been entertained? 

[pbrower2a]

(01-31-2022, 10:35 AM)David Horn Wrote:

(01-30-2022, 11:16 PM)pbrower2a Wrote: When politics was about doing for people instead of to people it was dull.

Then again there is the old Chinese curse, "May you live in interesting times".

Apparently, no one cares whether we succeed as long as it's entertaining.  Have we been entertained? 

With all the entertainment available to us, from pro wrestling to grand opera, it would seem that we don't need it in politics. Blitz-watching The Honeymooners, Star Trek, or Downton Abbey has to be more entertaining! If politics are going well our lives can have foci other than survival -- like choosing which set of Bruckner symphonies to purchase or which pay-cable series to watch.

I do not go to the doctor's office to be entertained.

[pbrower2a]

Let us remember: the three most reviled Emperors of Rome (Nero, Caligula, and Commodus) were renowned for entertaining the masses. Part of that entertainment was casting Christians to bears and Big Cats.

[nguyenivy]

(01-14-2022, 03:33 PM)Eric the Green Wrote:

(01-14-2022, 09:48 AM)David Horn Wrote:

(01-13-2022, 03:26 PM)Anthony Wrote: While I'm not old enough to remember when Truman and his "vital-center liberals" (as Arthur Schlesinger Jr. called them) "dueled" with Eisenhower's "modern Republicans" for control of the country, I sure hope that I live long enough to see that arrangement - or something closely resembling it - return.

But this, of course, will require the Culture Wars to end - and so long as the fires of Roe v. Wade and what if anything to do about it continue to rage, that will clearly not happen.

I think you miss the point here.  Most of America is monolithic in the political sense of the term.  I've lived in Blue areas and Red areas, and the only chance I've seen in my 50+ adult years is an ongoing decline in tolerance by both for the other.  Of the two, the Blue areas support more rational ideas of how we should live, and the Red areas are simply ready for a fight.  Yes, our culture wars exacerbate the problem, but it's been there for a long, long time.  

Don't hold your breath for a return of comity.  That takes a massive crisis to trigger, and, so far, our crisis is mostly virtue signaling and demogoguery.  If it turns violent, then the aftermath will be (as) you desire ... or ashes.

We are certainly up to our ears in crisis already, and it's been building up since 2008. Decisions being made now, by the supreme court to throw out vaccine mandates, and 2 DINOs to block voting rights and build back better, will ramp up the crisis even more. Fire and flood are already at every citizen's doorstep. Our democratic republic is at best on life support. The pandemic now threatens to sicken and kill us all. All because of bad decisions we and our leaders have made and are making. War threatens from abroad too against Russia and China as well as the Islamic terrorists. We'll see if the growing crisis goes even more massive, but as of now I don't see how it could do anything else-- and very quickly. And we have only 7+ years now to turn it all around, and the next 3 seem already to be taken away from us, and perhaps all 7.

I am more and more pessimistic. The reform era I forecast for this decade is being reversed as we speak. Even if the voting rights bills pass, they may not be strong enough to end gerrymandering, which will take the House away again in 2022 from the people and turn it over to the Proud Boys and the oligarchs. The massive progressive turn I thought the Millennials would make seems to be blocked or forgotten. So yeah, I wouldn't hold your breath for a return to comity. The way we're going, the only thing we can look forward to is escalating disaster, and no further chance for redemption or reform.

Is the 2026 midterms / 2028 general election just way too far off to consider as another chance for the reforms the US needs if we can't do it in 2022 / 2024?

[David Horn]

(02-02-2022, 10:54 PM)nguyenivy Wrote: Is the 2026 midterms / 2028 general election just way too far off to consider as another chance for the reforms the US needs if we can't do it in 2022 / 2024?

I'm sure Eric will respond too, but I'll take a quick shot here.  Can we hold-out for 6 or even 4 years?  Maybe, but the intensity is growing so fast that it seems unlikely to be played-out in a democratic contest by then.  The right has done their homework well, and the intent to corrupt the political system and tilt the field in their direction is already well advanced at the local, state and national levels.  If they gain power again, they will certainly try and maybe succeed in killing democracy for a long while -- much beyond the impending 1T.

Sadly, I've been in the massively contentious 2T camp for a long time, and I'm seeing no reason to believe otherwise.  If there is no correction until the next 4T, the correction will be to a world we wouldn't recognize, I'm afraid.

[beechnut79]

(02-03-2022, 10:32 AM)David Horn Wrote:

(02-02-2022, 10:54 PM)nguyenivy Wrote: Is the 2026 midterms / 2028 general election just way too far off to consider as another chance for the reforms the US needs if we can't do it in 2022 / 2024?

I'm sure Eric will respond too, but I'll take a quick shot here.  Can we hold-out for 6 or even 4 years?  Maybe, but the intensity is growing so fast that it seems unlikely to be played-out in a democratic contest by then.  The right has done their homework well, and the intent to corrupt the political system and tilt the field in their direction is already well advanced at the local, state and national levels.  If they gain power again, they will certainly try and maybe succeed in killing democracy for a long while -- much beyond the impending 1T.

Sadly, I've been in the massively contentious 2T camp for a long time, and I'm seeing no reason to believe otherwise.  If there is no correction until the next 4T, the correction will be to a world we wouldn't recognize, I'm afraid.

Certainly someone living in the 1950s who fell asleep for the past six decades or more certainty wouldn’t recognize the world of today. Therefore we are already there.

[David Horn]

(02-03-2022, 11:24 AM)beechnut79 Wrote:

(02-03-2022, 10:32 AM)David Horn Wrote:

(02-02-2022, 10:54 PM)nguyenivy Wrote: Is the 2026 midterms / 2028 general election just way too far off to consider as another chance for the reforms the US needs if we can't do it in 2022 / 2024?

I'm sure Eric will respond too, but I'll take a quick shot here.  Can we hold-out for 6 or even 4 years?  Maybe, but the intensity is growing so fast that it seems unlikely to be played-out in a democratic contest by then.  The right has done their homework well, and the intent to corrupt the political system and tilt the field in their direction is already well advanced at the local, state and national levels.  If they gain power again, they will certainly try and maybe succeed in killing democracy for a long while -- much beyond the impending 1T.

Sadly, I've been in the massively contentious 2T camp for a long time, and I'm seeing no reason to believe otherwise.  If there is no correction until the next 4T, the correction will be to a world we wouldn't recognize, I'm afraid.

Certainly, someone living in the 1950s who fell asleep for the past six decades or more certainty wouldn’t recognize the world of today. Therefore we are already there.

Good point.  There was an argument made in the past that no one living in the post-WWII world would be comfortable living in any era prior to the 1920s.  We might consider moving the goal posts again.  In fact, we're approaching the VR world that was only sci-fi until recently.  Once we're fully there, I'm not sure 'today' will be modern enough.

[Eric the Green]

(02-02-2022, 10:54 PM)nguyenivy Wrote:

(01-14-2022, 03:33 PM)Eric the Green Wrote:

(01-14-2022, 09:48 AM)David Horn Wrote:

(01-13-2022, 03:26 PM)Anthony Wrote: While I'm not old enough to remember when Truman and his "vital-center liberals" (as Arthur Schlesinger Jr. called them) "dueled" with Eisenhower's "modern Republicans" for control of the country, I sure hope that I live long enough to see that arrangement - or something closely resembling it - return.

But this, of course, will require the Culture Wars to end - and so long as the fires of Roe v. Wade and what if anything to do about it continue to rage, that will clearly not happen.

I think you miss the point here.  Most of America is monolithic in the political sense of the term.  I've lived in Blue areas and Red areas, and the only chance I've seen in my 50+ adult years is an ongoing decline in tolerance by both for the other.  Of the two, the Blue areas support more rational ideas of how we should live, and the Red areas are simply ready for a fight.  Yes, our culture wars exacerbate the problem, but it's been there for a long, long time.  

Don't hold your breath for a return of comity.  That takes a massive crisis to trigger, and, so far, our crisis is mostly virtue signaling and demogoguery.  If it turns violent, then the aftermath will be (as) you desire ... or ashes.

We are certainly up to our ears in crisis already, and it's been building up since 2008. Decisions being made now, by the supreme court to throw out vaccine mandates, and 2 DINOs to block voting rights and build back better, will ramp up the crisis even more. Fire and flood are already at every citizen's doorstep. Our democratic republic is at best on life support. The pandemic now threatens to sicken and kill us all. All because of bad decisions we and our leaders have made and are making. War threatens from abroad too against Russia and China as well as the Islamic terrorists. We'll see if the growing crisis goes even more massive, but as of now I don't see how it could do anything else-- and very quickly. And we have only 7+ years now to turn it all around, and the next 3 seem already to be taken away from us, and perhaps all 7.

I am more and more pessimistic. The reform era I forecast for this decade is being reversed as we speak. Even if the voting rights bills pass, they may not be strong enough to end gerrymandering, which will take the House away again in 2022 from the people and turn it over to the Proud Boys and the oligarchs. The massive progressive turn I thought the Millennials would make seems to be blocked or forgotten. So yeah, I wouldn't hold your breath for a return to comity. The way we're going, the only thing we can look forward to is escalating disaster, and no further chance for redemption or reform.

Is the 2026 midterms / 2028 general election just way too far off to consider as another chance for the reforms the US needs if we can't do it in 2022 / 2024?

As I see it, 2028 will be too late to do too much. The first turning will be arriving. Remember what the authors of T4T said. Once the first turning gets going, actions and demands for change get shoved into the closet. What is done in 2028 will depend on whether in the 2026 era the blue side wins the fights. I see 2026 as like 1944; the country will be too caught up in conflict to pass reforms. Revolution? Maybe. But if the fight is won, then 2028 could be like 1945 or 1865 or 1787; not mere reforms, but constitutional changes, founding of new institutions. I se 2028-2029 as decisive years in the fight too. 2022-2024 was supposed to be the time like the early 1960s or 1930s when legislation might be passed. The Build Back Better and Voting Rights acts were exactly the kind of reforms I was expecting to be made in 2022 and 2023. They have already been watered down, and one or two senators are blocking the way. The Republicans say the American people don't want transformation. But now is the time for it, or the time won't come again. The cosmic symbol for this is, among a number of others, that Pluto, the planet of transformation and of the destruction and building of civilizations, which has figured strongly in all such moments in history, is now in the same place, for the first time, where it was when the nation was founded.

Just think, the icecaps are melting, fires are burning, methane is escaping from under the permafrost. A tipping point could come any day. And one or two senators and maybe one or two supreme court justices get to decide if the earth tips into an unlivable hothouse for centuries or millennia to come. Now a Democratic senator from New Mexico is out because of illness for 4 to 6 weeks. That's just what we needed to happen to a Republican senator instead.

[Eric the Green]

(02-03-2022, 11:40 AM)David Horn Wrote:

(02-03-2022, 11:24 AM)beechnut79 Wrote:

(02-03-2022, 10:32 AM)David Horn Wrote:

(02-02-2022, 10:54 PM)nguyenivy Wrote: Is the 2026 midterms / 2028 general election just way too far off to consider as another chance for the reforms the US needs if we can't do it in 2022 / 2024?

I'm sure Eric will respond too, but I'll take a quick shot here.  Can we hold-out for 6 or even 4 years?  Maybe, but the intensity is growing so fast that it seems unlikely to be played-out in a democratic contest by then.  The right has done their homework well, and the intent to corrupt the political system and tilt the field in their direction is already well advanced at the local, state and national levels.  If they gain power again, they will certainly try and maybe succeed in killing democracy for a long while -- much beyond the impending 1T.

Sadly, I've been in the massively contentious 2T camp for a long time, and I'm seeing no reason to believe otherwise.  If there is no correction until the next 4T, the correction will be to a world we wouldn't recognize, I'm afraid.

Certainly, someone living in the 1950s who fell asleep for the past six decades or more certainty wouldn’t recognize the world of today. Therefore we are already there.

Good point.  There was an argument made in the past that no one living in the post-WWII world would be comfortable living in any era prior to the 1920s.  We might consider moving the goal posts again.  In fact, we're approaching the VR world that was only sci-fi until recently.  Once we're fully there, I'm not sure 'today' will be modern enough.

I like your first paragraph David above that begins "I'm sure Eric will respond too".... I think unless reforms are made in the 2020s the correction in the next 2T would be made by mother nature, and it will not be to our benefit. As for "we are already there," yes we are already approaching tipping points toward destruction. But whether some tech has changed is very-much beside the point. That is not real change. Real change is what has been resisted for 40 years: political change, social reform. Such has not been made yet.

I was thinking about that watching a Perry Mason episode, filmed in about 1960. Sure, people had to pick up a telephone when it rang, or dial numbers to make a call. Now we put a mobile phone up to our ear. And I think, big fu*king deal. Just a little change to how we operate physically, but this is not a change in the way we live or in our real conditions. Some things changed in the 1960s and 70s; less restrictions on diverse groups and more opportunity for them, and in the 1980s, when inequality started moving back to what it was in the 1920s. And all the good actors I saw on Perry Mason are gone and none have replaced them. Beyond that, not much change at all.

[beechnut79]

(02-03-2022, 12:31 PM)Eric the Green Wrote:

(02-03-2022, 11:40 AM)David Horn Wrote:

(02-03-2022, 11:24 AM)beechnut79 Wrote:

(02-03-2022, 10:32 AM)David Horn Wrote:

(02-02-2022, 10:54 PM)nguyenivy Wrote: Is the 2026 midterms / 2028 general election just way too far off to consider as another chance for the reforms the US needs if we can't do it in 2022 / 2024?

I'm sure Eric will respond too, but I'll take a quick shot here.  Can we hold-out for 6 or even 4 years?  Maybe, but the intensity is growing so fast that it seems unlikely to be played-out in a democratic contest by then.  The right has done their homework well, and the intent to corrupt the political system and tilt the field in their direction is already well advanced at the local, state and national levels.  If they gain power again, they will certainly try and maybe succeed in killing democracy for a long while -- much beyond the impending 1T.

Sadly, I've been in the massively contentious 2T camp for a long time, and I'm seeing no reason to believe otherwise.  If there is no correction until the next 4T, the correction will be to a world we wouldn't recognize, I'm afraid.

Certainly, someone living in the 1950s who fell asleep for the past six decades or more certainty wouldn’t recognize the world of today. Therefore we are already there.

Good point.  There was an argument made in the past that no one living in the post-WWII world would be comfortable living in any era prior to the 1920s.  We might consider moving the goal posts again.  In fact, we're approaching the VR world that was only sci-fi until recently.  Once we're fully there, I'm not sure 'today' will be modern enough.

I like your first paragraph David above that begins "I'm sure Eric will respond too".... I think unless reforms are made in the 2020s the correction in the next 2T would be made by mother nature, and it will not be to our benefit. As for "we are already there," yes we are already approaching tipping points toward destruction. But whether some tech has changed is very-much beside the point. That is not real change. Real change is what has been resisted for 40 years: political change, social reform. Such has not been made yet.

I was thinking about that watching a Perry Mason episode, filmed in about 1960. Sure, people had to pick up a telephone when it rang, or dial numbers to make a call. Now we put a mobile phone up to our ear. And I think, big fu*king deal. Just a little change to how we operate physically, but this is not a change in the way we live or in our real conditions. Some things changed in the 1960s and 70s; less restrictions on diverse groups and more opportunity for them, and in the 1980s, when inequality started moving back to what it was in the 1920s. And all the good actors I saw on Perry Mason are gone and none have replaced them. Beyond that, not much change at all.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=-jpj_-q50nY

Attached here is a song Linda Ronstadt did before her mega-music superstar days. Much of what has been said on this particular thread brought this song to mind. See if you feel that the lyrics describe quite accurately where we are at in our world today, even more so than when it was released during the turbulent late 1960s.