Why is it taking so much time to bring Trump to court?

[pbrower2a]

The January 6 committee has passed judgment to the extent possible against Donald Trump. He will face a subpoena and be obliged to answer to serious charges.

This has nothing to do with the classified data that has been in his (apparently illicit) possession. The US Supreme Court separately ruled that he has no right to it.

[David Horn]

Most of the legal community agree that Trump set hiself up for a beating. Why is the question. If his plan is to play martyr, get elected as a convicted criminal (possible if the charges aren't on the disqualifying list), he may want to rethink that option. Oh! Too late. He admitted his dierct involvement with the papers at Mar-a-lago, and that one carries serious and disqualifying charges under the Espionage Act.

[JasonBlack]

It's not generally supposed to be easy to indict the previous commander and chief. In many parts of the world, immediately going after the country's former leader is business as usual, and it stands to reason we'd want to make that difficult.

[pbrower2a]

(10-13-2022, 06:45 PM)JasonBlack Wrote: It's not generally supposed to be easy to indict the previous commander and chief. In many parts of the world, immediately going after the country's former leader is business as usual, and it stands to reason we'd want to make that difficult.

Investigating, indicting, or trying the loser of the previous election should bring us the chills. Partisan politics should never have vindictive revenge as an objective. The winners of an election who prosecute the losers of the previous election simply for being in the opposition almost certainly kill democracy in the process. That's how Francois "Papa Doc" Duvalier did things in Haiti under a regime that rivaled Castro's Cuba for a lack of freedom. 

We should reasonably expect our elected officials to obey the law. Does anyone have any question of that?  Our politicians are not exempt from laws against treachery, bribery, or embezzlement, let alone certain crimes that the Founding fathers could never imagine of their own committing -- like murder That we tried German and Japanese top officials for horrific crimes makes clear that we would not tolerate such by our own top civilian or military leaders. OK, Trump did not invade other countries, commit genocide, or impose slavery. 

I can see plenty of offenses suitable for prosecution. He put Members of Congress, their staffs, news crews, and Capitol police or any other responding police at extreme and undue risk of injury and death. He even put the Vice-President of the United States at risk of outright murder! He stirred up a violent mob. He tried to induce officials in some states to commit a crime, to wit forgery, to supply him fraudulent votes that would have flipped the state in question; because he used a telephone he may have committed one of the easiest crimes that can be proved: wire fraud. 

I would never endorse a trial of an ex-President for specious or trivial offenses. Everybody does something wrong on occasion. I expect every politician to lie and cheat if necessary to get re-elected, and those who do the least of that are veritable saints. By some standards the killings of Qusay and Uday Hussein, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, Osama bin Laden, or Ayman al-Zawahiri are extrajudicial killings. I excuse all five killings and I would accept any other country doing exactly the same under the same circumstances without fault of the national entity.

[Bob Butler 54]

(10-13-2022, 05:14 PM)David Horn Wrote: Most of the legal community agree that Trump set hiself up for a beating.  Why is the question.  If his plan is to play martyr, get elected as a convicted criminal (possible if the charges aren't on the disqualifying list), he may want to rethink that option.  Oh!  Too late.  He admitted his dierct involvement with the papers at Mar-a-lago, and that one carries serious and disqualifying charges under the Espionage Act.

I’ve been thinking of other previous presidents we might have wished to indict and jail.  Nixon is the obvious one, but was pardoned.  Reagan did some illegal stuff for some he considered allies, but he meant well and it never seriously was considered.  Clinton lied about his sex life, which did not get far.  There is an unproven conspiracy theory that FDR wanted the US involved in WW II, and acted in a way to force the Japanese to attack.  If that theory were proven early???

Any others that are even tempting?  Anyone who is at all comparable to Trump?

I would like some sort of statement from powers that be making this very clear.  No one is above the law, but a partisan vengeance element should be considered right out.  Nixon and Trump crossed the line, but no one else?

[JasonBlack]

(10-13-2022, 07:41 PM)pbrower2a Wrote: I would never endorse a trial of an ex-President for specious or trivial offenses. Everybody does something wrong on occasion. I expect every politician to lie and cheat if necessary to get re-elected, and those who do the least of that are veritable saints. By some standards the killings of Qusay and Uday Hussein, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, Osama bin Laden, or Ayman al-Zawahiri are extrajudicial killings. I excuse all five killings and I would accept any other country doing exactly the same under the same circumstances without fault of the national entity.

Perhaps the title of the OP was meant to be rhetorical, but I responding directly to "why is it taking so much" rather than focusing on Trump. Put simply, a lot of people are apprehensive about this because where to draw that line between trivial vs non-trivial is hard to determine and subject to partisan slant. Even if he deserves it...we're setting a dangerous precedent, and we've all seen how quickly snowballs slide down a slippery slope during a 4T.

[Bob Butler 54]

(10-14-2022, 11:59 PM)JasonBlack Wrote:

(10-13-2022, 07:41 PM)pbrower2a Wrote: I would never endorse a trial of an ex-President for specious or trivial offenses. Everybody does something wrong on occasion. I expect every politician to lie and cheat if necessary to get re-elected, and those who do the least of that are veritable saints. By some standards the killings of Qusay and Uday Hussein, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, Osama bin Laden, or Ayman al-Zawahiri are extrajudicial killings. I excuse all five killings and I would accept any other country doing exactly the same under the same circumstances without fault of the national entity.

Perhaps the title of the OP was meant to be rhetorical, but I responding directly to "why is it taking so much" rather than focusing on Trump. Put simply, a lot of people are apprehensive about this because where to draw that line between trivial vs non-trivial is hard to determine and subject to partisan slant. Even if he deserves it...we're setting a dangerous precedent, and we've all seen how quickly snowballs slide down a slippery slope during a 4T.

And yet the progressive faction generally comes out ahead in a crisis, the crisis problems have to be solved for the crisis to end, and during the crisis end 'never again' phase the solution found is added to the American values.  Trump and to an extent Nixon represent a crisis problem.  The culture, as a result of crisis, is modified to accept the standards and values of whatever was necessary to solve the crisis problems. Often the standards of previous crises are refined.  Principles like equality (BLM), freedom (choice) and rule of law (Trump) are expanded.

So, yes, I would expect a careful line to be drawn somewhere between establishing no one being above the law and partisan retaliation.  The drawing of this line is already in progress, with the extreme ends already being identified.  Perhaps more is needed, but it is perhaps best to leave it somewhat open.

[David Horn]

(10-14-2022, 06:51 PM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote:

(10-13-2022, 05:14 PM)David Horn Wrote: Most of the legal community agree that Trump set hiself up for a beating.  Why is the question.  If his plan is to play martyr, get elected as a convicted criminal (possible if the charges aren't on the disqualifying list), he may want to rethink that option.  Oh!  Too late.  He admitted his dierct involvement with the papers at Mar-a-lago, and that one carries serious and disqualifying charges under the Espionage Act.

I’ve been thinking of other previous presidents we might have wished to indict and jail.  Nixon is the obvious one, but was pardoned.  Reagan did some illegal stuff for some he considered allies, but he meant well and it never seriously was considered.  Clinton lied about his sex life, which did not get far.  There is an unproven conspiracy theory that FDR wanted the US involved in WW II, and acted in a way to force the Japanese to attack.  If that theory were proven early???

Any others that are even tempting?  Anyone who is at all comparable to Trump?

I would like some sort of statement from powers that be making this very clear.  No one is above the law, but a partisan vengeance element should be considered right out.  Nixon and Trump crossed the line, but no one else?

We're Amereicans.  Line-drawing is not a trait we hold in abundance, so you have a point.  But let's start with the second worst offender.  I'm not sure even Nixon deserved to be thrown into the judicial meat grinder.  He never refused to comply with other branches where the authority was cut-and-dry.  We got the tapes; we only lost the 18 minutes.  He also saw the writing on the wall and walked off the stage voluntarily (if being pushed fully qualifies as volunterism).

Trump is different.  He's actively tried to subvert the government at every level and in every way.  He fully qualifies as a tyrant.  Given that, is there another suitable option?  Frankly, I dont see one.  Worse, other potential tyrants are standing in the wings waiting to see if we have the nerve to oppose them in earnest.  The typical bluff and bluster, folllowed by handwringing and nonaction has to stop.  In short, the Democrats need a spinal implant; the one the had dissolved away long ago.

[David Horn]

(10-15-2022, 07:31 AM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote:

(10-14-2022, 11:59 PM)JasonBlack Wrote:

(10-13-2022, 07:41 PM)pbrower2a Wrote: I would never endorse a trial of an ex-President for specious or trivial offenses. Everybody does something wrong on occasion. I expect every politician to lie and cheat if necessary to get re-elected, and those who do the least of that are veritable saints. By some standards the killings of Qusay and Uday Hussein, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, Osama bin Laden, or Ayman al-Zawahiri are extrajudicial killings. I excuse all five killings and I would accept any other country doing exactly the same under the same circumstances without fault of the national entity.

Perhaps the title of the OP was meant to be rhetorical, but I responding directly to "why is it taking so much" rather than focusing on Trump. Put simply, a lot of people are apprehensive about this because where to draw that line between trivial vs non-trivial is hard to determine and subject to partisan slant. Even if he deserves it...we're setting a dangerous precedent, and we've all seen how quickly snowballs slide down a slippery slope during a 4T.

And yet the progressive faction generally comes out ahead in a crisis, the crisis problems have to be solved for the crisis to end, and during the crisis end 'never again' phase the solution found is added to the American values.  Trump and to an extent Nixon represent a crisis problem.  The culture, as a result of crisis, is modified to accept the standards and values of whatever was necessary to solve the crisis problems. Often the standards of previous crises are refined.  Principles like equality (BLM), freedom (choice) and rule of law (Trump) are expanded.

So, yes, I would expect a careful line to be drawn somewhere between establishing no one being above the law and partisan retaliation.  The drawing of this line is already in progress, with the extreme ends already being identified.  Perhaps more is needed, but it is perhaps best to leave it somewhat open.

In an effort to be an all-offending responder, i'll disagee with both of you ... to some extent, at least.

Starting with Jason: no, the pace of prosecution is not stick-in-the-mud slow due to waveriing and eye-rollling.  It's slow because prosecutions -- especially at this level -- need to be air tight, and that's not a trivial task.  Is our criminal justice system so broken that even cases so obvious in nature require years to prepare?  Yes.  On the other hand, allmost all convictions overturned can never be revisited.  And good luch changing a system that benefits the practionsers who also set the rules.

Now to Bob: I can't say 1Ts always resolve the issues of the cirsis.  Reconstruction after the ACW lead in a short loop right back to where it all started.  It took the next crsis to trigger anything approaching reform, and that's, once again, under heavy attack.  Some things are baked-in too deep to be that easily resolved.  I'm not sure how autocratic the tendancy of the US really is, but ~40% seem ready to back the current nominal dictator they love so well.  Is this different from the German-American Bund in the '30s, the John Birch Society in the '50s, the Branch Davidians in the '90s and the QAnon wacknuts of today.

[pbrower2a]

If I were to make a guess of what federal offenses are most likely to put a white-collar criminal in federal prison, then I would expect one of mail fraud. wire fraud, or bank fraud, statutes of which are so written that no conflict exists between them. For most who commit a federal crime, the use of mails or wires to solicit or organize a criminal offense or to use the banking system to transmit funds involved in such is the statute on which white-collar crooks get convicted for swindles, forgeries, and embezzlements.

So suppose that I were to sell one of my acrylic paintings with the signature "Henri Matisse". (Matisse did not use acrylic paints). I make it available on line, and someone in Atlanta orders it. By soliciting the sale of an artistic forgery I would have committed wire fraud. By sending the painting by mail or any common carrier I would have committed mail fraud. By putting the funds through a bank account I would have committed bank fraud. The secretive US Postal Inspection Service can and will investigate me on any of these. The conviction rate on these offenses on these is high, and I would be dead meat in a federal criminal court. Most people cooperate with a subpoena if innocent participants

Solicitation of vote fraud by telephone sounds like wire fraud. I suspect that this is the easiest offense for which a conviction can be made. Severest? No, but it would practically be a life sentence for someone in his seventies and in poor shape. The easiest felony conviction allows other convictions to be pressed.

[Bob Butler 54]

(10-15-2022, 08:06 AM)David Horn Wrote: Now to Bob: I can't say 1Ts always resolve the issues of the cirsis.  Reconstruction after the ACW lead in a short loop right back to where it all started.  It took the next crsis to trigger anything approaching reform, and that's, once again, under heavy attack.  Some things are baked-in too deep to be that easily resolved.  I'm not sure how autocratic the tendancy of the US really is, but ~40% seem ready to back the current nominal dictator they love so well.  Is this different from the German-American Bund in the '30s, the John Birch Society in the '50s, the Branch Davidians in the '90s and the QAnon wacknuts of today.

I would say racism is more persistent by far than most problems.   You can end slavery, but there is always another form of racial oppression.  You can only get rid of your colonial oppressor and noble privilege once.  The steps taken after the Revolution were sufficient.  This time we might see things limited to proxy war and sanctions.  However, you might have to take steps to contain autocratic rulers for as long as there will be autocratic rulers.  I doubt we are ready for that yet.

The immediate problem is solved and ‘never again’ applied, but sometimes the shadow takes another form and grows again.

[sbarrera]

(10-16-2022, 03:37 PM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote: The immediate problem is solved and ‘never again’ applied, but sometimes the shadow takes another form and grows again.

Sounds like someone has been watching the new Lord of the Rings show.

[Bob Butler 54]

(10-17-2022, 12:38 PM)sbarrera Wrote:

(10-16-2022, 03:37 PM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote: The immediate problem is solved and ‘never again’ applied, but sometimes the shadow takes another form and grows again.

Sounds like someone has been watching the new Lord of the Rings show.

I respect the original books too much for that.  

[pbrower2a]

Democrats cannot afford to allow any prosecution of Donald Trump to look like a partisan, vindictive exercise. MAGA is a powerful mass movement with Donald Trump as its focus. Let's not ignore the Qranqery of QAnon. These people hold the niceties of liberal democracy in contempt because they hold liberal democracy itself in contempt. Get enough people into position in which to take over the critical offices of government, and there can be something much like the Bolshevik take over of Russia in practice.

I have my own mental list of people who need to go to prison for their roles in the Capitol Putsch, and that is likely much like yours. I will give no clues.

If you thought the election of 2020 was critical to American history in ways in which none since 1860 was critical, that of 2024 may be much the same. We have plenty of people who will not accept an election that goes any way other than their landslide, and expect the government of their choosing to eviscerate all American process inimical to their desires. So we have several possibilities from election to inauguration:

1. The 2024 election works to the benefit of a Republican Party that still holds Trump-like beliefs and serves the economic agenda of those who wish to return to the plutocratic ways of the 1920's at the earliest. I could imagine this clique establishing a "Bill of Rights for Capital" and a "Bill of Rights for (fundamentalist-evangelical) Christianity" For economics, America is to be "freed" from labor unions, regulations of all kinds, and media criticism. Social Security is abolished only to be replaced with mandatory contributions to life-insurance companies connected to the ruling elite. Most money ends up going into bureaucratic hustlers and to owners of the insurance companies. Welfare is to be abolished because there is nothing wrong with economic distress that working 80 hours a week can't solve. The "Bill of Rights" for the Religious Right outlaws abortion, contraception, homosexuality, and the teaching of evolution while imposing the pseudo-history that claims that anything else is contrary to the way things have always been. (In fact, Protestant Christian fundamentalism is roughly 100 years old, so it is much newer than even Mormonism, Seventh-Day Adventism, and Christian Science which date from the Transcendental Awakening nearly two centuries ago. If people starve to death due to the New Economy, then such is God's Will!

The end of neoliberal domination of the economy has given us the worst inflation since the 1970's, and we still have the sort of economic inequality that ordinarily precedes an economic meltdown. There is no soft landing from what we experience now. Obviously Republicans need a nationwide landslide to get the political climate in which the antithesis of FDR can undo everything liberal since him that they so choose. Maybe there won't be a return to Jim Crow practice or chicanery to deny non-white people the vote, but government will clearly represent economic power instead of the People. This agenda does every legal trick to entrench itself until the next Crisis Era. (That will be the ravages of AGW to the extent that hundreds of millions die of the three Malthusian checks of war, famine, and plague).

2. Electoral chicanery takes place that leaves an ambiguous results. Perhaps the popular vote and the electoral vote based upon popular votes within the States suggest a bare Democratic win of the President with Democratic majorities in both Houses of Congress, but some mischievous State legislatures vote to negate such results. In effect the GOP wins through shady process that allows much to happen in the above scenario.

3. The second scenario leads to ambiguous results that the Armed Forces decide. The generalissimo establishes himself as President and rules without the aid of Congress. We have a Pinochet who rules until he no longer relishes power. Democracy is dead.

4. Democrats win, but a huge part of the American public thinks otherwise and tries to imitate the Capitol Putsch, only more effectively. It takes over the Capitol completely, with Congressional Representatives having to decide whether to comply or to be killed. This takes more people than the 2021 disgrace, and better organization. The electoral results are negated, and democracy is dead. Welcome to a right-wing mirror image of Lenin's Soviet Union.

5. See 4, but parts of America secede. Welcome to Civil War II.

6. We end up with the same old gridlock and solve nothing except to defer the great unsolved questions to later decades. This Crisis Era dies with a whimper instead of a bang.

7. Democrats win, and we come to our senses. Most of us recognize that there's nothing wrong with America that what is right with it can't solve. Millions of people decided that they might as well adapt to a new order that offers more opportunities in inexpensive education. We would need bigger spending and bigger taxes as America becomes a "social market economy". We become more like the Federal Republic of Germany (paradoxically established by Allied authorities to adopt the best characteristics of America, Britain, and France so that it would be too prosperous and well-educated to be vulnerable to another you-know-who). We are better able to establish an economic order that does not depend upon the car culture and mindless consumerism (hint to Eric -- that might partially negate AGW).

[David Horn]

(10-17-2022, 03:25 PM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote:

(10-17-2022, 12:38 PM)sbarrera Wrote:

(10-16-2022, 03:37 PM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote: The immediate problem is solved and ‘never again’ applied, but sometimes the shadow takes another form and grows again.

Sounds like someone has been watching the new Lord of the Rings show.

I respect the original books too much for that.  

I can agree 100%.  Tolkein was a storytelling scholar that did his work and deserves to have it repected ... but money, of course.

[pbrower2a]

(10-15-2022, 07:31 AM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote:

(10-14-2022, 11:59 PM)JasonBlack Wrote:

(10-13-2022, 07:41 PM)pbrower2a Wrote: I would never endorse a trial of an ex-President for specious or trivial offenses. Everybody does something wrong on occasion. I expect every politician to lie and cheat if necessary to get re-elected, and those who do the least of that are veritable saints. By some standards the killings of Qusay and Uday Hussein, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, Osama bin Laden, or Ayman al-Zawahiri are extrajudicial killings. I excuse all five killings and I would accept any other country doing exactly the same under the same circumstances without fault of the national entity.

Perhaps the title of the OP was meant to be rhetorical, but I responding directly to "why is it taking so much" rather than focusing on Trump. Put simply, a lot of people are apprehensive about this because where to draw that line between trivial vs non-trivial is hard to determine and subject to partisan slant. Even if he deserves it...we're setting a dangerous precedent, and we've all seen how quickly snowballs slide down a slippery slope during a 4T.

And yet the progressive faction generally comes out ahead in a crisis, the crisis problems have to be solved for the crisis to end, and during the crisis end 'never again' phase the solution found is added to the American values.  Trump and to an extent Nixon represent a crisis problem.  The culture, as a result of crisis, is modified to accept the standards and values of whatever was necessary to solve the crisis problems. Often the standards of previous crises are refined.  Principles like equality (BLM), freedom (choice) and rule of law (Trump) are expanded.

So, yes, I would expect a careful line to be drawn somewhere between establishing no one being above the law and partisan retaliation.  The drawing of this line is already in progress, with the extreme ends already being identified.  Perhaps more is needed, but it is perhaps best to leave it somewhat open.

Ultimately, the progressive usually wins because it can satisfy more people. It is clever enough to make its new agenda fit traditions not theirs. The political and cultural avant-garde rarely succeeds at that, and in view of Jacobins and Bolsheviks, that might be best.  I look at America's Model Minorities (Asian-Americans, middle-class blacks and Hispanics, Arab-Americans, Jews, and LGBT people, and they have generally been on the liberal side. These people will be more effective in appealing to rational people who differ in some way from all of them than will MAGA, Qu Qlux Qlanon, the John Birch Society, fundamentalist-evangelical extremists, the militia cliques, and the usual fascists.   Should such a group as Mormons start going against the Hard Right (and they have nothing to gain from the Hard Right), then the Hard Right is cooked to a crisp politically. 

Irrationality, bigotry, and malign intent have never served Humanity well. I see no cause for any difference in that pattern this time even if it pretends to high ideals. Jacobins and Bolsheviks also claimed to possess the highest ideals of their time. See also ISIS.  

I am satisfied that Donald Trump will not go on trial, and neither will such people as Michael Flynn, Roger Stone, and Rudy Giuliani so intimately connected to him until after the 2022 election is decided. Vindictive partisanship does not look good, but if it all looks as the rule of law overpowers all else, then we are in good shape to deal with the serious crimes that Donald Trump seems to have done. It is necessary that we hold fast to the principle of the presumption of innocence. 

The militia cliques are on trial and so is the last defendant of the horrid Michigan plot. Don't trivialize its importance. Civil wars have started when such plots succeed. Just think of John Brown's raid on Harper's Ferry in 1859. Had Governor Whitmer been kidnapped and been lynched (and likely killed), then we would have some horrible repercussions.    

We need major, pervasive reforms of our political life, mass media, educational system, law enforcement, and legal system as the result of both not-so-benign neglect and some perverse innovations. We need to become more just, more honest, more rational, and probably more learned -- and none of that will be easy for those who need such the most. Some of us are already close enough to make a go of it.  We need to all adopt something that characterizes our Model Minorities if we haven't done so yet: a respect for enterprise and formal learning. One of the ironies of history is that disdain for business is often illiberal. Just think of Southern agrarian racists who at once shared a disdain for plutocrats and financiers with Northern organized labor -- for very different reasons. I suggested in one thread that commerce and industry would have solved most of the economic distress of freed slaves in the post-Civil War South. The problem for the big landowners was that such would have denied them the super-cheap necessary for them to make a go of their plantations. 

America in the forthcoming 1T could be a community that respects education and has no soft spot for crime. Nobody is going to defund the police; if anything we are going to see them become more effective while Americans become increasingly hostile to overt crime.  If the Capitol Putsch gets treated harshly, then so will street crime and white collar crime alike.  Liberals have learned well that criminals are not so much the romantic rogues as they are exploiters, abusers, and destroyers. Extremist ideologies will be out of vogue. What now seems liberal will become convention and in turn even conservative. There will be something to preserve and maintain, and that is how viable conservatism begins. 

So we accepted LGBT rights. We also repressed rape, homophobic violence, child sexual abuse, child pornography, and spouse abuse at the same time. On the whole I see less sexual freedom even if we reinstate Roe v. Wade. OK, I support LGBT rights and have no use for rape, child abuse, domestic violence, child porn, and homophobic violence, so I must be on the side of sexual repression.  Abortion is mostly a medical choice, so it is not sex.

[Eric the Green]

Trump may not go on trial, but at the moment I think it's possible that if he doesn't go on trial and get convicted in these various Courts, he will run for president and defeat Joe Biden. Once again, Biden's disapproval rating is now worse than Trump's. The people of the USA are THAT crazy these days.

It now looks quite possible, even probable, that our current generations will blow our current 4T for the first time in Anglo-American history. If this happens, there will be no "forthcoming 1T". There won't even be a recovery. We will continue in a permanent 4T and the saeculum will end.

This will be kind of like Russia's and the Soviet Union's from 1894 to 1953, except that at least the Soviet Union had a quieter time following their long 4T, which itself lasted quite a while, although I would not call it a 1T, just stagnation. Gorbachev could be said to have ended this, but for Russians it just felt like the start of another 4T (or resumption of its un-ending 4T), which is still current, even though to us the Gorbachev era looked like a 2T.

[David Horn]

(10-21-2022, 11:58 AM)Eric the Green Wrote: Trump may not go on trial, but at the moment I think it's possible that if he doesn't go on trial and get convicted in these various Courts, he will run for president and defeat Joe Biden. Once again, Biden's disapproval rating is now worse than Trump's. The people of the USA are THAT crazy these days.

It now looks quite possible, even probable, that our current generations will blow our current 4T for the first time in Anglo-American history. If this happens, there will be no "forthcoming 1T". There won't even be a recovery. We will continue in a permanent 4T and the saeculum will end.

This will be kind of like Russia's and the Soviet Union's from 1894 to 1953, except that at least the Soviet Union had a quieter time following their long 4T, which itself lasted quite a while, although I would not call it a 1T, just stagnation. Gorbachev could be said to have ended this, but for Russians it just felt like the start of another 4T (or resumption of its un-ending 4T), which is still current, even though to us the Gorbachev era looked like a 2T.

I've peddled the hyper-2T theory before.  The neo-Prophets may not understand how they got scewed, but they'll know they did.  Unless the security apparatus is all-encompassing, look for that to be the 4T replacement -- possilbly resetting the saecular clock.

[pbrower2a]

He has received subpoenas for November 4 (just before 2022 the election) and 14 (just after). Much of the speculation can end. Nowq we have bigger questions: what will he say?

[Bob Butler 54]

(10-18-2022, 03:25 PM)pbrower2a Wrote: Irrationality, bigotry, and malign intent have never served Humanity well.

Well, they have in their own sideways way.  The fittest survived.  If two groups hated each other and fought, the looser did not pass on their 'faulty' genes.  The race was 'improved' in blood.  Of course such perpetual conflict is no longer so cost effective in this era of nukes.  It is time to reevaluate things.  Major powers do not become more apt to perpetuate themselves or their people by hatred and war.  There is a need to end the perpetual violence.