(11-30-2016, 02:23 PM)David Horn Wrote:

(11-29-2016, 12:04 PM)tg63 Wrote: There also has been discussion about how in every 4T - e.g. the last 4T in the 30's & 40's - there was still a lot of disagreement with decisions proposed & made; it's not as though FDR won by acclimation.  So everyone doesn't need to set aside their own views, there just needs to be a sufficient mass on one side to make the other temporarily irrelevant.

... or, the other side can just be so disheartened that they fail to fight for the opposing view.  We'll see if the Democrats decide to "play nice" as a concession to the victorious GOP.  Needless to say, it didn't play that way in reverse.

(11-23-2016, 08:25 PM)Warren Dew Wrote:

(11-23-2016, 07:09 PM)anandrajan Wrote: I just joined this forum after reaching it via googling for Kaiser, Bannon and the 4T. Apologies if this has all been hashed out before, but Kaiser's article in Time indicates that he thinks Bannon wants to engineer a horrible crisis because that's what he expects in the 4T. I watched Bannon's Generation Zero and a talk by him and based on these, I'd expect him to engineer a financial world war of some kind. Has this already been discussed?

By the Strauss & Howe Generational theory, a crisis is unavoidable, and in fact we are in the beginning or middle stages of it.  Strauss & Howe do not insist that all crises involved major wars, but the three they cover in their seminal book Generations all involved major wars - the Revolutionary War, the Civil War, and WWII.

To the extent Bannon believes this theory, and it seems he does, he will not be engineering any kind of war.  The war will happen on its own.  Bannon may try to shape the crisis so the war is less destructive to America.

Note that some related theorists believe that the coming war will necessarily be nuclear, and involve the expenditure of all nuclear weapons on all sides.  Compared to that, a financial world war would be rather less destructive.

(12-02-2016, 06:38 PM)Mikebert Wrote:

(11-23-2016, 08:25 PM)Warren Dew Wrote:

(11-23-2016, 07:09 PM)anandrajan Wrote: I just joined this forum after reaching it via googling for Kaiser, Bannon and the 4T. Apologies if this has all been hashed out before, but Kaiser's article in Time indicates that he thinks Bannon wants to engineer a horrible crisis because that's what he expects in the 4T. I watched Bannon's Generation Zero and a talk by him and based on these, I'd expect him to engineer a financial world war of some kind. Has this already been discussed?

By the Strauss & Howe Generational theory, a crisis is unavoidable, and in fact we are in the beginning or middle stages of it.  Strauss & Howe do not insist that all crises involved major wars, but the three they cover in their seminal book Generations all involved major wars - the Revolutionary War, the Civil War, and WWII.

To the extent Bannon believes this theory, and it seems he does, he will not be engineering any kind of war.  The war will happen on its own.  Bannon may try to shape the crisis so the war is less destructive to America.

Note that some related theorists believe that the coming war will necessarily be nuclear, and involve the expenditure of all nuclear weapons on all sides.  Compared to that, a financial world war would be rather less destructive.

There is more to it.  It's not like you take a 4T generational constellation, toss in a war, shake and bake for 20 years, and voila, you have a 1T.

(12-09-2016, 06:46 AM)beneficii Wrote: I'm not sure I entirely buy into this 4T stuff, but as I understand the point of a 4T (Crisis) is that the situation is extremely fluid. It is a time of change, and movements that could not have succeeded in the past can now put things into motion for themselves. The best thing to do in such a situation is to try to accomplish something you find worthwhile and on which you think you can do some good, especially if you are young. That is why our generation is labelled a "Hero" generation, after all.

Quote:As for me, one of my biggest projects is to attack the intellectual basis of white supremacy, one of the major planks of which I take to be the following narrative:

Starting with Ancient Greece, Europe developed by itself without interference or input by people of color. Europeans by themselves became increasingly enlightened, with Providence largely keeping threats at bay, and in 1492 when Columbus discovered America, Europeans set forth to bring enlightenment to the benighted peoples of the world.

The implication of this narrative, of course, is that any prominence of people of color could only ruin this "great project" of white people.

Quote:However, I am becoming aware of evidence that this narrative is BS. One piece of evidence is the very well-researched book The Huns, Rome, and the Birth of Europe by Hyun Jin Kim, an Oxford-trained Classicist with an interest in Inner Asia. In it, he argues that the Huns, a large multiethnic group originating from Inner Asia and likely linked to the Xiongnu who were often at war with the Han Dynasty, had a profound impact on the development of what we today consider to be "Europe" and shaped Medieval culture. He questions the whole idea of there being separate European and Asian continents.

Quote:Next, I found this admittedly speculative piece by an Anglo-Saxon scholar, Caitlin Green, who explores the idea that there were Huns in Anglo-Saxon England and that the Anglo-Saxons were even partly descended from them:

http://www.caitlingreen.org/2015/07/were-there-huns-in-anglo-saxon-england.html

She examines writings from Bede, an English monk and important source of early Anglo-Saxon history, and Priscus, an Eastern Roman ambassador to Attila's court in 447/8, as well as archaeological and other historical evidence. In a recent email conversation with both her and Kim, we discovered that the likely structure of the Anglo-Saxon Kingdom of Kent in its early years, as described by Barbara Yorke, was similar to that practiced by the Huns and other Inner Asian groups, with the realm divided into east and west and the king of the east having precedence over the king of the west. Essex may have had a similar structure.

Quote:Other informative sources include the article "Hawks, Horses, and Huns" by John Niles, which looks at the large impact of the Huns on Germanic cultural practices, those of the Anglo-Saxons in particular:

https://www.academia.edu/26820839/_Hawks_Horses_and_Huns_The_Impact_of_Peoples_of_the_Steppe_on_the_Folk_Cultures_of_Northern_Europe._Western_Folklore_75_2016_133-64

And of course, as always, a Tumblr blog that chronicles Medieval PoC:

http://medievalpoc.tumblr.com/

Quote:Of course, attacking the intellectual foundation of white supremacy won't do anything immediately, but if 4T is right and we have maybe 10 years left of the Crisis, it can help shape the attitudes toward race in the post-Crisis period.

Quote:...(P)ropaganda does not lie in the scientific training of the individual, but in calling the masses' attention to certain facts, processes, necessities, etc., whose significance is thus for the first time placed within their field of vision.

The whole art consists in doing this so skillfully that everyone will be convinced that the fact is real, the process necessary, the necessity correct, etc. But since propaganda is not and cannot be the necessity in itself, since its function, like the poster, consists in attracting the attention of the crowd, and not in educating those who are already educated or who are striving after education and knowledge, its effect for the most part must be aimed at the emotions and only to a very limited degree at the so-called intellect.

All propaganda must be popular and its intellectual level must be adjusted to the most limited intelligence among those it is addressed to. Consequently, the greater the mass it is intended to reach, the lower its purely intellectual level will have to be. But if, as in propaganda for sticking out a war, the aim is to influence a whole people, we must avoid excessive intellectual demands on our public, and too much caution cannot be exerted in this direction.

The more modest its intellectual ballast, the more exclusively it takes into consideration the emotions of the masses, the more effective it will be. And this is the best proof of the soundness or unsoundness of a propaganda campaign, and not success in pleasing a few scholars or young aesthetes.

The art of propaganda lies in understanding the emotional ideas of the great masses and finding, through a psychologically correct form, the way to the attention and thence to the heart of the broad masses. The fact that our bright boys do not understand this merely shows how mentally lazy and conceited they are.

Quote:Another project is Calexit which could end up functioning as a trap for the Fascists. As CalExit is explicitly a non-violent movement that hopes to make California independent through cooperation and legal procedures, if violent force is used to crush it, then it could backfire for the Fascists.

So things like these are what I hope to have an impact on, and work toward.

Quote:"Hun" has of course become a by-word for destructiveness, with Attila recognized as one of the most evil persons to have ever lived. But put some of the fault on the rottenness of the Roman Empire which could no longer well defend itself. The distinction between Europe and Asia dates from ancient Greek times, when "Asia" meant practically anything to the east of the Aegean Sea and "Europe" anything to the west of the Aegean Sea. Eventually the Greeks started finding that there was much more to "Asia" than Persia, Syria, Iraq, Palestine, and Arabia -- and that "Europe" extended only as far as what is now Portugal.

Quote:Similarities between the ancient Anglo-Saxons and the Huns   (the Huns never got to Britain!) are either coincidence due to a similar level of development or Hun influence upon Germanic tribes closest to the Huns and to the Angles and Saxons by diffusion. Something that works diffuses.

Quote:He knew that there were very many peoples in Germany from whom the Angles and the Saxons, who now live in Britain, derive their origin... Now these people are the Frisians, Rugians, Danes, Huns, Old Saxons, and Boruhtware (Bructeri); there are also many other nations in the same land who are still practising heathen rites to whom the soldier of Christ proposed to go...

(12-09-2016, 04:13 PM)Eric the Green Wrote: Thanks for your input, beneficii. I agree with your statement about the rise and fall of fascism.

Regarding the fall of Rome and the Huns, I'm not so sure. I think when the Visigoths invaded under Alaric in 410 and conquered and sacked Rome, the Empire was dead in all but name. The Huns just put the nail in the coffin.

It was a mix of factors perhaps: decline from within was certainly happening by all historical accounts. Authority was increasingly desperate and more tyrannical, most people were poorer and more miserable, and in the last century of Rome the people retreated more and more into a proto-medieval set up of lords and walls protection. It could be that these were the "islands in the ocean" referred to in your post. And the "barbarian" peoples were expanding and ready to fight more and more strongly and capably and take over.

Quote:When we expressed amazement at the unreasonableness of the barbarian [Attila], Romulus, an ambassador of long experience, replied that his very great good fortune and the power which it had given him had made him so arrogant that he would not entertain just proposals unless he thought that they were to his advantage. No previous ruler of Scythia or of any other land had ever achieved so much in so short a time. He ruled the islands of the Ocean and, in addition to the whole of Scythia, forced the Romans to pay tribute. He was aiming at more than his present achievements and, in order to increase his empire further, he now wanted to attack the Persians.

(12-09-2016, 05:58 PM)Eric the Green Wrote: I take your point about the quote; that was just a guess on my part. Although it's difficult to imagine what "islands" he was taking about. In the Black or Caspian Sea somewhere? Or somewhere much further away, I guess. And I do remember that the Goths and other tribes invaded Rome because of pressure put on them by the Huns further east, although this was before Attila's time.

Still, my meaning of "islands in the ocean" as a metaphor does describe the increasing social and economic conditions of the Romans in the 3rd and 4th centuries. There's no doubt that historically Rome was declining. Barbarians had been putting pressure on it all along, and it was like in today's south-western America where the outsiders were becoming part of the inside. By 400 AD at least, most of the border guards themselves were originally barbarians.

Empires and other reigns do rise and fall in cycles historically; none ever remains in power "indefinitely," and it's largely because imperial power has its limits, and its power waxes and wanes over time.

(12-09-2016, 03:55 PM)beneficii  (my postings in blue) Wrote:

Quote:"Hun" has of course become a by-word for destructiveness, with Attila recognized as one of the most evil persons to have ever lived. But put some of the fault on the rottenness of the Roman Empire which could no longer well defend itself. The distinction between Europe and Asia dates from ancient Greek times, when "Asia" meant practically anything to the east of the Aegean Sea and "Europe" anything to the west of the Aegean Sea. Eventually the Greeks started finding that there was much more to "Asia" than Persia, Syria, Iraq, Palestine, and Arabia -- and that "Europe" extended only as far as what is now Portugal.

Kim disputes the decline theory of the Roman Empire in his book, and I find his arguments convincing. In his book, he argues that Rome was actually very strong, and if it had faced simply the type of "barbarians" it had faced in the 3rd century crisis, it would have come out on top. The Huns were a type of enemy the Romans had never faced before; the Huns were actually very well organized, and had better weapons and tactics than the Romans. Were it not for the Huns, the Empire likely would have lasted indefinitely. Even if this seems dubious to you, I still suggest checking out the book--I have it checked out on interlibrary loan--as it is an impressive collection of evidence, introducing evidence from Inner Asian scholars which previously had largely not been considered by scholars of the West.

Quote:As for the "evil" of the Huns, the kinds of atrocities they committed were really no different from those committed by various other peoples during this time period, including Germanic peoples. Kim criticizes the tendency of Western historians to explain away the various atrocities committed by Germanic peoples while using the same kinds of atrocities to condemn the Huns.

Quote:Similarities between the ancient Anglo-Saxons and the Huns   (the Huns never got to Britain!) are either coincidence due to a similar level of development or Hun influence upon Germanic tribes closest to the Huns and to the Angles and Saxons by diffusion. Something that works diffuses.

Exactly how far west the Huns got is something historians have had difficulty with. Some maps show them largely limited to the Carpathian Basin, while others show them getting as far west as about the Rhine River and even as far north as modern-day Denmark and southern Sweden. There appears to be memory among the Scandinavian peoples of Hunnic rule, such as a royal genealogy containing names that are similar to the names of Hunnic kings. There is also other evidence, like Hunnic brooches being found in the region. Lotte Headeager has been making the case for a Hunnic presence and rule in southern Scandinavian.

Quote:He knew that there were very many peoples in Germany from whom the Angles and the Saxons, who now live in Britain, derive their origin... Now these people are the Frisians, Rugians, Danes, Huns, Old Saxons, and Boruhtware (Bructeri); there are also many other nations in the same land who are still practising heathen rites to whom the soldier of Christ proposed to go...

Quote:Another interesting passage is from Priscus, who quotes a Western ambassador to Attila's court named Romulus who says that in addition to forcing the Romans to pay tribute, he now ruled "the islands of the Ocean". Some historians have argued that this means the Baltic Sea, a reference to Thule or Scandinavia, which Romans at the time thought were a series of islands. However, others such as Peter Heather say that this refers to the islands of the Atlantic, which would undoubtedly include Great Britain.

Quote:As for other pieces of evidence, Hunnic-style brooches and gold earrings have been found in Britain, Anglo-Saxons seemed to use the Hun ethnonym in some of the names they gave their children, the Kings of Kent claimed connections to the Ostrogoths (and included an Octa in their genealogy, a name close to that of the Hunnic King Oktar). In combination with the other evidence, a possible Hunnic presence and even rule in Britain should be investigated.

Quote:Anyway, I have gone way overlong. There is a lot here, and I am excited about what future research may bring. And yes, I think this would be devastating to the intellectual foundation of white supremacy if my suspicions mentioned above prove true. Don't think the efforts of racists won't be hurt by such an attack.

Quote:As for the points about the evil of Trump, I think you should consider that the rest of the world has agency, and would have their own piece to say about the rise of Fascism in the United States. You should also consider their opponents in this country, once we've adapted to the new situation. Remember, at this stage in the Crisis the last time it happened, Fascism appeared to be on the rise, but it was subsequently defeated, and was discredited in the post-Crisis order.

(12-14-2016, 12:51 AM)pbrower2a Wrote: I have ancestors who may have been hiding something. Both sides of the family. Surnames include "Leonard" and "Gibson".

One of those genetic tests might show something inconsistent between me and my musical tastes.

(12-14-2016, 06:36 PM)X_4AD_84 Wrote: There is no longer any question that the International Alt Right / National Bolshevik movement is a Pan movement. It is a Pan-White-Supremacist movement emanating from the Kremlin. Hanna Arendt would have deemed it thus:

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/03/world/americas/alt-right-vladimir-putin.html?_r=0

'“I’ve always seen Russia as the guardian at the gate, as the easternmost outpost of our people,” said Sam Dickson, a white supremacist and former Ku Klux Klan lawyer who frequently speaks at gatherings of the so-called alt-right, a far-right fringe movement that embraces white nationalism and a range of racist and anti-immigrant positions. “They are our barrier to the Oriental invasion of our homeland and the great protector of Christendom. I admire the Russian people. They are the strongest white people on earth.”'

===================================

Pan movements are a key feature during the early phases of global genocidal conflict. We have seen this movie before.

(12-14-2016, 08:36 PM)Odin Wrote:

(12-14-2016, 06:36 PM)X_4AD_84 Wrote: There is no longer any question that the International Alt Right / National Bolshevik movement is a Pan movement. It is a Pan-White-Supremacist movement emanating from the Kremlin. Hanna Arendt would have deemed it thus:

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/03/world/americas/alt-right-vladimir-putin.html?_r=0

'“I’ve always seen Russia as the guardian at the gate, as the easternmost outpost of our people,” said Sam Dickson, a white supremacist and former Ku Klux Klan lawyer who frequently speaks at gatherings of the so-called alt-right, a far-right fringe movement that embraces white nationalism and a range of racist and anti-immigrant positions. “They are our barrier to the Oriental invasion of our homeland and the great protector of Christendom. I admire the Russian people. They are the strongest white people on earth.”'

===================================

Pan movements are a key feature during the early phases of global genocidal conflict. We have seen this movie before.

These stupid dolts, Russia isn't even Western...

(12-14-2016, 08:35 PM)Odin Wrote:

(12-14-2016, 12:51 AM)pbrower2a Wrote: I have ancestors who may have been hiding something. Both sides of the family. Surnames include "Leonard" and "Gibson".

One of those genetic tests might show something inconsistent between me and my musical tastes.

What ancestry do you think they are hiding?

(01-20-2017, 11:18 AM)pbrower2a Wrote:

(12-14-2016, 08:35 PM)Odin Wrote:

(12-14-2016, 12:51 AM)pbrower2a Wrote: I have ancestors who may have been hiding something. Both sides of the family. Surnames include "Leonard" and "Gibson".

One of those genetic tests might show something inconsistent between me and my musical tastes.

What ancestry do you think they are hiding?

African, perhaps. Not much. But if so, then the one-drop rule would redefine me.

(12-09-2016, 04:13 PM)Eric the Green Wrote: Thanks for your input, beneficii. I agree with your statement about the rise and fall of fascism.

Regarding the fall of Rome and the Huns, I'm not so sure. I think when the Visigoths invaded under Alaric in 410 and conquered and sacked Rome, the Empire was dead in all but name. The Huns just put the nail in the coffin.

It was a mix of factors perhaps: decline from within was certainly happening by all historical accounts. Authority was increasingly desperate and more tyrannical, most people were poorer and more miserable, and in the last century of Rome the people retreated more and more into a proto-medieval set up of lords and walls protection. It could be that these were the "islands in the ocean" referred to in your post. And the "barbarian" peoples were expanding and ready to fight more and more strongly and capably and take over.