Generational Dynamics World View

[nguyenivy]

(08-17-2021, 05:07 PM)John J. Xenakis Wrote: ** 16-Aug-2021 World View: Regeneracy event

Guest Wrote:>   John, given the universal shock/outrage over Afghanistan, could
>   this be the regeneracy event? Or is an attack on the homeland
>   absolutely necessary?

No, absolutely not.  Believe me, when an ACTUAL regeneracy event
occurs, you won't have to ask.

Should the COVID-19 pandemic being declared in March 2020 be considered at least the start of the regeneracy? The big thing I think it's doing even still now is getting everyone to evaluate their lives all around. While we have vaccines and they are working, it seems it's not fast enough to stop the momentum of what changed before the vaccines, like remote working for one. Recent news articles been changing their tune to 'living with COVID' and it overall becoming more of a long-term thing rather than the temporary crisis it was thought to be in its 1st year.

[pbrower2a]

(08-18-2021, 04:02 PM)nguyenivy Wrote:

(08-17-2021, 05:07 PM)John J. Xenakis Wrote: ** 16-Aug-2021 World View: Regeneracy event

Guest Wrote:>   John, given the universal shock/outrage over Afghanistan, could
>   this be the regeneracy event? Or is an attack on the homeland
>   absolutely necessary?

No, absolutely not.  Believe me, when an ACTUAL regeneracy event
occurs, you won't have to ask.

Should the COVID-19 pandemic being declared in March 2020 be considered at least the start of the regeneracy? The big thing I think it's doing even still now is getting everyone to evaluate their lives all around. While we have vaccines and they are working, it seems it's not fast enough to stop the momentum of what changed before the vaccines, like remote working for one. Recent news articles been changing their tune to 'living with COVID' and it overall becoming more of a long-term thing rather than the temporary crisis it was thought to be in its 1st year.

The problem is that so many Americans still look at things as either Business as Usual ... or think "Damn the Virus! Full speed ahead! Much of America has re-examined its values, its ways of doing things, and its understanding of how the world works. Much has yet to do so. Sure, the world will be much as some trends showed before the Crisis Era. Cars of 1940 already looked more like cars of 1955 than like those of 1935, and spending habits beginning in the late 1930's began to look much like those of the early 1950's. Still, the world of 1950 would be very dissimilar from that of 1920. Commie rule would extend far beyond the Soviet Union (which annexed much territory that it held onto until its collapse in 1990-1991) from Eisenach to Hanoi. Because of the Holocaust, the world's Jewish population was halved, reducing a religious tradition more noteworthy for intellectual activity and influence than for sheer numbers. Fascism was discredited once and for all in all countries that had been major participants in WWII except for Greece, which underwent the Colonels' regime for less than a decade. Colonial rule showed how costly colonial rule could be for so few benefits as Burma, Malaya, Indonesia, the Philippines, and Indochina all came quickly under the rule of what might have been one of the most impressive empires to have ever existed (the Greater East Asian Co-Prosperity Sphere) had it lasted several decades (in which case it might have also incorporated Alaska and Hawaii and a huge chunk of China).

The collapse of a seedy and shady regime in Afghanistan shows how quickly history can move in a 4T. I expect the worst from the Taliban because the vilest regimes typically have the greatest tendency to see their monstrous ways as the dream of the rest of the world. Ask yourself in contrast when you last heard of Swiss militarism. Much of the world's population would like to have Swiss-style politics and economics.

[galaxy]

I'll ramble for a bit...

(08-18-2021, 04:02 PM)nguyenivy Wrote: Should the COVID-19 pandemic being declared in March 2020 be considered at least the start of the regeneracy? The big thing I think it's doing even still now is getting everyone to evaluate their lives all around. While we have vaccines and they are working, it seems it's not fast enough to stop the momentum of what changed before the vaccines, like remote working for one. Recent news articles been changing their tune to 'living with COVID' and it overall becoming more of a long-term thing rather than the temporary crisis it was thought to be in its 1st year.

It certainly seems like one to me. 2019 feels more and more like the distant past. From here where we are in August 2021, 2019's society and culture increasingly looks almost more like 2007 than it does the present (though 2008 is still an obvious major shift). In some ways there's a feeling of people having "woken up" or broken out of some kind of holding pattern they were stuck in (trapped either by apathy or by circumstance), the shock of the pandemic having "shaken loose" many of the "stuck" parts of society. A good example of this is the current job situation, where people are now simply refusing to accept low-paying jobs anymore. While the legal minimum wage is still $7.25, the "cultural minimum wage" is now double that or more, a stark contrast to the fast-paced, nose-to-the-grindstone economic culture of 2019.

It's very clear even now that the pandemic has been and continues to be some kind of key turning point, whatever you want to call it. Howe has said that the regeneracy is an era rather than a moment (https://www.lifecourse.com/media/article...12015.html), so perhaps in this 4T the regeneracy coincides with the pandemic.

This, however, raises a new question. I've talked before about my theory that we have just passed the climax last winter and that the end of the turning is likely around 2025, but here's the thing...the regeneracy seems to occur before the climax. So our possibilities are:

1. This is not the regeneracy, however much it may look like one - either the regeneracy has already occurred, or we are near the end of it now, perhaps with the end (and climax) of the regeneracy more-or-less coinciding with the climax of the turning

or

2. The 11/3/20-1/8/21 period (2020 election to peak covid) was not the climax, however much it may have seemed like a climactic "final battle" of the culture wars with each side distilled to a near-caricature of itself

or

3. This 4T is somehow different from others, and the climax is somehow in the middle of the regeneracy, or, the regeneracy coincides with the resolution as a reaction to the climax (the closest thing to this would probably be the Civil War and the nature of the following 1T as being a "recovering" rather than "recovered" era - I have thought for a while that that Crisis may have extended beyond the end of the war, potentially through all of Reconstruction. This comparison can work really well with the interpretation of the current Crisis as being a Cold Civil War).


So let's examine these for a moment. #1 implies that the regeneracy has already occurred, and has either ended or is close to its end. So I see two possibilities for this:
- The regeneracy began gradually, probably setting in during Obama's first term but without a clear defining event*, and continued, gradually intensifying and being pretty intense by 2015, until the pandemic began. The pandemic is simultaneously the climax of the turning and a sort of climax of the regeneracy.

or

- The regeneracy began in 2016 (and we are near its climax now). According to the article I linked, the regeneracy involves "...something dramatic that unifies the country or causes the people to break into separate unified factions." If the 2016 election wasn't that, then I don't know what is. Since 2016, we have seen a huge increase in political involvement and engagement, with 2020 having the highest turnout in over a century, and major changes in the identity, composition, and ideology of the parties. The lines along which political battles are currently fought are very different from the battle lines of the Clinton/Bush/Obama era.

*2010 was also a large jump in political polarization, so perhaps there is a middle ground that can be found between these two possibilities.

The one big point against the idea of a pre-pandemic regeneracy is that the political parties seem to be the only "institutional" or "structural" things regenerated prior to 2021's economic "stimulus" (with as many non-stimulus things as possible packed into it) and pending infrastructure legislation. Even just last year, the postal service was being allowed to fall further into disrepair, through a very 3T-style mixture of neglect and attack on it, during what seemed to be the heart of a 4T.

However, "physical" institutions are only part of the picture. There was a behavioral shift to more 4T-ish patterns that was apparent as early as 2013 and became extremely strong in 2017, and I suppose the regeneracy need not affect all things that need to be regenerated at the same time. Perhaps we're seeing a progression, from partially regenerating behavior, to regenerating politics, to further regeneration of behavior, to regeneration of the physical world (government, institutions, etc).


Possibility #2, I don't even want to talk about. It's terrifying. For five years now, so many of us have been saying "how could it possibly get any worse?" before watching it get worse. I don't know if I can survive another five years of that. Anyway, the essence of it is that we experienced a very long lull since the start of the turning in 2008, and the start of the pandemic** is the spark that has begun the regeneracy, with the climax still to come and potentially years away.

**or the 2016 election, I suppose, doesn't make much difference really

Possibility #3 ties in to my past post about there being two types of 4T. One type ends triumphantly with a strong, confident, "reconstructed" society. The other ends with the national mood being one of relief rather than victory. People say "I'm just so glad that's over" rather than "yeah, we did it!". It is a 4T that was survived rather than defeated, with the work of rebuilding still to be done (which will be done during the 1T, and the 2T will begin once that work has been completed). Perhaps the nature of the regeneracy is different between these two types of 4T, and this current turning only seems unusual with its apparent "mid-regeneracy climax" because we have not seen a "normal-length" 4T of this type since this nation's founding until now (or, as I said above, perhaps the Civil War 4T went on longer than we think...1860 to 1876?)

[David Horn]

Quick note to galaxy:
S&H proposed a theory of social history. Everything is dependent on the people living within the study area, primarily the West in this case. If the pandemic can be worked into that model, the initial response and ongoing refusal to act decisively are the telling signs. The disease itself is much less important in that sense. As Pogo said, "We've met the enemy and he is us."

[Eric the Green]

Good analysis. As I see it, indeed the civil war 4T was longer (I date it as starting in around 1848-1850 and ending at the S&H-assigned date of 1865). The great war 4T was slightly shorter than normal as well, 1929 to 1946, but still almost normal. I think the saeculum is slowing down a bit since the "modern era" acceleration, which ramped up speed starting in the 18th century from the earlier times as "progress" began, but post-modern times since the mid-1960s is disillusion with progress, coupled with neo-liberal domination since 1980, so the saeculum is slowing down, giving us a longer than usual 3T and perhaps (we hope) a normal turning length for the 4T.

I agree the regeneracy started in 2017 with the alarm about our society having fallen under the leadership of a bumbling idiot racist neo-liberal on steroids, and thus ramping up of its harmful results, plus political polarization and renewed Left activism, leading to narrow Democratic victories in 2018 and 2020 and some government actions since 2020. Meanwhile this very month has been a declaration that we are in total meltdown. Covid has renewed its successful attack on humanity, especially in the USA. We don't know now whether covid will wind down, or continue much like the black plague did after its peak in 1348. In addition, the UN declared the world on the brink of collapse due to climate breakdown, unequivocally stating that it is humanity's fault, mostly due to our use of fossil fuels. The Trump side, the Republican side, has been denying and accelerating this climate crisis, which had already ramped up in two previous phases: the acceleration of gross national product since circa 1950 during the American Decade 1T, and the rise to power of neo-liberalism in circa 1980. How long the Trumpists and neo-liberalism can slow down or stop our dealing with this climate crisis may dictate exactly when we feel a crisis climax, when panic over climate breakdown truly sets in due to even-more rampant fires and floods and their possible economic impacts. Although the effects of global warming will be with us for decades to come, our regeneracy regarding it will be our decision to start reducing or reversing it.

In addition, the USA just lost its longest war, which could potentially unleash a new round of terrorist attacks by the Taliban-supported Al Qaeda and other re-invigorated Islamic fanatics around the world. We don't know yet if this will happen, but the USA war cycles are coming around in circa 2025, which increases the odds of more US involvement in foreign wars then, and during the years that follow that will likely be the crisis climax. Many other tyrannical regimes have taken or ramped up their power in recent years, brutally squashing the world-wide uprising of the people for freedom and justice, and this could also spur US involvement abroad.

This potential war could coincide with the climate panic in the USA, which could consist of heightened left activism leading to Democratic victories in elections, and ramped-up Trumpist domestic resistance and terrorist attacks or violent militia-induced civil war, as much-greater and stronger measures to deal with the crisis are effected by the Left, including higher taxes, more gun laws, more restriction on fossil fuels, more regulations, more social welfare measures and wage hikes, and more restrictions or lockdowns to deal with covid if it still rages on.

If measures insisted upon by the Left are indeed instituted, and the right-wing resistance is broken, only then will we have at-least a recovery 1T starting in 2029-2030, with some continued activism and resistance during it, but less-drastic on both sides; just enough for a mild consensus; leading into a greater degree of activism that reaches deeper into our lives and communities in the next Awakening starting in circa 2047, powered by the next alpha-wave prophets. HOWEVER, IF Left activism fails in the 2020s, despite the obvious need for it, and resistance on any level succeeds, then we will have a "decline" 1T in which the nation has broken up and/or slides into an unstoppable retreat and failure that also engulfs the entire world. I think this very month, the challenge has been rendered. We act, or we lose.

The choice is ours; we either get on board with the true regeneracy that started with the resistance to Trump in 2017, and act so that it takes the needed measures 1)to start to move our whole society quickly beyond fossil fuel use and other environmental and climate harm, 2)to end neo-liberalism (trickle-down/anti-welfare/anti-tax economics) and return to a thoroughly fair economy in all its aspects, 3)to end our uniquely-American gun obsession and start to control guns, 4)to end the assault on democracy and institute the needed reforms so that the Left can win, as it would in any fair system, 5)to remove as fully as we can the vestiges of systemic racism, anti-immigration, police brutality and other prejudice, and also reduce crime, and 6)reply to any terrorist threats with competent and targeted action rather than incompetent and random nation-building or world war, or our nation fails its 4T crisis test for the first time in anglo-american history. Boomers must lead, Xers organize, and Millennials participate fully on all levels in society, all on the blue and green side, for this to happen. We must do it all, and we CAN do it.

[John J. Xenakis]

** 19-Aug-2021 World View: Covid-19 as regeneracy event

Guest Wrote:> John, given the universal shock/outrage over Afghanistan, could
> this be the regeneracy event? Or is an attack on the homeland
> absolutely necessary?

(08-17-2021, 05:07 PM)John J. Xenakis Wrote: > ** 16-Aug-2021 World View: Regeneracy event

> No, absolutely not. Believe me, when an ACTUAL regeneracy event
> occurs, you won't have to ask.

(08-18-2021, 04:02 PM)nguyenivy Wrote: > Should the COVID-19 pandemic being declared in March 2020 be
> considered at least the start of the regeneracy? The big thing I
> think it's doing even still now is getting everyone to evaluate
> their lives all around. While we have vaccines and they are
> working, it seems it's not fast enough to stop the momentum of
> what changed before the vaccines, like remote working for
> one. Recent news articles been changing their tune to 'living with
> COVID' and it overall becoming more of a long-term thing rather
> than the temporary crisis it was thought to be in its 1st
> year.

I would give the same answer as previously: When an ACTUAL regeneracy
event occurs, you won't have to ask.

In generational theory, the word "regeneracy" refers to events that
occur during a Crisis era that "regenerate civic unity" for the first
time since the end of the previous crisis war, in this case WW II.

It's obvious that Covid-19 has most definitely NOT regenerated civic
unity. To the contrary, Covid-19 has been extremely politically
divisive.

In fact, it's interesting that the Afghanistan catastrophe has done a
lot more to regenerate civic unity than Covid-19 ever did.

Still, it's an interesting question WHY Covid-19 did not generate
civic unity. After all, it was pretty much an act of war by China,
and that should have been enough. In fact, Trump immediately
identified it as the "China virus," which should have unified the
country against China.

I believe that it was a victory of Communist China's international
"United Front Work Department (UFWD)," which can be thought as China's
"civic unity," but much more powerful. The UFWD works through the
Chinese diaspora worldwide.

China's president Xi Jinping once used the term "magic weapon" to
refer to China's United Front Work Department. Officially it focuses
on building support for the Communist Party in China, but it's become
a coercive propaganda tool targeting Chinese globally, especially in
Australia, New Zealand, the U.S., and Canada, but in other countries
as well. The agency particularly surveils and targets Chinese
students abroad and foreign universities to adopt language that favors
pro-Beijing policies, such as delegitimizing Taiwan, and Western
ideals and values, such as liberal democracy, Christianity, or Falun
Gong.

So I believe that the divisiveness of Covid-19 on American politics
was a victory for China's UFWD. The Chinese have targeted many
American politicians (remember Eric Swalwell and Fang Fang and
remember Hunter Biden), and they used those relationships to describe
any criticism of China as "racist."

A good example of this occurred in February 2020, when the "highly
respected" journal The Lancet published a statement signed by 27
"scientists" saying, “We stand together to strongly condemn conspiracy
theories suggesting that COVID-19 does not have a natural origin."
They blamed the lab leak theory as a "conspiracy theory" advocated by
Trump. This is how the UFWD works with Western politicians,
especially Democrats. A few months ago, Democrats had to admit that
Trump was right and they were wrong, and it turns out that the Lancet
article was organized by a group being paid by the Chinese Communists.

So the Chinese Communists' manipulation of American politicians,
especially the Democrats, explains why an act of war like the Wuhan
Coronavirus was never accepted as a "regeneration of civic unity," but
instead served to be divisive.

On the other hand, the Afghanistan debacle is somewhat regenerating
civic unity, since the disaster affects both political parties, and
there's nothing like the UFWD interfering.

[John J. Xenakis]

** 19-Aug-2021 World View: Defending Taiwan

mps92 Wrote:> If China attacks Taiwan soon, Joe Biden could, in an effort to
> save face, shock the world by coming to Taiwan’s defense. This
> would certainly cause WWIII. John, do you see this as a
> possibility?

There's never been any doubt in my mind that the US would defend
Taiwan against an attack by Communist China. In my mind, I've thought
that the nature of the response would depend on circumstances --
immediate response vs a few days delay, for example.

It's assumed by many that a major part of China's strategy in an
attack on Taiwan would be to do so quickly, so that any delay in
America's response would be met by a fait accompli, and the
world would have to simply accept the new reality.

This idea was described in Chi Haotian's 2003 speech:

Quote:> "Take response to war as an example. The reason that
> the United States remains today is that it has never seen war on
> its mainland. Once its enemies aim at the mainland, these enemies
> would reach Washington before its congress finishes debating and
> authorizes the president to declare war. But for us, we don’t
> waste time on these trivial things. Comrade Deng Xiaoping once
> said, “The Party’s leadership is prompt in making decisions. Once
> a decision is made, it is immediately implemented. There’s no
> wasting time on trivial things like in capitalist countries. This
> is our advantage! Our Party’s democratic centralism is built on
> the tradition of great unity.”"
> http://gdxforum.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=63225#p63225

I think that one "lesson learned" from the Afghanistan catastrophe
will be the cost of delay. As the coup was unfolding, Bernie and
Psaki thought it too unimportant to interrupt their vacations, and
didn't plan to go back to Washington and address the problem
until .... today 8/19.

So I believe that if the Afghanistan catastrophe has any effect at all
on the American response to an attack by the Gongshi Blood Company on
Taiwan, it will be to speed up the response.

That's speculation, but there's no doubt in my mind that America would
defend Taiwan.

[Tim Randal Walker]

I would assume that a direct invasion (as opposed to a blockade) of Taiwan would be blitzkrieg. Accompanied by threats to use nukes on targets in Japan and South Korea.

Could North Korea launch a blitzkrieg of its own on short notice?

[Tim Randal Walker]

BTW, I wouldn't be surprised to see more terrorist attacks by Muslim Jihad/terrorists. Maybe not as spectacular as September 11th, but something comparable to Oklahoma City would be all too easy to imagine.

[John J. Xenakis]

** 19-Aug-2021 World View: North Korea blitzkrieg

(08-19-2021, 09:30 AM)Tim Randal Walker Wrote: > I would assume that a direct invasion (as opposed to a blockade)
> of Taiwan would be blitzkrieg. Accompanied by threats to use nukes
> on targets in Japan and South Korea.

> Could North Korea launch a blitzkrieg of its own on short
> notice?

Yes of course. North Korea, along the DMZ separating it from South
Korea, is bristling with thousands of weapons -- artillery and
missiles -- deployed along the border. They could all reach Seoul,
which is 60 km away.

(08-19-2021, 09:36 AM)Tim Randal Walker Wrote: > BTW, I wouldn't be surprised to see more terrorist attacks by
> Muslim Jihad/terrorists. Maybe not as spectacular as September
> 11th, but something comparable to Oklahoma City would be all too
> easy to imagine.

With the southern border of the United States completely open, it's
quite likely that jihadists are entering the country that way, and
preparing terrorist attacks on American soil. But don't worry.
They're not the biggest threat to America. Biden says the biggest
threat to America is Trump supporters.

[nguyenivy]

(08-19-2021, 07:21 AM)Eric the Green Wrote: Good analysis. As I see it, indeed the civil war 4T was longer (I date it as starting in around 1848-1850 and ending at the S&H-assigned date of 1865). The great war 4T was slightly shorter than normal as well, 1929 to 1946, but still almost normal. I think the saeculum is slowing down a bit since the "modern era" acceleration, which ramped up speed starting in the 18th century from the earlier times as "progress" began, but post-modern times since the mid-1960s is disillusion with progress, coupled with neo-liberal domination since 1980, so the saeculum is slowing down, giving us a longer than usual 3T and perhaps (we hope) a normal turning length for the 4T.

I agree the regeneracy started in 2017 with the alarm about our society having fallen under the leadership of a bumbling idiot racist neo-liberal on steroids, and thus ramping up of its harmful results, plus political polarization and renewed Left activism, leading to narrow Democratic victories in 2018 and 2020 and some government actions since 2020. Meanwhile this very month has been a declaration that we are in total meltdown. Covid has renewed its successful attack on humanity, especially in the USA. We don't know now whether covid will wind down, or continue much like the black plague did after its peak in 1348. In addition, the UN declared the world on the brink of collapse due to climate breakdown, unequivocally stating that it is humanity's fault, mostly due to our use of fossil fuels. The Trump side, the Republican side, has been denying and accelerating this climate crisis, which had already ramped up in two previous phases: the acceleration of gross national product since circa 1950 during the American Decade 1T, and the rise to power of neo-liberalism in circa 1980. How long the Trumpists and neo-liberalism can slow down or stop our dealing with this climate crisis may dictate exactly when we feel a crisis climax, when panic over climate breakdown truly sets in due to even-more rampant fires and floods and their possible economic impacts. Although the effects of global warming will be with us for decades to come, our regeneracy regarding it will be our decision to start reducing or reversing it.

In addition, the USA just lost its longest war, which could potentially unleash a new round of terrorist attacks by the Taliban-supported Al Qaeda and other re-invigorated Islamic fanatics around the world. We don't know yet if this will happen, but the USA war cycles are coming around in circa 2025, which increases the odds of more US involvement in foreign wars then, and during the years that follow that will likely be the crisis climax. Many other tyrannical regimes have taken or ramped up their power in recent years, brutally squashing the world-wide uprising of the people for freedom and justice, and this could also spur US involvement abroad.

This potential war could coincide with the climate panic in the USA, which could consist of heightened left activism leading to Democratic victories in elections, and ramped-up Trumpist domestic resistance and terrorist attacks or violent militia-induced civil war, as much-greater and stronger measures to deal with the crisis are effected by the Left, including higher taxes, more gun laws, more restriction on fossil fuels, more regulations, more social welfare measures and wage hikes, and more restrictions or lockdowns to deal with covid if it still rages on.

If measures insisted upon by the Left are indeed instituted, and the right-wing resistance is broken, only then will we have at-least a recovery 1T starting in 2029-2030, with some continued activism and resistance during it, but less-drastic on both sides; just enough for a mild consensus; leading into a greater degree of activism that reaches deeper into our lives and communities in the next Awakening starting in circa 2047, powered by the next alpha-wave prophets. HOWEVER, IF Left activism fails in the 2020s, despite the obvious need for it, and resistance on any level succeeds, then we will have a "decline" 1T in which the nation has broken up and/or slides into an unstoppable retreat and failure that also engulfs the entire world. I think this very month, the challenge has been rendered. We act, or we lose.

The choice is ours; we either get on board with the true regeneracy that started with the resistance to Trump in 2017, and act so that it takes the needed measures 1)to start to move our whole society quickly beyond fossil fuel use and other environmental and climate harm, 2)to end neo-liberalism (trickle-down/anti-welfare/anti-tax economics) and return to a thoroughly fair economy in all its aspects, 3)to end our uniquely-American gun obsession and start to control guns, 4)to end the assault on democracy and institute the needed reforms so that the Left can win, as it would in any fair system, 5)to remove as fully as we can the vestiges of systemic racism, anti-immigration, police brutality and other prejudice, and also reduce crime, and 6)reply to any terrorist threats with competent and targeted action rather than incompetent and random nation-building or world war, or our nation fails its 4T crisis test for the first time in anglo-american history. Boomers must lead, Xers organize, and Millennials participate fully on all levels in society, all on the blue and green side, for this to happen. We must do it all, and we CAN do it.

All 6 of those in what 8.5 years? I wonder how many of these will end up slipping up to solve in the 2T instead of now. Which of those fixes do you think the US will be able to actually implement during this 4T & which do you think will take longer to get a solid grip on?

[John J. Xenakis]

** 19-Aug-2021 World View: The Deep State

Cool Breeze" Wrote:> John, do you think the Deep State cares at all just how demented
> and stupid his EOs [Executive Orders] are, or otherwise? Or do
> they just laugh because they don't care about much but elitist
> games, not social chaos (which helps them)?

The "Deep State" are politicians that depend on support from public
opinion, and public opinion is changing.

There are factions. At the worst extreme are people like Ilhan Omar
and AOC who come from countries that hate America, and every day they
call back to the friends and family they left behind to brag about how
their job is to turn America into a third world country, and how
they're succeeding because the stupid Americans are listening to them

However, there are a lot of people who aren't nearly that extreme, but
have been guided by an emotional hatred of Tea Partiers, Trump, and
Trump supporters. However, these people have been peeled away by one
disaster after another -- crime in the streets, the southern border
disaster, defunding the police, and so forth.

Many of these people are now saying: I really hated Trump's tweets and
what he said, but he knew how to run things, and Biden sounds better
but he's a complete disaster.

The Afghanistan disaster is going to continue for months, perhaps
years.

I remember what happened with the Iran hostage crisis. Every day,
Walter Cronkite would start his newscast at 6:30 pm saying something
like the following: "Good evening! This is day 163 of the Iran
hostage crisis, and this is the news." Half an hour later, he would
say, "And that's the way it was on day 163 of the Iran hostage
crisis."

Yesterday, Joe Biden committed to keeping troops in Afghanistan until
all the Americans are out. Huh? According to different news
reports, there are 10K-50K Americans still in Afghanistan. 5,000 of
them are in Kabul, and maybe they can be pulled out. But thousands
more are in provinces and villages across the country. At any time, a
warlord can say, "We're going to torture and kill this American,
unless you do as we say."

So there won't be a daily comment by Walter Cronkite, but the
"Afghanistan hostage crisis" is likely to be in the news for a long
time, and Biden will be blamed for it. And this will force the "Deep
State" to change.

[Eric the Green]

(08-20-2021, 01:20 AM)nguyenivy Wrote:

(08-19-2021, 07:21 AM)Eric the Green Wrote: ...... I think this very month, the challenge has been rendered. We act, or we lose.

The choice is ours; we either get on board with the true regeneracy that started with the resistance to Trump in 2017, and act so that it takes the needed measures 1)to start to move our whole society quickly beyond fossil fuel use and other environmental and climate harm, 2)to end neo-liberalism (trickle-down/anti-welfare/anti-tax economics) and return to a thoroughly fair economy in all its aspects, 3)to end our uniquely-American gun obsession and start to control guns, 4)to end the assault on democracy and institute the needed reforms so that the Left can win, as it would in any fair system, 5)to remove as fully as we can the vestiges of systemic racism, anti-immigration, police brutality and other prejudice, and also reduce crime, and 6)reply to any terrorist threats with competent and targeted action rather than incompetent and random nation-building or world war, or our nation fails its 4T crisis test for the first time in anglo-american history. Boomers must lead, Xers organize, and Millennials participate fully on all levels in society, all on the blue and green side, for this to happen. We must do it all, and we CAN do it.

All 6 of those in what 8.5 years? I wonder how many of these will end up slipping up to solve in the 2T instead of now. Which of those fixes do you think the US will be able to actually implement during this 4T & which do you think will take longer to get a solid grip on?

I think we need to make some basic decisions to go in the right direction on these. The 4T is the time to make some big changes. Of course it will take many years afterward to fully implement and extend these remedies, but the challenge will be ongoing as we do.

[John J. Xenakis]

** 19-Aug-2021 World View: Severe damage

Xeraphim1 Wrote:> Technically North Korea could, but realistically the answer is
> no. North Korea's military equipment is aging and not well
> modernized or maintained. It's troops are indifferently trained
> and are more concerned with getting enough to eat. Fuel is in
> short supply, even for the army. The only area regularly receiving
> funds are the nuclear and rocket programs. In the meantime, South
> Korea has a defense budget around 30x that of North Korea and it's
> troops are well trained and equipped.

> North Korea could probably do some severe damage to Seoul for a
> couple of days, but after that it most likely would collapse. The
> purpose of the military in North Korea is to keep the Kim family
> and its cronies in power. The nuclear program is to keep it from
> being invaded.

Well ok, but I'm not sure how comforting that news would be to the
citizens of Seoul who have been in this forum in the past and
expressed fear of a North Korean attack. Isn't there an old joke to
be repeated here -- if you're killed by not-well-modernized equipment,
you're just as dead.

[John J. Xenakis]

** 19-Aug-2021 World View: Factions

Cool Breeze" Wrote:> Thanks for that. So for you, the Deep State is a not well
> coordinated government entity, loosely combining background
> players and bureacracies. Do you include the intelligence agencies
> in this - and second question - aren't they the most
> powerful?

We're actually seeing that already. The CIA, DoD and Biden himself
are making conflicting claims about whose fault the debacle is, and
what Biden knew and when he knew it. There's going to be a real
political storm over this catastrophe, especially when Congress gets
involved.

[John J. Xenakis]

** 19-Aug-2021 World View: Cackling

Jack Edwards" Wrote:> If the bad news just keeps coming, we will start hearing rumors of
> what we already know, that he's suffering dementia and the 25th
> amendment will start getting talked about.

> It's too incredible. I wouldn't have believed it if I wasn't
> seeing it.

And unfortunately, the cackling girl may be even worse.

[John J. Xenakis]

** 19-Aug-2021 World View: Cackling girl

Jack Edwards" Wrote:> The MSM would have to line up behind her. Bad political
> instincts, bad managerial skills - wow.. not a recipe for
> success.. but better/worse than dementia Joe? Couldn't
> say.

There's also the issue of loyalty -- to her president and to her
cause. Mike Pence didn't always agree with Trump, but he supported
Trump during difficult times. But we haven't heard a single cackle
from the cackling girl in weeks, even though she's supposed to be a
women's rights activist, and there are women's rights issues aplenty
in Afghanistan.

[John J. Xenakis]

** 19-Aug-2021 World View: Kamala's bunker

Jack Edwards" Wrote:> This amongst other things, like how she behaved when she was CA
> DA, leads me to believe there is no core. There is no loyalty.
> There is only power and paths to power. We have no idea how she
> would actually govern.

Well, she's just a girl, so we can't expect her to do a man's job.

It suddenly occurs to me that the Democrats are burying her the same
way that they buried Biden, hoping that she'll be ok when she emerges
from her bunker. It's exactly the same technique all over again.

[John J. Xenakis]

** 19-Aug-2021 World View: What was done wrong in Afghanistan

I've heard the same analysis on Fox, MS-NBC, and the BBC, so I'm
pretty sure that it's right, even though it's the analysis that Trump
has provided.

The following steps should have been taken in the following order:

• Remove the Americans and civilians
  
• Remove the diplomats
  
• Remove the weapons
  
• Remove the armed forces.

Instead, these steps were pursued in reverse order, starting with the
disastrous closing of Bagram airbase in the middle of the night,
leaving large inventories of weapons in the hands of the Taliban.

This was not just an American mission. It was a NATO mission. If you
listen to the BBC, the Brits are heartbroken and furious at Biden for
destroying the entire NATO mission without even consulting with the
other countries. They're talking about a new alliance of European
countries combined with Australia, New Zealand, and Japan.

[pbrower2a]

(08-19-2021, 03:03 AM)galaxy Wrote: I'll ramble for a bit...

(08-18-2021, 04:02 PM)nguyenivy Wrote: Should the COVID-19 pandemic being declared in March 2020 be considered at least the start of the regeneracy? The big thing I think it's doing even still now is getting everyone to evaluate their lives all around. While we have vaccines and they are working, it seems it's not fast enough to stop the momentum of what changed before the vaccines, like remote working for one. Recent news articles been changing their tune to 'living with COVID' and it overall becoming more of a long-term thing rather than the temporary crisis it was thought to be in its 1st year.

It certainly seems like one to me. 2019 feels more and more like the distant past. From here where we are in August 2021, 2019's society and culture increasingly looks almost more like 2007 than it does the present (though 2008 is still an obvious major shift). In some ways there's a feeling of people having "woken up" or broken out of some kind of holding pattern they were stuck in (trapped either by apathy or by circumstance), the shock of the pandemic having "shaken loose" many of the "stuck" parts of society. A good example of this is the current job situation, where people are now simply refusing to accept low-paying jobs anymore. While the legal minimum wage is still $7.25, the "cultural minimum wage" is now double that or more, a stark contrast to the fast-paced, nose-to-the-grindstone economic culture of 2019.

It's very clear even now that the pandemic has been and continues to be some kind of key turning point, whatever you want to call it. Howe has said that the regeneracy is an era rather than a moment (https://www.lifecourse.com/media/article...12015.html), so perhaps in this 4T the regeneracy coincides with the pandemic.

This, however, raises a new question. I've talked before about my theory that we have just passed the climax last winter and that the end of the turning is likely around 2025, but here's the thing...the regeneracy seems to occur before the climax. So our possibilities are:

1. This is not the regeneracy, however much it may look like one - either the regeneracy has already occurred, or we are near the end of it now, perhaps with the end (and climax) of the regeneracy more-or-less coinciding with the climax of the turning

or

2. The 11/3/20-1/8/21 period (2020 election to peak covid) was not the climax, however much it may have seemed like a climactic "final battle" of the culture wars with each side distilled to a near-caricature of itself

or

3. This 4T is somehow different from others, and the climax is somehow in the middle of the regeneracy, or, the regeneracy coincides with the resolution as a reaction to the climax (the closest thing to this would probably be the Civil War and the nature of the following 1T as being a "recovering" rather than "recovered" era - I have thought for a while that that Crisis may have extended beyond the end of the war, potentially through all of Reconstruction. This comparison can work really well with the interpretation of the current Crisis as being a Cold Civil War).


So let's examine these for a moment. #1 implies that the regeneracy has already occurred, and has either ended or is close to its end. So I see two possibilities for this:
- The regeneracy began gradually, probably setting in during Obama's first term but without a clear defining event*, and continued, gradually intensifying and being pretty intense by 2015, until the pandemic began. The pandemic is simultaneously the climax of the turning and a sort of climax of the regeneracy.

or

- The regeneracy began in 2016 (and we are near its climax now). According to the article I linked, the regeneracy involves "...something dramatic that unifies the country or causes the people to break into separate unified factions." If the 2016 election wasn't that, then I don't know what is. Since 2016, we have seen a huge increase in political involvement and engagement, with 2020 having the highest turnout in over a century, and major changes in the identity, composition, and ideology of the parties. The lines along which political battles are currently fought are very different from the battle lines of the Clinton/Bush/Obama era.

*2010 was also a large jump in political polarization, so perhaps there is a middle ground that can be found between these two possibilities.

The one big point against the idea of a pre-pandemic regeneracy is that the political parties seem to be the only "institutional" or "structural" things regenerated prior to 2021's economic "stimulus" (with as many non-stimulus things as possible packed into it) and pending infrastructure legislation. Even just last year, the postal service was being allowed to fall further into disrepair, through a very 3T-style mixture of neglect and attack on it, during what seemed to be the heart of a 4T.

However, "physical" institutions are only part of the picture. There was a behavioral shift to more 4T-ish patterns that was apparent as early as 2013 and became extremely strong in 2017, and I suppose the regeneracy need not affect all things that need to be regenerated at the same time. Perhaps we're seeing a progression, from partially regenerating behavior, to regenerating politics, to further regeneration of behavior, to regeneration of the physical world (government, institutions, etc).


Possibility #2, I don't even want to talk about. It's terrifying. For five years now, so many of us have been saying "how could it possibly get any worse?" before watching it get worse. I don't know if I can survive another five years of that. Anyway, the essence of it is that we experienced a very long lull since the start of the turning in 2008, and the start of the pandemic** is the spark that has begun the regeneracy, with the climax still to come and potentially years away.

**or the 2016 election, I suppose, doesn't make much difference really

Possibility #3 ties in to my past post about there being two types of 4T. One type ends triumphantly with a strong, confident, "reconstructed" society. The other ends with the national mood being one of relief rather than victory. People say "I'm just so glad that's over" rather than "yeah, we did it!". It is a 4T that was survived rather than defeated, with the work of rebuilding still to be done (which will be done during the 1T, and the 2T will begin once that work has been completed). Perhaps the nature of the regeneracy is different between these two types of 4T, and this current turning only seems unusual with its apparent "mid-regeneracy climax" because we have not seen a "normal-length" 4T of this type since this nation's founding until now (or, as I said above, perhaps the Civil War 4T went on longer than we think...1860 to 1876?)

Excellent analysis. I have known of events that seemed to mark the end of one era and the beginning of another, including the 2007-2009 economic meltdown, 9/11, Reagan's "Morning in America", and the consequences of Watergate. COVID-19 looks starker than any of the others. If there is no shooting war, there is the mass death characteristic of one. COVID-19 tests the competence of ideas that have not fully worked themselves out, and it is likely to force demographic changes with political consequences. 

Yes, demographics are everything in a political order in which identity is seemingly everything in political life. I wish that quality mattered more in the political choices (that is, votes) that people make. We need better than to vote for those who pander to our identity. 640,000 dead and counting... In my grim reckoning I quit counting off cities at Baltimore because there is a 40,000 gap in population to the next-larger city (Louisville, 29th)... but we COVID-19 deaths in America  surpassed Memphis and Detroit  for certain and most likely has surpassed Las Vegas (642,000 according to the 2020 Census (I was using the 2019 estimates until recently). COVID-19 has killed more people than live in the city that put America into the automobile, the 27th-largest city in the USA. Sure, Detroit is a dump, but do you know what is even worse of a dump than Detroit? 

Any mind that denies or trivializes the dangers of COVID-19, especially for some sick political agenda!  

Sorry about the rant.

The Trump cult isn't going away quickly, but if we have a genuine Regeneracy, then such will make his cult completely irrelevant. I look forward to seeing Trump banners used as dog blankets, as dogs don't understand politics. Do you really think that Fala, Socks, or Bo thought that there was anything unusual going on in their masters; lives? (OK, Socks was a cat, but close enough).

The polarization that has so marked and marred political life, ensuring gridlock, results from people voting on identity instead of results. Maybe we will get less fussy about insisting that the politicians for whom we vote are like us. 

Let's look at your possibilities:

Quote:1. This is not the regeneracy, however much it may look like one - either the regeneracy has already occurred, or we are near the end of it now, perhaps with the end (and climax) of the regeneracy more-or-less coinciding with the climax of the turning

In essence we have the Regeneracy delayed into the latter years of the Crisis. Powerful interests have sought to ensure that their sort of politics will prevail as long as is possible. These interests want rapid consumption of natural resources, development of inefficient real estate, privatization on the cheap to profiteering monopolists, further concentration of wealth and bureaucratic power within corporate behemoths, and the evisceration of trade unions. All of these are 3T practices, and 3T practices taken to their logical conclusions lead to economic calamity typically in the form of a panic. The economic order gets high profits without having to invest in plant and equipment and without the need of a consumer market. 

This time we arrested a second Great Depression (and the sesqui-year of economic decline from the autumn of 2007 to the spring of 2009 is nearly parallel to that of the sesqui-year beginning with the Great Stock Market Crash of 1929) by backing the banks. We still left plenty of businesses deemed "too big to fail". The most vulnerable of businesses (department stores and low-end casual dining) still failed. 

COVID-19 demonstrated that many of the arrangements that we have, including a reliance upon sweatshop working conditions to keep consumer prices down, has a high cost to pay, and not only in the misery of workers doing the work.  

Quote:Possibility #2, I don't even want to talk about. It's terrifying. For five years now, so many of us have been saying "how could it possibly get any worse?" before watching it get worse. I don't know if I can survive another five years of that. Anyway, the essence of it is that we experienced a very long lull since the start of the turning in 2008, and the start of the pandemic** is the spark that has begun the regeneracy, with the climax still to come and potentially years away.

  
So we may be captive to a part of the American economy and political structure that wants an unsustainable order and is able to patch things so that solutions that do not include the mitigation of social inequity, the end of crony capitalism, and the improvement of public services and infrastructure. COVID-19 demonstrates well that the ethos of "every man for himself" ensures the worst possible results. Neither pure socialism (Marxism-Leninism) nor pure individualism (Ayn Rand) can work. Both attract their devotees who fail to recognize the failures of both. We have dodged marxism well, but neoliberalism is much under the influence of Ayn Rand.
Liberals got the message about COVID-19 early; a disproportionate share of right-wingers did not. The anti-mask and anti-vaccine people are largely on the Right, and they have been the ones contracting COVID-19, spreading it, and dying of it. Their political culture will take a severe hit through the loss of their constituency of voters. One mark of a political Regeneracy will be political losses by the political figures tied to what will then be seen as old, stale, and ineffective ways -- often in unlikely places. When the Hard Right starts losing in places like Mississippi and North Dakota while making no headway elsewhere, then we will be in a political order very different from what we know.
I see the Michigan plot (a right-wing conspiracy to kidnap and apparently lynch the Governor of Michigan) and the Capitol Putsch as rearguard efforts to thwart political and economic change that the Hard Right dreads. I'm stopping there because I do not predict the results of criminal and civil trials and their consequences to persons, institutions, or economic interests.  

Quote:Possibility #3 ties in to my past post about there being two types of 4T. One type ends triumphantly with a strong, confident, "reconstructed" society. The other ends with the national mood being one of relief rather than victory. People say "I'm just so glad that's over" rather than "yeah, we did it!". It is a 4T that was survived rather than defeated, with the work of rebuilding still to be done (which will be done during the 1T, and the 2T will begin once that work has been completed). Perhaps the nature of the regeneracy is different between these two types of 4T, and this current turning only seems unusual with its apparent "mid-regeneracy climax" because we have not seen a "normal-length" 4T of this type since this nation's founding until now (or, as I said above, perhaps the Civil War 4T went on longer than we think...1860 to 1876?)

The same Crisis might have different results upon its participants. The Axis Powers awakened a sleeping giant in the USA. learning the hard way that the United States was, if not an Evil Empire, as dangerous an enemy as is possible if one misbehaves. To be sure, the Japanese mauled the USA badly in its one large colonial liability (the Philippines) which Americans already recognized would eventually have to be set loose. Britain somehow staved off Nazi rule, but found itself exhausted. Commonwealth countries (Australia, Canada, New Zealand, and South Africa) got nothing out of the war. Countries that ended up under Nazi or (thug) Japanese conquest in whole or part were ravaged severely. 
That is before I discuss the Axis Powers, all of which were defeated. Italy got off light, simply being divested of the Fascist regime. Finland got off as well as it could, becoming a military and diplomatic puppet of the Soviet Union without losing its formal democracy and capitalist system. Then again, Finland was less criminal than any of the Axis powers. Japan was defeated and divested of its colonial possessions, with its wartime leaders put on trial for their lives as war criminals. Germany was split between the Allies. Maybe it is possible to see heroic endings for Italy and Japan for achieving liberal democracy with some measure of stability if divested of any capacity for conquest and subjection of other countries. Conquest and subjection of other countries is a very bad habit, one that sober people surrender due to the harm to themselves at the least.  
This said, the Second World War demonstrated the vulnerability of colonial empires. The Dutch could not return to Indonesia; the French had at most a shaky hold on Indochina; the British would yield Burma to independence along with the whole of South Asia. Even the all-powerful America had to meet its promise of independence for the Philippines. 

As for military figures -- Eisenhower (34th President of the United States) and Homma (executed as a war criminal) could not have had different fates. 
....This Crisis Era is most likely approaching its end. Within four years of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Mussolini was executed by partisans with his cadaver dangling head-down, and Hitler and Goebbels had offed themselves in a fetid bunker. Himmler bit into a cyanide capsule rather than face judgment. Japan was under occupation and its wartime leaders other than Emperor Hirohito were in custody. Fascism in Germany, Italy, and Japan were dead once and for all. COVID-19 is already forcing social changes that will divide American history between pre-COVID and post-COVID, perhaps not to the extent of the American Revolution, the Civil War, or World War II. I expect much about American political life and its social consequences before COVID-19 to become unsupportable, irrelevant, and discredited. The political transformation of America that established a federal, constitutional Presidential republic occurred near the end of the Revolutionary Crisis. The progress of the Civil War mandated the abolition of slavery during the war itself. Major reforms of the American economic order that created political change that stuck happened early in the Crisis of 1940; it is easy to see the Marshall Plan as the New Deal in practice overseas. Few polities go through a Crisis Era without some huge transformation unless those countries have somehow evaded the Crisis. Anyone who expects us to go back to the norms of the last 3T is a fool.