(05-28-2018, 07:54 AM)Eric the Green Wrote:(05-28-2018, 12:13 AM)TheNomad Wrote:(05-27-2018, 09:36 PM)pbrower2a Wrote: The 1T begins when the winners consolidate their position in the world for the rest of their lives, and establish that people go along or become losers. This might be a low time for Humanity should the Crisis wreck the world. As shown in Franco's Spain, Mainland China, and most countries of central and Balkan Europe, it can be a time of crushing repression on behalf of those who achieve power.
It is a High if most things go well. The heroic Civic generation (Republicans after the American Revolution, the Gilded --sort of -- at least in the North they took over the Civic/Hero role, and GI Generation after WWII) establish the cultural and institutional norms for all. Confident (perhaps excessively so) after their great triumph, they show a love for doing things on a big scale. They are bland.
Shortages vanish, and people feel prosperous again. Children get a new birth of indulgent child-raising, nothing hardscrabble like that that the living Civic/Hero generation knew. (Think about it -- childhood for most GI kids was terribly deprived by current standards. GI adults made America much of what it is now even if they are no longer participants in making it what it is. That's a High.
A 1T can also be a mind-numbing nightmare of rigid conformity and dehumanization.
You said: A 1T can also be a mind-numbing nightmare of rigid conformity and dehumanization.
Boy am I aware of that. And as a Nomad who comes from a complete disdain for rigid conformity, I am ready for some. The times of wild rockers and rappers and a generation that looks like shit, fraks everyone and pierces everything, covers their body in ink, losers (lol) who smash xanax to snort it because they are bored.............. I'm ready for Donna Reed and even The Brady Bunch. It's a small price to pay for a generation of SUCK music and mass conformity. Speaking of music that sucks, I would swear that has already been for a long as I can recall. People who don't seek out the exotic have been getting the shaft in almost all respects of mass media.
I get raked over the coals for saying all that. I agree.
I feel like this is appropriate for the quest for a new Turning. A little about my motivations? I knew some folks directly affected by the crash into the towers in NY, I had two friends that died in the post-911 wars. A relative of mine is from Algeria who was studying in France to be an engineer. He's not muslim, but his skin is dark enough and his "origin nation" was enough to get him detained somewhere in Europe while trying to re-enter the U.S. for a wedding (even though he's an American citizen with a passport). His whereabouts were unknown for an unreasonable amount of time. His wife was terrified.
I already told a little bit of the story how on 911 I drove to work and within 10 minutes, the entire building was emptied... no one knew why... we were the biggest radio conglomerate in America at the time... there is ALREADY a huge remote broadcast in the parking lot with flags all over the building the size I'd never seen before. Flags everywhere. Red White and Blue balloons. All within perhaps 45 minutes after the second plane. Without instruction, the remote begins playing the Star Spangled Banner. Well before the idea of "taking a knee" if felt like you may get pummeled if you don't stand there like a gold ole American with your hand on your heart. BTW: on the way to my work, there were snipers on top of the federal buildings near mine, TANKS guarding the entrance.
It was OK to discriminate. It was GOOD to hate. A video got sent around the company of people throwing Qurans into a bonfire. Women with hijabs were taunted, AURAS were persecuted. And many, many Millennials went to war for it. First in Afghanistan, then in Iraq. Nomads were there too but no one cares about them. Millennials were 18 in Y2K and their beginning bracket fought for a good 8-10 years in that.
In 2000, I flew up to San Luis Obispo municipal to see some friends. I was given as a gift of 2 large 4ft hand-carved sconces from Italy as a gift. I simply carried them onto the plane with me. In 2001 I was forced to take off my FLIP FLOPS while passing through the checkpoint lasting about 3 hours. Dissent became illegal in America. Speech and protestation was censored to the extreme. American citizens living communally with islamic affiliations were hunted by the government as potential future suspects.
The next few years were not sad bad. I'm not someone, luckily, who looks like a "suspect", I don't follow prayer call, and I really don't give a shit about radical political affiliations. Then I bought property in 2006. 4 years later I was about to lose it, declared bankruptcy, lost my job, and saw friend after friend moving away from a place they had lived most of their life or most of their adult life. I could go into great detail about probably 5 different people but it's all kind of the same. They owned property - rentals even. They may not have been wealthy but they were living comfortably and working hard for it.
I must tell the biggest story because it means something to me. A family who lived near the ocean, they loved it, they were the kind of people who went to the tide pools every weekend. They formed a business that was the first of its kind of their state. A unique business. They were able to buy more property in a coastal tourist town and a STORE in the little tourist town. They were the kind of people we saw so much of, where a family owns a farm or large plot of land for GENERATIONS and suddenly, they are accepting minimum wage to clear out their generations-full of "junk" the banks wants removed before they can clean it up and sell it. My friends were those kind of people. They bank told them they needed to get out and eventually they listened out of fear. For me, luckily I was able to hold out and not lose the little I had acquired in terms of property. They were not the kind of people to hire lawyers or put up fights. They lost their first home and moved to the second. The bank came for that one too. Through all this, they were going to the landfill getting rid of everything they could in order to move elsewhere to SURVIVE. They moved yet again property where they might re-kindle their business and survive there. No such luck. They moved into ANOTHER property they owned through a relative. It ended badly also.
Mind you, these were aging boomers with a HOST of medical ailments. One of them suffering from heart disease, bad kidneys and a history of stroke. NO HEALTHCARE during this time. One of the others was an 80yo grandmother suffering from all kinds of things I don't even know about and could barely walk. A niece who happened to be a nurse flew out to ride with them in their 15yo mini-van and all the belongings they had in a small U-Haul (these are the people who gave me Italian Sconces!) so she could provide medical care by means of available drugs and an oxygen tank. These particular people lived in homes with gaping marble fireplaces and Monet on the wall.
Steinbeck's GRAPES OF WRATH anyone?
They ended up taking a few small rooms inside a ramshackle farmhouse with distant relatives in Montana when none of them had even seen snow before. In their elder age. 2 of them died there not long after.
I know people who lost their jobs and careers anywhere from 2008 to 2015 who never returned into the traditional workforce. They make ends meet how they can. But some of them have fallen from great heights. From owning bungalo homes where the rent paid for the all their expenses to now they moved away to some god-awful place and now work as prison security and pay rent on a 1br apartment. Relationships severed, divorce, children OF the divorce.
These are just some of the reasons I feel like many people simply do not see or are very lucky to have avoided such calamities. These are also the same people who say "we haven't had the full Crisis yet". What I described in such limited detail I have seen the Crisis.
I just don't want any more of it. I always said I would never sacrifice freedom for security. It seems we all change as our archetype moves through the age brackets. Right now, I am holding up my freedom asking for some of it to be taken so that institutions will stop frakking me at every turn. The book has it right Nomads assume no one is in charge because no one is in charge. I want someone to be in charge.
I want to go to stores where people actually know about the merchandise. I want to go to a fast food restaurant where I don't have to check the bag to make sure what I ordered is in there. I want to call a customer service representative who instead of reading a script actually knows how to help me. I want the END of dystopia like handmaid's tale and westworld where things are SO bleak and full of peril I'm subconsciously affected when I try to sleep.
HOW did people rest watching the 3 networks with their B&W family shows where everything ended right, your neighbor was not a pedophile and the milk man was a good guy you enjoyed seeing every morning with a smile. I bet they didn't need sleeping pills or heroin. They slept just fine.
PEOPLE WERE EXCLUDED BACK THEN! Not everyone had a part of that American Dream. More could now. I'm sick of all the darkness and destruction. It's beginning to permeate everything. I'm usually ahead when it comes to trends, that is why when I speak to others who have nothing but complaints I try to offer that glimmer.
Honestly, I said this because the study of the saeculum has offered me hope. Things do happen in cycles. We think it will keep going down into the abyss. Some here have even said "possible end of America!". I can't see it. Could be because I won't see it. But moreso because I've evaluated what I've seen over this past Crisis and Not just I hope it is on the way out but I actually think it is.