09-23-2018, 05:23 AM
(06-27-2018, 01:53 PM)David Horn Wrote:(06-26-2018, 07:33 PM)Eric the Green Wrote: The idea that the US-Vietnam War, the Pentagon Papers about it, or Watergate as its domestic reflection, have left no impact on younger people, is saying that younger people do not know any history today. That's possible, but it's also true that "when you lower the bar, it tends to stay down barring a major effort to raise it back to its former place" "with nothing having been done to offset the negative effects". Many young people also have parents were were involved or injured by the war in some way or involved in the protests against it, so this is one reason it may still be an influential source of today's attitudes.
The best logical conclusion of such a level of distrust in the government, is that the government is substantially changed or overthrown. That is what the sixties radicals proposed all along. The younger generations will now be the power behind this possible logical outcome. This 4T, to be fulfilled, must be a revolution.
Symbolically, this is echoed in the cycles of our planets in 2022 by the first-ever Pluto Return to its place in 1776 since King George was taken down as ruler of America.
But a violent revolution by the left against the state is a likely fail. A movement that results in dynamic and substantial change through revitalized elections is more likely, and demographic shifts seem to support it despite the efforts of the current so-called president and the Supreme Court to stem the tide. The violence then would come from the right, as it did in the civil war. And it should be more-easily suppressed this time...
I agree that a violent revolution is out. It won't work -- not today, at least. So that leaves the slow, messy political process, which has been purposely gummed-up by the GOP. To get anywhere from here, we need at least 2 election cycles to get enough change in the Senate to prevent yet more loses in the SCOTUS (Note: Anthony Kennedy just waved-out, so Trump gets two appointments at least). Assuming that the progressive wing of the Dems is able to win big in 2020 and move things along, having a majority in both Houses of Congress and the Presidency, the way is still blocked by a right-wing court.
Reapportionment happens in 2021, so the 2022 elections will have newly drawn districts, but the GOP will still have the courts to block the new maps (this is based on the already obvious extremes the court is willing to go to keep things Republican and the relative youth of the conservative members of the court). Can the Dems do today what FDR could not in 1937 and add a few additional seats to the SCOTUS? Unlikely.
So we march out of the 4T having achieved a stalemate at best.
Stalemate? No. Stalemate is the end of the game (chess), one in which opposing sides are locked in an unsatisfying position. One side is spared a loss that the other side probably could have inflicted with better play, and the other side is denied what may have seemed a likely win... or both sides are practically defeated for having no means of winning.
It's more like Zugzwang, a situation in which both sides seem evenly matched, but one side is compelled to make a move that puts him in defeat. Chess is a complex game, but it is emotionally brutal. So is politics. Maybe you remember me saying at one time that Obama plays chess and his opponents play slots. Maybe we will find out in 2020 which other Democrat plays the political equivalent of chess. Donald Trump is reckless enough that he could never play chess. Obama is no longer President and will not be again, but as President emeritus he could have a role practically as Minister without Portfolio. He is a decent-enough fellow, but you do not want him as an enemy, as Osama bin Laden demonstrates.
The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated Communist but instead the people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists -- Hannah Arendt.