Presidential election, 2016

[playwrite]

(07-13-2016, 10:40 PM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote:

(07-13-2016, 09:25 PM)pbrower2a Wrote:

(07-13-2016, 02:35 PM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote:

(07-13-2016, 11:40 AM)pbrower2a Wrote: When people making huge incomes off sweetheart deals with the federal, state, and local governments; people making easy money as landowners and landlords while living off low-touch investments; executives being paid very well for treating subordinates badly; and shysters operating legitimized rackets (licit loansharking) go down -- that's when the economy works for workers instead of working for everyone but working people. But beware: that is an America in which our cities resemble Berlin in the summer of 1945.

While I won't disagree that things could get real ugly, I don't know that even Occupy and Black Lives Matter together could match the bomb carrying capacity of the Eighth Air Force.

Could. Another possibility is something like the French Revolution. Is the Millennial Generation as hostile to entrenched elites? Will it have a choice to be otherwise?

I'm not sure about that.  The Eighth and their companion units dropped a lot of bombs.

I also think that before the Millenials (and don't count out the other generations contributing) mount a full scale revolution, the ballot box will produce at least one truly radical president.  If FDR's efforts hadn't worked I suspect there would have been a Communist insurrection.  

Right now there is a lot of denial of the violence.  A lot of willful disbelief.  The shooters are described as lone nuts, troubled to insane, not a single courageous man of conviction among them.  Playwright paints 'ammosexual' with a broad brush, and he is not entirely unrepresentative of how folks think about those who are turning to violence.  Those using violence are sick and disturbed rather than seeing a sick and disturbed culture than needs to be changed.  The notion that the People could use force to change the culture is sneered at.  Thus, I feel safe in saying the spiral of violence hasn't really gotten underway, not when you compare it with the Berlin 45 photo above.  I do take Berlin 1945 and Atlanta 1864 as examples of how bad things have to get before people will consider letting go of their world views, or might surrender to superior force and go along with the progressives, still thinking blacks ought to be slaves or that Hitler should have found a way to complete his plans.

Think about how we are talking past each other, not hearing what each other are saying, not comprehending the perspective that makes other believe so intensely the opposite of one's own opinion.  What does it take to make someone with strong values change their mind about pushing their politics and world views?  See Berlin 1945 or Atlanta 1864.

I really hope that some elected progressive president gets a Congress that can be worked with before we start comparing bomb tonnage with the Eighth.  There seems to be time yet.  The rejection of terror as a domestic political tool was very strong after OKC and again after September 11th.  That could change.  Right now, after a cop kills a black, or after a black kills a cop, the dominant message is "This has to stop."  If the spiral was escalating, the dominant response would be to get a bunch of people together and kill enough of those other guys that they will be forced to back down.  That's how a true spiral works.  That's what it takes for a true 4T crisis transformation to resolve.  Thus, I don't think the spiral is really cooking up yet.

We've had a few T4T posters talk about violence.  Not many.  I see it as possible.  I don't see it as desirable.  I don't think folks ought to get enthusiastic about a all out violent 4T crisis until they have some clue about what they are fighting for.  Yes, we need to check the power of the elites.  What does one want to do to check the power of the elites?  I'd be tempted to start by never voting for anyone to takes corporate campaign financing, repeal Citizens United, and go on from there.  Bernie had a fine agenda as well.

But before one tears down, before one starts thinking like the Eighth Air Force, one might want some real idea of what should be rebuilt on top of the ruins.

Let me clarify a couple things here for you.

Ammosexuals are a sick and disturbed sub-culture in our society.  They are single issue oriented on the supposed right of  access to high-powered military grade guns.  If you peel back the onion, a lot of them have irrational fear of government, but many just get off on having high powered weapons, period.  This single issue/position blinds them to any and all other concerns.  There may be a tiny segment, as with any sick and disturbed subculture, that would be insane enough to become a mass killer, but the vast majority will not.  Rather, they are enablers, and they don' give a shXt if they are because of the single issue that drives them.  Capche? 

Taking political and legal steps to remove the access to high-powered military grade access will NOT result in your so-called spiral of violence.; it will actually reduce the potential.  One problem I have with you is your implying that limiting access tot these weapons will lead to a shXtstorm and therefore we should just resign ourselves to the status quo that provides unlimited civilian access to military weapon platforms regardless of the mass shootings that will come our way.

The bigger problem I have, however, is your assumption that the real road to true resolution is to change each other's minds and come to some rational compromise.  That's not how 4T's resolve; they resolve because one side wins and the other side loses - that doesn't necessarily always require the scale of violence of a WW2.  But more importantly, lots of issues, whether or not part-and-parcel of a 4T, do NOT get resolved by compromise but by clear wins and loses.  Why do you insist that gun restrictions are going to either have to be resolved by 100% consensus or by violent revolution?  That sure seems like it would come from someone very comfortable with the status quo.