10-02-2020, 01:55 AM
(09-12-2020, 01:26 AM)Classic-Xer Wrote:(08-03-2020, 09:24 PM)RadianMay Wrote:(08-03-2020, 07:56 PM)pbrower2a Wrote: History moves quickly in the final stage of a 4T. In early 1942 Americans had the great dread that as the Japanese seemed to be invincible in their conquests, and that it would not be long before Americans had to fight the Japanese in Australia. The Soviet Union was fighting for its very existence just west of Moscow. The Nazis seemed entrenched, possibly forever, along the "Atlantic Wall". By late 1944 Nazi Germany was obviously doomed, and most people recognized that "Japan, you're next" was no idle boast.
That is how wars go.
Politics? I predict that after Trump is defeated, America will turn to much-needed reforms at the least to humanize a capitalist order that has become at best a deceitful Vanity Fair and at worst threatens to become an aristocratic order in which birth is everything and talent is largely irrelevant.
I agree with your assessment that the latter part of a 4T seems to go faster than the first part. If S&H was right, we still have a decade to go, and this has already been a long year. Hopefully we manage to identify the root the problem and tackle it best we can. Climate change also cannot wait until the next 2T to be settled. I think we need institutions with real power to tackle this problem at its root, like carbon tax (corporate interests are way too strong right now to implement this), and a complete rethink of our energy and transport infrastructure.
What If S&H were off by a decade and this is just the beginning and there's 20 more years of crisis to go? Me, I'd start fast and quickly settle our obvious differences here and then slow down and take our time with China. I'm sorry for interrupting the Liberal discussion, feel free to continue expressing wishful thoughts with other wishful thinkers and do your best to avoid me and ignore me as much as possible.
It is possible to see the Crisis beginning as early as 2005, with the second war in Iraq going from the effort to overthrow Satan Hussein to a nasty stalemate fighting the ISIS insurgency in Iraq. That is also when Hurricane Katrina strikes an ill-prepared New Orleans. Then America has the worst economic meltdown in eighty years, one that at first looks much like the first year and a half of the 1929-1932 collapse. So the economic collapse is stalled and things go back somewhat back to normal. The economy grows out of a near-depression, but almost steadily the Hard Right takes over, culminating in the rise of Donald Trump.
COVID-19 has already killed over 200,000 people in America, and it is not going to go away easily. Only a fool thinks that "like a miracle, it will magically disappear".
Guess what happened yesterday: President and First Lady Trump both tested positive for COVID-19. He had to cancel a rally. Now we know why.
COVID-19 kills. I don't have to tell you except in clinical terms that Donald Trump is at risk due to age, obesity, and who knows what else. The White House could have a pair of ventilators fairly soon. None of that is magic. Only fools bet on miracles or live in ways that require miracles for survival.
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.