07-31-2016, 08:36 PM
(This post was last modified: 07-31-2016, 08:36 PM by Eric the Green.)
(07-30-2016, 02:22 PM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote:(07-30-2016, 02:10 PM)Eric the Green Wrote:(07-21-2016, 07:27 AM)Anthony Wrote: No one wants to see that happen - but the destigmatization of treason that the Boom Awakening played host to makes it exponentially more likely to happen.
I admit, you do have a point there. Rhetoric of revolution escalated during the 2T. Fanaticism on the right followed suit during the 3T. Nowadays there is less respect for our American laws and institutions.
The intensity of the spirals of rhetoric and violence is high, but not building to a violent internal 4T high, at least not yet. The Revolutionary and Civil War spirals went all the way, over the top, into all out military violence. While people don't like to take the threat of a 1930s era American Communist Revolution seriously, Senator McCarthy in the 1950s found an awful lot of intelligent well intended folks that thought democracy and capitalism had failed America in the 1930s. That spiral fell short, however, quashed by the perceived success of the New Deal.
Yes, there were riots in the recent 2T and incidents like Waco and OKC in the 3T. We've got Black Lives Matter and the police with their traditional abuse of the justice system glaring each other down today. Still, the 2T and 3T spirals are long dormant, not escalating, and the racial justice confrontation is drawing far more 'this has got to stop' rhetoric than 'they got one of ours, let's take out two of theirs.' While spirals of rhetoric and violence should always be watched, read your history and try for some objectivity when judging just how far a spiral has advanced.
It's quite possible we will muddle through, and there's enough sense so that enough good decisions are made that we'll pull through the crisis era. Sometimes, I must admit, I am over-the-top in proclaiming the demise of civilization and American society if Republicans aren't defeated soon, etc. There will always be some people around who hold up what I consider progress.
No doubt that today's Republicans are beyond the pale in that regard. But life moves on, and we can't permanently wipe out conservatives. I do hold that progress exists, and has been made; that the arc of history bends toward justice. But ways of war and violence, while they may be necessary at times, do not bring us permanent peace. It does take, I think, broader views of ourselves and what we are capable of, that go beyond conventional viewpoints; that we need to raise our consciousness in all senses of the term. As humanity does this, peace and progress will get easier.