09-17-2018, 10:58 PM
(09-15-2018, 11:22 AM)David Horn Wrote:(09-13-2018, 07:07 PM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote: I am not seeing the immediate triumph of my political values. In that I seem to be different from many who post here. Progress, maybe, but progress that can be blocked by autocratic dictators controlling a people with autocratic ideas. There are limits to what can be achieved, and it might well be good to recognize them.
I do find the military progress more easily influences values than non military. What could have helped or hurt the Consciousness Revolution? Some say the Manson killings hurt the hippie movement, but they occurred well after the Summer of Love. Some note the legend of Woodstock in promoting the best of Hippie values, but that the next rock concert featured Hells Angels as security, and pulled rock festivals away from the hippie ideal. Was that inevitable? Was sustaining the Woodstock ideal impossible?
The Consciousness Revolution was not a Liberal-Conservative axis movement. It was much more Authoritarian-Libertarian, and extremely libertarian at that. It was all about telling the man to take a hike, living the way you want to live, be it Buddhist commune dweller or rebel biker. Most of that energy went to the right, as the hyper-liberty nonsense began in earnest, and still resides there. The remnant on the communitarian side is small in comparison.
On the other hand, the liberty-lovers are not ideal allies of the Christian Right either, though they have made a pact to oppose the PTB. Both see coastal liberals as adversaries or even enemies. It's an uneasy alliance, and can be broken if the right ideas are presented by the right people in the right way: a lot of 'rights' there. This alliance of convenience is the result of 45 years of conservative effort to circle every wagon they can find.
The main hope for the fading away or defeat of the libertarian right, seems at the moment not the hippie libertarian left--- although it still exists, and the social aspects of the libertarian left are still powerful, as demonstrated in the legalization of marijuana in some blue states and the gay rights advances. The main hope lies in the fact that younger people don't relate either socially/culturally or economically to the libertarian economic (and gun-rights) right, because it has not worked out for them, and also in the increasing demographic diversity of the people.
The economic and pro-gun libertarian right may be allies of the Christian right, but its Republican Party now belongs to Donald Trump and his third wing. The main tenet of this program is to resist this increasing diversity as strongly as possible, principally by shutting off its main source: immigration. But so much immigration has already occurred that the horse may have already been let out of the barn: thanks to the pro-immigrant ideals of JFK and their implementation back in the 2nd turning, along with the liberation of other ethnic groups at that time. But the nationalists and racists that oppose these trends are getting older, while the younger generations are much more diverse and accepting of these demographic and cultural changes. The nationalist/racist right wing and their Christian-right and libertarian-economic right allies have put impressive barriers in place in our (former) democratic system to try to hold back this tide and make America white again. I don't see the Trump/GOP brakes holding in the 2020s, but we'll see.
As I stated before many times, the best scenario I see in our 4T era is for the left to take power during the 2020s, and opposed by a rebellion whose violence will be limited to a relatively short uprising by the pro-gun, anti-tax and anti-diversity fanatics in the red states. Secession may occur, but the violence may be corralled before the 1T starts in circa 2028. The Trump base will linger, but my suspicion and hope is that its power will only be enough to make a 4T crisis climax exist, beyond which a relative, but not complete, consensus will lead us into the future.
