09-18-2018, 09:04 AM
(09-17-2018, 10:58 PM)Eric the Green Wrote:(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 'hippie libertarian Left' is facing the same problem as the Boomer (often fundamentalist or evangelical) Right: it is getting old... and it will die off at roughly the same time. The rise of the 'hippie Libertarian Right' will be among people to be born at the earliest in the 2020s after the Crisis of 2020 is nearly over and for about a score of years afterward. That generation will be about as separate in time from the Boom Generation as the Boom Generation was from the Missionary Generation. The earliest-born Boomers (1943) were born sixty years and a day after the last Missionaries (1882). That people sixty years older can have influence upon children is more possible today than when life expectancy was shorter... but it is safe to say that anyone who tries to push the agenda of the Boom Awakening upon children will be one sort of adult that parents do not want as an influence. This agenda was never good for children (ask Generation X about that, and it will have more influence upon children born in the 2030s than Boomers will).
The fault with the Boomer Right is its narrow ethnic and cultural base. Middle-class minorities might have some shared interest with the Right about taxes, but not with the anti-intellectualism of the Right. People who share its anti-intellectualism go nowhere vocationally; they are well-suited perhaps to be clerks, servants, or laborers. If we once needed a healthy criticism of wayward professors, experts, and advocates capable of as much crankiness as proles, the crass anti-intellectualism of the Hard Right attacks science and valid inquiry. Diverse as Asian groups are, they seem to share a respect for formal learning. The black bourgeoisie certainly does not want its progeny to revert to ways of poverty that arises from intellectual laziness. The fast-growing Hispanic component of the middle class may admire parents who did horrible jobs for survival and to allow them to stay in school... and does not want its children to endure much the same hardship.
Let's not forget that the middle class includes white people with similar attitudes toward education. Such might promote ethnic assimilation, but only within the middle class.
Quote: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.
The 'gun-rights' clique has allowed itself to believe that liberal 'gun-grabbers' are out to take away their right to sport hunting or target shooting. But note that liberals generally have no qualms about sport hunting or its culture. Liberal concern is with people who have no appropriate use for firearms.
Quote: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.
I see an even better result. I see support for Donald Trump cratering in polls. I see him as an amoral fanatic, a hazard to us all. He hurts the sensibilities of people who should never be targets of bigotry. This man mocks the handicapped, which has long been a taboo in American life. I see quadraplegia, and I see myself one vehicle crash, fall, or industrial accident away from being in the same situation. I see a white cane and I see 'there but for the Grace of God go I'. Americans have much more empathy for the handicapped or disabled than they do for the poor in general, let alone for addicts and alcoholics.
I do not predict polling trends (I let polls tell the story), but so far I have seen President Trump doing little to attract new supporters... although the polarization that we have in American life has tended to allow him to unload different offenses against the same people who were never going to vote to re-elect him in 2020. Such is bad, but not incompetent politics. Tariffs and the trade war that ensues can hurt more people, and that is how 46% of the electorate voting for him can go to 40%. That already looks bad and incompetent. Nominating for the Supreme Court someone who is under accusation of rape (even if as a juvenile) is also bad and incompetent. Trump started much closer to getting 40% in the next election than did Carter (50% in 1976), let alone Hoover (58%). Not only did he get a smaller share of the popular vote than did Hillary Clinton, he also got less than Romney in 2012, McCain in 2008, or Kerry in 2004... he got little more than Dukakis in 1988.
Yes, miracles can happen even if they are disasters for America. Dubya seemed likely to be a one-time hack before 9/11, and he managed to lose the good will that he had gained from that -- but not before getting re-elected, if barely. The people around Trump are far less competent (as if anyone could see that coming) than those around Dubya.
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.
