11-15-2018, 04:06 PM
(11-15-2018, 03:38 PM)pbrower2a Wrote: What will be purged?Re: #1: This doesn't happen just during a 4T. During the midst of the last 2T both Nixon and Spiro Agnew got knocked off their perch as did some lesser figures such as Carter's budget director Bert Lance.
1. Corrupt politicians. They usually get knocked out of political life, but no time like a Crisis exposes and discredits them due to gross failure.
2. Bad business practices. The economic stresses of a Crisis Era make shady practices unsustainable and make bad business models implode. Toys 'R' Us died of debt, and Radio Shack died of neglecting a purpose that served it well and might still serve it well.
3. Outmoded habits and institutions. The traditional department store seems to be dying, many venerable ones having been merged into survivors (as in Hudson's into Marshall Field's and in turn Macy's) or going bankrupt (Montgomery-Ward, Mervyn's, Bon-Ton, American Apparel, and now Sears -- and I suspect JC Penney fairly soon). The turnover in tech firms has always been high. Restaurants? Rumor has it that many high-profile casual dining places will go under because people can cook a meal in a microwave oven instead of going into a restaurant. Yes, I miss Bennigan's, Steak and Ale, Perkins'. and Bill Knapp's. On the other hand, Big Boy was awful -- fast food not very good. People can get away with behaviors such as impulse shopping in good times, but in bad times people can no longer get away with it. Hardships of a 4T tend to knock out the overpriced and overrated.
As for cable TV -- people are looking for alternatives. Someone who can find a less expensive way to put entertainment into our houses will be richly rewarded.
4. Bad mass culture. Note well that as the Crisis of 1940 approached its climax, Americans gravitated to an omnibus culture that people could enjoy irrespective of region, religion, age, ethnicity, and even level of education. Consider that Big Band music is still highly listenable, and most movies from about 1940 (especially the Miracle Year 1939) are still enjoyable. Someone like me who disparaged special effects as substitutes for good script and acting saw some movies by Marvel studios and has begun to sing a different tune.
The movies are expensive enough to make that bad ones that have 'cult' audiences will fail at the box office. Eighty years after the Miracle Year of American Cinema? That corresponds to the 80-year cycle exactly (if possibly too precisely).
5. Bad political memes. The low levels of approval for Donald Trump demonstrate that even though he won in an electoral freak, he is widely disparaged. With approval around 40 and disapproval approaching 60, some people to the right of the political spectrum find this arch-conservative pol objectionable. People backing him in the House have been knocked off in big numbers in 2018 -- and I will reserve judgment about 2020. America is ready for an omnibus politician, and conservatives are having to reorganize to develop an attractive ideology that does not include the quirks of Donald Trump. If we should end up in a war, we are going to find many quickly-trained military officers who learn the academy honor code, formulated differently in the Service Academies, but essentially the same in meaning:
DO NOT LIE, CHEAT, OR STEAL, and DO NOT TOLERATE SUCH AT ANY TIME!
We will see that applied to all professional activities, including medicine, engineering, research, teaching, accounting, journalism, law, and police work. People who lie, cheat, and steal or tolerate lying, cheating, or stealing will be disgraced and relegated to the economic trash heap -- or worse. In a Crisis Era there is just too much to lose for any inexcusable shortcoming. Honest mistakes that people learn from might have to be tolerated, but dishonest and corrupt behavior will be disastrous.
6. People will be included. People with genuine talent will be sought out and be expected to do their share -- often achieving what they never expected to do. Scapegoating will be a sign of incompetence.
7. Pessimism and any level of disloyalty will be unwelcome. Caution has its merits, but despair that comes with pessimism will serve us badly. If the 4T culminates in war, then plenty of opportunities will arise for treason.
...because merchants already have Christmas as the objective of marketing (I love Thanksgiving because it is a family get-together, it is accessible at all ages and in all classes, it is not overtly materialistic, it has nothing macabre or grotesque attached as does Halloween, it is reverent without being religious in objective, and it is not an excuse for heavy drinking) I can only think of one Christmas carol, arguably the darkest one of them and introduced in a dark time in American history (the Civil War):
I HEARD THE BELLS ON CHRISTMAS DAY
I heard the bells on Christmas Day
Their old, familiar carols play,
and wild and sweet
The words repeat
Of peace on earth, good-will to men!
And thought how, as the day had come,
The belfries of all Christendom
Had rolled along
The unbroken song
Of peace on earth, good-will to men!
Till ringing, singing on its way,
The world revolved from night to day,
A voice, a chime,
A chant sublime
Of peace on earth, good-will to men!
Then from each black, accursed mouth
The cannon thundered in the South,
And with the sound
The carols drowned
Of peace on earth, good-will to men!
It was as if an earthquake rent
The hearth-stones of a continent,
And made forlorn
The households born
Of peace on earth, good-will to men!
And in despair I bowed my head;
"There is no peace on earth," I said;
"For hate is strong,
And mocks the song
Of peace on earth, good-will to men!"
Then pealed the bells more loud and deep:
"God is not dead, nor doth He sleep;
The Wrong shall fail,
The Right prevail,
With peace on earth, good-will to men."
-- LONGFELLOW
I can only imagine what variant was sung in any British city during the Blitz, at Corregidor, or at Bastogne. Beast (especially "fascist beast" or "Nazi beast") and East obviously rhyme.
This is a 4T. The Wrong must fail, and the Right must prevail, as in the Civil War or World War II!