Goodbye, "3 1/2 T"

[TeacherinExile]

(08-06-2020, 09:08 AM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote:

(08-05-2020, 11:11 AM)TeacherinExile Wrote: But before I could deem 9/11 as the beginning of a crisis era, I would have to read an analysis that makes a clear connection between 9/11 and subsequent crises, dot by dot: the Crash of ‘08, whose effects were trans-Atlantic; and COVID-19 which, as a pandemic, is truly global in scale.  All three crises can be attributed in varying degrees to a pattern of unpreparedness.  But there remain missing links, at least in my mind, as to how a Global War on Terror leads on directly to the Great Recession, and then to a public health crisis, twelve years later.  I can only make a weak case connecting 9/11 to the 2007 housing bust, which I would base on the “advice” Bush II gave us in the immediate aftermath of 9/11.

What I do contend is that either 9/11 or the Financial Crash of ‘08 has to mark the beginning of the Fourth Turning crisis. To mark the start, instead, at 2020 with COVID-19—36 years after Reagan’s re-election in 1984...well that just screws up the whole timing of the theory, in my opinion.

Sort of a tentative link.  September 11 provided an excuse for the Iraq War.  Bush 43 was concerned with the 'no new taxes' pledge which hit his father, so did not pay as well for the war as he could.  This may have effected the housing bubble blowing up as it did.  It is more than a bit of a stretch.

But again there is the crisis generation alignment and the crisis heart, the latter of which used to be the time frame of the crisis war.  The generation alignment does not need an event to initiate.  It depends only on which generation is in elder control.  It is the crisis heart that depends on a trigger event which makes the old values obsolete.

There is no event that triggers the arrival of prophets into eldar status.

True, but I’ve never quite dismissed 9/11 as the beginning of a series of crises, even if each crisis is distinct as to cause and effect, as long as they all share a common era (2008-2030 or even 2001-2030). Neil Howe contends that the crisis could extend as far as 2030.

Whatever we may think of the weak links between 9/11 and the Financial Crisis of ‘08, they do have much in common: there were experts (“Cassandras,” if you will) who warned of potential danger but were ignored. Also, national commissions were later tasked with investigating what happened and why, and major legislation was passed and/or new agencies or cabinet-level department created to prevent similar crises from happening again. As for COVID-19, an epidemiologist was interviewed by a leading newspaper recently, a man who warned years ago that a pandemic like the novel coronavirus was not only possible but inevitable. So what each crisis has in common is that expert warnings went unheeded revealing a level of unpreparedness that is simply inexcusable.

In a previous thread on the old forum, I offered up the analogy (imperfect, perhaps) of an earthquake, where a series of foreshocks, each growing in intensity until finally you get the “Big One,” the main shock that wreaks total devastation. That’s how I see the series of crises since the turn of the century: first, a national security crisis (9/11) that largely affected only the U.S.; a financial crisis (2007-2008) whose scope was trans-Atlantic; and now a public health crisis (disaster, really) on a truly global scale. And at least where our country’s response was concerned, each crisis handled ineptly.  It reminds me somehow of that old song “Shout” by the Isley Brothers where they repeat the chorus line “a little bit louder now” over and over, until finally the song reaches a crescendo. Kind of makes me wonder if an even bigger shock is coming...

So, again, whether we date the beginning of the crisis turning at 2001 or 2008, we cannot date the beginning at 2020, simply because the pandemic strikes many people as the “Big One.” That would imply an unraveling era stretching from 1984 to the present, a time span so long (36 years!) that it encompasses almost two generations. According to S&H theory, that just cannot be.