11-24-2016, 08:01 PM
(11-23-2016, 08:25 PM)Warren Dew Wrote:(11-23-2016, 07:09 PM)anandrajan Wrote: I just joined this forum after reaching it via googling for Kaiser, Bannon and the 4T. Apologies if this has all been hashed out before, but Kaiser's article in Time indicates that he thinks Bannon wants to engineer a horrible crisis because that's what he expects in the 4T. I watched Bannon's Generation Zero and a talk by him and based on these, I'd expect him to engineer a financial world war of some kind. Has this already been discussed?
By the Strauss & Howe Generational theory, a crisis is unavoidable, and in fact we are in the beginning or middle stages of it. Strauss & Howe do not insist that all crises involved major wars, but the three they cover in their seminal book Generations all involved major wars - the Revolutionary War, the Civil War, and WWII.
To the extent Bannon believes this theory, and it seems he does, he will not be engineering any kind of war. The war will happen on its own. Bannon may try to shape the crisis so the war is less destructive to America.
Note that some related theorists believe that the coming war will necessarily be nuclear, and involve the expenditure of all nuclear weapons on all sides. Compared to that, a financial world war would be rather less destructive.
Depending on where one places the start of the Crisis of 2020... it may have begun as early as 2006 in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina and perhaps as late as 2008 with the financial meltdown beginning to look like a replay of the Great Depression. I consider the Obama years analogous to the first two terms of FDR with a slow and steady (if not widely appreciated) improvement in economic conditions and comparative peace in politics.
The election of Donald Trump and the consolidation of Republican power in almost all state legislatures (Illinois and Minnesota are exceptions) between the Rockies and the Atlantic Seaboard mark a clear tendency to the dominance of the Republican Party as it becomes increasingly authoritarian and reactionary. If the Trump Revolution is the final stage, then America can become a Christian and Corporate State with an Apartheid order with the sort of economic inequality characteristic of a feudal order, plantation society, or fascist regime for a very long time in part because the Republicans could change the Constitution practically at will (even to the extent of enshrining the Republican party as the 'leading force of American political life' (Article 6 of the last Soviet Constitution) and establishing something like Article 58 of the Soviet Criminal Code (which defines everybody for all practical purposes as a criminal if showing any sign of dissent). Yes, the Free World could swiftly lose about 300 million people very quickly... and those 300 million people could quickly find themselves subjects of an upstart Evil Empire.
It is also possible that the next four years will show much more polarization between opposing sides, especially if the Right chooses to render irrelevant, let alone criminalize, a near majority. At the worst I can imagine an America that has all the usual features of a brutal police state in the service of a plutocratic elite. We can expect, at least for a time, much of the political activity that got roundly defeated in the 2016 election taking to the streets in (one hopes) peaceful protests, rallies, and demonstrations. But should rhe ruling elites have their flunkies resort to violence, then we have the most unstable situation in America since the Civil War. Beware any new or expanded federal police force or the appearance of private militias that the government or GOP subsidizes for enforcing the will of the economic elites.
Expect minority-rights, feminist, labor, and environmentalist groups to challenge the validity of a political elite that effectively says "We won -- you're done!" I also dread a dominant-party reality in its inchoate stage to attempt to legislate its permanent, and more complete dominance of political life in elections by regulating, marginalizing, or even outlawing the opposition -- and imposing a rigid censorship and ensuring that most opportunity goes solely to those who are 'politically trustworthy'.
The bleak scenario is that the Right gets its way permanently, implodes in some aggressive war that goes badly, or falls to an equally-intolerant Leftist (Marxist-Leninist) regime as the result of a Socialist insurrection. The brighter one is "one and done" with Donald Trump as Americans choose to be rid of authoritarians who have nothing to offer but toil and fear. A 240-year history of democracy will not go down easily, especially when many Americans know how to contest irresponsible rule (the Civil Rights struggle of Southern blacks). This time there will be more people, more places, and more issues -- and a government likely as clueless as the likes of Bull Connor in an earlier time. The Hard Right cannot expect the military and police to obey orders to fire into peaceful protesters; not even Ceausescu or Marcos could pull that off.
I know that I can make some witty placards. I know of one slogan that I can offer on reproductive rights:
KEEP YOUR PAWS OFF MY PUSSY AND YOUR LAWS OFF MY UTERUS
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.