The Maelstrom of Violence

[Bob Butler 54]

(08-14-2017, 03:36 PM)Emman85 Wrote:

(08-14-2017, 02:31 AM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote:

(08-14-2017, 01:05 AM)Kinser79 Wrote: The problem is that we're clearly in a 4T and in a 4T the center never holds.  I would say that like summoning a demon by saying its name, the left is busy doing that now with fascism.  Fascism can only arise if there is a credible threat of communism.

I'm dubious that we're in a true 4T.  We haven't had a regeneracy, a clear decisive shift into new values and trial and error mode.  We're in see saw mode.  That puts as more in 3T stagnation and disagreement than in a 4T decisive culture shift.  Of course, there is a partisan tendency to see any brief moment on the top of the see saw ride as some sort of permanent thing.  Hillary will win.  Trump will suddenly develop people skills.  At this point, I'm not holding my breath.

What would this be if not 4T, the timing of the Financial Crisis and election of Obama was spot on. Delayed regeneracy does not mean back to 3T which I have not recognized, I'm thinking we're looking at years a major civil strife(short of civil war) during this 4T, possibly with other countries getting involved. It will probably involve international conflict and US domestic upheaval. 

Most 4Ts devolve into civil wars, even the American Revolution was a civil war with up to a third of the population at the time belonging to the Loyalists. Actually the last 4T was the exception to the rule with the New Deal coming very early in the 4T with democratic  dominance.

If we do go down the route of civil strife/civil war then this 4T will probably end badly for many, we could end up with dictatorship, continued wealth inequality and corporate supremacy, and bitter social/race relations like after the first Civil War.

I am not confident that patterns that held fine in the industrial age will hold if we enter a information age or post scarcity pattern.  You spin on things is too clockwork for my taste.  My vision is more see saw, featuring false regeneracies as new world views fail.

Bush 43 was hailed early on in the old forum as a potential grey champion.  He had a new culture that might be called neo colonialism, which I labeled as preemptive unilateral serial nation building.  He went into Iraq, marched on the oil, and proceeded to start building huge military bases and embassy buildings.  There was lots of talk about where he should go next after Iraq was secured.

In the age (moment?) of the sole superpower, that would have been a 4T transformation had he managed to make it work and have the people back the transformation.  Instead, while he had a brief moment of popularity in Iraq, it fell away and he lost an insurgent war and ruined the US economy trying to pay for war without increasing taxes.  I would propose that a true 4T involves a total commitment to a very different behavior.  For the most part, Bush 43 had his commitment.  His efforts failed.  The debate of stay the course against cut and run ended with cut and run and a middle east destabilized.

Obama similarly lost in the end, losing both houses of Congress and the White House.  He did stabilize the economy but did not punish Wall Street when a lot of folks were calling for it.  He spent a lot of political capitol and good will getting the kluge that is Obamacare passed, leaving half the country disappointed and the other half angry.  During his time the flag cartoon was drawn, which marked a triumph of equality but brought a lot of racists into the open that had been hiding in corners since the awakening.

I see both 43 and 44 as having big ideas that could conceivably have changed the country had all gone well.  All did not go well.  Instead of leaving behind a changed culture, they handed power to political opponents.  Neither would be remembered as a grey champion who transformed America for the better.  Trump 45?  It’s still pretty early but he doesn’t seem to have the people skills to make things work.  The question is what lessons the voters will learn, what the reaction will be to his failures.  The see saw is apt to do what see saws do, but what exactly will replace the Trump protest presidency?  Too early for me to call anything.

Meanwhile the spiral of rhetoric and violence are not going critical.  After both OKC and 911 the political establishment came out and declared that violence was not how Americans instituted domestic political change.  The People have more or less agreed.  Thus far the spirals have not taken off.  In spite of a sensationalist press, the violence has been sporadic and the perpetrators are more apt to be declared lone nuts than patriots.  Thus, I’m not with those who predict a new civil war.

That’s where I’m at.  I see half the country still enthralled with the unraveling memes, borrow and spend, trickle down, spend on the military, cut domestic spending, the government is the problem, cut regulation.  It hasn’t worked, but I anticipate many will be looking for someone who might try to make them work.  Trump 45 without people skills isn’t apt to make it work, and wouldn’t even if the unraveling ideas were still in season.  If the current muddle continues, the blue faction is apt to have its turn on top of the see saw.  The question is whether things will so clearly need to be done that people are ready to do them.  If the blues try and do not succeed in a spectacular 4T fashion, the see saw flips again.