Signs of a Dying Empire

[JasonBlack]

(05-06-2022, 06:57 AM)David Horn Wrote: Charlton Heston was the epidiemy of Hollywood bravado.  On the other hand, Jimmie Stewart was actually a hero.  Ronald Reagan spent WW-II making propaganda inspirational movies. On the other hand, soft and meek George McGovern won a Distinguished Flying Cross.

Bravado is neither bravery nor strength. Most of the bravest and strongest were humble, and not all were men.

The dose makes the poison. A little bit of bravado is inspiring, energizing, gives you that "kick" to take on something courageous or face adversity. You'll notice in his interviews (and tbh, most of his movies) that Charlton Heston's default state is not one of bravado, but of paternal calm, respectful frankness, nothing like the histrionics nonsense which has been tearing our society apart since the beginning of the last 2T.

I know you're probably not a fan of the bravado of your late elders, but unfortunately, we need some of that now.

[Eric the Green]

(05-06-2022, 09:48 AM)Tim Randal Walker Wrote: "....the people who shaped the Boom Awakening are largely gone now...."  S&H indicated that the 2T ended in 1984,  about 38 years ago.  The Silent generation that mentored the Awakening is dying.  Those who experienced the Awakening in young adulthood are quite aged by now; the late '50s cohorts are in the tail end of Middle Age, and the oldest Boomers have been edging into the Middle-Old years.

It's too bad that we have to age, and that time marches on. On the other hand, perhaps another Awakening will come, and some of the previous prophets will reincarnate back.

But this 4T is existential. If we don't change our current course in the next few years, there will not be another Awakening, anywhere on Earth.

[Eric the Green]

(05-06-2022, 02:25 PM)JasonBlack Wrote:

(05-06-2022, 06:57 AM)David Horn Wrote: Charlton Heston was the epidiemy of Hollywood bravado.  On the other hand, Jimmie Stewart was actually a hero.  Ronald Reagan spent WW-II making propaganda inspirational movies.  On the other hand, soft and meek George McGovern won a Distinguished Flying Cross.

Bravado is neither bravery nor strength.  Most of the bravest and strongest were humble, and not all were men.

The dose makes the poison. A little bit of bravado is inspiring, energizing, gives you that "kick" to take on something courageous or face adversity. You'll notice in his interviews (and tbh, most of his movies) that Charlton Heston's default state is not one of bravado, but of paternal calm, respectful frankness, nothing like the histrionics nonsense which has been tearing our society apart since the beginning of the last 2T.

I know you're probably not a fan of the bravado of your late elders, but unfortunately, we need some of that now.

But Heston certainly contributed a lot of such histrionics in his later years. And for a lousy cause.

"the beginning of the last 2T" The best time in all of history, histrionics and all!

[David Horn]

(05-07-2022, 12:07 AM)Eric the Green Wrote:

(05-06-2022, 02:25 PM)JasonBlack Wrote:

(05-06-2022, 06:57 AM)David Horn Wrote: Charlton Heston was the epidiemy of Hollywood bravado.  On the other hand, Jimmie Stewart was actually a hero.  Ronald Reagan spent WW-II making propaganda inspirational movies.  On the other hand, soft and meek George McGovern won a Distinguished Flying Cross.

Bravado is neither bravery nor strength.  Most of the bravest and strongest were humble, and not all were men.

The dose makes the poison. A little bit of bravado is inspiring, energizing, gives you that "kick" to take on something courageous or face adversity. You'll notice in his interviews (and tbh, most of his movies) that Charlton Heston's default state is not one of bravado, but of paternal calm, respectful frankness, nothing like the histrionics nonsense which has been tearing our society apart since the beginning of the last 2T.

I know you're probably not a fan of the bravado of your late elders, but unfortunately, we need some of that now.

But Heston certainly contributed a lot of such histrionics in his later years. And for a lousy cause.

"the beginning of the last 2T" The best time in all of history, histrionics and all!

As a culture, we have elevated the strong, silent hero.  Is Clint Eastwood any different here? We even took a real-world hero, and made him a Hollywood star: Audie Murphy.  Question: how do these characteristics help solve the problems we have today?

[pbrower2a]

(05-07-2022, 12:04 AM)Eric the Green Wrote:

(05-06-2022, 09:48 AM)Tim Randal Walker Wrote: "....the people who shaped the Boom Awakening are largely gone now...."  S&H indicated that the 2T ended in 1984,  about 38 years ago.  The Silent generation that mentored the Awakening is dying.  Those who experienced the Awakening in young adulthood are quite aged by now; the late '50s cohorts are in the tail end of Middle Age, and the oldest Boomers have been edging into the Middle-Old years.

It's too bad that we have to age, and that time marches on. On the other hand, perhaps another Awakening will come, and some of the previous prophets will reincarnate back.

But this 4T is existential. If we don't change our current course in the next few years, there will not be another Awakening, anywhere on Earth.

It will be a different Awakening. It will begin with a higher level of knowledge and technology (well, assuming that civilization isn't destroyed in the meantime), institut8ions (which may not be better), and social change (which might be anything but benign). Should the next High be a time of reactionary politics, culture, and economics, then the next Awakening will be a stormy struggle over repression, hierarchy, and inequity. Should the Old Bastards wielding power hold that those who have economic and political power have some Mammon-granted right to exploit people completely and repress them brutally should they balk at such, then the next Awakening could be weak on culture and extremely violent in politics. We have yet to determine whether those who believe that 

He who owns the gold makes the rules

will monopolize political power and set the political agenda. Pure plutocracy may be no less compatible with liberty than Marxism-Leninism. Plantation slaves were definitely not free even if their masters enjoyed full participation in democratic process for themselves alone. 

Am I getting ahead of myself? Regrettably not. The result of this Crisis Era is far from set. We do not have a perfect analogy to the Great Depression and World War II or the American Civil War; we have yet to see the equivalent of either D-Day (the stab in the back of the Third Reich) or Sherman's "march through Georgia" that permanently severed the northeastern part of the Confederacy (Virginia and the Carolinas) from the middle (Mississippi, Alabama, and southern Georgia) so that one part could not come to the aid of the other even if it wished. This may yet have a military decision, and if so nothing says where and how that will happen. Quite possibly the decision could be political.  The Hard Right is self-righteous about sex, culture, and especially economics, and it seeks to ensure that everything works for their Power, Indulgence, and Gain (PIG), and that itself is an all-inclusive ideology. Nobody dare assume that a Crisis will end well for America. So far we look lucky. We need to be good this time. Regrettably the Hard Right and the center-Left are unable to make workable compromises. One wins and the other loses or we end up with some stalemate that cannot be a satisfying solution. 

Let me express what a Hard Right America would look like. It would be a command-and-control system in which only a small group of people get to do any thinking, and their thinking will be entirely about what serves their economic interests and keeps their power intact. They may promote religion, but it will be the sort that demands lockstep obedience to the elites or offers eternal damnation to anyone who rebels, backslides, or falls short. What they call justice will be an inescapable surveillance followed by brutal punishments of anyone deemed a criminal even for contemplating an alternative (such as what used to be good about America).  They will promote patriotism mostly in the service of wars for profit or expansion of their sick dream into places in which such is unwelcome. They could turn management-labor relations into something more accurately fitting the description "master and serf". Count on books, videos, and music being destroyed because such might distract people from working to exhaustion for coarse and barely-adequate victuals. Retirement? As soon as a prole is no longer useful he gets manumitted to starve. Teach or preach anything other than blind obedience and you at best will never teach or preach again and lose a comparatively soft job -- or be murdered.

That is the worst. Dante's Inferno is far easier to understand than his Paradiso. Note also that Man has been far better at creating Hells like holds of slave ships than at creating wonderful new orders. We are more adept at creating pain than pleasure, and in the latter, pleasure that comes with pain, shame, or ruin attached.

[beechnut79]

(05-06-2022, 02:25 PM)JasonBlack Wrote:

(05-06-2022, 06:57 AM)David Horn Wrote: Charlton Heston was the epidiemy of Hollywood bravado.  On the other hand, Jimmie Stewart was actually a hero.  Ronald Reagan spent WW-II making propaganda inspirational movies.  On the other hand, soft and meek George McGovern won a Distinguished Flying Cross.

Bravado is neither bravery nor strength.  Most of the bravest and strongest were humble, and not all were men.

The dose makes the poison. A little bit of bravado is inspiring, energizing, gives you that "kick" to take on something courageous or face adversity. You'll notice in his interviews (and tbh, most of his movies) that Charlton Heston's default state is not one of bravado, but of paternal calm, respectful frankness, nothing like the histrionics nonsense which has been tearing our society apart since the beginning of the last 2T.

I know you're probably not a fan of the bravado of your late elders, but unfortunately, we need some of that now.

GI generation was primarily known for its bravado, especially among its male members. According to the authors, Millennials are supposed to be of the same archetype, but most of you here have pointed out that for the most part that bravado has been missing. The Occupy movement of a decade or so ago proved to be weak, I do believe. But it did get us talking about our society's massive inequality even if so far efforts to rectify it have fallen way short of what's needed. On another thread I pointed out that the tearing apart which you have indicated began about half a century ago became much  more acute in the past 7 years ago resulting in a malaise that we can't seem to pull out of. I suggested that the effort to overturn Roe v. Wade may provide the spark. Could abortion prohibition be to the 2020s what liquor prohibition was to the 1920s?

[pbrower2a]

(05-07-2022, 11:57 AM)beechnut79 Wrote:

(05-06-2022, 02:25 PM)JasonBlack Wrote:

(05-06-2022, 06:57 AM)David Horn Wrote: Charlton Heston was the epidiemy of Hollywood bravado.  On the other hand, Jimmie Stewart was actually a hero.  Ronald Reagan spent WW-II making propaganda inspirational movies.  On the other hand, soft and meek George McGovern won a Distinguished Flying Cross.

Bravado is neither bravery nor strength.  Most of the bravest and strongest were humble, and not all were men.

The dose makes the poison. A little bit of bravado is inspiring, energizing, gives you that "kick" to take on something courageous or face adversity. You'll notice in his interviews (and tbh, most of his movies) that Charlton Heston's default state is not one of bravado, but of paternal calm, respectful frankness, nothing like the histrionics nonsense which has been tearing our society apart since the beginning of the last 2T.

I know you're probably not a fan of the bravado of your late elders, but unfortunately, we need some of that now.

GI generation was primarily known for its bravado, especially among its male members. According to the authors, Millennials are supposed to be of the same archetype, but most of you here have pointed out that for the most part that bravado has been missing. The Occupy movement of a decade or so ago proved to be weak, I do believe. But it did get us talking about our society's massive inequality even if so far efforts to rectify it have fallen way short of what's needed. On another thread I pointed out that the tearing apart which you have indicated began about half a century ago became much  more acute in the past 7 years ago resulting in a malaise that we can't seem to pull out of. I suggested that the effort to overturn Roe v. Wade may provide the spark. Could abortion prohibition be to the 2020s what liquor prohibition was to the 1920s?

Millennial adults have fully left childhood (unless you are to figure that the Millennial generation has been born as late as 2005 or so) and they have had no remarkable role of unqualified heroism as in the American Revolution, the Civil War (the Gilded took on Civic characteristics although raised as a Reactive generation), or World War II. That may make hubris far less. 

Still, Millennial politics seem fully entrenched, at least to the extent that Millennial adults on the whole will be decidedly liberal until at least the next Awakening, when the next adult Idealist generation comes of age and gives at the least to Millennial culture and mores. 

An abortion ban in the 2020's will be very different in effect from Prohibition in the 1920's. We are not in an Unraveling as were the 1920's, and abortion will not be the big illicit business that illegal booze was. The Hard Right has more that it wants to ban -- including contraception, homosexuality, and organized labor. (Don't fool yourself on the latter. Cheap labor that has no recourse but to work as demanded for as little as possible, and off the clock if necessary for the greed of the elites, will be great for maximal profits until it wears out the workers). A right-wing, repressive America would be more analogous in style to Franco's Spain than to the corporate welfare state in America during the 1920's. 

I see Trump ideology on the fade for demographic reasons alone. It skews old in appeal, and it is not winning enough new young supporters to compensate for those dying off.   

An abortion ban is likely to result in extensive demonstrations and civil disobedience. The Hard Right rejects pragmatism in favor of its concept of moral absolutes.

[JasonBlack]

(05-07-2022, 12:04 AM)Eric the Green Wrote: But this 4T is existential. If we don't change our current course in the next few years, there will not be another Awakening, anywhere on Earth.

It's existential for you because you are in elderhood and further removed from the material consequences. It's not existential for mostly-impoverished millennnials and homelanders, and even less for hard-nosed Gen Xers who were realists from the start. The existentialist thinking that should have died off after the last 2T is among the main contributing factors to our current predicament. More thinking along those lines is not the solution.

[Eric the Green]

(05-08-2022, 02:52 PM)JasonBlack Wrote:

(05-07-2022, 12:04 AM)Eric the Green Wrote: But this 4T is existential. If we don't change our current course in the next few years, there will not be another Awakening, anywhere on Earth.

It's existential for you because you are in elderhood and further removed from the material consequences. It's not existential for mostly-impoverished millennnials and homelanders, and even less for hard-nosed Gen Xers who were realists from the start. The existentialist thinking that should have died off after the last 2T is among the main contributing factors to our current predicament. More thinking along those lines is not the solution.

This 4T is much more existential for Millennials and Gen Z than for older Boomers like me who won't live through the tremendous damage our current political policies will result in. Boomers like me are generally in better financial and more secure circumstances today than younger people are. Boomers like me are more likely than younger people to deny or ignore our current existential crisis.

"Existential" is a word in English, and although it can, it doesn't necessarily imply existentialism. The word existential means what concerns, affects or threatens your existence.

"relating to existence or being alive:
The biggest existential threat to humans is probably still nuclear war."
https://dictionary.cambridge.org/us/dict...xistential

"Existential anxiety tends to arise during transitions and reflects difficulty adapting, often related to losing safety and security. For example, a college student moving away from home or an adult going through a difficult divorce might feel as though the foundation on which their life was built is crumbling."
https://www.verywellmind.com/coping-with...ty-4163485

An example we hear often today is that the Ukrainians define their current crisis caused by Russian invasion of their country as "existential". The existence of their country is under severe threat. Putin counters by saying that if he feels his state is under an "existential" threat, he might use nuclear weapons. People using this term are not necessarily existentialists or engaged in existentialist thinking. The philosophy was named after the word, not vice versa.

Existentialist thinking is one type of philosophy that has some influence, because it is one of the basic kinds of philosophy whose roots go back to philosophy itself. Existentialism is a philosophy that contemplates the meaning or circumstances of existence, or the fact that we exist. It posits that our being or existence is the primary reality, as opposed to essence, which are the traits or types of what exists; contrary to Platonism or other kinds of essentialism. http://philosopherswheel.com/rrr.html

To say it should have died off is therefore ridiculous. This philosophy can be interpreted or developed in various ways. One probable influence is on post-modernism, which has its usefulness, but also is not a very deep philosophy, and can be detrimental in my opinion, especially if taken as the best or only valid philosophy. But this is a digression.

There is no need to harp on the word "existential". It means what I said it means. All 4Ts are existential, because they threaten the very existence of the country if they are not handled and the problems are not dealt with or defeated. The USA is in such a condition today in this currrent 4T.

We may be seeing "signs of a dying empire," or more-likely, we are seeing signs of a threat to our existence, which we should face up to or else we shall perish.

[Eric the Green]

(05-07-2022, 08:04 AM)pbrower2a Wrote: Let me express what a Hard Right America would look like.....

I don't disagree. But what people seem to gloss over today is the gravity of the current 4T. We are living under rulers who deny climate change and delay the needed action on it. If this continues, not only will our republic be forever and irretrievably ruined by the hard Right, but our world as a place that can sustain our lives and civilization will be damaged beyond repair. Although the destruction will happen over a number of the following decades, it will be of such an accelerating nature that no second turning or Awakening will be able to take hold or stem the destruction. The tipping points will have been tipped. What will follow our current 4T, which will last through the 2020s, will merely be continuous decline and worsening crisis; a never-ending 4T.

Don't even contemplate what the next 2T will look like, until we know whether the Republicans have been defeated and a reform decade has taken hold in the 2020s. To hold any other idea than this is to put your head in the sand. Right now, just one senator has blocked the start of this reform decade. What a ridiculous tragedy this is. Write to Manchin and read him the riot act now.

[David Horn]

(05-09-2022, 02:06 AM)Eric the Green Wrote:

(05-07-2022, 08:04 AM)pbrower2a Wrote: Let me express what a Hard Right America would look like.....

I don't disagree. But what people seem to gloss over today is the gravity of the current 4T. We are living under rulers who deny climate change and delay the needed action on it. If this continues, not only will our republic be forever and irretrievably ruined by the hard Right, but our world as a place that can sustain our lives and civilization will be damaged beyond repair. Although the destruction will happen over a number of the following decades, it will be of such an accelerating nature that no second turning or Awakening will be able to take hold or stem the destruction. The tipping points will have been tipped. What will follow our current 4T, which will last through the 2020s, will merely be continuous decline and worsening crisis; a never-ending 4T.

Don't even contemplate what the next 2T will look like, until we know whether the Republicans have been defeated and a reform decade has taken hold in the 2020s. To hold any other idea than this is to put your head in the sand. Right now, just one senator has blocked the start of this reform decade. What a ridiculous tragedy this is. Write to Manchin and read him the riot act now.

Sadly, it's less about the politicians and more about the electorate.  Politicians tend to "lead from the rear".  They get elected by being less scary or by playing to prejudice.  In neither case are they leaders, in the true sense of the term.  

There has been a 50-year concerted effort to savage policies that hurt the wealthy, and here we are.  There are only two ways to exit this mess: convince the PTB that they are killing the goose that lays their golden eggs, and a quick reversal is needed (this may work or not), or fight fire with fire, and go for the throats of the very people responsible for the mess (also not guaranteed to work, btw). The option no one wants to consider is letting it all fall apart, until the rot is undeniable.  That's a long way in the wrong direction.  Let's avoid that!

[pbrower2a]

(05-09-2022, 11:12 AM)David Horn Wrote:

(05-09-2022, 02:06 AM)Eric the Green Wrote:

(05-07-2022, 08:04 AM)pbrower2a Wrote: Let me express what a Hard Right America would look like.....

I don't disagree. But what people seem to gloss over today is the gravity of the current 4T. We are living under rulers who deny climate change and delay the needed action on it. If this continues, not only will our republic be forever and irretrievably ruined by the hard Right, but our world as a place that can sustain our lives and civilization will be damaged beyond repair. Although the destruction will happen over a number of the following decades, it will be of such an accelerating nature that no second turning or Awakening will be able to take hold or stem the destruction. The tipping points will have been tipped. What will follow our current 4T, which will last through the 2020s, will merely be continuous decline and worsening crisis; a never-ending 4T.

Don't even contemplate what the next 2T will look like, until we know whether the Republicans have been defeated and a reform decade has taken hold in the 2020s. To hold any other idea than this is to put your head in the sand. Right now, just one senator has blocked the start of this reform decade. What a ridiculous tragedy this is. Write to Manchin and read him the riot act now.

Sadly, it's less about the politicians and more about the electorate.  Politicians tend to "lead from the rear".  They get elected by being less scary or by playing to prejudice.  In neither case are they leaders, in the true sense of the term. 

Elections are the only check that the People have against wayward politicians and the interest groups that back those pols. Should democracy die in America, than all sorts of weird and inexplicable stuff can happen -- even genocide.  It is often assumed that despots and oligarchs can come to their senses when they recognize that their policies are immoral or even suicidal. Despots and oligarchs typically prefer yes-men who soothe their personal insecurities to advisers who offer the honest truth with which to make wise decisions. Outsiders often assume that tradition will refute some insane policy. Much of what Hitler did was insane, so several centuries of German history were no guide to what Hitler would do. Can you imagine Frederick the Great or Otto von Bismarck invading Russia or initiating the Holocaust? Hitler was neither Frederick the Great nor Otto von Bismarck. 

Should democracy die in America, then America will not become a 'mild' dictatorship like those of Schuschnigg in Austria or Metaxas in Greece. It will instead be the most ominous political entity that the world has ever known. The geography of the USA would make the country one big Gulag. Any alliance such as NATO that has generally kept the peace will be irrelevant. There might be in-house squabbles over power, and the most ruthless squabbler will prevail. We all know where that leads. Congress will become much like the Iraqi parliament under Saddam Hussein, the Supreme Soviet, or the Reichstag under Hitler -- more a personal honor to toadies and "heroes" than any center of power. There will be no meaningful opposition within formal politics. Just imagine what will happen to any dissident. The Dakotas would be a 'nice' Siberia due to temperature extremes. 

Considering the debasement of mass culture, we might even end up with updated versions of Roman spectacles that literally destroy people as entertainment. Lions and tigers and bears as in Roman circuses to devour the equivalent of early Christians?  It would be more diverse -- perhaps with crocodiles and sharks in aquaria deputized to such a purpose.   

Should that happen, then I could only hope for America to lose the second Mexican-American war, the third German-American war, the second Japanese-American war, and perhaps some others simultaneously with the dissolution of one of the vilest Evil Empires to have existed. 

Quote:There has been a 50-year concerted effort to savage policies that hurt the wealthy, and here we are.  There are only two ways to exit this mess: convince the PTB that they are killing the goose that lays their golden eggs, and a quick reversal is needed (this may work or not), or fight fire with fire, and go for the throats of the very people responsible for the mess (also not guaranteed to work, btw). The option no one wants to consider is letting it all fall apart, until the rot is undeniable.  That's a long way in the wrong direction.  Let's avoid that!

The wealthy are often incredibly stupid about the harm that they do to the workers and in turn the nation that proves to be more than the few who own the assets. They were the last to realize that FDR saved their skins, if at great financial cost in high taxes. Paying high taxes to give the common man a stake in the system is a bargain in contrast to being the first in front of the wall as the firing squads form in the event of a revolution.  Aristocrats and bureaucrats often have inherited their opportunity, and with parents knowing what to expect for their children from childhood, the elites at some point are completely cut off from any knowledge of the nasty reality of non-elite life. 

The kids attend schools that exist largely to separate kids from riff-raff such as workers, farmers, salesmen, petty clergy, soldiers, and even shopkeepers, so they have no idea of the real world in which most people live. The sons are groomed for easy work and taught to ask no questions about social reality; eventually the Good Lord ordains it all. Maybe the boys get a little military training to instil some discipline that will suit them well should they dabble in war -- as officers in veritable sinecures. They see their class privilege as a quality to which they are born instead of as a bug that suppresses innovation and reform that might bring technical and social progress. Such workers as they meet are obsequious in their relations. Ownership and bureaucratic power become the basis of power. The daughters are of course coached into 'advantageous', if often loveless marriages.

America is not there yet, but it is making rapid and decisive 'progress' in that direction. I use the word progress in the context of a metastasizing cancer. 

If the struggles are not in sequence, I see parallels in Roman history. World War II is our equivalent of the Second Punic War. Yes, America defeated Germany, Italy, and Japan and destroyed  the political orders that created trouble. We did more nobly -- not salting the fields of conquered lands (although the vindictive Morgenthau plan to de-industrialize Germany would have been an analogy) and ensuring that the defeated had no cause to strike back. Short of extermination, that is the most complete sort of victory possible. We had our equivalent of the Servile War in the American Civil War, except that we freed the slaves instead of crucifying the participants in Spartacus' slave revolt. FDR? Lincoln? There have been few greater wartime leaders at the top of the political system. Rome became a veritable police state after the Servile War, and the USA went about as libertarian in its political and economic order (except for Jim Crow) as any society. 

I heard General Esper relate that President Donald Trump (who is about as far from Lincoln or FDR as one can be as President) suggest shooting protesters in the legs. Esper did not need say that once people are felled with shots to their legs, then shooting at others' legs puts those once fallen at risk of fatal gunshots to their heads, throats, and chest cavities.     

A political system that can elevate someone like Trump to the Presidency has spiders in its collective soul. Someone that vindictive, deceitful, and callow shouldn't lead so much as a marching band. Someone like Trump who appeals to the basest aspects of human nature suggests the possibility of someone doing much the same when the institutions already weakened (including schools for imparting wisdom and civic virtue, churches for sponsoring conscience and charity, mass media to offer objective truth instead of propaganda as news and culture that uplifts the human spirit instead of debasing it). 

Trump is the sort of person who flourishes in a rotten order. He is not yet the norm, but the norm for our economic and administrative elites is headed that way. We can all say that we need another Lincoln or FDR. Well, we got Barack Obama, who did much right. I invite conservatives to recognize that except for a liberal agenda, Obama represents far more virtues once associated with conservatives of an earlier time than our 'conservatives' offer.  We need as a nation to resist the siren song of the demagogue, to let bygones be bygones, and try to slough off hurt feelings. We need to learn the art of political compromise which requires the ability to have empathy for people unlike us in critical ways. We need an economic system that offers opportunity as well as responsibility to all -- one that fosters small businesses instead of bloated, corrupt, rigid behemoths.

[pbrower2a]

The Seaeculum apparently operated in the Roman world.

Second Punic War
Servile War
Caesar Crisis

A good Crisis solves big problems. For Rome, the Second Punic War was the annihilation of what had been the greatest military and commercial rival of Rome, to wit Carthage. Rome could turn its attentions west to Gaul and Spain and east to Greece. One that resolves with no solution of an existing rot but simply destroys the rebels or reformers while preserving some dubious tradition solves nothing, but may entrench a social vice that eventually tears at the system. So was the Servile War. Had it gone in a way parallel to the American Civil War, then the slaves would have been emancipated and (Lincoln's dream) resettled in zones of recent Roman conquest. Maybe the Romans choose to deputize Spartacus as a general. (Maybe I put too much into the Fast/Kubrick treatment, but still...) The Caesar crisis was a mess, leaving Rome with a horrible political system vulnerable to a Nero, a Caligula, or a Commodus.

I look at the Second Punic War as Rome's equivalent of World War II. I see the Servile War as analogous to the American Civil War except for keeping slavery intact while gutting what remained of responsible politics.

We have huge institutional problems to resolve this time. Some of it is economic perversion; some of it is depravity in American mass culture, including religious fanaticism that denies science when science fails to fit the prophecies of the fanatics.

[pbrower2a]

Something to contemplate.

So far as we know there are no technological civilizations more advanced than ours. Obviously there must be some super-brainy creature able to think out a technology, but if it lacks the appropriate limbs or lives in the wrong environment for such, then it isn't going to build any transmission towers. We humans are not alone  among such brainy creatures. Cetaceans and elephants may exceed our intelligence; dolphins aren't going to build radio telescopes because they can't smelt metals. Elephants are apparently better at destroying structures than at building them. Pigs and seals come close to our intelligence.

A technological civilization obviously devours huge quantities of resources, including energy, and may destroy their worlds in doing so. Unintended consequences may be horrible. It doesn't take long from the refinement of certain levels of physics to figure out how to separate U-235 from U-238 or to make Pu-240 out of U-238. Highly-technological civilizations can operate only with rigid organization, and the society that can do rocketry or manipulate atoms can put nukes in missiles.

I look at the movie Independence Day and find that the hostile aliens have some great technology, but they have so ruined first their home world that they had to go out on conquests... and that with each conquest they soon ruin the planet that they have conquered by ravaging its resources. Don't fool yourself: we have people just like that.

[pbrower2a]

(05-09-2022, 02:06 AM)Eric the Green Wrote:

(05-07-2022, 08:04 AM)pbrower2a Wrote: Let me express what a Hard Right America would look like.....

I don't disagree. But what people seem to gloss over today is the gravity of the current 4T. We are living under rulers who deny climate change and delay the needed action on it. If this continues, not only will our republic be forever and irretrievably ruined by the hard Right, but our world as a place that can sustain our lives and civilization will be damaged beyond repair. Although the destruction will happen over a number of the following decades, it will be of such an accelerating nature that no second turning or Awakening will be able to take hold or stem the destruction. The tipping points will have been tipped. What will follow our current 4T, which will last through the 2020s, will merely be continuous decline and worsening crisis; a never-ending 4T.

Don't even contemplate what the next 2T will look like, until we know whether the Republicans have been defeated and a reform decade has taken hold in the 2020s. To hold any other idea than this is to put your head in the sand. Right now, just one senator has blocked the start of this reform decade. What a ridiculous tragedy this is. Write to Manchin and read him the riot act now.

Update: we have just had some Congressional hearings, We have seen ludicrous stuff in itself (people bringing Trump and Confederate flags into the Capitol building) and the fake-electors stunt, either of which is ludicrous in itself. Put that together and you see what we are up against. 

Some people want to take away our freedom so that we can all be subjects of slumlords, shylocks, and crony capitalists... and have entities like FoX news as our sole sources of information. If an entity like PBS tries to bring news feeds from the BBC, France 24, Deutsche Welle,  RAI, or NHK, then those will be blocked.  Who needs troubling contradictions to the official story? If you live in a place close to the Canadian or Mexican border, then you will find that Canadian and Mexican broadcasting will be blocked from your cable TV. You will of course not be allowed to use an antenna because that might allow you to watch TV from outside your zone of propaganda. Radio will be turned into much the same thing... satellite radio from accepted feeds or none at all. 

News stories might end with such a story as "the potato crop is coming in".