Thoughts On Where We Are, and Where We're Going

[Marypoza]

(09-09-2018, 07:41 AM)David Horn Wrote:

(09-08-2018, 09:06 AM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote:

(09-08-2018, 08:29 AM)David Horn Wrote:

(09-06-2018, 11:57 AM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote: I would like to see a non establishment candidate, or more than one, take over one or both parties.  That trend is real.  One element of the upcoming conflict is the division of wealth, and both rural and urban populations could benefit by non traditional anti establishment candidates.  This wave is growing, but so far the establishment is hanging on to power.

But the wave against the establishment is growing.  I am not seeing it breaking yet.  I am not seeing new values
triumphing soon.  I could be wrong.

Any non-establishment candidate who runs has to offer something real or (s)he's just another Trump.  Bring me ideas first, then pick a champion to bring them about.  I only have four critical issues: addressing climate immediately, establishing international relations on a win-win basis (definitely avoid war), move quickly to reduce inequality, and show basic competence.  A lot of other issues make achieving those hard to impossible, but they are symptoms rather than core issues -- race and gender being the two most potent.  Unless a candidate with FDR-like charisma, guts, energy and savvy emerges out of the political soup, we're still a few election cycles away from getting there.

We are going to have to address waste and population eventually, but your four critical issues are a good start.  I would say several election cycles away, rather than a few.  Cultures are incredibly stubborn.

All of which leads to the question: are we experiencing a failed 4T?  If battlelines are drawn, but no one takes the battle forward, can we ever resolve anything?  After 45 years of Tweedledee Tweedledum polices, with the very few winning all the battles that count, it seems a long stretch to reversing the trend.  Do we have to experience another major incident, or can we get there by political means alone?

-- well David, the French were in that situation back in 1789. We know what happened in June of that yr

[Bob Butler 54]

(09-09-2018, 07:41 AM)David Horn Wrote: All of which leads to the question: are we experiencing a failed 4T?  If battlelines are drawn, but no one takes the battle forward, can we ever resolve anything?  After 45 years of Tweedledee Tweedledum polices, with the very few winning all the battles that count, it seems a long stretch to reversing the trend.  Do we have to experience another major incident, or can we get there by political means alone?

I would say we are experiencing a failed 4T.  

Trump is going to fall flat.  The Republican base might nominate someone similar to Trump or Palin, but sane and competent.  I don't see a conservative pushing your four critical issues.  A progressive champion who is enthusiastic about arrow of progress issues is called for in most transforming events.  We may have to go though another round of the see saw, elect another but sane Trump - Palin like entity, before the middle of the country will admit to conservative failure, that what you consider critical is seen by most of America as critical.

Until then, failed regeneracy, or the see saw of the unraveling could be seen as continuing.

[David Horn]

(09-09-2018, 09:29 AM)Marypoza Wrote:

(09-09-2018, 07:41 AM)David Horn Wrote: All of which leads to the question: are we experiencing a failed 4T?  If battlelines are drawn, but no one takes the battle forward, can we ever resolve anything?  After 45 years of Tweedledee Tweedledum polices, with the very few winning all the battles that count, it seems a long stretch to reversing the trend.  Do we have to experience another major incident, or can we get there by political means alone?

-- well David, the French were in that situation back in 1789. We know what happened in June of that yr

H-m-m-m.  Let's try to avoid that.  

[David Horn]

(09-09-2018, 10:29 AM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote:

(09-09-2018, 07:41 AM)David Horn Wrote: All of which leads to the question: are we experiencing a failed 4T?  If battlelines are drawn, but no one takes the battle forward, can we ever resolve anything?  After 45 years of Tweedledee Tweedledum polices, with the very few winning all the battles that count, it seems a long stretch to reversing the trend.  Do we have to experience another major incident, or can we get there by political means alone?

I would say we are experiencing a failed 4T.  

Trump is going to fall flat.  The Republican base might nominate someone similar to Trump or Palin, but sane and competent.  I don't see a conservative pushing your four critical issues.  A progressive champion who is enthusiastic about arrow of progress issues is called for in most transforming events.  We may have to go though another round of the see saw, elect another but sane Trump - Palin like entity, before the middle of the country will admit to conservative failure, that what you consider critical is seen by most of America as critical.

Until then, failed regeneracy, or the see saw of the unraveling could be seen as continuing.

I agree that we're not moving, just oscillating.  The people responsible on both sides are 100% certain that they must prevail or we are doomed.  So far, it's the Right that has pulled out the stops, ignored all constraints and plowed ahead full speed.  If this is reciprocated, and I think it will be if the Left gets a chance, then the ratchet will move up a notch and the next round will begin.  I'm not sure what that might entail, barring violence and chaos.

[Bob Butler 54]

(09-09-2018, 01:32 PM)David Horn Wrote:

(09-09-2018, 10:29 AM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote:

(09-09-2018, 07:41 AM)David Horn Wrote: All of which leads to the question: are we experiencing a failed 4T?  If battlelines are drawn, but no one takes the battle forward, can we ever resolve anything?  After 45 years of Tweedledee Tweedledum polices, with the very few winning all the battles that count, it seems a long stretch to reversing the trend.  Do we have to experience another major incident, or can we get there by political means alone?

I would say we are experiencing a failed 4T.  

Trump is going to fall flat.  The Republican base might nominate someone similar to Trump or Palin, but sane and competent.  I don't see a conservative pushing your four critical issues.  A progressive champion who is enthusiastic about arrow of progress issues is called for in most transforming events.  We may have to go though another round of the see saw, elect another but sane Trump - Palin like entity, before the middle of the country will admit to conservative failure, that what you consider critical is seen by most of America as critical.

Until then, failed regeneracy, or the see saw of the unraveling could be seen as continuing.

I agree that we're not moving, just oscillating.  The people responsible on both sides are 100% certain that they must prevail or we are doomed.  So far, it's the Right that has pulled out the stops, ignored all constraints and plowed ahead full speed.  If this is reciprocated, and I think it will be if the Left gets a chance, then the ratchet will move up a notch and the next round will begin.  I'm not sure what that might entail, barring violence and chaos.

The red base has some genuine concerns.  You have to keep government small, taxes down and regulations necessary.  If you can do that while going after your four critical issues, you might keep the level of violence way down.  This might be done with a tax scheme that corrects somewhat the imbalance of wealth.  Everyone would have to contribute.

It would not be easy.  You would have to assume America great again, able to tax and spend its way to achieve great things.  Conservatives are unwilling to do that theses days.  The red base genuine concerns do oppose the blue base genuine concerns such as your four critical issues.

But that is what it would take, to genuinely listen to both sides, to govern the whole country.

[David Horn]

(09-09-2018, 03:01 PM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote: The red base has some genuine concerns.  You have to keep government small, taxes down and regulations necessary.  If you can do that while going after your four critical issues, you might keep the level of violence way down.  This might be done with a tax scheme that corrects somewhat the imbalance of wealth.  Everyone would have to contribute.

It would not be easy.  You would have to assume America great again, able to tax and spend its way to achieve great things.  Conservatives are unwilling to do that theses days.  The red base genuine concerns do oppose the blue base genuine concerns such as your four critical issues.

But that is what it would take, to genuinely listen to both sides, to govern the whole country.

The moneyed elite have managed, primarily through the power of fear mongering, to sell the red base on the idea that the government is their enemy and capitalists are their friends.  Nevermind that this is absurd; it's been highly successful.

[Bob Butler 54]

There are a couple of points in the opening post that seem worth an answer.

(08-18-2018, 08:01 PM)justpassingthrough Wrote: 3. If we are in the 4T, and 2008 was the main Catalyst, has there been a Climax? The recent elections in the West, from Brexit to Trump and others, while a decided break point in a new direction, don't seem sufficient. On the other hand, if the 4T began earlier, say on 9/11/2001 as I have long suspected, the present could be, very simply, the beginning of the 1T. Perhaps 9/11 was the Catalyst, and the 2008 crash the Climax?

I see the "Cut and Run" resolution of Iraq and the economic collapse of 2008 as the failure of Bush 43's mini crisis.  He attempted serial preemptive unilateral nation building in the Middle East, failed, tried to fight a war without raising taxes, and thus brought down the economy.  September 11th would be the catalyst.  The surge was a climax of sorts.  The lesson learned was a vast reluctance to put US boots on the ground.  The US might win such a war, but the cost in blood, iron and gold would be very high, and neither the victims of the war or the international community would say thank you.  An aggressor nation must be contained.  We got contained.

If the economic crash were the catalyst, Obama would be the Grey Champion for having laid the economic problems to rest.  Instead, it is semi forgotten, in the past.  Obama flipped the see saw in his Obamacare program, and the middle of the country rejected him.  Thus, no Grey Champion title.  You might call his presidency a failed crisis in that he tried to press progressive values, but his policies were immediately reversed after.  We will see how many come back if the progressives win in 2018 and 2020.

(08-18-2018, 08:01 PM)justpassingthrough Wrote: Given the extreme and hostile suppression and persecution of Christianity by the Radical Left during the 4T, I wouldn't be surprised to see a resurgence among the next Prophets. One can imagine the horror Millenial parents would react with if their kids suddenly became outspoken Evangelicals. Since the Prophets usually have divided camps and competing visions, I could see some other alternative being a "singularity"-like quest for "transhumanism" on the part of the next Prophet Left, impatient to push even farther into insanity as the Boomer Left did.

I see it as American that the government is not supposed to force religion or religious values.  That is an Enlightenment idea.  Thou shalt not establish a state religion, and all that.  Religion should have a strong place in the culture, should be protected from any sort of interference, but it should not use the government to force anything on those who do not share a religion's doctrine.  The government, admittedly acting from the Left, acted properly in resisting the idea that the Evangelicals could force their dogma to have force of law.

I think your claim of extreme and hostile stuff is therefore backwards.  It is the Evangelicals who are being aggressive towards people who do not share their religious values.

I do not fear a surge of evangelicals or transhumanism.  Religion seems to be fading in influence.

[Eric the Green]

(09-05-2018, 07:25 AM)Teejay Wrote:

(09-05-2018, 07:10 AM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote: This is precisely why I suggest we are not in a core 4T.  There has been no regeneracy.  We are not doing these things to any degree.  The whole country has not accepted these values.  The four turning cycle has not worked well outside Western Civilization in the Industrial Age.  There are attempts here to force fit a theory by ignoring the evidence that its patten is not holding.

Mind you, much of the above happened, much changed, back in the Consciousness Revolution proper.  The new values were acted on immediately, with the abandonment of the Vietnam war, with a rejection of active hot wars under the domino theory, with the signing of the Civil Rights act, with the woman's movement at the time and a wave of environmental action.  That and the lack of a surge in the spiral of violence leads me to believe change is taking place in the Second Turning during the new age (Computerized information, nuclear weapons, renewable energy), not the Fourth.

There was what I call a false regeneracy with Bush 43's wars of aggression in Afghanistan and Iraq.  He tried to alter US values towards making perpetual war, but failed to make the change because other nations resisted and made perpetual guerrilla war not a pleasant prospect at all.  US values have since remained resistant to committing US ground troops abroad.  In short, Bush 43's values were not accepted by the US after they briefly saw action.

Mind you, this might only effect the timing a little.  When it becomes clear that we are killing the Earth, that we have to act in the active generations lifetime, there will be an awakening strong enough to make the Consciousness Revolution look small.  Then we will see if change can be made in the Second Turning in the new age.

For myself there is nothing that tells me that the Saeculum is not currently in operation. Strauss and Howe predicted what has happened in the last ten years much more accurately than anybody else, even if the predictions were particularly specific.

I am personally need to wait another couple of decades to get a fuller picture of things like when did the regeneracy occurred in this Fourth Turning. Mind you the regeneracy might have not been that dramatic, Rise of the Tea Party movement, Sarah Palin's popularity and the election of a large number of extreme conservatives in state and federal legislatures could been the regeneracy.

In Australia it could have been the election of the most conservative government (The Liberals under Tony Abbott) we have had for a very long time, on the back of populist anger in 2013 over the implementation of the carbon tax (which the incoming government abolished). Despite being deposed as Liberal Party leader in 2015, Tony Abbott still maintains a fanatical following among our version of the Tea Party crowd.

I'm sure that Mr. Howe is right about the schedule. Many T4T and Generations readers now think the 4T will end sooner than 2028-29. I think it's still on target. The regeneracy is the "resistance" to the Trump regime, and it has many facets. The largest demonstrations ever in the USA have happened as part of it. Perhaps the most dynamic was the movement for gun control after the Parkland massacre, so eloquently spoken by its young leaders. That felt like a regeneracy to me, and they implied that it extended beyond that one issue. It's to "restore morality to this country's politics" as Matt Post eloquently said. 

The movement to deal with climate change is still revving up despite the efforts of the Tea Party and Trump to keep climate change raging on. This movement will climax during the next 2T, but it will also have a triumph during the next 10 years of the 4T, because the need is there and the issue is before us. It will take several social moments around this issue to turn it around. If we don't start during this 4T, it's likely that we won't be able to turn it around in the future, and future saecula will see no regeneracies because civilization will just be dying.

Regeneracy personified:

[Eric the Green]

(09-08-2018, 08:29 AM)David Horn Wrote:

(09-06-2018, 11:57 AM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote: I would like to see a non establishment candidate, or more than one, take over one or both parties.  That trend is real.  One element of the upcoming conflict is the division of wealth, and both rural and urban populations could benefit by non traditional anti establishment candidates.  This wave is growing, but so far the establishment is hanging on to power.

But the wave against the establishment is growing.  I am not seeing it breaking yet.  I am not seeing new values
triumphing soon.  I could be wrong.

Any non-establishment candidate who runs has to offer something real or (s)he's just another Trump.  Bring me ideas first, then pick a champion to bring them about.  I only have four critical issues: addressing climate immediately, establishing international relations on a win-win basis (definitely avoid war), move quickly to reduce inequality, and show basic competence.  A lot of other issues make achieving those hard to impossible, but they are symptoms rather than core issues -- race and gender being the two most potent.  Unless a candidate with FDR-like charisma, guts, energy and savvy emerges out of the political soup, we're still a few election cycles away from getting there.

Obama may be contributing more to a regeneracy now than he did as president, although now only as giving speeches to support the Democrats in midterms. He made the point in his excellent speech Sept. 7 at an Illinois campus that I have made before. There is no use separating the progressive agenda into those of white workers vs. diverse social groups; it is the same group with the same problem; domination of our society by an economic elite that uses fear and prejudice to prop up free market nostrums. 

https://youtu.be/66TSD2YiNhg?t=44m39s

Watch it and see the regeneracy happening. He describes it.

Waiting for the right candidate, is not a regeneracy. Expecting perfection, and not uniting for change, is not a regeneracy. One election victory, followed by a winning candidate who is not supported, and abandoned by cynical people staying home in elections, is not a regeneracy. Waiting for others to act, will not bring the wave. A young generation that stays home during midterms is not a regeneracy. Millennials can discover their collective power and save democracy; it's their destiny as a civic generation. And prophets and prophet cuspers like Obama to back them up and help lead them is their destiny. It's up to all of us to bring it, and it's happening.

[Bob Butler 54]

(09-10-2018, 09:04 PM)Eric the Green Wrote: Waiting for the right candidate, is not a regeneracy. Expecting perfection, and not uniting for change, is not a regeneracy. One election victory, followed by a winning candidate who is not supported, and abandoned by cynical people staying home in elections, is not a regeneracy. Waiting for others to act, will not bring the wave. A young generation that stays home during midterms is not a regeneracy. Millennials can discover their collective power and save democracy; it's their destiny as a civic generation. And prophets and prophet cuspers like Obama to back them up and help lead them is their destiny. It's up to all of us to bring it, and it's happening.

A regeneracy is a united county pushing new and militant values. Fourth Turnings are generally marked by a Pearl Harbor, a Fort Sumter, a Lexington Green. I do not anticipate similar all out violence to resolve the red - blue culture difference. Second Turnings are not violent, but are marked by an extremely emotional moment associated with new values. I am not seeing an escalation in the Spiral of Violence. I am especially not seeing the country united, and not even Trump's blatant failure will make the red base abandon their values. Not yet. If an extreme blue partisan tried to lead without incorporating the middle of the country, he would still flip the see saw, pass power back to the reds.

We need fanatics. We need progressives committed to the new values early. We need people like Thomas Paine or the abolitionists. There ought to be people expressing ideas ahead of the idea's acceptance. There are.

But a S&H theorist has to keep hold of the evidence. Regeneracy has not happened yet, nor are we heading in that direction. The country is not united behind new values. We seem to be heading towards a war of ideas, not a literal war. We are certainly not in an actual war.

You should not let your fanaticism blind you to reality, make a joke out of the theory's view of history.

[Marypoza]

(09-11-2018, 01:29 AM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote:

(09-10-2018, 09:04 PM)Eric the Green Wrote: Waiting for the right candidate, is not a regeneracy. Expecting perfection, and not uniting for change, is not a regeneracy. One election victory, followed by a winning candidate who is not supported, and abandoned by cynical people staying home in elections, is not a regeneracy. Waiting for others to act, will not bring the wave. A young generation that stays home during midterms is not a regeneracy. Millennials can discover their collective power and save democracy; it's their destiny as a civic generation. And prophets and prophet cuspers like Obama to back them up and help lead them is their destiny. It's up to all of us to bring it, and it's happening.

A regeneracy is a united county pushing new and militant values.  Fourth Turnings are generally marked by a Pearl Harbor, a Fort  Sumter, a Lexington Green.  I do not anticipate similar all out violence to resolve the red - blue culture difference.  Second Turnings are not violent, but are marked by an extremely emotional moment associated with new values.  I am not seeing an escalation in the Spiral of Violence.  I am especially not seeing the country united, and not even Trump's blatant failure will make the red base abandon their values.  Not yet.  If an extreme blue partisan tried to lead without incorporating the middle of the country, he would still flip the see saw, pass power back to the reds.

We need fanatics.  We need progressives committed to the new values early.  We need people like Thomas Paine or the abolitionists.  There ought to be people expressing ideas ahead of the idea's acceptance.  There are.

But a S&H theorist has to keep hold of the evidence.  Regeneracy has not happened yet, nor are we heading in that direction.  The country is not united behind new values.  We seem to be heading towards a war of ideas, not a literal war.  We are certainly not in an actual war.

You should not let your fanaticism blind you to reality, make a joke out of the theory's view of history.

-- a war of ideas, not an actual war. My take too. This 4T we are fighting the Culture Wars.

[Bob Butler 54]

Not a 4T!  A 2T!  Mumble...  

There is a slight uptick in the spiral of violence.  Suicides are pushing for a splash before exiting the scene.  This does not seem linked to any particular political movement, so I am not counting it as a large change in the spiral.  The media is exploiting and boosting the trend by reporting it to an extreme.  You have to kill more people to get lots of impact for your act.  As they once put it, anything to sell papers.  It is blood money.

[David Horn]

(09-10-2018, 09:04 PM)Eric the Green Wrote: Obama may be contributing more to a regeneracy now than he did as president, although now only as giving speeches to support the Democrats in midterms. He made the point in his excellent speech Sept. 7 at an Illinois campus that I have made before. There is no use separating the progressive agenda into those of white workers vs. diverse social groups; it is the same group with the same problem; domination of our society by an economic elite that uses fear and prejudice to prop up free market nostrums. 

That's one of the reasons I find the continuous drumbeat of the anti-racists and anti-misogynists so troubling. It's not that they are wrong, It's that they are divisive. If you want to wrench power from the monied elite, you need all-hands-on-deck. That won't happen if women and people of color are looking narrowly at their special issues, and only looking there. #MeToo is a good idea. So is Black Lives Matter. Right now, both need to focus on the bigger picture or both will simply fail.

Eric the Green Wrote:Waiting for the right candidate, is not a regeneracy. Expecting perfection, and not uniting for change, is not a regeneracy. One election victory, followed by a winning candidate who is not supported, and abandoned by cynical people staying home in elections, is not a regeneracy. Waiting for others to act, will not bring the wave. A young generation that stays home during midterms is not a regeneracy. Millennials can discover their collective power and save democracy; it's their destiny as a civic generation. And prophets and prophet cuspers like Obama to back them up and help lead them is their destiny. It's up to all of us to bring it, and it's happening.

I have a lot of hope for the Millennials, who have already incorporated anti-racism and anti-sexism into their very beings. They can join hands, ignore those battles (or do eye-rolls at their foolish elders for being the 'way they are'), and focus on the threats that need to be resolved.

[pbrower2a]

(09-11-2018, 08:35 AM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote: Not a 4T!  A 2T!  Mumble...  

There is a slight uptick in the spiral of violence.  Suicides are pushing for a splash before exiting the scene.  This does not seem linked to any particular political movement, so I am not counting it as a large change in the spiral.  The media is exploiting and boosting the trend by reporting it to an extreme.  You have to kill more people to get lots of impact for your act.  As they once put it, anything to sell papers.  It is blood money.

Suicides are considered violent death no matter how cowardly the means. Having been at risk when about everything went wrong all at once (my prospects aren't so great now... and I am going for help with depression again), I can see myself in such a position again. Blowing one's brains out and 'death by hibachi' are both considered violent death, just as killing someone by putting cyanide in one's soup or beating someone up with a baseball bat.

I apologize for adding that troublesome clarification.

Rates of violent crime have been going down. Maybe this is because youth are no longer exposed to lead from vehicle fuels as they once were (and the rates of violent crime in most urban areas increased from the most isolated suburbs with the lowest density of auto traffic to the neighborhoods with the highest volume of traffic flow -- in the San Francisco Bay Area along what was then California 17 (now Interstate 880, basically the same highway)... low in Newark, slightly higher in northern Fremont, then higher in turn in Union City, Hayward, San Lorenzo, San Leandro, south Oakland, central Oakland, and finally North Oakland where the freeways to and from the south, southeast, east, and north converged taking vehicles onto the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge  in the morning and dispersed at night. The potential for political violence is higher than in recent years. Because of Kevlar vests standard in most police departments, once once-common sort of murder (a criminal kills a cop) has typically either failed to kill the cop who is shot in the bullet-proof vest or has turned into a justifiable homicide in which the criminal pulling a gun on a cop is killed for trying to murder the cop.  Drug use is down from what it was in the 1970s, and so is drug-related violent crime. The welfare system gives some poor people good cause to stay clean. But this is economics, physiology, or technology.

The attempt on the life of Representative Steve Scalise was by a troubled person with liberal tendencies. Liberalism is rarely violent. Political hatreds are strong. as are passions.

The demonization of people has intensified. Many white people fear that their alleged 'white culture' is under threat. (No, I say to fools who believe that -- race is not culture, as I would not confuse Finnish culture with Italian culture. Latin-American cultures have a Spanish or Portuguese basis, which is European. Jamaican blacks are culturally more British than I am (because I am about half German or Swiss in origin, and only about half from the British Isles), and slave-descended blacks have no trace of any African culture. As David Hackett Fischer put it in Albion's Seed, slave-owners quickly and relentlessly destroyed any traces of African culture among slaves -- African Americans having to cadge a culture out of norms of a peasant way of life in England,  as practically nobody was going to take the expensive and dangerous trip across the Atlantic just to be a peasant for the third-oldest son who moved to the New World to be an aristocrat in the tidewater area. African-American culture is fully made in America, and it is more truly American than, let us say, Italian-American culture that still connects to any extent to Italy.  Note that this concern about threats to 'white culture' is about race... it is about some precious white daughter getting pregnant by some black man even if he is unobjectionable.

Mercifully, ethnic violence seems not to be happening even if racism is as loud as ever among people on the fringe of society. The Black power movement of the 1960s and 1970s is no more, and Black Lives Matter welcomes white people of conscience who would like to see fewer deaths of black people from police error.

We are nearly out of the 4T when we recognize that we are all in the same dangerous and unpleasant situation together, and that we must solve some seemingly-intractable problems before those problems overpower us.

Among those are political polarization, the decline of the importance of manufacturing industry, the intensification of economic inequality, and the violation of democratic norms. If the capitalist system is to survive, then it had better be Capitalism with a human face. We will need some extensive reforms in many institutions from education to the workplace. We will need to deal with global warming and with the consequences of computers outsmarting us (the dreaded Singularity of science-fiction writers). Democracy rarely fares well in a climate of extreme inequality, so the pattern of extreme inheritances of wealth (resulting from low taxes on the rich) and low, rigid ceilings for people of 'low' origin in bureaucratic organizations will have to go. Class privilege must justify itself to survive. Maybe we need high, graduated taxes again that create niches for small business.

I can imagine a better world, one in which people have alternatives to working long and hard just to survive but more so that some privileged elites can enjoy opulent splendor characteristic of an aristocratic order, and one in which people have more leisure time and can find richness of life in it because they are educated in what makes life worthy of living. We need a society that rewards work instead of connections. Yes, we need to stall global warming.

I consider Zero Population Growth essential.

[David Horn]

(09-11-2018, 01:29 AM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote: A regeneracy is a united county pushing new and militant values.  Fourth Turnings are generally marked by a Pearl Harbor, a Fort  Sumter, a Lexington Green.  I do not anticipate similar all out violence to resolve the red - blue culture difference.  Second Turnings are not violent, but are marked by an extremely emotional moment associated with new values.  I am not seeing an escalation in the Spiral of Violence.  I am especially not seeing the country united, and not even Trump's blatant failure will make the red base abandon their values.  Not yet.  If an extreme blue partisan tried to lead without incorporating the middle of the country, he would still flip the see saw, pass power back to the reds.

We need fanatics.  We need progressives committed to the new values early.  We need people like Thomas Paine or the abolitionists.  There ought to be people expressing ideas ahead of the idea's acceptance.  There are.

But a S&H theorist has to keep hold of the evidence.  Regeneracy has not happened yet, nor are we heading in that direction.  The country is not united behind new values.  We seem to be heading towards a war of ideas, not a literal war.  We are certainly not in an actual war.

You should not let your fanaticism blind you to reality, make a joke out of the theory's view of history.

There is one solution that doesn't require a dominant view of where we need to go: a schism.  I doubt it will happen formally, but functionally, it already has.  It's hard to see how that may be implemented without a fracturing of the nation, but we really are, and have been since the beginning, two separate nations.  The two value structures are simply incompatible in their current form, and no one seems to have a guide-on that will lead us to a workable solution other than going our separate ways.

[David Horn]

(09-11-2018, 08:35 AM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote: Not a 4T!  A 2T!  Mumble...  

There is a slight uptick in the spiral of violence.  Suicides are pushing for a splash before exiting the scene.  This does not seem linked to any particular political movement, so I am not counting it as a large change in the spiral.  The media is exploiting and boosting the trend by reporting it to an extreme.  You have to kill more people to get lots of impact for your act.  As they once put it, anything to sell papers.  It is blood money.

I think this may be the end point: muddle through and let the next 2T settle the argument philosophically … or not.  Our grandchildren may decide to chop the country into separate nations, and let the teams relocate to areas they find more to their liking, though I see that as a 4T-type effort.

[Eric the Green]

(09-11-2018, 01:29 AM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote:

(09-10-2018, 09:04 PM)Eric the Green Wrote: Waiting for the right candidate, is not a regeneracy. Expecting perfection, and not uniting for change, is not a regeneracy. One election victory, followed by a winning candidate who is not supported, and abandoned by cynical people staying home in elections, is not a regeneracy. Waiting for others to act, will not bring the wave. A young generation that stays home during midterms is not a regeneracy. Millennials can discover their collective power and save democracy; it's their destiny as a civic generation. And prophets and prophet cuspers like Obama to back them up and help lead them is their destiny. It's up to all of us to bring it, and it's happening.

A regeneracy is a united county pushing new and militant values.  Fourth Turnings are generally marked by a Pearl Harbor, a Fort  Sumter, a Lexington Green.  I do not anticipate similar all out violence to resolve the red - blue culture difference.  Second Turnings are not violent, but are marked by an extremely emotional moment associated with new values.  I am not seeing an escalation in the Spiral of Violence.  I am especially not seeing the country united, and not even Trump's blatant failure will make the red base abandon their values.  Not yet.  If an extreme blue partisan tried to lead without incorporating the middle of the country, he would still flip the see saw, pass power back to the reds.

We need fanatics.  We need progressives committed to the new values early.  We need people like Thomas Paine or the abolitionists.  There ought to be people expressing ideas ahead of the idea's acceptance.  There are.

But a S&H theorist has to keep hold of the evidence.  Regeneracy has not happened yet, nor are we heading in that direction.  The country is not united behind new values.  We seem to be heading towards a war of ideas, not a literal war.  We are certainly not in an actual war.

You should not let your fanaticism blind you to reality, make a joke out of the theory's view of history.

Well, Fort Sumter divided the country rather drastically. Lexington divided the country between tories and rebels. Pearl Harbor was not the start of a crisis, and neither was Ft. Sumter for that matter, but were crisis climax catalysts. From 1929 to 1941 the country was also divided between FDR supporters and haters, and later between war hawks and isolationists. No, a 4T does NOT mean a united country. It means a country picking sides. And the examples you chose illustrate that a regeneracy is not necessarily brought about by a president's actions, but also by rebels' actions.

The regeneracy is definitely happening, and it is the resistance to Trump on many fronts. That is definitely worth stressing and emphasizing now, and talking up. WE ARE RISING UP! like a phoenix from the fire! A blue gray champion president and many other gray champions will need to take up the fight, with quite a bit more alacrity than Obama did in office. But Obama is now helping to lead the charge even before a gray champion president is chosen. As Matt Post said about Nov.2018, "we can make this a turning point for our country." That's it, and the gun control advocates will be leading the charge (among others of course, but they are the most articulate so far, besides Obama).

Second Turnings contain a lot of violence, both domestic and foreign, but the 4T scale can be higher. My prediction is well-known by now, that the most likely violence is a right-wing rebel uprising against a left-wing takeover of the US government, precipitating such actions as tax increases and gun controls. I also don't discount further troubles with terrorists or Russia abroad. The year 2025 (up to Jan.2026) will be the time of decision and outbreak. I don't anticipate, though, that the rebellion will be anywhere near as effective as their Confederate forebears. It doesn't have to happen, of course. I hope it doesn't. But the track record of 4Ts is not good, so no-one should be complacent about it, or about the level of division that exists in our country, nor how hard it will be to bridge or quell it.

[Eric the Green]

(09-11-2018, 10:15 AM)David Horn Wrote:

(09-11-2018, 08:35 AM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote: Not a 4T!  A 2T!  Mumble...  

There is a slight uptick in the spiral of violence.  Suicides are pushing for a splash before exiting the scene.  This does not seem linked to any particular political movement, so I am not counting it as a large change in the spiral.  The media is exploiting and boosting the trend by reporting it to an extreme.  You have to kill more people to get lots of impact for your act.  As they once put it, anything to sell papers.  It is blood money.

I think this may be the end point: muddle through and let the next 2T settle the argument philosophically … or not.  Our grandchildren may decide to chop the country into separate nations, and let the teams relocate to areas they find more to their liking, though I see that as a 4T-type effort.

Yes, it is a 4T type effort, which is why if it happens, it will happen in the next 10 years, especially around 2025; something I have predicted might happen in this time period for almost 50 years now. It will NOT happen in a 2T. Generationally, it is impossible, because adaptives will be in middle age, and civics in leadership positions.

Quote:There is one solution that doesn't require a dominant view of where we need to go: a schism. I doubt it will happen formally, but functionally, it already has. It's hard to see how that may be implemented without a fracturing of the nation, but we really are, and have been since the beginning, two separate nations. The two value structures are simply incompatible in their current form, and no one seems to have a guide-on that will lead us to a workable solution other than going our separate ways.

Yes indeed.

[Eric the Green]

(09-11-2018, 10:04 AM)David Horn Wrote:

(09-10-2018, 09:04 PM)Eric the Green Wrote: Obama may be contributing more to a regeneracy now than he did as president, although now only as giving speeches to support the Democrats in midterms. He made the point in his excellent speech Sept. 7 at an Illinois campus that I have made before. There is no use separating the progressive agenda into those of white workers vs. diverse social groups; it is the same group with the same problem; domination of our society by an economic elite that uses fear and prejudice to prop up free market nostrums. 

That's one of the reasons I find the continuous drumbeat of the anti-racists and anti-misogynists so troubling.  It's not that they are wrong,  It's that they are divisive.  If you want to wrench power from the monied elite, you need all-hands-on-deck.  That won't happen if women and people of color are looking narrowly at their special issues, and only looking there.  #MeToo is a good idea.  So is Black Lives Matter.  Right now, both need to focus on the bigger picture or both will simply fail.

Eric the Green Wrote:Waiting for the right candidate, is not a regeneracy. Expecting perfection, and not uniting for change, is not a regeneracy. One election victory, followed by a winning candidate who is not supported, and abandoned by cynical people staying home in elections, is not a regeneracy. Waiting for others to act, will not bring the wave. A young generation that stays home during midterms is not a regeneracy. Millennials can discover their collective power and save democracy; it's their destiny as a civic generation. And prophets and prophet cuspers like Obama to back them up and help lead them is their destiny. It's up to all of us to bring it, and it's happening.

I have a lot of hope for the Millennials, who have already incorporated anti-racism and anti-sexism into their very beings.  They can join hands, ignore those battles (or do eye-rolls at their foolish elders for being the 'way they are'), and focus on the threats that need to be resolved.

Both the white working class advocates, and the social justice advocates, will need to see the bigger picture, in which the goals of both of these are closely linked and important.

[Bob Butler 54]

(09-11-2018, 10:04 AM)David Horn Wrote: That's one of the reasons I find the continuous drumbeat of the anti-racists and anti-misogynists so troubling.  It's not that they are wrong,  It's that they are divisive.  If you want to wrench power from the monied elite, you need all-hands-on-deck.  That won't happen if women and people of color are looking narrowly at their special issues, and only looking there.  #MeToo is a good idea.  So is Black Lives Matter.  Right now, both need to focus on the bigger picture or both will simply fail...

I have a lot of hope for the Millennials, who have already incorporated anti-racism and anti-sexism into their very beings.  They can join hands, ignore those battles (or do eye-rolls at their foolish elders for being the 'way they are'), and focus on the threats that need to be resolved.

I have focused a lot on the forgivable things in the red agenda.  Smaller more efficient less corrupt government, lower taxes and less burdensome regulation are among these.  It would behoove blues to understand these things, to give them more than lip service. But to some degree the blues have things to do. There is a balance to be found.

I have given less ink lately to the things that are not forgivable.  There is a solid opposition to fighting global warming.  There is a stubborn loyalty to voodoo economics, though it has failed in the long run whenever tried.  Then there is racism, sexism, the Southern Strategy.

I too have much hope for the young, that things can change on all three unforgivable fronts.  This hurricane season might more that chip away at the warming position.  The South has suffered enough.  Borrow and spend just hasn't worked.  We all have suffered enough.  The young have to a great extent turned their back on their elders prejudices.  It won't take much.  Trump won a minority victory.  Gerrymandering, the electoral college and the elite's way of buying government are a barriers that can be overcome.

David Horn's and Hillbilly Eulogy's vision of the rural culture as paternal, religious and irrational may be true enough, but large enough problems can cause change.  It can be turned around.  They have to.  Stubborn as cultures can be, even they will eventually say enough is enough.