Wheels within wheels.

[pbrower2a]

(06-02-2019, 01:01 PM)Mikebert Wrote:

(05-31-2019, 04:14 PM)David Horn Wrote:

(05-31-2019, 03:44 PM)Mikebert Wrote: The reality of today has moved beyond the ability of past experience to explain it.

This is the issue we've tried to overcome, or barring that, ignore.  So far, we're not doing very well at either level.  But history will do a perfect job, 75 to 100 years from now … not that we should care all that much.  This feels like a pivotal moment, but totally without direction.

We know what needs to be done, but how?  Being an issue warrior tends to generate more backlash than converts.  Being passive just allows the current ills to continue.  Somewhere in the middle, or somewhere else entirely, there is a solution that escapes me.

The Civil War 4T struggle was over Red vs Blue. The Blue Conservative party won. In the Depression the struggle was over Conservative vs (econ) Progressive. The Red Progressive party won.

Today the term progressive (or liberal) has gotten so tangled up with cultural politics that they can no longer be separated.  This is, I think, a core problem. Progressives/liberals are BOTH Blue and progressive while Conservatives are both Red and conservative. So an effort by progressives to advance policy is a war on two fronts, and those usually end in defeat.

The progressives are not pushing cultural values or identity politics. The reactionaries do that!

This time the struggle is between freedom and dictatorship. Don't fool yourself about the poltroon now President; if he goes, then there will be someone else, probably more polished in his political expression and more knowledgeable about the political process. We will need to take out those who enable Trump because those people will enable the next, more dangerous, right-wing demagogue.

[Eric the Green]

(06-02-2019, 01:01 PM)Mikebert Wrote:

(05-31-2019, 04:14 PM)David Horn Wrote:

(05-31-2019, 03:44 PM)Mikebert Wrote: The reality of today has moved beyond the ability of past experience to explain it.

This is the issue we've tried to overcome, or barring that, ignore.  So far, we're not doing very well at either level.  But history will do a perfect job, 75 to 100 years from now … not that we should care all that much.  This feels like a pivotal moment, but totally without direction.

We know what needs to be done, but how?  Being an issue warrior tends to generate more backlash than converts.  Being passive just allows the current ills to continue.  Somewhere in the middle, or somewhere else entirely, there is a solution that escapes me.

The Civil War 4T struggle was over Red vs Blue. The Blue Conservative party won. In the Depression the struggle was over Conservative vs (econ) Progressive. The Red Progressive party won.

Today the term progressive (or liberal) has gotten so tangled up with cultural politics that they can no longer be separated.  This is, I think, a core problem. Progressives/liberals are BOTH Blue and progressive while Conservatives are both Red and conservative. So an effort by progressives to advance policy is a war on two fronts, and those usually end in defeat.

The Civil War 4T struggle was over Gray vs Blue. The Blue progressive party won. In the Depression the struggle was over Conservative vs (econ) Progressive. The Blue Progressive party won again. The progressives have always won the 4T struggles.

Blue is progressive, Red is conservative today. Cultural and Economic issues are tangled up because the issues are tangled up. Cultural conservatives (racists, homophobes, religious bigots) are dedicated to economic conservatives (trickle-down free-market ideology). They are joined at the hip. Social and cultural justice is bound up with economic fairness. You can't have one without the other. The issues are bound together so the politics is tied together.

[Mikebert]

(06-03-2019, 11:35 PM)Eric the Green Wrote:

(06-02-2019, 01:01 PM)Mikebert Wrote:

(05-31-2019, 04:14 PM)David Horn Wrote:

(05-31-2019, 03:44 PM)Mikebert Wrote: The reality of today has moved beyond the ability of past experience to explain it.

This is the issue we've tried to overcome, or barring that, ignore.  So far, we're not doing very well at either level.  But history will do a perfect job, 75 to 100 years from now … not that we should care all that much.  This feels like a pivotal moment, but totally without direction.

We know what needs to be done, but how?  Being an issue warrior tends to generate more backlash than converts.  Being passive just allows the current ills to continue.  Somewhere in the middle, or somewhere else entirely, there is a solution that escapes me.

The Civil War 4T struggle was over Red vs Blue. The Blue Conservative party won. In the Depression the struggle was over Conservative vs (econ) Progressive. The Red Progressive party won.

Today the term progressive (or liberal) has gotten so tangled up with cultural politics that they can no longer be separated.  This is, I think, a core problem. Progressives/liberals are BOTH Blue and progressive while Conservatives are both Red and conservative. So an effort by progressives to advance policy is a war on two fronts, and those usually end in defeat.

The Civil War 4T struggle was over Gray vs Blue. The Blue progressive party won. In the Depression the struggle was over Conservative vs (econ) Progressive. The Blue Progressive party won again. The progressives have always won the 4T struggles.

Blue is progressive, Red is conservative today. Cultural and Economic issues are tangled up because the issues are tangled up. Cultural conservatives (racists, homophobes, religious bigots) are dedicated to economic conservatives (trickle-down free-market ideology). They are joined at the hip. Social and cultural justice is bound up with economic fairness. You can't have one without the other. The issues are bound together so the politics is tied together.

The party that won the last 4T was the Democratic party that won the 1932 election. That party was a Red party, the party of the Jim Crow South. The candidate was FDR, who was a progressive Democrat. He had been Navy Secretary for the last Democratic president, who, like FDR, was a progressive, and a racist.

Red vs. Blue is a cultural measure. It can be mapped on a two dimensional chart along with liberal and conservative economic views to form distinct quadrants:

1. Red conservatives (usually called conservatives, but nowadays could include what is known as the alt-right) 
2. Blue conservatives (often called neoliberals or libertarians) 
3. Red liberals (often called populists)
4. Blue liberals (often called progressives)

You have seen this before except they label the non-economic axis as authoritarian vs. libertarian. I think replacing it with the Red-Blue axis is more informative.

[Mikebert]

(06-03-2019, 11:35 PM)Eric the Green Wrote: The Civil War 4T struggle was over Gray vs Blue. The Blue progressive party won. In the Depression the struggle was over Conservative vs (econ) Progressive. The Blue Progressive party won again. The progressives have always won the 4T struggles.

Blue is progressive, Red is conservative today. Cultural and Economic issues are tangled up because the issues are tangled up. Cultural conservatives (racists, homophobes, religious bigots) are dedicated to economic conservatives (trickle-down free-market ideology). They are joined at the hip. Social and cultural justice is bound up with economic fairness. You can't have one without the other. The issues are bound together so the politics is tied together.

The party that won the last 4T was the Democratic party that won the 1932 election. That party was a Red party, the party of the Jim Crow South. The candidate was FDR, who was a progressive Democrat. He had been Navy Secretary for Wilson, who, like FDR, was a progressive, but Wilson was also a racist (that is, a red economic liberal). 

Red vs. Blue is a cultural measure. It can be mapped on a two dimensional chart along with liberal and conservative economic views to form distinct quadrants:

1. Red conservatives (usually called conservatives, but nowadays could include what is known as the alt-right) 
2. Blue conservatives (often called neoliberals or libertarians) 
3. Red liberals (often called populists)
4. Blue liberals (often called progressives)

You have seen this before except they label the non-economic axis as authoritarian vs. libertarian. I think replacing it with the Red-Blue axis is more informative.

That the Democrats were Red and the Republicans Blue should be clear based on the Civil War. The Whigs were a quadrant 2 party. The Republicans were an amalgam several groups. Besides Whigs there were Free Soilers (quad 3) abolitionists (quad 2) and Know-nothings (quad 1). So the Republicans were a mix of Blue and some Red, plus both conservative and liberal economics. In the 1860's the Radical Republican faction (quad 4) was influential, and the Free Soil content (quad 3) expressed in the Homestead Act. By the 1870's the Whig majority was asserting itself and the GOP became largely quad 2 with conservative taking precedence over blue.

As the GOP moved towards quadrant 2, Democrats moved towards quadrant 3. As the GOP put increasing emphasis on economic conservativism, Democrats put more emphasis on economic liberalism.

Republican economic liberalism tended to manifest as Progressivism. Rank and file Democratic economic liberalism was populist.

You can see the difference by comparing Republican progressives like TRoosevelt and Lafollette (who were liberal on economics and culture) with populists like William Jennings Bryan and Tom Watson (see below).

Bryan headed the Democratic-Populst Fusion ticket in 1896. He is most famous for bring down the house at the Democratic Convention in that year with a rousing speech which ended with:

Having behind us the producing masses of this nation and the world, supported by the commercial interests, the laboring interests, and the toilers everywhere, we will answer their demand for a gold standard by saying to them: "You shall not press down upon the brow of labor this crown of thorns; you shall not crucify mankind upon a cross of gold.”

Later he defended creationism in the 1925 Scopes monkey trial. 

In the 1890's Watson supported black enfranchisement in Georgia and throughout the South, as a basic tenet of his populist philosophy. He condemned lynching and tried to protect black voters from lynch mobs. 

But by 1908 Watson identified as a white supremacist.

They were progressive on economics, but not on culture. 

[Hintergrund]

What about this categorisation? Social Conservatives; Progressives; Libertarians; Populists/Fascists.

[Eric the Green]

(07-12-2019, 07:32 PM)Hintergrund Wrote: What about this categorisation? Social Conservatives; Progressives; Libertarians; Populists/Fascists.

That's basically the axis of the political compass, and the Libertarian Party grid, if Libertarian and Progressive are considered to be about economic issues, and you delete the word "populist" (which today usually just incorrectly refers to right-wing fascists), and see that these fascists are equivalent to social conservative, and add the social libertarian category opposite to the fascists.

https://www.politicalcompass.org/analysis2

Social conservative vs. social libertarian is on the up/down scale.
Economic libertarian conservative vs. economic progressive is the other scale, and is placed on the right and the left.


On the Libertarian Party's Nolan grid, the same scales apply, but they refer to quadrants instead, and they put themselves at the top. Different terms apply to the axis, which are equal to the quadrants on the political compass. The social scale is renamed the "personal freedom" scale.

Libertarian vs. Statist is on one scale, up vs. down.
Liberal vs. Conservative is the other, left vs. right.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nolan_Chart

In mikebert's terrms, red and blue today adequately measure the conservative vs. liberal axis on the Nolan Grid. There's no need for any adjustment.

The Gray vs. Blue conflict in the Civil War era was a bit different. The Democratic Party shifted twice, first in the 1890s, when the Democrats became economic socialists and populists, and thus blue, and the Republicans defended capitalist priviledge, which today is colored red (ironically). That shift continues in effect today.

But the Democrats had been the party of slavery, and the gray color, equivalent to today's red, and in the 1960s they shifted and became the blue party on social and racial issues. The southern Democrats therefore left the party and became social conservative Republicans instead at that time, and red, and this shift has increased and remains in effect today.

[Eric the Green]

(06-02-2019, 01:01 PM)Mikebert Wrote:

(05-31-2019, 04:14 PM)David Horn Wrote:

(05-31-2019, 03:44 PM)Mikebert Wrote: The reality of today has moved beyond the ability of past experience to explain it.

This is the issue we've tried to overcome, or barring that, ignore.  So far, we're not doing very well at either level.  But history will do a perfect job, 75 to 100 years from now … not that we should care all that much.  This feels like a pivotal moment, but totally without direction.

We know what needs to be done, but how?  Being an issue warrior tends to generate more backlash than converts.  Being passive just allows the current ills to continue.  Somewhere in the middle, or somewhere else entirely, there is a solution that escapes me.

The Civil War 4T struggle was over Red vs Blue. The Blue Conservative party won. In the Depression the struggle was over Conservative vs (econ) Progressive. The Red Progressive party won.

Today the term progressive (or liberal) has gotten so tangled up with cultural politics that they can no longer be separated.  This is, I think, a core problem. Progressives/liberals are BOTH Blue and progressive while Conservatives are both Red and conservative. So an effort by progressives to advance policy is a war on two fronts, and those usually end in defeat.

The progressive side won the civil war, beyond all doubt, and it was the Blue liberal party. That was the Republican Party then. Today, that cause belongs to the Democratic Party in a total switch.

But if we are to have a progressive victory in this 4T, it must be on both fronts, both economic, and social libertarian. They are joined at the hip, and the progressive side must win, whether that has been "usual" in recent years or not.

The Democrats can be more moderate on both fronts, like Biden, or more liberal and progressive on both fronts, like Bernie, but they can't push on one front and not the other. And there can be no compromise between the left and the extreme right. The extreme right, even though it now has a built-in constitutional advantage, must be defeated. That is the essence of this 4T. And it is a real crisis, because victory is by no means assured.

The left's/blue's advantage today is in demographic shifts, most-especially a larger hispanic population. Trump and his crew are now working as furiously as they can to stem and reverse this advantage. It is entirely a political strategic battle. That is almost his entire focus, and his most passionate cause, and he disobeys the constitution and hurts as many people as he can to achieve it. IOW, he is a fascist.

[Eric the Green]

Bill the Piper added a "counter-cultural" category to the mix, to make it five.

In effect, the economic scale and its left vs. right battle represents the rise of socialism and what I call the second revolution in the world in our times, and it takes both democratic and totalitarian/statist forms. The neo-liberal economic libertarians and capitalists oppose this revolution. In spiral dynamics terms is it what I call the Lemon side of Orange.

The social and personal scale is basically the original first revolution for individual freedom and rights, and has (especially among today's liberals) taken on the issue of personal rights regardless of race, gender and creed. It is basically the Orange meme. The authoritarian social conservatives oppose these causes.

The third revolution is the counter-cultural element, new since the 1960s, and is Green. It generally folds in with the civil liberal position of social liberal, because it supports the right to have a new freer lifestyle (e.g. anti-drug laws), and is anti-war as libertarians also are. It also supports the civil rights cause in the form of supporting diversity and post-modernism, and supports new age and non-traditional religion. But it also supports environmentalism, which requires the state to restrain and tax capitalism, and this agrees with the economic liberal position. And many (but not all) third revolutionaries/Greens being generally supportive of the progressive side on all issues, it often supports the progressive goals both old and new of both the 1st and 2nd revolutions, as well as those of the 3rd. So it falls on the USA's far left. Meanwhile, the conservatives have gained new strength since the sixties by opposing the counterculture and its aims.

http://philosopherswheel.com/thethreerevolutions.html

The Libertarian Party and libertarians in general as we know them today is also a new feature since at least the 1960s. It departs from and opposes the second revolution and upholds the first. Generally it is not counter-cultural, but some counter-culture people are libertarian Orange instead of Green, and the anti-war and freer lifestyle stances of libertarians, which fold in with their anti-statism, agree with the counter-culture's peace and free lifestyle movements.

[Eric the Green]

(05-31-2019, 04:14 PM)David Horn Wrote:

(05-31-2019, 03:44 PM)Mikebert Wrote: The reality of today has moved beyond the ability of past experience to explain it.

This is the issue we've tried to overcome, or barring that, ignore.  So far, we're not doing very well at either level.  But history will do a perfect job, 75 to 100 years from now … not that we should care all that much.  This feels like a pivotal moment, but totally without direction.

We know what needs to be done, but how?  Being an issue warrior tends to generate more backlash than converts.  Being passive just allows the current ills to continue.  Somewhere in the middle, or somewhere else entirely, there is a solution that escapes me.

Being single-issue warriors tends to isolate liberals from each other. The solution is for liberals to embrace all the liberal issues and not just one or some. Only a broad alliance can win. And accentuate the positive as much as possible, instead of making enemies in your own larger alliance. We are stronger together, as Hillary said. Can we do this? Remains to be seen.

[Bill the Piper]

(07-13-2019, 12:49 PM)Eric the Green Wrote: Bill the Piper added a "counter-cultural" category to the mix, to make it five.

Now I've "converted" to spiral dynamics you see

Nolan chart is basically libertarian propaganda. It only sees things from the POV of Yellow capitalist meme. It measures the amount of government intervention, of interference in "natural" market dynamics. It cannot distinguish between an Islamist state banning porn because it's against the will of "Allah" (Blue theocratic meme) and a progressive government banning it because it's demeaning to women (Purple countercultural meme). Or between taxes spent on the military (Brown imperialist meme) and taxes spent on welfare programs (Red socialist meme).

[Hintergrund]

Eh, I know of the political compasses of course, but don't think much of them.

[Eric the Green]

(07-13-2019, 02:04 PM)Bill the Piper Wrote:

(07-13-2019, 12:49 PM)Eric the Green Wrote: Bill the Piper added a "counter-cultural" category to the mix, to make it five.

Now I've "converted" to spiral dynamics you see

Nolan chart is basically libertarian propaganda. It only sees things from the POV of Yellow capitalist meme. It measures the amount of government intervention, of interference in "natural" market dynamics. It cannot distinguish between an Islamist state banning porn because it's against the will of "Allah" (Blue theocratic meme) and a progressive government banning it because it's demeaning to women (Purple countercultural meme). Or between taxes spent on the military (Brown imperialist meme) and taxes spent on welfare programs (Red socialist meme).

Actually, the Nolan chart, although created by a libertarian, is as I explained simply the same political compass, which was created by European leftists. It doesn't matter who created the map. What Nolan did is not much more than switching the location of the axes and quadrants around. Libertarians are indeed only capitalists with some personal freedoms added along with labeling of free enterprise as freedom. But that doesn't mean they changed the political compass. They only used it because it makes a place for them.

The Nolan chart up and down axis is the measure of state control, with Libertarians near the top and statists at the bottom. This axis is exactly equal to the upper left (statist) to the lower right (libertarian) corners on the political compass. It is always amazing to me how hard it is to explain this simple fact.

The Islamic state banning porn is shown in the Nolan chart by the opposing upper left and lower right quadrants. That is the "personal freedom" that Libertarians advocate opposed to the social conservatives who want to regulate our personal lives, and impose their religion or their racial theories on us. On the political compass, this axis is the up and down axis, with the social and personal banning and regulating authority of the state at the top and the social and personal libertarians at the bottom.

If a progressive government bans porn to support women's rights, then that government is going below the horizon of the left side of the Nolan chart, or going higher in the green quadrant of the political compass, getting closer to where the Pope is above the horizon, because there is more state authority used.

The charts are inclusive of many gradations. That's why it works for anyone. And everyone is a mix of the polarities; no-one is a perfect specimen. Even I am not fully in the lower left quadrant of the compass, or the extreme left side of the Nolan chart.

The difference between taxes for the military and taxes for social welfare is quite simply the difference between the lower left and the lower right on the Nolan chart, which would go across from the left side to the top on the political compass. Militarism is social conservative, and welfare programs are socialism. But such programs are usually created by democratic socialism, so social welfare programs are close to the left on the Nolan chart, and to the lower left on the compass. Counter-culturalists, as I said, are still usually supportive of democratic socialism (the democratic side of revolution #2, what we call liberalism in the Democratic Party today).

Remember both counter-cultural leftists and libertarians are anti-war. They agree on the ground of social and personal freedom, and disagree across the axis of economic control and economic freedom. Anti-war falls in the personal freedom quadrant at the upper left of the Nolan chart, and militarism falls in the opposite social authoritarian quadrant on the lower right. Social conservatives enforce religion, race and national barriers by police, or by force of arms. They want to make their country great again, including its religious or mythological authoritarian underpinnings, and its racial purity. That is why the immoral Mr. Trump does their bidding. And if left unfettered, they will conquer other nations to create this uniformity of control by their group over others. Neo-cons naturally fall in this group, perhaps to a more moderate degree. Being more isolationist, Trump is more moderate than Hitler on this scale. But if push comes to shove, he will push the national power of the US military to its full extent and severity. Social conservatives support the righteous traditional authority trio of God (religions) family (race) and country (nation).

You may want to suppose that there are five neat corners into which people fall perfectly. But you are finding I am sure that there's not only gradations, but people might be a mix of different opposing quadrants. So a chart won't be correct if it tries to pigeonhole people into corners, but must be interpreted as a mix of the polarities accounting for one's placement nearer or farther from the center. One can have the same score if you are nearer to the center, and still disagree on some issues.

[Eric the Green]

(07-14-2019, 10:01 AM)Hintergrund Wrote: Eh, I know of the political compasses of course, but don't think much of them.

But the point is, that it "encompasses" the categories that you mentioned.

[Ragnarök_62]

(03-14-2017, 09:26 AM)Eric the Green Wrote: Hillary is 1000 times more honest, good looking and authentic-sounding than Con-way, who cons her way all the time.

It's time to toss another log into this fire. One never knows where the Epstein rabbit hole will go.

https://www.ecosophia.net/the-long-view/


How about a long, stair step bounce down ?

[David Horn]

(07-13-2019, 01:29 PM)Eric the Green Wrote: Being single-issue warriors tends to isolate liberals from each other. The solution is for liberals to embrace all the liberal issues and not just one or some. Only a broad alliance can win. And accentuate the positive as much as possible, instead of making enemies in your own larger alliance. We are stronger together, as Hillary said. Can we do this? Remains to be seen.

I gave this some thought, and I'm not sure it's practical. First, not all issues inside the Blue Universe are appealing to enough of the Blue Universe membership to make that possible. For instance, an issue as popular as universal healthcare is viewed from many perspectives, with Medicare For All panned by many as elitist or impractical, and incrementalism panned by others as inadequate. Even approaches to solving climate change are open to vigorous discussion. You might be able to get universal acceptance of the need to address issues like climate change, income inequality, endless war and basic incompetence, but that's about it. The details? Not so much.

The Blue Universe is populated by cats, not dogs. The diversity is it's strength, but it's also frustrating as hell.

[Eric the Green]

(07-15-2019, 10:45 PM)Ragnarök_62 Wrote:

(03-14-2017, 09:26 AM)Eric the Green Wrote: Hillary is 1000 times more honest, good looking and authentic-sounding than Con-way, who cons her way all the time.

It's time to toss another log into this fire. One never knows where the Epstein rabbit hole will go.

https://www.ecosophia.net/the-long-view/


How about a long, stair step bounce down ?

That's more the consensus of T4T people, but I don't go along. According to the cycles described by Spengler and Toynbee, as I understood them, the Decline of the West was a major shift that started precipitously, and not as a long stair-step down, in the 1890s-1920s period. They also agree with 500 and 1000-year periods in the rise and fall of civilizations, which is the major though not the only cycle governing civilization's affairs.
http://philosopherswheel.com/fortunes.htm

By now, according to the civilization cycle, we should have risen out of the collapse of the old civilization in the world wars, into a new renaissance and golden age of the new global civilization, which is a major departure which in effect the soldiers in the trenches of the Great War fought for.

In the 1990s this new age seemed to have been established, and it was entitled the end of history and the new world order. The Wall came down and democracy spread across the world. I think this remains the major event of recent times that defines our world.

But there are shorter cycles involved; wheels within wheels indeed. I mentioned the cycle of revolution above. But there is also the saeculum, an even shorter cycle. The shorter the cycle, the less influence it has over the overall position we are in. But the saeculum is powerful, especially in the USA, and since we are a global civilization now, the world pretty much runs on the same saeculum cycle. 

S&H explained how this is a generational cycle, but astrologers had noticed this cycle already, and in modern times it corresponds to the orbit of Uranus, just as the cycle of civilization aligns with the Neptune-Pluto mutual phases, and the cycle of revolution with the Uranus-Pluto ones.

But however you explain these cycles, the point is that we are now still near the beginning of all the major cycles, except for the saeculum. So, a 4T crisis following a longer than usual 3T decline in the saeculum cycle has intervened to make it appear that the golden age didn't begin, but instead that another great collapse is due (only 120 years after the last one).

Yes, we need to go through this crisis, and all knowledgeable prophets like me predicted long ago that we would go through it; but in the larger picture, the longer cycles still rule-- above all the 500-year one. So, it will rule, and the crisis of the 2020s will not be the end of America, or the start of its long decline. On the contrary, the new cycle that began in the 1890s has only just begun. The new foundations of the new global civilization established over the 20th century will endure, and we will make the breakthroughs that your author derides.

There may be a long decline, but it will ensue in about 150-200 years from now, and will last until the 25th century.

And as far as America is concerned, we must look at it as the expression of Renaissance Europe, not as having been founded in 1776. So the 1890s represent the start of the second half of its 1000-year cycle. And the 1890s-1920s period also represents America folding into the new global civilization, which has only existed since then.

[Eric the Green]

(07-16-2019, 11:03 AM)David Horn Wrote:

(07-13-2019, 01:29 PM)Eric the Green Wrote: Being single-issue warriors tends to isolate liberals from each other. The solution is for liberals to embrace all the liberal issues and not just one or some. Only a broad alliance can win. And accentuate the positive as much as possible, instead of making enemies in your own larger alliance. We are stronger together, as Hillary said. Can we do this? Remains to be seen.

I gave this some thought, and I'm not sure it's practical.  First, not all issues inside the Blue Universe are appealing to enough of the Blue Universe membership to make that possible.  For instance, an issue as popular as universal healthcare is viewed from many perspectives, with Medicare For All panned by many as elitist or impractical, and incrementalism panned by others as inadequate.  Even approaches to solving climate change are open to vigorous discussion.  You might be able to get universal acceptance of the need to address issues like climate change, income inequality, endless war and basic incompetence, but that's about it.   The details?  Not so much.

The Blue Universe is populated by cats, not dogs.  The diversity is it's strength, but it's also frustrating as hell.

Yes, we must act according to Hillary's slogan. We are stronger together. If anyone on the blue side wishes to win, they must realize this and support the coalition, regardless of which candidate is nominated in 2020. The cats must be herded! No, the details will still need to be hashed out. But what counts is the overall need to be agreed upon; and support what is decided in the short run, and continue to do the hashing out until the best solutions are found. 

It will be helpful to those in the know, like us, to pay heed to the astrological prophecies that I make. They offer more reassurance that a progressive tide is about to break. I have predicted this for close to 50 years now, for this period. Time goes by fast, and here we are on the edge! And it stands to reason anyway; after 40 years of regression, we either die or move forward again. And, according to the larger cycles, we are not about to die. So, fasten your seat belts; it's going to be one hell of a ride!

Keep in mind too the third great revolution, the vanguard of change now entitled "the green new deal." We probably won't get all of that established in the next 10 years, but the next awakening in the late 2040s is also the climax of the green revolution cycle.

[Kinser79]

(07-15-2019, 10:45 PM)Ragnarök_62 Wrote: It's time to toss another log into this fire. One never knows where the Epstein rabbit hole will go.

https://www.ecosophia.net/the-long-view/


How about a long, stair step bounce down ?

Interesting Article Rags.  It also isn't the first time I've seen Trump compared to either Julius or Augustus Caesar. Personally I think he is Julius; the Democrats are making moves to assassinate him politically if not physically, just like the Roman Senators assassinated Julius Caeser. 

As for having a "dominant minority", to use Toynbee's phraseology, we've had that since at least the 1960s.  And the Neo-Liberal (Clinton-ian/Obama-ite faction of one party and Nixon-ian/Bush-ite faction of the other) has been shown to be defeat-able; this was primarily Trump's job (if he actually gets the ball rolling in some direction apart from that is icing on the cake in my book).  So if Trump is Julius as I think, then regardless of the outcome of 2020 (which is likely a Trump Victory incidentally the Dims simply aren't running anyone who can win except perhaps Buttigieg [who is too too young right now, he's under 40 but he might turn up again in the 1T if his political career doesn't end up being a smoking crater after the current 4T ends]) an Augustus must follow.

As for the long running debates on red v. blue I don't have much time for them anymore.  The older I get the more convinced I am that history is written by the victors and the victors always cast themselves as being "on the right side of history".  Truthfully one of the reasons this forum has lost much of its appeal is that the major posters seem more interested in a red/blue horse race than they are in conducting actual political/economic/historical analysis.

ETA:

If one reads the article that Rags shared to the end it continues on with the theory of the the "Long Descent" and how things, no matter who is in charge and with what ideology, things will get progressively worse.  This sounds clearly to me like my predicted Mega-Crisis that I described in the first few posts of this thread.

[pbrower2a]

(10-14-2019, 01:14 AM)Kinser79 Wrote:

(07-15-2019, 10:45 PM)Ragnarök_62 Wrote: It's time to toss another log into this fire. One never knows where the Epstein rabbit hole will go.

https://www.ecosophia.net/the-long-view/


How about a long, stair step bounce down ?

Interesting Article Rags.  It also isn't the first time I've seen Trump compared to either Julius or Augustus Caesar. Personally I think he is Julius; the Democrats are making moves to assassinate him politically if not physically, just like the Roman Senators assassinated Julius Caeser.

Donald Trump can be assassinated metaphorically without being stabbed, shot, beaten, or whatever the method in vogue is at this time. The American to whom I compare Julius Caesar is George Washington for making a very different world and defining a new title for ruler -- as Julius Caesar defined the word Imperator. Washington chose to limit his Presidency to two terms, recognizing that others were wholly competent to do his job. He had defined the Presidency for Presidents up to at least Obama. I am tempted to compare Trump to either Nero, Caligula, or Commodus for erratic behavior, amorality, and for offending the sensibilities of the Establishment while doing little for the common man other than fooling people for a time. Unlike the unholy trinity of bad Roman Emperors, Trump is much too old to establish the prospect of a long reign despite its offense to multitudes . Julius Caesar never got the opportunity to decide that the time was up for his rule.

I am convinced at this point that Donald Trump will be impeached and not removed due to some ruse of the Senate majority in the Republican Party. It is not that Trump is useful to them; it is instead that the elected politicians typically reflect the political realities of their last election and do not adapt fast enough when things make rapid changes. Trump will be impeached; he will be shown grossly inadequate; a significant number of Republican Senators will go down to defeat with him in 2020 after standing with him.        

Quote:As for having a "dominant minority", to use Toynbee's phraseology, we've had that since at least the 1960s.  And the Neo-Liberal (Clinton-ian/Obama-ite faction of one party and Nixon-ian/Bush-ite faction of the other) has been shown to be defeat-able; this was primarily Trump's job (if he actually gets the ball rolling in some direction apart from that is icing on the cake in my book).  So if Trump is Julius as I think, then regardless of the outcome of 2020 (which is likely a Trump Victory incidentally the Dims simply aren't running anyone who can win except perhaps Buttigieg [who is too too young right now, he's under 40 but he might turn up again in the 1T if his political career doesn't end up being a smoking crater after the current 4T ends]) an Augustus must follow.

We are all capable of reading whatever we want to into Toynbee. We do not have a century of domination by one faction, the sort of situation that looks good to some dominant and uncreative minority better at indulging and pampering itself while treating all others badly. A system such as Russia under the Romanov dynasty around 1900 may have been superficially impressive, but under the rigid edifice was great rot. Russian creativity in science, literature, music, and even art was impressive on the brink of the First World War, but the system had severe faults. Despite the impressive work of scientists, the People were heavily involved in mysticism that corrupted even the Imperial court. If you think our televangelists are a collection of sickos, then just think of Grigory Rasputin, who infected the upper echelons of power. The economic order lacked the redundancy of capitalist systems that rely upon competition to keep trade honest and keeping profit margins down. Antisemitism effectively threw away what might have been a creative minority as is shown by American Jews, many descended from Jews who left Russia when the going was good. Above all, economic inequality was severe, dehumanizing, and destructive -- and the leadership had the folly of locating almost all the industry (and thus a disgruntled proletariat that could easily contrast its misery to the indulgence of the nobility and the plutocrats). When the First World War came around the economic order showed its shakiness.  

I have read one version of Toynbee's A Study of History, and such reading caused me to see how the USA fits among the leading Empires. The most ominous time for a civilization is the era of the Universal State in which one political entity has taken over the entire civilization and establishes a rigid order over it all. The system might be superficially impressive for its monuments, but under the grandeur is pervasive rot. Imaginative solutions that might save the system are seen as dangerous heresies because they challenge the incompetence and selfishness of the ruling elite. Western Christian Civilization has had the dubious opportunity to come under the rule of one or another empires in its midst -- Hapsburg Spain, Napoleon's France, the German Empire under Wilhelm II, the Third Reich, and the Soviet Union. Two countries have had the power to impose themselves as the Universal State, including the British Empire (which ruled countries mostly outside of Western Christian Civilization) and the United States (which last annexed territory that it now holds by buying the Danish Virgin Islands in 1917.

If you are to compare the United States to other empires, then it has some impressive comparisons. But note well: it has never defined any single culture as mandatory. It is mere accident that most Americans speak English. America could as easily have been splintered linguistically with Dutch-speaking (Hudson Valley, including New York City), German-speaking (southeastern Pennsylvania and much of the Shenandoah Valley), and French-speaking (Louisiana) before America took over a part of America which shows such city names as San Francisco, San Jose, San Diego, El Paso, Santa Fe, Laredo, San Antonio, and some other megalopolis. Cities such as Dallas and Houston that did not exist in Mexican times and Denver, never a part of Mexico, has much Mexican cultural influence. There has never been an official artistic style for America at any time. Americans are free to choose some other country or to manufacture one (as most slave-descended Americans did; 'black' cultures in America are made in America with practically no cultural influence from Africa). America offers the most and demands the least of all the great political entities that have come and gone.

I see Donald Trump as a severe aberration that will be shoved aside with America going back to its old patterns rather quickly.Our political system has typically been rigid where rigidity is desirable and flexible where flexibility is desirable.         

Quote:As for the long running debates on red v. blue I don't have much time for them anymore.  The older I get the more convinced I am that history is written by the victors and the victors always cast themselves as being "on the right side of history".  Truthfully one of the reasons this forum has lost much of its appeal is that the major posters seem more interested in a red/blue horse race than they are in conducting actual political/economic/historical analysis.

You are catching on. Even if one of the two Parties goes into oblivion, the remaining one will splinter within a few years because a Big Tent party is unwieldy in our political system. The Whigs are not quite the successor of the Federalists, and the Republicans are not quite the successor of the Whigs. The Parties are coalitions that themselves change over time. What conclusion could you draw from this overlay map of two pairs of Presidential elections?


   
 
gray -- did not vote in 1952 or 1956
white -- Eisenhower twice, Obama twice
deep blue -- Republican all four elections
light blue -- Republican all but 2012 (I assume that greater Omaha went for Ike twice)
light green -- Eisenhower once, Stevenson once, Obama never
dark green -- Stevenson twice, Obama never
pink -- Stevenson twice, Obama once 

No state voted Democratic all four times, so no state is in deep red. 


(This map uses the convention of red for Democrats and blue for Republicans used until about 1980)

OK, Eisenhower and Obama were similar in temperament and political skill... but the Obama and Eisenhower coalitions had mostly the same constituencies. The Eisenhower-Obama overlay is more impressive than overlawy between Obama's wins and those of FDR in 1936 (FDR did not get Vermont or Maine), Nixon in 1972 (Nixon lost Massachusetts) and Reagan in 1984 (Reagan lost Minnesota). Eisenhower won all of those states twice.

Of course political constituencies change. State cultures do not change unless those states have demographic shifts that change the population. Even such a word as "conservative" can change its meaning. In foreign policy, Obama is clearly the conservative and Trump is the radical. Any Republican would have been delighted to grease the skids for Moammar Qaddafi... but Obama got to preside over the collapse of that radical dictator. In contrast to the erratic Donald Trump on foreign policy, Obama is the arch-conservative. Personal behavior? Obama is about as conventional as one can get. 

I will not be around to see this, but fifty years from now Donald Trump will be used as an example of how not to be President.  

Quote:ETA:

If one reads the article that Rags shared to the end it continues on with the theory of the the "Long Descent" and how things, no matter who is in charge and with what ideology, things will get progressively worse.  This sounds clearly to me like my predicted Mega-Crisis that I described in the first few posts of this thread.

As John Maynard Keynes put it, in the long run we will all be dead. Toynbee offers no timetable of the path to ruin for any civilization (his unit). If I speak of modernity (we are all amateur historians, are we not?) I start with the Italian Renaissance, as we can easily relate to anything in the Renaissance but little before it in the West. Note well that there never was a break between the Renaissance and modernity; patterns of the Renaissance that allow creativity, intellectual curiosity, and technological innovation remain with us. The most powerful political entity within Western Christian Civilization never really defined itself as Christian... but it has also shown a flexibility that defies any attempt to define it. Nobody would confuse the America of 2019 with the America of 1869, let alone the America of 1789.

Should the United States go down (barring such a calamity as the eruption of the Yellowstone caldera or the strike of a foreign body such as the rock that put an end to the Age of Dinosaurs... if Humanity had been around at the time it would have been rendered extinct, too. Anthropogenic global warming (AGW) is obvious enough for all but complete blockheads to recognize. Unfortunately, Donald Trump is as much a blockhead on that as on many other things. 

Donald Trump is the political equivalent of a bad case of influenza. If one is otherwise in good health with a good immune system and a good cardio-vascular system one gets through the malady with no lasting effects. Someone with a weakened immune system and poor cardio-vascular health is at risk of the influenza morphing into terminal pneumonia that finishes off some very old person or person riddled with AIDS or cancer.

[Eric the Green]

Toynbee is a cyclic theorist. The basic idea of cyclic theory is not that everything is always in decline, but that after a decline and death a new birth comes. The question is where are we on the cycle. And how do you define who "we" are, and what a rise and decline looks like, and so on. And what is the length of the cycle you refer to, since there may be many. Different theories have different answers.

I tend to agree that the Renaissance was the start of our civilization, but I prefer to think that the Renaissance era ended at the turn of the 20th century. Our times today since then are not just a continuation of the Renaissance, but a new beginning that altered that older era. That puts us close to a beginning of a civilization cycle rather than near the end. But if you define our civilization as having been founded by the Declaration of Independence, then we are farther along.