Originally Posted by Eric the Green

Why assume that everyone has to travel to a place these days in order to know what's going on? People today have TV and the internet. Travel is not necessary to be informed.

Younger people have a progressive, post-modern mindset, yes. Mostly, they just want the freedom and opportunity that others have, and that's their "mindset." Some people, especially in the Middle East, apparently do not have it. Some Africans do not. The terrorists and dictators try to impose the Dark Ages on the people. They won't succeed. They have the means to deceive and mislead, for a while. The dictators deceive many people that their backward ways will create the freedom and opportunity that they want, just like the Reaganoid Tea Party fanatics do in the USA. You can't fool all the people all the time, however. The fools will fall. Don't get fooled again!

Actually, taking the example of young people in the PRC, there is rampant nationalism. The hatred of Japan, Vietnam, and other nearby "lesser" nations is on the rise. Behind the scenes, while smiling to US business people in order to liberate us of our money (and it is a lot of money, trust me on this), they plot a Great Patriotic War against us.

Originally Posted by XYMOX_4AD_84

Actually during and for a while after the Great Power 4T, Reagan, who in fact was an FDR Democrat during the 1930s and 1940s, was a very typical Civic of that era. Even after he personally moved to the right during the mid - late 1T, he never completely lost his Civic-ness.

Yes, anticipating this response, I should have done a better job clarifying my point. My point is that the whither or not a 4T resolution was successful or not is relative.

I think there are lots of people who think it WAS NOT, which is why they are pushing their RED agenda now.

Shoot, it wasn't long after FDR's death that things started to change back slightly.

History repeats itself.

Originally Posted by millennialX

This rings true to me and I wrote this elsewhere:

At the end of the day I believe this 4T will continue to be a mild one because the status quo isn't exactly stifling enough to the everyman (who is pretty comfortable with binge watching life) for a complete overhaul and the elite won't allow the real issues to change yet. Meanwhile, I don't see us getting involved in a big deal war because no country is going to start one with us at this point in time.

Me neither. Squashing Islamism? Maybe down the road. Reworking the money system and letting the banks go bust rather than the citizens for once? Again maybe down the road. If all goes well and the 4T concludes on a positive note. It would still end up a comparatively mild 4T. No big (between equals) wars to fight and no epic proportions to tackle.

On the other hand, could be we are in for a huge breakdown of [western] civilization in this century, but in such a case it would be a process stretching out over several Turnings. This particular 4T is running out of time.

What's going on in Washington is people just doing busy work to make us think stuff is happening. I was listening to a guy on NPR talking about his next 100 years predictions and he believes the US biggest problem is that we are insecure with our Global Power status. I can see that and/ or also consider that the themes of this 4T prove that we can't fix shit and therefore aren't the shit like we try to portray.

So this 4T is an IDENTITY CRISIS.

Wow, that actually resonates on more levels than one. I like it.

I honestly can't think of a 4T that hasn't had major failures. I mean, this one is spiralling into total pointlessness, but every 4T has major failures.

Originally Posted by Eric the Green

But what we as a people experience, depends on what we want, and what we will allow. The people of the world no longer have any stomach for wars between great powers. It won't happen, ever again. All wars from now on are revolutions.

"The people" don't start wars. Leaders do. They don't even have to be leaders of nation states. All they need are followers and momentum. ISIS is as close to a perfect example of that I can muster. Imagine an al Tikriti with a nuclear weapon. Most of the world's nukes aren't that secure.

WWI started because an Archduke was assassinated. There's no reason to assume something equally stupid can't happen again. Passions aren't rational.

Originally Posted by XYMOX_4AD_84

Actually, taking the example of young people in the PRC, there is rampant nationalism. The hatred of Japan, Vietnam, and other nearby "lesser" nations is on the rise. Behind the scenes, while smiling to US business people in order to liberate us of our money (and it is a lot of money, trust me on this), they plot a Great Patriotic War against us.

No, they are plotting how to get rich, or at least to get by. Paranoia is not accurate; it is delusional. Ask any psychologist.

We are all related, less than 60,000 years back. We are all descended from many lines of "identity." In reality, we each have one identity; individual, unique humans on One Planet Earth. That fact is becoming known, and is breaking down the division and paranoia about other races and peoples. So this, along with the fact that people like music from everywhere, not just from their family. And the fact that people find spiritual truth from religions all over the world. That, plus the fact that people are informed about what everyone, everywhere, is doing, and how what everyone, everywhere does, affects us all, all the time. Globalism is not a utopian dream; it is an inescapable fact.

https://youtu.be/MJDrCQXi0mU

Originally Posted by Marx & Lennon

"The people" don't start wars. Leaders do. They don't even have to be leaders of nation states. All they need are followers and momentum. ISIS is as close to a perfect example of that I can muster. Imagine an al Tikriti with a nuclear weapon. Most of the world's nukes aren't that secure.

WWI started because an Archduke was assassinated. There's no reason to assume something equally stupid can't happen again. Passions aren't rational.

No, such a thing can't happen today. Leaders know that conquests are illegal, and that powerful forces will resist them. Global law and order exists. The people don't care about who their archduke is, or whether he is killed or not. There are no such dynasties today. Leaders have to respond to their people, and to economic and legal realities. ISIS is Al Qaeda in Iraq-- not a product of one leader, but a group of fanatics who have deceived thousands of people. Passions exist, and will be channeled into revolution, or fanatical movements.

Our times are different than WWI. Nationalism has not created alliances poised for war, which only a spark could set alight. Dynasties do not rule. The world is different since the end of the world wars and the Cold War. We have the chance to build a peaceful world. We are one world already, under world law. We just need to rein in the crazy ones-- the rogue nations, isolated dictators and fanatical groups. We haven't succeeded yet, and it will take generations to come to succeed. Together, we can do it.

Originally Posted by Kepi

I honestly can't think of a 4T that hasn't had major failures. I mean, this one is spiralling into total pointlessness, but every 4T has major failures.

But they were successful. The Glorious Revolution is aptly named; creating the first parliamentary state whose descendants exist all over the world. The American Revolution created the world's first constitutional republic. The Civil War ended slavery and saved the union. The Depression and World War Two created social security and defeated the fascists. All successful, and all our heritage.

Our 4T seems pointless and drifting because that's what happens when Neptune is in Pisces. It is what happens when society is divided and in gridlock, and deceived by the reactionaries. The division is the Crisis. It will fester until it is dealt with; until progressive forces triumph so they can handle climate change and inequality, and defeat terrorist fanaticism and misguided attempts by oligarchs to restore the Cold War.

Originally Posted by Eric the Green

People forget although I point it out all the time. I don't know why that is. The cycles are clear. The 2010s are the new 1850s. In the 1850s we were stuck and leadership was abominable. The nation was divided, waiting for a civil war. That's where we are. Our times are the 1850s redux, with aspects of the 1930s and 1770s too. The authors put 1850s in a 3T, just as people want to look at the 2010s as still 3T or lacking a regeneracy.

I get where you are going with this, and it's a possibility I'm not ruling out. However, there are big reasons to look at the 1850's as a 3T, especially in an international scope. Need I say 1848? The shattered idealism and steam rolling capitalism that followed? Saint Simonists turning into smokestack cylinder hat industrialists? In America, the forty-niners, urban gangland and Knownothings?

If the civil war 4T included the 1850s, as should be clear, then the regeneracy did not come until late in the 4T. That is what's happening now. No-one, given the cycles in play, should expect a regeneracy in the 2010s. In any case, Black Tuesday ruled it out at the start. Congress has been gerrymandered for national stagnation. No-one should expect a regeneracy under a congress like the USA has now. It is impossible. Millies will need to vote in midterms before any regeneracy occurs.

I have predicted when the upsurge in activism will occur for decades now. There's no reason to ignore my prediction when most everything in the last 2 decades has happened as I foretold.

If you are right, expect the "activism" in Europe to take the shape of anti-globalist and anti-immigration nationalism. Sweden, France and Britain are countries where reconstructive action has been blocked out for years by a monolithic power apparatus and mass media lying through its teeth about everything from financial burdens to gang rape. In this country since December, all the establishment parties, from Communists to Neoliberals, have even combined into a kind of junta in a desperate attempt to block the growth of the nationalist party.

If we "experience one now," you can kiss America goodbye, and perhaps much of the world too through climate change.

Or, it might just mean that America declines into a local great power, abdicating its global super power status to China. If 2001 is indeed the year the 4T began, America went into the 4T as the world's sole remaining global super power. It might re-emerge sidelined and with its status substantially diminished, yet perhaps with a new and internally reinforcing understanding of itself.

Whatever the case, my inner Xer likes to think he can take it, abject pauperisation and all. As a Nomad you never expected the worst case baseline to be anywhere above Mad Max level anyway.

Our Crisis today is not due to terrorists abroad. It is due to our own failure of freedom and justice at home. We need a new birth of freedom, and an end to the phony freedom of trickle-down Reaganomics. Change at home is the real meaning of most 4Ts, in fact. We either face-up to the need for change, or we fail as a nation.

But a change that requires upsetting the well-rooted powers that be, like the civil war era, does not come so easily as "happy days are here again" or sending King George home. This time, the PTB are not giving it up without a fight, and it takes time for the people to realize this and to be willing to fight for change in our own country. It is easier to wallow in the woe and put off the evil deed; as we did in the 1850s and are doing now.

I agree our 4T is not due to terrorism, but from a 2001 proponent standpoint, the idea of world threatening terrorism set off a chain of events that both caused the 4T and actual large scale terrorism to emerge. So infidel beheading terrorism has become one of the themes of the 4T. Wars are expensive, so links in that chain are the mismanaged 3T bubble economy that was allowed to rot, after Clinton actually having succeeded in stabilizing the deficit somewhat, and suffering an initial bust in 2007-2008. In fact, the actual, perhaps single most important reason for invading the Mideast was defending the petrodollar, the instrument that allowed the 3T deindustrialization economy and the US ability to consume well over its aggregate product. The invasions themselves were psychologically enabled by a universalist mindset where it's okay to move in everywhere for the sake of some metaphysical "good" fighting "evil", and where state sovereignty and cultural dissimilarities counted for nothing.

This universalist mindset is actually precisely the same kind of worldview, albeit reacted in a partly different environment, that has engendered the European migration crisis and Nationalist reaction that is now unfolding.

Where do these factors originate (there are others)? They all hark back to turning points, ideas and unresolved issues in the cycle we are now exiting, maybe especially stuff that have their roots in the Awakening. Beginning with the bombing of Serbia, the events of 2001 let it all out in the open, and what we see now is the unfolding of its dynamic on the world stage. That's why 2001 is properly viewed as the catalyst of the 4T. As a Crisis period, it might however turn out relatively mild in comparison.

Originally Posted by Tussilago

I get where you are going with this, and it's a possibility I'm not ruling out. However, there are big reasons to look at the 1850's as a 3T, especially in an international scope. Need I say 1848? The shattered idealism and steam rolling capitalism that followed? Saint Simonists turning into smokestack cylinder hat industrialists? In America, the forty-niners, urban gangland and Knownothings?

No two times are identical. 1850 was in a much different place on the cycle of civilization. The old European imperial world was still existing; the modern world we know was not yet born, but with its seeds sprouting.

But surely 1848 was like the Arab Spring. The saeculum and the planets both were in similar if not identical positions both times. Idealism of the Springers as well as Obama followers has shattered; new powers and know-nothing fanatics both here and abroad have risen in their wake that will challenge us in the remaining years of the crisis. Energy booms are happening and will grow even faster very soon. The new post-industrial green revolution is only months away.

If you are right, expect the "activism" in Europe to take the shape of anti-globalist and anti-immigration nationalism. Sweden, France and Britain are countries where reconstructive action has been blocked out for years by a monolithic power apparatus and mass media lying through its teeth about everything from financial burdens to gang rape. In this country since December, all the establishment parties, from Communists to Neoliberals, have even combined into a kind of junta in a desperate attempt to block the growth of the nationalist party.

If I am right, millennials in Europe have little interest in right-wing nationalist and ethnic paranoia. Europe has created the most advanced society on Earth, and young people are eager to see it grow and green the world. They want an end to austerity and further progress toward a society of social liberation and growth, spurred by their new European bank and federation. Youth will demand that opportunities blocked by entrenched elites be opened. If I am wrong, nationalist resentments will fester, but I still don't expect them to predominate.

Or, it might just mean that America declines into a local great power, abdicating its global super power status to China. If 2001 is indeed the year the 4T began, America went into the 4T as the world's sole remaining global super power. It might re-emerge sidelined and with its status substantially diminished, yet perhaps with a new and internally reinforcing understanding of itself.

Whatever the case, my inner Xer likes to think he can take it, abject pauperisation and all. As a Nomad you never expected the worst case baseline to be anywhere above Mad Max level anyway.

As a prophet, my vision is not narrowed and dulled by Xer ennui and despair. I can still see the amazing possibilities that our unique time in history affords for rebirth and success. Those who see the possibilities and act on them, will succeed. Those who wallow in despair, will not. Xers need to lift their vision to that of their prophet older brothers and sisters, and cheer up like their younger millennial cousins. In pop song terms, look to the dawning of the Age of Aquarius, and be Happy. This is going to be the best time of your life.

2001 is not the start of the 4T, and international affairs are second fiddle in the Crisis of America and Europe. However, America's world power is declining. But that does not mean China will dominate the world. Multi-lateral management of world affairs will continue to grow, since that is the destiny of this civilization cycle, which began with the defeat of nationalism and the birth of the League of Nations. Every soldier whose life rotted in the trenches in 1916-1918 died for the sake of this new birth of global law and freedom. It is our destiny to unfold this new world, and it is inevitable given the facts.

I agree our 4T is not due to terrorism, but from a 2001 proponent standpoint, the idea of world threatening terrorism set off a chain of events that both caused the 4T and actual large scale terrorism to emerge. So infidel beheading terrorism has become one of the themes of the 4T. Wars are expensive, so links in that chain are the mismanaged 3T bubble economy that was allowed to rot, after Clinton actually having succeeded in stabilizing the deficit somewhat, and suffering an initial bust in 2007-2008. In fact, the actual reason for invading the mideast was defending the petrodollar and it was psychologically enabled by a universalist mindset where it's okay to move in everywhere for the sake of some metaphysical "good" fighting "evil", and where state sovereignty and cultural dissimilarities counted for nothing.

The attacks of 2001 were equivalent to World War I in the last crisis. Unresolved problems and revengeful fanatics were still loose in the world in 1918 and had to be stopped once the real Crisis began. That's where we are now. Just because we must deal with terrorism and a terrorist "state" now, does not mean that one great terrorist attack defines the date of the 4T, any more than WWI defined the previous 4T.

America's quest for petrodollar dominance was due to the mindset defined in the Project for a New American Century. You call it universalist, but it is really old imperialism. Universalism is the idea of all peoples at peace working together. Imperialism is the idea that one nation can dominate and set the agenda. That was the mindset that launched the Iraq War in 2003, without any doubt. It is all documented and not subject to debate.

This universalist mindset is actually precisely the same kind of worldview, albeit reacted in a partly different environment, that has engendered the European migration crisis and Nationalist reaction that is now unfolding.

Quite different events have led to the current migration Crisis than what you cite. People are fleeing places where revolutions have failed; most notably Syria. The people could not depose their monster dictator who was destroying their country, so they had to leave. Others are leaving North Africa, where terrorism and failed revolutions have threatened them. They flee the poverty that has festered because of the misrule of these countries, which the people tried to overthrow and failed to a large extent.

Fanaticism and terror are the exact reverse of universalism; they are produced by fanatic narrow cults like the IS, Al Qaeda, Boka Horam, the groups in Somalia and their imitators who want to impose their own narrow identity on others. So, dictators and fanatics have caused the migration. The Crisis is a clear-cut choice and deadly battle between universalism on the one hand, and the hatreds of these fanatic identity cultists wherever they may be, including tha European nationalists who resent the immigration caused by their fanatical Islamic counterparts in the Middle East.

Where do these factors originate (there are others)? They all hark back to turning points, ideas and unresolved issues in the cycle we are now exiting, maybe especially stuff that have their roots in the Awakening. Beginning with the bombing of Serbia, the events of 2001 let it all out in the open, and what we see now is the unfolding of its dynamic on the world stage. That's why 2001 is properly viewed as the catalyst of the 4T. As a Crisis period, it might however turn out relatively mild in comparison.

The roots of dictatorship in places like Syria and Egypt are many and varied, and go back centuries and millennia. More recently, there's resentment over the US-backed Israeli domination of Palestine, the Iranian Revolution in 1978 that reacted to US intervention in the 50s and 60s, and the religious surge in the 1970s that exploited old and new hatreds and economic suffering to create anti-western terrorist groups (you could call that an "Awakening" legacy there); plus the contrast people in the Mid-East feel between ancient oppression and modern new opportunities. Break-up of nations after the Cold War created the instability in Serbia and Ukraine and other such places. The latter appears to be likely to cause problems during the 4T, as it is already doing.

Originally Posted by Eric the Green

No two times are identical. 1850 was in a much different place on the cycle of civilization. The old European imperial world was still existing; the modern world we know was not yet born, but with its seeds sprouting.

But surely 1848 was like the Arab Spring.

That is an interesting analogy. Does anyone else have thoughts about it? Setting aside the positions of the planets...

Originally Posted by The Wonkette

Setting aside the positions of the planets...

Which allowed me to predict it
https://youtu.be/oKmyB1q3H68

Originally Posted by millennialX

Yes, anticipating this response, I should have done a better job clarifying my point. My point is that the whither or not a 4T resolution was successful or not is relative.

I think there are lots of people who think it WAS NOT, which is why they are pushing their RED agenda now.

No, that's not it. If by "red" agenda you mean the Republicans. They are not pushing their agenda because any 4T resolution was not successful. They don't care whether it was successful or not. They try to deceive us that it wasn't, when it was. They are pushing their agenda because they oppose the actions of the blue side, which contradicts their ideology; and have been opposing us for at least 35 years. They feel entitled to rule. The 4T threatens their position. So they lie, cheat, steal, blackmail, stall; anything to hang on. People like JPT and Wallace will not listen to any facts. They are just opponents of progress, and will try to block it by any means necessary.

There is no way to make the Republicans into good guys, or excuse their demented program and uprisings, unless you agree with their misguided agenda.

Originally Posted by Eric the Green

No, they are plotting how to get rich, or at least to get by. Paranoia is not accurate; it is delusional. Ask any psychologist.

We are all related, less than 60,000 years back. We are all descended from many lines of "identity." In reality, we each have one identity; individual, unique humans on One Planet Earth. That fact is becoming known, and is breaking down the division and paranoia about other races and peoples. So this, along with the fact that people like music from everywhere, not just from their family. And the fact that people find spiritual truth from religions all over the world. That, plus the fact that people are informed about what everyone, everywhere, is doing, and how what everyone, everywhere does, affects us all, all the time. Globalism is not a utopian dream; it is an inescapable fact.

https://youtu.be/MJDrCQXi0mU

Yes we are all related, and Hitler exterminated 6 million plus of his cousins. Stalin, Pol Pot, countless others, have similarly shown their love for their cousins. When the Nazis blitzed London, they were in a sense truly killing their own blood, given the Friesland and later, Norse via Normandy, origins of the English. And the internet (and the rainbow colored unicorns) will forever arrest such tendencies, protecting us from the big bad bomb. BTW - just yesterday, The Institute of Geopolitical Problems in Moscow issued a report regarding the use of a modernized Tsar Bomba to attempt to set off the Yellowstone Caldera. Does the US even have a Department of Geopolitical Problems, let alone an institute?

Originally Posted by XYMOX_4AD_84

Yes we are all related, and Hitler exterminated 6 million plus of his cousins. Stalin, Pol Pot, countless others, have similarly shown their love for their cousins. When the Nazis blitzed London, they were in a sense truly killing their own blood, given the Friesland and later, Norse via Normandy, origins of the English. And the internet (and the rainbow colored unicorns) will forever arrest such tendencies, protecting us from the big bad bomb. BTW - just yesterday, The Institute of Geopolitical Problems in Moscow issued a report regarding the use of a modernized Tsar Bomba to attempt to set off the Yellowstone Caldera. Does the US even have a Department of Geopolitical Problems, let alone an institute?

We need to recognize potential problems and dangers, and be prepared to take action. Climate change, meteors, eruptions, right-wing ideologies, warlike peoples; these are real and must be dealt with. But that is different than only looking at the dangers and not the potentials. It is wiser to imagine our potentials first, and not base our actions on fears and imagined scenarios of the worst that could happen, especially without any specific evidence. Because that will bring them about. Preparation is wiser than paranoia, and only recognition and use of our abilities can meet our challenges. Hitler, Pol Pot, Stalin, Osama bin Laden, Saddam Hussein, George W Bush; these types of leaders convince their people that they have dangerous enemies and therefore must take an aggressive attitude toward them and defeat them before they defeat us. They use this fear as an excuse for their own aggressive, murderous activities. They always blame their own aggression on others.

Originally Posted by The Wonkette

That is an interesting analogy. Does anyone else have thoughts about it? Setting aside the positions of the planets...

Comparing this era to the ACW just totally misses some critical differences in their society and ours. In 1865, the likelihood if finding a comparable sort of person to me in terms of point in the generational constellation in this geographical area is much lower than it is now. So where do all the normals go? In the 1850's, they went west. Demographically, the people who were new to the system at that time (Y cusp equivalents) went west. This time, they stayed home. That means that there's no way for Boomers to monopolize the equivalent of 1850's east coast politicians for that long to provoke an actual civil war. The closest we've gotten to that point were the birther idiots, and the normals basically shut them up eventually. The recent uprising of PC loons is just as likely to piss off the norms.

Nice, normal people don't give a shit. They're not going to show up for your anti gun march, or your pro gun march. They don't care about long form birth certificates. And they're just a general wet blanket across incendiary and inflammatory culture war nonsense, because they're quick to point out that the world would be a better place if idiots on the blue side and the red side didn't exist.

We're also missing out on the analogs to the Revolutionary War. The Terror War nonsense analogous to the French and Indian war. The problems that we have paying off our debts and maintaining our standard of living. Which is ironic if this iteration of the U.S. ends within this saeculum.

I think it's fairly fair to say that our national leadership has killed any motivation for people to fight for them, either in a foreign war or a domestic one. If people are going to get other people to fight for them, they have to offer something, and they have to have a place to store the folks (like myself) who are disinterested in fighting in any sort of prolonged conflict, because if you piss them off they'll eliminate all other sides swiftly so they can rebuild their little boring stable lives.

Originally Posted by Kepi

Comparing this era to the ACW just totally misses some critical differences in their society and ours. In 1865, the likelihood if finding a comparable sort of person to me in terms of point in the generational constellation in this geographical area is much lower than it is now. So where do all the normals go? In the 1850's, they went west. Demographically, the people who were new to the system at that time (Y cusp equivalents) went west. This time, they stayed home. That means that there's no way for Boomers to monopolize the equivalent of 1850's east coast politicians for that long to provoke an actual civil war. The closest we've gotten to that point were the birther idiots, and the normals basically shut them up eventually. The recent uprising of PC loons is just as likely to piss off the norms.

Nice, normal people don't give a shit. They're not going to show up for your anti gun march, or your pro gun march. They don't care about long form birth certificates. And they're just a general wet blanket across incendiary and inflammatory culture war nonsense, because they're quick to point out that the world would be a better place if idiots on the blue side and the red side didn't exist.

The problem with that, is that it's the economy that divides us, much more than culture wars, and the ideology that promotes inequality and pollution is entrenched, which keeps young people down. One party, the red side, promotes that ideology. Something must break through the log jam.

The gun issue could be a trigger for violence among some fanatics. Most people won't fight a major civil war over that issue, but it could trigger other issues. They can be worked out peacefully. But will they? The track record for 4Ts is not good. We will be fortunate if it's just a break-up or a surge of activism, combined with continued battles against terrorists or Putin's thugs, which we may or may not join directly.

It's possible. The Boomers promoted make love not war, and Americans may too comfortable to tear their nation apart. On the other hand, American governments have very recently been able to get their sons and daughters to go fight rather-senseless wars. So that's possible too, at home or abroad.

I doubt the GOP is a pro-boomer party, if they were they would not be supporting the cutting of Medicare and social security. Cutting retiree spending actually benefits Americans currently under 50. The main problem is that no one is currently supporting increased spending on infrastructure, defense and programs for the poor. Cutting retiree spending would free up Billions of dollars that could be spent on those three aforementioned categories and the nations future. I oppose the GOP notion that government cant be allowed to have more funds, however I doubt the current GOP would fanatically defend Medicare and SS for the inflated lifestyles of Boomers and silents.

Originally Posted by Eric the Green

The problem with that, is that it's the economy that divides us, much more than culture wars, and the ideology that promotes inequality and pollution is entrenched, which keeps young people down. One party, the red side, promotes that ideology. Something must break through the log jam.

The gun issue could be a trigger for violence among some fanatics. Most people won't fight a major civil war over that issue, but it could trigger other issues. They can be worked out peacefully. But will they? The track record for 4Ts is not good. We will be fortunate if it's just a break-up or a surge of activism, combined with continued battles against terrorists or Putin's thugs, which we may or may not join directly.

It's possible. The Boomers promoted make love not war, and Americans may too comfortable to tear their nation apart. On the other hand, American governments have very recently been able to get their sons and daughters to go fight rather-senseless wars. So that's possible too, at home or abroad.

C'mon Eric, it's time to face the truth. Not only did Boomers, on average, favor Vietnam more than their parents, with the counter culture generally being a small but noisy contingent at that time... But let's be real here, that small, noisy contingent conveniently became very quiet once they were no longer eligible for selective service. It very much looks like 1) all the way around overly emotional idealists make terrible pacifists, 2) of the minority of anti-war activists, the majority within were rank opportunists, 3) The American government, no matter what subset you speak of, has nothing to offer the normal everyday people that would cause them to do anything from keeping it from getting crushed and that is entirely due to the fact that if a Boomer is managing something, they can't help but turn it into something completely irredeemable. Also, when talking about a 4T lasting into the thirties, all the Boomers will be too old to hold a single power position by then. Even now in 2016, we're pushing it with the ones we have, especially when considering the ramifications of the rapid technological change within our 3T means that even most Xers really don't have the technological background necessary to to hold this place together because they lack the understanding of how the tech actually works. Hell, I'm going back and reintroducing myself to basic networking concepts as they've changed to include a lot more peripherals and components and I used to be very up on my game, and have done at least some programming. People who used to brag about never having sent an e-mail? They don't cut it now, let alone in 15 years? Get real.

Originally Posted by Marx & Lennon

"The people" don't start wars. Leaders do. They don't even have to be leaders of nation states. All they need are followers and momentum. ISIS is as close to a perfect example of that I can muster. Imagine an al Tikriti with a nuclear weapon. Most of the world's nukes aren't that secure.

WWI started because an Archduke was assassinated. There's no reason to assume something equally stupid can't happen again. Passions aren't rational.

The Assassination was just a spark for something that had been building for a while.

Originally Posted by Kepi

C'mon Eric, it's time to face the truth. Not only did Boomers, on average, favor Vietnam more than their parents, with the counter culture generally being a small but noisy contingent at that time... But let's be real here, that small, noisy contingent conveniently became very quiet once they were no longer eligible for selective service. It very much looks like 1) all the way around overly emotional idealists make terrible pacifists, 2) of the minority of anti-war activists, the majority within were rank opportunists, 3) The American government, no matter what subset you speak of, has nothing to offer the normal everyday people that would cause them to do anything from keeping it from getting crushed and that is entirely due to the fact that if a Boomer is managing something, they can't help but turn it into something completely irredeemable. Also, when talking about a 4T lasting into the thirties, all the Boomers will be too old to hold a single power position by then. Even now in 2016, we're pushing it with the ones we have, especially when considering the ramifications of the rapid technological change within our 3T means that even most Xers really don't have the technological background necessary to to hold this place together because they lack the understanding of how the tech actually works. Hell, I'm going back and reintroducing myself to basic networking concepts as they've changed to include a lot more peripherals and components and I used to be very up on my game, and have done at least some programming. People who used to brag about never having sent an e-mail? They don't cut it now, let alone in 15 years? Get real.

I just came by to say bingo to the above.

Originally Posted by Kepi

Comparing this era to the ACW just totally misses some critical differences in their society and ours. In 1865, the likelihood if finding a comparable sort of person to me in terms of point in the generational constellation in this geographical area is much lower than it is now. So where do all the normals go? In the 1850's, they went west. Demographically, the people who were new to the system at that time (Y cusp equivalents) went west. This time, they stayed home. That means that there's no way for Boomers to monopolize the equivalent of 1850's east coast politicians for that long to provoke an actual civil war. The closest we've gotten to that point were the birther idiots, and the normals basically shut them up eventually. The recent uprising of PC loons is just as likely to piss off the norms.

Nice, normal people don't give a shit. They're not going to show up for your anti gun march, or your pro gun march. They don't care about long form birth certificates. And they're just a general wet blanket across incendiary and inflammatory culture war nonsense, because they're quick to point out that the world would be a better place if idiots on the blue side and the red side didn't exist.

We're also missing out on the analogs to the Revolutionary War. The Terror War nonsense analogous to the French and Indian war. The problems that we have paying off our debts and maintaining our standard of living. Which is ironic if this iteration of the U.S. ends within this saeculum.

I think it's fairly fair to say that our national leadership has killed any motivation for people to fight for them, either in a foreign war or a domestic one. If people are going to get other people to fight for them, they have to offer something, and they have to have a place to store the folks (like myself) who are disinterested in fighting in any sort of prolonged conflict, because if you piss them off they'll eliminate all other sides swiftly so they can rebuild their little boring stable lives.

The French and Indian War comparison is interesting and honestly this supports my comparison with the Glorious Revolution because citizens had to fight the natives (whom they looked at as Terrorist) then too..

Originally Posted by Kepi

C'mon Eric, it's time to face the truth. Not only did Boomers, on average, favor Vietnam more than their parents, with the counter culture generally being a small but noisy contingent at that time... But let's be real here, that small, noisy contingent conveniently became very quiet once they were no longer eligible for selective service. It very much looks like 1) all the way around overly emotional idealists make terrible pacifists, 2) of the minority of anti-war activists, the majority within were rank opportunists, 3) The American government, no matter what subset you speak of, has nothing to offer the normal everyday people that would cause them to do anything from keeping it from getting crushed and that is entirely due to the fact that if a Boomer is managing something, they can't help but turn it into something completely irredeemable. Also, when talking about a 4T lasting into the thirties, all the Boomers will be too old to hold a single power position by then. Even now in 2016, we're pushing it with the ones we have, especially when considering the ramifications of the rapid technological change within our 3T means that even most Xers really don't have the technological background necessary to to hold this place together because they lack the understanding of how the tech actually works. Hell, I'm going back and reintroducing myself to basic networking concepts as they've changed to include a lot more peripherals and components and I used to be very up on my game, and have done at least some programming. People who used to brag about never having sent an e-mail? They don't cut it now, let alone in 15 years? Get real.

OK, get real Kepi No, Boomers opposed to the Vietnam War were a vast number, who represent the real Boomers. We nominated McGovern, a process in which I was involved, and McGovern came closest to winning CA than most other states. The stats posted here before showed how liberal core boomers were; just as fully as older millennials in 2008. We weren't small at all. Yes, we ended the draft, but we also ended the war. It took a long time, but we did it. And we protested in great numbers against the overturning of the Vietnam Syndrome by George Bush I. No, we made good pacifists, and we created the ideology of no more war. We opened the spacebridge to Russia, and the Russians used our term. So, we helped end the Cold War too. No, we make good pacifists; the best that have ever existed.

The American government has failed to attract millennial support in full, to the extent that they don't know how to vote in midterms. They vote in presidential elections though, so that proves it is not disillusion with "boomer management" (an obsession of yours only) that caused them not to vote in 2010 and 2014, allowing misrule to fester and deepen, but their own lack of civic skill. They'd rather lounge around and follow football games than to stay informed, stay active and vote. X/Yers like you and Millennials have shown themselves to be slackers when it comes to civic duty. The state is what we the people make it, and nothing else. You do not realize this yet, and you will need to wake up if you are going to wield your power effectively in 2025.

Where did you get that I said the 4T will last into the 2030s? No, I didn't, and no, it won't, but there will be more activism then than in the 1950s, is what I said. Not because Boomers are around, but (I hope) because millennials will be around. And because of the astrological indications, on which I base a lot of my prophecy; not just on what Boomers or Millennials will do or not do.

Millennials like civics in general are tech-obsessed, and think life is about keeping up with it. So be it, but the next prophets are going to throw off this virtual reality and get back to real life, and I wonder what the civic old fogeys will think about that when the time comes.