Yes, Marc and everybody, I'll be on the Art Bell show (with a guest host), all night long. Let me invite late-nighters to tune in.

Bill-- I wish I had caught that little phrase, "all night long." :smile:

It's 2:15 in the morning here in Minneapolis, and the Art Bell Show is a little over 2 hours old-- calls started a bit ago, and you're talking with Mark from the Gen X List Serve Discussion Boards.

Bill-- You've done a terrific job tonight. I've appreciated the understanding that the guest host, Ian, has brought to it-- good prompts, good questions. But you did a great job in explaining the theories, sounding humble about how the book "got it right", and making people think about what's ahead.

I'm yawning, but I'm also taping the show. I've got Tape 2 in right now-- Side 1, so I'm going to try to get in Side 2 before I head to bed. That'll get me close to 4 hours of the show, and will be fun listening tomorrow. :smile:

This comment should be in the Slang thread, but recently I've become aware of the phrase, "You Go.." I might have said you hit one out of the ballpark tonight, Bill, but how about "You Go, Guy!"

Wes

Now that we're ten days into the new turning (and, since it's virtually certain now that the Taliban isn't going to hand bin Laden over to us, that's where we truly are), here's my take on things up to this point:

If I hear the "J" word ("justice") one more time I think I'll retch! This has about as much to do with "justice" as one of the Bloods killing a couple of Crips after the Crips took out a few Bloods. Let's cut out this sanctimonious crap! This is about survival, and yes, revenge too. American flags in every window? I'm all for it. "The Star Spangled Banner," "America The Beautiful" and all the rest of these patriotic songs being sung everywhere? Count me in here as well - and hey, let's use this opportunity to learn all of the verses of these songs instead of just the first one. But all this "good and evil" stuff? Spare me.

And the federal government had better be extremely careful about how far they go in limiting people's civil liberties. In previous posts I have alluded to the frightening possibility of our own "militia" nuts actually joining forces with the Arab terrorists - pointing out that both groups share some common ideologies, most notably anti-Semitism. If the government gets too heavy-handed with all this security business, the danger of this alliance forming could become very great.

Also, it's time to relegate "Political Correctness" to the dustbin of history where it belongs. Let's face it - if you're blond and blue-eyed, African-American, Latino or Chinese, you don't rate as much of a threat to hijack a plane and crash it into a skyscraper. But Arabs and other Muslims have to be considered risks for doing things like this; therefore these people should have the humility to accept more scrutiny than the rest of us. And if they don't like it, T.S. - and that doesn't mean tennis shoes!

And whoever said that if we changed our policy toward Israel, the Islamic extremists would still "hate" us: While I agree that these types will probably never be friendly to us, I do feel that they would stop their campaign of terror if we handed all of Palestine to the Arabs and relocated the Jews to some alternate homeland (that doesn't mean I necessarily advocate this, though). This crisis has resulted in a dramatic change of opinion on my part as regards Mideast politics - I now believe that yes, maybe the United States, Britain, France and Russia all made a terrible mistake after World War II by agreeing to place the Zionist entity in Palestine, instead of in Europe or someplace else. This may not please certain people, but it's rather obvious that if the Jewish state (and I still definitely think there should be one) was outside the Middle East, the Twin Towers would still be standing and the now estimated 7,000 victims of 911 would still be alive.

Out here in the Bay Area a lot of the original Boomer "peacenik" crowd is coming out of the woodwork and writing letters to the editor etc. opposing the upcoming war (Barbara Lee, the only member of Congress to vote against the war resolution, is 55 years old). While I cannot agree with them, I also cannot help but laud them for what I see as their lack of hypocrisy.

One final thought: Bin Laden should have waited a couple of years before starting this. Not to take anything away from Millennials, but it's going to go a lot worse for him and his minions with our Post-Busters (last-wave 13ers) coming after them instead! (bin Laden and company are going to get slaughtered, just like the Gilded Blue and Gray did to each other in the Civil War). Of course the timing of all this leaves us Busters "sniffing a bicycle seat" (as one of the cops on "Hill Street Blues" liked to say), but we're so used to that role by now that we won't complain about it.

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: Anthony '58 on 2001-09-22 04:31 ]</font>

On 2001-09-21 21:24, William Strauss wrote:
Yes, Marc and everybody, I'll be on the Art Bell show (with a guest host), all night long. Let me invite late-nighters to tune in.

Just finished listening as well. I enjoyed listening to it, but I can tell that I'm spoiled by listening to NPR--the frequent commercials cut up the chain of thought too often. Any requests to go on Talk of the Nation, Fresh Air, Diane Ream (sp.?), or the Todd Mundt show?

BTW, other than the school bus driver, who really thought you were full of $#!+ about how good Millies were, the callers seemed willing to listen, if not willing to be convinced. Did you share that perception?

Just as people are now calling on government to keep us safe, to stop the terrorists, soon they will be calling on government to protect us from the irresponsibility of global corporations. Also, the only way that business manages to achieve the kind of influence over government that it has enjoyed in the recent past is if the people stop paying attention to politics. That, too, is a 3T thing, and it is now a thing of the past.

Brian, the flaw I see in your argument, and it is certainly not exclusive to you, is that you assume "all things being equal" in comparing this 4T to previous ones. While all that this assumption entails serves as a foundation for comparing any two earlier 4Ts, are we not breaking new ground with this coming 4T? Actually, I mean to say that we are breaking new ground at the conclusion of this 4T.

You and I both agree that the outcome of this 4T will be global government. This means a world without nation-states. What we are left with is one authority which, by definition, will be a monopoly which knows no checks on its power. Government is only responsive so long as checks are in place which encourage it to be responsive in order to hold on to its power. When its hold on power is not threatened in any way, government no longer needs to be responsive and inevitably it will not be.

What I fail to understand is why you actually believe that our "masters" will give a damn what you or I want once they have assumed absolute control of the earth. Once nation-states vanish, you and I will have lost any remaining leverage over governmental policy as nations must compete with each other to survive and thus must respond to us to: a) keep their power, b) maximize productivity, and c) keep us from fleeing to another country to increase its productivity. Yes, you can fight for whatever governmental policy you want in the 4T and you might even succeed in instituting this policy on the day the global government is born. But then, all bets are off. They can cancel your policy the following day in a second without even breaking a sweat. And there is absolutely no leverage which you or I or anyone else will hold which can possibly pressure this monopoly to do anything at all. You can beg and beg and beg on bended knee until you catch them in a charitable mood some day when they might respond. But they are apt to be grouchy the next day and once again cancel your policy. The whole thing is ridiculous.

AT&T held a monopoly for decades...I guess for a century actually. Although there were all kinds of demands for different products and innovations, AT&T never felt pressured to produce anything more "cutting edge" than the Princess phone which basically left a second-degree burn on your hand if your call exceeded five minutes. And furthermore there was no incentive for them to even improve upon the existing model as, 20 years later, the damn thing still left you reaching for the gauze. I need not add that, as soon as the monopoly was broken up, the range and diversity in telecommunication products exploded beyond all comprehension.

You are telling me that you are looking forward to this governmental monopoly with global sway. Please explain to me why they will give a damn what you want. No matter what it is, you are going to get the equivalent of the "hot plate" Princess. And if you do not like it, "Tough beans, knave."

[yawning] I lasted for two hours in the Art Bell alternate universe. Mr. Strauss was doing a great job of educating a big audience of our fellow citizens.

I have to go plough and if the furrow wanders I'll have to blame myself and T4T. Thanks, Mr. Strauss.

I listened to the whole radio show (easier to do on the West Coast), at least until Bill was done. I learned that you can tune out from the top of the hour until 15 past.

Bill handled himself very well, distancing himself from any notion that this is some kind of psychic prediction, and explaining the turnings and generations for the audience, who probably didn't really understand at first listen.

I tried to call in, with no luck. I didn't like how Ian kept saying "5 years ago, you predicted something was going to happen", with an emphasis on predicting an event, nor how he saw the turnings as a "coincidental pattern".

I was hoping to straighten him out by stating the following.

First of all, it was in 1989 when you wrote Generations, before the country had "discovered" or named Gen X, while Millennials were just starting to fill the ranks of elementary school. The support for the correctness of the predictive power of the theory is what happened in the 1990's to society, and how all generations occupied the next phase of life, as well as what now is happening. The "story" is not that "a big event and mood change came in 2001", thus proving the theory. The point is, the generational alignment is what met the prediction. A "spark of history" would not have happened in the 1990's, not because the event itself could not happen, but because the country would have deferred an all-out response. Now, we are far along enough where we no longer defer.

Also, I think Ian needed to be told that the cycles of generations and turnings are not "organic biorhythms of the biosphere" or strangely coincidental, but are simply cause and effect. And that history is a spiral, not a circle.

Then, I would have posed this question for Bill. The Sept. 11 attack was of such large proportion that even during a 3T it would be hard to defer a response. Nevertheless, I think we might have found a way to avoid an all-out, resolved response, with a speech akin to Bush's. My question is this: are we as a nation ready for WTC; did it happen "too soon"? Are we at a point in generational history where it would have been better had this happened a few years from now? That is, would we have preferred to defer the all-out response, but are we sort of "in-between" the full deferral mode of the 1990's and the firm resolution that we would have 3-4 years from now?

Our current seemingly all-out response is coming without sufficient societal preparation time. Are we close enough to generational alignment to bite the bullet and handle things, or still too far away, turning this into a less-than-total response, no matter what the current words being uttered?

If we do indeed make this an all-out response, turning a catalyst into a crisis right away, then we are really jumping the gun, and instead of our "2004-5" response coming in 2001, we will have our cataclysmic 2020 event coming before 2010 or even 2005 perhaps, which does not bode well for us.

My problem is...

The name Art Bell rings only a very faint bell of recognition in my pop-culture-oblivious mind. I had no clue where to look for his program.

Is he the guy who "disappeared" a few years ago?

chooselh actually writes, "Wow. I really hate to say this, but the idea that the Bush administration knew about the WTC attacks but did nothing to prevent them actually makes sense to me."




It looks like having played the fourthturn.com song on Art Bell's show has yielded predictable results.

The kooks cometh...






_________________
"Also, Bush surely isn't GC. The thought is to puke for." Mr. Brian Rush

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: Marc Lamb on 2001-09-22 10:38 ]</font>

I wish I could have heard the show. But like Ted Hudson I had no idea what radio station the Art Bell show was on! (not that it really matters now) Could someone enlighten me please?

So, instead, I watched the movie "Chocolat" with Johnny Depp playing a Silent beatnik/gypsy--a very postseasonal (or preseasonal?) film with an Awakening message. Then, still wide awake, I watched a fascinating program on A&E called simply, "The History of God." I never realized how simple and peaceful Islam really is.

Hi everybody. Like several others who have recently resurfaced, I was a member of this board from waaaaaaaaay back and am taking a look at what everyone is saying about 911. I looked in on this thread late on 9/11, saw about 3 or 4 pages and went to work. 10 days later, it took me hours to get through the 42 pages of posts that were here. I fell asleep trying to write one, and am only getting back to it now, 5+ pages later.

For those who don't remember me, I'm a '68 13er, and in true 13er fashion, I drift in from time to time, say my peace, then (despite the fact that I love history and am a strong supporter of S&H's theories) I leave before I get too bored. I've just got too much going on trying to manage my two kids and two jobs because I'm too poor NOT to live in my parents' house after my divorce. (If that isn't the resume of a 13er, I don't know what is...)

Oh, and it doesn't help that the Boomers (especially the liberal ones) piss me off so bad when I am here. Feel free to argue with me, but if I disappear in the middle of the conversation, don't expect me back inside 6 months. :wink:

A few passing thoughts:

Yah, maybe we'll eventually backslide back to 3T, but I'll lay short odds against it. Remember, for it to remain a 4T, the mood must be so thick (as someone else here put it) you can taste it.

Doesn't anyone else find it typical 4T that after all the debate over separation of Church and State, and all the silly attempts to prove they aren't anti-religious by putting Lieberman on the ticket in E2K, blue zone Boomers in Congress are not just endorsing support for a Prophet President who wears religion on his sleeve, not just ignoring the repeated references to religion, but actually standing outside the Capitol singing "God Bless America"? (As opposed to "My Country 'Tis Of Thee" or "America The Beautiful" or even the National Anthem!) Sounds like an end to at least one of the Culture War battles to me. A talking head on TV tonight said this may last, "at least for the next 6 months...". The longer that stretches on, the harder it will be to turn back. The question is, does this indicate that the religious right won the Culture War, and the Republicans will solidify their control of Congress in 2002, or that the Democrats have successfully co-opted the Republican agenda, and Dubya is doomed in 2004? When you factor in the economy, I regretfully suggest the latter will win out.

Someone complained a while back that we shouldn't compare Dubya to Bill Clinton because the latter never had a 4T problem to solve. What an obtuse viewpoint, completely losing any generational perspective! The pre-eminent 3T President, who reacted constantly to problems like this with typical 3T-Prophet emotion, would have "Felt Our Pain" through this and moved on to another scandal afterwards. If it's the Catalyst, it's not just because an event occurred, but because the reaction to it is a 4T reaction. Here's a major concession from a scrappy 13er conservative: maybe Bill could have been a GC in a 4T if he'd allowed himself time to grow up before becoming President.... but he didn't. He was too eager to champion the blue zone in the Culture War, and now he's irrelevant. Even more, he seems stuck there in 3T, annoyed that Dumb Dubya is getting attention at his expense, so he's putting out press releases saying, "We tried to get Bin Laden, really we did!" Nobody cares, Bill. Stop worrying about yourself and start picking up rubble, looking for bodies. If you're lucky enough to find a survivor, that would be remembered as your legacy and everyone would forget your perceived past transgressions, real or imagined.

Something that's bothering me about some posts here is the seeming attitude that the Crisis is somehow uniform, that the Crisis we see forming today is the same Crisis at the climax. Remember people, unless things fall apart into an anomoly, we've got a long way to go yet. The hunt for bin Laden won't last all the way to 2025 (I hope!). The climax events will go deeper than one terrorist, or (more probably) have nothing to do with terrorism at all.

Kevin, the tendancy to exaggerate to inflame the Crisis is a 4T reaction. Hypothetical scenario: CNN reports that Green Berets have engaged the Taliban and we get the first casualty lists and combat deaths. Later that day, the White House will announce that Bush will award the Medal of Freedom posthumously to Todd Beamer and his buddies from Flight 93. Some may suggest that Bush is trying to redirect attention (in a very Clintonian way) from the casualties, and though some may point out the possibility, no one will pay much attention.

I'm listening to the Art Bell program with Bill Strauss now, it's archived at:

http://mfile.akamai.com/5022/wma/art...bell010922.asx

I'd love to comment on how disappointed I am that the best S&H can do is get booked on the Bell program, but I'll stop at saying only that.

I'll try to come back more often to see how the site is doing, but I'm finding more and more that the 13er in me is saying, "Get Real!"

Chris

This will be a rather lengthy response to Stonewall Patton. I may have some things to say about other matters, but will place those in a second post if so.

Brian, earlier I linked to a BBC article which describes a Pakistani official's comments claiming that he was made aware, in mid-July, of our plans to invade Afghanistan and take out the Taliban by mid-October when the snow arrives.

All right, but you must know that our military makes contingency plans for any military operation it thinks might become necessary. I can well believe such plans existed, given the nature of the Taliban and the fact that bin Laden was believed to be in Afghanistan.


But there?s a difference between plans and intentions. We had contingency plans all through the Cold War for a first nuclear strike against the Soviet Union. That doesn?t mean we had any intention of carrying out those plans, unless a set of rather unlikely circumstances developed.


Bush would not have politically survived starting a war with Afghanistan without the 911 attacks. It would have been political suicide. I do not for a moment believe he would have done it, and I am no admirer of Bush (except, tentatively, at the present juncture, which in turn relies on his response to the 911 attacks -- so I?d still be contemptuous of him if those attacks and his response hadn?t happened).

But this is assuming that no other attack would have taken place or that no other crisis could have been manufactured in the meantime. Does the Tonkin Gulf ring a bell? How about April Glaspie's green light for Saddam to invade Kuwait?

Regarding Tonkin, it?s important to remember that it occurred against a still-strong backdrop of Cold War anticommunism and a High-era unquestioning patriotism that the Awakening had not yet eroded. What worked at the beginning of a 2T won?t work near the end of a 3T. For that matter, in the 1T, what I said about starting a war being political suicide wasn?t true. Johnson had no reason to believe he was in political danger over Vietnam, except from the right, for not being tough enough.


Regarding Glaspie?s so-called ?green light? -- there?s an old saying I always quote to conspiracy-theorists: Never attribute to malice what can adequately be described by stupidity. I think that Glaspie?s comments to Saddam were, like Truman?s much earlier verbal exclusion of Korea from the U.S. defensive perimeter, an honest mistake, and not a conspiratorial attempt to provoke the attack on Kuwait.


We need to avoid such mistakes, of course. But we also need to avoid blowing them up out of proportion.

You do not believe that the administration would have let something happen to provide a pretext for their desired actions? A lot of documentation has been coming forward lately suggesting that FDR was well aware that the Pearl Harbor attack was coming and "at dawn we slept."

I have seen much of that documentation, and frankly, it is garbage. There are so many holes in the theory that it might as well be Swiss cheese.


First: Roosevelt didn?t want to go to war with Japan at all. He wanted to go to war with Germany. He was, by undeclared acts of war at sea against the U-boats, trying to provoke a German, not Japanese, attack on American naval forces, which would make Americans mad enough to go to war with the Nazis. Going to war with both enemies at once was never the plan. In fact, had Hitler not for some unfathomable reason decided to declare war on us after the Pearl Harbor attack, the attack wouldn?t have given FDR what he wanted at all.


Second: Even assuming, in spite of the above, that FDR knew of the coming Pearl Harbor attack and welcomed it, there is no reason why he should have handled it the way he did. There were so many mistakes made, from lining up our planes wingtip to wingtip on the tarmac to a simple failure of vigilance against the surprise attack, that served no political purpose. A successful defense, an American victory over the attacking Japanese that sank the attacking fleet, would have served the purpose of getting us into the war every bit as well as what happened. The theory must assume that Roosevelt sacrificed our men and ships for nothing.


Third: There are eyewitness accounts of Roosevelt?s stunned reaction to the attacks when he learned of them, including his pounding his fist on the desk and crying, ?Our planes were destroyed on the ground! On the ground!? No, he did not plan the Pearl Harbor attack, nor deliberately ignore intelligence about it. He merely used the attack to get us into the war. After the fact, not before.


Every one of these factors also applies to Bush. Yes, he ignored evidence that he shouldn?t have. Yes, we should have known something like this was coming, and there is no good excuse for that failure of intelligence. But no, that does not mean Bush deliberately let it happen. I will believe many things about that man, but not that he would deliberately sacrifice thousands of lives and plunge the country into a recession and a war at the same time, in cold-blooded fashion, for his own gain. He?s not that big a villain. That?s paranoid thinking.

They [the U.S. government] forfeited any unconditional trust at some point after 1988.

A long time before that as far as I?m concerned. And I?m not recommending unconditional trust. I?m just recommending the avoidance of paranoia and the application of common sense.

While all that this assumption entails serves as a foundation for comparing any two earlier 4Ts, are we not breaking new ground with this coming 4T? Actually, I mean to say that we are breaking new ground at the conclusion of this 4T.

Of course we?ll be breaking new ground. Every Crisis era breaks new ground. This one will be no exception. Yes, a global government is new. But in 1791, a constitutional democracy with a federal structure and separation of powers was new. In 1868, an industrial republic without a planter elite and with a strengthened central government was new (for us). In 1945, a regulated market economy and superpower status were new, again for us.


Just the same, there are always parallels. Government becomes stronger, more efficient, and more ruthless in a 4T. It also becomes more accountable, more in service to the public need and less in service to private greed. I full expect to see that happen.

You and I both agree that the outcome of this 4T will be global government. This means a world without nation-states.

Actually, I don?t think so. I do think it means a compromise of the sovereignty of nation-states, which would give up a few functions, including the right to make war and the right to independent regulation of the economy or to fail to protect the environment. But not all government functions can be handled at the global level. Most, in fact, can?t.

What we are left with is one authority which, by definition, will be a monopoly which knows no checks on its power.

That?s not true ?by definition.? It depends on how the thing is designed. Nor do I see any workable way in which one global authority could really replace all other levels of authority, even if that were desirable. Which it?s not.


It is also incorrect to assume that checks on authority have to come from outside. Most checks on the authority of the U.S. government come from inside, not outside, from divisions within the government itself and between the federal and state governments, and from public accountability through holding elections. Where the people are united in a course of action, external checks on the U.S. government really aren?t terribly effective -- as I believe the Taliban and al-Qaida may soon discover. Only when the people are divided, as in Vietnam, can external checks work against us, and then only because they exploit that internal division. If our freedom depended on the existence of other nations, we?d be sunk.


In fact, the opposite conclusion can arguably be drawn. When we have sacrificed civil liberties in the past, it has been because of some external threat, real or perceived.


All of these considerations apply to any global government that might be enacted. There is no reason to assume it would be designed in an autocratic fashion. Though if enough people reject the idea out of hand and therefore don?t lend their voices and votes, it could be!

What I fail to understand is why you actually believe that our "masters" will give a damn what you or I want once they have assumed absolute control of the earth.

Easily explained. I don?t believe we have ?masters,? and I don?t believe that anyone will be able to assume absolute control of the earth.


<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: Brian Rush on 2001-09-22 12:27 ]</font>

Brian, I started to respond to your post and soon I realized that I was writing a book (which no one else would want to read). I believe it is safe to say that we are going to disagree about a lot of things no matter what evidence is presented and no matter what arguments are made. So let me pass on a response for now and I may come back and address individual points as I feel motivated or, more correctly, when I think of a way to compress all the points I wish to make into a succinct message.

choselh,

You have an open mind and I hope that no one will deter you from keeping it that way. The price of liberty is eternal vigilance and no one is so blind as he who will not see. Keep your eyes wide open and continue to think for yourself and let no one do your thinking for you. We must always question what we are told lest those in power get too comfortable and assume that they can lie to us with impunity. You may not always get it right, and I may not always agree with your conclusions. But I applaud you for exercising the responsibility necessary to ensure your rights as well as mine and everybody else's.

Opusaug, thanks much for posting the archive for Bill's appearance. I'd intended to listen last night and just plain forgot.

An interesting article from Michael Kinsley from Slate. For educational purposes only.

Has Everything Changed?
Maybe not.

By Michael Kinsley
Michael Kinsley is editor of Slate. Posted Thursday, Sept. 20, 2001, at 4:00 p.m. PT



Years ago, as a tourist in Vienna, I met an old lady who called herself "the Prinzessin" and claimed to be a Hapsburg princess, now reduced to the status of tour guide. Among her collection of overpolished anecdotes was an item about complaining to her mother one day during her childhood that life was boring. "The next day," she said, "we heard that Archduke Franz Ferdinand had been shot." Pause for effect. "And life was never boring anymore."

The notion that there are days when history swings on a pivot is irresistible and, to some extent, valid. The shooting of the archduke that started World War I ? the bombing of Pearl Harbor ? the Kennedy assassination ? Before: innocence and sun-dappled lawns. Afterward: knowledge, modernity, and darkness. Will Sept. 11, 2001, really turn out to have been one of those days? A horrible day, certainly, and?yes?a day that will live in infamy. But a day when life changed dramatically and permanently for everyone, at least in America? Maybe so, but there are adequate reasons to doubt, and excellent reasons to avoid leaping to that conclusion if it can be avoided.

For the journalists and politicians we depend on for the official clich?s of our national conversation, the apocalyptic note is irresistible. No crude theorizing about ratings or votes is required. It's just the nature of journalism to make "this is more important than you think" a subtext of every story. And when you've devalued concepts like "crisis" and "war," as TV news especially has done in recent years, apocalypse is about all you have left when a story this big comes along. As for pols, they are also natural hyperbolizers who are not disposed to conclude that a national crisis is smaller than it seems.

Although logic doesn't really matter in such things, there is a logical contradiction among the official clich?s of the moment that "everything has changed" and "this means war." Victory in the war against terrorism consists precisely of everything not changing. If life has changed permanently and dramatically for the worse, terrorism has won the war. In fact, if people become convinced that?say?getting on an airplane is wildly riskier than they previously thought, terrorism has won whether that is objectively true or not.

"Everything has changed" can also become a self-fulfilling prophecy in terms of the economy, where consumer confidence matters a lot more than the direct costs of terrorism itself. Being told again and again that life from now on will be unrecognizable doesn't exactly make me want to rush out to Wal-Mart.

Certainly it's ironic that so many Americans seem convinced that life was wonderful until last week and will be terrible from now on. For over a decade until last week, the mantra of American politics was "change." Voters demanded it, politicians of all stripes promised it. Life was, in some unspecified way that "the system" was responsible for, unbearable. Now "everything has changed," and we don't like it one bit. We long for the lost world of Sept. 10. For thousands of Americans directly affected by the attack, life has indeed changed tragically. But for most of us it's at worst too early to say whether everyday life will be permanently and dramatically altered. And there's something self-indulgent about assuming so, just as there was something self-indulgent about the hunger for "change" in what we now regard as the pre-Sept. 11 Eden.

While flag-waving is an appropriate and moving response to a frontal attack on our country?and perhaps patriotism cannot be fine-tuned?there are a couple of wrong notes in the current national chorus. One of course is bullying, which is always the underside of patriotism. More novel, disturbing?and, I'm afraid, more characteristic of America today?is the theme of victimization. Oh, poor us. We need grief counseling, candlelight vigils, little ribbons to wear. Those ribbons claim membership and ask for sympathy more than they communicate resolve. We share the pain of actual victims not just through empathy and financial generosity (though there's been plenty of that) but also by feeling victimized ourselves. How long before some doctor discovers a "Sept. 11 syndrome" and some lawyer tries to sue Osama Bin Laden over it?

In the case of a president who must suddenly rally people to an unexpected cause, a bit of hyperbole is understandable. The danger for Bush is that he is promising total victory when that is not really possible or even, in a way, necessary. Terrorism is not "an enemy" that can be defeated. It is an infinite variety of tactics available to any enemy. Particular enemies can be defeated and terrorism in general can be discouraged, but the possibility can never be eliminated.

Spreading alarm about terrorism has been an industry for at least two decades. Read last January's "Report of the National Commission on Terrorism: Countering the Changing Threat of International Terrorism." Or, if you prefer, last December's "Toward a National Strategy for Combating Terrorism," the report of a completely different government commission. Both are full of scenarios, none of them resembling what happened Sept. 11, and recommendations, none of which would have prevented it.

Life was riskier than we realized before Sept. 11 and is not as risky as we fear now. Resisting the conclusion that everything has changed is one way to help prevent it from being true.

Ms. Genser! I never thought I would be thanking you for posting something written by Michael Kinsley...

Anybody care to check out the Generations and Turnings by the Numbers thread to see what Mr. Kinsley is saying here?

See, I told you so. We be 3T.

Kinsley's right to this extent: nothing in the objective reality we face has changed since 911. The danger was always there. We just ignored it. We are no more nor any less threatened now than we were before.


In other words, what we're seeing, rather than a change in physical circumstances, is a change in mood.


Or in still other words, a Turning shift.

I am not so sure Brian. I think that by the end of the 4T era we (U.S.) could very well have become a firmly fundamentalist Christian nation. If the war against terrorism invokes a Holy War (and I think Bin Laden may very well have had that in mind) then we will have to take sides. And we really have only one side to take. The historical march towards bigger political entities probably won't reach the level of a global political body but it could very well settle on 2 or 3 religiously based divisions that cover the globe.

WMurray, we no more have to be a fundamentalist Christian nation to fight fundamentalist Muslims than we had to be a Jewish or Communist one to fight Nazis.


Let bin Laden call this a holy war all he wants to. We're fighting a war for freedom, and for our own survival and safety.

Oh, my, that is a horrifying thought. I sure hope that doesn't happen.

Brian
The Nazi Party was basically Christian too. But that is not the point I was making. I don't think that we have to invoke Fund. Christianity to fight Fund. Islam, in fact I hope that we can find a way to avoid that. I am just saying that it would be very easy to fall into that method of mobilizing our people when the enemy is invoking his God against us.

BTW Brian
I completely agree with your assessment of the Kingsley piece. The implications of a mood shifting event like the 911 disaster are subtly woven into the collective psyche of each generation and only in time does the result of those changed perceptions show up as we collectively react to the events that unfold.

wmurray claims, "The Nazi Party was basically Christian too."

Message to Mr. Strauss:
I would hope from reading today's posts that you are indeed convinced that any more appearances on the Art Bell Show will result in this website being completely overtaken by kooks.

Surely there must a better way of marketing a theory.

Yours truly,

Marc S. Lamb

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: Marc Lamb on 2001-09-22 16:53 ]</font>

Marc
I think you know what I meant. The German culture that bred the Nazi Party was Christian. The Nazi Party was no more practicing Christian principles than Bin Laden is following Muslim ideals.

wmurray thinks:

1. "I think that by the end of the 4T era we (U.S.) could very well have become a firmly fundamentalist Christian nation."

Stike one!

2. "The Nazi Party was basically Christian too."

Strike two!

3."The German culture that bred the Nazi Party was Christian."

Strike three!


Perhaps I was a bit too premature, wmurray, with my previous post. But now you are clearly out.