On 2001-09-25 13:48, Lis '54 wrote:

This is the last I'll say about the movie here, but I have NO idea where whoever said this got it. There was no female-centered evil in LOTR. Sauron is most definitely NOT female.

Shelob is female, if I am not mistaken. :smile:

Yes, but she isn't the center of evil. She merely works for the EBD (evil bad dude).

Um, guys, there is actually a thread called "Is the LOTR movie a signal of an impending 4T" or something like that. :smile:

Oh yeah, and to whomever wants us to examine indicators of whether this is NOT a 4T, there's a thread for that too, called "Indicators this is a 3T/4T" or something.

As Virgil says, HTH.

"EBD"? Good one, Lis! :smile:

Being a devotee of LOTR myself, I too had wondered where the idea came from of male forces defeating a female-centered idea of evil.

One thing that I think is important to mention is that Tolkien explicitly said, numerous times & w/increasing irritability, that LOTR was *not* an allegory. So although it has elements of the last Unraveling/Crisis periods in it, IMHO I don't think it can be read as a commentary of the '30s/'40s. That being said, however, LOTR certainly stars heroic elements working as a team to bring forth a newly cleansed future.

To take this post back to the topic of this thread, it *will* be interesting to see the reaction of audiences to this December's release of the first part of LOTR. Will LOTR's themes attract a larger audience than fantasy readers due to 9/11? That is to say, will the heroics & teamwork of the "little people" be newly appealing due to a change in the nat'l mood? If LOTR does turn out to be a real blockbuster, I would think that it would be a signal that we have definitely entered a 4T.

Robocooper wrote: " I just saw an ad for Ovaltine, with fresh-faced kids gleefully drinking up the slop! If that doesn't portend 4T .... "

OVALTINE!!! Wow! I remember drinking that when i was very small-- during the FIRST Turning. I still remember the TV jingle "O-val-O-val-O-val-TINE!!!". Next thing we know, we'll all be drinking Dr. Pepper steaming hot (another classic TV commercial from '61) :grin:

Perhaps this new 4T is actually survivable.

On 2001-09-25 12:49, Brian Rush wrote:

Damn. I just HAVE to ask.

If it wasn't about funding the Contras, and getting around the Congressional restrictions, what was it about?

(It was after the hostages had already been released, which they were the day Reagan took office. So it couldn't have been the hostages. The only Iranian connection was that weapons were sold to Iran to provide the funds.)

Brian, I believe you are confusing two sets of hostages as these were in Lebanon or some place. And although the operation was sneaky, I did not accept that it was clearly unconstitutional at the time, although I would not condone it now. I found, and continue to find, communism and all other forms of protection racket to be morally wrong because they deprive the individual of the exercise of his God-given or natural rights. Accordingly, I supported Iran-Contra both to keep those people free of this form of protection racket and to keep "commies" out of our backyard for national security reasons.

But of course my error was in taking my government at its word. Iran-Contra had virtually nothing to do with hostages or freedom fighters as this was just its cover. In truth it had much more to do with the War on Drugs which is a cover in and of itself. Specifically Iran-Contra was an operation consistent with what a certain intelligence agency was doing -- and continues to do -- for its own benefit, or for the benefit of certain parties within it, under cover of the War on Drugs. Perhaps no one would have better insight into its true purpose than central player George H.W. Bush and he provided an explanation in a 1992 interview with, I believe, Sarah McLendon. I had hoped to locate the exact quote online but this paraphrase will have to do:

"...As George Bush once said, when he was asked what was ultimate meaning of Iran Contra. Bush explained it as the continuous consolidation of power and money into higher, tighter and righter hands at the expense of the US taxpayer."

Does that sound like an operation to free hostages and arm freedom fighters?

I encourage anyone to do your own analysis of all the relevant court papers, congressional testimonies, and other documents and transcripts and reach your own conclusion. It was not as simple as the media portrayed it to be and even Lawrence "October Surprise" Walsh ducked the real issue. This fact is even more disturbing than the operation itself.

Brian, I stated above that I originally supported Iran-Contra as an effort to free people from an inherently evil protection racket. After all, our Founding Fathers had the benefit of millennia of human history in order to ascertain that the history of mankind had been one of bands of men seizing and consolidating power at the expense of their fellow men. Our Declaration of Independence was more than just a "Shove off! We are taking control!" It amounted to a resounding "Read my lips! No more protection rackets!"

My error in supporting Iran-Contra stemmed from my belief that we had some sort of moral superiority in opposing a protection racket because we were not one ourselves. But George H.W. Bush was not Ronald Reagan. George H.W. Bush only existed to turn us into a protection racket. So morality no longer applied with respect to Nicaragua. It was merely a turf battle fought between two mentally challenged bullies. But with the loss of that moral advantage, it was also symbolic of the de facto overturning of the American Revolution. And the realization of this truth is the ultimate source of my 3T nomad disillusionment.

Lis writes: Given the difficulty I had Saturday and Sunday ridding my computer of Nimda, I'm about ready to list virus launching twits among "terrorists." ::grumble, grumble::



They already beat you to it.

On 2001-09-25 13:18, Marc Lamb wrote:

Nah, can't be. It was Reagan's massive tax cuts in 1982 that did that, remember?

Marc, I took a look at the thread and it looks like Brian suggests that the 3T may have started about 1982 rather than 1984. Brian and I may not agree politically but I have been wondering the same thing. All we know for certain is that the 3T came after 1979 and the hostage crisis, and before 1984 and Reagan's reelection. I can remember having a sense of revolution as all those Democratic "Boll Weevils" were aligning with the Reagan administration and some like Phil Gramm even switched parties. This was in either 1981 or 1982 and things were certainly changing. And to my mind, the Grenada invasion in 1983 occurred within the early dawn hours of a different mood. So I lean toward the transition occurring somewhere between 1981 and 1983.

Perhaps the turning point is represented by the abandonment of those fat ties and wide lapels. Look at those early '80s reruns. With those ties and lapels, it is hard to tell that Carter was no longer president. Find the point at which the ties and lapels narrow and this may constitute the transition.

While flipping through the channels with my remote today (I spent the day home sick), I caught TWO channels playing episodes of the Depression-era kiddie program "Little Rascals." Awww, those adorable l'il Silent kids! Watch for this show to become suddenly popular again, and for the sudden (non-ironic) popularity of Shirley Temple movies.

Good boy, Stonewall! Now you're with the program.

We've had the 2T/3T boundary discussion before...I remember talking to Angeli about this. We pretty much decided that (1) it was a soft transition, without a single defining event, and (2) the 2T hung on longer in the South than in the North. There was a definite mood change with Reagan's election up here, but in the South, the whole evangelical-revival thing can be seen as a continuation of the 2T.

I had the same ex-hippie teacher (b. 1950) for fourth through sixth grade. For me, the Turning change was dramatized by the progressive shortening of his hair between 1980 and 1983.

That said...can we move some of this really-tangential-to-September-11 stuff to other threads? For those of us that sneak peeks at the site in free moments at work (modem at home isn't working... :sad: ), the number of posts on this thread is pretty daunting.

Stonewall:


I really didn't want to get into a discussion of whether Iran/Contra was a good or bad thing so much as ascertain what you thought it was about. Supporters and opponents alike usually think that it was done to support the Contras, with the division lying in whether or not this ought to have been done. I'm still not sure I understand what you're getting at.

I found, and continue to find, communism and all other forms of protection racket to be morally wrong because they deprive the individual of the exercise of his God-given or natural rights.

"Protection racket"?


A protection racket is a criminal setup in which a gang of thugs offers people protection from harm, when the chief source of potential harm is the gang of thugs itself. Failure to pay results in the gang of thugs inflicting said harm.


Communism is a political and economic philosophy that places economic equality as the primary good, sacrificing most or all other values in service to that one. It is characterized historically by autocratic governments, state ownership or forced collectivization of all or most productive enterprises, central economic planning, and usually low regard for non-economic human rights (especially political rights) and civil liberties.


Without in any way defending Communism, how does that describe a "protection racket"?

Specifically Iran-Contra was an operation consistent with what a certain intelligence agency was doing -- and continues to do -- for its own benefit, or for the benefit of certain parties within it, under cover of the War on Drugs.

As you describe Bush the elder as a "central player," is it safe to assume this "certain intelligence agency" is the CIA, of which Bush was once director? What is this intelligence agency doing for its own benefit under cover of the war on drugs? Again, I don't wish to defend the war on drugs; I approve of it even less than I approve of Communism. But I'm afraid I don't know what you're talking about here.

I had hoped to locate the exact quote online but this paraphrase will have to do:


"...As George Bush once said, when he was asked what was ultimate meaning of Iran Contra. Bush explained it as the continuous consolidation of power and money into higher, tighter and righter hands at the expense of the US taxpayer."


Does that sound like an operation to free hostages and arm freedom fighters?

No. To be completely honest, it sounds like something that a person who was involved in it would never admit to publicly, in an interview that he knew perfectly well would be published. For that reason, I strongly suspect either a misinterpretation or an outright fabrication.


Thus I wish you could find the citation for that interview. Please post it if you run across it.

After all, our Founding Fathers had the benefit of millennia of human history in order to ascertain that the history of mankind had been one of bands of men seizing and consolidating power at the expense of their fellow men. Our Declaration of Independence was more than just a "Shove off! We are taking control!" It amounted to a resounding "Read my lips! No more protection rackets!"

Well, no. Actually it consisted of a band of men seizing and consolidating power at the expense of their fellow men. Specifically, it consisted of the American commercial elite, in alliance with the southern planter elite, seizing power from the British government and the British aristocracy and mercantile elite, by appealing to the American people on the basis of a liberal ideology expressed with great artistry and eloquence, but in the end little served by practice or in law.


I still don't know exactly what you mean by "protection racket," but there were a lot of things going on in the early United States that amounted to an extortion of wealth from most of the people to a privileged few. A good example is the manipulation of Revolutionary War bonds. While not quite a protection racket, this was certainly a racket of some kind.

My error in supporting Iran-Contra stemmed from my belief that we had some sort of moral superiority in opposing a protection racket because we were not one ourselves. But George H.W. Bush was not Ronald Reagan. George H.W. Bush only existed to turn us into a protection racket. So morality no longer applied with respect to Nicaragua.

The entire Cold War was not really a moral struggle, IMO. It was a complex phenomenon involving a "turf war between mentally challenged bullies," as you put it, together with something resembling the society-propping perpetual war of Nineteen Eighty Four. As for Nicaragua per se, in my view any claims to moral superiority were forfeited when we chose to support terrorists in that conflict. Regardless of whether the United States was or was not a morally superior society to Sandinista-run Nicaragua, most decidedly the Contras were morally inferior to both.


However that's not really pertinent to the discussion. Can you explain simply what you think Reagan was trying to do by funnelling those funds to the Contras, if it wasn't support the Contras against the Sandinistas? You said it had something to do with the war on drugs, which itself was a cover for something else. What's the something else? And what did it have to do with the war on drugs?

Brian, let me e-mail you with a detailed response when I can get around to it as there have been a number of pleas to stay on topic.
I hesitated to open this can of worms but it was necessary to explain why Iran-Contra might qualify as my nomad 3T disillusionment event, or more specifically why in hindsight it might be. The utility of the 3T nomad disillusion trigger is that it might tell us how far away from the catalyst we are now or whether 911 qualifies. If Iran-Contra qualifies, then we might be on schedule for
911 to be the catalyst.

Just a couple of quick observations. Lis, I have to disagree slightly; record numbers of divorces in the last Awakening suggest, I think, some trouble between the sexes, not so much in ours as in older generations.

I think 1984 works for the Unravelling for this reason. When Reagan passed the tax cut, he and Boomer David Stockman claimed it would balance the budget rapidly thanks to supply-side. By 1984 that obviously was not happening, but Reagan made it clear that he couldn't care less, and got re-elected anyway by a landslide. That, to me, signals the mood of the country--live now, pay later.

And I'm sorry, but there isn't the slightest bit of real evidence that Iran Contra was really about drugs.

How wonderful this question of male/female relations, Reagan/taxes/morals et al was brought up...?

Nah, let's shut it down.

Back to your regularly scheduled program, folks. On your same Bat channel. Pow! Zap! Zonk! Bam! Wow!


Ya gotta love this! :???:

"Male forces of power defeat female-centered evil. Despite the heroism of one woman, this is no girl power movie."

Female centered evil? Did we read the same trilogy? When did Sauron have a sex change? And Eowyn was Girl Power before Girl Power existed. Thank you.

argh. Lis already said that. (I'll never catch up this thread. Never!)

Oops...sorry everyone. Neisha, thanks for directing me to the LOTR thread.

"Male forces of power defeat female-centered evil. Despite the heroism of one woman, this is no girl power movie."

That has to be the most bizarre summation of LOTR that I've ever seen!

(Except for the theory that the battle of Sam and Shelob is an allegory of sexual contact. I've actually seen that suggested! How do people think of these things?!)


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On 2001-09-25 10:04, pindiespace wrote:
Re: Lord of the Rings. The reaction to this movie will be extremely interesting -- it has several conflicting elements:

1. Tolkein wrote it 1939-1945, and it follows a classic S & H pattern for a Crisis. However, it is not a simple rehash of WWII. Prior to the start of action in LOTR, the danger has been growing for a long lifetime. LOTR even matches the S & H seasonal metaphor -- the Crisis begins at the end of fall, action takes place in winter, and final victory comes at the beginning of spring.

Interesting point, but not really relevant. Sauraon doesn't give a hoot about the generational lineup of the West. Furthermore, while Strauss and Howe's theory might apply to Hobbits, Dwarves, or the like, it certainly would not apply to the Elves!

2. There is a very strong anti-technology message in the film. Gandalf uses only magic, as do the elves. Saruman uses technology -- "his mind is full of metal and wheels". Very 1960s, hippie stuff. Hobbits only use simple tools, and distrust technology.

So why do I, as a Red Zone right-winger technophile Xer, have such a high regard for
Tolkien and LOTR? (There is a reason, I'm must wondering if anyone else feels the same way.)

3. Male forces of power defeat female-centered evil. Despite the heroism of one woman, this is no girl power movie. In fact, "purist" fans are very angry that one additional female character will be fighting.

I don't have the slightest idea what you're talking about. The closest thing to 'female-centered evil' (And it's not very close.) in the story is an incident in Galadriel's youth, MILLENNIA earlier.

4. Middle Earth is a spiritual world -- Tolkein was trying to capture the faith-centered environment of the Middle Ages.


5. Middle-Earth is so complete that Wired Magazine calls it the original "virtual reality" epic.

6. There is a *very* strong East = evil, West = good message. They were probably toning this part down to make it more PC. What now?

Even though I have long since returned to being a card-carrying Republican (hey, I'm an Xer/13er, I'm comfortable with ambiguity), believe me, I don't share the predilection of those who want to rename every building in America after Ronald Reagan ... the Unraveling DEFINITELY started under his watch (or sleep, depending on your point of view). And Oliver North, as you can guess, truly disgusts me.

So how do I justify, or even live with, myself, you may ask? Really, I suppose I'm more of a TORY, in the British sense of the word, than a Republican. And like the greatest of Tories, Winston Churchill, "If you're not a liberal when you're 20, you don't have a heart; if you're not a conservative when you're 40, you don't have a head" ...

What if you're a liberal at 10, and a conservative at 20?

(That's me!)

On 2001-09-25 00:32, Brian Rush wrote:

How does _Dune_ foreshadow the Awakening, though? I'm not sure I follow you here.

In a number of ways, actually. Paul Atreides is a classic Prophet figure, although in some ways the large-scale action is more 4T than 2T. But the prophecy, the psychic powers, the questioning of traditional values, and the ecological themes, all foreshadow either 2Ts in general or the MilSaec 2T specifically. Dune was published in the early 1960s I believe, so it was quite close in time. Same with Stranger.

Paul Atreides as Idealist/Prophet (literally!)? Interesting, I had never really looked at it like that, but you're right. For that matter, wouldn't that make Leto I (Paul's father, for those who don't remember) a Civic/Hero?

The more I think about that, the more sense it makes. Leto the Elder was a hard-edged soldier, who loved his son dearly but probably wasn't the best as expressing it. He was universally respected as both honorable and capable, but he didn't quite know how to cope with some of the things swirling around him, since he could never quite quantify them. Interesting.

On the other hand, I can't fit Jessica into that mold at all. If anything, she makes more sense as an Adaptive. A very skilled, very powerful Adaptive, but as the story goes on she realizes she's been fed a bill of goods by her Sisters, and changes her allegiance. That sounds familiar.

So a Civic and an Adaptive give birth to a Prophet, who turns the world upside down without really grasping the implications of what he's done until it's too late. Now that I think of it, it's amazing this story was written before Strauss and Howe came up with their theory. It's almost spooky how well it fits!

On 2001-09-25 00:32, Brian Rush wrote:

But they _don't_ share the same values, except in so far as they both condemn such things as adultery and murder.

The Taliban _expressly_ seeks a literal theocracy. Their version of clergy, in their ideal state, would not just have greater power than the government, they would _be_ the government.


The American RR, in spite of all the propaganda the media spin out, _don't_ wish that!

The more extreme American RR voices, such as Pat Robertson, want an express theocracy every bit as much the Taliban, which is on the extreme end of fundamentalist Islam. Robertson is, for instance, on record as saying that only Christians should be allowed to run for public office.

As someone else has posted on this thread already, Pat Robertson has been known to say things he himself doesn't really mean, not by deliberate lies but by speaking without thinking.

It is very possible -- no, actually it is quite likely, that the Muslim fundamentalists tend to greater extremes than the Christian ones. I know of no Christian groups that would go as far as the Taliban, and likely there is greater moderation across the board among Christians than among Muslims. If I were to guess at a cause, it would be because American Christians live in gentler circumstances and have less cause to be mad at the world. But in any case, this difference is only one of degree.

It's probably true that harsher circumstances produce a tendency toward a harsher religious stance.

Past a certain point, a sufficient difference of degree becomes a difference in kind. The RR don't want a formalized theocracy, except for a _tiny_ handful of super-extremists.

Note that one of the biggest groups with doubts about Bush's faith-based charity plan was precisely the RR.

One does not have to agree with them to recognize that they are driven, in their own way, by a love of country.

Correct. And that should be made clear. I am not suggesting that anyone is a traitor. It is only a similarity of value systems at work here, not complicity in a crime or even sympathy for criminals.

That's the common Boomer/Prohet/Idealist outlook, if Strauss and Howe are accurate in their analysis. We'll just have to agree to disagree here, because on this issue I agree with the RR that God is external to humans.

Actually it's not limited to Prophets by any means. (For that matter, I would venture a guess that there are more Boomer fundies than any other generation, by percentage.)

Probably true. I never meant to imply that it was only Boomers, but it does show up more strongly in your group, and probably all Idealist generations.

I suspect that the Taliban/Bin Laden, if they were grading societies on the basis of how secular they were, would assign current Iran a B-, Saudi Arabia a C, an RR dominated America a D-, and secular America an F.

Hmm. I don't know about the Taliban, but by all accounts bin Laden hates the Saudis even more than he does the U.S. Secular governments ruling Muslims are especially anathema.

A point: I was speaking of the _societies_, not the governments. Saudi society is very religiously conservative, even by RR standards, though far short of Taliban standards.

I suspect you're probably right about Bin Laden hating the Saudi government and ruling class, though. After all, they're one of the U.S.'s most consistent Islamic allies (or America's most reliable collaborators, from Bin Laden's point of view).



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On 2001-09-25 07:15, JustinLong wrote:
It's interesting if you compare modern children's shows with past children's shows. I remember watching Battle of the Planets and Star Blazers, both Japanimation. None of that on now... Or, remember the violent Transformers?. (Maybe I'm just not watching the right channels. Or perhaps it says something about me as an Xer/Nomad who protects my children from those kinds of shows?)

You're not watching the right channels. Anime is alive and well on US TV on Cartoon Network (Toonami weekday afternoons and some midnights and Adult Swim two late nights a week), WB (also Toonami weekday afternoons), Action Channel, and International Channel. Fox Kids in the US and Y-TV in Canada also air anime. Also, a new version of "Transformers" is scheduled to begin running soon. FWIW, the anime series on Adult Swim, "Cowboy Bebop", was yanked off the lineup after 911 and then reinstated after four particularly violent episodes were skipped over and a gentler one was scheduled to air.

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: Vince Lamb '59 on 2001-09-25 23:35 ]</font>