A good website for strategic considerations of 911 is http://www.stratfor.com

On 2001-09-26 08:56, Sherry63 wrote:
Excerpts from this week's Newsweek:

On the other hand, the "My Turn" column is by an '82 cohort member, a student in NYC, who is a tattooed female musician (among other things). She titled her essay "The Day the World Changed, I Did Too," saying "Just weeks ago, I thought of myself as a musician & a poet. Now I'm calling myself a patriot."

If she is typical, this is a bad sign. If patriotism is perceived by the young as incompatible with being a musician, or a poet, or any such occupation, it promises some dangerously inflexible responses down the road.

There is nothing whatever inherently in conflict between being a musician or a poet and being a soldier, a patriot, or any other particularly '4T' activity.

[/quote]
Which makes Alia a Nomad, and the GawdAwful Emperor a Civic. Figures, somehow.
[/quote]

Nope - the God Emperor would be a Nomad too - he DISMANTLES Paul's Jihad and does what is necessary for the survival of the race.

The theory can also be expanded to the later books in the series. Leto Atriedes II and Ghanima, Paul's kids, are classic Nomads. They do what is necessary to keep the passions of Paul's Awakening from destroying the human race, paying a far greater price themselves than what they asked of others. Leto deliberately induced an Unravelling to do this, which culminated in the Scattering (as good a name for an unravelling period as I've heard). Leto's reward for this was to be remembered by the Bene Gesserit as "The Tyrant".

The Bene Gesseit, that Civic enclave finally come back into their own as Heroes as the Unravelling concludes and Honored Matre Crisis begin.

Wow - that's kind of scary.

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: Delsyn on 2001-09-26 09:59 ]</font>

I thought about that after I posted, but there's one problem: if you recall the story, the nature of Alia, Ghanima, and Leto the Younger (Paul's younger sister and children, for those who don't recall) means that the generational cycle would not apply to them. They would simultaneously be of all four generational types, and in fact could validly claim to be generations unto themselves.

On 2001-09-26 06:22, Brian Rush wrote:
HopefulCynic:

On the other hand, I can't fit Jessica into that mold at all

The book doesn't reflect the saeculum exactly, of course. But since you mentioned Jessica, I thought of another connection with the MilSaec 2T: feminism! The Bene Gesserit provide an image of powerful womanhood, in spite of some of the PI details.

True, but it's a very peculiar sort of female power. In some ways, it's an institutionalization of the very things that feminists (before the movement degenerated into one more political interest-faction) complained about: women defined primarily as reproductive agents.

The Bene Gesserit is female-run from top to bottom, but they have, in the course of their quest, redefined _themselves_ as purely reproductive agents. The term breeder is actually one of their internal titles, if I recall correctly.

For that matter, the Bene Gesserit, for all their subtle manipulations and awesome power, have lost track of their own original purpose. Breeding their superbeing (for want of a better term) was originally an end in itself, but by Paul's time has long been subordinated to political power-seeking for the sake of political power.

(Maybe the feminist analogy wasn't bad, at that.)

One other point, maybe we'd better hope _Dune_ isn't _too_ close a parallel to the Awakening. If Paul presages(roughly) the state of Prophet in this cycle, that doesn't presage too well for the outcome of the 4T.
Paul doesn't exactly come to an enviable end.

Saudi society does NOT fall *that* short of Taliban standards. Saudi Arabia is one of the most religiously restrictive governments aside from Afghanistan. This is till the society that gives a reward of a year's salary to anyone who turns in Christian worship meetings, prayer groups or evangelists; who executes any Saudi who becomes a Christian and is discovered; who executes any non-Muslim that enters the holy lands; who regularly arrests and imprisons and tortures anyone who is suspected of leading a Christian worship meeting....

Why the hell Americia is allies with Saudi Arabia?

Honestly we should not support restrictive governments like that, they are as bad as the Talbian

I could see the EU being allies with them, being the wimps they are they will grovel to any diactorship, nowonder why they are an Americian protectrate.

_________________
'Extremism in the defence of ideals is no vice,
The volaitions of ideals in the pursuit of populism is no virtue.'

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: Tristan Jones on 2001-09-26 20:56 ]</font>

[quote]
On 2001-09-26 06:22, Brian Rush wrote:
HopefulCynic:

(Or maybe not despite. Who knows how he'd have reacted to some of those things if he'd still been president in '65-'68. I'm thinking of an especially nasty anti-Johnson chant shouted by antiwar protesters, and reflecting that "JFK," like "LBJ," rhymes with "today.")

Interesting. Frankly, I've always thought that the idealization/lionization of Kennedy derives from the timing of his death. I mean no offense, but the gargantuan image that has grown up around him appears to me to be out of scale with the actions of the man himself, as a real human being.

Part of that is what I have come to call the 'Schlesinger Fantasy'. The way I perceive the Schlesinger Fantasy to run, it has two versions.

In version 1, JFK lives, either the bullet misses or he survives the impact, and goes on to a successful second term. Realizing that Vietnam was a doomed enterprise, JFK pulls out before the worst of the disaster sets in, and goes on to establish the Civil Rights movement and the integration of the South, which goes smoothly because of Kennedy's youth, charisma, and skill, and because the absence of the Vietnam War keeps the domestic scene quiet. Later, his legacy establishes the Democratic Party and liberalism as the dominant cultural and political forces, thus nullifying Reagan and the right-wing turn of the eighties.

There are a lot of little variations, but version one runs something like that.

The only trouble is that it almost certainly would not have worked out that way. In life, JFK simply did not have the enormous popularity he seems to have in hazy retrospect. His defeat of Nixon was a squeaker presaging E2K, and to this day the more suspicious Republicans suspect foul play in Chicago.

Kennedy was not a liberal, as the word is usually meant today. His tax policy looked like an early version of supply-side, and he was more concerned with the Cold War than he was with the civil rights movement. He was popular with the elderly, in much because of a raise in Social Security (or so I am told by people alive then), but he was not entirely well-regarded by his own generation.

I am not absolutely certain he would even have won reelection in 1964. It would have depended in much on who the GOP ran against him, and how clever each side was. It would certainly not have been a done deal.

As for Vietnam, it may very well be true that Kennedy suspected it to be a failed project even in 1963, but we have only limited evidence that this is so. Mostly the impressions of people around him, very little of anything confirmable.

Even if it's true, he would have been in an interesting politcal box, it seems to me.

The Vietnam War was actually popular the early sixties. Questions and doubts had been raised. I've seen an old editorial from the time, I think either from the St. Louis Post-Dispatch or the Chicago Tribune, raising some of the very questions that would later plague the whole business, back at the beginning. They had only to draw on the experience of the French to perceive them.

So suppose JFK decides it's time to get out, let's say in 1965 after the election. That means he has essentially spent lives and money for a failed project. That alone doesn't look good, on top of the perceived disaster of the Bay of Pigs. He was percieved as having 'won' the Cuban Missile Crisis (I think he was so perceived then, I wasn't born yet.), but even so many had doubts about his youth. If he pull out, leaving a failure behind, how does that look to a larely G.I. electorate?

At the very least, cries of 'sell-out', cowardice, and weakness would have been raised by the Republicans in Congress, and maybe by some Democrats too. I can't guess how he would have weathered it, the climate was very different then and I have no first-hand experience to judge it.

If I'm right, JFK would have needed political cover to pull out safely. In that, he would find himself in the same boat as JFK and Nixon later. Further, let's not forget good old human pride. I don't think he would have liked being known as the president who failed in Vietnam any more than LBJ liked the idea.

If JFK had lived and won that second term, I have a hunch a six-to-eight year older JFK would have looked quite a bit to the Boomers like an embodiment of the G.I. Establishment.
He might not had raised opposition quite as intensely as LBJ did, but knock 20% off the resentment of LBJ and you still get a big political headache.

Sorry to run on so long. I welcome commentary from anyone who can remember this period, even if I'm totally wrong, I'd like to here why.

By the way, version two of the Schlesinger Fantasy looks much the same, except that it hinges of RFK living, riding his brother's memory to the White House, and from there it looks a lot like Version One.

I think RFK would have had a good chance to ride to the White House on the memory of his by-then martyred and sacred brother, but at that point, I see most of the same problems still there.

On 2001-09-26 06:22, Brian Rush wrote:
HopefulCynic:

The business about only Christians being eligible for public office is only one example. There is a pattern to his statements that shows a desire to subordinate civic and humanistic values to Biblical ones in a government context. (Doing so in a private-life context is of course an altogether different matter.) If he shot his mouth off about a specific policy idea and then retracted it, it's not because the idea doesn't reflect his basic goals and values (it does), but because he reconsidered it and found it impractical.


What's more, I think that same attitude prevails among the religious right and practically defines membership therein, even for those who disagree with Robertson about the details more often than they agree. Which, I imagine, many do. (I am fairly sure that you do.)

You're fairly certain I agree with Robertson on the details, or that I disagree?

You may well be right about the hard-core RR (especially the evangelicals') vision of what an ideal world would look like, but that is not really the point. They know as well as you do (again, except for a few super-extremists) that their vision will not occur on Earth short of the Second Coming. If having an ideal vision that is out of step with the majority is a crime, then just about every faction out there is guilty.

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.

While that's true, it's not a significant difference from my perspective. Certainly not past the point where it becomes a difference in kind. A theocracy that isn't "formalized" is almost as bad.


What I mean by "theocracy," and perhaps another word would be better, is a situation in which government policy is determined not by an attention to public welfare, public safety, and the protection of rights and freedoms, but instead by attention to the dictates of religious morality. Whether that is achieved by putting priests into actual government offices or by other means is irrelevant unless you, personally, want to run for public office and are not a priest.

In fact, most of the dictates of religious morality that the RR believe in are not practical to legislate, and most of the RR know it. Those elements they do want to legislate are fairly basic, and commond support from groups outside the RR as well.

Probably the key elements that many or most of them would like to legislate are a ban on most abortions (as you have noted, and I don't deny it), and a restriction of the legal definition of marriage to heterosexual monogamy. Some (not all, for reasons I will get to in a moment) would like to see prayer in school legalized to a greater or lesser degree. Many (not all, but many) would be content with a regular moment of silence.


Now, many would regard these as oppressive in an of themselves, but they are hardly lunatic-fringe ideas.


I freely admit that some members of the RR, both evangelical and non, have other items on their agenda, but there is no solid agreement on them even among the RR.

Some of the ideas that the RR itself is divided on include the status of divorce, the evolution/creation debate, the nature and purpose of international organizations, and even gun control.

But I can find equivalent debates between various subgroups of the environmental movement, the feminist movement, the union labor movement, the free trade movement, and probably the black helicopter crowd. I doubt very seriously if most serious environmentalists would support the Voluntary Extinction Movement (that really exists, by the way).

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

Yes, but I suspect they would have been bothered a lot less by it if it weren't for that pesky First Amendment thingy that would have required government support for non-Christian religious charities as well as their own.

Actually, here you're partly right but more wrong, as I can testify from first-hand experience. Yes, much of the RR believe that they have access to a unique revelation of Truth. But that alone does not mean they can't work with Jewish charities, Moslem charities, or even purely secular organizations.

They _do_ have a problem with some goofball groups forming up to tap into the money by proclaiming themselves a religion. Picture in your mind the Church of Satan or the Elvis Worshippers (another real, if tiny, outfit) tapping public money by declaring themselves a legitimate religious charity. I have heard RR members worry about that, and with a flow of public money charlatans are going to show up.

The other worry is based directly on the whole reason for the general separation of church and state. Many of the RR are afraid (reasonably, in my opinion) that with public money comes public strings. Already, in New York State, and attempt has been made to mandate that the Catholic Church be required to hire gays and lesbians for positions that Church doctrine does not permit.

You may not approve of that doctrine, but there it is, and many of the RR, both Protestant and Catholic, are afraid that sooner or later the government will try to enforce secular rules over organizations taking secular monies. In some cases, these secular rules are regarded as basically immoral.

The Bible itself warns against taking gifts that will silence one from speaking the truth, and I myself have heard many RR members worry about just that. I've also heard them say that they don't mind the 'legitimate' religious charities much if at all. I've heard them say this in private, when there was no audience to impress.

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

There may also be a purely personal and petty reason. It's his homeland, and the government exiled him. This is after a youth in which his family were considered second-class citizens, rich or not, because his parents had emigrated from Yemen. He may be personally ticked off, and justifying it by reference to the King's allowing infidel troops to taint the sacred soil.

I thought about that myself, after I posted, and I think it's highly likely. It's easy to forget, in the middle of major events, just how much people's decisions can turn on very petty considerations.




<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: HopefulCynic68 on 2001-09-26 21:22 ]</font>

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: HopefulCynic68 on 2001-09-26 21:26 ]</font>

Why the hell Americia is allies with Saudi Arabia?

A lot of secondary reasons, but for the central and primary reasons:

Oil. Petroleum. Black Gold. Texas Tea.

justin,

very interesting and thoughtful posts.

there is a distinct pattern of alternation between major crises in this country's history. for instance, the glorious revolution crisis also took place at the same time as the salem witch trial hysteria (religious overtones) and there was so much fighting on american soil that woodrow wilson would later write that this was actually the "first" american revolution.

if we skip the next crisis period we then come to the american civil war crisis. again, with religious overtones and fought on american soil.

skipping the next crisis would take us into the predicted fourth turning crisis sometime in the 2020s which, if the same pattern holds, will also have religious overtones and be fought largely on american soil.

i don't see how one can really compare the gulf war with world war I, particularly when taken in the context of the long economic cycle. actually it has more in common with world war II because both were trough cycle wars. world war I and the conflict we are likely to get in the early part of the next decade should be peak cycle wars and are not likely to end well. and the reason i point to the beginning of the next decade is that if you go back and look it seems to be rare to find a war involving a major world power in the first decade of a new century. they are far more in common at the beginning of the second decade.

as for the stock market, well if you were primarily in tech stocks then you have certainly experienced a "crash". but several broader indexes such as the value line and russell indices actually were making new highs earlier this year so much of the carnage has been confined to tech stocks until just recently. it is not uncommon to see a rather serious bear market in stock prices roughly 10 years into a large secular upswing after a popular war such as the gulf war. we saw it in the late 1950s and early 1960s after the last long term trough war which was world war II. then we had the cuban missile crisis which scared everyone to death in much the same way that the 911 tragedy has. but markets still recovered and saw several more years of prosperity leading up into vietnam. in 1907, leading up into world war I, we had the "rich man's panic" which made people worry then that the bull market was over. yet it quickly recovered and went on to new highs leading up into world war I, and i think this will indeed happen again taking us into the early part of the next decade. i know some people will probably accuse me of stealing the timing of this from harry dent but i only agree with dent on the timing of this particular part of the cycle. as to what its aftermath will be is where we part ways.

market crashes that lead into economic depressions typically follow a distinct pattern. first there is an unpopular war, a serious recession, followed by a period of rampant inflation, monetary contraction, speculation, and then the final crash liquidation. we saw a monetary contraction in 2000 because of the fed trying to correct for the overexpansion it had put into the system due to fears over the potential havoc the Y2K bug might cause. but there was no inflation problem prior to that nor after. this ingredient needs to have its day before there is a great risk of depression or, as S&H have called it, "the great devaluation."

the general economic pattern is

1. monetary expansion: early 1780s leading into the french revolution, late 1830s after crash of 1837 leading into the mexican war, mid to late 1890s after panic of 1893 leading into the spanish-american war, mid to late 1930s after 1929 crash leading into world war II, late 1980s after the 1987 market crash leading into the gulf war.

2. popular war: french revolution, mexican war in u.s., spanish american war, world war II, gulf war.

3. technology boom (typically about 20 years in length with a lull in the middle): period from end of the french revolution to the napoleonic wars and the war of 1812 in the u.s.; period from the mexican war to the crimean war or the american civil war; period from the spanish american war into world war I; period from world war II into vietnam; the period from the gulf war into ?

4. Unpopular war: napoleonic wars and the war of 1812; crimean war and the american civil war; world war I; vietnam; something likely to occur in early 2010s

5. inflation: period following napoleonic wars and the war of 1812 leading into the monetary contraction by the bank of the united states in 1818; period following the crimean war and the civil war ( prices actually peaked during the civil war period but reached a secondary peak in the early 1870s before the contraction stage set in starting the panic of 1873); prices rose virtually non-stop after world war I until congress passed a resolution in 1920 advising the federal reserve to take corrective measures; the period after vietnam gave us the inflation of the 1970s which paul volker brought under control in the early 80s.

6. monetary contraction: 1818 contraction by the bank of the united states; contraction that set off the panic of 1873; contraction of 1920; and the volker contraction of the early 80s.

7. speculation and excess: 1827-1836, characterized by speculation in railroads; 1876-1884 to possibly 1893 and was again characterized by railroad speculation; recovery in 1922 after 1920 contraction leading into the 1929 crash; recovery in the 1980s after the volker contraction leading into the 1987 crash.

8. liquidation: the panic of 1837; panic of 1884 or 1893 (take your pick); 1929 crash; 1987 crash; something in the 2020s or 2030s.

that pattern has held true for approximately 2 1/2 centuries now. it will certainly be interesting to see if it continues to do so.

On 2001-09-26 16:09, Stonewall Patton wrote:

On 2001-09-26 14:31, JustinLong wrote:
Perhaps as an analog

Gulf War = WW1

Terrorist Attack = Stock Market Crash

Current Crisis = Depression before WW2

Wasn't WW1, in S&H Scenario, an Unravelling era war?

I will build upon what Justin has offered. History does not seem to operate to an exact schedule but the parallels here are interesting nonetheless:

Our involvement in WWI spanned the years 1917-1918. Our involvement in Desert Shield-Desert Storm spanned the years 1990-1991. Let us equate the two events and project forward to the current or coming catalyst:

1917 = 1990
1918 = 1991

-
[jump]
-
1929 = 2002

All three of these intervals are 73 years. Since some of us here are advocating 72-year-long saeculae since 1844, that's a surprisingly good match! BTW, 72 years, minus one month, is exactly the interval between Black Friday and 911!

2002 is pretty darn close to 911 as far as this linear progression goes. But given that history does not follow such a strict schedule, even if we allow an uncertainty or error of just one year around each point in time, we can line up 2001 (911) with 1929 and also parallel all our recent elections (and the Roaring Nineties do indeed seem to parallel the Roaring Twenties in so many ways as has been discussed):

1920 Harding = 1992 Clinton
1924 Coolidge = 1996 Clinton
1928 Hoover = 2000 Bush

I did something very like this before on the old forums, but using an 80-year interval, not a 72-year interval. Here is what I got, and I ran into the same problems you did later on.

1900 Roosevelt = 1980 Reagan
1908 Taft = 1988 Bush
1912 Wilson = 1992 Clinton

The parties, elections, and domestic roles work out very nicely. Without going back to the old forums, I think I projected a Republican (Bush Jr) victory on the basis of this sequence, so it would be:

1920 Harding = 2000 Bush Jr.

And then it falls apart because, as you discovered, the 80-year cycle that works well for parties runs out of room with a 72-year saeculum!

I did not include all the 3T elections prior to 1920/1992 because they do not line up as cleanly. However they do line up again in an earlier sequence. The net effect is a loss of four years somewhere in this recent 3T. And what is the difference between 2001 and the projected catalyst around 2005? Four years. Let me lay this out just for the heck of it:

Ronald Reagan parallels Theodore Roosevelt in many important ways. Both "carried a big stick" and restored America's strength and pride. TR built his Great White Fleet and RR built his 600-ship navy. And perhaps most importantly in relation to turnings, both led us out of a 2T and into a 3T, although not cleanly if we accept S&H's transition years of 1908 and 1984.

There's your four years right there. Roosevelt served his terms almost entirely within the Missionary/Muckracker Awakening!

But then TR was ahead of his time as a progressive -- a president for the 3T -- and only ascended to the presidency as the result of an assassination. So we probably can in fact equate Reagan's first election with TR's actual election and both did in fact usher in the turnings associated with their respective politics four years later (per S&H). Then Taft ran in 1908 promising to continue TR's program but did not do so. And RR ran in 1984 promising to continue his own program, but did not do so to the extent that Vice-President George H.W. Bush arguably took over the administration. Thus we get:

1904 Roosevelt = 1980 Reagan
1908 Taft = 1984 Reagan
1912 Wilson = 1988 Bush

As you can see, these election years will not mesh with the set higher up. Somewhere along the line, we lost four years in the current cycle. Internationalist Bush Sr. equates to internationalist Wilson as they catered to the same types of organizations and groups. Wilson had his WWI and Bush Sr. had his Gulf War. WWI spawned talk of a League of Nations and the Gulf War spawned talk of a New World Order. Yet Wilson had eight years whereas Bush Sr. had only four. Despite this, the elections immediately beforehand in the 3T line up and the elections immediately afterward do as well.

In some ways (party, domestic roles, relation to previous president), my scheme lines up better. When it comes to foreign policy roles and timing in the saeculum, yours lines up better.

Obviously we cannot assess the progress of history according to such a tight schedule. Yet there are some stunning parallels between this recent 3T and the one before it. People suggest that this 4T is premature and, according to S&H's projections, it is coming early by about four years. We in fact find that approximately four years were lost in this recent 3T when it is lined up with the earlier one. But the important point is that the four years are not being lost here at the end of the 3T. Comparison with the earlier 3T suggests that those four years were lost at some point between 1984 (Reagan's reelection) and 1990 (Desert Shield-Desert Storm). And, if so, we have been out of synch in some way for the past 11-17 years. Any ideas as to what might have happened?

Ugh, brain just turned off because of fatigue poisons. :sad: I'll see if I can figure out an answer later and either edit this post or reply to it.

I thought about that after I posted, but there's one problem: if you recall the story, the nature of Alia, Ghanima, and Leto the Younger (Paul's younger sister and children, for those who don't recall) means that the generational cycle would not apply to them. They would simultaneously be of all four generational types, and in fact could validly claim to be generations unto themselves.

Yes... and no. For those of you who are not familiar with the story, the special power of those 3 characters was that they contained inside themselves all the lifetimes of memories of all of their ancestors back to first humans to walk erect. So yes, between that and their vast influence over the universe they could plausibly claim to BE a generation. However, if you'll remember, the reason that Alia was considered an "Abomination" was because her original personality was practically destroyed by the conflicting memories within her and she was eventually possessed by one of the worst human beings in history - Baron Vladimir Harkonnen. Leto and Ghanima avoided that fate by coming to a truce with the billions of personalities that live inside them and keeping their original personalities dominant - those personalities were Nomad.

In a way those three characters represent a metaphorical warning about the power that different generations should and shouldn't have in different Turnings. In Alia, the generations became scrambled as personalities from different times struggled for supremacy. The one who eventually one won out was an utterly evil Hero. The lessons of Ghanima and Leto was about appreciating and understanding the wisdom and lessons of previous generations while also relying on yourself because you understand that what they did may not be applicable to today.

Why the hell America is allies with Saudi Arabia?
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

A lot of secondary reasons, but for the central and primary reasons:

Oil. Petroleum. Black Gold. Texas Tea.

And again, this may very well lead to great Crisis oriented efforts to wean our nation off of foriegn oil. Obviously, oil is only one the three nightmarish issues that entangles us in the Middle East - our ties to Israel are another, as is our percieved "assault" on Islamic culture, but we might be able to handle the other two if we didn't keep getting caught up in a game of propping up one oppressive regime because they're "ours" and knocking down another because they're "against us".

For example, this morning on Good Morning America, Diane Sawyer did a VERY flattering portrayel of the former leader of Afghanistan's Northern Alliance who was murdered by suicide bombers on September 9. The Northern Alliance is currently reaching out to America, they would like to be "our eyes and ears on the ground", and, assuming we can clear it with our Middle Eastern "allies" we'll probably start doing it.

Now I'll be the first to admit that I don't know much about the Northern Alliance (except that they have a pretty cool Star Wars type of name and they've GOT to be better than the Taliban). Certainly the old interview footage that they aired of their former leader reveals that they seems to have at least a slightly more liberal attitude toward women - but the point is, I don't know. Remember in the Gulf War when we were coming to the aid of a "democratic" Kuwait - where most of the population can't vote.

These are kinds of questions we need to start answering. We need to find a better balance between idealism and realpolitik. All too often in the 3T our idealism ended at our shores and we were too wrapped up in ourselves to care.



<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: Delsyn on 2001-09-27 01:01 ]</font>

HopefulCynic, I enjoyed reading your Schlesinger Fantasy, although I was immediately curious about your thoughts concerning naming it that. :smile:

I was 29 when we elected Kennedy. Brian's earlier-posted question posed to Boomers about Kennedy's inspirational power hit me square on. I would bet that for every Boomer his rhetoric inspired, there was at least one inspired Silent to match, if not more.

The election was civil on the outside (the candidates' toward each other, etc.), and down among the voters, quite a secret one in communities - lots of backroom talk, in a time where the backrooms still controlled the nominations and platforms. We voters talked on the outside about his good locks and vigor, how refreshing he might be, how gorgeous and CHIC Jackie was; yet we also talked about not upsetting the business applecart, was he too young, too Catholic, etc. Local businessmen were against him.
I don't remember much issues difference between him and Nixon, and you are correct, Kennedy's first agendas were downright practically Republican.

He was enormously loved and enormously hated once elected, but the country was experiencing something as Snow White must have felt when first awakened from her sleep, when the Prince kissed her. So I think the feelings attached to him either way were symbolic ones as to the country's mood. Turning changes are never sudden, we know, and he was elected in the nether-period between (which I think is much like what we are in now, BTW, if we aren't yet in 4T - whoever said they were agnostic to that question, that was a good description, me too).

And we still had a polite shell (self-censored press and media, manners, traditions, distinct writing style rules, family values with one-wage-earner norms, a segregated society in race, gender AND class), so his detractors either discussed only among their own or used irony or cynicism to mask opinions.

IMO Kennedy spoke to those who were restless for the High to end. IMO he spoke to Silents, basically (the same Silent Majority Nixon wanted the approval of later), but other generations responded, too. He brought youth together and this was unsettling to many. He was the Harbinger of the Awakening, I guess.

Now, my take is that he was planning to wait until after he was re-elected to take on pulling out of Vietnam. Same on Civil Rights legislation. On each of these issues he faced a huge opposition entrenched in Washington. He was never safely "in" there. He took counsel from Gen. Douglas MacArthur on both Vietnam (which was, a war we couldn't win) and on the MIC - Military Industrial Complex (and it's eery that Ike warned against the MIC in his farewell address in a sort of surreal moment that nobody much paid attention to at the time). Then, firing Dulles -- well, IMO, that sealed his fate. I'm not sure at all that he would have gotten re-elected because of forces behind the scenes working against him. (And you asked about Bobby, my guess is he would have been MORE popular in JFK's death, but not his own. Bobby was the Second Chance at it, and when he died, it was *as if* all the dreams for change died, too.)

But, back to JFK, in office, he didn't behave properly. He wasn't Ike. Ike would sit and listen, and then sign off on whatever his advisors decided and take off to play golf. Kennedy tried to make his own decisions and often clashed horns with the Pentagon, CIA, FBI. This scared the status quo, along with his magic of rallying Americans with his words and his personna. So, I now think something effective would have gotten started to derail him in 1964.

We'd never seen a President assassinated in our collective lifetimes. Dallas was just, well, you just had to be alive and have any memory capacity back then to understand the retching shock, horror, sadness. Scratch that, yes, you DO now know. It was ALOT like 911 as far as reaction. You know, people were scared at first, as well. They did not know who had done it, let alone what it meant. The mourning period lasted a long time as those things go.

You know, I tend to see some parallels between the fixes Kennedy got himself into amidst the entrenched Washington bureacracy, and the fixes Clinton got himself into with same. If one buys into his assassination being an "inside job", I wonder if he would have ever wished for a press like today's who could have helped punish him and destroy him, thereby walking away alive at least. Heh. I suppose that's one thing Clinton should be grateful for.

Hello Everyone,

right now there is a major peace movement in the works in this country among its young people.
many people are not supporting what looks like to be a ground war in afghanistan.
(im keeping my mouth shut because i really dont know whats going to happen)
.......
Im thinking that if we get embroiled in a senseless foreign conflict, we will be laying the stages for the next turning.
Bush Jr declares our union is strong....
but I dont think hes right.
i think our union is pretty damn weak.
Right now were all scared.
But if we start killing innocent people, or the administration fails to win this conflict and deliver some sort of justice...one spark will push us over the edge into a fullblown crisis.
It will further drain the faith of the population in the government to provide them with safety, and direction.
Right now our only direction is in the way of a vague war against terror.
Thats not big enough to substantiate a fourth turning claim.
911 is definitely the day the national mood changed.
How can you deny that.
But I dont think its going to push us into an internal crisis, unless something else does that for good.
Right now were teetering on the edge of a Fourth Turning.
Im almost considering getting married sooner than I wanted to, to avoid any draft (and thats married in Denmark)
But I dont think 911 will push us into the turning...Theres got to be something else...one more thing that will seal the Third Turning shut, and say, theres no going back.

As for Kennedy Barbara,
I think it was a huge shock for the people.
Maybe the only thing I can equivocate it to is hearing "the pentagon is burning" two weeks ago, or having the first grade teacher come in and say to my teacher "her students saw it all on TV...one minute they were all cheering and smiling, the next minute they had tears rolling down their faces"
That was Krysta McAuliffes class.
............
My mother still is in love with the kennedys.
Maybe John Jr was the last year of the boom, because he is a child that will be forever associated with that American High.
I think seeing Oswald get shot on TV was pretty traumatic for the American people as well.

On 2001-09-26 13:49, alan wrote:
I would suggest that anyone interested read the book "Starship Troopers", which gives a rather detailed history of how their society developed after an extreme unraveling at the end of the 20th century. One of the unsettling things about this very prescient book was that in this history it was the returning veterans who survived a Western military disaster in Southwest Asia who decided that things were going to be different now.
The book is very very different in tone than the movie. The film was entertaining but it has little, in my opinion, in common with the novel.

What's interesting is that the society shown in the novel - the one Juan Rico was born into and raised in - is that of a High.

Enjolras, it appears that you have obtained your view of the long cycle from textual descriptions, you haven't looked at the raw data. Here is an article I wrote on characterization of the long cycle using monetary data.

http://www.gold-eagle.com/editorials...der051401.html

Here is a method for characterizing the cycle in real economic terms using Harry Dent's innovation wave concept (the document was written with a 15 inch monitor, if your monitor is bigger than that make the box a little smaller and it will be eaier to read):

http://csf.colorado.edu/authors/Alex...e/longwav2.htm

Innovation waves (also called leading sectors) can be constructed back to the 1300's. Here is a graph of 14 successive "longwaves":

http://csf.colorado.edu/authors/Alex...ingSectors.gif

Anyways, analysis of the actual data does show that Gulf War and WW I are at similar points in the cycle and that the 2000 market peak is equivalent to 1929. This is also shown by the stock cycle:

http://www.gold-eagle.com/editorials...der032101.html

The long cycle is longer today (nominally 72 years) and now lines up with the saeculum on a 1:1 basis. Prior to the Civil War the cycle lined up with the saeculum on a 2:1 basis.

HopefulCynic:

In version 1, JFK lives, either the bullet misses or he survives the impact, and goes on to a successful second term. Realizing that Vietnam was a doomed enterprise, JFK pulls out before the worst of the disaster sets in, and goes on to establish the Civil Rights movement and the integration of the South, which goes smoothly because of Kennedy's youth, charisma, and skill, and because the absence of the Vietnam War keeps the domestic scene quiet. Later, his legacy establishes the Democratic Party and liberalism as the dominant cultural and political forces, thus nullifying Reagan and the right-wing turn of the eighties.

Some of that might have come off, but much of it really is a fantasy. Although there was interaction and some mutual reinforcement between the war protests and the race violence, they were really independent for the most part. The inner-city riots occurred in the Awakening's first years, 1965 and 1966 for the most part, while the biggest antiwar protests occurred in '68-'72. I doubt if Kennedy could have headed off the former, though pulling out of Vietnam would have redirected the energy of the latter, probably into anti-Bomb activity, and probably cooled it off to some degree.


That last sentence is pure nonsense, of course. Liberalism was the dominant theme of the Awakening even in the Nixon years, so a Kennedy second term wouldn't have changed that, and Unravelings always feature a turn to the right.


Kennedy's own political success or failure, and how he was remembered, probably hinged on pulling us out of Vietnam. If he didn't, he'd have been the target of rage just like Johnson was, maybe more so because it would look so much like a betrayal. If he did, though, the Awakening would still have happened. There was plenty of other stuff going on.

I am not absolutely certain he would even have won reelection in 1964. It would have depended in much on who the GOP ran against him, and how clever each side was. It would certainly not have been a done deal.

Here I think I have to disagree. As for the GOP candidate, that was all but settled in favor of Goldwater by '63. Goldwater had serious liabilities. A thoroughly honorable man, and really too honest for politics, he tended to say things that made people think he was nuts. His campaign slogan was "In your heart, you know he's right," and the Democrats came out unofficially with three comebacks that I know of. One was "Yeah -- extreme right." Another was "In your guts you know he's nuts." And the third (and my favorite) was "In your heart, you know he might." (As in drop the Bomb.)


Kennedy's stock had gone way up because of his perceived leadership in the Cuban Missile Crisis. Barbara seems to think that his opponents within the government would have pulled strings to defeat him, and I'm sure there were those that would have liked to do that, but she has a higher opinion of their ability to pull it off than I do. Had that been possible, I don't think he would have been assassinated.

If I'm right, JFK would have needed political cover to pull out safely. In that, he would find himself in the same boat as JFK and Nixon later. Further, let's not forget good old human pride. I don't think he would have liked being known as the president who failed in Vietnam any more than LBJ liked the idea.

There was no easy way to do it, but one possibility has occurred to me. Kennedy could have reenacted the old unification elections idea, which was supposed to go down in the late 50s but was rejected by Ngo Dinh Diem or whoever was in charge of SVN then. It could have been announced beforehand that any rejection of the democratic solution by SVN would mean that the U.S. could no longer support that country. Then either you get a peaceful reunification (under the Communists because that's how the vote would have gone), or America has an excuse to wash its hands of the whole mess.

If JFK had lived and won that second term, I have a hunch a six-to-eight year older JFK would have looked quite a bit to the Boomers like an embodiment of the G.I. Establishment.

Maybe. To some extent, certainly. The instinct of the older Hero is to try to harness the country's energy to do grand things and institute civic reforms of one kind or another. The instinct of the young Prophet is to reject harnessing, march to the beat of a different drummer (as one eloquent Transcendental put it), and reform the spirit. No matter who was in charge, those two instincts had to collide.


I do think, though, that a lot of the sheer rage we felt towards LBJ (I know I did, anyway) came from the fact that the SOB lied to us, and about something as crucial as our lives. He promised not to send American troops into Vietnam, won a landslide election, and was barely sworn in when we had half a million combat soldiers there. Old joke about the '64 election: "They said if I voted for Goldwater we'd be in a war, and by golly I did and we are."


I do think it made a difference, and made things much worse, that the leaders of the country during the years 1965-1974 were so personally odious, and so worthy of moral condemnation. People other than Lyndon Johnson and Richard Nixon might have been regarded differently.

HoepfulCynic:

You're fairly certain I agree with Robertson on the details, or that I disagree?

I'm amazed you think you have to ask that question. Disagree, of course.

You may well be right about the hard-core RR (especially the evangelicals') vision of what an ideal world would look like, but that is not really the point. They know as well as you do (again, except for a few super-extremists) that their vision will not occur on Earth short of the Second Coming.

Perhaps, but I disagree that this makes it irrelevant. It IS really the point. That a full realization is politically impossible does not change the nature of what they would do if they could. In fact, that nature is WHY it's politically impossible.


What I have been saying is that the political vision, that ideal that is out of step with the majority as you put it, of the American Christian right is similar in its essentials to the political vision of Muslim fundamentalist groups. Each wants, or if you prefer dreams of, a society in which the basis for law is God's law. That this vision is not politically doable in the United States, and that consequently the religious right must, if it is to have any influence at all, settle for a few crumbs here and there, doesn't invalidate that comparison.

Those elements they do want to legislate are fairly basic, and commond support from groups outside the RR as well.

The religious right would, if given a mandate to impose its full agenda (something we apparently agree isn't going to happen), do a lot more than re-criminalize abortion, put prayer back in school, and strictly define marriage.


Homosexual acts, and heterosexual ones outside marriage, would carry civil and criminal penalties. Pornography, with a very wide-ranging definition, would be outlawed. Penalties would be imposed on non-Christian religions to the extent this is possible within the restrictions of the First Amendment. (It might be more possible than many suppose. A sympathetic Supreme Court might allow redefining some religions as "cults" that lie outside the definition of "religion" as that term is used in the Constitution. While that would almost certainly not work with Judaism, and perhaps not with other so-called "great" religions such as Buddhism or Islam, it would be much more likely to impact the various Satanist, Neopagan, and New Age religions.)


Penalties for prostitution would be greatly increased. The war on drugs would be accelerated. So would alcohol restrictions (though barring a specific Southern Baptist victory a return of Prohibition would be unlikely). Penalties would apply to wearing revealing clothing. Laws would restrict what kind of dancing is allowed at concerts.


I could go on at considerably more length. Since I grew up around people of this persuasion and know the mind-set well, you are not going to be able to covince me that this is not what many of them would like to see happen, even though I believe you, personally, do not, and that you believe others share your relatively moderate and reasonable mindset to a greater extent than I think they do, particularly those of them that happen to be Boomers or Millennials instead of Xers.


It is true that you can find evangelicals who disagree with almost any of the ideas above. I contend, nevertheless, that those are a minority within the movement. And moreover, any disagreement about specifics masks agreement about the underlying logic -- subordination of man's law to God's law -- and this is a common feature with the Muslim fundamentalists, even though the specific conception of God's law diverges between the two.

many of the RR, both Protestant and Catholic, are afraid that sooner or later the government will try to enforce secular rules over organizations taking secular monies. In some cases, these secular rules are regarded as basically immoral.

And so long as man's law is not subordinate to God's, that problem will remain for religious groups that wish to take Caesar's coin.


Actually it's my opinion that government inevitably corrupts religion and vice-versa, so the religious right would be disappointed with the results even if they could achieve their agenda. But then, I disagree with them about many things, and I fear this is yet another one.

This is a collection of posts as I try and catch up this morning with the 3 pages posted since yesterday!

<hr>
Scott '63 wrote: Will embattled (Xer) parents hide their children away in "safe" schools or will an emerging collective ethic come to view such moves as "elitist"?

Early Xers with older Millennial children will probably allow their Millennials to go to collective-type schools, since Millennials will be expressing their opinions strongly. Late Xers (such as myself) probably (like myself) have a predilection to hide our children away. Our children will likely be the "smothered" Artists. (My kids were born in early-98, late-99, and one due in Jan 2002).

<hr>
Stonewall Patton wrote a long post on the analog between last Crisis and current Crisis--a very good one, I thought!

I think what you've hinted at is correct: we likely lost the 4 years with Bush's loss to Clinton. That was a badly handled election on the Bush side. Clinton, I think, is/was a prophet/Boomer type who came to early. If Clinton's health-care package had come one election cycle later, it *might* have stood a chance. As it was, it was too early in the 3T. It was taken as a moral cause, but moral causes were pre-seasonal.

(Of course, this is a totally amateur scenario/suggestion, and may betray my naviete on such matters. We would do well to remember that there is no "ideal" cycle per se. In other words, no cycle will have exactly the same # of years.)

Now, I'm not up on US history. Who came after Hoover, and what happened then? Can we draw an analog for modern times?

<hr>
Angeli responded to me on the religious element of the Civil War

1. The religious element of this Crisis is what could set us on the road to an internal conflict (a la the Civil War) rather than external conflict (a la WW2).

2. Actually I don't think the conservatives got the church until the period of the Unravelling. Usually, it seems to me, conservatives win out on theological matters the closer one gets to a crisis. Which makes sense, since Awakenings are about liberality and Crises are about circling the wagons and defending against enemies (both within and without).

<hr>On the matter of bin Laden's motivations

One thing to keep in mind is that some societies are Shame-based, not guilt-based. For a discussion of this and its impact on Arab motivations see the following articles

http://www.strategicnetwork.org/inde...loc=kb&fto=962

particularly article #8117 and #4591 for the impact of relating to a shame-based society.

<hr>Tristan wrote to ask why we are allies with Saudi Arabia. I think the answer is that they have a lot of oil. That alliance is kept fairly low key.

<hr>
Religious Right: generally most of those in the religious right - most Christians in general - know that you cannot legislatively force people to be moral. The argument is that if a nation reflects the laws of God in its own legislation, then it will come under God's blessing. If it doesn't, then God removes His blessing and the nation falls under judgement. It's not a position I'm certain I agree with, but not one that I can theologically poke holes in.

Most Christian Xers that I've talked to think that when you "took prayer out of school" (i.e. school-organized prayer) it was a Good Thing, because that forced the students to rediscover their own positions and take their own initiative rather than relying on an Adult to do it.

<hr>
On enjolras long post... I would equate Gulf War with WW1 because WW2 was fought for the total destruction of the enemy, whereas the Gulf War was fought for limited goals. That disagreement aside, you've made an insightful post and timeline! On your point #4, the unpopular war may be the War on Terrorism. It's popular now, but let's give it a couple years and see what happens.

<hr>
Regarding Justin '79's post... I think that the "young people" are probably bleedover Xers from 3T. When it gets right down to it most Millennials will up and do what they're told. But the trick here is that the current war is not a "total war" - such as is present in a Crisis. We have a long way to go, given the cycle, before that happens. That comes at the END of the Crisis, generally, not at its beginning. I don't think there's going to be a draft - by the time you got the new kids trained as Special Ops (which is the main thing for this), it'd be over (I hope!). And talk of a massive ground war and bombing campaign is, IMHO, ridiculous. We're not going to carpet-bomb Afghanistan to get a small network of terrorists. That would fly in the face of all the "We-love-Arabs-but-want-Al-Qaeda" rhetoric. Just my $0.02 worth: don't get married early to avoid the draft. You'll regret it later, and she'll say, "You only married me to avoid war."

Mr. Long writes, "Now, I'm not up on US history. Who came after Hoover, and what happened then? Can we draw an analog for modern times?"

Um, I believe it was Franklin Roosevelt. Some folks called him, "FDR." The Columbus Dispatch, which I'm familiar with, referred to him as, "FD." Kind of tongue-in-cheek you might say. Other folks called him. "That man in the White House." These were the rich folks who liked to stand on the White House lawn and "hiss" FD. And still other folks called FDR, "God." These were the poor folks, and they would "kneel" on the White Lawn and worship their "God" who lived inside.

I'm sure there are still others who called the man who "came after Hoover" a lot of other things too. Both good and bad. But make no mistake about the only four term President of the United States of America: he had gray hair, like to smoke cigarettes, and was a wonderful actor just like Ronald Reagan, who liked Him very much.

History lesson over. :smile:

On 2001-09-27 07:20, Brian Rush wrote:


Maybe. To some extent, certainly. The instinct of the older Hero is to try to harness the country's energy to do grand things and institute civic reforms of one kind or another. The instinct of the young Prophet is to reject harnessing, march to the beat of a different drummer (as one eloquent Transcendental put it), and reform the spirit. No matter who was in charge, those two instincts had to collide.


I do think, though, that a lot of the sheer rage we felt towards LBJ (I know I did, anyway) came from the fact that the SOB lied to us, and about something as crucial as our lives. He promised not to send American troops into Vietnam, won a landslide election, and was barely sworn in when we had half a million combat soldiers there. Old joke about the '64 election: "They said if I voted for Goldwater we'd be in a war, and by golly I did and we are."


I do think it made a difference, and made things much worse, that the leaders of the country during the years 1965-1974 were so personally odious, and so worthy of moral condemnation. People other than Lyndon Johnson and Richard Nixon might have been regarded differently.

Newer vistors might wish to read our own Mr. David Kaiser's excellent American Tragedy.
HTH

I passed over this passage in a post by HopefulCynic but it actually provides a good and useful analogy:

But I can find equivalent debates between various subgroups of the environmental movement, the feminist movement, the union labor movement, the free trade movement, and probably the black helicopter crowd. I doubt very seriously if most serious environmentalists would support the Voluntary Extinction Movement (that really exists, by the way).

I do not, of course, agree with the Voluntary Extinction Movement in its proposals. Where I do agree with it, however, is in its basic values regime: that the human species is only a part of the earth's biosphere, that the biosphere is more important than humanity, that humanity's interests are subordinate to that of life as a whole, and that we need to learn to regard ourselves as the servants of nature and not its masters.


Where I would disagree is that the VEM has apparently come to the conclusion that we are incapable of learning that lesson and that the planet would be better off without us. I cannot say for certain that they are wrong, but it seems to me that we ought to at least give it a fair try before throwing in the towel, especially since no species is going to voluntarily go extinct anyway and so we don't actually have a choice about it.


Yes, environmentalism, like the religious right, is indeed based on a common values regime that isn't shared by everyone. Both can argue their positions from a perspective of human welfare, too, either by suggesting that God will punish evildoers or by pointing up the existence of natural limits and homeostatic mechanisms. So if you believe in God and the Bible on the one hand or in the validity of science on the other, you might have reason to support at least part of the program whether or not you agree with the underlying values regime.


But at bottom, it really does come down to a question of what you believe ought to be. And that, I think, is my point.

On 2001-09-27 07:00, Mike Alexander '59 wrote:
Enjolras, it appears that you have obtained your view of the long cycle from textual descriptions, you haven't looked at the raw data. Here is an article I wrote on characterization of the long cycle using monetary data.

actually mike, i have obtained it through a combination of observation, and experimentation with actual markets since 1985.

http://www.gold-eagle.com/editorials...der051401.html

Here is a method for characterizing the cycle in real economic terms using Harry Dent's innovation wave concept (the document was written with a 15 inch monitor, if your monitor is bigger than that make the box a little smaller and it will be eaier to read):

http://csf.colorado.edu/authors/Alex...e/longwav2.htm

Innovation waves (also called leading sectors) can be constructed back to the 1300's. Here is a graph of 14 successive "longwaves":

http://csf.colorado.edu/authors/Alex...ingSectors.gif

the only reason i even mention harry dent is because his analysis of the likely length of the boom period happened to coincide with my own. boom periods in the past typically lasted about 20 years. dent's work intrigued me for the same reason that the work of strauss and howe intrigued me in that it confirmed my own observations.

Anyways, analysis of the actual data does show that Gulf War and WW I are at similar points in the cycle and that the 2000 market peak is equivalent to 1929. This is also shown by the stock cycle:

http://www.gold-eagle.com/editorials...der032101.html

this makes absolutely no sense to me when you look at the emotional tenor of both wars and the events surrounding their occurrence. world war I occurred during a time of prosperity, began with a lot of patriotic fanfare, and ended with people never wanting to fight another war again. it was a bloody conflict that no one actually won, except perhaps in a pyrhhic sense. this is typical of a peak war.

the gulf war began with serious trepidation over its likely outcome in the midst of economic weakness and uncertainty in the aftermath of the 87 crash. it was a short and decisive war, again typical of a trough war. plus, after the normal post war recession, it was followed by the type of technology boom that has followed every other such war for the last 200 plus years of american history.

The long cycle is longer today (nominally 72 years) and now lines up with the saeculum on a 1:1 basis. Prior to the Civil War the cycle lined up with the saeculum on a 2:1 basis.

the long cycles have expanded and contracted throughout history depending on the events that occur within them. this one may be longer as you suggest, it may be shorter, but i would suggest that the historical pattern of events is quite clear. furthermore, your model does not take into account the apparent cyclical nature of inflationary periods within the long waves and where they occur relative to economic upturns and downturns.

as i said, your forecast of a peak in the cycle in the 2000-2002 time frame is most likely one that has caught the mid-boom decline which has always been a normal occurrence and almost always brings people out calling for a peak in the cycle when the reality has always been that its just a pause before the upswing resumes itself leading into the next unpopular war stage.

but time and upcoming events will certainly prove which of us is correct. if the market and the economy does rebound soon, as i expect it to, and heads up into the 2007-2013 period and is followed by the typical unpopular war stage, then i am right after all. i have already lived through the one liquidation phase (1987), a monetary expansion (1988-90), a popular war stage (1990-1991), and half of a tech boom, and managed to anticipate them all. but you could be right and if you are then we should be experiencing some major inflation soon, and i do recognize that possibility, and have been maintaining some investments in gold just in case.

i would also direct you to the work of robert degersdorff on paired k-wave cycles of inflation and disinflation going back into the 13th century featured in an april 1979 issue of cycles magazine from the foundation for the study of cycles.

[quote]
<hr>
On enjolras long post... I would equate Gulf War with WW1 because WW2 was fought for the total destruction of the enemy, whereas the Gulf War was fought for limited goals. That disagreement aside, you've made an insightful post and timeline! On your point #4, the unpopular war may be the War on Terrorism. It's popular now, but let's give it a couple years and see what happens.

quote]


justin, the difference is that world war II occurred during an 84 year crisis period, same as the american revolution before it. both were trough wars.

the gulf war was a limited, quickly won conflict like the mexican war and the spanish american war before it. those were also both trough wars just as the gulf war was.

and i do believe you are correct in that this so-called "war on terrorism" will eventually turn into an unpopular war. but i do think it will take several more years for a "real" war to break out. people are already saying that at the moment this is a conflict for "special forces." when real ground troops go in then it will be time to sit up and take notice. but if that pattern does hold, the normal course of events afterwards is a normal post war recession, except this one will be called a depression by a lot of people because it will cut so deep across every part of the economy, followed by the inflation that i mentioned.

there is a verse in the bible that says that one day a "bushel of wheat will one day sell for a denarius," which at the time was the equivalent of a day's pay. with no metallic standard backing up any currency in the world now for the first time in modern history, that prophecy might actually come to pass during the next inflationary stage.