Originally Posted by zilch

The real kicker for today's indignant liberal is his acute instinct to excuse the obvious "anger" demonstrated by the 9/11 muggers, while at the same time self-righteously condemning the anger displayed by those outraged by the 9/11 muggers.

This odd IL instinct, while I'm tempted to find it puzzling, in conclusion, is very informative about today's liberals. They have little in common with those ILs, for whatever reasons, of yesterday.

Well, part of it is your image of the 'IL' is strawman. You are again creating a fiction about 'how all liberals think,' and attacking your own fiction rather than the positions of others in the forum. I've been trying to ignore the entire IL thread, as it is just responding to a troll's strawman argument, but I'm snowed in today and have little better to do.

One set of personifications of the indignant liberal would be the Grey Champions. As has already been noted, they became emotionally and in all other ways committed to suppressing colonial imperialism, slavery and fascism in prior American crises. Part of the role of a leader in crisis is to create an intense and dedicated unity. Another part is to formulate rational and logical plans of actions. Overall, I believe the progressive Grey Champions of our nation's past performed these roles very well indeed.

Another element, as has also been touched upon, is that when it is over, it is over. The hands of friendship are extended. The bitter enemies, once no longer in a position to do harm, are forgiven and offered paths to return to the community. There has been mention of the post Revolutionary pardons and the Marshall plan. While the Reconstruction didn't work so well, it was not because Lincoln didn't try to set a correct tone.

One eighth of the whole population were colored slaves, not distributed generally over the Union, but localized in the Southern part of it. These slaves constituted a peculiar and powerful interest. All knew that this interest was, somehow, the cause of the war. To strengthen, perpetuate, and extend this interest was the object for which the insurgents would rend the Union, even by war; while the government claimed no right to do more than to restrict the territorial enlargement of it. Neither party expected for the war, the magnitude, or the duration, which it has already attained. Neither anticipated that the cause of the conflict might cease with, or even before, the conflict itself should cease. Each looked for an easier triumph, and a result less fundamental and astounding. Both read the same Bible, and pray to the same God; and each invokes His aid against the other. It may seem strange that any men should dare to ask a just God's assistance in wringing their bread from the sweat of other men's faces; but let us judge not that we be not judged. The prayers of both could not be answered; that of neither has been answered fully. The Almighty has his own purposes. "Woe unto the world because of offenses! for it must needs be that offenses come; but woe to that man by whom the offense cometh!" If we shall suppose that American Slavery is one of those offenses which, in the providence of God, must needs come, but which, having continued through His appointed time, He now wills to remove, and that He gives to both North and South, this terrible war, as the woe due to those by whom the offense came, shall we discern therein any departure from those divine attributes which the believers in a Living God always ascribe to Him? Fondly do we hope--fervently do we pray--that this mighty scourge of war may speedily pass away. Yet, if God wills that it continue, until all the wealth piled by the bond-man's two hundred and fifty years of unrequited toil shall be sunk, and until every drop of blood drawn with the lash, shall be paid by another drawn with the sword, as was said three thousand years ago, so still it must be said "the judgments of the Lord, are true and righteous altogether"

With malice toward none; with charity for all; with firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in; to bind up the nation's wounds; to care for him who shall have borne the battle, and for his widow, and his orphan--to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace, among ourselves, and with all nations.

Now, there were conservatives in Revolutionary times who were comfortable living in a colony, without representation, ruled by a king. There were conservatives in the Civil War era, who owned slaves, and saw nothing wrong with it, no need to change. There were conservatives who saw America as having failed, and saw Hitler and fascism as showing the path of America's future. It should be expected, at any given crisis, that those who wield power and make profits using the existing scheme will somehow not perceive the injustices and inequalities at the core of the upcoming crisis.

It is necessary and appropriate, at the 3T / 4T cusp, that people see problems and make emotional commitments to solving them. It is expected that those who profit from injustice will evade responsibility, blunt the emotion, and cling to the status quo.

In this particular crisis, there are multiple concerns. Division of wealth is perpetual. Peak energy and shifting ratios of resources to population lie beneath the division of wealth. Insurgent tactics and increasingly available weapons of mass destruction have made it far more difficult for the dominant nations to force their will on others. Industrial wastes and climate change are problems. Representative democracy in its current form has also not been a healthy and robust tool that has given the People sufficient check on the power of the Establishment.

Which issue will be seen as central and dominant, or issues? Which 'lesser' concerns will have to be addressed to create an environment where the central dominant issues can be solved? I'm not sure. I just suspect that a lot more people need to get emotional and indignant as well as rational and logical in pursuing some or all of these problems. The 3T / 4T cusp is not a time for complacency.

***

The other issue that keeps surfacing in the IL thread is the role of containment during the Cold War. Immediately after World War II, Winston Churchill proposed that no war was ever so preventable. If the western powers had intervened when Hitler militarized the Rhineland, a lot of death and destruction could have been prevented. At that point, the standing armies of the would-become allies could have handled the not yet reconstructed German army. After making much of 'I was right, my political opponents were wrong,' Churchill then pointed at the "Iron Curtain" dividing Europe, and advocated a policy of containment.

Over all, in the long term, this policy worked. Capitalism and Democracy produced healthier economic and political systems than autocratic planned economy states could compete with. In Korea, at great cost, a 2GW human wave style attack was turned back. 2GW was not tried again at scale. In Vietnam, the US could not handle a mix of conventional warfare and insurgency. We could win battles, but not root out insurgents. We were unable to prop up an autocratic government disliked by most of its people.

There are lessons learned there. It is good to have a healthier economy and government than one's rivals. It is possible to contain autocratic governments with conventional armies. It is much harder to root out insurgency in a land where the people are not committed to their government.

If the West had allowed North Korea to walk into South Korea, would other communist regimes have followed North Korea's example? Was it worth preventing that particular domino from falling? Sure. Let's question history. Give an opinion of the policies and tactics. I'd welcome a discussion of this question. I'm less interested in snarky and shallow psychoanalysis of all democratic leaders as a class.

And given the initial shape of the current crisis, it is important to ask whether we should be trying to fight insurgencies, to defend governments that the people aren't willing to fight for. If the people will tolerate insurgents among them, is nation building possible, let alone a cost effective policy for changing the world?

Vietnam fell. Communism spread. In the end, this didn't matter. The increase in size of the communist block didn't mask the inefficiencies of their system. I believe there is room for containment in a list of strategies in the modern world. Still, it is not clear that the rigid domino effect "bear any burden, pay any price" version of containment practiced in the early Cold War would be wise, effective, or even possible.

***

Agricultural production is continuing to grow more efficient. The population world wide continues to grow. With smaller proportions of the population required to work the land, people move to urban and suburban environments. If the government is corrupt and inefficient, said population will be unhappy. Autocratic governments, where there is no tool short of violence to remove inefficient bureaucrats, are inefficient. Thus, a lot of unhappy people, seeking change, seeking alternate values that promise something approaching hope.

But, as Iraq has demonstrated, marching in and trying to force people to hope at gun point is problematic. A constitution without the values that lie behind the constitution can't transform a People.

As I read it, if turnabout is fair play, Zilch reflects how all complacent conservatives think. Colonial America should never have rebelled. The slaves should not have been freed. Fascism should not have been defeated. Communism should not have been contained. Or am I not reading his positions on the Big Issues correctly? Does he object to the goals and achievements of indignant liberals, or only to the fact that it took a string of indignant liberals to create the rigidly unchanging fixed America he is attempting to preserve in the face of a wave of oncoming change?

Originally Posted by Bob Butler 54

Well, part of it is your image of the 'IL' is strawman. You are again creating a fiction about 'how all liberals think'... As I read it, if turnabout is fair play, Zilch reflects how all complacent conservatives think.

Joe Lieberman is the exception to my supposed "fiction" of course, and while he is quite "indignant," he is also a odd duck among his Democrat colleagues. And, once again, no where throughout your heavily worded response did you manage to say much of anything, much less respond coherently to my assertion, Mr. Butler.

Originally Posted by zilch

Joe Lieberman is the exception to my supposed "fiction" of course, and while he is quite "indignant," he is also a odd duck among his Democrat colleagues. And, once again, no where throughout your heavily worded response did you manage to say much of anything, much less respond coherently to my assertion, Mr. Butler.

Could you then coherently restate your assertion? As I read it, you are stereotyping progressives with 'indignant' being their dominant trait, and asserting their irrational actions out of emotion would be risky as compared to more logical conservatives.

I will acknowledge that at a 3T / 4T cusp, progressives do tend to get indignant about things like taxation without representation, colonial imperialism, slavery, economic collapse and fascism. However, while the Grey Champions have marshaled emotion and just indignation to strengthen their causes, they have in general supervised rational policies and successfully addressed the problems confronting them. I do not see the ability to marshall emotions as being a drawback at this point in the cycles.

You also seem obsessed with democrats starting wars since World War II. I do not believe that 'indignation' had a lot to do with it. I'd rather talk about the policy of containment than your cheap false stereotypes of how 'indignant liberals' behave. I find your shallow psychoanalysis of our leaders entirely irrelevant... worth basically zilch. If you'd like to talk policy rather than cheap stereotypes, sure. If you prefer to avoid 'heavy' policy and stick with lightweight psycho-babble, of course you will not be following where I'm going.

Originally Posted by zilch

Joe Lieberman is the exception to my supposed "fiction" of course, and while he is quite "indignant," he is also a odd duck among his Democrat colleagues.

That one seems a little sallow and dyspeptic if you ask me.

Originally Posted by Linus

That one seems a little sallow and dyspeptic if you ask me.

Which distinguishes it from the rest of Zilch's writings, which are a lot sallow and dyspeptic?

I was referring to Professor Lieberman or as that Yglesias kid calls him: the demented milquetoast.

Charlie Brown's Great Chef of delicate French cuisine seems to have a problem digesting Sen. Joe L. (D-Conn) as anything more than wimpy shrimp, utterly unworthy to be in the same bowl as hearty ingredients like, say, Gore, Kerry, Clinton?

How shall I reply... save with a simple tale of a "hunchback" from long ago named Homer Lea?

As always, may I respectfully bow with a curt close: Bush sucks.

Originally Posted by Brian Beecher

Another case in point, years after resigning in disgrace over Watergate, Nixon's knowledge of foreign affairs was so well respected that future leaders sought advice from him. And by the time he died, he was all but exonerated for Watergate. Guess many figured that he really didn't do anything worse than many others pols did, his biggest sin was in getting caught.

And did you hear that the sports world's equivalent to Nixon admitted to betting on every baseball game he ever managed?

There are huge differences between Hoover (brilliant and moral) and Nixon (brilliant but thoroughly amoral) on the one side and Dubya. Hoover was an adept administrator, and Nixon was at the least knowledgeable in an area in which his morals (other than loyalty) were of no consequence. Both had their obvious utility after failed Presidencies.

Beginning in 2009, if not earlier, Dubya will be out to pasture much as Pete Rose is now. Some celebrity status will remain... but like Pete Rose, Dubya will be in disgrace and no longer useful because he violated the most basic principles of a field in which he had prominence.

Pete Rose gambled on games in which he had a legitimate stake in winning or losing, and he debased the game. He could have chosen to bet illegally on sports other than baseball, and he would have gotten away with it. There's now nothing that Rose can now do for baseball. He's far too old to do again what he once did well, and nothing that he has done since being banned from baseball has prepared him for any role as a spokesperson or administrator.

Dubya is neither an effective spokesman for anything any more (I almost suspect Alzheimer's) and he is a dreadful administrator. What's left for him? Appearing on infomercials to hawk memorabilia?

Originally Posted by pbrower2a

Dubya is neither an effective spokesman for anything any more (I almost suspect Alzheimer's) and he is a dreadful administrator. What's left for him? Appearing on infomercials to hawk memorabilia?

There is the wingnut welfare circuit. Former presidents still capable of reading a speech do so in front of wealthy people who pay a great deal for the privilege of listening. Whether Bush 43 manages to retain enough credibility for even this role is another question.

It is sort of traditional that the captain go down with his ship. Bush 43 seems determined to take his ship down with him. I don't know that he will get a lot of thank you dollars.

Do you think that Dubya will try a return to baseball after leaving office? After all, he once was the owner of the Texas Rangers.

If a roughly 80-year cycle espoused by most on this forum is on target, then he is not this era's equivalent of Hoover; the President to get elected in 2008 will be, and a major crisis would occur on his watch. I read the overview of a book on the Bonus Army Rebellion I was referred to, and it indicated that although it was largely a failure at the time, it did pave the way for the passage of the GI Bill at WWII's end. This no doubt was a result of lessons learned from that situation.

Originally Posted by zilch

Charlie Brown's Great Chef of delicate French cuisine seems to have a problem digesting Sen. Joe L. (D-Conn) as anything more than wimpy shrimp, utterly unworthy to be in the same bowl as hearty ingredients like, say, Gore, Kerry, Clinton?

How shall I reply... save with a simple tale of a "hunchback" from long ago named Homer Lea?

As always, may I respectfully bow with a curt close: Bush sucks.

Indeed sir. Lib Hitler Hilllary (otherwise known as Der Clintonfuhrer) is as we all know a veritable man-woman liable to initiate a terrifying thousand-year reign of emasculation, secularization, and vegeterianization should she be "elected" president. It's my belief that only Sword Not Peace Jesus or maybe that guy from Charles in Charge could stop it.

Originally Posted by Brian Beecher

Do you think that Dubya will try a return to baseball after leaving office? After all, he once was the owner of the Texas Rangers.

If a roughly 80-year cycle espoused by most on this forum is on target, then he is not this era's equivalent of Hoover; the President to get elected in 2008 will be, and a major crisis would occur on his watch. I read the overview of a book on the Bonus Army Rebellion I was referred to, and it indicated that although it was largely a failure at the time, it did pave the way for the passage of the GI Bill at WWII's end. This no doubt was a result of lessons learned from that situation.

We're obviously in a protracted cusp period... I believe early 4T but, sure, possibly late 3T. As such, if the Catalyst is indeed yet to occur, who's to say that the occupant of the White House won't be ready and able to deal effectively with the Crisis? Herbert Hoover wasn't... but if the Crisis before that started with the 1860 election, Abe Lincoln certainly was. Technically he was President-elect, but as Fort Sumter started on his watch, the principle is the same.

What I'm about to write will read a lot like the 'crises war' theory but one of the factors that first attracted me to this theory was the perfect record of a major conflict involving America every 80 years. If we follow the trend 1780, 1860 1940...
...well.

Having written that, I will say that IMO, the 80 year pattern does not have to remain exact. Improvements in transportation and elsewhere may have slightly speeded up this cycle. IOW, the next president does not have to be doomed to be a tragic figure as a leader, we're already close enough to that now. However, life expectancy being what it is, it can't really "speed up" much more than it currently has, assuming that Bush II is the "Hoover" of this saeculium.

Originally Posted by herbal tee

Having written that, I will say that IMO, the 80 year pattern does not have to remain exact. Improvements in transportation and elsewhere may have slightly speeded up this cycle. IOW, the next president does not have to be doomed to be a tragic figure as a leader, we're already close enough to that now. However, life expectancy being what it is, it can't really "speed up" much more than it currently has, assuming that Bush II is the "Hoover" of this saeculium.

There are lots of factors that might result in or regulate the timing of cycles. One would thing longer life styles would slow down S&H's generational theories. The economic cycles have a life of their own. To my mind, technological change has a deal to do with it as well. A society reasonably well suited for the technologies of 1865 or 1945 might no longer be well adjusted as time progresses.

There is also just plain stagnation. There is that old Jefferson quote. “The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants. It is its natural manure.” Given a functional democracy, it isn't clear that actual bloodshed is required, but governments drift towards corruptly serving the Establishment. This must be corrected in a drastic fashion from time to time. If a turnover of people and values can come by the ballot box, so much better than by the gun, but one or the other seems to be necessary. One might complement the Sage of Monticello with Popeye the Sailor Man. "I've had all I can stand! I can't stands no more!" When the People reach that point, if they reach that point, things shift.

I don't anticipate that the perfect 80 year cycle would necessarily hold. History is too big and too messy of clockwork precision. There is lots of stuff going on. Still, I have a feeling we might well be reaching the Popeye threshold.

Though I never did care for the taste of spinach.

Originally Posted by Bob Butler 54

There are lots of factors that might result in or regulate the timing of cycles. One would thing longer life styles would slow down S&H's generational theories. The economic cycles have a life of their own. To my mind, technological change has a deal to do with it as well. A society reasonably well suited for the technologies of 1865 or 1945 might no longer be well adjusted as time progresses.

There is also just plain stagnation. There is that old Jefferson quote. “The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants. It is its natural manure.” Given a functional democracy, it isn't clear that actual bloodshed is required, but governments drift towards corruptly serving the Establishment. This must be corrected in a drastic fashion from time to time. If a turnover of people and values can come by the ballot box, so much better than by the gun, but one or the other seems to be necessary. One might complement the Sage of Monticello with Popeye the Sailor Man. "I've had all I can stand! I can't stands no more!" When the People reach that point, if they reach that point, things shift.

I don't anticipate that the perfect 80 year cycle would necessarily hold. History is too big and too messy of clockwork precision. There is lots of stuff going on. Still, I have a feeling we might well be reaching the Popeye threshold.

Though I never did care for the taste of spinach.

Chester IL, where the Popeye statue is, is a two hour drive from STL. I'll have to dig up a photo for you.

Originally Posted by Brian Beecher

Do you think that Dubya will try a return to baseball after leaving office? After all, he once was the owner of the Texas Rangers.

If a roughly 80-year cycle espoused by most on this forum is on target, then he is not this era's equivalent of Hoover; the President to get elected in 2008 will be, and a major crisis would occur on his watch. I read the overview of a book on the Bonus Army Rebellion I was referred to, and it indicated that although it was largely a failure at the time, it did pave the way for the passage of the GI Bill at WWII's end. This no doubt was a result of lessons learned from that situation.

Eighty years ago was 1927, a time in which most Americans thought that the world was on the brink of some new hypermodern world in which technology would solve everything. What most people failed to recognize was that the pathologies that they had ignored had ensured the doom the rakish times then being enjoyed by a few people at the expense of others. For one thing, the reparations that Coolidge insisted be bled from Germany may have been the difference between the rise of Hitler and the survival of German democracy. Imagine a world without Hitler; it is quite different, and all to the better.

So far, we have had two early-wave Boomer Presidents (Clinton and Dubya), and we can see Dubya as an equivalent of a Harding-Coolidge Presidency with Harding's corruption and Coolidge's non-achievement. We have seen speculative bubbles whose foundations could become very shaky very fast. Although productivity rose, wages didn't during the 1920s as have been happening now. Mass culture was hollow and depraved -- but glitzy, and celebrity circuses hadn't yet generated mass nausea.

In 1927, the Gilded ranged in age from 85 to 105, Progressives were 68 to 84, Missionaries were 45 to 67, the Lost were 27 to 44, and GIs were 3 to 26. In 2007, GIs are 83 to 106, the Silent are 65 to 82, Boomers are 47 to 64, Thirteeners are 26 to 46, and Millennials (one can't be sure of the end of the generation) are up to 25. Thus the very old heroes of the prior Crisis (Oliver Wendell Holmes, Bob Dole) were practically off the screen, old Adaptives (Louis Brandeis, Richard Lugar) were past retirement age, midlife Idealists (Herbert Hoover, Hillary Clinton) were in the latter halves of adult working life, rising-adult Reactives (Dwight Eisenhower, Barak Obama) were setting themselves up for greatness or infamy, and young Civics (Bob Dole, and who knows whom) had yet to make much of a mark.

All in all, I think that 2007 looks a lot like 1927 once you take off the technological covering. If anything 1927, looks much more like 2007 than it looked like 1937 -- and I don't expect 2015 to resemble so much 2007 as 1935.

I remain unconvinced that the 9/11 attack triggered a 4T. It could be a portent, but when the President tells Americans to "Go shopping!" instead of "Buy war bonds!" in an effort to establish Business as Usual, we are still in a 3T. Paradoxically, the attempt to establish new political practices characteristic of a dictatorship, including gross neglect of a disaster area because it "voted wrong" and the attempt to shape the federal prosecution force to aid in partisan politics (Ignore gangsters, but did up dirt on the Opposition, and if there is no dirt, sling mud anyway) establishes the potential dangers of rifts along lines of partisan politics, region, social class, ethnicity, and perhaps even religion.

Originally Posted by pbrower2a

All in all, I think that 2007 looks a lot like 1927 once you take off the technological covering.

Um, this kinda dating is not permitted. A Democrat, coming on the heals of their triumphant return to power in Congress last year, not a Republican is slated as the sure winner in 2008.

Originally Posted by pbrower2a

I remain unconvinced that the 9/11 attack triggered a 4T. It could be a portent, but when the President tells Americans to "Go shopping!" instead of "Buy war bonds!" in an effort to establish Business as Usual, we are still in a 3T.

I thot you all was thinkin' Bush is worse than Hilter, Pol Pot and Uncle Joe combined? Oh, well, Bush sucks equally as a 3T shopaholic or a 4T warmonger.

Originally Posted by Pink Splice

Chester IL, where the Popeye statue is, is a two hour drive from STL. I'll have to dig up a photo for you.

I'm not quite sure he's ready to inspire the world, but...

Originally Posted by zilch

The real kicker for today's indignant liberal is his acute instinct to excuse the obvious "anger" demonstrated by the 9/11 muggers, while at the same time self-righteously condemning the anger displayed by those outraged by the 9/11 muggers.

This odd IL instinct, while I'm tempted to find it puzzling, in conclusion, is very informative about today's liberals. They have little in common with those ILs, for whatever reasons, of yesterday.

The 9/11 gangsters came from a culture very different from ours in religious beliefs and world view. To be sure they were the worst possible exponents of Islam, the sorts who could see heroism and not pathology in mass death and destruction.

Islam gave their expressions of overpowering hatred its flavor, but hatred and sociopathy were the essence of the culture of al-Qaeda. Consider another bunch of hateful sociopaths of the last Crisis era -- the Nazis who came from a culture very similar to ours,

Just as it wasn't Bach and Goethe that did the mass killing either in Auschwitz or on a smaller but disgusting scale in Malmedy, it isn't the Koran or the Five Pillars of Islam that commandeered jetliners and turned them into missiles. Those who wish to blame American support for Israel ignore the fact that none of the hijackers were Palestinians, the people supposedly most mistreated by the "Zionist entity"

It's best that we keep clear heads about the horror, difficult as such might be. I found Anne Coulter's crass prescription to the effect that we must kill the leaders of Muslim countries and subject the masses to mass conversion to Christianity as crude as any anti-Western propaganda from the Islamic world.

If we are to win the war on terror, then we will have to find ways in which to use Islamic standards of morality against murderers, terrorists, and aggressors. Wholesome attitudes toward freedom and the value of life could marginalize the thugs in the Islamic world. But just as Muslims are not likely to convert en masse to Christianity, the West is not going to convert en masse to Islam.

We will have to demonstrate that despite doctrinal differences that we are good. Mistreatment of prisoners and military overkill are going to show us as unreliable. Those pathologies reflect the moral failings of our leaders.

We have no choice but indignancy toward the mass killers of 9/11 -- but we have to keep some decency, morality, rationality, caution, and cool-headedness toward the situation. In a 4T, the cruel, amoral, insane, reckless, and angry side tends to fare badly.

What was Coulter going to do to those who didn't convert? Bring back the auto da fe?

All together, now ... "EVERYONE expects the New Spanish Inquisition!"

We have to be 4T. The wildest extravagances of a 3T couldn't come up with that except as satire so looney it's featured at the San Diego ComiCon

Originally Posted by zilch

Ergo "conservative" will always simply mean evil, nativist, racist, bigoted, sexist and anti-child no matter what.

No. Only when they want to warrantlessly wiretap inside the United States, declare the right to suspend habeas corpus for US citizens (forget about the schmucks sold to us by tribal advesaries in Afghanistan), start pre-emptive unilateral wars sold on false reports of imminent Iraqi nukes coming to us via Al Qaeda, write "signing statements" giving the Chief Executive "decidatorial" powers, think that US citizens in New Orleans don't deserve as much help as Haliburton shareholders, that using US attorneys to influence elections is proper and "ethical", that protecting homosexual predators in Congress is acceptable . . . and on, and on, and on, and on, and on, and on . . .

But I am SURE you read some wingnut blog that tells you this is all OK. And to think that only if you and your father hadn't had that thing about FDR . . .

Originally Posted by pbrower2a

Eighty years ago was 1927, a time in which most Americans thought that the world was on the brink of some new hypermodern world in which technology would solve everything. What most people failed to recognize was that the pathologies that they had ignored had ensured the doom the rakish times then being enjoyed by a few people at the expense of others. For one thing, the reparations that Coolidge insisted be bled from Germany may have been the difference between the rise of Hitler and the survival of German democracy. Imagine a world without Hitler; it is quite different, and all to the better.

So far, we have had two early-wave Boomer Presidents (Clinton and Dubya), and we can see Dubya as an equivalent of a Harding-Coolidge Presidency with Harding's corruption and Coolidge's non-achievement. We have seen speculative bubbles whose foundations could become very shaky very fast. Although productivity rose, wages didn't during the 1920s as have been happening now. Mass culture was hollow and depraved -- but glitzy, and celebrity circuses hadn't yet generated mass nausea.

In 1927, the Gilded ranged in age from 85 to 105, Progressives were 68 to 84, Missionaries were 45 to 67, the Lost were 27 to 44, and GIs were 3 to 26. In 2007, GIs are 83 to 106, the Silent are 65 to 82, Boomers are 47 to 64, Thirteeners are 26 to 46, and Millennials (one can't be sure of the end of the generation) are up to 25. Thus the very old heroes of the prior Crisis (Oliver Wendell Holmes, Bob Dole) were practically off the screen, old Adaptives (Louis Brandeis, Richard Lugar) were past retirement age, midlife Idealists (Herbert Hoover, Hillary Clinton) were in the latter halves of adult working life, rising-adult Reactives (Dwight Eisenhower, Barak Obama) were setting themselves up for greatness or infamy, and young Civics (Bob Dole, and who knows whom) had yet to make much of a mark.

All in all, I think that 2007 looks a lot like 1927 once you take off the technological covering. If anything 1927, looks much more like 2007 than it looked like 1937 -- and I don't expect 2015 to resemble so much 2007 as 1935.

I remain unconvinced that the 9/11 attack triggered a 4T. It could be a portent, but when the President tells Americans to "Go shopping!" instead of "Buy war bonds!" in an effort to establish Business as Usual, we are still in a 3T. Paradoxically, the attempt to establish new political practices characteristic of a dictatorship, including gross neglect of a disaster area because it "voted wrong" and the attempt to shape the federal prosecution force to aid in partisan politics (Ignore gangsters, but did up dirt on the Opposition, and if there is no dirt, sling mud anyway) establishes the potential dangers of rifts along lines of partisan politics, region, social class, ethnicity, and perhaps even religion.

So Bush = Coolidge and the '08 president = Hoover. In that case, I sure hope Giuliani wins. Then he can be defeated in a 2012 landslide.

BTW, I don't think 9/11 started the 4T. I think it was too early. Thus it served to accelerate the 3T instead (like the Lusitania?). The 4T started with the Malaise of 2005, as public opinion shifted sharply against everything status quo and toward a dark pessimism. I would hope that the Regeneracy is coming in one year, seven months, and two days, but it might take longer after these 20 years of thorough Culture Wars B.S.

One thing to watch is how this Iran situation is treated. If we end up signing a nice, pretty treaty with them to free the hostages, we might not be in 4T yet. If the situation continues to slowly simmer and eventually escalates (though possibly after Bush leaves office), we could have an obvious, nice-and-easy 4T catalyst on our hands.

(But remember, Iran is 2T and thus any war with the U.S. will be lost fairly quickly. The real fear would be something that ends up pitting the entire Muslim world against the West, but that seems unlikely since the Sunni states are so suspicious of Iran)

Originally Posted by 1990

So Bush = Coolidge and the '08 president = Hoover. In that case, I sure hope Giuliani wins. Then he can be defeated in a 2012 landslide.

BTW, I don't think 9/11 started the 4T. I think it was too early. Thus it served to accelerate the 3T instead (like the Lusitania?). The 4T started with the Malaise of 2005, as public opinion shifted sharply against everything status quo and toward a dark pessimism. I would hope that the Regeneracy is coming in one year, seven months, and two days, but it might take longer after these 20 years of thorough Culture Wars B.S.

9/11 was most certainly not too early. It was 56 years after the end of WWII, easily within the realm of reason.

One thing to watch is how this Iran situation is treated. If we end up signing a nice, pretty treaty with them to free the hostages, we might not be in 4T yet. If the situation continues to slowly simmer and eventually escalates (though possibly after Bush leaves office), we could have an obvious, nice-and-easy 4T catalyst on our hands.

(But remember, Iran is 2T and thus any war with the U.S. will be lost fairly quickly. The real fear would be something that ends up pitting the entire Muslim world against the West, but that seems unlikely since the Sunni states are so suspicious of Iran)

Last I checked, Napoleon (4T) lost to the Russians (2T), Hitler (4T) lost to the Soviets (2T), and Israel (4T) "lost" to Hezbollah (2T). There are plenty of other examples. A 4T country will be more emotional, and is therefore prone to many mistakes while a 2T country will be more cool, calm, and collected.

Originally Posted by MichaelEaston

Last I checked, Napoleon (4T) lost to the Russians (2T), Hitler (4T) lost to the Soviets (2T), and Israel (4T) "lost" to Hezbollah (2T). There are plenty of other examples. A 4T country will be more emotional, and is therefore prone to many mistakes while a 2T country will be more cool, calm, and collected.

In that case, we're f***ed.

UPDATE: Ah, but what about Vietnam? 4T Vietnam beats 2T U.S.

Originally Posted by MichaelEaston

Last I checked, Napoleon (4T) lost to the Russians (2T), Hitler (4T) lost to the Soviets (2T), and Israel (4T) "lost" to Hezbollah (2T). There are plenty of other examples. A 4T country will be more emotional, and is therefore prone to many mistakes while a 2T country will be more cool, calm, and collected.

Interesting cases, Michael.

From a turning point of view, one might not want to underestimate the emotion of an awakening. If the old values and new are in conflict, yes, internal disarray would weaken a culture's war fighting ability. If the external threat is greater than the differences between the old and new values, the energy an awakening might give a young generation might make for a formidable military.

But the turning theory perspective shouldn't be allowed to stand alone. Napoleon and Hitler found themselves at the tail end of long supply lines during Russian winters. Yes, when your nation is riding the crest of a 4T transformation, when a nation is united and at its strongest, the leadership might be tempted to over reach. The military realities remain, however. The Axis powers simply did not have the population and resources of their opponents. Israel, in stepping into Lebanon, was on the wrong side of an insurgent conflict. The United States, attempting to occupy a country when it knew its armed forces were not large enough to resist an insurgency in the long run, walked voluntarily into a disaster. Simply being 4T isn't enough. One cannot ask one's military to do the impossible.

I'd also ask people how deeply they think Israel is into the 4T? I see them as closely in sync with the US. As we were electing Bush in 2000 as a militant conservative, they too were electing a hard line government willing to turn away from negotiation and compromise towards confrontation. Conservative posters on this site were hailing Bush 43 as a sign of the 4T, as a potential conservative Grey Champion. The wishy washy liberal compromisers and their endless negotiations had had their time. We would soon see the determined decisive 4T conservatives step up and force real solutions. Still, what came out of the 2000 elections were 'On to Richmond' policies. Both the US and Israel were thinking in terms of brute force solutions to problems rather than transformations of society. The hope was that God was on the side of the richer and better armed faction. Neither brute force policy proved ideal. In a 4T, God is apt to be on the side of the impoverished seeking transformation.

If so, I might suggest that being very early in a 4T (or late 3T) might be a very bad place to fight a war from. The political leadership will often be thinking in terms of maintaining a very dated political and economic structure, clearly flawed, which their people will not be willing to defend with energy and vigor. This might be the present day case for the US and Israel. Maintaining echoes of colonial imperialism in the face of insurgent resistance is hard. There are circumstances where military success is either impossible or not worth the required manpower and ethical violations. At the 3T / 4T cusp, before the new values and methods have been discovered, aggressively pushing the old solutions might well be problematic.

Anyway, everyone knows I find turning theory useful, but simply looking at turnings to determine which culture might win should a war arise would be clearly simplistic.