Well, folks, here is another bit of evidence that you can interpret as you wish (3T/4T). One thing, I think this shows just how high an opinion Hollywood generally has of their own significance.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/ent...00/1604151.stm

Marc, I thought you raised an interesting point about the Palmer Raids although I am having a hard time likening government action today to those raids. I find today's action to be more akin to the Crisis Era wartime tactics where people were interned for their racial and/or ethnic characteristics amid fears of foreign espionage -- and there is a distinct possibility that Arab-Americans will suffer the same fate.

But having thought more about this, I believe we already have experienced this cycle's Palmer Raids. Our modern Palmer Raids began in 1992 during the administration of George H.W. Bush when federal agents laid siege to the cabin of Randy Weaver at Ruby Ridge and killed his wife and child, all because an undercover agent had set him up to saw a shotgun barrel one-sixteenth of an inch short of the legal limit and Weaver did not make his court date. The whole event may or may not have been orchestrated as an attack on a non-compliant, constitutionally-minded element of the population from the Bush administration's perspective. But it took on that persona in the rhetoric which followed. Randy Weaver was not portrayed as just your average American, the "little guy" trying to raise his family, who was a victim of a government gone berserk dishing out responses out of all proportion to alleged provocations. Instead, the Bush administration, with media support, characterized Weaver variously as a "white supremacist," a "survivalist," a "backwoodsman," and other terms of derision. The Bush administration sought to justify its actions at Ruby Ridge by portraying Weaver as a member of a segment of the population which constituted a clear and present danger to the established order. And this was precisely the justification for your Palmer Raids just after WWI.

This attitude that those who might speak of respecting individual rights, returning the federal government to its constitutional cage, and restoring the constitutional republic constituted a clear and present danger to the established order then grew as the baton was passed from the Bush administration to the Clinton administration (when, apart from "gays in the military," nothing really changed). A bit of that rhetoric was used with respect to Waco. And then of course the main event was Oklahoma City. Even though there is clear evidence that Oklahoma City was the final product, wittingly or unwittingly, of a federal sting operation (read Ambrose Evans-Pritchard), and even though it now appears that there was Middle Eastern terrorist involvement which was suppressed at the time (read current media analysis), the federal government made sure to place all the blame at the feet of one idiot (a genius "mastermind" who raced away from the crime scene in a car without a license plate) who was painted with all the same "militia," "white supremacist," "survivalist," etc. associations. This again is consistent with the motivation for your Palmer Raids against threats to the established order.

This federal "campaign" succeeded in destroying the militia movement or at least this is what militia leaders are always quoted as saying in media reports. Just as the Palmer Raids and other actions during that Red Scare succeeded in destroying the "anarchist" threat to the established order, this federal campaign, perhaps of rhetoric more than action, succeeded through Ruby Ridge, Waco, and Oklahoma City in destroying the "militia" threat to the established order. So here are your Palmer Raids, Marc, and, in general, your Red Scare. 1919 perhaps corresponds to 1992 as the beginning of the "Scare" (Vince Lamb: that's 73 years) and Sacco and Vanzetti and their questionable investigation and trial perhaps correspond to Tim McVeigh and his questionable investigation and trial. Accordingly, 911 corresponds more to 1929 than 1920, to my way of thinking.

You write a well reasoned argument, Mr. Patton.

But what are we gonna do with all those Silents in leadership positions (presently at a 37% leadership share.)?

Look at the header at the top of this website page. Strauss and Howe, who authored this website btw, have a 'theory' about an adaptive generation in an 'eldership' sole.

Make of it what you wish.

On 2001-10-18 06:47, Marc Lamb wrote:
You write a well reasoned argument, Mr. Patton.

But what are we gonna do with all those Silents in leadership positions (presently at a 37% leadership share.)?

Look at the header at the top of this website page. Strauss and Howe, who authored this website btw, have a 'theory' about an adaptive generation in an 'eldership' sole.

Make of it what you wish.

Marc, I see no necessary conflict. If S&H's theory is valid, then this 4T is coming early as did the Civil War 4T. But if it is coming early, then I find it interesting that recent events dating back to the Gulf War line up so cleanly with events in the previous 3T back to our WW I participation (generally a 72-73 year difference) and the theory holds that the last 4T came on time. By the theory, about four years were lost in this cycle and I find those four years to have been lost strangely between 1984 and 1990. This is a real puzzle.

Of course S&H may rely too heavily on "generations making history and history making generations" (or is it the other way around?) as a sole determinant if indeed that is what they are doing. The cycles which Mike Alexander is analyzing cannot be dismissed as they have clear implications with respect to public mood at any point in time. It seems reasonable to assume that a combination of cycles bearing upon material well-being and generational response to vicissitudes in those cycles may dictate the timing of turnings, with some coming earlier and others later. And I am not certain that S&H ruled out the applicability of contemporaneous cycles altogether, did they?

I do not believe that S&H require a return to the 84-year cycle as they predicted a catalyst around 2005 in T4T, and thus a 76-year cycle. In fact I recall that they stated that the cycle may be shortening. I see no necessary contradiction with S&H here. Where do you see it?

That's a fasncinating argument, Stonewall. It never occurred to me. Yet is makes even more sense on another level. The left movement before the 1920's contained a strong libertarian component. When the nation moved left later in the 1930's this leftist libertarian component was absent.

If the early 1990's crackdown is truly analogous to the Palmer raids could this mean that the Crisis could see a rise in the conservative movement absent its libertarian component.

My model suggests a move to "liberalism" will occur, but this liberalism is likely to be of the economic sort. Could social welfare programs, a rising minimum wage, pro-labor laws and universal health care be combined with a pro-Christian, anti-abortion, pro-hunting, anti-gay rights, social policy? Or is this bonkers?

On 2001-10-18 08:58, Mike Alexander '59 wrote:

That's a fasncinating argument, Stonewall. It never occurred to me. Yet is makes even more sense on another level. The left movement before the 1920's contained a strong libertarian component. When the nation moved left later in the 1930's this leftist libertarian component was absent.

If the early 1990's crackdown is truly analogous to the Palmer raids could this mean that the Crisis could see a rise in the conservative movement absent its libertarian component.

Independent of this argument, it is safe to say that libertarianism in general is perceived as the greatest threat by the establishment because it is the only general philosophy which would place absolute limits on governmental power and thus on the establishment's power. Note that even if one asserts that the establishment is roughly fascist philosophically (the corporate state), it can still easily work with socialists because socialists, despite having different goals, seek to consolidate power at the top every bit as much as fascists do. Once all that power has accrued at the top, then whoever is in control (the establishment) can do whatever they want with it irrespective of the desires of those who helped place the power there, e.g. socialists. This is the nature of arbitrary power. And this incidentally is the great danger which "socialists" face if they continue to work with the establishment which is a concern that I believe Bob Butler may have raised on one of these threads. Once that power is amassed at the top, socialists will be relatively powerless to oppose the establishment in implementing their plans. They ought to quit allowing themselves to be used by the establishment before any further damage is done.

Incidentally, this explains why the media, in many respects a tool of the establishment, appears to have simultaneously both a liberal and a corporate bias. It is not that the media is biased toward one political philosophy in particular as everybody has been trying to argue. Rather it is biased against one philosophy in general, libertarianism, and it is open pragmatically to all philosophies which seek to consolidate power at the top. The media, to the extent that it is a tool of the establishment, seeks only to oppose those who would place absolute limits on governmental power and thus on the establishment's power.

As to whether this 4T will see conservatism without the libertarian component, as you put it, I think you nailed it. It is that "libertarian component" which distinguished the Goldwater-Reagan wing of the Republican Party from the Rockefeller-Bush wing. If Goldwater-Reagan conservatives continue to support this Bush administration as it quietly destroys their agenda, then you will see all conservatives united under Rockefeller-Bush conservatism, which is conservatism minus the "libertarian component." In fact it is more along the lines of fascism (the corporate state) in terms of political philosophy. If this Bush administration remains ascendant, this is the shape of things to come.

My model suggests a move to "liberalism" will occur, but this liberalism is likely to be of the economic sort. Could social welfare programs, a rising minimum wage, pro-labor laws and universal health care be combined with a pro-Christian, anti-abortion, pro-hunting, anti-gay rights, social policy? Or is this bonkers?

This administration will dump the "pro-Christian, anti-abortion, pro-hunting, anti-gay rights social policy" as soon as they feel confident that they have co-opted the support of a sufficient number of former Democrats. Watch what they do, not what they say. George W. Bush is in no way trying to impose a theocracy and he has actually done nothing to threaten pro-choicers despite the rhetoric. This administration is clearly open to "sensible gun control" as Dick Cheney puts it and they only seek to be marginally more anti-gun control than the Democrats so as to attract the support and funding of the NRA and other organizations under the "lesser of two evils" doctrine. Even Ashcroft's official so-called pro-Second Amendment statement was completely negated by a "compelling state interest" clause within it. And whereas this administration heretofore has been devious in fooling the constituencies for the above policies, they have been quite open about being pro-gay rights from the beginning, in incident after incident, much to the chagrin of the anti-gay rights constituency. With this crowd you must always, always, always, ignore what they say and watch what they actually do. If their plans fall into place, then conservative social policy will be a thing of the past. How does this fit with your model?

One more point about the government's anti-militia (anti-libertarian) campaign: Attorney General Janet Reno was quoted at least once and maybe more times as saying that "militias," "survivalists," etc. were the greatest threat to this nation. I do not have the quotes handy but they can be found. This reinforces the government's attitude about the seriousness of the matter and bolsters the comparison to the anti-anarchist campaign of the government during the post-WWI Red Scare.

Spend (Differently) -- and Build a Stronger Nation
by Gwen Wurm

We are a nation of consumers, and we should get back to the job of consuming. So say our political leaders. But it seems that Americans are smarter than that.

It is not only because of fear that people have stopped spending. President Bush acknowledged in his recent press conference that families are reordering priorities. People
are choosing to stay home more with children and loved ones. The devastation of Sept. 11 is part of our nation's life cycle. It is a testimony to the people of America that
we do not want to go on with business as usual.

Our eyes have been opened -- opened by twisted steel; by the pictures of malnourished children in countries we could not find on a map a month ago; by obituaries that
tell us of sons and daughters who will never know their fathers. We are not a nation of ascetics, so soon we will go back to spending again -- the question is on what.

If a few fast-food restaurants close because more people are having dinner at home with their families, that is not a national calamity. If the market for $400 flower-girl
dresses dries up, so be it. If parents decide to take one fewer business flight per month and stay closer to home, let that airline seat be empty. No grieving wife is talking
about how her husband wanted to complete another merger.

In a recent interview, a survivor talked about leaving work early on a Friday to go to a parents' weekend at his daughter's college. The time off would have been unthinkable
before Sept. 11. Now it is unthinkable not to go. So maybe fewer bonds will be traded, but there will be the drive in the car, the money spent at rest stops, the overnight
lodging. Money will flow, only differently.

`NEW ORDER' BENEFIT

And yes, there will be other benefits from our ``new order.'' Research has told us for years that parents are the most important influence on their children. But for many
families, communication becomes less and less as both adults and children develop their own packed agendas. This is especially true during adolescence, a time when peers
are taking on increasing significance. But knowing that their parents are involved and concerned has been shown to have a moderating effect on substance abuse, teen
pregnancy and HIV risk behaviors.

Dr. Jos? Szapocznik at the University of Miami speaks of bringing parents of peers together, to recreate that village mentality of looking out for each other's children. So
we should skip the fast food and invite the parents of our children's friends over for dinner. This will involve shopping for food, buying flowers and maybe even a bottle of
wine -- there are more ways than a double order of fries to keep the economy going.

It is not the number of televisions per capita that makes America special but rather its people. Our public policy should reflect the changes in our own personal priorities. The
schools that were overcrowded before Sept. 11 still are overcrowded. The 44 million people in our country without health insurance still are not receiving necessary
treatments and preventive care. And many of the 4.4 million workers at minimum-wage jobs still live in poverty.

The economy can be stimulated not only by trips to the mall but also by investing in our population.

Many people have lost jobs as a result of the attacks. We can retrain workers to meet our nation's new priorities. Why not have people learn how to teach preliteracy skills
to 3 and 4 year olds instead of stocking shelves at a department store? Increasing the numbers of teachers and public-health workers could be part of a new workforce
plan. Building more classrooms and affordable housing would be good way to keep construction workers, engineers and architects employed.

A well-educated, healthy population is indeed the best long-term defense against terrorism.

It is not spending money at Wal-Mart that will prove to the terrorists that they missed their target. Rather it is our ability to rise from the trauma with a clearer picture of
who and what we are. We are not only a nation of consumers; we are also a nation of people with values, families that we love and a nation that we cherish.

Shopping is not a bad thing, but it is not what defines America. We should invest in what does.

Gwen Wurm, MD, is director of community pediatrics at University of Miami/Jackson Childrens Hospital.

Copyright 2001 Miami Herald

From the NY Times

October 14, 2001

Fears, Again, of Oil Supplies at Risk

By NEELA BANERJEE

HEY are the nightmares, the worst confluence of misguided decisions and startling violence, that politicians and oil executives ponder briefly
and then shoo away:

That sympathizers of Osama bin Laden sink three oil tankers in the Strait of Hormuz and choke off the narrow, bow-shaped channel that funnels
14 million barrels a day from the Persian Gulf to the rest of the world. That the United States attacks Iraq, and Israel launches a huge strike against
the Palestinians, driving them from their camps and staking out more land - all of which spurs the Persian Gulf states to cut off oil for the West. Or
perhaps that a popular uprising, led by sympathizers of Mr. bin Laden, topples the ruling Saud family in Saudi Arabia, by far the world's largest oil
producer.

"If bin Laden takes over and becomes king of Saudi Arabia, he'd turn off the tap," said Roger Diwan, a managing director of the Petroleum
Finance Company, a consulting firm in Washington. "He said at one point that he wants oil to be $144 a barrel" - about six times what it sells for
now.

The attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon and the subsequent battering of the global economy have stretched the edges of
imagination. Most Western politicians and oil industry experts say they believe assurances from the Middle East that oil supplies will stay stable as
the American-led attacks on terrorist groups continue. But in such a profoundly changed world, they concede, anything is possible.

If there is a serious disruption of oil supplies, it will probably not be in Venezuela or in the North Sea, but in the countries of the Persian Gulf. Those
countries have taken the politically risky position of siding with the West, however quietly, in the campaign against Mr. bin Laden, thereby
alienating many of their own citizens. And the proof of their support for the West is in the oil that OPEC nations continue to ship, recently forgoing a
production cut even as they faced falling prices that rob them of revenue.

By attacking oil supplies or the Middle East regimes themselves, Mr. bin Laden's supporters would strike a powerful blow against the West.

The United States' own oil production and that of its allies in the Western Hemisphere could not take up the slack. The Strategic Petroleum
Reserve, a stockpile created in 1975 to deal with such emergencies in the United States, could cover the lost oil for a time, but its efficacy would
depend on the length and size of the disruption. Congress is looking for ways to add to the reserve, but it remains unclear whether the money could
be found to acquire the oil quickly. New oil fields could not begin pumping fast enough to make up for the shortfall, and they would not produce
enough anyway. The United States has only 3 percent of the world's known oil reserves.

The country's ability to navigate such a rocky period, industry experts said, ultimately depends on how much American society scales back its
prodigious consumption of oil. High prices and lower supplies pushed the United States to trim its use of oil in the 1980's, but the country now relies
more than ever on imports. Imports account for 60 percent of daily American oil consumption, up from 47 percent a decade ago. "We can't just
blame Detroit for higher oil consumption," said Jay Hakes, the former director of the Energy Information Administration, the analytical arm of the
Energy Department. "We're all in this. We have met the enemy, and the enemy is us."

As far back as the Truman administration, when automobile use started to soar, the United States has grappled with where to get oil and how
much to pay for it, Mr. Hakes pointed out. The nation has always faced a choice. It could rely on its own small output but pay much higher prices
for it and for alternative energy sources. Or it could open itself up to imports from places like the Persian Gulf, increasing its economic and political
vulnerability. It chose the latter.

The United States gets only about 13 percent of its daily dose of oil from the Persian Gulf states, and that is down from 23 percent a decade ago.
But those countries produce 18 percent of the world's oil, and a significant disruption in their output would set off price spikes, if not outright
shortages. The turmoil in the region during the last three decades frequently aroused fears, sometimes well-founded, of oil supply disruptions.

BUFFETED by repeated wars, the Persian Gulf states have long been aware of the need to protect their pipelines and oil fields, and industry
experts familiar with the region say those countries, particularly Saudi Arabia, have heightened security since Sept. 11.

No system, however, is impregnable. Terrorists in a dinghy in the Persian Gulf could launch missiles at offshore rigs or Saudi fields, some of which
are just a few miles inland. They could rupture a pipeline. They could attack the string of oil loading docks along the Persian Gulf, or on the Red
Sea to the West, from which 500,000 to 6 million barrels a day are shipped. An attack could disable an oil processing facility, which separates the
hydrocarbons from other liquids, and remove 200,000 to 400,000 barrels a day from the market.

But while a successful attack on the Middle East's oil infrastructure could rattle the markets, most analysts say it would have little impact on global
supplies. "They are likely to be nuisances rather than major disruptions because there are multiple redundancies in the system," said Lawrence J.
Goldstein, president of the Petroleum Industry Research Foundation, an industry- supported group that runs a consulting business in New York.
"There are other loading, storage and shipping possibilities to get oil in and out. The real trouble would be only if countries cut off oil supplies, and
that won't happen."

The chances are slim - for now. But Mr. bin Laden has long made clear that his ultimate goal, more than wreaking havoc in the West, is toppling
the Saud family. And Saudi Arabia would be a crucial target for anyone seeking to cut deeply into the world oil flow.

"The Saudis are the linchpin," said Ronald E. Minsk, an energy adviser to former President Bill Clinton. "It's because they have so much more oil
than anybody."

Saudi Arabia exports about eight million barrels a day and is the biggest single supplier of oil to the United States, accounting for 1.7 million barrels
a day. The world's No. 2 exporter, Russia, which is not a member of OPEC, exports only 2.9 million barrels. The Saudis are the only ones with
enough spare oil-field capacity to call on if there is a severe disruption elsewhere. Although Saudi Arabia led the 1973 oil embargo to protest
American support of Israel in the Yom Kippur War, it later stepped in to make up shortfalls of millions of barrels a day caused by conflicts in the
Middle East, including the Iranian revolution, the Iran- Iraq war and the Persian Gulf war.

Even over the past year, as Iraq intermittently curtailed its exports of two million barrels a day to demand changes in the United Nations sanctions
against it, Saudi Arabia acted as the "swing producer," making up much of the difference.

Short of withering in the grip of a coup d'?tat, Saudi Arabia's oil exports could be cut if its rulers decide that they no longer can afford to support the
United States-led campaign against terrorism. If the bombings kill many civilians or if the war expands quickly, the Saudis may feel that they have
no choice but to veer away from the United States and reduce the flow of oil.

"The only way I see that happening is if the U.S. would continue to pick targets that would include Middle Eastern oil-producing countries - and
how many it picked - and if it were done in a unilateral way," said Marianne Kah, chief economist at Conoco (news/quote). "But if it continues its
multilateral approach, and includes friendly Arab countries, that won't happen."

Even in the case of state overthrow somewhere in the Middle East, she said, the flow of oil would be likely to continue. "Usually anyone in power
wants oil revenues," she said, "though that may not be true for Osama bin Laden, who wants to live in a cave."

If oil supplies from the Middle East dwindle, the impact on the United States would not be acute shortages, at least for a few months. Less of its oil
comes from the Persian Gulf now, and more from Canada, Mexico and Venezuela.

Instead, a sharp drop in oil supplies would set off a steep rise in prices. How long they stay high would depend on the length and the severity of any
cuts. The United States has few options to increase supply and damp a price surge. Oil fields in the United States and most of the rest of the world
are running close to full capacity, except, as luck would have it, in the Persian Gulf. New fields, regardless of the promise they hold, take several
years to bring on stream.

"There is a big lag time between when you drill exploratory wells and when you get production," Ms. Kah said. Although the Bush administration
and the oil industry have long pushed to open the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to drilling, delivering oil from there would mean "expanding the oil
pipeline in Alaska to handle the extra volume, and then you would be sending the oil down at the soonest in three or four years."

DURING the Persian Gulf war, the government tapped the Strategic Petroleum Reserve to make up for expected shortages. The United States
now has less oil in the reserve than it did then, and it would not go as far in the event of a supply disruption, explained Mr. Goldstein of the
Petroleum Industry Research Foundation. In the early 1990's, the reserve, stored in underground caverns in Texas and Louisiana that can hold up
to 700 million barrels, contained about 590 million barrels. At the time, that would have lasted about 82 days with no imports.

The reserve has nearly as much now - about 545 million barrels - but today that would last just 53 days, according to the Department of Energy.
That is because the United States consumes more oil now, and imports much more of it. Elsewhere in the industrialized world, including countries
like Germany and Japan that have no oil fields, imports have remained flat, largely because of conservation and high fuel taxes, Mr. Diwan of the
Petroleum Finance Company said.

The United States, with just 5 percent of the world's population, has an enormous appetite for oil: it goes through 19 million barrels a day, or nearly
one-quarter of the world total of about 76 million barrels. Imports increased about 4.5 million barrels a day in the last decade. To put it in
perspective, Mr. Diwan pointed out, Germany and France together consume 4.7 million barrels a day.

The dependence on foreign oil and the lack of a backup plan, either in the form of a bolstered reserve or conservation, evolved in large part
because the United States thought Saudi Arabia would again make up for any supply disruption. "In the 90's, we let a lot of things slide," said Mr.
Hakes, the former Energy Department official. "We quit improving the efficiency of automobiles. We quit buying oil" for the reserve.

"It's not anything that would have made us fully independent," he said, "but every little bit helps, so you get a full slap in the face."

The price shocks from a serious disruption in oil supplies would course through every quarter of the United States economy. Prices for gasoline
and jet fuel would jump, hamstringing commuters and businesses alike. Heating-oil prices would climb. The drain on people's incomes and
companies' revenue would further sap a weakened economy.

Most major oil companies, like Exxon Mobil (news/quote) and Royal Dutch/Shell, and large independent refiners like Valero Energy (news/quote)
get substantial amounts of oil from Saudi Arabia. Oil companies declined to comment officially on the impact of a disruption, but some industry
executives said privately that if the Saudis continued to ship oil elsewhere, American oil concerns could buy it through third parties, although at
higher prices. If an embargo turned global, American companies could get some oil from the petroleum reserve before that ran out.

The House of Representatives recently passed a nonbinding resolution that urges the Energy Department to procure more oil for the reserve, but it
appropriates no money for the effort. That, in effect, will do nothing to fill the reserves fast. Mr. Goldstein estimated that if Congress allocated
about $1.5 billion for buying oil for the reserve, an additional 60 million barrels would flow into the caverns by April - on top of the 20.7 million the
reserve already expects to receive by the end of the year. Oil prices are lower than they have been in two years, and as the global economy stalls
and demand drops, they could go even lower.

"We could buy the oil from OPEC, and because it is not a commercial sale, the members would not be violating their production quotas," Mr.
Goldstein said. "It wouldn't push up prices, because oil demand is so low. It buys us flexibility, because none of us know what tomorrow will look
like."

IF prices surge in response to a break in oil supplies, American political leaders and consumers will have to think about lifestyle changes needed to
cope with supply disruptions. Most fuel used in the United States is for transportation, as people buy bigger cars and travel farther daily. If the pain
is bad enough, the government may dust off old ideas like enforced carpooling or a return to the 55-mile-an-hour speed limit.

But more than anything else, consumers would be likely to react on their own. In 1981, during the Iran-Iraq war, oil prices hit $40 a barrel. By
1986, they had dropped to $12, largely because of reduced demand. "Prices go up, people consume less," Mr. Diwan said. "The market really does
work." </blue>

The Unsayable Must Be Said
The West has been loath to link the war on terror to settling the Palestinian issue. Now, it's unavoidable
by David Hirst

Tony Blair says he and George W. Bush are "completely seized of the need to push forward" the Middle East peace process. The Arab-Israeli conflict, he says, helps
"terrorists who seek to utilize prevailing feelings of frustration and despair in the Arab and Islamic world to justify terrorist activities."

Meanwhile, the Bush administration is already pressuring Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon to accept a viable Palestinian state, including a "shared Jerusalem." Officials
describe the U.S. President as "really steamed" over Mr. Sharon's recent outburst likening Israel to Czechoslovakia in 1938, and his warning not to "appease the Arabs" in
another Munich. This comes close to a Bush-Blair recognition of the centrality of the Palestinian question in this world crisis, and the need to address it with greater
urgency and impartiality than ever before. And it foreshadows a likely showdown with Mr. Sharon and the most extreme government in Israel's history.

Nothing has dramatized the urgency like yesterday's assassination of ultra-nationalist Rehavam Zeevi, Israel's tourism minister. An advocate of "transferring" Palestinians
out of the West Bank and Gaza altogether, he had resigned on Monday from Israel's coalition government because he thought that Mr. Sharon was deferring to the
Americans and becoming too soft in handling the intifada.

His death, an act of retaliation for the Israelis' so-called "targeted killings" of Palestinian leaders, represents a new, audacious and highly effective form of Palestinian
violence. Mr. Sharon will find it hard, without great loss of face, to heed any U.S. plea to forgo large-scale reprisal.

Meanwhile, recognition of the centrality of the Palestinian question is already an achievement for Osama bin Laden. It is being widely said that as a messianic fanatic, he is
exclusively preoccupied with his holy war against the "infidel" West and establishing Taliban-style rule throughout the Muslim world, and only seized on Palestine out of
opportunism.

That is not true. Driving the Jews out of the Dar al-Islam, the "House of Islam" holy land, was inherent in his worldview; in the 1980s, when he was fighting the Russians
in Afghanistan, he used to say that Palestine should be next.

Mr. bin Laden is only doing what Saddam Hussein did in 1990. Mr. Hussein pioneered the concept of "linkage" between Palestine and any separate crisis of another's
making. Having perpetrated his act of international banditry, the rape of Kuwait, he said he would withdraw when Israel withdrew from the occupied territories.

To Arabs and Muslims, this "linkage" is obvious and fundamental. And, for them, its obviousness explains why the "other side" seems so resolutely blind to it. Consider
Zalman Shoval, former Israeli ambassador to the U.S., who recently insisted that the motives for fundamentalist terror have to do not with "Israeli occupation" but with
extremist Islam's hatred of anything that smells of democracy, freedom and human rights. Then there was an editorial last week in The Washington Post arguing that "the
largest single 'cause' of Islamic extremism and terrorism is not Israel, nor U.S. policy on Iraq." Rather, it is supposedly pro-Western Arab governments that "encourage
state-controlled clerics and media to promote the anti-Western, antimodern and anti-Jewish propaganda of the Islamic extremists."

Now the new Bush-Blair recognition of the obvious will create the unfortunate impression that terrorism does pay. As the pan-Arab newspaper al-Quds al-Arabi
sarcastically put it: "It is nice of Blair to declare that the Palestinians have a right to live on their land, to achieve justice and an opportunity to prosper as equal partners to
Israel, but did we have to wait for the loss of 6,000 innocent American lives and $100-billion to hear such words . . .?"

Naturally, neither Mr. Bush nor Mr. Blair can allow that impression any credence. Neither can admit that "linkage" is again asserting itself. But it is. "Linkage" came to
nothing last time because, once the crisis was over, the U.S. could no longer summon up the will required to fulfill the pledge that George Bush the elder had made to Arabs
at the time: "to push the Israelis into a solution."

This is a far graver crisis, of no known duration, scope or definable outcome. If, as Mr. Bush and Mr. Blair seem to be acknowledging, the Palestine problem helped create
the conditions that created Mr. bin Laden, they must deal with those conditions now. They can't just wait until their war is over, as they waited until Mr. Hussein had been
driven from Kuwait.

Any such political assault on the causes of terror cannot but profoundly influence the course of their military assault on the terror itself. It means, for a start, that there can
be no widening of the war to embrace Iraq. Arab and Muslim attitudes to the Iraqi question have become almost entirely derivative of the Palestine one. The relentless
punishment inflicted on a miscreant Arab state is bad enough; it is worse when set against the indulgence that the U.S. heaps on what, to Arabs and Muslims, is its own,
no less miscreant, Israeli prot?g?.

There is no more evil despot than Mr. Hussein. The tragedy is, however, that because of the cumulative errors of the past, to attack him (possibly without proof of guilt)
would be a truly devastating example of Western double standards. At the least, the United States and Britain could only deal with Mr. Hussein after they have given
convincing evidence that they are serious about a Palestinian state.

Will they be? Two things might compel them. One is the sheer gravity of the crisis. The other is Mr. Sharon himself -- so extreme, so seemingly indifferent to the larger
interests of Israel's U.S. benefactor, so recklessly apt to prove that his country, far from being the Western strategic asset it always deemed itself, is a liability. If the
United States and Britain are really serious, there will be the kind of battle royal that U.S. administrations, fearing the Israel lobby's strong influence, have shied away from
in the past.

Then the emotional blackmail of Mr. Sharon's Czechoslovakia jibe would rebound against him and the whole Israeli rightist camp. It wouldn't be hard for an exasperated
American president to portray an Israeli leader with a violent past as something akin to a terrorist on par with the very Palestinians whom Mr. Sharon calls "our own bin
Ladens." In the patriotic fervor of the times, the president could carry the American public with him.

David Hirst, a former correspondent for The Guardian, is based in Beirut.

Copyright ? 2001 Globe Interactive

[Stonewall] This administration will dump the "pro-Christian, anti-abortion, pro-hunting, anti-gay rights social policy" as soon as they feel confident that they have co-opted the support of a sufficient number of former Democrats

[Mike] How will this admininstration co-opt support of Democrats? I don't understand what you're saying here.

Also I very much doubt that the establishment fears libertarians. What do corporate senior management and major financial players have to fear from libertarians? Even political and military elites have little to fear, by its very decentralized nature popular libertarianism can never be much of a threat.

On 2001-10-18 12:52, Mike Alexander '59 wrote:
...I very much doubt that the establishment fears libertarians. What do corporate senior management and major financial players have to fear from libertarians? Even political and military elites have little to fear, by its very decentralized nature popular libertarianism can never be much of a threat.

and let's not forget that, during a crisis, the public demand for order increases. and that's one demand that libertarianism has little chance of fulfilling.

TK

On 2001-10-18 12:52, Mike Alexander '59 wrote:

[Mike] How will this admininstration co-opt support of Democrats? I don't understand what you're saying here.

That is all they have been trying to do since George W. Bush announced his candidacy. The centerpiece of his campaign was an unprecedented expansion of the Department of Education intended to appeal primarily to soccer moms. And this came from the party which had officially called for abolishing the Department of Education since Reagan's time. Then there was the incessant pandering to Hispanics culminating in strident calls for a massive amnesty aimed at co-opting Hispanics, the most rapidly expanding portion of the electorate. This seriously inflamed the base who are more inclined to be militant about sealing the border and preserving our traditional culture. But all the administration does is wave the "Clinton flag" and ask, "Would you rather that Al Gore were president?," and the base stifles their grievances. Additionally, this administration has endorsed affirmative action, is open to gun control, and introduced federal funding for stem cell research, a step which even Clinton never took. With issue after issue, this administration has been attempting to console its base with rhetoric while laying the groundwork for making inroads into the Democratic base between now and the 2004 election.

Also I very much doubt that the establishment fears libertarians. What do corporate senior management and major financial players have to fear from libertarians? Even political and military elites have little to fear, by its very decentralized nature popular libertarianism can never be much of a threat.

I only used the term "libertarian" because you introduced it and I thought you were including militia types within the general libertarian belief range. Actually this is pretty accurate because it is specific libertarian concepts espoused by militant militia types which the establishment fears. What they specifically fear is growth in popularity of the libertarian -- and traditional American -- concept of placing absolute limits on governmental power. Because when you place absolute limits on governmental power, you place absolute limits on the establishment's power. And the desire of the establishment is to finally remove all remaining restraints and rule arbitrarily and absolutely in perpetuity. To the establishment's sensibilities, the militia movement needed to be thoroughly discredited and stopped because it represented the most vocal and militant opposition to the establishment's fundamental desires. And stop it they did with our modern day Palmer Raids.

Libertarian belief would have been a very serious threat to them had the Goldwater-Reagan wing of the Republican Party prevailed over the Rockefeller-Bush wing. Then you would have had one of the two major parties ideologically opposed to arbitrary power in the tradition of the founding fathers and thus ideologically opposed to the establishment. With the victory of the Rockefeller-Bush wing, the establishment now controls both major parties (through the New Democrats in the Democratic Party) and, by extension, the entire American body politic. Now there is absolutely no real opposition to the only issue the establishment truly cares about, the "free" trade agenda its course to global control, and all social issues will be settled pragmatically through polling in seeking the path of least resistance.

Mr. Patton thinks, "Of course S&H may rely too heavily on "generations making history and history making generations."

The S&H theory, correctly IMHO, posulates the notion that History creates Generations (must be first, kinda like the chicken and egg thing :smile: ) and Generation create History.

First, one cannot (if the theory is true) 'rely too heavily' on it.

Second, while I haven't read your entire postings with Mike Alexander, I will post (and hope he doesn't mind :smile: ) his opinion of my interpetation of the 'theory':

In the Numbers thread on October 4th, he noted, "Marc, your use of S&H's theory is quite correct. If you buy their generational constellation model today IS like WW I. We are nowhere near the end of the 3T."

And futhermore, he noted, "You are 100% correct that 'by the numbers' (i.e. using S&H's theory) the 911 attack will blow over and we will return to 3T mood."

And just in case I didn't understand what he meant, a few days later he wrote, "You made no errors in your application of S&H's generational model. According to their model (at least as I understand it) the 4T should be at least a decade away."

He writes this with the clear intention of making clear that, while S&H may be onto something, there is something lacking somewhere in their 'theory.'

[Stonewall] "By the theory, about four years were lost in this cycle and I find those four years to have been lost strangely between 1984 and 1990. This is a real puzzle."

Good observation. And I believe I know what the solution is. But I'm not going to post it in this thread. Perhaps as time allows I will go into it in the Numbers thread.

[ This Message was edited by: Marc Lamb on 2001-10-18 13:51 ]

On 2001-10-18 13:23, TrollKing wrote:

and let's not forget that, during a crisis, the public demand for order increases. and that's one demand that libertarianism has little chance of fulfilling.

TK

However that demand was fulfilled to an extent never seen before or since during the American Revolution crisis. The greater number rallied to the "order" of liberty in philosophically challenging the moral legitimacy of arbitrary power and thus of any establishment. We have gone downhill ever since and finally become that which we originally opposed.

On 2001-10-18 13:49, Marc Lamb wrote:

Second, while I haven't read your entire postings with Mike Alexander, I will post (and hope he doesn't mind :smile: ) his opinion of my interpetation of the 'theory':

In the Numbers thread on October 4th, he noted, "Marc, your use of S&H's theory is quite correct. If you buy their generational constellation model today IS like WW I. We are nowhere near the end of the 3T."

And futhermore, he noted, "You are 100% correct that 'by the numbers' (i.e. using S&H's theory) the 911 attack will blow over and we will return to 3T mood."

And just in case I didn't understand what he meant, a few days later he wrote, "You made no errors in your application of S&H's generational model. According to their model (at least as I understand it) the 4T should be at least a decade away."

Marc, I may be wrong and I have not reread that thread but I believe you or Mike were assuming that if the Civil War was an anomaly and came too early, then this cycle should return to 84 years in length with a catalyst in 2013. It was just never my perception that S&H had dictated that all cycles be precisely 84 years in length. Indeed in T4T, S&H moved up the catalyst estimate to 2005 thus calling for a 76-year cycle. Again, I do not believe that S&H require that we adhere to a set 84-year cycle and thus there is no requirement that we now be mirroring WWI. Where have I gotten it wrong?

Using their model, S&H did interpet the Civil War crisis as an anomaly. Furthermore, I, by applying the Innovation and Maturity wave theory by Harry Dent, confirmed the Civil War anamoly.

Mike says his model does not support our conclusions. Oh well, he, like me says, we'll see.

In Generations, S&H suggested that around 2004 the Boomers, like the Missionary generation in 1923, should be 'peaking' in the 'institutional' power-zone. This is not going to happen. Most likely it will happen sometime between 2006, 08.

After that a crisis 'trigger' could happen at anytime. IMHO, of course.

This much is clear: If 911 is 'trigger' event into a fourth turn, the S&H theory is invalid because an 'elder generation' like the Silent (with a clear leadership role in this 'crisis') should be able to guide the civil-body politic back into a mode of 'normalcy,' just like George 'nice' Will would like.

And Mr. Brian Rush et al would not like.

[ This Message was edited by: Marc Lamb on 2001-10-18 14:50 ]

Mr. Lamb posits, "This much is clear: If 911 is [the] 'trigger' event into a fourth turn, the S&H theory is invalid because an 'elder generation' like the Silent (with a clear leadership role in this 'crisis') should be able to guide the civil-body politic back into a mode of 'normalcy,' just like George 'nice' Will would like."

This poll strongly suggests that I, Marc Lamb, who is '100% correct' 'by the numbers', has indeed got it right. :smile:

[ This Message was edited by: Marc Lamb on 2001-10-18 15:15 ]

On 2001-10-18 15:10, Marc Lamb wrote:
Mr. Lamb posits, "This much is clear: If 911 is [the] 'trigger' event into a fourth turn, the S&H theory is invalid because an 'elder generation' like the Silent (with a clear leadership role in this 'crisis') should be able to guide the civil-body politic back into a mode of 'normalcy,' just like George 'nice' Will would like."

This poll strongly suggests that I, Marc Lamb, who is "100% correct' 'by the numbers'," has indeed got it right. :smile:

Marc, how does the poll prove your point?

In the "people doing really stupid things "category, http://seattlep-i.nwsource.com/local.43223_kiro18.shtml .
They are really going to be nailing hoaxers now, what was an annoying 3T joke is now going to be considered a public menace. [hope this link is done correctly] there's supposed to be a single underline line between 3 and kiro, the underlining of the address seems to negate that, don't know what to do. I said the other day that I'm fumblefingered.

[ This Message was edited by: alan on 2001-10-18 16:57 ]

[ This Message was edited by: alan on 2001-10-18 17:02 ]

John Dvorak nails Boomer/Hippie thinking for the failure of the dot-com revolution:

http://news.excite.com/news/zd/01101...dot-com-season

Today's bickering between the Senate and the House....The House being labled "WIMPS" because they shut down their offices to look for anthrax? Col. D. Hackworth said they were all behaving like the Keystone Cops. He included the F.B.I and the C.I.A. What say yea? 3 T ?

On 2001-10-18 19:35, pindiespace wrote:
John Dvorak nails Boomer/Hippie thinking for the failure of the dot-com revolution:

http://news.excite.com/news/zd/01101...dot-com-season

bah! does dvorak not realize that similar things happened with other inventions? automobiles, telephones, all sorts of new technologies are followed to market by a multitude of producers, most of whom fail as the industry consolidates. it's nothing new or peculiar to the "internet revolution", the "new economy", or baby boomers.

TK

Am I just getting brain-rot, or are Marc Lamb's posts becoming increasingly cryptic and obscure ?

:???

Arggggghhhh! How do I get the confused smilie anyway? I can't get it to work.

_________________
Insanity is the only sane way to cope with an insane world.--RD LANGE

[ This Message was edited by: Susan Brombacher on 2001-10-18 20:01 ]

On 2001-10-18 08:58, Mike Alexander '59 wrote:

My model suggests a move to "liberalism" will occur, but this liberalism is likely to be of the economic sort. Could social welfare programs, a rising minimum wage, pro-labor laws and universal health care be combined with a pro-Christian, anti-abortion, pro-hunting, anti-gay rights, social policy? Or is this bonkers?

In and of itself, it wouldn't even be difficult. If you check back to the previous Cycle, you'll find that welfare programs, universal health care, labor laws (especially child labor laws) etc, were all extensively championed by many churches. Even today, many members of the religious branch of the GOP have sympathies for some of these programs and concepts.

Whether or not it will happen is another matter, but there's nothing inherently impossible about the combination it itself.

OK, regarding evidence of this being either a 3T or a 4T:

Is this evidence of a fundamental change that the 4T will embody, or 3T obsessiveness?

http://dailynews.yahoo.com/hTX/ap/20...mb_slur_1.html

Just the nature of politics, or evidence of a continued 3T?

http://www.rollcall.com/pages/news/0...news1018c.html

Don't these tidbits sound promising?

http://www.portal.telegraph.co.uk/ne...18/ixhome.html

http://www.worldtribune.com/worldtri...reaking_6.html

And finally, were you worried that we might not have enough trouble spots to make the next 4T as much good warlike fun as the last one? :smile: Well, these might be reassuring if so:

http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/ap/2001..._pakistan.html

http://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/0,...363406,00.html

Sorry, folks, for some reason the link won't post quite right. You'll have to type unmarked part into your browser.

[ This Message was edited by: HopefulCynic68 on 2001-10-18 20:41 ]