"Wars are fought with moral fervor but without consensus or follow-through."

Third Turning

I've been reading Frederick Lewis Allen's books on the twenties and thirties, Only Yesterday and Since Yesterday.

From Since Yesterday, here is what he has to say about early in the last 4T (1930):

from page 29, "Speculators, big and little, convinced that what had caught them was no more than a downturn in the business cycle, that the bottom had been passed, and that the prosperity band wagon was getting underway again, leaped in to recoup their losses. Prices leaped, the volume of trading because as heavy as in 1929, and a Little Bull Market was underway...."

from page 31,

When the substantial and well-informed citizens who belonged to the National Economic League were polled in January 1930 as to what they considered the "paramount problems of the United States for 1930", their vote put the following problems at the head of the list: 1) administration of justice; 2) prohibition; 3) lawlessness, disrespect for law; 4) crime; 5) law enforcement; and 6) world peace. Unemployment was down in eighteenth place! Even a year later, in January 1931, "unemployment, economic stabilization" had moved up to only fourth place, following prohibition, administration of justice, and lawlessness.

on page 34,

There were other diversions aplenty to take people's minds off the Depression. There was, for instance, the $125 million boom in miniature golf. People had been saying that what the country needed was a new industry; well, here it was. Garnet Carter's campaign to establish miniature golf in Florida during the winter of 1929-1930 had been so sensationally successful that by the summer hundreds of thousands of Americans were paarking their sedans by half-acre roadside courses and earnestly knocking golf balls along cottonseed greenswards, through little mouse holds in wooden barricades, over little bridges, and through drainpipes, while the proprietors of these new playgrounds listened happily to the tinkle of the cash register.....

There was the incredible propularity of Amos 'n' Andy on the radio, which made the voices of Freeman F. Gosden and Charles J. Correll the most familiar accents in America, set millions of people to following, evening by evening, the fortunes of the Fresh Air Taxicab Company and the progress of Madam Queen's breach-of-promise suit against Andy.

There was Bobby Jones' quadruple triumph in gold which inspired more words of cabled news than any other individual's exploits during 1930, and quite outshone Max Schmeling's defeat of Jack Sharkey, the World Serices victory of the Philadelphia Athletics.....

There was the utterly fantastic epidemic of tree-sitting, which impelled thousands of publicity-crazy boys to roost in trees by day and night in the hope of capturing a "record".

As another frequent poster frequently asks, 3T or 4T?

Now here's solid evidence that 2001 marks the beginning of the Fourth Turn:

Everyone's a Victim, 2001

I'm almost beginning to scare myself with this prediction business. Was I right to call 9/11 the Red Scare II of 2001? How many more confirmations does one need? Well, here's one more in the year, wherein "Everyone's a Victim, 2001":

Attorneys General Who Cry Wolf

Pull Quote:
"Like Ashcroft, Palmer found himself confronted with terrorism early in his term. The first major episode of violence, known as the "May Day Bomb Plot" of 1919, began when a package arrived at the office of Seattle's mayor, Ole Hanson. Supposedly sent from Gimbel's New York department store, the package contained a bomb that failed to detonate. The next day, a second Gimbel's package blew off the hands of a senator's maid in Georgia."

BTW, Ms. Genser, Frederick Lewis Allen's books are really great reading. Good stuff on the Great Depression, written during the actual time, and void of the intense propaganda of the time, is truly hard to find.

Another book I would recommend is My America by Louis Adamic. This book is hard to find, but well worth the effort if you really want to learn how life was during the thirties.

Try here:
http://s1.amazon.com/exec/varzea/ts/...559578-4264626

file:///C|/MYDOCU~1/4801IR1.jpg

Maybe this is pretty good evidence that we're in a 4T after all. From the Economist's articles about Hezbollah.
http://www.economist.com/printeditio...tory_ID=886833

[/quote]

Okay, try this, Mr. Turnock. Read the book, particularly the morphology of crisis eras on page 256. I'm using a specific term in the same specific way the authors used it, and I won't play word games with a Clintonesque Boomer.
[/quote]

Ouch. :smile: getting tagged with clinton doesn't align with my morals.

I'm just looking for common ground, feedback and trying to learn. So, you think we are not in 4T yet, others think we are in 4T. I'm trying to figure out where we are going next. I see the beginnings of the capacity to regenerate institutions. OK. book is at home. I'll go look it up. I like the idea of adding page references to anchor statements. Thanks.

Does history repeat itself? S&H say it does. And they say it does so generationally.

So if histroy repeats generationally, can we see repeating trends in say, fashion, and attitudes expressed via such?

Consider, for a moment, present-day trend among the youth of America called Goth fashion

Then behold the toast of 1915 America:
Images of Beauty: One Theda Bara

And a "Theda" of 2001 America:
Name: Theda_Bara
Age: 22
Astrological Sign: Libra
Hobbies: painting, writing, drawing, reading, and playing with my rats- pretty standard

So is it 1929: the start of a Fourth Turn, judging by trends? Or perhaps an earlier time in American history, judging by trends?

3T or 4T? You decide. :smile:

[ This Message was edited by: Marc S. Lamb on 2001-12-03 18:14 ]

PREDICTION: This will fuel, and make possible a true, and eventual, move into U.S. isolationism like the twenties and thirties.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The United States took a major step forward on Monday
in testing its controversial missile defense shield by successfully shooting down a dummy warhead on an intercontinental ballistic missile over the Pacific Ocean.

UPDATE 1- Decisive week for media biz in D.C.

This is all about a distinct media shift, to the right, following the 911 attack. Fox News is crushing the Clinton News Network. And the trend of the major networks losing viewers (now mostly only Silent generation viewers) has increased since 911, and will continue to the point where the big three will probably merge into one network (news division) soon.

My wife and I enjoy Fox news in the evenings on those rare occasions that we get home early enough for it. In the mornings we fight over Katie Couric (hers) or Fox in the morning (me). Usually this dispute is solved since when one of us steps in the shower while the other waits. But Fox not only doesn't tow the Democrat party line, it is also boistrous and buzzy and risque, funny at times. Bill O' Reilly is a huge buffoon in the way he shouts over and berates those he "interviews", but every so often he says something with utter clarity and perfect precision that makes you say HELL YEAH! Some of the guests, of course, deserve being grilled by O Reilly and it is entertaining watching them squirm a bit.

Because I am not 100% "evil miser Republican," for balance I tune into NPR's Morning Addition while shaving & showering & driving into work. NPR goes into wonderful depth even if they are a bit biased toward the philosophy of social democracy.

But really, so much TV--ESPECIALLY nightly and morning news--is so very very lame. Yawn. There is about as much depth to their coverage as a pink slip. The "science and medical" segments are even funnier with absolutely no explanation for the "cutting edge research" -- it is about as intellectually stimulating as "just so" stories.

All the commercials are even worse; folks, if you really want to make people my age terrified and neurotic about getting old, you will force us to watch all those commercials (ONE after THE OTHER!!) about coughing, arthritis, cholesterol, getting fat, nutritional deficiency, impotence, memory loss, sneezing, wheezing, and cheezing.

OK, I see page 256 about "regeneracy - a new counterentropy that reunifies and reenergizes civic life."
Reading before and after gives more details.
"...adding of layers."
"..rediscover the value of unity, teamwork and social discipline."
"...shed anything extraneous to the survival needs of their community."

There might be a little bit of this beginning to happen. I don't know what they mean by "layers" getting added. Probably depends on the flavor of the crisis.

My focus is on outreach to schools by business. I see schools trying to regenerate themselves. Philadelphia's schools taken over by Governor, other city schools having "layers" added.

On 2001-12-04 08:01, Marc S. Lamb wrote:

UPDATE 1- Decisive week for media biz in D.C.

This is all about a distinct media shift, to the right, following the 911 attack. Fox News is crushing the Clinton News Network. And the trend of the major networks losing viewers (now mostly only Silent generation viewers) has increased since 911, and will continue to the point where the big three will probably merge into one network (news division) soon.

I can't say one way or the other about the media shifting to the right, but the merging of news bureaus is a distinct possibility. Here in the Columbus, Ohio area, the local affiliates of ABC (channel 6) and FOX (channel 28) share a common news bureau. The 10PM local news broadcast on FOX is usually identical to the one broadcast on ABC at 11PM.

I do not think that this is a good idea, however. A single, national news bureau without competition would be all-too-easy for either Big Government or Big Business (the latter of which I especially fear) to control, and thus determine what news the public sees and what it doesn't. It would mean the end of journalistic freedom.

On 2001-12-04 13:22, Kevin Parker '59 wrote:

A single, national news bureau without competition would be all-too-easy for either Big Government or Big Business (the latter of which I especially fear) to control, and thus determine what news the public sees and what it doesn't.

Why would you fear Big Business more than Big Government? Business can't execute you or deprive you of your liberty. Business doesn't claim to be acting in your name when it oppresses people around the globe.

3T or 4T? I think this commentary speaks for itself.


Before and After: September 11
Tai Moses, AlterNet
December 3, 2001
Viewed on December 4, 2001

-------------------------------------------------------------------

As the ruins of the World Trade towers smoldered at the southern end of Manhattan and the breeze stirred the ashes of thousands of human beings, a new age of anxiety was born. If someone had slept through Sept. 11 and awakened, Rip van Winkle-like today, he would open his eyes on an astonishing new landscape.

Guardsmen toting M-16s are stationed at our airports. The president of the United States attends a World Series game and the airspace over Yankee Stadium is closed, a line of snipers positioned on the stadium rooftop. The vice-president's safekeepers whisk him from place to place, just as his arch-nemesis Osama bin Laden is presumably moved from cave to cave halfway across the world. Anthrax panic sends Congress running from its chambers.

The events of Sept. 11 divided our world into two radically different eras. We watch wistfully as the pre-9/11 world drifts away on its raft of memory, cast in Technicolor shades of nostalgia. We will remember that assassinated world as idyllic, secure (never mind that it was neither), we will speak of it in the reverent tones reserved for the dead.

Meanwhile, the post 9/11 era looms like an unmapped wilderness. As with other unclaimed territories throughout history, a fierce battle is being waged for its psychic, political and material capital. Former president Bill Clinton has called this conflict "the struggle for the soul of the 21st century," and the spoils of war include some of our most cherished values and liberties. Leading the charge are the warriors of the Bush administration, a battalion of securitycrats and generals who are attempting to colonize the future with their own repressive agenda.

But there is a brighter side, a growing chorus of dissenting voices who reject paranoia and hubris and question the rush toward becoming a security state. There is a dialectic afoot in the country, a stirring of peaceful purpose that has been largely ignored by the mainstream media, which assumes the public is thinking in red, white and blue, when actually the spectrum of emotions, ideas and opinions is, like America itself, multihued.

Just before his death in November 2001, Ken Kesey described the state of the union in succinctly Keseyian terms: "The men in suits are telling us what the men in uniforms are going to do to the men in turbans if they don't turn over the men in hiding." With the prescience of a dying man, Kesey ventured that this was really a war between the brutal, aggressively male way things had always been and "the timorous and fragile way things might begin to be." As many Americans continue to do, Kesey nurtured great hopes for a future constructed on a model of mutual cooperation, trust and rational thinking.

No Longer Invulnerable

The attacks in New York and Washington shattered the sense of invulnerability that was a hallmark of the American psyche. After 9/11, we looked at each other with new eyes, asked new questions. If you found yourself trapped in a doomed airplane with a cell phone in hand, whom would you call? Pundits wrote that the country had lost its innocence, overlooking the fact that innocence is not a desirable quality in a superpower nation.

Overnight, the United States perceived a sword of Damocles suspended over its head and the ensuing waves of paranoia initiated surreal episodes: a nationwide run on gas masks; a demand from the Postal Service that all mail be irradiated against biological threats; and, most appalling of all, Op-Eds that declared using nuclear weapons against Muslim countries would be justified if terrorists killed so much as one more American.

Among the unavoidable truths to emerge from 9/11 is that being on U.S. soil does not render us immune from harm. The American people now have much more in common with millions of the planet's citizens who spend their lives in regions where armed conflict or terrorism take innocent lives daily. We too are mired near the bottom of Maslow's pyramid, struggling to regain our lost sense of safety and security.

The new zeitgeist even has Ally McBeal registering concern about world events. Relationships, laments Ally McBeal, were easier "before the world changed back in September." On NYPD Blue, a detective rebukes another detective that he isn't "the only one affected by what happened at the World Trade Center."

The most visible symptom of our profound psychological trauma is a zealous new patriotism. Seeking solace, the country drapes itself in the American flag like a child in a superhero cape who plays at being invincible. From homes, vehicles and clothing to department store windows, billboards and television commercials, there are few places in the country where the Stars and Stripes has not found a purchase. People who never gave the flag much thought except on the Fourth of July have become suddenly, passionately, patriotic. For some of us, patriotism is a complicated matter, linked with a dedication to the Constitution. But the now inescapable presence of the flag, supposedly a symbol of American pride and unity, sometimes looks suspiciously like overcompensation for a wounded ego. The flag is an icon, a brand that offers no more protection than the Nike swoosh.

A Hardening of Outlook

It has not been fashionable for some time to assign oracular qualities to Orwell's novel, 1984. Yet the book has much to say to our fractured, post-9/11 era. In Orwell's dystopia, "practices which had been long abandoned, in some cases for hundreds of years -- imprisonment without trial ... public executions, torture to extract confessions ... not only became common again, but were tolerated and even defended by people who considered themselves enlightened and progressive." These paroxysmal social changes, Orwell wrote, began with a "general hardening of outlook."

In the U.S. today, this hardening of outlook is called the war against terrorism.

At its forefront, the new defenders of the Homeland are defining its motives, methods and mentality. But many of us define our personal safety and our national character by the very civil liberties that are being compromised in the name of state security. What we are in the process of giving up may prove to be far more precious than what was taken from us on Sept. 11.

In the weeks after the attacks, for example, the Justice Department arrested scores of young Arab and Muslim men and held them without charges, in undisclosed locations. Their names were not released, nor were they permitted to send word to their families. They simply vanished. Georgetown University law professor David Cole calls this "the practice of disappearance," and it is something we associate with repressive regimes, not with participatory democracies. Not only do such activities compromise the nation's integrity at home but they are sure to undermine American credibility abroad. If we cannot adhere to our own ideals and values, to the standards we've called on other nations to adhere to in the past, then we call into question some of our fundamental assumptions about who we are.

Must We Shop 'til We Drop?

An Orthodox rabbi once told me that when you are in control, you prepare for those times when you are out of control. The rabbi was speaking of interpersonal relationships, but his dictum could easily be applied to the current geopolitical situation. To wit: Take an oil-dependent nation that consumes 20 million barrels of oil every day. The nation is in a recession and has just gone to war in the region that supplies most of the oil. Would it not be wise, even patriotic, for said nation to cut back on its oil consumption?

Yet sales of sport utility vehicles, those infamous gas-guzzlers, are up, expected to surpass, for the first time ever, sales of passenger cars. Automakers rejoice in this as a patriotic act. "Business and consumers need to pull together to strengthen our nation's confidence and to keep the economy moving forward," said GM vice president Bill Lovejoy, buoyed by projected sales figures of 3.5 million SUVs.

Just after the attacks, a renewed sense of community was visible across the nation as Americans saw their own grief, fear and concern reflected by friends and neighbors. There was a relaxing of the rampant materialism, along with its ugly stepsisters isolation and compulsion, that has been the undoing of community in this country. Community cannot compete with shopping malls or 200 satellite television channels, with Gameboys or the 70-hour workweek. Community requires people gathering with others and talking, singing, questioning and arguing, a rialto where ideas and creativity are the currency.

Since our economy is dependent upon mass consumerism, however, it wasn't long before government and big business invented the concept of "economic patriotism." This Frankensteinian creation asserts that consumption is an American value, extols the nepenthean powers of the dollar and in effect, discourages national introspection at a time when it would be most valuable. Presidential exhortations to get back to normal assumed we would want to restore the world we had as quickly as possible. But not everyone is content to shut up and shop. The pre-9/11 world cannot be restored, not with a credit card, not with a new car. Many of us want to build on that nascent community. Many citizens concerned about the deteriorating economy are resisting the consumption orgy and are exploring alternatives that would make our country more self-sufficient and prepare us for the tough times that may lie ahead.

History's Lessons

An anonymous rescuer, digging in the rubble of WTC, spoke of his struggle to express to his family what Ground Zero was like. But every time he tried to speak he found himself mute. There exists no suitable analogy for those murdered buildings, for the thousands of lives snuffed out by suicidal terrorists armed with box cutters. Sept. 11 is not like anything but itself.

True, 9/11 is the crisis of our time, our national flashpoint, but it is only one of many such flashpoints in history. This is far from the first time that powerful external forces have impinged upon human beings in a modern society, and it is not the first time those forces have been called evil. Each time it seems the crisis must generate a new paradigm in which such an atrocity will never be allowed to happen again -- and yet it does happen again. In 1941, in a span of two days, 34,000 innocents who also happened to be Jewish were murdered at Babi Yar. Hiroshima: 130,000 dead in a single day. Nagasaki, five days later, another 75,000.

Let's face it, history is a gallery of unspeakable crimes. A mushroom cloud blooming over a seaport city, a human being with her skin burned off, a skeletal corpse embracing a childsize skeletal corpse. A jet slicing through a skyscraper, a skyscraper collapsing upon itself. The nameless man and woman who plummeted, hand in hand, to their deaths from an upper floor of World Trade are caught in the mind's eye of history as eternally as the lovers solidified in ash after the eruption of Pompeii. We tend these images like poisonous flowers in a nightmare garden, we return to them obsessively, hoping to excavate their meaning. What messages do Hiroshima and Babi Yar, or Dresden and Antietam, have for us? What will Sept. 11 tell us?

Perhaps just this: That our suffering is not unique; that we haven't yet got it right; and that the pursuit of peace continues to be the noblest of vocations.

True Courage

"A country is only as strong as the people who make it up and the country turns into what the people want it to become," James Baldwin wrote. "We made the world we're living in and we have to make it over."

How do we move from anxiety to action? From insecurity to confidence, from national paranoia to collective poise? Is our democracy so fragile that four airplane bombs can erode 225 years of liberty? It has never been more clear that we will have true and lasting security only when the rest of the world has true and lasting security. That is the challenge of this particular conflict, the struggle for the soul of the 21st century.

On the beautiful, glass-bright morning of Sept. 11, a man -- an ordinary, unremarkable American -- called his wife on his cell phone. "We're all going to die," Thomas Burnett said as United Flight 93 careened over the Pennsylvania countryside, "but some of us are going to do something about it." All we know of the rest of Tom Burnett's narrative is that his life ended horribly. He and his fellow passengers did not let what must have been abject fear prevent them from acting -- that is the true definition of courage.

What happened aboard Flight 93 was the country's first real victory against terrorism, and it came out of the tradition of democracy. The passengers came up with a plan and they voted on it. Some of the men would rush the hijackers and force the airliner to crash, rather than allow it to be used in another suicide attack on Washington D.C., where it was surely headed.

It's a terrible irony that for a short time, while the condemned jet was aloft, the ideal of American democracy also reached its apex. The rest of us can only strive to do as well. Fortunately, Tom Burnett's last communication to the world was an unintentional gift to us all, a battle cry for the age of anxiety. We are all going to die sooner or later. Let that consciousness not prevent us from acting in each other's best interests, from trying to create a better, safer world.

Mr. Reed, I would love to respond, paragraph by paragraph, to your latest 'evidence,' but I haven't the time.

Suffice to say, with each and every post, I'm becoming more and more convinced that you just might be a member of the same generation as Justin (born 1979).

:smile:

[ This Message was edited by: Marc S. Lamb on 2001-12-04 17:09 ]

Why would you fear Big Business more than Big Government? Business can't execute you or deprive you of your liberty. Business doesn't claim to be acting in your name when it oppresses people around the globe.

Oh, but Big Business *could* become Big Government (and shows signs of doing so), and it certainly DOES oppress people around the globe. What about the widespread practice of using Chinese and Mexican factory workers (many of whom are children) and paying them subsistence wages for shifts sometimes exceeding 18 hours because their labor is "cheaper" than domestic labor, and in so doing also create widespread unemployment and hardship for US factory workers and those who possess no other skills? This is only one example of how Big Business oppresses.

On 2001-12-04 16:54, madscientist wrote:
3T or 4T? I think this commentary speaks for itself.


Before and After: September 11
Tai Moses, AlterNet
December 3, 2001
Viewed on December 4, 2001

[snip]

Must We Shop 'til We Drop?

An Orthodox rabbi once told me that when you are in control, you prepare for those times when you are out of control. The rabbi was speaking of interpersonal relationships, but his dictum could easily be applied to the current geopolitical situation. To wit: Take an oil-dependent nation that consumes 20 million barrels of oil every day. The nation is in a recession and has just gone to war in the region that supplies most of the oil. Would it not be wise, even patriotic, for said nation to cut back on its oil consumption?

Yet sales of sport utility vehicles, those infamous gas-guzzlers, are up, expected to surpass, for the first time ever, sales of passenger cars. Automakers rejoice in this as a patriotic act. "Business and consumers need to pull together to strengthen our nation's confidence and to keep the economy moving forward," said GM vice president Bill Lovejoy, buoyed by projected sales figures of 3.5 million SUVs.

Hey, I just did my patriotic duty and bought a car.

Not a gas-hoggin' SUV either. :razz:

A nice compact that gets 40 MPG.

Kiff '61

On 2001-12-04 13:43, Justin '77 wrote:

Why would you fear Big Business more than Big Government? Business can't execute you or deprive you of your liberty......

Oh, yes they can! How many people back in the late 19th and early 20th centuries were burnt out of their homes and/or murdered after refusing to sell their land to the rairoad barons? Who is to say similar occurances cannot happen in the future, with our Government again in the pocket of Big Business?

In theory, our government is one of the People, by the People and for the People. But if our Government is owned lock stock and barrel by Big Business (and it now seems to be in large part), then Big Business can and will trample over the People at will with the Government looking the other way.

Yes, Big Business is most certainly a greater threat to our Liberty than Government alone-- you'd better believe it! Our elected representatives, should they fail their constituents, can be voted out of office-- again, in theory. CEOs, however, are not accountable to us; we cannot vote to remove them from their positions. This utter lack of accountability to the People is what makes corporations more dangerous than government alone.

On 2001-12-04 13:43, Justin '77 wrote:

....Business doesn't claim to be acting in your name when it oppresses people around the globe.

Maybe not, but so what? Acts of war have been committed against the American people for the perceived transgressions abroad of both the U.S. Government "AND" U.S. corporations (think Big Oil). Do you really believe that Osama bin Laden and his ilk make any distinction between American business, American government, and the American people? They obviously didn't on September 11th.

Mr. Parker writes, "How many people back in the late 19th and early 20th centuries were burnt out of their homes and/or murdered after refusing to sell their land to the rairoad barons? Who is to say similar occurances cannot happen in the future, with our Government again in the pocket of Big Business?

In theory, our government is one of the People, by the People and for the People. But if our Government is owned lock stock and barrel by Big Business (and it now seems to be in large part), then Big Business can and will trample over the People at will with the Government looking the other way."

If I may inquire, Mr. Parker, what "Big Business" influence cause the mass death in a ball of fire, deemed a Slaughterhouse in 1945?

Was it Big Oil? Big Cigarettes? Big SUV's, Mr. Parker? Does BIG FREEDOM do such things in the name of justice and freedom?

Or was it just a sad chapter in the annuals of "government" overreach?

Please tell me, if you can, a likewise "sad chapter" in the annuals of BIG BUSINESS. :smile:

[ This Message was edited by: Marc S. Lamb on 2001-12-04 20:15 ]

Kudos, Kevin. I completely agree with you.

On 2001-11-26 23:26, madscientist wrote:

The 911 attacks is pushing America into a 4T. The generations are being forced into their 4T roles. Millie teens are being pushed into a Crisis era Hero role, Xers have completed their transition into midlife,

Uh, since when have we Xers been entering midlife? If there was a transition into the same stage as Boomers I suuuuure must have missed it. I don't feel like a mean, sold-out crusty old midlifer, Boomerlike except with even more emphasis on family values, at 32. Even 37 isn't midlife, by S&H standards, while 37-year-olds are still more interested in living outside society than conforming to it. I see no X phase around me but "young adult" (that, at least, if no longer "youth").

Re: Big Business excesses

Legitimate government exists to defend individual rights. It therefore exists to punish offenders thereby deterring violations of rights whether committed by individuals, small businesses, or corporations. When government ceases to punish offenders, it ceases to defend individual rights. It therefore ceases to be legitimate government.

What Big Business is doing in these instances is what it would do in any environment when left to its own devices, consistent with human nature. You are witnessing not the failure of Big Business, but rather of government. Government makes and enforces laws to restrain human nature. When Big Business can get away with these transgressions, government is failing to do its job for Big Business would not be able to get away with these things but for government complicity.

The wrongs cannot be righted until government ceases to be complicit as only government can right those wrongs. Accordingly it is government which must enter your sights as it is the government complicity which must cease. Until such time as the complicity ends, government is illegitimate. The goal must be to restore legitimacy to government thereby ending the unpleasant state of affairs brought about by the complicity of government and capital, i.e. the consolidation of all power in the State, otherwise known as fascism.

Something interesting has happened in Australia recently, despite all this news of the most of the world entering recession. Australia seems to weathered the economic downturn and produce annual economic growth rate of about 4%, the last quarter saw 1.1% economic growth.

This has led to weird accusations that some people have been saying that the lefties are trying to talk down the economy and bring on a recession. I have heard this quite a few times before. Here is an example from some person who happens to be a Labor party supporter from Sydney.

I sometimes think that old leftists want a recession so they can point and say we told you so.

I have been a pessimistic about the state of the Australian economy and for a good reason, I am citing international growth, I for the most part do not want an economic recession, however fear one. Well we are going to get a recession anytime soon, here in Australia anyway.

I have been noticing Australia is still in a 3T and America is in the very start of a 4T. I think how we view the future of say the economy might be different. We Australians see it in an optimistic way, while you Americans see it in a pessimistic way.

And it is not just the economy, most Australians especially right wingers were quite optimistic about a quick war in Afghanistan and when that was realised, they decided to snub in the faces of what they saw as the pessimists. In Americia just about everyone was pessimstic about the Afghanistan war, strange difference in the mood.

I have noticed also anyone who seems to be predicting a swing to the left in Australian politics soon, I think they sense the coming mood in a vague way. Are shouted down by others as prophets of doom, I say to people that by 2007-2010 Australia will be feeling like it will be on a verge of revolution, they laugh at me.

Here is a article of how the mood in Australia is still a late 3T one. She is writing in reply to a article which was posted by a guy named Tim Dunlop, the previous day on how to re-build the left in Australia. That article shows that guy seems in a pre-seasonal mood. The link is there if you want to read it.

http://www.smh.com.au/news/webdiary/...XQP7D4RUC.html

In the article below the ALP stands for Australian Labor Party.

Lynne Bockholt in Umina, New South Wales

Tim Dunlop's piece yesterday spouts all the old dogma of the old left and it's so out of date as to be ridiculous. Come and live amongst us in the outer suburbs, Mr Dunlop, and see what the world is really like.

I live on the Woy Woy Peninsula, part of the solid State Labor seat of Peats on the NSW Central Coast. Peats voted for the Liberals on 10 November in the Federal seat of Robertson. This time only three Peninsula booths went to the ALP. Before 1996 a Federal ALP candidate could just about guarantee a 3000 vote lead from the Peninsula which would allow losses in the "posh" areas like Terrigal, Avoca and Point Frederick.

Now things are very different. Why? Certainly Tampa has a great deal to do with it, but people like you and most people in the hierarchy of the ALP have missed a revolution in areas like ours.

The revolution has two prongs. Firstly, people are sick of being neglected by the ALP and taken for granted. The ALP lost touch with the community years ago. Both left and right factions have split power between them and are merely vehicles for patronage for party hacks who wouldn't know how ordinary people live and don't care.

Some of the ALP candidates thrust on to us on the Central Coast is recent years would make you weep. Not much has been delivered by Labor to the Central Coast for decades and the people know it. Our streets are crime ridden, our roads are a disgrace, the train system is overcrowded and our schools and hospitals on the Peninsula are at third world conditions.

Many Labor supporters here are in despair over the state of the party, which they believe has been taken over by hacks without talent who will support their political masters to ensure they keep their job in the machine. One local branch of the ALP had 70 members not too long ago and now it has 17. Many of the members are past retiring age and there are very few younger people coming into the ranks to replace them.

Why would they? Members have no say in the platform or policy of the party so what is the point of being there. Some are hanging in waiting for change but aren't hopeful of it happening any time soon.

The ALP is being squeezed on the Central Coast by the resurgent Libs on one side and community independents on the other. An example is Gosford Council. In 1991 the ALP got 5 candidates up on the 10 seat Council and had votes over to hand around. In 1999 only 3 ALP candidates were elected (in the last 3 places) and they needed preferences to get over the line. Why? Because the party is not trusted anymore and is seen in this area to be too close to developers and not close enough to the community.

They are not listening even now. The community is voting for parties and people who are listening to the things that are important to them, not following the ALP as they used to. It's a changed landscape and votes have to be earned. I see little sign that the ALP have learned anything.

Tim states that says that the rich are getting richer and the poor poorer and this is true, but most of us are more comfortably off and low interest rates are a large part of why this is the case, hence more votes for Howard.

I know so many ordinary families in this outer area who are buying holiday homes or moving to build a bigger house, buying bigger cars, sending their kids to private schools. Many people have invested in cable TV and have computers in their homes. These are the so called aspirational voters who are hard working and determined to make the best of their lives.

They have little social life, except their families and friends and neighbours but they are quite determined that no-one will ever again get away with charging them 17% interest rates on their homes and other hire purchase items.

For Tim to spout on about world recession and people will turn again to the left when it happens is rubbish. I sometimes think that old leftists want a recession so they can point and say we told you so. Howard's economic credentials are better than the ALP's even though he slashed and burned in the first term to make it so. The people I mix with took all that pain and now they want gain.

Above all these people need stability. They see it in John Howard. We are suburban and so is he. I am not a Liberal voter or supporter but you have to admit that Howard has his finger exactly on the pulse of suburbanites like us.

Being from the Western Suburbs or the Central Coast used to be like coming from Mars. I still feel like a hick when I go to Sydney. We are always portrayed as coming from "outer suburbia" no-one is interested in documenting our lives. Howard is. He is on our wavelength. We feel it.

The ALP has to get on the same wavelength and start listening and start acting as though they are from the same planet as us. They have to recruit people who know the community and what people want instead of guessing what they think might be good for the community.

Lest anyone think I am a Lib (Similar to a Republican in the USA), I was an ALP member expelled from the party some years ago after a falling out with the hierarchy in Sussex St.

[ This Message was edited by: Tristan Jones on 2001-12-04 21:48 ]

Perhaps a good sign of the 4t is the renewal of Washington DC as an important economic center. Government spending on security related problems is helping to push it into the leading center for job creation in the United States.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...-2001Dec2.html