Generational Dynamics
Fourth Turning Forum Archive


Popular links:
Generational Dynamics Web Site
Generational Dynamics Forum
Fourth Turning Archive home page
New Fourth Turning Forum

Thread: Evidence We're in a Third--or Fourth--Turning - Page 72







Post#1776 at 04-03-2002 01:28 AM by nd boom '59 [at joined Dec 2001 #posts 52]
---
04-03-2002, 01:28 AM #1776
Join Date
Dec 2001
Posts
52

Point well taken JayN. I was on a soapbox about WalMart. The consuming public has turned more toward consumer products and away from gadgets since 9/11. Home Depot has seen record sales as has WalMart and Target.







Post#1777 at 04-03-2002 04:46 AM by Jesse Manoogian [at The edge of the world in all of Western civilization joined Oct 2001 #posts 448]
---
04-03-2002, 04:46 AM #1777
Join Date
Oct 2001
Location
The edge of the world in all of Western civilization
Posts
448

The first one just makes Harvard sound hypocritical...doesn't sound liberal at all. As for the rest of them...HARVARD HANDS OUT CONDOMS? It's hard to believe the classes in an Ivy League school are open to providing students with these hip, politically correct courses. Do you suppose students would be walking around Harvard announcing their ethnic pride or sounding hippieish?

I notice that all those examples of liberalism and radical classes are coming from the professors though. This isn't the kind of place I heard Harvard-bound classmates sound like they were planning to go. I wonder if students who think about Harvard when they're in high school have all THIS shit in mind. I guess the students get there and are totally appalled by the liberalism of their professors.

"liberal" is not the same as "rebellious". many would argue that in this day and age, "liberal" is anything but rebellious.
Now THAT sounds insane. How could they argue that?

here's a link demonstrating the variety among the rankings:

http://www.google.com/search?q=top+1...hools%22&hl=en

Princeton Review

1. State University of New York-Albany
2. University of Wisconsin-Madison
3. University of Florida
4. University of Georgia
5. University of Colorado - Boulder
6. Florida State University
7. Ohio University
8. University of Kansas
9. University of Vermont
10. Seton Hall University


College.Com

Top Party Schools - 2001
1. University of Tennessee
2. Louisiana State University
3. University of California-Santa Cruz
4. Florida State University
5. University of Colorado
6. University of Alabama
7. St. Bonaventure University
8. Ohio State University
9. University of Wisconsin
10. University of Florida


PubClub.com

1.) Texas
2.) Florida State
3.) Florida
4.) Arizona
5.) Alabama
6.) San Diego State
7.) UCSB. Technically, UCSB stands for "University of California Santa Barbara." Students, on the other hand, say it means "U Can Study Buzzed." It's also the only campus with its own beach.
8.) Wisconsin
9.) Georgia
10.) Penn State


CNN

Party Schools
1. West Virginia University, Morgantown
2. University of Wisconsin, Madison
3. State University of New York, Albany
4. University of Colorado, Boulder
5. Trinity College, Hartford, Connecticut
6. Florida State University, Tallahassee
7. Emory University, Atlanta
8. University of Kansas, Lawrence
9. University of Vermont, Burlington
10. Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge

Stone Cold Sober Schools
1. California Institute of Technology, Pasadena
2. Grove City College, Grove City, Pennsylvania
3. Wesleyan College, Macon, Georgia
4. Calvin College, Grand Rapids, Michigan
5. Bryn Mawr College, Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania
6. Wellesley College, Wellesley, Massachusetts
7. Agnes Scott College, Decatur, Georgia
8. San Francisco Conservatory of Music
9. Mount Holyoke College, South Hadley, Massachusetts
10. Cooper Union, New York.


From http://www.partyschool.com's poll:

The Winners from Last Poll
1. James Madison University
2. Virginia Tech
3. Penn State University
4. East Carolina University
5. West Virginia University
6. Chico State University
7. Texas Tech
8. SUNY Albany
9. University of Mass.-Amherst
10. Oneonta







Post#1778 at 04-03-2002 05:06 AM by Jesse Manoogian [at The edge of the world in all of Western civilization joined Oct 2001 #posts 448]
---
04-03-2002, 05:06 AM #1778
Join Date
Oct 2001
Location
The edge of the world in all of Western civilization
Posts
448

mmailliw wrote:

At Wilde Lake High School (a PUBLIC school; here in Howard County the public schools are BETTER than the private schools), the student body was liberal (democrats = majority party, greens = second party, republicans = fringe party). What makes you think I went to a prep school? Have 1 1/2 semesters of Harvard turned me into a preppy already *barfs at the THOUGHT of it*?
Under the topic "Anti-millennial Millennials", there were references to you "playing the game of college prep high school". That line came up repeatedly, and I don't ever remember you saying anything to deny you went to a prep school.







Post#1779 at 04-03-2002 05:16 AM by Jesse Manoogian [at The edge of the world in all of Western civilization joined Oct 2001 #posts 448]
---
04-03-2002, 05:16 AM #1779
Join Date
Oct 2001
Location
The edge of the world in all of Western civilization
Posts
448

On 2002-03-27 18:36, Jensen B. '78 wrote:
An interesting case in 3T attitudes is the case of Gary Condit. Amid the 3T hyping of "Americans are putting up flags!" and such came the hype from news reporters saying that no one cared about Gary Condit anymore. We don't remember Gary Condit! Gary Condit's old news. Gary Condit is what people cared about before September eleven. Boomer media hypesters made Gary Condit a SYMBOL. And by virtue of his being a symbol, he was by necessity brought up quite often. By talking about how people were not talking about Gary Condit, people were talking about Gary Condit! Thanks to so much coverage, he stayed alive and well in people's minds and everyone was able to remember who he was. Then, when he got elected to a new commission, or whenever a new piece of evidence about Chandra Levy was found, or some new progress in the investigation was made, people wrote about it and made it into headlines -- and the Americans read it. They new who he was because by talking about Condit vs. 911, the media had used 911 to assimilate its coverage of both into the Third Turning. Even Osama was somewhat assimilated, as was mentioned. As a result, people continued to remember about Condit, because by talking about not talking about him, they were talking about him. By contrast, how many people here have thought anything about even, say, Larry Ellison in the past two months?
Interesting thought. The commercialization of flags, or for that matter the turning the flags and everything into clich? images was pure hype for profit. Then the media took what could have been a 4T mood and hyped the "Everything has changed!" feeling. A lot of the "new, post-911 world" was basically invented. Stories based on "hyping the zeitgeist" sure have seemed to make a good news story based on 3T-- ..... well, hype.







Post#1780 at 04-03-2002 05:30 AM by Jesse Manoogian [at The edge of the world in all of Western civilization joined Oct 2001 #posts 448]
---
04-03-2002, 05:30 AM #1780
Join Date
Oct 2001
Location
The edge of the world in all of Western civilization
Posts
448

On 2002-03-27 18:00, Jensen B. '78 wrote:
These Boomerish traits cause him to attach a symbolic significance and dogmatic report of the significance of that day in September, even when he doesn't get all his facts right. For instance, Hitchens writes that "the few [sic] voices dissenting against the U.S. invasion of Iraq have been stilled", yet not even Bush and Ashcroft's most repressive dreams have been able to effectively carry off a speech code censoring dissenters.
Yeah, who's stilling them? I myself wasn't too keen on his assertion that everyone automatically must be going along and if you don't put a flag up that's because people will ASSUME your patriotic. I have no flag in my dorm! Will the people on this board think I'm a patriot? Will they think I'm backing Bush? Will the students and the faculty who see me going flagless automatically assume I'm patriotic or that I'm backing Bush? Do I have to put up a poster with a big American flag and a circle-and-slash run through it to get anyone to think otherwise?

Personally, this is all very distant from me. I hear about changes but I'm not experiencing them myself. In my dorm in my room on a campus I feel so closed off and I've never been alone or outnumbered in levying any criticism against the government. Why can't I understand how it feels to get marginalized after saying something against America during the war on terrorism?







Post#1781 at 04-03-2002 05:50 AM by Jesse Manoogian [at The edge of the world in all of Western civilization joined Oct 2001 #posts 448]
---
04-03-2002, 05:50 AM #1781
Join Date
Oct 2001
Location
The edge of the world in all of Western civilization
Posts
448

On 2002-04-02 10:01, JayN wrote:
I was only noting that after several years in which technology companies have risen in value (something that indicates Third Turning economic confidence) a less economically confident public is choosing to focus on more "traditional" types of shopping more indicative of a Fourth Turning mood.
Ah, but according to the article Walmart was at #2 a year ago. It was that high last year before 911...so all it had to do was a little place switching. What would the #2 place, prior to 911, say about late 2000/early 2001?







Post#1782 at 04-03-2002 12:44 PM by [at joined #posts ]
---
04-03-2002, 12:44 PM #1782
Guest

On 2002-04-03 02:06, Jesse Manoogian wrote:
mmailliw wrote:

At Wilde Lake High School (a PUBLIC school; here in Howard County the public schools are BETTER than the private schools), the student body was liberal (democrats = majority party, greens = second party, republicans = fringe party). What makes you think I went to a prep school? Have 1 1/2 semesters of Harvard turned me into a preppy already *barfs at the THOUGHT of it*?
Under the topic "Anti-millennial Millennials", there were references to you "playing the game of college prep high school". That line came up repeatedly, and I don't ever remember you saying anything to deny you went to a prep school.
I assume that what William '84 meant was that he was taking college preparatory courses while attending a public high school.









Post#1783 at 04-03-2002 03:37 PM by [at joined #posts ]
---
04-03-2002, 03:37 PM #1783
Guest

On 2002-04-03 02:06, Jesse Manoogian wrote:
mmailliw wrote:

At Wilde Lake High School (a PUBLIC school; here in Howard County the public schools are BETTER than the private schools), the student body was liberal (democrats = majority party, greens = second party, republicans = fringe party). What makes you think I went to a prep school? Have 1 1/2 semesters of Harvard turned me into a preppy already *barfs at the THOUGHT of it*?
Under the topic "Anti-millennial Millennials", there were references to you "playing the game of college prep high school". That line came up repeatedly, and I don't ever remember you saying anything to deny you went to a prep school.
I don't think too much about my wording, so let me clarify what I actually meant in my first post to this board by that phrase:
The objective was to PREP oneself for COLLEGE in HIGH SCHOOL by PLAYING the GAME set up by the ultracompetitive (and it gets worse every year) COLLEGE admissions process; other than that, I said nothing one way or the other about which HS I did or did not go to until I revealed that I went to WLHS (a public school) in response to a recent query (possibly yours; I'm not sure).








Post#1784 at 04-03-2002 03:38 PM by [at joined #posts ]
---
04-03-2002, 03:38 PM #1784
Guest

On 2002-04-03 09:44, Jenny Genser wrote:
On 2002-04-03 02:06, Jesse Manoogian wrote:
mmailliw wrote:

At Wilde Lake High School (a PUBLIC school; here in Howard County the public schools are BETTER than the private schools), the student body was liberal (democrats = majority party, greens = second party, republicans = fringe party). What makes you think I went to a prep school? Have 1 1/2 semesters of Harvard turned me into a preppy already *barfs at the THOUGHT of it*?
Under the topic "Anti-millennial Millennials", there were references to you "playing the game of college prep high school". That line came up repeatedly, and I don't ever remember you saying anything to deny you went to a prep school.
I assume that what William '84 meant was that he was taking college preparatory courses while attending a public high school.


That too... see previous post for my actual meaning tho (college prep courses are *NOT* that hard by comparison!)







Post#1785 at 04-03-2002 08:10 PM by TrollKing [at Portland, OR -- b. 1968 joined Sep 2001 #posts 1,257]
---
04-03-2002, 08:10 PM #1785
Join Date
Sep 2001
Location
Portland, OR -- b. 1968
Posts
1,257

On 2002-04-03 01:46, Jesse Manoogian wrote:

Do you suppose students would be walking around Harvard announcing their ethnic pride or sounding hippieish?
some of them, sure. but not all liberals fit that description.

I wonder if students who think about Harvard when they're in high school have all THIS shit in mind. I guess the students get there and are totally appalled by the liberalism of their professors.
some do, some don't. when i was in high school (mid 80s), the ivy-league bound students may have acted more conservatively (studied more, involved in more extracurriculars, less substance use), but they tended to be decidedly more liberal in their politics than other students. this goes back to my point that "liberal" does not equal "rebellious".

"liberal" is not the same as "rebellious". many would argue that in this day and age, "liberal" is anything but rebellious.
Now THAT sounds insane. How could they argue that?
mostly by pointing at universities, the (big) government, and the media-- three large and influential institutions in our culture.

From http://www.partyschool.com's poll:
so only one of the lists you found listed chico, and chico was not #1. i don't doubt that there are lists that put chico at #1, but my point was that there is little consensus as to which school tops the list.


TK







Post#1786 at 04-04-2002 12:43 PM by jds1958xg [at joined Jan 2002 #posts 1,002]
---
04-04-2002, 12:43 PM #1786
Join Date
Jan 2002
Posts
1,002

Getting back to the topic of this thread, I'm sure everyone here has heard about the 'American Rudeness' survey by now. The one that says that some 80% of Americans are habitually rude, and that it's gotten worse in recent years. When one remembers that the 1920's were also called 'The Decade of Bad Manners', that definitely sounds to me like more evidence that we're still in (late) 3T. FWIW.







Post#1787 at 04-04-2002 11:48 PM by Mr. Reed [at Intersection of History joined Jun 2001 #posts 4,376]
---
04-04-2002, 11:48 PM #1787
Join Date
Jun 2001
Location
Intersection of History
Posts
4,376

This sounds kinda like GC material.

http://www.futurenet.org/21American/needleman.htm

<font color="blue">what does it mean to be an american now? ~ Spring 2002

founding america

by Jacob Needleman

The roots of the American experiment in democracy reach back thousands of years, fed by our failures as well as our successes, our crimes as well as our ideals. When at last we learn humility, our republic will bloom

I was born in Philadelphia and grew up loving America. My immigrant grandparents spoke with tears in their eyes of the goodness of this country, and to my father, Abraham Lincoln was just a little lower than God.

I remember the fervor with which we young children protected the flag. If you allowed the flag to fall, even if it barely brushed the ground, and even if it was only one of those cheap paper penny flags that abounded on the Fourth of July, touching the flag to the ground was a grave sin that could be redeemed only by instantly kissing it.

I loved America. Down deep I still do?as do most of us, no matter what we may condemn as unjust, ugly, or evil about this country.

The inner America
As a child, when I loved America, I loved freedom, hope, nature. I loved, in my childlike way, the
authentic inner possibilities of human existence. If we see only the conformity, corruption, rank injustice, materialism, superficiality and vulgarity, meta-physical squalor, and blind attachment to physical comfort, then I see the death of America. But if we look more deeply, we may still see a nation and a people granted for a brief moment the material and spiritual conditions enabling us to step into the real future of humanity, the future of the developing soul.

We find evidence of the great gifts of America by looking at some of the insights left to us by George
Washington, Abraham Lincoln, the Great Peacemaker of the Haudenosaunee, Frederick Douglass, and other founders of America. They passionately strove to create a place where the Good?some called it God, others called it Reason?could enter human life.

The Great Peacemaker
One of our earliest founders lived well before Columbus discovered America. The Great Peacemaker is said to have been born in the Great Lakes region of North America sometime around 1000 ad. His people, the Haudenosaunee, now called the Iroquois, were beset by endless conflict. Village fought village. Blood raids led to retaliation. No one believed there was a way out. Then came the time of the Great Peacemaker.
... When he comes of age, the Great Peacemaker tells his grandmother and his mother that his time has come to seek out other tribes and nations and bring the message of peace. He sets off in his canoe, scanning the horizon for rising smoke. Day after day he sees nothing, for all the settlements are now hidden in the hills to protect themselves from the war parties plaguing the land.
Finally, the Great Peacemaker sees hunters running along a barren shore. He beaches his canoe and says to them, ?Go back to your settlement and tell your chief that a new and good message has come, the message of peace that is power.?
When the tribal chief hears their news, he asks the hunters, ?Who told you this??
?He is called the Great Peacemaker in the world.?
The chief wonders at this and asks, his eyes turning toward the stockades that hold his starving, quarreling people, ?How could it be? From what source will such peace come??
The hunters reply simply: ?It will come.?
The hunters? strength of conviction fully opens the chief?s mind to his own faith that in the world of man there is a force of peace that can come to the people if only they will turn their minds to it.
?Truly,? he says, ?this is a wonderful thing. This news of itself will bring the beginning of peace to our people if once they can hear it and understand it and believe it. It will begin to free their minds of the hatred that comes from fear.?
The Great Peacemaker passed from settlement to settlement, and the same scene was repeated with each of the chiefs as they were quickly convinced of the power of peace.

Why should these proud nations and warriors so readily accept the message of peace? Not because they were afraid of war. The message is accepted not only in the hope of being freed of something negative, but also because they glimpse a peace that is infinitely more honorable than war and more active. This peace demands a higher level of courage and sacrifice than war. It is neither static nor dull; nor is it a fantasy of endless pleasure. It is a force that can harmonize the actions and impulses of human life in all their multiplicity. It is a unifying energy that paradoxically allows each element to flourish in its individuality. It is the call to serve that which is far greater than oneself. Who would not agree to this peace?

This is just one part of the longer Haudenosaunee story. It tells of a messenger, sent by the Creator, who leads the people back to their true path and guides their creation of a constitution known as the Great Peace. Its laws enable humanity to live as one family and to permit the power of divine peace and harmony to enter their lives. The Great Peace has ruled Haudenosaunee society since then, embodying principles similar to those that later found expression in the governance of the United States.

George Washington?s defense of liberty
George Washington?s stature and legacy derived not primarily from what he did, but from what he did not do. Ironically, our nation, which thrives on ever-accelerating outward motion and ?doing,? began with a man whose action was a renunciation of action.

Consider his resignation in 1783 as commander-in-chief of the American forces, a step that historian Gordon S. Wood calls ?the greatest act of his life.?

?It was extraordinary,? Wood writes. ?It was unprecedented in modern times?a victorious general surrendering his arms and returning to his farm. ... Though it was widely thought that Washington could have become king or dictator, he wanted nothing of the kind.?

Historians cite numerous personal reasons for Washington?s decision. But the most telling was that he stepped down in order to preserve the essence of the American republic.

Had Washington died in office, the presidency probably would have become a lifelong position of individual power, comparable to that of monarch. But Washington?s withdrawal allowed an election to take place with his approval. His stepping down signified that the people and the Constitution are the only rightful source of authority in the new nation.

By stepping down, Washington made room for something greater than human pride. Surely, no healthier redefinition of the idea of will can be imagined: the voluntary surrender of accumulated personal power for the common good.

Thomas Jefferson?s Bill of Rights
When Thomas Jefferson first saw a draft of the Constitution, he immediately urged that the Bill of Rights be added. Why did he believe it was necessary to add these guarantees of freedom of religion, speech, the press, the right to assembly, the right to petition for redress of grievances, and all the rights protecting the individual in matters of law, arrest, privacy, and personal security?

?Human rights? for Jefferson did not mean solely the right not to be interfered with by government. It meant the right to pursue one?s authentic obligations as a God-created and potentially godlike human being through the latent power of divine reason (or conscience) within oneself.

Democracy, Jefferson maintained, must be neutral with respect to sectarian religion, but positive spiritually and morally. Freedom of religion also meant freedom from religion, that is, freedom from imposed or suggested beliefs. Only within the frame of this freedom could individuals discover the moral and spiritual power of reason within themselves.

For Jefferson, the aim of self-government was not the satisfaction of desires, but the incarnation of our free will. The pursuit of happiness, as Jefferson and the Founding Fathers understood it, is not the pursuit of consumer products. The happiness Jefferson spoke of is a matter of the human spirit, our moral and intellectual faculties in harmony with nature.

Jefferson saw clearly the dark side of human nature and sought a form of government that would keep this aspect under control through a mechanism of force and counterforce resembling the way nature itself works. But he also passionately believed in the capacity of individual human beings to grow under specific conditions of communal life and individual effort. These conditions combine the development of the mind through free intellectual intercourse and free access to knowledge; the feelings, through the struggle to allow one?s neighbor the right to his opinion and his place in the social order; and the physical organic substrate of human nature through a life in direct contact with the Earth and its rhythms, its demands, its bounty, and its severity?namely through a life rooted in agriculture.

Democracy as a political system was to be the skin and bones that supported and protected the pulsing movement of human life toward the goal of individual obedience to reason and conscience, ?Nature?s God? within oneself. The new government, in Jefferson?s eyes, should be an armor that would allow and support the growth of moral power within the individual members of the society.

Frederick Douglass and America?s heart
On July 1, 1852, Frederick Douglass was the honored speaker at Corinthian Hall in Rochester, New York. Born into slavery in 1818, Douglass escaped to the North at the age of 20. He traveled throughout the northern states speaking about the meaning for America of slavery and its horrors, and became widely respected for his courage and intellect.

The bitter irony of a black man being invited to celebrate the Fourth of July was not lost on him?and he made certain it would not be lost on his audience.

Fellow citizens, pardon me, allow me to ask, why am I called upon to speak here today? ? The rich inheritance of justice, liberty, prosperity and independence, bequeathed by your fathers, is shared by you, not by me. The sunlight that brought life and healing to you, has brought stripes and death to me.

This Fourth of July is yours, not mine. You may rejoice, I must mourn. To drag a man in fetters into the grand illuminated temple of liberty and call upon him to join you in joyous anthems, were inhuman mockery and sacrilegious irony. Do you mean, citizens, to mock me, by asking me to speak today?
It was precisely because America was only recently conceived as an expression of humanity?s greatest moral ideals that its contradictions and failure called out so clearly. It was America?s greatness that makes its evil so clear and so shocking. In accepting the contradiction of slavery, America had lost its soul.

Look at yourself, said Douglass to America. Look at what you are and measure it against what you imagine you are and what your conscience tells you you must be. Be shocked, America! Be stunned, be overwhelmed by what you see, and feel at the center of your being the purifying fire of remorse.

Douglass then called for that rarest of movements a human being can make?a fusion of inner opening and decisive outer action. Feel the truth of what you are, America, and at the same moment act! Risk yourself for what you know is right and true. It was what Douglass himself had done when, as a 16-year-old slave, he committed the unthinkable act of physically turning against his slavemaster.

The hope of America cannot be renewed without acknowledging the reality of slavery and allowing its consequences to speak their truth to our hearts and minds. Seen in their universal meaning, America?s fundamental failures enable us to root our moral actions in the harsh soil of history, rather than in a vague and anxious self-condemnation or a mindless fog of self-justification. It is by facing our nightmares that we may pull ourselves free from America?s futile dreams of progress and face our role in the barbarism that has so deeply stained the fabric of human history.

American seekers
When we accept these truths about ourselves?both our triumphs and our failures?how will the story of America change? Will our heroes no longer be heroes? Our triumphs no longer triumphs?
Not at all. Instead, something entirely new and necessary will fill every limb and cell of the story of America, and that ?something? has a very precise designation?humility and remorse.

I seek neither to revile nor to romanticize the actions and actors of America?s past. The cultural hero of the present age is no longer the Warrior or the Savior or the Adventurer, the Lover, or the Wise Man. It is the Seeker. Our heroes will remain heroes, but now more clearly heroes of both the inner and the outer worlds of history.

We ask for a vision of America that can help us see more clearly what we actually are and what we can work to become. This is the same kind of vision that we need as individuals struggling for self-knowledge and moral power. Like America itself, we must discover how to look impartially at both our inner greatness and our profound weaknesses?self-deception, arrogance, and betrayal.

America is an original expression of ideas that have always been part of the great web of Truth. Explicitly and implicitly, the idea of America has resonated with this ancient, timeless wisdom and has allowed something of its power to touch the heart and mind of humanity. We must recover this resonance, this relationship, however tenuous and partial, between the teachings of wisdom and the idea of America. </font>
"The urge to dream, and the will to enable it is fundamental to being human and have coincided with what it is to be American." -- Neil deGrasse Tyson
intp '82er







Post#1788 at 04-05-2002 12:08 AM by [at joined #posts ]
---
04-05-2002, 12:08 AM #1788
Guest


"The roots of the American experiment in democracy reach back thousands of years, fed by our failures as well as our successes, our crimes as well as our ideals. When at last we learn humility, our republic will bloom."

You profess to be a Marxist, of sorts, Mr. Reed. Has not the Marxist "experiment" in totalitarian dictatorship ended, yet?

You have heard of the US Constitutional form of Republican government, of sorts, Mr. Reed. Has not Mr. Jefferson/Madison et al proven themselves as wise men?

Did these men not understand or learn "humility" well enough in your mind? Yet, Mr. Marx did learn these things? And so much so, that you would desire to follow his proven folly, and not proven wisdom of Jefferson/Madison et al?

Why are you so bent upon learning it all over again, Mr. Reed? Is the "bloom" of a rose not what you really seek? But rather, you seek, like Mr. Marx et al, a certain kind of revenge upon thine enemy?

At least be honest, Mr. Reed, be honest. :smile:





<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: Marc Lamb on 2002-04-04 21:13 ]</font>







Post#1789 at 04-05-2002 12:52 PM by Eric the Green [at San Jose CA joined Jul 2001 #posts 22,504]
---
04-05-2002, 12:52 PM #1789
Join Date
Jul 2001
Location
San Jose CA
Posts
22,504

Have you not heard of democratic socialism, Mr. Marc? The New Deal? Sweden? Social Democratic parties? Or must "the left" always be equated with "totalitarianism?" In fact Marc, conservatives are equally if not more often totalitarian. Would you describe Hitler as a democrat? Pinochet? How about the Taliban? The Saudi's? Marcos? Park? Bismarck?
Nixon, who tried to subvert democracy in the Watergate Affair?

Or thine own self Marc, who so vehemently opposes campaign finance reform, and thus, democracy??
_________________
Keep the Spirit Alive,
Eric Meece

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: Eric A Meece on 2002-04-05 09:55 ]</font>







Post#1790 at 04-05-2002 02:40 PM by Brian Rush [at California joined Jul 2001 #posts 12,392]
---
04-05-2002, 02:40 PM #1790
Join Date
Jul 2001
Location
California
Posts
12,392

You profess to be a Marxist, of sorts, Mr. Reed.

You profess to be an intelligent human being motivated by a Christian conscience, Mr. Lamb. And once in a while, you post words that lend credence to that claim.


Then again, there are the times when you respond to moving calls for living up to our national ideals, such as Robert presented, with hysterical screams of "Commie, commie, commie!" And that suggests either that you are an idiot, or that you are a hypocrite.


So I don't really know what to think.







Post#1791 at 04-05-2002 03:39 PM by [at joined #posts ]
---
04-05-2002, 03:39 PM #1791
Guest

What are you guys talking about?

Frank







Post#1792 at 04-05-2002 03:40 PM by Stonewall Patton [at joined Sep 2001 #posts 3,857]
---
04-05-2002, 03:40 PM #1792
Join Date
Sep 2001
Posts
3,857

On 2002-04-04 21:08, Marc Lamb wrote:

"The roots of the American experiment in democracy reach back thousands of years, fed by our failures as well as our successes, our crimes as well as our ideals. When at last we learn humility, our republic will bloom."

You profess to be a Marxist, of sorts, Mr. Reed. Has not the Marxist "experiment" in totalitarian dictatorship ended, yet?

You have heard of the US Constitutional form of Republican government, of sorts, Mr. Reed. Has not Mr. Jefferson/Madison et al proven themselves as wise men?

Did these men not understand or learn "humility" well enough in your mind? Yet, Mr. Marx did learn these things? And so much so, that you would desire to follow his proven folly, and not proven wisdom of Jefferson/Madison et al?

Why are you so bent upon learning it all over again, Mr. Reed? Is the "bloom" of a rose not what you really seek? But rather, you seek, like Mr. Marx et al, a certain kind of revenge upon thine enemy?

At least be honest, Mr. Reed, be honest. :smile:
Marc, do you actually have a criticism of the column which Robert posted?







Post#1793 at 04-05-2002 04:42 PM by angeli [at joined Jul 2001 #posts 1,114]
---
04-05-2002, 04:42 PM #1793
Join Date
Jul 2001
Posts
1,114

I thought that was a simply wonderful piece, really weaving together a lot of different threads. A lot of people don't realize how much our government was modeled on the Iroquois Nation.

Who is this guy Robert?







Post#1794 at 04-05-2002 05:25 PM by [at joined #posts ]
---
04-05-2002, 05:25 PM #1794
Guest




Ladies and Gentlemen,

I clearly addressed my question to young Mr. Reed. While I can certainly understand your desire to shield one of your own from the wiles of the demon right, I am inclined to think Mr. Reed is quite up to task of debating with Mr. Lamb without assistance.

Thank you.

p.s. At least, that is, for a couple of volleys, if Mr. Reed is even so inclined to fire one himself. :smile:









Post#1795 at 04-05-2002 06:25 PM by Rain Man [at Bendigo, Australia joined Jun 2001 #posts 1,303]
---
04-05-2002, 06:25 PM #1795
Join Date
Jun 2001
Location
Bendigo, Australia
Posts
1,303

On 2002-04-05 11:40, Brian Rush wrote:


You profess to be an intelligent human being motivated by a Christian conscience, Mr. Lamb. And once in a while, you post words that lend credence to that claim.


Then again, there are the times when you respond to moving calls for living up to our national ideals, such as Robert presented, with hysterical screams of "Commie, commie, commie!" And that suggests either that you are an idiot, or that you are a hypocrite.


So I don't really know what to think.
Marc might have phrased the question to Robert wrongly, however I have great suspicion of people who think Marxism was noble in theory and just bad in practice and that true Marxism is yet to be implemented. When people say that kind of thing, they have to be regarded as well a little nutty.







Post#1796 at 04-05-2002 06:38 PM by Stonewall Patton [at joined Sep 2001 #posts 3,857]
---
04-05-2002, 06:38 PM #1796
Join Date
Sep 2001
Posts
3,857

On 2002-04-05 15:25, Tristan Jones wrote:

On 2002-04-05 11:40, Brian Rush wrote:



You profess to be an intelligent human being motivated by a Christian conscience, Mr. Lamb. And once in a while, you post words that lend credence to that claim.


Then again, there are the times when you respond to moving calls for living up to our national ideals, such as Robert presented, with hysterical screams of "Commie, commie, commie!" And that suggests either that you are an idiot, or that you are a hypocrite.


So I don't really know what to think.
Marc might have phrased the question to Robert wrongly, however I have great suspicion of people who think Marxism was noble in theory and just bad in practice and that true Marxism is yet to be implemented. When people say that kind of thing, they have to be regarded as well a little nutty.
Tristan, I agree with you completely about those types of people. But I have never known Robert to embrace Marxism as noble in theory. In fact he calls himself a capitalist. Maybe I have not been here long enough to know the truth but it looks to me like Marc set up a bogus argument and Robert has not responded for good reason.







Post#1797 at 04-05-2002 10:29 PM by angeli [at joined Jul 2001 #posts 1,114]
---
04-05-2002, 10:29 PM #1797
Join Date
Jul 2001
Posts
1,114

Uh.

Where did the article Robert posted refer to Marxism? I just re-read it and maybe I'm just way tired, but I see references to peace, democracy, anti-slavery and human rights and nothing whatsoever about economic theory or class warfare of any kind.

I'm sure those of you who've had more sleep than I can point out what I've missed here. :smile:







Post#1798 at 04-06-2002 02:46 AM by Ciao [at joined Mar 2002 #posts 907]
---
04-06-2002, 02:46 AM #1798
Join Date
Mar 2002
Posts
907

uh.
Have you ever considered how hot you are?







Post#1799 at 04-06-2002 09:52 AM by [at joined #posts ]
---
04-06-2002, 09:52 AM #1799
Guest

Change in topic. Regarding the thred core question on whether we are early in 4T or late in 3T, here is an article from today's Washington Post that describes life early in the last 4T. It combines an analysis of newly-released U.S. Census data with interviews from some surviving nonagerians.

Here is the link. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...-2002Apr5.html.

Here is the article.

Glimpsing Time Before Depression Took Hold
U.S. Census Opens the Book On Washington Life in 1930

Pauline Jones, 93, says she starts the newspaper each day with the comics. She recalls the Depression days when boys her age would sell newspapers on the corner.

On Euclid Street that spring, the census takers found Wellington J. Voss residing with his sisters, Mary, Irma and Anna, who had just lost their pet Airedale.

Charles L. Kessler was still on his way back with Admiral Byrd's South Pole expedition, but he was counted anyhow at his father's home on Foxhall Road. Occupation: "Explorer."

And on East Capitol Street, the census tallied Helen A. White, a clerk's wife, who had just been saved by a blood transfusion after the birth of her 12th child.

The stock market had briefly revived, and the cherry blossoms were in full bloom. A federal Prohibition agent had been murdered by rumrunners. And a "colored girl" on Wallach Place advertised for work as a maid. "Neat," she added. "References."

It was April 1930. "Is Every-bod-ee Happy?" bandleader Ted Lewis crooned.

In Washington, the U.S. Census Bureau had questions of its own -- 32, to be exact, posed in its detailed once-a-decade national head count.

Things seemed okay. A Chevy Roadster that spring cost $495. A man's suit, with trousers and knickers, $45. A five-course dinner at the Collier Inn on Columbia Road NW was $1.

You could be buried for $100.

Buck Rogers was in the comics. The planet Pluto had just been discovered. Nevada executed gambler Robert H. White in the gas chamber for murder.

On April 2, a pleasant Wednesday, the federal government dispatched 87,800 "enumerators" across the country -- 403 in Washington alone -- to conduct the 1930 Census. They were paid 4 cents for each name counted, 40 to 50 cents for each farm visited.

The tally took several weeks to complete, though the official day of record was April 1: How old were you, as of April 1? Were you employed, as of April 1? Though the general statistics would be public, the bureau assured people that their personal data would be confidential. It would remain so, by law, for 72 years.

Last week, that time was up. On Monday, officials at the National Archives snipped a red, white and blue ribbon across the huge nickel alloy doors to Room 400 and for the first time opened to the public the details of that long-ago count.

Penciled across tens of thousands of microfilmed broadsheets was a snapshot of America. Names, addresses, ages, employment, race, ethnicity, marital and employment status, military service, home value, and whether or not a family possesed that telling marker of success: a radio.

It was a portrait taken at a fascinating moment in the nation's history. The Roaring '20s had just ended, and the country, somewhat innocently, was starting to plunge into the Great Depression, and on to a global cataclysm.

Herbert Hoover was in the White House, or fishing on Virginia's Rapidan River, and Franklin D. Roosevelt that fall would be reelected governor of New York by a landslide. Prohibition was a decade old and almost out of steam.

On the phonograph that April, they were playing Duke Ellington's "Mood Indigo," Rudy Vallee's "Kansas City Kitty" and a number called "High and Dry," by Irving Mills and his Hotsy-Totsy Gang.

The Marx brothers, Al Jolson, Eddie Cantor and Ginger Rogers were in the movies. Cole Porter, George and Ira Gershwin and Irving Berlin wrote songs. And from the radio drifted "I Got Rhythm," "Puttin' on the Ritz" and, somewhat prematurely, "Happy Days Are Here Again."

The fourth decade of the 20th century was three months old. But much of the nation was still rooted in the 1800s.

Washington, like the rest of the country, was utterly segregated, and newspapers of that year carried accounts of almost monthly southern lynchings and other killings -- one black man was burned at the stake that February in Ocilla, Ga.

"It was awful," longtime black District resident Pauline Johnson Jones, 93, recalled last week. "It was a divided city, but we had our own life, our own society."

Jones and her four siblings were raised by their mother, a widowed postal worker, in a house in the 1600 block of O Street NW.

"The boys sold newspapers on the corner," she said. "Back then, there were 'extras,' and when the boys called out 'extra,' everyone would rush over to see what the latest news was." Heating and cooking were done with coal.

But there were also good times, she said. For Jones and other African American Washington residents of 1930, the good times were on the Black Broadway, as U Street between Seventh and 16th streets NW was called.

Just out of Armstrong High School, Jones dressed up and went to the Howard Theater, the Crystal Caverns and the Lincoln Theater Collonade with her friends.

"We heard Duke Ellington and all those great, great artists," she said. "And we did get dressed. People dressed in those days. We didn't have any jeans then."

Beyond the smart crowds on U Street, the census takers would find that nationwide, there were still 124,000 blacksmiths, 11,000 coopers, 111,000 draymen, teamsters and carriage drivers, and 5,000 boatmen, canalmen and lock keepers.

There were also 40,000 charwomen, 18,000 bootblacks, 19,000 icemen and 17,000 "healers."

But the 1930 Census also found clear signs that the nation was headed someplace new and exciting and mysterious. There were door-to-door salesmen and product demonstrators, along with 26,000 credit men, 67,000 elevator tenders and 6,097 aviators -- 66 of them women.

People seemed crazy for technology. Auto manufacturers were putting radios in cars, generating debate over the safety of such a move. How could one drive and listen -- or tune -- at the same time?

But people did. Harold Gray, 94, a retired Washington lobbyist, was a junior at George Washington University that spring. He recalled cruising the capital in a buddy's Model T. The city speed limit: 22 mph.

Traffic lights and stop signs were few, he said. And out in the country, one could tear along at 50 mph. "In my youthful driving experience," he said, "I got a couple of speeding tickets."

Richard Beale, also 94, of Asbury Methodist Village, in Gaithersburg, was then a 22-year-old resident of 14th Street NE. He got his first car in 1930, a four-door Ford. But he recalled that driving was done with care: "You had to watch out for the horses and wagons."

It was aviation, though, that had seized the public mind. The news was filled with airplane stunts -- barnstormer Roscoe Turner flew with his pet lion cub in the cockpit -- cross-country hops and weekly air tragedies.

The papers carried aviation weather, and some had aviation pages. The Alexandria Gazette reported that the George Washington airport, three miles south of the city, would be the American terminal for the new trans-Atlantic Zeppelin line. Service was expected in July.

That February, an actor's ashes were sprinkled from an airplane over Broadway. Two weeks later, a deaf man was killed parachuting from an airplane to try to regain his hearing. That June, the birth of Charles Lindbergh's first child made front-page headlines.

And as the enumerators went to work, Western Air Express promised to get travelers from Washington to California in the fabulous time of 49 hours.

That year, the census would estimate 122,775,046 U.S. residents -- about 108,000,000 whites, about 11,000,000 blacks and about 1,700,000 Mexican, Chinese and Native Americans. The District's population was 486,869 -- 72 percent white, 27 percent black. Maryland had about 1.6 million residents, Virginia 2.4 million.

Forty percent of the nation's families reported that they had a radio. In the capital, 54 percent of families owned radios. In Maryland and Virginia, 42.9 percent and 18.2 percent of families, respectively, owned one.

Nationally, 60 percent of males and 61 percent of females over 14 said they were married. Only 1.1 percent of males and 1.3 percent of females said they were divorced. In the District, 59 percent of males and 53 percent of females were married. In Maryland and Virginia, 59 percent of males and females were married.

Children ages 5 to 9 made up the country's largest age group, as they did Maryland's and Virginia's. Adults 20 to 24 made up Washington's largest age segment.

There were 4 million people across the country who said they were illiterate.

The stock market crash the previous fall had been gigantic. Historian T.H. Watkins has written that in five hours of trading on Oct. 29, "Black Tuesday," the modern equivalent of $95 billion vanished in a financial Armageddon.

But by April, things seemed to have recovered. The so-called "little bull market" had taken hold. "The signs of vigor and confidence are as unmistakable as the signs of spring," The Washington Post said the day before the census. "The winter of discontent is over."

It was at this moment, as the nation blithely teetered at the edge of the Depression, that the census takers left on their mission. The baseball and horse racing seasons were starting. Please, the bureau told its enumerators, "write legibly."

They tried.

As they spread through the city that month, knocking on doors, sitting at kitchen tables, chatting on doorsteps, they touched all the city's communities.

At 1524 East Capitol St., they found the White family: William, 34, his wife, Helen, 33, and their 12 children ranging in age from 11 years to 2 months. (Their census entry shows they had 6-year-old twins.)

According to a newspaper account of the time, Mrs. White had been saved by a radio station's blood drive held after she underwent postpartum surgery two days before. Her husband told the census he was an unemployed clerk, and veteran of the "WW," the World War.

On Rhode Island Avenue, near Logan Circle, the census found millionaire lawyer Walter Denegre, 50, who described himself as retired. Also resident were his wife, Bertha, 50; 10 servants; and his chauffeur's three children.

On Wallach Place NW, in the Shaw neighborhood, enumerators called on the family of James P. Kestersom, 55. Someone there had just placed a classified ad in the paper looking for work. "GIRL, colored," it said. "Neat. Wants job, pantry work or maid; references."

The enumerator recorded that Kestersom, an unemployed government laborer, lived with his wife, Lena, 50, who described herself as a working "child nurse"; their daughter, Sylvia, 12; and a "lodger," Catherine Josephs, 20. The family reported that they owned their $7,000 house and a radio.

On Euclid Street NW, the census found Wellington Voss, 33, and his sisters, who had just placed an ad seeking their lost Airedale. Voss described himself as a "newspaper writer," and his obituary 44 years later in New Hampshire noted that he had once worked for two Washington papers.

At 1600 Foxhall Rd. on April 9, Leroy P. Kessler, 53, a Navy Yard electrician, and his wife, Katherine, 48, were still awaiting the arrival of their explorer son, Charles, 25.

He would be home in June, when Adm. Richard E. Byrd returned from the expedition that had taken him on his sensational flight to the South Pole the previous November.

Some people the census just missed. The day before it began, the ashes of Dr. Clara Nicolay, a retired teacher who had lived in an apartment building on Second Street NE, had been sprinkled by friends on the Potomac River beneath the blooming cherry trees.

And some people barely made the cutoff.

On April 12, enumerator Olive C. Peters visited the home of George C. Brown, 81, charter member of the Frederick Douglass Relief Association, and his wife, Emma, 56, and recorded them both.

Brown had died April 1, according to a newspaper death notice, living just long enough, apparently, to make the census date of record.

By summer, the work was done. By then, the stock market was headed down again. In September, the Nazis made electoral gains in Germany. In November, there was a bank panic in the South. And in December a big New York bank, with $202 million in deposits, went under.

Fifteen years of war and economic depression lay ahead. But gazing back over seven decades last week, Pauline Johnson Jones said: "I feel very fortunate. I look back over those years and remember how very close we were. We had a very wonderful life."

Staff researchers Bobbye Pratt and Mary Lou White contributed to this report.


? 2002 The Washington Post Company







Post#1800 at 04-06-2002 09:54 AM by Virgil K. Saari [at '49er, north of the Mesabi Mountains joined Jun 2001 #posts 7,835]
---
04-06-2002, 09:54 AM #1800
Join Date
Jun 2001
Location
'49er, north of the Mesabi Mountains
Posts
7,835

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