Originally Posted by Mike Alexander '59

They have completely moved away from the original 88-year idea which implied the start of the next turning in the 2010's, but they had already done this in T4T; they simply weren't explicit about it.

This is the principal reason why I think your generational power analysis is flawed. It is a valid application of S&H's theory, but the theory appears to be flawed, S&H implicitly invalidated their theory in T4T, but did not deal formally with this issue.

While the article does couch a great deal, it's headline, "Generation 2000: America's new conformists," spoke volumes to me. Unless I'm reading it wrong, S&H have just fixed the Millennial generation at just eighteen years (1982-1999). Do the math, and elders, while living much longer as a generation, are now a very youthful fifty-eight years of age. That's down eleven years from what it was with the Missionary crowd.

While this may thrill the folks at AARP, I find somewhat dubious to continue to tout a four-legged chair which clearly has five!

I can certainly allow for considerable slop in a theory of history, after all that's generally what history is, sloppy. But I think it back to the drawing board for the idea that includes one twenty year and three eighteen year generations constituting a complete saeculum.

Why, it ain't natural. It's anomalous! :wink:

Originally Posted by TrollKing

Originally Posted by R.D..

This war shit rocks.....I am pumped dudes

*yawn*


TK

Hey, Troll King, can't you do something about your subjects? Put a leash on them or something...

Originally Posted by R.D..

KICK THEIR ASS
AND
TAKE THEIR GAS


PARTY ON

2 legit to quit, dude (accompanied by the proper hand gestures).

Originally Posted by John Wayne

Hey, Troll King, can't you do something about your subjects? Put a leash on them or something...

i prefer euthanasia. leashes are so unbecoming.


TK

Free Speech, and the Anti-war Crowd

• "It works only one way with you people, don't it?
  If you spit on people you don't like, it's annointed spit,
  a siliva of a pure sort, a holy and indeed well deserved
  slam upon those you deem unworthy of breathing."

Yesterday's quote:

(3/31/03, 7 a.m. ET) -- The Dixie Chicks controversy continues with the trio getting some support from former Vice President Al Gore. Gore spoke to a college audience last week on the subject of fewer companies owning more media outlets, and what he sees as the increasing lack of tolerance for opposing views.

According to the Tennessean, Gore used recent attacks on the Dixie Chicks that followed anti-war comments by Natalie Maines as an example. Gore told the audience, "They were made to feel un-American and risked economic retaliation because of what was said. Our democracy has taken a hit," Gore said. "Our best protection is free and open debate."

Today's quote:

Originally Posted by Kiff '61

I believe it was this thread in which the Trent Lott fiasco was discussed last December, if I'm not mistaken.

Here is Senator Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania on the pending Supreme Court case dealing with the anti-sodomy law in Texas: "If the Supreme Court says that you have the right to consensual (gay) sex within your home, then you have the right to bigamy, you have the right to polygamy, you have the right to incest, you have the right to adultery. You have the right to anything."

Is Mr. Santorum going to lose his leadership position as Mr. Lott did?

Hmmm, I guess "Our democracy" is about to take another "hit." Either that or this free speech thing only works one way, huh? :wink:

Originally Posted by Marc S. Lamb

While the article does couch a great deal, it's headline, "Generation 2000: America's new conformists," spoke volumes to me. Unless I'm reading it wrong, S&H have just fixed the Millennial generation at just eighteen years (1982-1999). Do the math, and elders, while living much longer as a generation, are now a very youthful fifty-eight years of age. That's down eleven years from what it was with the Missionary crowd.

While this may thrill the folks at AARP, I find somewhat dubious to continue to tout a four-legged chair which clearly has five!

I can certainly allow for considerable slop in a theory of history, after all that's generally what history is, sloppy. But I think it back to the drawing board for the idea that includes one twenty year and three eighteen year generations constituting a complete saeculum.

Why, it ain't natural. It's anomalous! :wink:

Hmm do you suppose they are moving toward my idea of a 72 year saeculum?

Mike,

I don't think S&H necessarily invalidated their theory or the generational mechanism behind it at all. Their modification in T4T from what they stated in Generations was clearly spelled out.

They said that the youth phase contracted from apx. 25 years long to apx. 21 years long. They explained this by saying that the age that one is culturally seen as an autonomous adult dropped by a few years and they gave one explanation as the drop of physical/sexual maturation (to the tune of three years over the past two centuries) --and this HAS occurred, due to some yet-to-be fully understood environmental reasons presumably associated the post-agricultural world.

Though they left out any other reasons, I would add that Industrial society further lowered that age by emphasizing the nuclear family at the expense of the extended family, whereby young twentysomethings were not as likely to get support from older family members. There are perhaps other aspects of the Post-Agricultural world that also lend themselves to this phenomenon (ie., the shortening of the youth phase where the Saecular cycle is concerned).

If you stick with their analogy that the length of the youth phase sets the aproximate length of the other phases as the distance from solstice to equinox does the seasons, and presto, you have a shortened Saeculum.

Heck, kids seem to be getting older and older at younger and younger ages, if you know what I mean. I wouldn't be surprised if saecularly-speaking the phase length dropped to 20.

Who knows, maybe S&H are full of crap, maybe the Saeculum is just a very imaginative fiction. But I think they are really on to something and I see the generational mechanism they identified as the only thing that makes sense in terms of the self-perpetuating nature of it all.

Originally Posted by Justin '77

Originally Posted by John Wayne

Originally Posted by TrollKing

so, it looks like we may have all the oil we need....

http://www.discover.com/may_03/gther...e=featoil.html


TK

Very, very cool.

I particularly am impressed with the way they appear to have brought the efficiency up from a negative (more consumed in process than the LHV of products produced) to 85%. Isn't chemical engineering grand?

And in the interim, while we're still building enough conversion plants to convert all of our discarded chicken parts into oil, there will still be plenty of oil from other sources.

Here is yet another example of the fundamental resiliance of the world's industrial capitalist system. No warnings of the severity of future resource shortages should be made before taking into account all natural market mechanisms, including the tendency of shortages to lead to not only conservation, but also development of alternatives sources.

Due to improved technology and higher oil prices, Alberta’s vast oil sands are now economically viable for oil production.

New stature for Canadian oil sands

Estimates of Canada’s oil reserves jumped from 4.9 billion barrels to 180 billion this year, making the country the second-largest oil reserve in the world, according to an annual survey conducted by the Oil and Gas Journal. The change catapults Canada ahead of Iraq in terms of reserve size, and decreases OPEC’s share of the world’s oil reserves by more than 10 percent.

It's not about oil, folks. Still,

NO OIL FOR PACIFISTS!

Screw the Canadian sands, dittohead, and concentrate on extracting a few Evil Doers and theirs WMD from the sands of Iraq. Where are Butch Hussein and The Bin Laden Kid, anyway? This is the most expensive posse every assembled to catch a couple of common criminals. Where are those Evil Doers? Where are those Evil weapons? Huh, Mr. Wayne?

Originally Posted by Croaker'39

Screw the Canadian sands, dittohead, and concentrate on extracting a few Evil Doers and theirs WMD from the sands of Iraq. Where are Butch Hussein and The Bin Laden Kid, anyway? This is the most expensive posse every assembled to catch a couple of common criminals. Where are those Evil Doers? Where are those Evil weapons? Huh, Mr. Wayne?

Croaker, I take enough guff from better debaters than you who are at least conversant in S & H theory.

Significant evidence all of the following:

(1) WMD in Iraq

(2) International terrorism support in Iraq (and Bush has maintained since 9/2001 that this war is not confined to Al Qaeda, Brian. I have been ignoring your protests regarding this intentionally as not worth my time.)

(3) Al Queda itself in Iraq

were found before the war, during the war, and continue to be found after the war. If the "better debaters" are unwilling to accept the evidence. why should I bother with you. Perhaps two months from now, Powell will bother to present a new summary to the U.N., not that it matters. Everyone in power, including people like Chirac, knew that all 3 were there all along. Heck, we have the invoices from French and German companies to prove it, as has been pointed out in German media.

Just today, we have yet another incidence of Al Qaeda activity in Iraq, and this time the Al Qaeda operative was openly collaborating with Baathists. But, of course, those who have already made up their mind will ignore it (again).

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...2003Apr22.html

...police in Karbala arrested six men who had been planning to blow up two of the city's mosques.

Five of the detainees claimed to be members of Saddam's Baath Party, and one said he belonged to al-Qaida, said Capt. Jimmie Cummings, spokesman...

A couple of weeks ago, Austrailan citizens were killed in Iraq by an Al Qaeda branch, but nobody wants to pay attention to these things.

Iraqi support of other international terrorists groups is not denied by any knowledgable observer, and Iraqi scientists, now free to speak without fear of retribution, have already gone on record saying that Iraq did indeed have WMD, and have shown where they were hidden.

Go croak somewhere else, ignorant one.

As for Huessein, Bin Laden welcomed him to Hell over a week ago.

Originally Posted by John Wayne

NO OIL FOR PACIFISTS!

who cares, can't drink the stuff anyway.

Mr. Wayne, you're buying canned soup off the shelf. Canned talk off the air. Canned ideas off the shelf of insecurity.

You can take your war and your enemies and put them in a can, too, 'cause I don't think you're thinking very clearly.

And I'll measure you toe to toe, Mr. Wayne, sir, on any old trivial feature of S&H theory you want to bring up.

Originally Posted by Croaker'39

Mr. Wayne, you're buying canned soup off the shelf. Canned talk off the air. Canned ideas off the shelf of insecurity.

Croakmiester!

Croakerinno!

Let me get this straight. When confronted with evidence from mainstream news sources such as the Washington Post and the New York Times (see below, for example), you accuse me of "buying canned soup".

The question I ask you, Croakola, is this: What are YOUR sources that I am wrong? Are you PSYCHIC?

Another example, from the NY Times three days ago.

Illicit Arms Kept Till Eve of War


...the scientist led Americans to a supply of material that proved to be the building blocks of illegal weapons, which he claimed to have buried as evidence of Iraq's illicit weapons programs.

The scientist also told American weapons experts that Iraq had secretly sent unconventional weapons and technology to Syria, starting in the mid-1990's, and that more recently Iraq was cooperating with Al Qaeda...

...the scientist told them that President Saddam Hussein's government had destroyed some stockpiles of deadly agents as early as the mid-1990's, transferred others to Syria, and had recently focused its efforts instead on research and development projects that are virtually impervious to detection by international inspectors, and even American forces on the ground combing through Iraq's giant weapons plants.

...the material unearthed over the last three days at sites to which he led them had proved to be precursors for a toxic agent that is banned by chemical weapons treaties.

The officials' account of the scientist's assertions and the discovery of the buried material, which they described as the most important discovery to date in the hunt for illegal weapons, supports the Bush administration's charges that Iraq continued to develop those weapons and lied to the United Nations about it.

Originally Posted by Croaker'39

And I'll measure you toe to toe, Mr. Wayne, sir, on any old trivial feature of S&H theory you want to bring up.

Well, how about the non-trivial question of the starting and ending birthdates of the defined generations? For example, that little incident where you described Private Jessica Lynch as "too young" to be a Millie, and said she was probably an one of the New Artist generation:

Originally Posted by Croaker'39

Pfc. Jessica Lynch, likely to become the first popular hero of the Iraqi War, is only 19. She’s too young, in my estimation, to be of the Hero mold, or a Millie. But maybe she is just a very late one. On the other hand, she may be on the leading edge of my generational archetype—the thumb-sucking Artist. In which case, will there soon be a name for these Silent-esque children who sheepishly take bullets for the Holy Cause?

Originally Posted by Sean Love

Mike,

I don't think S&H necessarily invalidated their theory or the generational mechanism behind it at all. Their modification in T4T from what they stated in Generations was clearly spelled out.

They said that the youth phase contracted from apx. 25 years long to apx. 21 years long. They explained this by saying that the age that one is culturally seen as an autonomous adult dropped by a few years and they gave one explanation as the drop of physical/sexual maturation (to the tune of three years over the past two centuries) --and this HAS occurred, due to some yet-to-be fully understood environmental reasons presumably associated the post-agricultural world.

Though they left out any other reasons, I would add that Industrial society further lowered that age by emphasizing the nuclear family at the expense of the extended family, whereby young twentysomethings were not as likely to get support from older family members. There are perhaps other aspects of the Post-Agricultural world that also lend themselves to this phenomenon (ie., the shortening of the youth phase where the Saecular cycle is concerned).

If you stick with their analogy that the length of the youth phase sets the aproximate length of the other phases as the distance from solstice to equinox does the seasons, and presto, you have a shortened Saeculum.

Heck, kids seem to be getting older and older at younger and younger ages, if you know what I mean. I wouldn't be surprised if saecularly-speaking the phase length dropped to 20.

Who knows, maybe S&H are full of crap, maybe the Saeculum is just a very imaginative fiction. But I think they are really on to something and I see the generational mechanism they identified as the only thing that makes sense in terms of the self-perpetuating nature of it all.

This is merely an explanation for why turnings/generations have shortened. It's not their model. Their model have turnings produced by a generational constellation of three adult generations, one of which are elders, who are age 3X-4X, where X is the average generation length.

The average length of the first 10 generations listed in T4T was 27 years. This means that T4T established a lengthy era when elderhood began at age 81, which is simply too old for any role to be played by elders. That is, for this period, prophets played NO ROLE in secular crises because they were dead by the time the crisis came. (Consult your history, you will find no roles played by prophets in the War of the Roses, the Armada or the Glorious Revolution crises). The leading figures are all Nomads or Heroes. But this role (the gray champion) is CENTRAL to their theory of how generations produce cyclical history.

Even in Generations the Colonial generations were too long for their theory. S&H sidestepped this issue by de-emphasizing the colonial generations in favor of the 13 "American generations" whose average length of 22 years fit in well with the phase of life concept. But by adding six more long generations to the long colonial generations there were simply too many long generations for the 22-year average to cover. This observational fact of a great many "too-long" generations implicitly destroys the theory, although S&H did no come out and say this.

As for shorter generations, Marc Lamb brings up the point well. Elders aged 58-76 are simply too young. This would have 77+ year-olds play no role at all (being the "fifth leg" Marc alludes too). I point out that Fed Chairman Greenspan is 77 and Chief Justice Rehnquist is 78.

Originally Posted by Zachariah

Originally Posted by John Wayne

NO OIL FOR PACIFISTS!

who cares, can't drink the stuff anyway.

mmmmmm.... extra virgin!

Originally Posted by Mike Alexander '59

As for shorter generations, Marc Lamb brings up the point well. Elders aged 58-76 are simply too young. This would have 77+ year-olds play no role at all (being the "fifth leg" Marc alludes too). I point out that Fed Chairman Greenspan is 77 and Chief Justice Rehnquist is 78.

Incidently, Mike & Marc, I am enjoying your conversation on this, and appreciate that people are carefully thinking about these things.

I'm as guilty as any for turning this board into a free-for-all on issues not strictly related to S & H theory, so I thought I'd point that out.

Originally Posted by John Wayne

Originally Posted by Croaker'39

And I'll measure you toe to toe, Mr. Wayne, sir, on any old trivial feature of S&H theory you want to bring up.

Well, how about the non-trivial question of the starting and ending birthdates of the defined generations? For example, that little incident where you described Private Jessica Lynch as "too young" to be a Millie, and said she was probably an one of the New Artist generation:

Originally Posted by Croaker'39

Pfc. Jessica Lynch, likely to become the first popular hero of the Iraqi War, is only 19. She?s too young, in my estimation, to be of the Hero mold, or a Millie. But maybe she is just a very late one. On the other hand, she may be on the leading edge of my generational archetype?the thumb-sucking Artist. In which case, will there soon be a name for these Silent-esque children who sheepishly take bullets for the Holy Cause?

OK, Mr. Wayne, it's 15-love. I don't know what I was thinking. No excuses, really. You're right on that score. Of course she's a Millie Hero. I've got to quit hanging my head out the window while my wife is driving.

Humbled.

--Croaker

OK, Croaker, re: Jessica Lynch, apology accepted. I won't mention it again as long as you don't bring up my mistake about which presidential candidate carried Illinois in 2000.

Originally Posted by John Wayne

Significant evidence all of the following:

(1) WMD in Iraq

(2) International terrorism support in Iraq (and Bush has maintained since 9/2001 that this war is not confined to Al Qaeda, Brian. I have been ignoring your protests regarding this intentionally as not worth my time.)

(3) Al Queda itself in Iraq

were found before the war, during the war, and continue to be found after the war.

I heard on the radio just today that the US government said that it has not found any WMDs in Iraq so far. So far they have searched half of about 150 sites identified before the war as probable locations for WMDs. The US is NOT sitting on its hands here. A serious efort to locate these weapons is underway. None have been found so far.

Are you saying that we had specific information on the location of WMDs when Hussein was still in power, but now that WE are in control we cannot use this information to find the weapons? This makes no sense.

John:

Bush has maintained since 9/2001 that this war is not confined to Al Qaeda, Brian.

Since you seem to have decided that this is worth your time after all . . .

Regardless of what Bush does or does not maintain, al-Qaeda attacked us, not "terrorists" in general. I'm sure Bush would, if he could, maintain that this was a war against anyone he wants to go to war with. But that doesn't make it so.

And incidentally, we need to have, not evidence of "al-Qaeda itself in Iraq," but something much more specific: evidence of Saddam Hussein's support for al-Qaeda. AFAIK the only evidence related to a minor member of the organization getting medical treatment in northern Iraq, which wasn't under Saddam's control at the time anyway.

It's Angelo remember. I called you. I've read in generations that 2003 is

our 3t constellation. But what about Sept.11,2001? 2004 is a 4t year and
]
that is our next election. The last one was so stupid with Al-Gore wanting

the Fla recount. Bush is the real winner. Check my forum topics in the

fourth turning. Look for Millennials Rule and European Union. Tell Neil

Howe the same thing as well. So he could give an economic basis on Xers

and Mills versus the Euro currency and EU.

Where are you from, Angelo? Your perspective is quite different and refreshing. I think Millies will make 1984 a reality if things keep going like they are. But I think Xers will be the real leaders, and Millies will just steal the thunder.

haha

Originally Posted by Brian Rush

And incidentally, we need to have, not evidence of "al-Qaeda itself in Iraq," but something much more specific: evidence of Saddam Hussein's support for al-Qaeda. AFAIK the only evidence

There has been a lot more evidence.

Even for people out of the intelligence loop, such as you and me, there have been enough dots to connect if you don't keep erasing them.

Here's another, from today's Christian Science Monitor:

Officer's tale: Iraq's web of assassination


Abu Sakkar, who managed for four years to avoid the call up for assassin duty, finally went through a training course late last year to kill British and American soldiers.

He was actually given a supervisory role in a training course for foreign Arab fighters who came to Baghdad to fight US and British forces.

"We were trained to ambush and kill American forces in Baghdad," he says. "The government wanted unmarried people like myself, and we were chosen by Abbas al-Dulami, the police chief. They told us not to talk about the course with anyone. When the war started, we were taken to the camps with these Arab fighters, but they had been told not to talk to us. Some of them were being trained for operations outside Iraq."

The young officer, curious as to whom he had been sent to work with, asked a more senior Iraqi intelligence officer present at the time, who the strangers were. He was told that they were members of Osama bin Laden's Al Qaeda organization

Here's a bit of news concerning the Iranian pro-democracy movement:

General Strike Set in Iran In Bid To Topple Mullahs: Date of July 9 Puts U.S. on the Spot


Mark the date: July 9. That’s when op-ponents

of the Iranian regime have called a general strike that they hope will expand to topple the government there and bring freedom and democracy to the Iranian people.

The strike is being organized by profreedom student groups to coincide with the fourth anniversary of the last student uprising in Iran that saw thousands of students take to the streets against the Islamic Republic’s ruling mullahs.

The planned event — indeed, the Iranian freedom movement as a whole — could take on a new dimension now that Iran’s western neighbor, Iraq, is free from Saddam Hussein’s tyranny.

Policy experts have speculated that a liberated Iraq could embolden Iranian freedom fighters to rise up and mount a serious challenge to the ruling mullahs.

The July 9 strike is also putting Washington on the spot, as policymakers scramble to decide how the American government should respond.

Some say that American encouragement could make the difference in getting a protest large enough to topple the Iranian government, which President Bush has called part of the "axis of evil."

Reza Pahlavi, the son of the late shah of Iran, has been in touch with student organizers and is lending his support to the event.

"This could be a major turning point. It is crucial for the world community to pick up on this," Mr. Pahlavi told The New York Sun.

"The best way to invest in regime change in Iran is through the people of Iran themselves. It is so important at this stage to be supportive of the Iranian people and give them this moral solace that they’re not alone."

Mr. Pahlavi told the Sun the mullahs’ "days are numbered" and that "Iranian society is picking up on these vibes."

The optimism of the Iranian opposition movement is palpable, despite a lack of attention in the Western press.