The main roots of anarchism were in Catholic and Greek Orthodox Europe. I don't think anyone would call it a mainly American phenomenon.

The Washington Post has an interesting article on the budget consequences of the Medicare and Energy bills.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...03Nov23_2.html

They are disastrous, and the quotes, from both liberal and conservative budget hawks, show that despite Bush's bold rhetoric, the new Congress is as irresponsible as Congress was in the 1980s. They are bringing the 4T about, not dealing with it.

David K '47

P. S. I don't really agree with the comment about the death of the western alliance, which, post '89, fought two wars together over Kuwait and Kosovo. The Europeans remain committed to solving problems through international cooperation. We had a unique opportunity to move the world in that direction. Instead we have brought back international anarchy. There's a new book out by a rather conservative analyst called Rogue Nation (Prestowitz is his name). It's about us.

During the last similar time frame, the League of Nations emerged, and from I had read of it, the League was such a colossal failure that it disintegrated and actually helped bring the last 4T and WWII about.

Have not read Rogue Nation, but do wonder whether this time around the enemy could just as easily be from within rather than from without.

Bush is a strange fiscal conservative to be certain.

What got me thinking about this all over again were all the talk about Hillary running or not, and then the gay marriage issue. Everyone is deeply opinionated about this, and it works well as a dividing issue.

While there are a number of shaky things going on in the world right now, none of them force on the public the feeling of crisis that 911 did. So I am thinking, we are not quite there yet. If however, both sides lined up to duke out over leaving bush in the white house, and what to do about gay marriage, we could be left on a warfield where all the combatants are dead.

Which brings me to my next question, and forgive me if you've hashed this out already, but what are our major weaknesses? What could go south when thigns start to change?

I see oil dependence, and low efficiency for power in general, housing values, especially in sprawl dominated places, aging infrastructure and now, gov't debt as high as comsumer debt as problems that could haunt us in a spiral.


PS thanks for the friendly reception.

To the previous poster:

Re: what are our weakness and what could go south? As far as the things you mentioned: How about all of the above?

Originally Posted by Brian Beecher

To the previous poster:

Re: what are our weakness and what could go south? As far as the things you mentioned: How about all of the above?

Fair enough. I think oil will play a part at some point. I don't know when though. The hippies always say we will run out in 10 years. The other side says don't worry about it. Noone thinks it is going to last a hundred years. Given our auto dependence, our level of plastics use, that we manufacture quite a bit of our drugs from oil, that we still generate power from oil..., I do think the oil running out will cause some shockwaves.

That also plays into suburban sprawl I think. Already cities that have the most sprawl seem to be reaching some sort of saturation as traffic becomes its own disincentive to growth. People are trying to slow growth all over, although there is no clear consensus as to what is a better growth yet. This of course refers back to the oil issue. If our cities are built entirely around auto transportation, with no other options available, then an oil shock is going to be that much worse.

This builds into home prices. I compare suburban homes to 80s farmland. Their economic value is primarily nearness to good work. When ppl are commuting 45m-1.5 hrs to pay for a home, the system is stretched. When both parties in a relationship are working full-time to pay for that same house, which is not very closeto either one's work, then there is no robustness left in that system. An oil shock, or a wage shock of any kind puts a lot of ppl underwater quickly. Then all of a sudden aggregate consumer debt begins to matter a whole lot.

The question for me really is, when and how are these variables going to play out? If the oil problem comes during the next high, it could just be a hurdle to be overcome. If the oil problem came during a crisis, it could be all she wrote. Same thing with home devaluation. This I don't see as inevitable, but llikely given some of the other issues that twine into it.

I guess that is some of my thinking.

From my school... an article stating that it is 3T

http://www.thecrimson.com/article.aspx?ref=350387

Lessons Unlearned
Liberal Art

By PETER P.M. BUTTIGIEG



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I subscribe to a breaking news email service run by ABC. The idea is that if anything big happens in the news, I?ll be one of the first to hear about it, thanks to an alert sent to my inbox. So last week, one might expect that I would have gotten lots of e-mails, especially on Thursday when massive globalization protests in Miami edged near open violence, the Senate hurtled towards filibuster on the energy bill, a hundred thousand angry British protestors gathered in London to pull down a Saddam-style statue effigy of the visiting President Bush, and a twin suicide bombing in Turkey injured hundreds and killed dozens, among them the British consul, in a signal that al Qaeda had thoroughly infiltrated that country. But I got only two Breaking News E-mail Alerts?one to tell me that Michael Jackson was in custody, another to tell me that he had been booked and bailed. And lest one come down too hard on ABC News, the emphasis was almost universal. When I tuned to CNN to see how the president was faring given the alarming protests and flexing of terrorist muscle in Turkey that was clearly aimed at him, instead all I could see was an SUV on the freeways of Southern California, making its way from a police station to an airport, apparently with the King of Pop inside. As the wall-to-wall coverage pre-empted the afternoon line-up of programming, serious journalists like Judy Woodruff promised to cover the story ?from every angle,? which apparently meant every possible camera angle on Jackson?s car (I counted four).
There are so many things to write about?the eerie tendency of major and stupid news sensations to coincide with embarrassments to the Bush administration, or the question of why, given Jackson?s weird history, people find this surprising enough to identify as ?news.? But the most problematic thing in my mind stems from the associations of watching an SUV zip down a California highway as seen from a helicopter. While anchors and talking heads prayerfully whispered the word ?Bronco? as if it might, repeated sufficiently often, summon the ghost of O.J. to inspire Michael to make a break for it, we saw the final nail driven into the coffin of a treasured 21st century orthodoxy: the belief that somehow, after Sept. 11, our media culture had fundamentally changed.

For a minute, two years ago, we all felt silly for having cared so much about Monica and Gennifer, for obsessing over Britney, for indulging a spate of shark attack stories in what turned out to be a year in which there were fewer than usual. Newspapers proclaimed ?The Death of Irony,? and a nation resolved to rethink its priorities in the face of tragedy. The Onion, perhaps sensing what was to come, published the headline, ?A Shattered Nation Longs to Care about Stupid Bullshit Again.? Now, sure enough, ?The Death of Irony? has met a swift and ironic death. Today we?re right back where we started, and child-protection anonymity rules are probably the only thing that could keep us from actually having to watch the entire trial as we did with O.J. (Maybe Court TV will adopt the technique used by Britain?s Sky network in this summer?s inquiry over the death of David Kelly?having actors recreate important scenes daily, based on the transcript.)

Of course, there?s nothing to be surprised about?the 9-11 moment of sobriety didn?t last very long. Before this there was Laci Peterson, before her it was J. Lo and Ben... according to the Lycos internet service, it took only a year for the top five words searched on the Net to revert from ?Nostradamus, World Trade Center, Osama bin Laden, New York City, Terrorism? to ?KaZaA, Dragonball, Tattoos, West Nile Virus, Britney Spears.? The Michael Jackson business is a sign, not a shift, of cultural trends. Still, with two years and a bit behind us, the return of popular news culture to its previous depths should alarm us, for the simple reason that politics has not followed suit.

For all the worrisome (comforting?) continuity between the tone of news culture five years ago and its tone today, no one can deny that, unlike the media, political culture has profoundly changed. This asymmetry is dangerous. It would be one thing if both politics and pop culture had become more serious and real-world-oriented; or if, conversely, politics had returned, like the media, to the relatively trivial ground on which it used to stand. But the war-room intensity of post-Sept. 11 politics means that now more than ever before, America can?t afford to have its channels of public information dominated by frivolous and sensational concerns.

The tragedy of Sept. 11 made things politically possible that never might have been otherwise. The defeat of Vietnam-maimed Sen. Max Cleland on grounds that he was unpatriotic, the prosecution of pre-emptive war in Iraq, the detention of suspects without trial or counsel, the suspension or revisions of numerous civil liberties?all were conceivable only after the attack, and all are deserving of media scrutiny. Yet the media fairly quickly turned its attention elsewhere (new shark attacks). Now, not only has the public forgotten about the survival of al Qaeda, the failure to locate Saddam, the entire anthrax episode, Harken, Enron, the Wilson leak, and so on and so on, but on top of the forgotten stories, there are whole new ones that are barely told except on the inside pages of newspapers. Mainstream television media scarcely acknowledged the White House?s hard work in preventing the formation of a commission to investigate 9-11, followed by its withholding data from the commission so obstinately that the administration nearly got a subpoena from frustrated investigators. Whether the White House has a legitimate excuse for all this is beside the point; it has been practically spared the need to explain itself at all, since the only thing that could force an explanation out of this administration?the microscope of public attention?is already focused on other matters. The surprise of Sept. 11 exposed a national weakness in our failure to recognize serious matters unfolding in the world around us. Now, with the dangers of the new world not hidden but rather in plain view, the cost of distraction is higher than ever.

Peter P.M. Buttigieg ?04 is a history and literature concentrator in Leverett House. His column appears on alternate Mondays.

(I originally put this in the wrong topic by accident)

Originally Posted by mmailliw

When I tuned to CNN to see how the president was faring given the alarming protests and flexing of terrorist muscle in Turkey that was clearly aimed at him, instead all I could see was an SUV on the freeways of Southern California, making its way from a police station to an airport, apparently with the King of Pop inside. As the wall-to-wall coverage pre-empted the afternoon line-up of programming, serious journalists like Judy Woodruff promised to cover the story ?from every angle,? which apparently meant every possible camera angle on Jackson?s car (I counted four).

:lol: :lol:

Don't forget the breathless coverage of the plane landing, too!

Of course, there?s nothing to be surprised about?the 9-11 moment of sobriety didn?t last very long. Before this there was Laci Peterson, before her it was J. Lo and Ben... according to the Lycos internet service, it took only a year for the top five words searched on the Net to revert from ?Nostradamus, World Trade Center, Osama bin Laden, New York City, Terrorism? to ?KaZaA, Dragonball, Tattoos, West Nile Virus, Britney Spears.? The Michael Jackson business is a sign, not a shift, of cultural trends. Still, with two years and a bit behind us, the return of popular news culture to its previous depths should alarm us, for the simple reason that politics has not followed suit.

For all the worrisome (comforting?) continuity between the tone of news culture five years ago and its tone today, no one can deny that, unlike the media, political culture has profoundly changed. This asymmetry is dangerous. It would be one thing if both politics and pop culture had become more serious and real-world-oriented; or if, conversely, politics had returned, like the media, to the relatively trivial ground on which it used to stand. But the war-room intensity of post-Sept. 11 politics means that now more than ever before, America can?t afford to have its channels of public information dominated by frivolous and sensational concerns.

This is classic 3T, though. World events don't wait for Turnings. But the public reaction defines Turnings. Right now, the world is in motion. But 3T Western society, to a degree in America and more in Western Europe, is reacting by closing their eyes and chanting "Make it go away! Make it go away!"

Originally Posted by Sean Love

Originally Posted by yo

Originally Posted by KaiserD2

Timewise we are actually at about the same point as Wilson's second term, relative to the last crisis. David K '47

I guess I wuz right all along, eh?

• As Marc Lamb points out, the last time we had a big bomb go off on Wall Street was near the end of the post-WWI "Red Scare." The scare was a reaction to an anarchist / Bolshevist bombing campaign, including mail bombs and coordinated multi-city blasts (on July 2, 1919) that succeeded in partially destroying the residence of Attorney General A. Mitchell Palmer. It spawned the notorioius Palmer raids, which in turn may have led to the famous Wall Street bombing of 1920 that killed 20 people. But what did the Red Scare itself trigger? An isolationist reaction, a fervor to shut out the world, a demand to punish as many perpetrators as we could catch and to round up and send the rest "back where they came from." Above all, it triggered a desire to avoid the larger problem--social, economic, political--underlying the violence. We wanted "normalcy." In short, America moved more deeply into a Third Turning, not yet into a Fourth. --Neil Howe and William Strauss, September 13, 2001

Marc,

I have to hand it to you regarding your courage to take that position in the early days after 9/11. Hats off.

Same here. I should add that when 911 first occurred, my initial reaction (with a sick dread) was that we had an early 4T on our hands, but you were quite correct, and it took me several months to see that you were right, and I was wrong.

You've pretty much been vindicated on this one.

That doesn't mean it couldn't yet come early, of course.

Originally Posted by Sean Love

Originally Posted by Brian Beecher

In the previous cycle, the battle cry for "normalcy" following WWI and the Wall Street chaos that followed was the battle cry of Warren Harding's presidency, whose hallmark was to be a "return to normalcy". Yet his admistration produced Teapot Dome, which was probably our nation's biggest government scandal before Watergate.

The Harding administration (and I believe his 1920 campaign) called for a "Return to Normalcy" to be sure. But I am comparing our recent reaction(s) rather to the last years of the Wilson period.

As I've posted elsewhere:
At first glance our efforts at ?Homeland Security? seemed Crisis material. Tom Ridge?s new department would be the largest reorganization of government since the late 1940?s (as a hangover from the last fourth turning). But then again, it was beginning to equally resemble in style if not in function President Wilson?s World War One era [i.e., third turning] War Labor Board. The various congressional authorizations against terrorism were fractal echoes of the Espionage, Sedition, and Enemy Alien Registration Acts, also of Word War One vintage. Moreover, John Ashcroft?s pursuit of internal enemies seemed to essentially resemble Mitchell Palmer?s raids against bomb-wielding anarchists in the years immediately following the Great War (something noted very clearly in this website).

I'd like to add that our recent moves toward a relative hostility of immigration (esp. illegal) is beginning to smell like an analog of the admittedly much more severe anti-immigration reaction of 1920-24.

The current relatively mild opposition to illegal immigration may yet harden, especially if the liberals try desperately to keep the gates wide open. I happen to have gotten a look first-hand at some propaganda mailings sent out by the Southern Poverty Liberal Law Center (the word liberal is usually silent ), which raises money mentioning that southwestern 'vigilantes' are trying to terrorize migrants seeking a better life in America.

What they leave out is that the 'vigilantes' are simply scouting and reporting the presence of illegal immigrants. The illegal part is never mentioned anywhere in the mailing.

Originally Posted by KaiserD2

P. S. I don't really agree with the comment about the death of the western alliance, which, post '89, fought two wars together over Kuwait and Kosovo. The Europeans remain committed to solving problems through international cooperation. We had a unique opportunity to move the world in that direction. Instead we have brought back international anarchy. There's a new book out by a rather conservative analyst called Rogue Nation (Prestowitz is his name). It's about us.

The trouble with using Kosovo as an example is that it really wasn't a NATO operation, except in name. Almost all the forces were American (or British), much of Europe was either deeply reluctant or hostile to the idea, though their governments went along, and there were protests and angry vituperation in Orthodox polities such as Greece.

The American media largley ignored the European resistance, since it was a Democrat doing it, but it was there, and presaged much of what's happening now.

The first Gulf War is a better example, but even there, most of the forces were Anglo-American. The Wall hadn't been down long then, and the habit of cooperation was still strong. But Europe and America have been on diverging tracks since then. Europeans are still cooperating among themselves as part of the EU, though tensions are starting to appear even there.

One famous comment about NATO was that it existed to "Keep the Americans in, the Germans down, and the Russians out." Absent the USSR, and with France and Germany toying with the idea of reunification, it was left at something of a loss for a purpose.

Not, of course, that Western Europe and America have any long term choice about cooperation. We're the primary halves of Western Civilization, and we're in the same boat. We have to either work out a way to cooperate, or fight. But in the short term, I see dark days ahead for NATO, and those dark days were coming Bush or no Bush. As long as little strain was put on it, things seemed fine, but it's been weakening and rotting away for ten years.

Originally Posted by mgibbons19

Bush is a strange fiscal conservative to be certain.

He's not much of a fiscal conservative at all, and the GOP is almost as out of control spending-wise as the Democrats. But there's a very simple reason why: 1995-96.

Originally Posted by mgibbons19

Originally Posted by Brian Beecher

To the previous poster:

Re: what are our weakness and what could go south? As far as the things you mentioned: How about all of the above?

Fair enough. I think oil will play a part at some point. I don't know when though. The hippies always say we will run out in 10 years. The other side says don't worry about it. Noone thinks it is going to last a hundred years. Given our auto dependence, our level of plastics use, that we manufacture quite a bit of our drugs from oil, that we still generate power from oil..., I do think the oil running out will cause some shockwaves.

IMO, the limiting factor on oil influence is not supply, per se. While the supplies of easily accessible, easily refinable petroleum are not infinite, and may be approaching a peak, there's more to the story than that.

The supply of hydrocarbon fuel is gargantuan, but much of it is in inconvenient, expensive forms. Coal, tar sands, methane hydrates, oil shale, etc, all exist, in large quantities, and if the price of oil rose to a high enough level and stayed there for a while, they'd go into production.
While cheap oil is readily available, though, producers are deeply reluctant to sink capital into ventures that could be undercut by the Saudis at will.

So economics is one limiting factor, which could partly be offset by politics. If it became clear, for whatever reason, that Saudi Arabia simply can't be relied on, pressure could appear to force development of the other sources. But to make that work, developers would have to be more or less guaranteed a high price for oil. But such agreements risk being called 'giveaways to big oil'. If they aren't guaranteed such a price, the risk of development outweighs the potential payoff.

The other big limiting factor is environmental. All forms of hydrocarbon fuel, when burned, produce CO2, a major 'greenhouse gas'. If it becomes ncessary to restrict this enormously, then an incentive appears to move away from carbon fuel entirely. This could actually benefit some industries, like plastics, by making their feed stock cheaper (maybe).

Of course, politics kicks in again, since the most realistic alternative to hydrocarbon fuel is good old uranium.

Originally Posted by HopefulCynic68

Originally Posted by Sean Love

Originally Posted by yo

Originally Posted by KaiserD2

Timewise we are actually at about the same point as Wilson's second term, relative to the last crisis. David K '47

I guess I wuz right all along, eh?

Marc, I have to hand it to you regarding your courage to take that position in the early days after 9/11. Hats off.

Same here. I should add that when 911 first occurred, my initial reaction (with a sick dread) was that we had an early 4T on our hands, but you were quite correct, and it took me several months to see that you were right, and I was wrong. You've pretty much been vindicated on this one.

It really wasn't all that tough to figure out...



The "America bashing," guilt, and navel-gazing introspection got underway so quickly after 911 that it wuz really a no-brainer. Here's a sample of how quickly things fell apart:

• "A specter haunts the world, and that specter is America. This is not the America discoverable in the pages of a world atlas, but a mythical America that is the target of the new form of anti-Americanism that Salman Rushdie, writing in the Guardian (February 6, 2002), says ?is presently taking the world by storm? and that forms the subject of a Washington Post essay by Martin Kettle significantly entitled ?U.S. Bashing: It?s All The Rage In Europe? (January 7, 2002). It is an America that Anatol Lieven assures us, in a recent article in the London Review of Books, is nothing less than ?a menace to itself and to mankind? and that Noam Chomsky has repeatedly characterized as the world?s major terrorist state." -- Lee Harris The Intellectual Origins Of America-Bashing

Note the dates? I saw this strange sense of guilt permeating this website within daze of the attacks. You put that side to side with the generational numbers... and bingo! We be 3T.

That, or one helluva nasty civil war. I chose to go with the former as a means to keep my sanity. :wink:

p.s. Given that the Left chose to give Bush so little time to play his hand, pay close attention as the Left continues to spin and create the myth that it was his fault that America is getting little support from the likes of Germany, France and Russia... and of course Hillary Clinton and David Kaiser.

Originally Posted by HopefulCynic68

That doesn't mean it couldn't yet come early, of course.

Hmmm. If 4T began today, would that really be early? Using S&H dates:

• The Millies range in age from early childhood to 21.
• Gen X ranges in age from 22 to 42.
• Boomers range in age from 43 to 60.
• Silents range in age from 61 to 78.
• GIs are 79 and older.

Everyone is firmly in place for the phase of life and the leading edges are ready to move into the next phase. And of course, in T4T, S&H predicted that 4T would start "around 2005". Isn't 2004 "close enough for Government work"?

Would people say that the High (in 1946) started early? The line up was:

• Boomers age 0-3.
• Silent age 4-21.
• GI age 22-45.
• Lost age 46-63.
• Missionaries age 64 +.

Looks a lot like today, right?

Jenny,

I totally agree with you. A few weeks back, I put it in a more (unnecessarily?) complicated way in another thread. Please let me know what you think. I apologize for the verbosity. Here it goes:

The concept is the ?Catalyst Constellation Index? (though it may be screaming for new name).

This index is only relevant if one is in the orthodox, Strauss-n-Howian Saecularist school and believes (or at least strongly suspects) that generational interaction and alignment is the primary engine of saecular progression. More specifically, it comes from the assumption that when generations fully inhabit their respective life phase, society has become, for lack of a better word, ?ripe? for a new turning to begin. The old turning mood has become old and stale and the first waves of each generation are at least eyeing the next life phase/role, or are perhaps beginning to enter it already.

It is beginning at this point that society becomes most vulnerable to the sparks and trends of history in terms of those phenomena having the ability to affect a saecular mood change.

This concept assumes that the length of a phase of life is currently 21 years. However, in my conception of this index I believe this phase length used to be longer, affecting how to determine turning change ?ripeness?.

Lastly, I am assuming that Strauss & Howes? estimates for generational boundaries are correct (perhaps a big assumption, but more on that later).

Anyway, it goes like this. First, identify the age of the vanguard cohort of the generations that currently have their center of gravity in midlife, rising adulthood, and youth, respectively. Then line up those ages to the first three arithmetic permutations of 21 (i.e., 21, 42, 63). Then calculate how far off, up or down, each cohort is from these numbers. Add the differences. A result of zero indicates that, even though all the generations in question may not have passed or even hit the phase-transitioning age, the constellation as a whole indicates a fully ripe alignment. A positive number indicates a strong and rapidly growing probability of turning change, a low negative number indicates a weaker possibility, and a high negative number strongly indicates no immediate turning change likely.

Using this index, lets look at the last two turning transitions. Year X would be a hypothetical year with a ?perfect? constellational alignment. D is for delta, i.e., change.

Code:

    X       1964        D       1984         D 
    63       63         0        59         -4 
    42       39        -3        41         -1 
    21       21         0        23         +2 
   CCI                 -3                   -3

It seems that a Catalyst Constellation Index, or CCI, of ?3, at least based on the 21-year phase, is perfectly sufficient for a mood shift to begin.

Now lets view recent and future years.

Code:

'01     '02      '03      '04      '05     '06 
 58      59       60       61       62      63 
 40      41       42       43       44      45 
 19      20       21       22       23      24 
 -9      -6       -3        0       +3      +6

Based on the past two turning shifts one can see why the effects of 9/11/01 were so ambiguous. As I?ve stated in this thread, the Culture Wars third turning was mature in September 2001, but not yet ripe. I would guess that a CCI of ?9 still indicates a lot of yet-to-be expunged saecular immaturity. However, this year, 2003, corresponds perfectly to 1964 and 1984, and next year brings us to zero hour.

One of the reasons I made such a big deal first off about the assumptions I have made is that you can come up with different assumptions and/or tweaks on all but one of them and still find this index useful. Only the Mike Alexander-led Materialist Cause school cannot be reconciled to this (as far as I can see). [BTW, for the record, I do not want to dismiss this group. Though I strongly suspect a primarily generational engine at work, I am very open to Mike?s very impressive work. I wouldn?t be surprised if his work strongly interrelates with Strauss & Howe?s assumptions. I am just not sure how at this point.]

But debate over the other assumptions could make this index even more interesting. What if, for example, Strauss and Howe are dead wrong about the Boom/Xer boundary, as some contend? What if 1963 is the Xer vanguard (please, I am only musing, I am not intending to insult ?61ers and ?62ers!!!). Then the above chart changes significantly. And so on.

The tweak that most interests me, on a number of levels, is the need to change the 21-year phase in order to get the CCI to work on turning shifts prior to the 1T/2T change of 1964. This is fascinating because: One, it brings us head on into the generational compaction debate; and Two, if we can ascertain the proper ?ideal? alignment(s) for cycles prior to this Millenial Cycle we can better understand how far off of a CCI of zero a turning change is likely to come.

I apologize if it seems like I am making a big deal out of this. I realize that this index would only be a very rough gauge. It?s just that several cups of coffee and a good run through the neighborhood can get one all "exercised" over an idea.

Originally Posted by The Wonk

Originally Posted by HopefulCynic68

That doesn't mean it couldn't yet come early, of course.

Hmmm. If 4T began today, would that really be early? Using S&H dates:

• The Millies range in age from early childhood to 21.
• Gen X ranges in age from 22 to 42.
• Boomers range in age from 43 to 60.
• Silents range in age from 61 to 78.
• GIs are 79 and older.

Everyone is firmly in place for the phase of life and the leading edges are ready to move into the next phase. And of course, in T4T, S&H predicted that 4T would start "around 2005". Isn't 2004 "close enough for Government work"?

I don't, in fact, think S&H have their dates quite right. I think the first Millennials were probably born around late 82, 83 or even 84 in some places, and that the last few Xers were born around 83. I also think the Boom Generation is longer than they do, reaching probably as far as 1963 or so (and overlapping Gen X). I've always thought that there is an overlap zone at the borders, not 'Jonesers', but rather that the last few Boomers were being born after the first few Xers, largely in different parts of the United States.

But even if they're right, everyone 'firmly in place' doesn't imply imminent 4T. A Turning peaks and declines, if things go according to pattern. Of course, 2005 is still over a year away, and it wouldn't be all that far off the pattern.

I think a 4T could start right now. For that matter, 911 could have been a triggering catalyst for an early 4T, it just wasn't. The Silent were too influential yet, the Boomers not ready. Though it was interesting to watch the reaction of several well-known Boomers on both sides of our national divide, eagerly trying to rev things up.

I was reminded at the time of a mental image, first-wave Boomers frantically pushing buttons and pulling levers on the '4T Machine', not noticing that the Silent had quietly unplugged it already.

Would people say that the High (in 1946) started early? The line up was:

• Boomers age 0-3.
• Silent age 4-21.
• GI age 22-45.
• Lost age 46-63.
• Missionaries age 64 +.

Looks a lot like today, right?

I don't necessarily agree that the high did start in '46, though it did start a little early in America, IMO. I'm not sure about that '46 date for several reasons, but I don't know enough yet to comment usefully.

Originally Posted by The Wonk

Originally Posted by HopefulCynic68

That doesn't mean it couldn't yet come early, of course.

Hmmm. If 4T began today, would that really be early?

There is a major problem if 911 was not the catalyst. This was discussed many moons ago:

Originally Posted by Brian Rush

Originally Posted by Marc S. Lamb

Posted: 2001-11-30 13:42

"No 4T yet, but we just passed the boundary of the end of the millennial generation."

That's a toughy. If 2001 is the end of the millennial generation, then the real crisis can start in just two years.

Problem is, it's gonna be hard for future historians (who have an easy time of it with 1929) to conclude that what ever comes after 911, so soon, is really the catalyst.

I mean, had the last the stock market crash happened in say 1923 (when the oldest Lost was 40, and the Missionaries were peaking), I'm not so sure historians would conclude it, and not WWI or the big Red Scare or the Great Influenza epidemic (that killed many more that did the war) were the real catalyst and not the stock market crash.

If this ain't the 4T, then it's gonna have to fade off into the distant memory like WWI and all the stuff that happened around 1920 did.

And that is precisely why I am sure this is it. We would need at least five or six years of peace and frivolity in between. We face global economic breakdown and serious resource shortages before then, regardless of what happens in connection with the war on terrorism.

So there won't be time. This has to be it.

Well, so far so good. 911 lost all meaning to the Left many moons ago, and the relative "peace and frivolity" is growing with each and every day.

But the element of time connected to 911 still remains, save for an event occuring that is completely irrelavent to 911. And even that would most likely to just serve up more 3T. Alea Iacta Est :wink:

Originally Posted by yo

... Well, so far so good. 911 lost all meaning to the Left many moons ago, and the relative "peace and frivolity" is growing with each and every day.

The 4T in waiting lost all validity when the Administration (read Karl Rove) decided to coopt it for political gain. If they wante a 4T, they blew it. If they wanted a bullet-proof political cloak ... The jury's still out on that one.

But the element of time connected to 911 still remains, save for an event occuring that is completely irrelavent to 911. And even that would most likely to just serve up more 3T. Alea Iacta Est :wink:

No, the trigger might be subtle but it will occur and change will come. I never thought a foreign calamity was going to be the crisis, so I'm not surprised.

"I'm putting my money on a non-fungible economic crisis," he said centsibly. :P

Originally Posted by HopefulCynic68

The current relatively mild opposition to illegal immigration may yet harden, especially if the liberals try desperately to keep the gates wide open. I happen to have gotten a look first-hand at some propaganda mailings sent out by the Southern Poverty Liberal Law Center (the word liberal is usually silent ), which raises money mentioning that southwestern 'vigilantes' are trying to terrorize migrants seeking a better life in America.

Liberal means lots of means, depending on the context used.

[/quote]
What they leave out is that the 'vigilantes' are simply scouting and reporting the presence of illegal immigrants. The illegal part is never mentioned anywhere in the mailing.[/quote]

A good parallel between the southwestern vigilantes of today would be the know nothing movenment of the 1850's and the nativists of the 1920's.

How much is the current anti-immigration backlash tied into jobs? I bet quite a bit of it, because you often hear people complaining that the GD immigrants are sucking jobs that should go to lifelong multi-generation Americans.

OTOH the pro-immigrant forces will argue that many of these immigrants are really taken the kinds of jobs that seventh and eighth generation Americans won't take anymore, and consider it beneath them. Look around. It is mostly foreigners you see at places such as Dunkin Donuts and your self-serve gas stations with pantry attached. Pro-immigration people will go as far as to remind us that the Statue of Liberty is an immigrant herself.

Originally Posted by David '47 Redux

Originally Posted by yo

... Well, so far so good. 911 lost all meaning to the Left many moons ago, and the relative "peace and frivolity" is growing with each and every day.

The 4T in waiting lost all validity when the Administration (read Karl Rove) decided to coopt it for political gain. If they wante a 4T, they blew it. If they wanted a bullet-proof political cloak ... The jury's still out on that one.

David, nobody tried to 'coopt' anything. ANY Administration would have tried to turn it to their advantage, that's the way the game is played. If you're angry that Bush played to the right wing, well, that's life. The things the Left counts as legitimate count as treasonous to the Right, and vice versa.

Had Bush tried to go the UN or work multilaterally, his entire half of the country would have seen that as trivializing the event. From the Right's POV, any UN decision against American interests is automatically null and void anyway. The divide is real, ANY action was going to infuriate half the country, no matter what.

The international sympathy was an illusion, it could not be sustained. The unity after 911 was an illusion, it too was unsustainable no matter what.

The Left can't have unity on their own terms.

Originally Posted by Tristan

Originally Posted by HopefulCynic68

The current relatively mild opposition to illegal immigration may yet harden, especially if the liberals try desperately to keep the gates wide open. I happen to have gotten a look first-hand at some propaganda mailings sent out by the Southern Poverty Liberal Law Center (the word liberal is usually silent ), which raises money mentioning that southwestern 'vigilantes' are trying to terrorize migrants seeking a better life in America.

Liberal means lots of means, depending on the context used.

True, but in modern American colloquial language, it has a fairly specific political and widely accepted political meaning.

Originally Posted by yo

The "America bashing," guilt, and navel-gazing introspection got underway so quickly after 911 that it wuz really a no-brainer. Here's a sample of how quickly things fell apart:

• "A specter haunts the world, and that specter is America. This is not the America discoverable in the pages of a world atlas, but a mythical America that is the target of the new form of anti-Americanism that Salman Rushdie, writing in the Guardian (February 6, 2002), says ?is presently taking the world by storm? and that forms the subject of a Washington Post essay by Martin Kettle significantly entitled ?U.S. Bashing: It?s All The Rage In Europe? (January 7, 2002). It is an America that Anatol Lieven assures us, in a recent article in the London Review of Books, is nothing less than ?a menace to itself and to mankind? and that Noam Chomsky has repeatedly characterized as the world?s major terrorist state." -- Lee Harris The Intellectual Origins Of America-Bashing

Marc,

That link was really interesting. Thank you for that.

Anybody (esp. of the Leftish persuasion, Dr. Venkman) care to critique the essay Marc linked to?? I be curious.

This one is just stupid, in my opinion.

L.A. Official: Computer Labels Offensive

'Master' and 'Slave' Labels on Electronic Equipment Raise Concern in Los Angeles County

The Associated Press

LOS ANGELES Nov. 26 ? A county official has asked computer and video equipment vendors to consider eliminating the terms "master" and "slave" from equipment because they may be considered offensive.
"Based on the cultural diversity and sensitivity of Los Angeles County, this is not an acceptable identification label," according to an e-mail sent to vendors on Nov. 18. The memo asks manufacturers, suppliers and contractors to change or remove any labels on components "that could be interpreted as discriminatory or offensive in nature."

The county's 39 departments also were told to identify equipment with offensive labels.

"We got a note back from IBM saying thank you for bringing this to our attention and we'll take a look at this," said Joe Sandoval, who wrote the memo. Sandoval is division manager of purchasing and contract services for the county's Internal Services Department.

The term "master" and "slave" when applied to electronic equipment describes one device controlling another.

In May, a black employee of the Probation Department filed a discrimination complaint with the county Office of Affirmative Action Compliance after noticing the words on a videotape machine.

"This individual felt that it was offensive and inappropriate ... given the experiences that this country has gone through in respect to slavery," office director Dennis A. Tafoya said.

The issue was solved by putting tape over the labels and replacing "master" and "slave" with "primary" and "secondary," Tafoya said.

Although Tafoya said his office did not find discrimination in the case, he added, "I think we constantly need to be conscious of these issues."

Sandoval said the county is making a suggestion, not trying to dictate political correctness.

"Knowing that it's an industry standard, there's no way that I'm going to stop buying that equipment," he said.

Originally Posted by Zola

This one is just stupid, in my opinion.

L.A. Official: Computer Labels Offensive

'Master' and 'Slave' Labels on Electronic Equipment Raise Concern in Los Angeles County

The Associated Press

LOS ANGELES Nov. 26 ? A county official has asked computer and video equipment vendors to consider eliminating the terms "master" and "slave" from equipment because they may be considered offensive.
"Based on the cultural diversity and sensitivity of Los Angeles County, this is not an acceptable identification label," according to an e-mail sent to vendors on Nov. 18. The memo asks manufacturers, suppliers and contractors to change or remove any labels on components "that could be interpreted as discriminatory or offensive in nature."

<<snip>>

Although Tafoya said his office did not find discrimination in the case, he added, "I think we constantly need to be conscious of these issues."

L.A. is known for nonsense of this sort, of course. But this above statement sums up the problem, it's exactly 100% wrong. We don't need to constantly obsess over these issues. We need to quit wasting time with them.