Originally Posted by Rick Hirst

Originally Posted by Bob Butler 54

Here in New England, a series of major omens have been noted. The Red Sox won the World Series under a red moon.

Today, the 'Canes, the 'Noles and the 'Gators all lost their football games, for the first time since 1978. This is obviously an omen that, um, somebody is going to lose big in Florida...

And then the Dolphins got stomped on Monday Night Football, by...the Jets. There's something symbolic there, but I'm not sure what.

If there is one thing that is certain about this election, this election has definitely broken from the 3T circus, and IS now casting a shadow over daily life. How long the election shadow remains after today, I do not know.

For those of you who remember the Awakening, is this the same sort of anger that Boomers expressed during the era?

Here is a chilling thought. In Generations, it was said that Boomers (by 1967) started the "most emotionally intense and culturally influential youth rebellion in American history." Now, that they are entering elderhood, are we about to see the most emotionally intense and culturally influential Crisis leadership in this nation's history? This election is already emotionally intense, and is already the most culturally influential election, with the various efforts by Boomers to culturally influence the election outcomes. What would the most emotionally intense and culturally influential Crisis leadership mean for America?

Voting 2004: This time it's personal

An unusually emotional election is turning mild-mannered Jekylls into raging Hydes.
By Shawn Hubler
Times Staff Writer

November 1, 2004

How personal has this election gotten?

Put it this way: It followed Ted G. Jelen into his doctor's office in Nevada last week.

It went to work with Lisa Kellogg, a San Gabriel Valley preschool teacher who found herself arguing with a parent in the thick of morning drop-off.

It tracked Karen Dalrymple, a Michigan software developer, into the garage where the mechanic servicing her red Ford Focus should have kept his opinions to himself.

In the Del Webb retirement community of Lincoln, near Sacramento, it prompted a man to storm out of the billiards room this month and down a hall where the Democratic Club had spilled out of its meeting quarters. ("He was just waving his pool stick and shouting, 'I don't have to listen to this crap! Take it inside!' " said Nancy Krause, a 67-year-old retired administrative assistant who was there.)

At the West Angeles Church of God in Christ in Los Angeles, it trailed 75 congregants into the Tuesday night Bible study. "One of the young ladies communicated she was a supporter of [President] Bush, and people started, well, not to boo exactly but you could hear grumbling and rumbling," said Elder Ben Stephens, the church's college and young adult pastor. The mood was sufficiently ticklish that he ended the session with 2 Chronicles, 7:14:

"If my people, which are called by my name, shall humble themselves, and pray, and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways; then will I hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin, and will heal their land."

As the clock winds down on the most polarized presidential race in a generation, the mood of the electorate is almost unbearably emotional ? and there's nowhere to hide. Partisan politics, something normal people avoid in workaday human relations, appear to have gone to a place few have seen since the Vietnam War era, to the point that many confess they just want this election to be over.

The spinning and selling, they say, the doublespeak and dissembling, have managed not just to sway and confuse as political operatives intended, but to set neighbor on neighbor. ("Red states, blue states ? we're a nation of gang colors," one political scientist observed sadly last week.)

Anxiety, depression, anger ? demoralizing feelings that modern Americans have rarely, if ever, associated with choosing a leader ? have been reported even from friendly precincts, and yard-sign fights and bumper sticker defacements are just the beginning. Last week in Florida, a Democrat was arrested for allegedly attempting to drive his Cadillac into U.S. Rep. Katherine Harris, the Republican in charge of the state's 2000 recount, and a Bush-backing Marine recruit was charged with trying to stab his girlfriend in the neck with a screwdriver after she threatened to leave him and vote for John Kerry.

Creeping into daily life

Even more revealing are the unsensational tales that have emanated for months now from families, schoolyards, synagogues, book clubs and just about every other venue in which one decided voter runs up against another.

In Arlington, Va., a Republican woman who didn't want her name used said her neighbor, a Democrat, needled her so incessantly about her pet, a French poodle, that the two have stopped speaking. In San Diego, a soft-spoken surfer ? who likewise wanted to remain anonymous ? got into a shouting match over the election with his mom at his 7-year-old son's birthday party.

Others tell of pointed remarks in line at the drug store, of businesses they can't bear to frequent, of children who come home crying that the other kids said their candidate was "evil." The political has become personal this time, voters say, and the emotional toll ? and by this point emotional exhaustion ? has been preternaturally high.

Beverly Hills psychologist Karen Bierman says so many of her clients have brought the election up in therapy that she's beginning to think of it as a mental health issue.

"I've been in practice for 22 years and have never had so many people coming in feeling so personally upset and offended and manipulated and angry," she said. "They feel that there's a kind of bullying going on that's, well, offensive, and to be offended is a very bad feeling, you can't let go of it. Usually when people are upset, it's about things in their own personal lives."

Kate Schmidt, a personal trainer in Eagle Rock, said she knows those feelings.

"I'm in a 12-step program and have been meeting with this group of women for six years, and I thought we knew each other," said Schmidt. When she learned secondhand that one of the members was voting for Bush, she was stunned at the vehemence of her reaction.

"I'm 50 years old and I've never felt this way about a presidential election," she said. "There's not one single thing about Bush that's good in my opinion, and for people not to see that is confusing to me."

The Rev. John McClure, whose Vineyard Christian Fellowship in Costa Mesa is known for its antiabortion activism, feels the same confusion. He and his friends, he says, can't stop wondering why the president isn't being praised to the rafters.

"Some people are honestly shocked that Bush isn't just lauded, in that he took the steps [after the 9/11 attacks] that at the time seemed so bold and necessary. What happened to all the affirmation?" McClure asked.

He said his church's prayer meetings have been steeped in the urgent fear that if the president isn't reelected, it will mean an end to the hope of turning back the law on abortion and holding the line against same-sex marriage.

"There's a real anxiety," he said, "in the sense that this might be the last chance of seeing any change."

Taken to heart

In a recent CNN/USA Today/Gallup Poll, 90% of respondents said the stakes this time are higher than in previous elections, and 89% were afraid of what might happen were their candidate to lose. Another poll by the Marist College Institute for Public Opinion found that the average voter is having some type of conversation about this election seven times a week.

Colorado State University political scientist Bill Chaloupka says there are many reasons for the intense interest and emotion, but one of the less-mentioned is the extent to which voters have come in the last two decades to take party affiliation personally.

In particular, he said, the realignment during the 1980s and 1990s of the Republican Party from a diverse coalition into a more unified conservative movement has turned partisanship into not just a political, but a deeply personal matter.

"If you're a member of a coalition, you're just in a coalition," said Chaloupka. "But if you're a member of a movement, that's your identity."

That intensity, he says, has in turn injected a moral tinge into partisanship; Americans increasingly view the opposing party not just as proponents of a different philosophy, but as true believers on a mission to usurp the culture and government.

Kevin Aratari, a 37-year-old television marketing executive and a moderate Republican in an industry that's deeply Democratic, said this campaign has forced him to constantly remind colleagues that there's more to him than his voting habits. Just last week, he said, he nearly lost a client when he reacted, after a long harangue, to what he felt was Bush-bashing.

"I didn't say anything until she was pretty much blaming the fact that she hadn't won the lottery on George Bush, and then I think I may have snickered out loud," he said. "There was a deafening silence. Then it went downhill for about a half an hour until someone changed the subject. It's completely unacceptable to say anything about someone because of their race or religion, but it's become perfectly acceptable to flat-out discriminate against them because their politics, as if your political affiliation were your entire being."

Add to that the fact that this is the first presidential election since the terrorist attacks of 9/11, and a fragmented, niche-marketed media that encourage both sides to limit themselves only to the news they agree with, and the upshot is a recipe for getting ? and staying ? very angry.

Jelen, for example, says he's never experienced such a personally upsetting election ? and he studies elections for a living.

A soft-spoken political science professor at the University of Nevada Las Vegas, he says he's felt his hackles rise at least three times just in the last few months.

There was the academic conference where his blood boiled as a colleague defended the idea of making voters produce extra identification at polling places. Then there were the students who, after pestering him for weeks about whether he backed Bush or Kerry, complained to his department chair when they finally got their answer.

Most unsettling, though, were the words with his doctor, whom he likes, in the middle of a recent checkup.

"I was off-campus and wearing a Kerry button, and he had signs up for a medical malpractice initiative in his office," said Jelen. "He wanted to know how I could wear that thing on my lapel, and I said something to the effect that I preferred to support the candidate who wasn't a war criminal, and ? well, just say that the conversation was pointed and brief."

Divisive arguments

In La Ca?ada, preschool teacher Kellogg said she realized, even as she was speaking, that it was "totally inappropriate" to get into a political discussion with a parent. But she couldn't keep a straight face when the woman announced to a crowd that she planned to vote against a state initiative that would fund stem cell research.

"She said, 'You don't agree?' " said Kellogg, whose 10-year-old son has juvenile diabetes, an affliction that the measure's proponents say might be cured with the help of such funding. "And I said, 'You'd vote for it in a minute if your daughter had to go through one day of what my son has to go through.' " Later, she said, the woman called her at home and both apologized.

In Michigan, Dalrymple said she bristled when her auto mechanic cornered her on the night of the third presidential debate with a litany of reasons why she should vote for Bush rather than Kerry, a lobbying effort that soon blossomed into an argument.

"By the time I had fresh oil, he'd realized that he might be losing a customer and started to backpedal," she said, adding that she isn't sure whether she'll go back. "I've got 3,000 miles until I have to decide."

Originally Posted by TrollKing

Originally Posted by Kiff 1961

But, what could have been the winning touchdown for the 'Skins was called back by a penalty.

i thought the score was 28-14.... one touchdown couldn't have changed who won. not by itself, anyway.


TK

On the play after the 'Skins touchdown was called back, Al Harris intercepted Mark Brunell and returned it about 40 yards, which set up the Packers for a clinching TD.

Now, there was still 2:30 or so left on the clock when the 'Skins touchdown would have occurred, and knowing Brett Favre's history, there was a decent chance the Packers could have driven for a game-winning field goal; however, Favre had just thrown two interceptions on the Pack's two previous possessions, his hand was hurting, and I wouldn't have been all that confident.

Anyway...back to politics... 8)

Originally Posted by Shemsu Heru

If there is one thing that is certain about this election, this election has definitely broken from the 3T circus, and IS now casting a shadow over daily life. How long the election shadow remains after today, I do not know.

For those of you who remember the Awakening, is this the same sort of anger that Boomers expressed during the era?

Here is a chilling thought. In Generations, it was said that Boomers (by 1967) started the "most emotionally intense and culturally influential youth rebellion in American history." Now, that they are entering elderhood, are we about to see the most emotionally intense and culturally influential Crisis leadership in this nation's history? This election is already emotionally intense, and is already the most culturally influential election, with the various efforts by Boomers to culturally influence the election outcomes. What would the most emotionally intense and culturally influential Crisis leadership mean for America?

Robert,

Tim Walker and I have been discussing an issue that touches on this. Just musing, really. It goes like this:

More Radical Prophets :arrow: More intense and fertile Awakening
Intense Awakening :arrow: Internally fracturing Crisis
Internally fracturing Crisis :arrow: Attenuated Prophets
Attenuated Prophets :arrow: Mild Awakening
Mild Awakening :arrow: Unifying Crisis
Unifying Crisis :arrow: Radical Prophets

The Boom Awakening, the Transcendental Awakening, and especially the Puritan Awakening (hell, in England it ranked as destructive as any Crisis!) were very intense.

What do you think?

Originally Posted by William Jennings Bryan

Originally Posted by Shemsu Heru

For those of you who remember the Awakening, is this the same sort of anger that Boomers expressed during the era?

Here is a chilling thought. In Generations, it was said that Boomers (by 1967) started the "most emotionally intense and culturally influential youth rebellion in American history." Now, that they are entering elderhood, are we about to see the most emotionally intense and culturally influential Crisis leadership in this nation's history? This election is already emotionally intense, and is already the most culturally influential election, with the various efforts by Boomers to culturally influence the election outcomes. What would the most emotionally intense and culturally influential Crisis leadership mean for America?

Robert,

Tim Walker and I have been discussing an issue that touches on this. Just musing, really. It goes like this:

More Radical Prophets :arrow: More intense and fertile Awakening
Intense Awakening :arrow: Internally fracturing Crisis
Internally fracturing Crisis :arrow: Attenuated Prophets
Attenuated Prophets :arrow: Mild Awakening
Mild Awakening :arrow: Unifying Crisis
Unifying Crisis :arrow: Radical Prophets

The Boom Awakening, the Transcendental Awakening, and especially the Puritan Awakening (hell, in England it ranked as destructive as any Crisis!) were very intense.

What do you think?

So far, it is fitting the mode of an internally fracturing Crisis. However, was the English Glorious Revolution internally fracturing? Also, how intense was the Great Awakening? The American Revolution was definitely an internal fracturing Crisis, especially given John Adam's estimate of a third for, a third against, and a third indifferent to the Revolution. The previous Crisis was only unified during the war. It wasn't, however, was fractured as many other Crises. As for the Missionary Awakening, it is very arguable that it was an intense one. Also, the Reformation was an intense Awakening. However, it seemingly led to a unified Crisis. So I'm not really sure if we are likely to experience an overall unified or fractured Crisis.

But whether or not the Crisis is fractured or unified, I don't think this will have much of an effect on their collective leadership. But then again, much of this will depend on what the Xer and Millies themselves decide.

The Xers and Millie could either collectively decide on a moderate leadership, or on a radical one. It has been said that the last Crisis was sort of an anomaly because it was led by an unusually careful Idealist generation, and I suspect that these people may be right. And especially in a world where today's generations do not know of the dangers the generations of the previous cycle faced, it is much more likely that Americans (regardless of political stripe; the conservatives, AND liberals are both apt to go for the more radical option) will want a more radical leader. But then again, this still does not entirely answer my question. The question is, if a generation that sparked the most emotionally intense and culturally influential Awakening in American history stewards the nation during a Crisis with the most emotionally intense and culturally influential leadership in American history, what will be the results?

Howard Dean was definitely the most emotionally intense presidential candidate of this election cycle. It has even flown out of control with the infamous "Dean Scream", when he seemingly almost busted a vein with anger. Perhaps, one could very well think of Father Coughlin of the previous generational cycle, with his extreme vitriolic attacks on Jews and on FDR (after which Catholic leaders tried to restrain him, and forced his retirement from politics after 1936). And of course, Dean attracted the largest following of any candidate during this cycle. E2K8 will take this to a whole new level.

Boomers have perfected the art of arousing emotion, and they will put it to use during this Crisis. However, they could greatly amplify this emotion with their powerful hold on the culture. F911 and POTC are cases in point. They will use the media and entertainment to get their emotions across, and to evoke an emotional response in the populace. Emotional intensity could very well grip the national culture during this Crisis.

After 9/11, S&H observed that youth have a solidarity way beyond anything we have ever seen, even with the GIs. This solidarity has not waned, IMO. It is just waiting to be tapped. By E2K8, new youth-run political organizations will be far more powerful than current structures. If they decide to, these organizations will wield more than enough power to obliterate both the Democratic and Republican Parties. This bloc could also push an entirely new party into the presidential, congressional, and many state and local offices by that time. Moreover, with new organizational capabilities, these massive organizations will be able to change course entirely in a near instant. This is a force that will be very quick, fluid, efficient, and potent. This power will far exceed that of the GIs (this will be even more amazing if this force is global in nature).

Imagine what a Boomer could do with an emotionally charged political bloc. With their lock on the national culture, able to project and amplify their emotional intensity, we could very well experience the most convulsive era in history.

In the Top Stories on Google, all with all the election farfarell:

The Scott Peterson trial.

We be 3T.

Originally Posted by Rick Hirst

In the Top Stories on Google, all with all the election farfarell:

The Scott Peterson trial.

We be 3T.

The Lindsay baby was kidnapped in 1930. :wink:

Originally Posted by Hermione Granger

Originally Posted by Rick Hirst

In the Top Stories on Google, all with all the election farfarell:

The Scott Peterson trial.

We be 3T.

The Lindsay baby was kidnapped in 1930. :wink:

We say Lindbergh in Minnesota and date it as 1932.

Originally Posted by Hermione Granger

Originally Posted by Rick Hirst

In the Top Stories on Google, all with all the election farfarell:

The Scott Peterson trial.

We be 3T.

The Lindbergh baby was kidnapped in 1930. :wink:

Thus proving that celebrity circuses can receive undue attention during at least the early stages of a 4T. In fact, IINM, some of the more notorious bank robbers, like John Dillinger, and the Barrows (Bonnie and Clyde) became celebrities of a sort, during that period.

Originally Posted by Virgil K. Saari

Originally Posted by Hermione Granger

Originally Posted by Rick Hirst

In the Top Stories on Google, all with all the election farfarell:

The Scott Peterson trial.

We be 3T.

The Lindsay baby was kidnapped in 1930. :wink:

We say Lindbergh in Minnesota and date it as 1932.

Oops! :oops:

I think though, that my point was taken. :wink:

Perhaps I've read the information in *The Fourth Turning* differently than several of you. Your comments seem too far advanced, i.e. that we're in a fourth now like the gangland 30s. To me, Bush seems like Calvin Coolidge (pre-29). The book said to look for a split in the Boomers and a gray champion to signal the fourth. The split in the country (Boomers et al) is just in the early stages, and seems to have a foundation of religion (sounds like the beginnings of Prohibition???). My questions: will abortion or stem cell be like Prohibition? What will trigger the fourth--another stock market crash? A war that's real--affects our day-to-day lives and takes our youth into battle? Who's the gray champion? Who will be Hoover?

In other words, from my perspective we're not in a fourth turning yet, but we're certainly closer than we were four years ago. Unfortunately, there are so few people alive that were born at the close of the 19th century. They could give us a true portrait of the country leading up to 1929--the issues, the values, and the reactions during the Coolidge era and what it was like leading up to Prohibition and the stock market crash.

sforbes wrote:

The book said to look for a split in the Boomers and a gray champion to signal the fourth. The split in the country (Boomers et al) is just in the early stages, and seems to have a foundation of religion (sounds like the beginnings of Prohibition???). My questions: will abortion or stem cell be like Prohibition? What will trigger the fourth--another stock market crash? A war that's real--affects our day-to-day lives and takes our youth into battle? Who's the gray champion? Who will be Hoover?

I agree with much of your thinking. The split in the Boomers is a critical point of evaluation.

The 2004 election shows an definite split, but the lack of any kind of compeling leadership from Kerry shows just how undeveloped it is at this juncture. Kerry may be a Boomer, but he thinks like a young Silent.

One thing Strauss and Howe don't do is explain what is the basis of a split in the thinking of the idealists whose assumption of elder leadership sets the stage for the 4T.

Ideas can jump out from all kinds of places, but the ones that find social following, especially at times of social crises, are the ones that most address the concerns that people have. And, to go one step further and face the fact of mass communications, the ideas that best address the concerns of people who have money to put behind ideas they like are the ones that are going to get a chance to appeal to a wider audience.

Though I believe 9/11 was a catalytic event, pushing us toward a 4T, I think the 2004 election results show that we're still in the 3T. On the whole, however, the election shows that people (in particular, Boomers with money) are splitting, and that portends well for our future.

America?s traditional ruling elites (increasingly Boomers) are divided.

Bush represents the oil and energy industry, the most fundamental part of both mass commodity production and corporate agriculture. Kerry represents the financial services industry, the most fundamental part of service-oriented production and global trade.

During the heyday of imperialism, these two segments were locked arm-in-arm in an expansionist, hegemonic drive to control as much of the world?s markets as possible. Together, they invested in politics as much as necessary to shape a popular American consensus for state action (often by force) to defend and advance ?national? interests in world affairs.

However, since the demise of unbridled mass production in the 1960s and 70s and the subsequent rise in service-based production through the 80s and 90s, these two segments find their interests diverging. Ironically, the energy industry is strategically squeezed by the rise of mass production economy in China. For it to commandeer the business of providing energy to China?s massive and surging economy, tremendous investment and hard work is needed, and, given China?s socialist history, there?s no guarantee that they can control the process.

Facing this difficult challenge and driven, themselves, by much shorter-term profit demands, the oil industry is drawn to the far easier (and cheaper, since American taxpayers foot the bill) program of simply seizing oil reserves to buttress its position in international markets. Once all the democratic rhetoric is stripped away from the Neocon policy in Iraq, it all comes down to the oil. Iran is next.

Since the banking industry has long been partners in the oil industry?s plunder of world reserves ? and segments continue to be closely involved ? it had no initial problem with Bush?s election or, even, his invasion of Iraq?not so long as it worked.

European financiers perceived more clearly, perhaps, the folly of the Bush agenda, and their governments generally urged caution in dealing with Hussein. But, now that a stable outcome in Iraq appears impossible, even American-based financial interests are questioning their oil industry peers. Many of them rallied around Kerry, ensuring his nomination and bankrolling his campaign (George Soros is a prime example).

However, like American voters themselves, the financial services sector best knows its immediate interests and doesn?t well understand how to advance its longer-range interests in today?s political climate. Thus, it backed a candidate who claimed only that he would do ?it? better than Bush (more competently and without rancor with the Europeans).

That didn?t fly with the electorate.

So, the financial services industry is stuck with four more years of Bush-driven instability in the global economy on which the banks depend for their own growth and prosperity.

The clash between these two corporate sectors in American politics is irreversible and will only grow. Since Boomers, increasingly, run these enterprises, this clash will drive the split in the generation's leadership offerings.

However, the financial services sector has to find a political representative that actually can articulate and advance its interests in the American context. The Democrats ? all of them ? have so far advanced none of the original thinking necessary to develop a practical agenda that can address global instability while mobilizing popular support among the American electorate.

Without control of the House, the Senate or the Executive Branch, the Democrats are less likely than ever to advance such leadership.

And with the Neocons if full control, the Heartland will be further and more effectively manipulated to back big oil?s imperial agenda. Though that agenda will bring nothing but pain, hardship and bigger debts, the unified Republican leadership of the country will keep political dissatisfaction bottled up and in check.

Do not expect America?s next GC to come from its political institutions.

That said, the whole Neocon agenda is at cross-purposes with the needs of our increasingly integrated world. Thus, it is unstable, so its only means of remaining dominant is fuller deployment of military might. That, of course, is illusory because the application of more force will simply bring forth more resistance.

Over the next four years, our world is going to further destabilize, and the financial services sector isn?t going to be happy. Neither, fortunately, will be most Americans. The only questions are if, when and how a leader with a practical plan will emerge.

Most likely, it seems to me, this leadership will not come, first, from the United States. But, foreigners can?t run for the American presidency (nor, technically, make financial contributions to that cause), so, ultimately, an American leader must be found.

Either that, or the post-Bush Neocon presidency will propel the world (ie, China) to resort to force in dealing with the US agenda. In that case, the only useful thing that the US government has at its disposal is its nuclear arsenal (China has a lot more Millenial soldiers than the US).

If we get past 2008 with Neocons still in power, global war becomes a real possibility.

Better that we don?t go there. Better we find an American who can articulate and advance the nation?s interest in a collaborative world order.

The banking industry has to step up and act in its own and the world?s real, strategic interest. It must find a way to address global instability without one-sided reliance on force.

The answer, as I've said before, rests in the embrace of the global commercial transactions tax, the only practical means to finance the construction of the global economic and social infrastructure necessary to secure and advance the global market. Of course, that also requires creating a new, supranational means of administering those funds and programs.

With Boomers advancing into leadership of the banking industry, I think it will become more responsive to this demand in the coming years. If that's the case, perhaps in 2008, we can run a globalist against the Neocons and give the voters a real way to solve problems and avoid war.

Originally Posted by sforbes

Perhaps I've read the information in *The Fourth Turning* differently than several of you. Your comments seem too far advanced, i.e. that we're in a fourth now like the gangland 30s. To me, Bush seems like Calvin Coolidge (pre-29). The book said to look for a split in the Boomers and a gray champion to signal the fourth. The split in the country (Boomers et al) is just in the early stages, and seems to have a foundation of religion (sounds like the beginnings of Prohibition???). My questions: will abortion or stem cell be like Prohibition? What will trigger the fourth--another stock market crash? A war that's real--affects our day-to-day lives and takes our youth into battle? Who's the gray champion? Who will be Hoover?

In other words, from my perspective we're not in a fourth turning yet, but we're certainly closer than we were four years ago. Unfortunately, there are so few people alive that were born at the close of the 19th century. They could give us a true portrait of the country leading up to 1929--the issues, the values, and the reactions during the Coolidge era and what it was like leading up to Prohibition and the stock market crash.

As our fellow poster, Hopeful Cynic, points out, be careful of interpreting analogies to previous cycles too strictly or exclusively.

For example, one late 3T/early 4T trend is a drop in immigration. In the last cycle that started happening in the early 20's, a good several years prior to the 4T. This time around that has not started yet (but you can surely feel it coming).

Another trend though is a long-term drop in urban crime. Last time that didn't begin until 1932, a few years into the Crisis. This time it began in 1994, a good decade (or more?) prior to the 4T.

So one should take a mix and match of analogies to get a good picture. Furthermore, watch the age location of the generations vis-a-vis the life phases identified by the authors and compare that to recent turning changes.

Thanks sclark and wjb for your perspectives and the willingness to share them! I found your discussion on a "collaborative world order" an interesting one--one I've been investigating for several years now. Something that came out of one of my meetings today was that America's debt (a key component of world order) is no longer owned by individuals (used to be elite families like the Rothchilds) and companies (like banking institutions). Today, it's owned by countries such as Japan, England, Saudi Arabia, and so forth. The concern expressed today was that instead of a domestic recession/depression, the crisis coming may be a world economic collapse since many of the countries that own America's debt are having difficulties of their own. Any thoughts?

The Bush Realignment

http://www.weeklystandard.com/Conten...4/882ixbha.asp

IT WAS EITHER history's closest landslide or profoundest squeaker. Arriving right on schedule, in the 36th year after the post-New Deal realignment of 1968, and culminating in Ohio, home base of the McKinley realignment dear to the heart of Bush strategist Karl Rove, the 3-percentage point reelection of George W. Bush dwarfs in potential importance the 49-state "lonely landslides" achieved by Richard Nixon in 1972 and Ronald Reagan in 1984.

In part, of course, that is because the 2004 election profoundly alters the Senate, the chief obstructer of the Bush agenda. Because of Bush's red-state coattails, Republicans won all five Democratic open seats and increased their predominance among southern senators from 13-9 to 18-4. Perhaps equally important, the defeat of Senate minority leader Tom Daschle was a shot across the bow of Senate liberals, who have been able to thwart Bush's conservative judicial nominees and so much of the rest of his domestic agenda. By contrast, the landslide reelections of Nixon and Reagan both coincided with Democratic gains in the Senate.

Using All of a Mandate . . .

By Charles Krauthammer

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...-2004Nov4.html

Whatever you think of Bush, he can hardly be accused of playing small ball. His first term was all about large projects. And this time he has a popular mandate, increased control of both houses of Congress, no worry about reelection, and obvious and long-avoided generational problems staring the country right in the face.

Great leaders are willing to retire unloved and unpopular as the price for great exertion. Bush appears bent on exertion.

Originally Posted by Chris'68

Using All of a Mandate . . .

By Charles Krauthammer

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...-2004Nov4.html

Whatever you think of Bush, he can hardly be accused of playing small ball. His first term was all about large projects. And this time he has a popular mandate, increased control of both houses of Congress, no worry about reelection, and obvious and long-avoided generational problems staring the country right in the face.

Great leaders are willing to retire unloved and unpopular as the price for great exertion. Bush appears bent on exertion.

That's it exactly. He sores with eagles or crashes hard. Considering the state of the nation he created as a strting point, I'm (sadly) betting on this bird doing a hammerhead stall. I guess we get to see if the flying lessons paid-off.

Originally Posted by Sam I Am

I guess we get to see if the flying lessons paid-off.

Are those the lessons the records for which cannot be found. Didn't he skip that physical or something?

The fact that Bush won re-election seems to indicate that we are still very much 3T. I did not vote for him, and know of nobody who really liked him. I believe that Kerry had a much better vision for a better America. I hope he runs again in 08, and by that time the country will probably be in such bad shape that he could easily achieve victory. I can't believe anybody in their right mind would vote Bush back in.

Originally Posted by Brian Beecher

The fact that Bush won re-election seems to indicate that we are still very much 3T. I did not vote for him, and know of nobody who really liked him. I believe that Kerry had a much better vision for a better America. I hope he runs again in 08, and by that time the country will probably be in such bad shape that he could easily achieve victory. I can't believe anybody in their right mind would vote Bush back in.

Ahh...spoken like a true Green Belter...

Carlo:

What did you mean by the term "Green Belter?" Never heard that one before.

Originally Posted by Brian Beecher

Carlo:

What did you mean by the term "Green Belter?" Never heard that one before.

I have, but then I grew up in Greenbelt, Maryland, so that is what we called ourselves. :wink:

Definitions of Greenbelt on the Web:

Any stretch of park, open space or other natural setting in a community.
applerealty.com/resources/glossary.htm


An area restricted from use for buildings and allowed to remain in a natural state or retained for agricultural use. Greenbelts act as effective screens in mitigating or reducing certain kinds of environmental impacts.
www.bpa.gov/Corporate/KCC/defn/defnsmal/fgh.htm


an extensive area of largely undeveloped or sparsely occupied land associated with a community set aside to contain development, preserve the character of the countryside and community and provide open space.
www.borealforest.org/nwgloss5.htm


A wide band of countryside surrounding or intertwined within a city on which building is generally barred, usually large enough to form an adequate protection against objectionable uses of property or the intrusion of nearby development. The concept is of British origin, but in the United States loosely describes almost any kind of green space.
http://www.ci.norman.ok.us/planning/...t/glossary.htm


Greenbelts restrict the growth of built up areas by preventing neighbouring conurbations from merging and they consist of 'green' woodlands, open spaces and parks. The Leeds greenbelt helps to preserve the special character of Leeds and its surrounds and provides a highly visual amenity resource to the public.
www.leeds.gov.uk/fol/edu_gloss.html


A wide band of countryside surrounding a city on which building is generally prohibited, usually large enough to form an adequate protection against objectionable uses of property or the intrusion of nearby development.
http://www.sactaqc.org/Resources/pri...y_Land_Use.htm


?An area where measures are applied to mitigate fire, flood and erosion hazards to include fuel management (suppression of combustibles), land use planning, and development standards. More traditionally, an irrigated landscaped buffer zone between developed areas and wildlands, usually put to additional uses such as parks, bike and riding trails, golf courses, etc. ADVANCE \x 540
outreach.missouri.edu/mowin/Resources2/glossary/glossaryg.html


Forests, woods, parks, or fields surrounding or enclosing urban area.
www.eatonfinancial.com/DEFg.html


A park located in the vicinity of a property.
http://www.brokersnyc.com/docs.cfm/B...ement/Glossary


a belt of parks or rural land surrounding a town or city
www.cogsci.princeton.edu/cgi-bin/webwn

Originally Posted by Brian Beecher

The fact that Bush won re-election seems to indicate that we are still very much 3T. I did not vote for him, and know of nobody who really liked him. I believe that Kerry had a much better vision for a better America. I hope he runs again in 08, and by that time the country will probably be in such bad shape that he could easily achieve victory. I can't believe anybody in their right mind would vote Bush back in.

A little point the above post seems to have missed: Bush can't run again. There's a little item called the 22nd Amendment to the Constitution that says so.

Also, the Democrats, all through this 3T and the prior 2T, have developed a history of not giving their losing Presidential candidates a second chance. Thus, Kerry is most likely equally out of the picture. Look for Hillary to run next time. As Cheney, citing age and medical condition, has ruled out a Presidential run in 2008, the only real question is, 'Who will Hillary face?'

See more and more of those "looped ribbon" stickers on cars...just bought a couple myself. It is like we are on the Edge and tilting, tilting...