And who said the Democrats weren't the party of the middle class?

Reducing the number of abortions ought to be especially effective against the coming hyperinflation, the increasingly widespread underemployment of the educated middle class, the increasing unaffordability of home ownership and higher education for the middle class, the loss of middle class bankruptcy protection and overtime pay, and the exodus of high wage middle class jobs to foreign countries.

PS Handouts to midwest corporate ag sounds awfully 3t to me, a kind of safe, politically correct and wildly insufficient response to the coming end of cheap oil. It's a good (and typically DLCish) way for the Democrats to line their pockets with big ag dollars next year, and it ought to be hugely popular with the CEOs and senior vice presidents of the agribusiness conglomerates, but it ain't gonna win them any votes, let alone solve the problem. Small farmers can't compete on cost with corporate agriculture on crops used for biofuels, and have been voting majority Republican since 1992 (and also disappearing by the tens of thousands every year). There are only so many corporate ag CEO votes to be won (and one suspects they go Republican even after they fill the coffers of both parties), and if Democrats really wanted the vote of small and family farmers it seems to me they would pledge to either cut subsidies for big ag (which is where the subsidies are going) or increase subsidies for small farmers, and they would pledge to break the backs of the corporate ag trusts that (probably illegally) control the supply chains.

PS Thanks for the heads up Bob.

Not presented as "proof", but this instantly reminded me of the phrase in T4T that "there will be a sense that society's hard drive has been erased", to paraphrase S & H, may they forgive me.
Presented purely for educational purposes.
PEGGY NOONAN

A Separate Peace
America is in trouble--and our elites are merely resigned.

Thursday, October 27, 2005 12:01 a.m. EDT

It is not so hard and can be a pleasure to tell people what you see. It's harder to speak of what you think you see, what you think is going on and can't prove or defend with data or numbers. That can get tricky. It involves hunches. But here goes.

I think there is an unspoken subtext in our national political culture right now. In fact I think it's a subtext to our society. I think that a lot of people are carrying around in their heads, unarticulated and even in some cases unnoticed, a sense that the wheels are coming off the trolley and the trolley off the tracks. That in some deep and fundamental way things have broken down and can't be fixed, or won't be fixed any time soon. That our pollsters are preoccupied with "right track" and "wrong track" but missing the number of people who think the answer to "How are things going in America?" is "Off the tracks and hurtling forward, toward an unknown destination."

I'm not talking about "Plamegate." As I write no indictments have come up. I'm not talking about "Miers." I mean . . . the whole ball of wax. Everything. Cloning, nuts with nukes, epidemics; the growing knowledge that there's no such thing as homeland security; the fact that we're leaving our kids with a bill no one can pay. A sense of unreality in our courts so deep that they think they can seize grandma's house to build a strip mall; our media institutions imploding--the spectacle of a great American newspaper, the New York Times, hurtling off its own tracks, as did CBS. The fear of parents that their children will wind up disturbed, and their souls actually imperiled, by the popular culture in which we are raising them. Senators who seem owned by someone, actually owned, by an interest group or a financial entity. Great churches that have lost all sense of mission, and all authority. Do you have confidence in the CIA? The FBI? I didn't think so.

But this recounting doesn't quite get me to what I mean. I mean I believe there's a general and amorphous sense that things are broken and tough history is coming.





Let me focus for a minute on the presidency, another institution in trouble. In the past I have been impatient with the idea that it's impossible now to be president, that it is impossible to run the government of the United States successfully or even competently. I always thought that was an excuse of losers. I'd seen a successful presidency up close. It can be done.
But since 9/11, in the four years after that catastrophe, I have wondered if it hasn't all gotten too big, too complicated, too crucial, too many-fronted, too . . . impossible.

I refer to the sheer scope, speed and urgency of the issues that go to a president's desk, to the impossibility of bureaucracy, to the array of impeding and antagonistic forces (the 50-50 nation, the mass media, the senators owned by the groups), to the need to have a fully informed understanding of and stand on the most exotic issues, from Avian flu to the domestic realities of Zimbabwe.

The special prosecutors, the scandals, the spin for the scandals, nuclear proliferation, wars and natural disasters, Iraq, stem cells, earthquakes, the background of the Supreme Court backup pick, how best to handle the security problems at the port of Newark, how to increase production of vaccines, tort reform, did Justice bungle the anthrax case, how is Cipro production going, did you see this morning's Raw Threat File? Our public schools don't work, and there's little refuge to be had in private schools, however pricey, in part because teachers there are embarrassed not to be working in the slums and make up for it by putting pictures of Frida Kalho where Abe Lincoln used to be. Where is Osama? What's up with trademark infringement and intellectual capital? We need an answer on an amendment on homosexual marriage! We face a revolt on immigration.

The range, depth, and complexity of these problems, the crucial nature of each of them, the speed with which they bombard the Oval Office, and the psychic and practical impossibility of meeting and answering even the most urgent of them, is overwhelming. And that doesn't even get us to Korea. And Russia. And China, and the Mideast. You say we don't understand Africa? We don't even understand Canada!

Roiling history, daily dangers, big demands; a government that is itself too big and rolling in too much money and ever needing more to do the latest important, necessary, crucial thing.

It's beyond, "The president is overwhelmed." The presidency is overwhelmed. The whole government is. And people sense when an institution is overwhelmed. Citizens know. If we had a major terrorist event tomorrow half the country--more than half--would not trust the federal government to do what it has to do, would not trust it to tell the truth, would not trust it, period.

It should be noted that all modern presidents face a slew of issues, and none of them have felt in control of events but have instead felt controlled by them. JFK in one week faced the Soviets, civil rights, the Berlin Wall, the southern Democratic mandarins of the U.S. Senate. He had to face Cuba, only 90 miles away, importing Russian missiles. But the difference now, 45 years later, is that there are a million little Cubas, a new Cuba every week. It's all so much more so. And all increasingly crucial. And it will be for the next president, too.





A few weeks ago I was chatting with friends about the sheer number of things parents now buy for teenage girls--bags and earrings and shoes. When I was young we didn't wear earrings, but if we had, everyone would have had a pair or two. I know a 12-year-old with dozens of pairs. They're thrown all over her desk and bureau. She's not rich, and they're inexpensive, but her parents buy her more when she wants them. Someone said, "It's affluence," and someone else nodded, but I said, "Yeah, but it's also the fear parents have that we're at the end of something, and they want their kids to have good memories. They're buying them good memories, in this case the joy a kid feels right down to her stomach when the earrings are taken out of the case."
This, as you can imagine, stopped the flow of conversation for a moment. Then it resumed, as delightful and free flowing as ever. Human beings are resilient. Or at least my friends are, and have to be.

Let me veer back to the president. One of the reasons some of us have felt discomfort regarding President Bush's leadership the past year or so is that he makes more than the usual number of decisions that seem to be looking for trouble. He makes startling choices, as in the Miers case. But you don't have to look for trouble in life, it will find you, especially when you're president. It knows your address. A White House is a castle surrounded by a moat, and the moat is called trouble, and the rain will come and the moat will rise. You should buy some boots, do your work, hope for the best.




Do people fear the wheels are coming off the trolley? Is this fear widespread? A few weeks ago I was reading Christopher Lawford's lovely, candid and affectionate remembrance of growing up in a particular time and place with a particular family, the Kennedys, circa roughly 1950-2000. It's called "Symptoms of Withdrawal." At the end he quotes his Uncle Teddy. Christopher, Ted Kennedy and a few family members had gathered one night and were having a drink in Mr. Lawford's mother's apartment in Manhattan. Teddy was expansive. If he hadn't gone into politics he would have been an opera singer, he told them, and visited small Italian villages and had pasta every day for lunch. "Singing at la Scala in front of three thousand people throwing flowers at you. Then going out for dinner and having more pasta." Everyone was laughing. Then, writes Mr. Lawford, Teddy "took a long, slow gulp of his vodka and tonic, thought for a moment, and changed tack. 'I'm glad I'm not going to be around when you guys are my age.' I asked him why, and he said, 'Because when you guys are my age, the whole thing is going to fall apart.' "
Mr. Lawford continued, "The statement hung there, suspended in the realm of 'maybe we shouldn't go there.' Nobody wanted to touch it. After a few moments of heavy silence, my uncle moved on."

Lawford thought his uncle might be referring to their family--that it might "fall apart." But reading, one gets the strong impression Teddy Kennedy was not talking about his family but about . . . the whole ball of wax, the impossible nature of everything, the realities so daunting it seems the very system is off the tracks.

And--forgive me--I thought: If even Teddy knows . . .





If I am right that trolley thoughts are out there, and even prevalent, how are people dealing with it on a daily basis?
I think those who haven't noticed we're living in a troubling time continue to operate each day with classic and constitutional American optimism intact. I think some of those who have a sense we're in trouble are going through the motions, dealing with their own daily challenges.

And some--well, I will mention and end with America's elites. Our recent debate about elites has had to do with whether opposition to Harriet Miers is elitist, but I don't think that's our elites' problem.

This is. Our elites, our educated and successful professionals, are the ones who are supposed to dig us out and lead us. I refer specifically to the elites of journalism and politics, the elites of the Hill and at Foggy Bottom and the agencies, the elites of our state capitals, the rich and accomplished and successful of Washington, and elsewhere. I have a nagging sense, and think I have accurately observed, that many of these people have made a separate peace. That they're living their lives and taking their pleasures and pursuing their agendas; that they're going forward each day with the knowledge, which they hold more securely and with greater reason than nonelites, that the wheels are off the trolley and the trolley's off the tracks, and with a conviction, a certainty, that there is nothing they can do about it.

I suspect that history, including great historical novelists of the future, will look back and see that many of our elites simply decided to enjoy their lives while they waited for the next chapter of trouble. And that they consciously, or unconsciously, took grim comfort in this thought: I got mine. Which is what the separate peace comes down to, "I got mine, you get yours."

You're a lobbyist or a senator or a cabinet chief, you're an editor at a paper or a green-room schmoozer, you're a doctor or lawyer or Indian chief, and you're making your life a little fortress. That's what I think a lot of the elites are up to.

Not all of course. There are a lot of people--I know them and so do you--trying to do work that helps, that will turn it around, that can make it better, that can save lives. They're trying to keep the boat afloat. Or, I should say, get the trolley back on the tracks.

That's what I think is going on with our elites. There are two groups. One has made a separate peace, and one is trying to keep the boat afloat. I suspect those in the latter group privately, in a place so private they don't even express it to themselves, wonder if they'll go down with the ship. Or into bad territory with the trolley.

Ms. Noonan is a contributing editor of The Wall Street Journal and author of "John Paul the Great: Remembering a Spiritual Father," forthcoming in November from Penguin, which you can preorder from the OpinionJournal bookstore. Her column appears Thursdays.

Originally Posted by mandelbrot5

Not presented as "proof", but this instantly reminded me of the phrase in T4T that "there will be a sense that society's hard drive has been erased", to paraphrase S & H, may they forgive me.

Presented purely for educational purposes.

Originally Posted by PEGGY NOONAN

A Separate Peace
America is in trouble--and our elites are merely resigned.

Lawford thought his uncle might be referring to their family--that it might "fall apart." But reading, one gets the strong impression Teddy Kennedy was not talking about his family but about . . . the whole ball of wax, the impossible nature of everything, the realities so daunting it seems the very system is off the tracks.

And--forgive me--I thought: If even Teddy knows . . .

Yes. I'm not sure how many people are feeling it. This feels like the late unraveling selfish and dejected feeling one might expect of a late third turning. I'd like to feel this is the Phoenix burning into ashes before the rebirth, but those not into S&H theory wouldn't anticipate the rebirth part of it.

An interesting piece, though.

Noonan says: I suspect that history, including great historical novelists of the future, will look back and see that many of our elites simply decided to enjoy their lives while they waited for the next chapter of trouble. And that they consciously, or unconsciously, took grim comfort in this thought: I got mine. Which is what the separate peace comes down to, "I got mine, you get yours."

And Noonan is surprised? This sort of attitude is the logical and inevitable outcome of eras that raise "Liberty" over "Equality", the Individual over the Community. The inevitable outcome of her Republicanism. Of trickle down Ronald Reagan and the gas-bag red-neck baiting of puppets Rush Lamebrain, Fox news, O'Reilly, et al. Of amoral, sick and twisted puppet masters like Karl Rove and George Bush. Of the contempt and disdain of the real masters like Momma Bush and the "Board of Directors".

In the beginning of this great libertarian era, with Eisenhower you still had a republicanism that cared about the community, but that is long gone. Ancient History. And now we have the Unraveling. Pretty ugly. Now that Grover Norquist's "government" has been drowned in that bathtub he longed for so much. Now that we have a state that is unable to systematically and COMPETENTLY respond to internal or external threats, unable to conduct a war (no troops? no allies? no plan?), unable to help people in times of disaster (no money?, no gas?, cronies out to lunch at every level?), unwilling to pay a tax to win a war or save social security, contemptuous of America’s working and middle classes. The Media bought, paid for, and silenced. Big Oil making 10 billion in 3 months, Big Business shipping jobs out of the country and sucking up profits. Hell no I won't pay a tax, hell no I won't go, I got mine, you get yours.

I just escaped from South Florida, and I see that the rest of the county doesn't know or care what is happening down there, just like we won't know or care when you get yours. The wheels have come off the trolley, enjoy your ride. You wanted it, you voted for it, you got it.

This blogger (Athenae) describes Bush& Co.....and she also thinks the hard drive has been erased...or the trolly is off the track.

http://www.first-draft.com/modules.p...ticle&sid=4509



"It's not mark of strength, it never is, to barrel down on somebody smaller than you. If you're really the leader of the free world, if you're really the strongest and biggest badass the land has ever known, you aren't threatened by anybody. Least of all another American speaking his or her mind.

But they never were our leaders. They told us to be afraid, and they turned us on each other, and they gave away our money to their friends and killed our sons and daughters, brothers and sisters, mothers and fathers, husbands and wives. They sniped and they snarled, but they never did lead us. They never brought us an inch above ourselves, or a milimeter closer together.

For all their blithering about restoring honor and dignity, for all the lofty words that come from their speechwriters' offices, they are small men, and their vision only extends to power, not poetry. They don't understand what service to your country means; look at their service records. They don't understand what respect that should entail; look what they did to Max Cleland, to John Kerry. They don't understand anything except how to step hardest on somebody's fingers on their way up the stairs.

They got to the top, and had no idea where they were, or why. And the mountain's crashing down on them now, so I say again, what exactly did you think was going to happen?"

Reply to the poster known only as The Poster:

It's not only small farmers but many others who have trouble competing against all the corporate conglomerates. I was at an apple orchard which is selling off its apple trees for much the same reason. Seems as if the efforts of big-name entertainers such as Willie Nelson and John Mellencamp haven't been paying off that much to save the family farms. In fact it was even suggested to them this year that they expand their reach to aid independent business of all types, such as the remain indie pharmacies, book stores, etc. which are being gobbled up by the giant chains. For more on the effect on food realted business, I would recommend reading the book Fast Food Nation: The Dark Side of the All-American Meal.

"We're not just living through an age of change: we're living through a 'change of age': the most profound inflection point in human history since the Enlightenment."

I skimmed through an interesting book at a bookstore today named Powerful Times. The book seems to describe what seems to be a 4T-esque era in which by 2015, a new global order is emerging. Three scenarios for a 2015-order are described.

The first one is a New American Century, which is pretty self explanatory.

The second one is one in which there is no new superpowers, but one in which traditional nation-states are still in power.

The third one is called "emergence", in which a global class war occurs, with the masses overthrowing the corporate/political elite and erecting a new form of internet-based direct democracy.

Originally Posted by cumulonimbus

"We're not just living through an age of change: we're living through a 'change of age': the most profound inflection point in human history since the Enlightenment."

I skimmed through an interesting book at a bookstore today named Powerful Times. The book seems to describe what seems to be a 4T-esque era in which by 2015, a new global order is emerging. Three scenarios for a 2015-order are described.

The first one is a New American Century, which is pretty self explanatory.

The second one is one in which there is no new superpowers, but one in which traditional nation-states are still in power.

The third one is called "emergence", in which a global class war occurs, with the masses overthrowing the corporate/political elite and erecting a new form of internet-based direct democracy.

Interesting. This maps into my own view of things decently. The Enlightenment marked the political transition between Toffler's First Wave Agricultural Age civilization and Second Wave Industrial Age Civilization. Arguably, since the Enlightenment, we have been integrating the basic values of the Enlightenment. The current Crisis might be initiating a similar transition into Toffler's Third Wave Information Age pattern.

I do occasionally advocate computer network direct vote democracy, but even here no one believes me. It seems like a big change. One might remember that the changes resulting from a Fourth Turning are generally much more significant than anything anticipated at the 3T / 4T cusp.

I don't see his middle option as likely. The status quo is unlikely in a Fourth Turning. I anticipate a struggle between the Military Industrial Complex's New American Century neoconservative approach, and what he calls 'emergence' as the progressive alternative. In a Crisis, the progressive faction historically has the edge. I'll have to get a better idea of how he sees the 'emergence' unfolding.

The basic pattern of emergence seem similar to what I've said recently to Blue Shark in the Events by Turning thread, to HC in the What's the relationship between the 2nd and 4th turnings? thread, and countless times elsewhere. I can also sympathize with a few lines from the Wikipedia entry on emergence.

Originally Posted by Adina Levin

"I'm a lot more wary about approaches that assume that political action will somehow "emerge naturally" from distributed groups of individual actors, in the same way that flocks of birds emerge naturally from simple behaviors to follow at a given distance and preserve line of sight, and termite mounds emerge naturally from termites dropping the next grain of sand near where they stumbled onto a grain of sand on the ground.

"Human governing behaviors at the level of complexity required to implement systems like coalitions and policies and constitutions don't happen automatically. People make them happen.

"Networking tools and technologies can lower the activation threshold for starting groups, taking action, and combining into larger groups of influence.

"Emergent Democracy won't happen unless we—the nodes in the network—take deliberate steps to organize and make it happen."

Adina is both wrong and right.

She is wrong. New technology causes cultural transformation. Gunpowder, the printing press, and the steam engine doomed the First Wave Agricultural Age pattern. Computer Networks are going to doom the Second Wave pattern. If I felt just a little braver I might say representative democracy is dead, to be replaced by network democracy. It's just that the senators, congressmen and MPs don't know they are obsolete yet. It is going to happen.

Adina is also absolutely right. It won't happen unless we make it happen. The computers can't provide the four vital ingredients of any Crisis: blood, toil, tears and sweat.

Do you know what time it is?

It's David Gergen Time! 8)

Originally Posted by Bob Butler 54

Interesting. This maps into my own view of things decently. The Enlightenment marked the political transition between Toffler's First Wave Agricultural Age civilization and Second Wave Industrial Age Civilization. Arguably, since the Enlightenment, we have been integrating the basic values of the Enlightenment. The current Crisis might be initiating a similar transition into Toffler's Third Wave Information Age pattern.

There are some 4Ters that believe that the 4T will be between second and third wave civilizations. This interesting article can be found here Of course, there are still those who are pushing for a first wave civilization.

It is a question how quickly will third wave civilization will descend onto civilization. During the late 1400s in western Europe, there were 4T revolutions and wars totally unrelated to the second wave. The Crises of the late 1500s also empowered first wave civilization. In history, it seems as if the first stirrings of second wave thought occurred with the 4Ts of the late 1600s, with the birth of the Enlightenment. The main Enlightenment event, of course, was the 4T events of the late 18th/early 19th centuries, with the American and French Revolutions. The Civil War basically confirmed the supremacy of the second wave, while the Great Depression and WWII marked its very peak, the very point before the third wave began to creep in with invention of the ENIAC. It took three Crises, from the Glorious Revolution to the Civil War, to complete to transition to a second wave civilization.

Will the transition to third wave happen in one or more Crises? I think that it will take at least two Crises as technologies will not be available to complete the transition for decades at least. And besides, I doubt that anyone has a grasp on what a mature third wave civilization will be like, any more than what even the most forward thinking person in the world in 1789 could grasp what a mature second wave civilization (in 1945) would be like. The most forward thinking people in the 1680s conceived of the first concepts of the second wave society, although they didn't have any of the technology to make it happen. Similarly, during and just after the prior Crisis, the most forward thinking people conceived of the most basic concepts of what a third wave society would entail, even though none of the technology was invented during the Crisis years. The leading scientists and science fiction writers saw very far ahead for their time, with concepts of programmability and even of “universal constructors”.

I would like to think of this Crisis as our 1770s or 1780s, when not only a political revolution was fought, but a sweeping change in the general world view occurred. We can only do so much during the coming Crisis because of our limited capacity during these periods.

After this Crisis, there are still advances to come, such as mature molecular manufacturing (nanotechnology), self-replication of machines, “napster fabbing”, advanced genetic engineering, quantum computing, space settlement, artificial intelligence, and the most far reaching idea I have heard about, programmable matter (Arthur C. Clarke: Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic). And of course, to make a mature third wave civilization will likely require technologies and concepts even beyond programmable matter. All of these technologies will aid in the digitization of the industrial revolution, and will make possible for engineering projects on mind-boggling scales.

I do occasionally advocate computer network direct vote democracy, but even here no one believes me. It seems like a big change. One might remember that the changes resulting from a Fourth Turning are generally much more significant than anything anticipated at the 3T / 4T cusp.

I don't see his middle option as likely. The status quo is unlikely in a Fourth Turning. I anticipate a struggle between the Military Industrial Complex's New American Century neoconservative approach, and what he calls 'emergence' as the progressive alternative. In a Crisis, the progressive faction historically has the edge. I'll have to get a better idea of how he sees the 'emergence' unfolding.

The basic pattern of emergence seem similar to what I've said recently to Blue Shark in the Events by Turning thread, to HC in the What's the relationship between the 2nd and 4th turnings? thread, and countless times elsewhere. I can also sympathize with a few lines from the Wikipedia entry on emergence.

Originally Posted by Adina Levin

"I'm a lot more wary about approaches that assume that political action will somehow "emerge naturally" from distributed groups of individual actors, in the same way that flocks of birds emerge naturally from simple behaviors to follow at a given distance and preserve line of sight, and termite mounds emerge naturally from termites dropping the next grain of sand near where they stumbled onto a grain of sand on the ground.

"Human governing behaviors at the level of complexity required to implement systems like coalitions and policies and constitutions don't happen automatically. People make them happen.

"Networking tools and technologies can lower the activation threshold for starting groups, taking action, and combining into larger groups of influence.

"Emergent Democracy won't happen unless we—the nodes in the network—take deliberate steps to organize and make it happen."

Adina is both wrong and right.

She is wrong. New technology causes cultural transformation. Gunpowder, the printing press, and the steam engine doomed the First Wave Agricultural Age pattern. Computer Networks are going to doom the Second Wave pattern. If I felt just a little braver I might say representative democracy is dead, to be replaced by network democracy. It's just that the senators, congressmen and MPs don't know they are obsolete yet. It is going to happen.

Adina is also absolutely right. It won't happen unless we make it happen. The computers can't provide the four vital ingredients of any Crisis: blood, toil, tears and sweat.

I don't think that even most people on here realize the magnitude of social change that could happen, that is, unless the social change means a new Dark Age. Not very many people can imagine a better world, but mostly because they haven't been exposed to what is possible (and remember the disappointments of the last Awakening period). This is changing though, and more people are being exposed to the future possibilities of civilization. In prior Crises, it wasn't really until 1776 and 1933 when the masses began to dream and work towards a new society. And so, it won't be until we hit that moment before society begins to seriously consider these prospects of creating a radically different society.

To the more forward thinkers in society, society does seem to be fracturing along the lines of the second wave versus third wave world view. The vast majority of politicians holding office belong firmly in the second wave. Howard Dean's campaign is but a peek into third wave politics. No one is entirely sure how such a society would work, but they have the basic concepts down...kinda similar to the first half of the 1770s. No one was even sure when the Declaration was written. Some of the main concepts of third wave civilization can be found on this thread. The Articles of Confederation was written in late 1777, and ratified in 1781. The US Constitution was not ratified until 1789. So it will probably be about a couple of decades before we have an agreed upon government in place, if we decide to move in this direction.

Originally Posted by Noonan

....
A few weeks ago I was chatting with friends about the sheer number of things parents now buy for teenage girls--bags and earrings and shoes. When I was young we didn't wear earrings, but if we had, everyone would have had a pair or two. I know a 12-year-old with dozens of pairs. They're thrown all over her desk and bureau. She's not rich, and they're inexpensive, but her parents buy her more when she wants them. Someone said, "It's affluence," and someone else nodded, but I said, "Yeah, but it's also the fear parents have that we're at the end of something, and they want their kids to have good memories. They're buying them good memories, in this case the joy a kid feels right down to her stomach when the earrings are taken out of the case."....

This line hit me square in the gut. I've been "aware" of the theory for several years, at least since 1999. I've been reading up on energy and Peak Oil. The impetus of all this academic reading changed when I had kids. My 2nd was born less than a month after 911. When I think of my role in their lives, I suffer deeply from this "fin d' era" vibe in my stomach. How can I protect them, how can I prepare them, what future will there be for them? On 911 I cried for my pregnant wife and my children as much as for the victims. Hard to know the future is. Hard to protect against the unknown. Very nomad, very lost.

Fiscal Phonies

Originally Posted by Mr. Robt. J. Samuelson in the Wa[i

Po[/i]]But who cares about the truth? For most politicians, the real problem is to appear principled even when they're not.

:arrow: :arrow: :arrow:

TABOR takes a hit in Colorado.

Nomads rising...

Aaron Brown is out and Andersoon Cooper is in.

I'm not a great fan of the way that cables news has assisted in the degradation of political discourse, but perhaps that will change with xers and millenials in charge. Cooper is a talented broadcaster, a classy, down-to-earth nomad variatian on the GI and silent giants, and a vast improvement over the weak kneed boomer liberals like Brown, blowhard boomer conservatives like O'Reilly, boomer suckers-of-right-wing-cock like Tweety and Wolf Blitzer, and vapid, sun tanned boomer Ken dolls like Brian Williams.

Cooper deserves a medal for his Katrina coverage. He has looked awful bored in recent years being forced by the suits to cover Michael Jackson and whether girls should be allowed to wear lowrider pants, but during and in the immediate aftermath of the hurricane he almost singlehandedly broke through the third turning bullshit. With respect to the news media, it will go down as a watershed moment in the progression of the turnings. While the silents still wanted to play the race card, and the boomers still wanted to play softball or hackball, he turned the heat on the elite of both parties, and was asking the tough questions his viewers were actually thinking. His interview with Mary Landrieu will be regarded as a classic.

As an American of Eastern European descent I can imagine few things more offensive than the notion that people are being detained and tortured by the American CIA not only in the former Eastern Bloc but on former Soviet compounds. How many pro-western, pro-democracy dissidents were held, tortured, and murdered in these places?

The Millions More Movement seemed to be smaller (even though it was much more inclusive), and had less of an impact than the original march in 1995, even with the aftermath of Katrina. To me, this could be either 3T or 4T. The 4T part would be that politics based upon identity/ethnicity is not seen as attractive or workable, and 3T part being that it is even smaller than the 1995 one. What do you guys think?

Cailey and mandelbrot5, those were interesting articles. After what has happened since Katrina, I'm considering jumping back on the "we be 4T" bandwagon.

To everyone, what does the mood seem like to you? I really do have this feeling that (As Bob Butler says) that the political leadership (not just the Republicans, but nearly everyone) is looking more and more obsolete as the disconnect between the politicians and the civilians is increasingly looking unbridgeable.

Note: Added material

Originally Posted by cumulonimbus

Cailey and mandelbrot5, those were interesting articles. After what has happened since Katrina, I'm considering jumping back on the "we be 4T" bandwagon.

To everyone, what does the mood seem like to you? I really do have this feeling that (As Bob Butler says) that the political leadership (not just the Republicans, but nearly everyone) is looking more and more obsolete as the disconnect between the politicians and the civilians is increasingly looking unbridgeable.

Note: Added material

I agree. Since Bush's 2005 inauguration, it's been downhill. Katrina was the final nail in the coffin. People aren't buying either side anymore. Until recently, I thought we were still 3T, but now I'm not so sure. I read somewhere (can't remember where though) that for the past four years, we've been in a post-9/11 shock, and that Katrina is when we started to wake up from it. I think you can trace it back to Bush's 2005 inauguration though. Public support for him and his policies have been waning since then.

I know there was a lot of skepticism here at first that Katrina was the 4T catalyst. I too was part of it. How could a silly storm cause that? But now it's starting to seem more possible.

Originally Posted by albatross '82

Originally Posted by cumulonimbus

Cailey and mandelbrot5, those were interesting articles. After what has happened since Katrina, I'm considering jumping back on the "we be 4T" bandwagon.

To everyone, what does the mood seem like to you? I really do have this feeling that (As Bob Butler says) that the political leadership (not just the Republicans, but nearly everyone) is looking more and more obsolete as the disconnect between the politicians and the civilians is increasingly looking unbridgeable.

Note: Added material

I agree. Since Bush's 2005 inauguration, it's been downhill. Katrina was the final nail in the coffin. People aren't buying either side anymore. Until recently, I thought we were still 3T, but now I'm not so sure. I read somewhere (can't remember where though) that for the past four years, we've been in a post-9/11 shock, and that Katrina is when we started to wake up from it. I think you can trace it back to Bush's 2005 inauguration though. Public support for him and his policies have been waning since then.

I know there was a lot of skepticism here at first that Katrina was the 4T catalyst. I too was part of it. How could a silly storm cause that? But now it's starting to seem more possible.

It is normally cited that the unusually severe winters of the 1780s in Europe during the Little Ice Age caused famines (or, at least the threat of famines) that was enough to anger the population of France, especially with the "Let them eat cake" attitude of those in power, to revolt en masse, leading to the French Revolution.

I don't think that natural disasters themselves can lead to Crisis, but how one responds to the disaster definitely can.

Another story about how weather can impact politics is shown on The Weather Channel's Storm Stories. There is an episode that deals with how the severe winter in Chicago during 1978/1979 caused an uproar in the Democratic primaries. During that season, the snow just kept on coming, with no real time for thawing nor clearing the roads for ice. The snowstorms severely hampered the ability of Chicago residents to travel to and from work. Public transportation was at a total standstill, angering those who had to wait in sub-zero air temperatures for nothing. Before the terrible winter, the mayor of Chicago was popular. But because he didn't commit to clearing the roads and ensuring that the public transportation system kept running, angry voters voted him out of the Democratic primaries in favor of someone who made a promise to clear the ice and snow. Those who hope to run for public office in major cities have learned an important lesson: clear the snow and ice. And with Katrina in the background, an even larger lesson: when natural disaster strikes, at least make it appear that you care for the victims, and make disaster relief the top public priority.

Originally Posted by albatross '82

Originally Posted by cumulonimbus

Cailey and mandelbrot5, those were interesting articles. After what has happened since Katrina, I'm considering jumping back on the "we be 4T" bandwagon.

To everyone, what does the mood seem like to you? I really do have this feeling that (As Bob Butler says) that the political leadership (not just the Republicans, but nearly everyone) is looking more and more obsolete as the disconnect between the politicians and the civilians is increasingly looking unbridgeable.

Note: Added material

I agree. Since Bush's 2005 inauguration, it's been downhill. Katrina was the final nail in the coffin. People aren't buying either side anymore. Until recently, I thought we were still 3T, but now I'm not so sure. I read somewhere (can't remember where though) that for the past four years, we've been in a post-9/11 shock, and that Katrina is when we started to wake up from it. I think you can trace it back to Bush's 2005 inauguration though. Public support for him and his policies have been waning since then.

I know there was a lot of skepticism here at first that Katrina was the 4T catalyst. I too was part of it. How could a silly storm cause that? But now it's starting to seem more possible.

Katrina is just part of it. September 11th was enough of a shock to allow a major policy shift. Bush 43 implemented the War on Terror, featuring Afghanistan and Iraq. I have been trying to label this a 'false regeneracy.' Bush 43 responded to September 11th, but not strongly or acutely enough for the public to perceive a light at the end of the tunnel. Katrina is but one of a bunch of things that is marking Bush's efforts as the wrong approach. Persistent problems in Iraq and Afghanistan, deficits, Rovegate, and ugly echoes of the Culture Wars parallel Katrina's sense of something being wrong. This leaves the door open for another attempt at regeneracy.

Last time around, there was a gap between the Crash of 29 and the election of FDR. Hoover was not perceived of as doing enough. We might be going through a similar period.

It would seem to me that we haven't reached the solstace yet. I would've expected truly tough times to be tougher than they have been. They have to be tough enough to galvanize ppl to do truly extraordiary things.

Originally Posted by mgibbons19 (71)

It would seem to me that we haven't reached the solstace yet. I would've expected truly tough times to be tougher than they have been. They have to be tough enough to galvanize ppl to do truly extraordiary things.

Maybe we haven't reached the Solstice yet, but we sure as shooting are past Samhain!

Blessed be.

Originally Posted by Bob Butler 54

Katrina is just part of it. September 11th was enough of a shock to allow a major policy shift. Bush 43 implemented the War on Terror, featuring Afghanistan and Iraq. I have been trying to label this a 'false regeneracy.' Bush 43 responded to September 11th, but not strongly or acutely enough for the public to perceive a light at the end of the tunnel. Katrina is but one of a bunch of things that is marking Bush's efforts as the wrong approach. Persistent problems in Iraq and Afghanistan, deficits, Rovegate, and ugly echoes of the Culture Wars parallel Katrina's sense of something being wrong. This leaves the door open for another attempt at regeneracy.

Last time around, there was a gap between the Crash of 29 and the election of FDR. Hoover was not perceived of as doing enough. We might be going through a similar period.

That's interesting, so you're under the impression that it's basically Bush's fault that we aren't in full 4T mode. You think that even if Bush had acted strongly enough, America would have been ready for it? Because that's what I keep hearing about 9/11 being the false regeneracy--"We weren't ready." It did come a bit early after all, according to S&H's prediction. But maybe we were ready, and Bush screwed it up and left us in this weird limbo? That's interesting.

I think people deep down want a regeneracy, as can be seen by our short-lived unity following 9/11. We've probably been ready since the 2000 election. I think that's when people really started to get sick of the culture wars. I think that our regeneracy may very well be an election, Lincoln style. 8)

Originally Posted by cumulonimbus

And with Katrina in the background, an even larger lesson: when natural disaster strikes, at least make it appear that you care for the victims, and make disaster relief the top public priority.

Like they say, roll up the sleeves, it makes it look like you're working hard! :lol:

Originally Posted by Idiot Girl

Maybe we haven't reached the Solstice yet, but we sure as shooting are past Samhain!

Blessed be.

More like past the halfway point between Samhain and Yule, I'd say. (Which in Xtian terms translates to just past Thanksgiving, IIRC.)