Originally Posted by The Grey Badger

To change the subject: U.S. News & World Report's cover story this week is "BIG GOVERNMENT - It's back - no matter who wins. Americans want Uncle Sam to solve their problems."

Now - WHO said "The Era of Big Government is over" and when?

Not asking for a disquisition on the evils or benefits thereof, but just as a turning marker, it seems U.S. News may think (or have discovered that?) we're 4T.

It will be so delicious when the government utterly fails to solve the problems of the day -- and actually makes many of them worse -- shattering for generations to come this misplaced faith that the state can actually manage something as complex as a human society. I would like to believe the disillusionment will be permanent, but I trust historical inertia more than human reason, and the state has been around for too many millennia to vanish in a single turning. Pity.

Originally Posted by Arkham '80

It will be so delicious when the government utterly fails to solve the problems of the day -- and actually makes many of them worse -- shattering for generations to come this misplaced faith that the state can actually manage something as complex as a human society. I would like to believe the disillusionment will be permanent, but I trust historical inertia more than human reason, and the state has been around for too many millennia to vanish in a single turning. Pity.

i guess at least for the generations to come, that's all they'll have known, if that's actually the case... you know, kinda hard to grieve the loss of something you've never known.

Originally Posted by MillieJim

I have some quibbles... The last 7 years have been unchecked Boomerism. Like it or not, Boomers and Silents own these last 7 years of Bush, and most of Clinton's second term.

It's arguable that Bill Clinton and George W. Bush were both Silent/GI cuspers, both having been born in 1946. Unless one puts the core of the Boom Generation near its start, those two Presidents are not core Boomers. Maybe the core cohorts of the Boom Generation are somewhat later -- born in the early 1950s.

I can see Dubya having the worst tendencies of both the Boom and the Silent... much like Dick Cheney. Dubya is certainly muddled, with his apparent confusion on his masculine identity. He didn't like going into the fight, but he certainly loved the glory. Clinton might have had the better of both, except with respect to sex.

We are still fishing around for a regeneracy, and I think Obama has the potential to pull it off. I don't consider him an Xer, he's on the cusp but is enough Boomer to get the job done. Nobody said the Boomers who fix things need to be core cohorts, as opposed to cuspers. In fact, one could make the argument that it takes a Prophet/Nomad cusper to give the vision of the prophet some direction and pragmatism, so things actually start getting done in a crisis. Just a thought.

If the Missonaries are any indication, I can't see those born in the early 1860s as having fixed anything. Harding? Internationally? Gandhi and Lenin were pretty close (although very different; I can imagine the world as a much better place had Lenin lived longer, purged Stalin, and been able to sustain NEP long enough to transform the Soviet Union into something more moderate); Churchill and Adenauer are about in the middle (1874, 1876); FDR and Sam Rayburn (1882) seems almost outliers. Benito Mussolini, Pierre Laval, Stalin's legal hatchetman Andrei Vishinsky (all 1883), let alone Tojo (1884), Streicher (1885) -- arguably the vilest person who ever lived, and Chiang Kai-Shek are clearly among the Lost. Truman? A John Adams-like figure in many respects. Charles de Gaulle? Core Lost, like several other Hero Generals.

Herbert Hoover was a core Missionary... and except for economic performance he was an unobjectionable President, unlike Coolidge and Harding. Of course we know what Hoover was most judged for.

Originally Posted by The Young Rebel- '90

Go Dr. Scientist Reed!!! Great explanation of what's going on now and no techno-utopionism this time. I especially liked how you linked it to the last Awakening but lessons are we supposed to take from it?

Actually, there is still techno-utopianism in the post above. As for the lessons to take away from it, I'm not that certain yet.

You know i'll bet you'll probably end up on one of those scientist teams that make bombs or making the next incarnation of the internet. Now, if only you could fix the drought of Millie girls on here.

I really hope that we don't have to resort to making bombs. As for Millennial girls, I don't know how to fix that problem. Sorry.

Originally Posted by The Grey Badger

To change the subject: U.S. News & World Report's cover story this week is "BIG GOVERNMENT - It's back - no matter who wins. Americans want Uncle Sam to solve their problems."

Now - WHO said "The Era of Big Government is over" and when?

Not asking for a disquisition on the evils or benefits thereof, but just as a turning marker, it seems U.S. News may think (or have discovered that?) we're 4T.

US News and World seems about 7 years late. Republicans abandoned their anti-government mentality after 9/11.

Originally Posted by Arkham '80

It will be so delicious when the government utterly fails to solve the problems of the day -- and actually makes many of them worse -- shattering for generations to come this misplaced faith that the state can actually manage something as complex as a human society. I would like to believe the disillusionment will be permanent, but I trust historical inertia more than human reason, and the state has been around for too many millennia to vanish in a single turning. Pity.

It will be so delicious when you get proved wrong.

It's time for the new New Deal, people! First item on the agenda, building a oil-free and environmentally friendly infrastructure.

Originally Posted by Odin

It will be so delicious when you get proved wrong.

It's time for the new New Deal, people! First item on the agenda, building a oil-free and environmentally friendly infrastructure.

You know, when I say that the problems won't be fixed by government, I am not saying that the problems won't be fixed. That a lot of folks conflate the two statements is a large part of why the majority of the citizenry will be so very, very surprised. People, acting locally and in small, autonomous groups, will come up with brilliant solutions to current problems, and those solutions will be adopted by neighboring groups, until they are ubiquitous. Whenever and wherever the state attempts to step in and commandeer the process, however, efforts will run aground on bureaucratic reefs and flounder. (Serial Katrinas -- that is our future until Americans stop placing blind faith in God and Country.) The logic of the system won't permit any other outcome. Chaos trumps scientific managerialism.

Actually, there is still techno-utopianism in the post above. As for the lessons to take away from it, I'm not that certain yet.

Hmm, guess I didn't notice it. Oh well, and I had a feeling the lessons were hard to discern from all the other stuff going on.

As for Millennial girls, I don't know how to fix that problem. Sorry.

As for the girls; oh well another day.

Originally Posted by Arkham '80

You know, when I say that the problems won't be fixed by government, I am not saying that the problems won't be fixed. That a lot of folks conflate the two statements is a large part of why the majority of the citizenry will be so very, very surprised.

I'd have to say I still think you're wrong.

People, acting locally and in small, autonomous groups, will come up with brilliant solutions to current problems, and those solutions will be adopted by neighboring groups, until they are ubiquitous.

As an active creator of self-orgainzing systems, mutual aid syndicates, etc. I love this idea. I certainly see it being part of the solution if not the seed of all solutions to come in the 4T. "Viral" approaches to problem-solving are exciting.

Whenever and wherever the state attempts to step in and commandeer the process, however, efforts will run aground on bureaucratic reefs and flounder.

Yes, if you are talking about a 2T-3T approach to government. No, if you are talking about a pragmatic government managed by Xers with little patience for muddling. There is the distinct possibility that a 4T government bent on solving crisis issues could see making the trains run on time as more important than some self-interested citizen's perception of his/her right not to participate in a government program.

~ So, you dont want to apply your advanced knowledge of physics to our government research program on eliminating dependence on fossil fuels? Fine, solitary confinement for you until such time that technology is discovered.

~ So, you say you do want your public assistance check and food assistance but you dont want to go back to school or work at one of the three general labor jobs we've found for you? Fine. Here is your uniform. Tomorrow you start work at Camp #4. You get room and board and minimum wage. Your pay will be direct deposited to a bank account that your dependents can draw against. Please sign here.

~ Excuse me? You say that even though your plant is violating EPA waste water discharge regulations, you'd rather tie this up in hearings and courtrooms for the next 10 years rather than comply? Well, it seems that under the Agency Director's freshly issued executive order that's not an option for you. Instead you are to be charged with contempt of the law. Here's your court date. You company is now in public receivership. The plant is to be closed until such time as the discharge problem is corrected. Once that's fixed, and the cost of the fix extracted from the company's assets, we'll auction the thing off to the higest bidder. If you're out of jail and have any cash left after legal fees, you can try to buy your company back at auction. Guess it would have been cheaper had you just followed the regulations. Gambling just isnt your game.

..........I'm not saying I like the above, I'm just saying that in the 4T, you're not likely to see a government plagued with the same bureaucratic difficulties that Silent and Boomer crafted governments experienced.

Originally Posted by Skabungus

~ So, you dont want to apply your advanced knowledge of physics to our government research program on eliminating dependence on fossil fuels? Fine, solitary confinement for you until such time that technology is discovered.

I expatriated during the brain drain that immediately followed the total collapse of the dollar. Good luck even finding me.

~ So, you say you do want your public assistance check and food assistance but you dont want to go back to school or work at one of the three general labor jobs we've found for you? Fine. Here is your uniform. Tomorrow you start work at Camp #4. You get room and board and minimum wage. Your pay will be direct deposited to a bank account that your dependents can draw against. Please sign here.

I will quietly sabotage whatever meaningless make-work project you assign me. I understand that your perverse work ethic demands tedious, soul-crushing labor in exchange for intrinsically worthless tokens, despite the fact that the economy is so productive that most workers are superfluous to it as anything other than suggestible consumers. I also understand that I am marginalized because it is convenient for you that I be desperate and easily cowed. You say you want me to retrain and go back into the workforce, but I ask why? So that I can be discarded again and again as you find ever more efficient ways to asset-strip my country out from under my feet? Screw you. You will pay me this monthly bribe or I will riot and burn your fat ass out of its plush high-rise penthouse. That is the arrangement that keeps this country from exploding in revolutionary violence, and if you can no longer keep it, you had best find an alternative that does not involve industrial peonage.

~ Excuse me? You say that even though your plant is violating EPA waste water discharge regulations, you'd rather tie this up in hearings and courtrooms for the next 10 years rather than comply? Well, it seems that under the Agency Director's freshly issued executive order that's not an option for you. Instead you are to be charged with contempt of the law. Here's your court date. You company is now in public receivership. The plant is to be closed until such time as the discharge problem is corrected. Once that's fixed, and the cost of the fix extracted from the company's assets, we'll auction the thing off to the higest bidder. If you're out of jail and have any cash left after legal fees, you can try to buy your company back at auction. Guess it would have been cheaper had you just followed the regulations. Gambling just isnt your game.

These stern-looking men to either side of me -- the ones with the guns -- work for Blackwater, whom we have hired to protect this factory. They defend our facilities in 12 countries, all of which are Third World tinder boxes beset by corruption and violence. Yours is now one of them. Kindly remove yourself from our property or we will be compelled to use deadly force. If you persist in these attempts at extortion, we may be find it necessary to liquidate your family, and perhaps some of your superiors as well. This will not be difficult, as we cultivate ties with numerous criminal, terrorist, and mercenary organizations as a hedge against just this sort of meddling. Please do not test us. We allow you the illusion of sovereignty as a courtesy, but your country is to us only a market, and a rather marginal one since your economy imploded. Good day.

Originally Posted by Arkham '80

(in response to Skabungus) I expatriated during the brain drain that immediately followed the total collapse of the dollar. Good luck even finding me.

One can't assume that democracy will survive the 4T in America. The world-wide trend toward democracy peaked late in mid-3T (with the fall of Communism and Apartheid) just as it did in the prior 3T (in the aftermath of World War I). In 1921 almost every country in Europe was a democracy (the Soviet Union, Hungary, and the European remnant of Turkey were exceptions), but one after another democracy in Europe, including most surprisingly Germany (1933) fell to some form of dictatorship through coups and conquests... even France in 1940. By 1942 the only democracies remaining in Europe were Sweden, Switzerland, Ireland, Finland, and the UK... and it's arguable that in view of economic and military regimentation in Britain under pressure of war that either Finland or Britain was still a full democracy.

Already, Russia has returned to a dictatorship with a thin veneer of democratic practice. It still has elections, but little choice; media are controlled, and people who run afoul of the government are best described as "poor insurance risks".

The Swedes, Swiss, and Irish were simply lucky.

As I see it, Karl Rove attempted to impose a single-Party dictatorship on America by efforts to the GOP a lockstep Party that excluded its opposition from any role in the government. In a single-Party system in which the dominant Party has no internal democracy, the Party Boss -- unelected, unappointed, and not responsible to any political scrutiny -- has the real power and all else is window-dressing. There might be a formal executive, but as a rule the President, Premier, or Prime Minister is a figure head while the Party Boss (unless he holds one of those positions) wields the real power. There might be elections for the legislative branch and there might be some spirited debates between a nominal opposition that exists to create the illusion of democracy. The Party Boss might put pressure on judges to enforce 'justice' that destroys vulnerable enemies (Don Siegelman). Government bloats, much of it dedicated to rewarding those who bought in with huge campaign contributions or to entities that delivered votes.

Sure, the elections of 2006 gave us a respite from that stuff, only to give us gridlock instead of lockstep. Maybe we Americans are not quite the sheep that Karl Rove needed. But don't fool yourself about the Democratic Party; it could get an amoral character as a Party Boss who exploits a weak President and a decisive majority all of the same Party. The Rove model failed because George W. Bush offended too many sensibilities and the GOP could not control the media.

The brain-drain so far has come from the Third World to the United States due to better opportunities for the highly-educated, specialized professionals. People who have ties by birth to some other country (India, South Korea, Philippines, Taiwan, Malaysia) might have little reason to stay in an impoverished, alien, dictatorial country as they might prefer to be in a place less alien and (then) not democratic even if it is poorer. If they have accumulated savings, they can still take them with them through wire transfers that will further drain capital from America and intensifies an economic decline here.

I recognize that I (personally) would be vulnerable to any dictatorship, Right or Left. It would be very easy for a Jew-bashing or gay-bashing leadership to put two and two together, get five, and figure that I am Jewish or gay, depending on the animus of the leadership, and go after me. As a liberal with a Germanic surname and as someone who doesn't affect machismo, and having shown much sympathy for Judaism and insistence on gay rights I have seen some hostility on some Forums toward me. That hostility, to be sure, comes from cranks -- but dictatorial regimes are full of cranks.

Even in my 50s, I consider myself adept enough at language that I could adapt to some other country's institutions than to adapt to a soul-crushing dictatorship. I might be destitute somewhere else, but that's far better than being in a labor camp designed to break me, a torture chamber, or some quack clinic where I might be drugged or lobotomized.

I will quietly sabotage whatever meaningless make-work project you assign me. I understand that your perverse work ethic demands tedious, soul-crushing labor in exchange for intrinsically worthless tokens, despite the fact that the economy is so productive that most workers are superfluous to it as anything other than suggestible consumers. I also understand that I am marginalized because it is convenient for you that I be desperate and easily cowed. You say you want me to retrain and go back into the workforce, but I ask why? So that I can be discarded again and again as you find ever more efficient ways to asset-strip my country out from under my feet? Screw you. You will pay me this monthly bribe or I will riot and burn your fat ass out of its plush high-rise penthouse. That is the arrangement that keeps this country from exploding in revolutionary violence, and if you can no longer keep it, you had best find an alternative that does not involve industrial peonage.

What is an appropriate color for a revolution against a government that does such things? "White", "Blue", "Brown", "Black", and now even "Red" (GOP, commies) now have reactionary overtones. "Green" is a reference to agriculture and ecology, and agrarian and ecological distress are likely to be the least of people's concerns in an urbanized, materialistic society. "Lavender" suggests homosexuality. "Purple" suggests royalty. "Yellow" suggests cowardice. Orange has been taken (Ukraine). How about "teal" or "chartreuse"?

We have to assume that Skabungus refers to an economic system in extreme distress after financial and bureaucratic failures. Government tends to give people offers that they can't refuse as the solution to such distress. Maybe it will compel you to retrain or to take a job that one doesn't like, perhaps in a part of the country that you don't like. Maybe it will give you a pushcart and a grant for some wholesale vegetables or some fast food staples and cooking oil and tell you that the location is at 205 South Main Street on the sidewalk in front of the former JC Penney store and that it is a good idea to remain with the stand from 7AM to 7PM, and that the grant had better be used in appropriate places. That, after all, is consistent with the "re-building of capitalism".

These stern-looking men to either side of me -- the ones with the guns -- work for Blackwater, whom we have hired to protect this factory. They defend our facilities in 12 countries, all of which are Third World tinder boxes beset by corruption and violence. Yours is now one of them. Kindly remove yourself from our property or we will be compelled to use deadly force. If you persist in these attempts at extortion, we may be find it necessary to liquidate your family, and perhaps some of your superiors as well. This will not be difficult, as we cultivate ties with numerous criminal, terrorist, and mercenary organizations as a hedge against just this sort of meddling. Please do not test us. We allow you the illusion of sovereignty as a courtesy, but your country is to us only a market, and a rather marginal one since your economy imploded. Good day.

Of course, an entity like Blackwater will have styled itself with the image of the time, the symbol equivalent to the "NRA" (National Recovery Administration -- not National Rifle Association!) of the last 4T... and it will have sold out to the government.

Originally Posted by Arkham '80

I expatriated during the brain drain that immediately followed the total collapse of the dollar. Good luck even finding me.

They do so know where to look. Galt's Gulch, Colorado.

I will quietly sabotage whatever meaningless make-work project you assign me.

Why bother with sabotage? Just do precisely as you are told, no more and no less. I understand there's even a name for that - as a sort of strike.

I understand that your perverse work ethic demands tedious, soul-crushing labor in exchange for intrinsically worthless tokens, despite the fact that the economy is so productive that most workers are superfluous to it as anything other than suggestible consumers.

Are you sure of that? So far the 'production' seems to me to be shuffling paper, kiting checks, inflating the financials, and mining the last of resources we can't make any more of.

I also understand that I am marginalized because it is convenient for you that I be desperate and easily cowed. Or simply disposable. Yes. Or why it helps to have a trade or craft you can practice on the side. You say you want me to retrain and go back into the workforce, but I ask why? So that I can be discarded again and again as you find ever more efficient ways to asset-strip my country out from under my feet? Screw you. You will pay me this monthly bribe The bloody hell I will, kiddo. It's not the malefactors of great wealth you're talking to here, but people like me whose pockets your monthly bribe will come out of. Right back at you.or I will riot and burn your fat ass out of its plush high-rise penthouse. I see. And this distinguishes you from the mugger on the street how? An d my fat ass is slow and easy to catch, though it's not in a high-rise penthouse; it's in an 1,100 square foot house built before you were born. Meanwhile, I'm thinking of getting a robot to clean my $80 Walmart rugs, since that's the only way they'll get done. That is the arrangement that keeps this country from exploding in revolutionary violence, and if you can no longer keep it, you had best find an alternative that does not involve industrial peonage.

That's not the bargain America was built on. It's the bargain the Roman Empire had to make with the Head Count - who were, if you recall, displaced by slaves and the plantation economy. Though they did get taken into the Legions from the time of Gaius Marius up until pretty nearly the time you couldn't even get a Rider of the Purple Wage to sign up.

These stern-looking men to either side of me -- the ones with the guns -- work for Blackwater, whom we have hired to protect this factory. They defend our facilities in 12 countries, all of which are Third World tinder boxes beset by corruption and violence. Yours is now one of them. Kindly remove yourself from our property or we will be compelled to use deadly force. If you persist in these attempts at extortion, we may be find it necessary to liquidate your family, and perhaps some of your superiors as well. This will not be difficult, as we cultivate ties with numerous criminal, terrorist, and mercenary organizations as a hedge against just this sort of meddling. Please do not test us. We allow you the illusion of sovereignty as a courtesy, but your country is to us only a market, and a rather marginal one since your economy imploded. Good day.

Well, you've got that right. Come on down here and let's look at land in Catron County or in the Sangre de Cristos. Goats do well here and so do sheep. Never mind the area's cash crops.

Originally Posted by Skabungus

~ So, you say you do want your public assistance check and food assistance but you dont want to go back to school or work at one of the three general labor jobs we've found for you? Fine. Here is your uniform. Tomorrow you start work at Camp #4. You get room and board and minimum wage. Your pay will be direct deposited to a bank account that your dependents can draw against. Please sign here.

I approve this idea.

*hands Arkham a shovel*

Originally Posted by Pink Splice

I love the "grumpy isolationism" bit. Gen X turns Statler and Waldorf...

No. Oscar the Grouch

Originally Posted by The Grey Badger

Well, you've got that right. Come on down here and let's look at land in Catron County or in the Sangre de Cristos. Goats do well here and so do sheep. Never mind the area's cash crops.

Hey, Badger, I'm just illustrating that for every swaggering gummint' flog-a-thon, there's an equally aggressive -- and probably more potent -- response from the private side of the fence. Jack-booted thuggery worked 80 years ago because people had no immunity to it. They'd never been exposed to engineered propaganda or industrial violence, and the power of the state seemed overwhelming and total. Circa 2008, civilization has 40 years of asymmetrical warfare and sophisticated cultural subversion under its belt. People know now that superpowers can be defeated by raggedy fighters with AK-47s; that corporations and criminal syndicates are more powerful than many nations; and that "old media" is an obsolescent appendage of cynical elites, not to be trusted -- or even paid much attention. When the machinery of totalitarianism starts clanking this time around, there's going to be chaos on a scale that will make the last decade's unpleasantness seem tame by comparison. I, mean, think about it. Three hundred million Americans -- the vast majority of whom have been raised on absurd Horatio Alger stories, Disney fairy tales, and bizarre Left Behind death-cult fantasies -- are about to watch their country turn into a Third World ghetto, and something like a third of them are armed. That's a recipe for disaster. Moreover, Americans want an explosion. Left and Right, they're waiting for some kind of apocalyptic release from the insanity of late modernity (even if they can't articulate that desire as more than a diffuse sense of unrelieved hostility), and when the government finally loses its shit and starts drafting people into pointless meat-grinders or herding them into labor camps to work for pennies an hour, that will be it. Beirut-on-the-Hudson. Complete neurotic breakdown of an entire society -- the kind that can't be salved by the liberal application of psych meds. No amount of force or bluster is going to be sufficient to mobilize this country for the coming Crisis, no amount of indignation by one segment of the population against another is going to moderate the rage. (It will in fact stoke it.) A man who has lost everything he values to arcane forces beyond his control is not going to give a damn how hard you worked for your little patch of dirt, nor is he going to feel rebuked when you point out that his poor choices contributed to his downfall. He is simply going to take your stuff and kill you if you try to stop him. Likewise, the people who have are not going to quietly join those who don't. If a gaggle of moral crusaders goes after their stuff, the corporate chieftains are going to come out shooting. And they now have access to private armies.

Originally Posted by Arkham '80

Hey, Badger, I'm just illustrating that for every swaggering gummint' flog-a-thon, there's an equally aggressive -- and probably more potent -- response from the private side of the fence. Jack-booted thuggery worked 80 years ago because people had no immunity to it. They'd never been exposed to engineered propaganda or industrial violence, and the power of the state seemed overwhelming and total. Circa 2008, civilization has 40 years of asymmetrical warfare and sophisticated cultural subversion under its belt. People know now that superpowers can be defeated by raggedy fighters with AK-47s; that corporations and criminal syndicates are more powerful than many nations; and that "old media" is an obsolescent appendage of cynical elites, not to be trusted -- or even paid much attention. When the machinery of totalitarianism starts clanking this time around, there's going to be chaos on a scale that will make the last decade's unpleasantness seem tame by comparison. I, mean, think about it. Three hundred million Americans -- the vast majority of whom have been raised on absurd Horatio Alger stories, Disney fairy tales, and bizarre Left Behind death-cult fantasies -- are about to watch their country turn into a Third World ghetto, and something like a third of them are armed.

We also have 1984, The Diary of Anne Frank, The Gulag Archipelago, and lots of World War II movies that demonstrate the unqualified evil of totalitarianism. We have celluloid images of Mussolini, Hitler, Idi Amin, and Saddam Hussein strutting about... and we Americans would never tolerate such stuff from our leaders.

Of course I can also imagine new Hoovervilles springing up on the outskirts of the big cities, places as dangerous as the favelas depicted in Cidade de Deus, places where people learn no decencies and -- worse -- places rifted or polarized on lines of ethnicity and race, with people casting blaming for every misery. At the worst I can imagine America becoming the next Yugoslavia.

That's a recipe for disaster. Moreover, Americans want an explosion. Left and Right, they're waiting for some kind of apocalyptic release from the insanity of late modernity (even if they can't articulate that desire as more than a diffuse sense of unrelieved hostility), and when the government finally loses its shit and starts drafting people into pointless meat-grinders or herding them into labor camps to work for pennies an hour, that will be it. Beirut-on-the-Hudson. Complete neurotic breakdown of an entire society -- the kind that can't be salved by the liberal application of psych meds.

But they will be using meth and moonshine instead!

No amount of force or bluster is going to be sufficient to mobilize this country for the coming Crisis, no amount of indignation by one segment of the population against another is going to moderate the rage. (It will in fact stoke it.) A man who has lost everything he values to arcane forces beyond his control is not going to give a damn how hard you worked for your little patch of dirt, nor is he going to feel rebuked when you point out that his poor choices contributed to his downfall.

Are we better or worse people than we were in the 1930s? Or the late 1850s? or the early 1770s? Maybe the gutter racism that was so much a part of American life is gone -- or has it taken new forms?

Almost everyone now recognizes that Dubya is a dreadful leader, that those who have wielded economic and bureaucratic power in recent years in giant corporations have done so to the worst possible ends, that in recent years we have wasted most of our efforts in creating an illusion of prosperity... and we are ready for change. Even if the politicians don't get the message, harsh realities will force their hands.

I can imagine the wealth remaining from the recent bubble being taxed heavily as it will be the only possible source of tax revenue -- and those who waxed fat in this decade will not be looked upon well. I can also imagine Americans returning to the old practices that made America prosperous -- toil, thrift, dedication, skill, service, and a view toward the long term. The short term will look very bad for a few years, something only to be endured grimly with the expectation of better times. If people see some improvement, then the regeneracy will have arrived, and people will get more patient.

He is simply going to take your stuff and kill you if you try to stop him. Likewise, the people who have are not going to quietly join those who don't. If a gaggle of moral crusaders goes after their stuff, the corporate chieftains are going to come out shooting. And they now have access to private armies.

But... the corporate chieftains are cowards. They have gotten soft; they have indulged themselves and gotten fat and slow. Accustomed to vehicles and furniture of exaggerated comfort, sated on lobster and Dom Perignon, unaccustomed to physical effort except perhaps the measured exercise in a training room or their genteel golf and tennis games, they are the people made of butter even if they have gotten their profits from guns. Fifty-something executives who have never done military service are either going to flee, bargain for their lives, surrender, or commit suicide if they ever come under physical threat. Sixty-something executives of our time generally did not find themselves in Vietnam forty years ago. The private armies will vanish when the money disappears, which could be when someone likely on orders from a federal judge) cuts off the wire transfers and banks are not allowed to deliver large amounts of cash necessary for feeding and arming private militias. Besides -- only a fool tangles with the Army, Navy, Air Force, and Marines who will have larger numbers, greater firepower, and greater expertise at fighting.

I see little difference between the effete elites of America in our time and those depicted in Doctor Zhivago. Those elites fared badly in the Revolution because they had discredited themselves badly and lost all support once they lost the money with which to hire mercenaries to do their fighting.

Ah. To which it's quite likely that the gummint will accelerate things by adding to the violence; yet, it must be stopped. A reasoned revolution apparently not being in the cards. Damn, I shoulda bought that property on the edge of Galt's Gulch. Seriously. The aging hippie anarchists up here in our various mountains will probably be best placed to get through it all.

Originally Posted by Arkham '80

Hey, Badger, I'm just illustrating that for every swaggering gummint' flog-a-thon, there's an equally aggressive -- and probably more potent -- response from the private side of the fence. Jack-booted thuggery worked 80 years ago because people had no immunity to it. They'd never been exposed to engineered propaganda or industrial violence, and the power of the state seemed overwhelming and total. Circa 2008, civilization has 40 years of asymmetrical warfare and sophisticated cultural subversion under its belt. People know now that superpowers can be defeated by raggedy fighters with AK-47s; that corporations and criminal syndicates are more powerful than many nations; and that "old media" is an obsolescent appendage of cynical elites, not to be trusted -- or even paid much attention. When the machinery of totalitarianism starts clanking this time around, there's going to be chaos on a scale that will make the last decade's unpleasantness seem tame by comparison. I, mean, think about it. Three hundred million Americans -- the vast majority of whom have been raised on absurd Horatio Alger stories, Disney fairy tales, and bizarre Left Behind death-cult fantasies -- are about to watch their country turn into a Third World ghetto, and something like a third of them are armed. That's a recipe for disaster. Moreover, Americans want an explosion. Left and Right, they're waiting for some kind of apocalyptic release from the insanity of late modernity (even if they can't articulate that desire as more than a diffuse sense of unrelieved hostility), and when the government finally loses its shit and starts drafting people into pointless meat-grinders or herding them into labor camps to work for pennies an hour, that will be it. Beirut-on-the-Hudson. Complete neurotic breakdown of an entire society -- the kind that can't be salved by the liberal application of psych meds. No amount of force or bluster is going to be sufficient to mobilize this country for the coming Crisis, no amount of indignation by one segment of the population against another is going to moderate the rage. (It will in fact stoke it.) A man who has lost everything he values to arcane forces beyond his control is not going to give a damn how hard you worked for your little patch of dirt, nor is he going to feel rebuked when you point out that his poor choices contributed to his downfall. He is simply going to take your stuff and kill you if you try to stop him. Likewise, the people who have are not going to quietly join those who don't. If a gaggle of moral crusaders goes after their stuff, the corporate chieftains are going to come out shooting. And they now have access to private armies.

In other words, Octavia Butler's "Parable Of The Sower". It struck me as merely possible in 1993 when it was written... after reading T4T four years later, distinctly plausible... and now, with everything that's happened since, eerily prophetic. Scares the shit out of me. Perhaps I should join NRA like my late GI uncle did, and prepare myself to at least go down fighting for my little patch of dirt.

Originally Posted by The Grey Badger

Ah. To which it's quite likely that the gummint will accelerate things by adding to the violence; yet, it must be stopped. A reasoned revolution apparently not being in the cards. Damn, I shoulda bought that property on the edge of Galt's Gulch. Seriously. The aging hippie anarchists up here in our various mountains will probably be best placed to get through it all.

You might want to get up a collective noun of cougars and form a polyandrous institution with a least military regiment's worth of spouses with adequate firepower at home and abroad, so to speak. One devises a religous imprimatur and then achieves government contracts from the War Department until the Crisis arrives/deepens if the popular press is to believed. Millennials of a quite tender age are allowable, but I'd go for at least a core of Xer husbands for security reasons (physical strength, et al.). HTH

Originally Posted by Arkham '80

Hey, Badger, I'm just illustrating that for every swaggering gummint' flog-a-thon, there's an equally aggressive -- and probably more potent -- response from the private side of the fence.

Except when both the private side and public side are working torward the same ends.

Jack-booted thuggery worked 80 years ago because people had no immunity to it. They'd never been exposed to engineered propaganda or industrial violence, and the power of the state seemed overwhelming and total. Circa 2008, civilization has 40 years of asymmetrical warfare and sophisticated cultural subversion under its belt. People know now that superpowers can be defeated by raggedy fighters with AK-47s; that corporations and criminal syndicates are more powerful than many nations; and that "old media" is an obsolescent appendage of cynical elites, not to be trusted -- or even paid much attention. When the machinery of totalitarianism starts clanking this time around, there's going to be chaos on a scale that will make the last decade's unpleasantness seem tame by comparison. I, mean, think about it.

Yea, true, but you're thinking 3T

Three hundred million Americans -- the vast majority of whom have been raised on absurd Horatio Alger stories, Disney fairy tales, and bizarre Left Behind death-cult fantasies -- are about to watch their country turn into a Third World ghetto, and something like a third of them are armed.

I consider myself part of that number who threw out the Horation Alger, Disney shit years ago..........and I'm well armed. Further, we're about 80% self-sufficient which puts our little family way ahead of about 92% of America. However, we're not the type to riot for a welfare check. Rather, we're the kind that will watch you and yours riot for a welfare check and giggle. Just remember, don't come beggin for a meal at our place unless you dont mind putting in an honest day's work. You can split wood, clean stalls or slaughter chickens and we'll feed you and house you quid pro quo. Start stealin and I start shootn'. I'll pack that sense of entitlement right up yer butt with a piece of dimentional lumber.

That's a recipe for disaster. Moreover, Americans want an explosion. Left and Right, they're waiting for some kind of apocalyptic release from the insanity of late modernity (even if they can't articulate that desire as more than a diffuse sense of unrelieved hostility), and when the government finally loses its shit and starts drafting people into pointless meat-grinders or herding them into labor camps to work for pennies an hour, that will be it. Beirut-on-the-Hudson.

Nah, don't get excited. People will do the math. Go off and join the CCC and get a check -vs- be a hungry rioter in the inner city? Easy choice. The fact is, you dont have to herd people into labor camps. All you have to do is put the Help Wanted sign out. Same thing with contractors. You dont have to force them, just put out an RFP. There's a difference between the "work camps" you describe and what I'm talking about. What I'm talking about is people wanting to unite behind the effort to sovle the problem, and then making the choice to do so. Government being staffed by Xers, wanting to make things work will cut out the silly bureaucratic bullshit and make things go. Slugs that want to sit back and collect the check will be the ones that feel the flames. Fat cats that want to be immune from the reach of public sentiment will suffer as well.

riotingComplete neurotic breakdown of an entire society -- the kind that can't be salved by the liberal application of psych meds. No amount of force or bluster is going to be sufficient to mobilize this country for the coming Crisis, no amount of indignation by one segment of the population against another is going to moderate the rage. (It will in fact stoke it.)

....Come on, confess, you've been reading Karl Marx again haven't you. Silly boy.

A man who has lost everything he values to arcane forces beyond his control is not going to give a damn how hard you worked for your little patch of dirt, nor is he going to feel rebuked when you point out that his poor choices contributed to his downfall.

A man who has lost everything he values to arcane forces beyond his control, is going to post his resume on Monster Board, go to church and look for under the table work until something comes through. Look around you, It's been happening for several years now, and I dont see any rioting. People will get angry yes, but this isn't Detroit in the 1960's and '70's. It's not Watts, It's not Hati. Instead, what you're likely to see is "the man who has lost everything" showing up at the polls, local government offices, and forcing change with a "alright damnit, cut the bullshit and get things fixed NOW" attitude.

He is simply going to take your stuff and kill you if you try to stop him.

That's sounds easy doesn't it? Roving mobs of looters and shooters? Sounds firey and dramatic too! But, that only happens briefly and generally involves slime preying on slime. Karl Marx said otherwise, but history proves him wrong.

Likewise, the people who have are not going to quietly join those who don't. If a gaggle of moral crusaders goes after their stuff, the corporate chieftains are going to come out shooting. And they now have access to private armies.

You think this is new?? They've ALWAYS had access to private armies!! Think Pinkerton, think Hessians, etc. What you miss is that they won't stand and fight against the tide as you imply they will. Instead, they calculate the risk and go with the flow. Cost benefit analysis. That's why they've kept their loot.

You are looking for some firey Awakening or Unraveling reaction to America's 4T crisis and frankly I dont see it happening. Instead, I see America getting off it's ass and doing something. I see (even now) government, general citizenry and private sector, putting down differences and making things work. Particularly at the state and local level, which is where everything starts anyhow. There have been some rather substantive changes in attitude as of late. We be 4T my friend, and Karl Marxian type revolution in the streets is not part of the menu.

Originally Posted by Virgil K. Saari

You might want to get up a collective noun of cougars and form a polyandrous institution with a least military regiment's worth of spouses with adequate firepower at home and abroad, so to speak. One devises a religous imprimatur and then achieves government contracts from the War Department until the Crisis arrives/deepens if the popular press is to believed. Millennials of a quite tender age are allowable, but I'd go for at least a core of Xer husbands for security reasons (physical strength, et al.). HTH

I perceive,sir, that you have been reading Robert Heinlein.

A few comments on the survivalist argument:

1. Although 3Ts have been peak times for organized gangsters (the Irish and German gangs of the 1850s, Jewish and Italian Mafia in the 1920s, and all sorts of ethnic gangs in recent times)... in 4Ts, organized criminals feel the harshest persecution that they ever know. Society as a whole becomes intolerant of people who wax rich by doing bad things to people, and the most obvious such people are criminals. Capone went down early in the last 4T for tax fraud. Pretty Boy Floyd, Bonnie and Clyde, and John Dillinger died of ventilation when the police cornered them. Louis "Lepke" Buchalter went to the electric chair for gangland murders. Kidnapping, a criminal fad for a short time, practically died as a way of making quick bucks off innocent people paying ransom... when Bruno Hauptmann died in the electric chair. Politicians like the GI Thomas E. Dewey and the Lost bureau head J. Edgar Hoover established reputations as racket-busters.

However tempting crime is because other activities aren't so profitable and fail to offer easy money... a 4T is the worst time in which to be a criminal.

2. 3Ts are times of journalistic fluff. Celebrity draws undue attention, and people confuse the famous with the infamous. As a 4T becomes is under way, celebrities guard their reputations closely. Starlet rhymes with harlot in all times, and as much as it seems that the two words are synonyms in a 3T, the sanitization of culture ensures that people who are in the public eye must keep their reputations clean. In a 4T, the news is stark -- and nobody needs fluff except as a respite. Few are going to feel much empathy for rich people who foul up in a 4T.

The news media clean up their acts in a 4T... and their credibility rises. Failure to clean up one's journalistic act invites bankruptcy. Lots of yellow journals went under in the last 4T -- and not because of censorship.

3. Every 4T is different -- but we Americans have no experience with jackbooted thuggery... here. Our American Revolutionary Crisis began because George III chose to tighten the screws on people in "his" colonies. We have standards, breaches of which we won't tolerate. Sure, Dubya is an anomaly; beginning in 2009, which will surely be a 4T year, we will recognize what an anomaly he is.

5. Economic failure is a usual trend going into a 4T. People will consider it a blessing to get work. The sort of work created is designed to get tangible results -- the 4T taste is for tangible results, especially when such tangible results are the pretext for government spending. Work that shows visible results has the positive effect of averting alienation that results from "process" work such as that characteristic of an assembly line.

6. 4Ts have the blessing of lowered expectations going in. Big and small businesses have failed. People who once thought themselves solid citizens because of their regular work but have since become unemployed don't expect as much. People lose any trace of an early-3T sense of entitlement to some Good Life. Incremental improvement suggests the right direction even if the improvement is slight.

Of course, lowered expectations still must be met if people are to be happy.

Originally Posted by Arkham '80

Hey, Badger, I'm just illustrating that for every swaggering gummint' flog-a-thon, there's an equally aggressive -- and probably more potent -- response from the private side of the fence. Jack-booted thuggery worked 80 years ago because people had no immunity to it. They'd never been exposed to engineered propaganda or industrial violence, and the power of the state seemed overwhelming and total. Circa 2008, civilization has 40 years of asymmetrical warfare and sophisticated cultural subversion under its belt. People know now that superpowers can be defeated by raggedy fighters with AK-47s; that corporations and criminal syndicates are more powerful than many nations; and that "old media" is an obsolescent appendage of cynical elites, not to be trusted -- or even paid much attention. When the machinery of totalitarianism starts clanking this time around, there's going to be chaos on a scale that will make the last decade's unpleasantness seem tame by comparison. I, mean, think about it. Three hundred million Americans -- the vast majority of whom have been raised on absurd Horatio Alger stories, Disney fairy tales, and bizarre Left Behind death-cult fantasies -- are about to watch their country turn into a Third World ghetto, and something like a third of them are armed. That's a recipe for disaster. Moreover, Americans want an explosion. Left and Right, they're waiting for some kind of apocalyptic release from the insanity of late modernity (even if they can't articulate that desire as more than a diffuse sense of unrelieved hostility), and when the government finally loses its shit and starts drafting people into pointless meat-grinders or herding them into labor camps to work for pennies an hour, that will be it. Beirut-on-the-Hudson. Complete neurotic breakdown of an entire society -- the kind that can't be salved by the liberal application of psych meds. No amount of force or bluster is going to be sufficient to mobilize this country for the coming Crisis, no amount of indignation by one segment of the population against another is going to moderate the rage. (It will in fact stoke it.) A man who has lost everything he values to arcane forces beyond his control is not going to give a damn how hard you worked for your little patch of dirt, nor is he going to feel rebuked when you point out that his poor choices contributed to his downfall. He is simply going to take your stuff and kill you if you try to stop him. Likewise, the people who have are not going to quietly join those who don't. If a gaggle of moral crusaders goes after their stuff, the corporate chieftains are going to come out shooting. And they now have access to private armies.

Optimist.

The Young Rebel- '90 noted: Millie fight, grab the popcorn

Uh... Yeah. But nothing like the fur flying now.

Skabungus wrote .... lots of , well words/responses

and

Arkham '80 wrote ... lots of words/responses

:: Rags hands some popcorn
to the reb. ::

If anyone still doubts that Xers are firmly in midlife, this article should put such doubts to rest. The Crisis mood is congealing at a rapid pace at this time. With the major problems facing this nation and the world, we are in the social moment, no doubt. With the Obama/Hilary Democratic primaries phenomenon, the mortgage crisis, the debt crisis, the threat of cyberwar with China, the energy crisis, and the food crisis, the year 2008 is shaping up to be an turning defining year similar to that of 1967/1968 or 1931/1932.

Duck and Cover: It’s the New Survivalism

By ALEX WILLIAMS

THE traditional face of survivalism is that of a shaggy loner in camouflage, holed up in a cabin in the wilderness and surrounded by cases of canned goods and ammunition.

It is not that of Barton M. Biggs, the former chief global strategist at Morgan Stanley. Yet in Mr. Biggs’s new book, “Wealth, War and Wisdom,” he says people should “assume the possibility of a breakdown of the civilized infrastructure.”

“Your safe haven must be self-sufficient and capable of growing some kind of food,” Mr. Biggs writes. “It should be well-stocked with seed, fertilizer, canned food, wine, medicine, clothes, etc. Think Swiss Family Robinson. Even in America and Europe there could be moments of riot and rebellion when law and order temporarily completely breaks down.”

Survivalism, it seems, is not just for survivalists anymore.

Faced with a confluence of diverse threats — a tanking economy, a housing crisis, looming environmental disasters, and a sharp spike in oil prices — people who do not consider themselves extremists are starting to discuss doomsday measures once associated with the social fringes.

They stockpile or grow food in case of a supply breakdown, or buy precious metals in case of economic collapse. Some try to take their houses off the electricity grid, or plan safe houses far away. The point is not to drop out of society, but to be prepared in case the future turns out like something out of “An Inconvenient Truth,” if not “Mad Max.”

“I’m not a gun-nut, camo-wearing skinhead. I don’t even hunt or fish,” said Bill Marcom, 53, a construction executive in Dallas.

Still, motivated by a belief that the credit crunch and a bursting housing bubble might spark widespread economic chaos — “the Greater Depression,” as he put it — Mr. Marcom began to take measures to prepare for the unknown over the last few years: buying old silver coins to use as currency; buying G.P.S. units, a satellite telephone and a hydroponic kit; and building a simple cabin in a remote West Texas desert.

“If all these planets line up and things do get really bad,” Mr. Marcom said, “those who have not prepared will be trapped in the city with thousands of other people needing food and propane and everything else.”

Interest in survivalism — in either its traditional hard-core version or a middle-class “lite” variation — functions as a leading economic indicator of social anxiety, preparedness experts said: It spikes at times of peril real (the post-Sept. 11 period) or imagined (the chaos that was supposed to follow the so-called Y2K computer bug in 2000).

At times, a degree of paranoia is officially sanctioned. In the 1950s, civil defense authorities encouraged people to build personal bomb shelters because of the nuclear threat. In 2003, the Department of Homeland Security encouraged Americans to stock up on plastic sheeting and duct tape to seal windows in case of biological or chemical attacks.
Now, however, the government, while still conducting business under a yellow terrorism alert, is no longer taking a lead role in encouraging preparedness. For some, this leaves a vacuum of reassurance, and plenty to worry about.

Esteemed economists debate whether the credit crisis could result in a complete meltdown of the financial system. A former vice president of the United States informs us that global warming could result in mass flooding, disease and starvation, perhaps even a new Ice Age.

“You just can’t help wonder if there’s a train wreck coming,” said David Anderson, 50, a database administrator in Colorado Springs who said he was moved by economic uncertainties and high energy prices, among other factors, to stockpile months’ worth of canned goods in his basement for his wife, his two young children and himself.

Popular culture also provides reinforcement, in books like “The Road,” Cormac McCarthy’s novel about a father and son journeying through a post-apocalyptic wasteland, and films like “I Am Legend,” which stars Will Smith as a survivor of a man-made virus wandering the barren streets of New York.

Middle-class survivalists can also browse among a growing number of how-to books with titles like “Dare to Prepare!” a self-published work by Holly Drennan Deyo, or “When All Hell Breaks Loose” by Cody Lundin (Gibbs Smith, 2007), which instructs readers how to dispose of bodies and dine on rats and dogs in the event of disaster.

Preparedness activity is difficult to track statistically, since people who take measures are usually highly circumspect by nature, said Jim Rawles, the editor of www.survivalblog.com, a preparedness Web site.

Nevertheless, interest in the survivalist movement “is experiencing its largest growth since the late 1970s,” Mr. Rawles said in an e-mail, adding that traffic at his blog has more than doubled in the past 11 months, with more than 67,000 unique visitors per week. And its base is growing.
“Our core readership is still solidly conservative,” he said. “But in recent months I’ve noticed an increasing number of stridently green and left-of-center readers.”

One left-of-center environmentalist who is taking action is Alex Steffen, the executive editor of www.worldchanging.com, a Web site devoted to sustainability. With only slight irony, Mr. Steffen, 40, said he and his girlfriend could serve as “poster children for the well-adjusted, urban liberal survivalist,” given that they keep a six-week cache of food and supplies in his basement in Seattle (although they polished off their bottle of doomsday whiskey at a party).

He said the chaos following Hurricane Katrina served as a wake-up call for him and others that the government might not be able to protect them in an emergency or environmental crisis.

“The ‘where do we land when climate change gets crazy?’ question seems to be an increasingly common one,” said Mr. Steffen in an e-mail message, adding that such questions have “really gone mainstream.”

Many of the new, nontraditional preparedness converts are “Peakniks,” Mr. Rawles said, referring to adherents of the “Peak Oil” theory. This concept holds that the world will soon, or has already, reached a peak in oil production, and that coming supply shortages might threaten society. While the theory is still disputed by many industry analysts and executives, it has inched toward the mainstream in the last two years, as oil prices have nearly doubled, surpassing $100 a barrel. The topic, which was the subject of a United States Department of Energy report in 2005, has attracted attention in publications like The New York Times Magazine and The Wall Street Journal, and was a primary focus of “Megadisasters: Oil Apocalypse,” a recent History Channel special.

Another book, “The Long Emergency” (Atlantic Monthly Press, 2005), by James Howard Kunstler, an author and journalist who writes about economic and environmental issues, argues that American suburbs and cities may soon lay desolate as people, starved of oil, are forced back to the land to adopt a hardscrabble, 19th-century-style agrarian life.

Such fears caused Joyce Jimerson of Bellingham, Wash., a coordinator for a recycling-composting program affiliated with Washington State University, to make her yard an “edible garden,” with fruit trees and vegetables, in case supplies are threatened by oil shortages, climate change or economic collapse. “It’s all the same ball of wax, as far as I’m concerned,” she said.
Scott Troyer, an energy consultant in Sunnyvale, Calif., said he was spurred by discussions of peak oil — “it’s not a theory,” he said — and other energy concerns to remake his suburban house in anticipation of a petroleum-starved future. Mr. Troyer, 57, installed a photovoltaic electricity system, a pellet stove and a “cool roof” to reflect the sun’s rays, among other measures.

Mr. Troyer remains cautiously optimistic that Americans can wean themselves from oil through smart engineering and careful planning. But, he said, “the doomsday scenarios will happen if people don’t prepare.”

Some middle-class preparedness converts, like Val Vontourne, a musician and paralegal in Olympia, Wash., recoil at the term “survivalist,” even as they stock their homes with food, gasoline and water.

“I think of survivalists as being an extreme case of preparedness,” said Ms. Vontourne, 44, “people who stockpile guns and weapons, anticipating extreme aggression. Whereas what I’m doing, I think of as something responsible people do.

“I now think of storing extra food, water, medicine and gasoline in the same way I think of buying health insurance and putting money in my 401k,” she said. “It just makes sense.”