Originally Posted by Brian Rush

Yes, it's 4T, Alex, I was joking. The only connection is the tactic, which was last used by young Boomers in the '60s.

Yeah, big difference between this and the Free Speech Movement for example. I just thought it was kind of funny.

I knew you were being tongue-in-cheek; I know the people on this site don't think we're headed to a 2T in the wrong direction. My response was more of a delve into some of the differences between the two.

Today I have a bit of evidence we're still in the 3T and a bit of evidence we're in the 4T.

First, the 3T. Newsweek did an article on polyamorous relationships, and how they are on the rise throughout this decade. Generation X and the Bittersweet Generation are more tolerant of people who simultaneously love two or three people and everyone in the triangle (or rectangle) is OK with it. Gen-X adults are starting many polyamorous living arrangements.

Now, for the evidence we've moved into the 4T. Halloween kitsch has been completely dead this October. Remember last October when I posted in the "Crap and the Holidays" thread about the absence of Halloween decorations? This October there were no decorations at all in my neigiborhood. Even on the thirty-first, there were so many houses without jack-o'-lanterns out. I've never seen such Halloweenlessness in America in my lifetime.

Originally Posted by James E. F. Landau

Today I have a bit of evidence we're still in the 3T and a bit of evidence we're in the 4T.

First, the 3T. Newsweek did an article on polyamorous relationships, and how they are on the rise throughout this decade. Generation X and the Bittersweet Generation are more tolerant of people who simultaneously love two or three people and everyone in the triangle (or rectangle) is OK with it. Gen-X adults are starting many polyamorous living arrangements.

Now, for the evidence we've moved into the 4T. Halloween kitsch has been completely dead this October. Remember last October when I posted in the "Crap and the Holidays" thread about the absence of Halloween decorations? This October there were no decorations at all in my neigiborhood. Even on the thirty-first, there were so many houses without jack-o'-lanterns out. I've never seen such Halloweenlessness in America in my lifetime.

Halloween is the perfect 3T celebration: it is macabre, individualistic, mindless, material, and commercial. All of those tendencies weaken in a 4T. As a 4T continues, people trend toward the family-friendly, home-spun, rational, and conventional. Halloween is something that people can do without without missing when people start tightening their belts.

Hello all,

I hope you're all well! Though I don't often post here anymore I knew you'd be interested in this article (some of you may have read this already):

http://www.time.com/time/nation/arti...Top+Stories%29

I think in a decade or two we'll probably note 9/11 as the catalyst, with this whole decade beginning the 4t, although it's been hard to be definitive--the good news is, while we were wondering whether we're 3- or 4t, the regeneracy is now right around the corner!

Happy thanksgiving, friends.

EEKELSEY

Originally Posted by Biddy5637

Hello all,

I hope you're all well! Though I don't often post here anymore I knew you'd be interested in this article (some of you may have read this already):

http://www.time.com/time/nation/arti...Top+Stories%29

I think in a decade or two we'll probably note 9/11 as the catalyst, with this whole decade beginning the 4t, although it's been hard to be definitive--the good news is, while we were wondering whether we're 3- or 4t, the regeneracy is now right around the corner!

Happy thanksgiving, friends.

EEKELSEY

Right. They seem to think we've been cascading for the past 10 years. And of course the notion that recovery is just around the corner is as tantalizing now as it was 75 years ago.
However, as to whether or not we're 4T, Time.... is on our side, yes it is, yes it is....

Originally Posted by Biddy5637

Hello all,

I hope you're all well! Though I don't often post here anymore I knew you'd be interested in this article (some of you may have read this already):

http://www.time.com/time/nation/arti...Top+Stories%29

I think in a decade or two we'll probably note 9/11 as the catalyst, with this whole decade beginning the 4t, although it's been hard to be definitive--the good news is, while we were wondering whether we're 3- or 4t, the regeneracy is now right around the corner!

Happy thanksgiving, friends.

EEKELSEY

We can see the rot -- and it may have begun even before 9/11 with the dot-com bust and the contested results of the 2000 election in Florida. Events shown (9/11, the bungled invasion of Afghanistan, the ethically-shaky invasion of Iraq, the incompetent response to Hurricane Katrina, the subprime-lending meltdown, and the collapse of giant financial firms all contributed to the perception that we Americans could do little well. The exposure of mistreatment of inmates at Abu Ghraib demonstrated that this country could soil itself.

Some of the rot couldn't be assigned to a specific event. Karl Rove's "majority of a majority" system that enriched big donors, strung along people "culturally" attached to the President's "values" agenda and $crewed everyone else did great harm to the political process; America increasingly resembled a fascist dictatorship. The debasement of political language as never before became a norm with the Bush administration.

Question: how could we get even as close as we did to electing someone so hollow as George W. Bush as President that a few well-placed people could decide things in his favor because they were so predisposed?

Here's my analogy: someone has thrown a smoldering cigarette into a pile of oily rags stacked at the door that we came into. The ignition was slow, and because we were drunk we might have not noticed the signs of trouble until we started to find things very uncomfortable. We now face the flashover stage, and the oily rags now block exit through the door that we came in. We can no longer exit through the way in; we must find or create an exit lest we perish horribly.

Addendum -- "Good-Bye to the '00's"

There have been worse decades in America. The 1860s were surely the hardest:

Originally Posted by Wikipedia

The (American Civil War) produced about 1,030,000 casualties (3% of the population), including about 620,000 soldier deaths—two-thirds by disease. The war accounted for roughly as many American deaths as all American deaths in other U.S. wars combined. The causes of the war, the reasons for its outcome, and even the name of the war itself are subjects of lingering contention today. About 4 million black slaves were freed in 1861-65. Based on 1860 census figures, 8% of all white males aged 13 to 43 died in the war, including 6% in the North and an extraordinary 18% in the South. One reason for the high number of battle deaths during the war was the use of Napoleonic tactics such as charges. With the advent of more accurate rifled barrels, Minié balls and (near the end of the war for the Union army) repeating firearms such as the Spencer repeating rifle and a few experimental Gatling guns, soldiers were devastated when standing in lines in the open. This gave birth to trench warfare, a tactic heavily used during World War I.

... and let's not forget the harshness of the decade centered on 1940 (1936-1945), which included the deadliest war in human history, a brutal civil war in Spain, the Great Purge in the USSR (even if the effects of collectivization of Soviet agriculture were far deadlier than the Great Purge) and the Holocaust.

Of course the 1770s and 1780s were hard times for America for some reason. But all in all, sleazy times like the current decade (or the 1920s, 1850s, and 1760s) lead to calamity. The degenerate last ten years of a 3T invariably create desperate situations for many, and they create the certainty of the nastiness, hardships, and dangers of a Crisis Era.

The 1999 repeal of the Glass-Steagall Act removed the Depression-era reform that separated investment banking and insurance from commercial banking, allowing incompatible activities to combine. That may have been the first stage of the cascade -- before the dot.com Crash from which we have never truly recovered, the disputed 2000 election that resulted in the rise of what may be the worst President in American history, 9/11, the demise of Enron Corporation, the bungled invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq... and no matter how competent Obama may be we see some incredible ugliness from people who think he is an usurper. "The zoo has an African lion, and the White House has a lyin' African" contrasts the vileness of the tea-party protesters of this round of Crisis from the sober participants of the Boston Tea Party.

This decade has been anything but a Golden Age, and it will look good only by contrast to an apocalypse. The 1760s, 1850s, 1920s, and this decade, vile as they are, portend catastrophe.

Originally Posted by pbrower2a

...contrasts the vileness of the tea-party protesters of this round of Crisis from the sober participants of the Boston Tea Party.

'Sober participants'???

Seriously?

You are aware that the Boston Tea Party was perpetrated by a bunch of hooligans who got liquored up, dressed up like Indians (in those days, meaning simply 'savages', beat up, tarred, and feathered some guards, broke into people's homes, and smashed, looted, and vandalized? As far as I know, no one tries to hide the facts of how they did what they did...

Come on, Justin. You know damn well that because these hooligans were on the 'right side of history' they are automatically the good guys.

Pax,

Dave Krein '42

Originally Posted by David Krein

Come on, Justin. You know damn well that because these hooligans were on the 'right side of history' they are automatically the good guys.

I didn't say they weren't the good guys. Far from it! I'd sooner say that our time could stand a few thousand of their type. Of course, they came back before cowardice and banality had been so firmly embedded in the American character (which has very much to do with the abovedisplayed bowdlerization of our noble roots).

Originally Posted by pbrower2a

contrasts the vileness of the tea-party protesters of this round of Crisis from the sober participants of the Boston Tea Party.

I agree with Justin. People this time around aren't tar and feathering members of the IRS.

Originally Posted by writerGrrl

I agree with Justin. People this time around aren't tar and feathering members of the IRS.

Or the executives at AIG. Or the governors of the FED. Or cops who use tazers on 10-year-old kids.

Or anyone.

Disparage people-based direct action as 'mob justice' or 'vigilantism' as you will (ahem... Kiff ...). But the fact remains that the established powers and those connected to them are kept in line by nothing else. The 'civilized' 'rule-of-law' sanctions people seem to imagine today will suffice are easily corrupted -- were, in fact, long ago -- by those they are supposed to protect against.

Originally Posted by David Krein

Come on, Justin. You know damn well that because these hooligans were on the 'right side of history' they are automatically the good guys.

Pax,

Dave Krein '42

And it was their side that wrote the books on the subject.

Originally Posted by Odin

Oh, you know how long many bills are, right? there isn't enough time in the day for a congressperson to read all those bills, that's what the staffers are for. A lot of the stuff in many bills is highly technical stuff that most politicians won't understand and thus must leave it for the wonks and techies to translate the jargon into plain English for them. They are human beings, not supermen.

So the congressfolk are not as smart as the staffers, the people who read and understand the bills? Maybe we should elect the staffers to the office and not the politicians. On the other hand, I've a friend who's a career engineer in the Department of Transportation. He tells me that all his fellow bureaucrats are in the habit of voting for the the non-incumbents. That way, by the time the newbie understands what the bureaucrats have been up to, the elected people can therefore cause them very little inconvenience in the way of oversight. I guess term limits perform a similar function: it keeps the civil service in absolute unrestrained power. Personally, I'd prefer my elected officials to perform the job I thought I had elected them to do. It might be time to repeal the Pendleton Act.

Originally Posted by Biddy5637

Hello all,

I hope you're all well! Though I don't often post here anymore I knew you'd be interested in this article (some of you may have read this already):

http://www.time.com/time/nation/arti...Top+Stories%29

I think in a decade or two we'll probably note 9/11 as the catalyst, with this whole decade beginning the 4t, although it's been hard to be definitive--the good news is, while we were wondering whether we're 3- or 4t, the regeneracy is now right around the corner!

Nice article, but it left out the 2008 election of President Obama, a very unqualified uber-liberal. In two decades pundits will comment on how three bad presidents in a row led the US right into the crisis.

Originally Posted by Blairamir

Nice article, but it left out the 2008 election of President Obama, a very unqualified uber-liberal. In two decades pundits will comment on how three bad presidents in a row led the US right into the crisis.

It is far too early to assess that Barack Obama is a poor President:

http://www.time.com/time/politics/ar...942832,00.html

His political skills are too strong, and culpability for bad politics comes largely from the obstructionism of GOP hacks who refuse to compromise on issues or even suggest modifications of Obama's pet legislation to make it better. Even economics seem to be better in one necessary area -- the one that recovers first in every known recovery:

Originally Posted by pbrower2a

Halloween is the perfect 3T celebration: it is macabre, individualistic, mindless, material, and commercial. All of those tendencies weaken in a 4T. As a 4T continues, people trend toward the family-friendly, home-spun, rational, and conventional. Halloween is something that people can do without without missing when people start tightening their belts.

I thought of something interesting; remember how S&H correlated the seasons of the year with the turnings of history (with Spring being analogous to the High, Summer to the Awakening, Autumn to the Unraveling, and Winter to the Crisis)? Maybe there is an actual connection between the seasons and the turnings of history; to see why let's take a look at some holidays that come within each season. As was mentioned, Halloween is a very 3T-oriented holiday; it also comes during the fall which fits the above theory. Now consider Christmas, which comes in the winter (and thus would correlate with a 4T); here families come closer together and give gifts to each other. The next holiday that I'll look at is Easter (comes during the spring and is analogous to a 1T); notice how in a typical Easter picture it's just the opposite of Halloween (with the former people look more alike and gender lines are crisply drawn; with the latter it's highly individualistic and sometimes gender-line blurry). Now let's take a summer (=2T-esque) holiday (in the United States a good example is Independence Day); here it's about having fun in the summertime warmth and not wanting to be under a strict authority (the opposite of Christmas which pulls people together).

Originally Posted by pbrower2a

It is far too early to assess that Barack Obama is a poor President:

http://www.time.com/time/politics/ar...942832,00.html

His political skills are too strong, and culpability for bad politics comes largely from the obstructionism of GOP hacks who refuse to compromise on issues or even suggest modifications of Obama's pet legislation to make it better. Even economics seem to be better in one necessary area -- the one that recovers first in every known recovery:

First, I've seen a similar chart, but the alignment was different; the steep drop in the current crisis was lined up with the steep drop of '29.

From the presidential powers as expressed in the Constitution, I evaluate presidents more on their foreign policy performance and results (wars, treaties, relations). Domestic policy is mainly in the hands of Congress (containing GOP hacks), however thru vetoes, appointments of Supreme Court justices and department secretaries the president can strongly steer domestic issues too. My value system is primarily Catholic and pro-life, so that puts presidents Carter, Clinton and Obama in the bottom 25% of all US presidents. I still hope that Obama makes some big changes in foreign policy but so far there's no change but marketing fluff.
http://www.usconstitution.net/const.html#Article2

Originally Posted by Blairamir

First, I've seen a similar chart, but the alignment was different; the steep drop in the current crisis was lined up with the steep drop of '29.

From the presidential powers as expressed in the Constitution, I evaluate presidents more on their foreign policy performance and results (wars, treaties, relations). Domestic policy is mainly in the hands of Congress (containing GOP hacks), however thru vetoes, appointments of Supreme Court justices and department secretaries the president can strongly steer domestic issues too. My value system is primarily Catholic and pro-life, so that puts presidents Carter, Clinton and Obama in the bottom 25% of all US presidents. I still hope that Obama makes some big changes in foreign policy but so far there's no change but marketing fluff.
http://www.usconstitution.net/const.html#Article2

Pro-life? GWB was arguably the most pro-death figure to enter the Presidency. As Governor of Texas he displayed a cavalier attitude toward executions. As President he started an aggressive war without justification. The toll of American lives may have been slight by standards of American wars, but that of Iraqis -- soldiers and civilians alike -- has been quite high.

Abortions seem to rise in bad economic times and fall in good ones. But at that, a repeal of abortion is going to require a Constitutional amendment -- and that will require huge changes in the political culture.

Time is starting the end of decade reviews of the last ten years, The End of the 2000s: Goodbye (at last) to the Decade from Hell. It seems to be a decent review of the state of the crisis... or is that unraveling?

Originally Posted by Justin '77

Disparage people-based direct action as 'mob justice' or 'vigilantism' as you will (ahem... Kiff ...). But the fact remains that the established powers and those connected to them are kept in line by nothing else. The 'civilized' 'rule-of-law' sanctions people seem to imagine today will suffice are easily corrupted -- were, in fact, long ago -- by those they are supposed to protect against.

Which is why an increasingly-obscure Bernhardt Goetz is one of a thimbleful of people I actually refer to as one of my heroes.

Originally Posted by Kelly85

I thought of something interesting; remember how S&H correlated the seasons of the year with the turnings of history (with Spring being analogous to the High, Summer to the Awakening, Autumn to the Unraveling, and Winter to the Crisis)? Maybe there is an actual connection between the seasons and the turnings of history; to see why let's take a look at some holidays that come within each season. As was mentioned, Halloween is a very 3T-oriented holiday; it also comes during the fall which fits the above theory. Now consider Christmas, which comes in the winter (and thus would correlate with a 4T); here families come closer together and give gifts to each other. The next holiday that I'll look at is Easter (comes during the spring and is analogous to a 1T); notice how in a typical Easter picture it's just the opposite of Halloween (with the former people look more alike and gender lines are crisply drawn; with the latter it's highly individualistic and sometimes gender-line blurry). Now let's take a summer (=2T-esque) holiday (in the United States a good example is Independence Day); here it's about having fun in the summertime warmth and not wanting to be under a strict authority (the opposite of Christmas which pulls people together).

Very interesting, Kel. I wonder if such has occurred to Mr. Howe, and what his thoughts are on it?

Originally Posted by Bob Butler 54

Time is starting the end of decade reviews of the last ten years, The End of the 2000s: Goodbye (at last) to the Decade from Hell. It seems to be a decent review of the state of the crisis... or is that unraveling?

That was indeed a dreadful decade -- one whose depravities have turned out no worse than they might have become -- just luck.

I could make the case that the Unraveling began in 1999 with the repeal of the Glass-Steagall Act of 1933 that separated investment banking, commercial banking, and insurance -- three incompatible activities. For those who need an analogy, it is like physicians going into the mortuary business.

Time missed one sleazy event of political import -- the despicable push polls that wrecked the 2000 GOP candidacy of John McCain. ("Would you vote for John McCain if you found that he has a black child? -- the "black child" came as honorably as possible for him, by adoption) McCain might have been a creditable President in 2001... but by 2008? That push poll engineered by Karl Rove -- whom I have frequently called "Karl Rogue" for practices that debase American government -- may have ensured the rise of people whose ruthlessness and amorality matched their incompetence (or was it the other way around?)

Originally Posted by Roadbldr '59

Which is why an increasingly-obscure Bernhardt Goetz is one of a thimbleful of people I actually refer to as one of my heroes.

I had to look him up on wikipedia. It's a shame that even twenty years ago he was one of the very last of a dying breed in the USA.

Originally Posted by Justin '77

Or the executives at AIG. Or the governors of the FED. Or cops who use tazers on 10-year-old kids.

Or anyone.

Disparage people-based direct action as 'mob justice' or 'vigilantism' as you will (ahem... Kiff ...). But the fact remains that the established powers and those connected to them are kept in line by nothing else. The 'civilized' 'rule-of-law' sanctions people seem to imagine today will suffice are easily corrupted -- were, in fact, long ago -- by those they are supposed to protect against.

Originally Posted by Roadbldr '59

Which is why an increasingly-obscure Bernhardt Goetz is one of a thimbleful of people I actually refer to as one of my heroes.

Unbelievable....or maybe not so much. Anyway, the writing's on the wall.