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Thread: The future of the West. - Page 8







Post#176 at 04-25-2008 06:29 AM by spudzill [at murrieta,california joined Mar 2005 #posts 653]
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Actually,

Quote Originally Posted by pbrower2a View Post
Not likely. First, it's not an empire. There's too little to turn against. Differences within it are entirely linguistic, and nobody is trying to ram some unified culture or religion down other people's throats.

Universal Empires fail because they require people to become members of fifth columns to have any chance at freedom from exploitation, repression, poverty, and homogenization. The Roman Empire fell because it had little to offer but peonage; the common people in fact welcomed the barbarians. The Aztec Empire may never have seen the Spanish coming... but its restive subjects often saw the Spanish conquistadores as liberators more than as oppressors. In more recent times, the Soviet Union would not have fallen apart so precipitously had it not offered so little for what it demanded of people. The nastiest of all Universal Empires, the Third Reich, rose fast as a conqueror due to the resources at the disposal of a ruthless tyrant, only to fall just as quickly to its gross violations of human decency and dignity.

I have read one condensed version of Alfred Toynbee's A Study of History; Toynbee offers the Universal State as the last gasp of a dying civilization for many of the reasons shown above. Freudian slip or not, "United States" sounds much like "Universal State", and one can see imperial scope, if not practice, in the USA from the inception of the United States. At least until recently the United States had a model to imitate. Should the rot that set in when Dubya became President intensify or even fail to abate, then centrifugal politics will ensue with some of the States seceding. Just as Lithuanians preferred being part of a free and independent (if tiny) Latvia instead of enjoying the dubious "protection" of the Soviet Union, I can imagine Californians preferring to be a part of a Republic of California than of the United States -- should the United States go bad.

"Universal States" need huge standing armies and navies to prevent revolts and secessions as well as to protect distant outposts. They also need huge bureaucracies to manage the logistical needs of the standing armies and navies. They impose high taxes with poor returns to taxpayers. The advantages that a Universal State provides, including free trade within the Empire, become trivial once the benefits disappear due to mass pauperization. Consider the Roman Empire at its inception; it gave benefits to numerous nations within the Empire by wiping out pirates and ensuring that navigation of the Mediterranean was easy. People could fish and even trade with ease, contributing to economic bounties then unknown in the ancient world. But in the end, the taxes got too high -- and people got taxation without representation -- or even service. The State came to enforce raw deals between big landlords and exploited tenant farmers. When the barbarians overthrew the Roman Empire in the West, they were welcome. Dissolution of the Empire was liberation from burdens that people gladly shed.

Most historians seem to associate the demise of empires with the rise of pathological rulers -- thieves, madmen, imperialists, backstabbers, religious and racial bigots, and sell-outs. At the extreme one finds Adolf Hitler, a man who fit five of the six pathologies; all that keeps him from being considered a sell-out is that he stabbed the backs of those who expected him to give them their expected quid pro quo... and his would-be Universal State collapsed faster than any in history.

What of America? It all depends upon whether Dubya becomes a portent of the American future or an anomaly to a longer heritage of governance. Humanity will know within a century-- long after we who dedicate our miniscule talents here are gone. Consider that Russia had Ivan the Terrible and Britain had Henry VIII... and still had greater glories ahead. Bad as Dubya is, he's not as evil as either of those two monsters.
There appear to be a number of fairly active secessionist movements in the U.S. right now. Including California.
When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro. Hunter S. Thompson







Post#177 at 04-25-2008 07:30 PM by TimWalker [at joined May 2007 #posts 6,368]
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The Clash Of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order by Samuel Huntington

"...the West now appears to be moving out of its phase of conflict. Western civilization has become a security zone; intra-West wars, apart from an occasional Cod War, are virtually unthinkable...

"...By the late twentieth century, the West has moved out of its 'warring state' phase of development and towards its 'universal state' phase. At the end of the century, this phase is still incomplete as the nation states of the West cohere into two semiuniversal states in Europe and North America. These two entities and their constituent units are, however, bound together by an extraordinarily complex network of formal and informal institutional ties. The universal states of previous civilizations are empires. Since democracy, however, is the political form of Western civilization, the emerging universal state of Western civilization is not an empire but rather a compound of federations, confederations, and international regimes and organizations."







Post#178 at 02-26-2009 10:31 PM by TimWalker [at joined May 2007 #posts 6,368]
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Transatlantic Free Trade Area








Post#179 at 02-28-2009 03:19 PM by Chas'88 [at In between Pennsylvania & Pennsyltucky joined Nov 2008 #posts 9,432]
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Quote Originally Posted by TimWalker View Post
The European Union seems a Universal Empire as created by an Adaptive generation. Will it break up during this 4T?
I'm currently studying abroad in Vienna, and I'm taking a course called: Art and Nations which partly speculates on the future of the EU. As the EU goes, those who aren't part of it feel left out, and those who are a part of it feel entrapped.

A lot of member states aren't exactly thrilled with being in the EU, the current "president" nation the Czech Republic being one of them.

Some European nations feel that the EU is threatening their cultural identity part of this comes from the fact that a few European nations have realized that since the birth rate has declined, that if things continue the way they're going, that they might find themselves on the brink of cultural decline and possible extinction.

Some pessimists say that the future of the EU might resemble that of Yugoslavia's short lived history. Yugoslavia came into being because a 19th Century linguist noted how extremely similar Serbian and Croatian languages were, except for a few oddities and the fact one uses Latin letters, and the other Cyrillic. He then matched words in both languages to one another, left out the oddities, and created the "Yugoslavic" language, in case such a nation should come into existence at some point in the future. Later, after WWI, when redrawing the maps of Europe, Yugoslavia was created, Yugoslavic was taught to the following generations.

When Yugoslavia fell it obviously fell on linguistic barriers, because while Yugoslavic was taught to younger generations, the older and well rooted languages of Serbian and Croatian didn't die out. However there were other factors, such as religious differences: Croatia was Roman Catholic and had closer ties to Rome and Italy because of it. Serbia was Orthodox and had ties pulling in the other direction. Also to add to it, it wasn't just Croatia and Serbia that pulled apart Yugoslavia, but other reasons as well, such as Bosnia & Herzegovnia, Slovenia, Montenegro, and Macedonia. Mostly the dissolution of Yugoslavia is attributed to cultural differences that had tried to have been united into one image around linguistic similarities.

While there is no current threat that the EU is trying to impose one cultural image, the fear that sometime in the future that might occur is still there. That fear is fueled by another fear of some countries fearing that their original cultures are "dieing" or are being "depleted", and their jealousy over other European nation's cultures growing stronger and rising (such as the Ukranians). There's concern that if these fears and jealousy win out, that the EU would likely fall apart.

While Europe might have just entered the 4T, they clearly haven't found their Gray Champion yet, and seem to be clinging to the hope that Obama's influence in America will cause a ripple effect in Europe as well. Depending on if they find many Gray Champions, or one Gray Champion I believe will determine the future of Europe.

The current European president, Vaclav Klaus, is still 3Tish. He openly complains about Europe in his speeches, and is very divisionist. There was a statue, depicting a map of the EU countries, reported commisioned by Prague, and made by a Czech artist wanting to see if "Europe could laugh at itself":

The map portrays Bulgaria as a "Turkish" squat toilet, which has led Bulgarian authorities to ask the Czech EU presidency to cover or remove the image.


Commissioned by Prague, the sprawling work, which covers 170 square feet (16 square metres), also satirises other member states, depicting the Netherlands as flooded with water, for example, or France as "on strike."

rest of the article is here: http://www.zimbio.com/President+Vacl...EU+art+exhibit


While apologies have been made, it hasn't bode well for a united European ideal.


Vaclav is also a staunch denier that Global Warming actually exists as a man-made entity, and hopes to use Czech EU presidency to promote this. Take that to mean what you may, however I see it as a sign that Europe is in the transition period between 3T and 4T. The start of the transition was the economic crisis, IMO.



~Chas'88
"There have always been people who say: "The war will be over someday." I say there's no guarantee the war will ever be over. Naturally a brief intermission is conceivable. Maybe the war needs a breather, a war can even break its neck, so to speak. But the kings and emperors, not to mention the pope, will always come to its help in adversity. ON the whole, I'd say this war has very little to worry about, it'll live to a ripe old age."







Post#180 at 03-02-2009 03:13 PM by Cynic Hero '86 [at Upstate New York joined Jul 2006 #posts 1,285]
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Strong nations are not the ones who maintain ounly what is nessesary for self-defense and faithfully abide by foreign agreements, no those are the weak nations, the chumps. A strong nation would build up military forces larger than that of other nations with the direction of offensive use. Strong countries would only sign agreements if benefits them, even then to be strong one must look toward the agreement as a means to an end, and only abide by it in order to improve ones own position. In the real world to allow suffering to be inflicted against you is to be weak, the strong dont suffer, they're the ones inflicting pain and suffering. Aggression is not a crime or a vice but a virtue. The best policy is to tolerate no aggression toward your own nation, but inflict aggression against enemy nations whenever the opportunity presents itself.







Post#181 at 03-02-2009 03:28 PM by Matt1989 [at joined Sep 2005 #posts 3,018]
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Quote Originally Posted by Cynic Hero '86 View Post
Strong nations are not the ones who maintain ounly what is nessesary for self-defense and faithfully abide by foreign agreements, no those are the weak nations, the chumps. A strong nation would build up military forces larger than that of other nations with the direction of offensive use. Strong countries would only sign agreements if benefits them, even then to be strong one must look toward the agreement as a means to an end, and only abide by it in order to improve ones own position. In the real world to allow suffering to be inflicted against you is to be weak, the strong dont suffer, they're the ones inflicting pain and suffering. Aggression is not a crime or a vice but a virtue. The best policy is to tolerate no aggression toward your own nation, but inflict aggression against enemy nations whenever the opportunity presents itself.
Using cliffnotes Nietzsche for foreign affairs is not a good policy.







Post#182 at 03-04-2009 10:50 AM by Chas'88 [at In between Pennsylvania & Pennsyltucky joined Nov 2008 #posts 9,432]
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Quote Originally Posted by Cynic Hero '86 View Post
Strong nations are not the ones who maintain ounly what is nessesary for self-defense and faithfully abide by foreign agreements, no those are the weak nations, the chumps. A strong nation would build up military forces larger than that of other nations with the direction of offensive use. Strong countries would only sign agreements if benefits them, even then to be strong one must look toward the agreement as a means to an end, and only abide by it in order to improve ones own position. In the real world to allow suffering to be inflicted against you is to be weak, the strong dont suffer, they're the ones inflicting pain and suffering. Aggression is not a crime or a vice but a virtue. The best policy is to tolerate no aggression toward your own nation, but inflict aggression against enemy nations whenever the opportunity presents itself.
Did you learn all of that in the Fatherland circa 1930?

~Chas'88
"There have always been people who say: "The war will be over someday." I say there's no guarantee the war will ever be over. Naturally a brief intermission is conceivable. Maybe the war needs a breather, a war can even break its neck, so to speak. But the kings and emperors, not to mention the pope, will always come to its help in adversity. ON the whole, I'd say this war has very little to worry about, it'll live to a ripe old age."







Post#183 at 03-12-2009 10:36 PM by TimWalker [at joined May 2007 #posts 6,368]
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Quote Originally Posted by TimWalker View Post
The earlier saeculae listed by S & H occurred during The Early Modern period (as labeled by historians).

I expect that society will eventually relabel earlier eras. "Modern" really means, for practical purposes, the world as it is now. The Early Modern period recedes ever remoter into the past, and there may be significant change in the future, resulting in a different modernism.

When historians label periods in the histories of other civilizations, they sometimes use the term Classic. ...also Post-Classic for later eras.

I propose the term Classic for the Early Modern period. That would include the Renaissance/Reformation and the Enlightenment, the Age of Discovery, Shakespiere, the shift from a simple agrarian economy to mercantilism, the American and French Revolutions....

Melko subdivided the period into The Age of the Reformation and The Age of the Baroque.
I was considering something the Grey Badger posted. Now I think that Classical West should include the Victorian Age, terminating with World War I.







Post#184 at 03-12-2009 10:45 PM by The Grey Badger [at Albuquerque, NM joined Sep 2001 #posts 8,876]
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We certainly became a different culture after World War I. Neither an Elizabethan nor a Victorian would recognize it, except - perhaps - as something to send missionaries to.
How to spot a shill, by John Michael Greer: "What you watch for is (a) a brand new commenter who (b) has nothing to say about the topic under discussion but (c) trots out a smoothly written opinion piece that (d) hits all the standard talking points currently being used by a specific political or corporate interest, while (e) avoiding any other points anyone else has made on that subject."

"If the shoe fits..." The Grey Badger.







Post#185 at 03-13-2009 11:51 AM by SVE-KRD [at joined Apr 2007 #posts 1,097]
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Decay

Actually, comparing the current state of Western Civilization to the seven stages of civilizational development listed in Prof. Carroll Quigley's The Evolution of Civilizations (Mixture, Gestation, Age of Expansion - three for the West, Age of Conflict - again, three for the West, Universal Empire, Decay, and Invasion), it seems to me pretty clear that the West moved out of it's Third Age of Conflict into Decay during the last 2T, without experiencing a Universal Empire phase (unless one wants to call the US-led bloc from 1945 to around 1970 said - short lived - Empire). We are hopefully still early enough in our Decay Phase to survive this 4T, but assuming we do, we can almost certainly count on the next 4T to be our Invasion Phase. In fact, Dr. Michael Grant, in his The Collapse and Recovery of the Roman Empire, makes pretty much the same point in the epilog of the book - that this 4T will involve, among other things, a confrontation between the West and the rest of Humanity over the West's continued existence, and that the West will manage to survive this 4T, but at a horrendous sociological price. To which I would add my belief that the outlying areas of the West (like Australia and New Zealand) will go under this time, just as Dacia (modern day Romania) and the Agri Decumates (modern day Baden-Wurttemburg, Germany) did in 3rd c. Rome.
Last edited by SVE-KRD; 03-13-2009 at 11:58 AM.







Post#186 at 03-13-2009 12:12 PM by SVE-KRD [at joined Apr 2007 #posts 1,097]
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Quote Originally Posted by TimWalker View Post
Perhaps the next saeculum will play out-if not as a Golden Age-then as a Silver Age.
More like the Third Great age of Latin Literature, which featured such writers as Ausonius of Bordeaux, Paulinus of Nola, Sulpicius Severus, Symmachus, Ambrose of Milan, Claudian of Alexandria, Jerome, and Augustine of Hippo.







Post#187 at 03-13-2009 05:55 PM by Odin [at Moorhead, MN, USA joined Sep 2006 #posts 14,442]
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Quote Originally Posted by SVE-KRD View Post
Actually, comparing the current state of Western Civilization to the seven stages of civilizational development listed in Prof. Carroll Quigley's The Evolution of Civilizations (Mixture, Gestation, Age of Expansion - three for the West, Age of Conflict - again, three for the West, Universal Empire, Decay, and Invasion), it seems to me pretty clear that the West moved out of it's Third Age of Conflict into Decay during the last 2T, without experiencing a Universal Empire phase (unless one wants to call the US-led bloc from 1945 to around 1970 said - short lived - Empire). We are hopefully still early enough in our Decay Phase to survive this 4T, but assuming we do, we can almost certainly count on the next 4T to be our Invasion Phase. In fact, Dr. Michael Grant, in his The Collapse and Recovery of the Roman Empire, makes pretty much the same point in the epilog of the book - that this 4T will involve, among other things, a confrontation between the West and the rest of Humanity over the West's continued existence, and that the West will manage to survive this 4T, but at a horrendous sociological price. To which I would add my belief that the outlying areas of the West (like Australia and New Zealand) will go under this time, just as Dacia (modern day Romania) and the Agri Decumates (modern day Baden-Wurttemburg, Germany) did in 3rd c. Rome.
As usually your Declinism is causing you to imagine what isn't there because of your deluded notion that folks in the 3rd World want to come and butcher Americans. We are still in the earliest part of Quigley's Universal state phase, which is equivalent to the last 100 years or so of the Time of Troubles of Toynbee.
To recommend thrift to the poor is both grotesque and insulting. It is like advising a man who is starving to eat less.

-Oscar Wilde, The Soul of Man under Socialism







Post#188 at 03-13-2009 06:05 PM by Odin [at Moorhead, MN, USA joined Sep 2006 #posts 14,442]
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Oh, and Quigley's model is not deterministic. This 4T marks the critical point of departure between developing a new "instrument of expansion" and a full-blown universal state.
To recommend thrift to the poor is both grotesque and insulting. It is like advising a man who is starving to eat less.

-Oscar Wilde, The Soul of Man under Socialism







Post#189 at 03-14-2009 01:06 PM by Roadbldr '59 [at Vancouver, Washington joined Jul 2001 #posts 8,275]
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Quote Originally Posted by SVE-KRD View Post
Actually, comparing the current state of Western Civilization to the seven stages of civilizational development listed in Prof. Carroll Quigley's The Evolution of Civilizations (Mixture, Gestation, Age of Expansion - three for the West, Age of Conflict - again, three for the West, Universal Empire, Decay, and Invasion), it seems to me pretty clear that the West moved out of it's Third Age of Conflict into Decay during the last 2T, without experiencing a Universal Empire phase (unless one wants to call the US-led bloc from 1945 to around 1970 said - short lived - Empire). We are hopefully still early enough in our Decay Phase to survive this 4T, but assuming we do, we can almost certainly count on the next 4T to be our Invasion Phase. In fact, Dr. Michael Grant, in his The Collapse and Recovery of the Roman Empire, makes pretty much the same point in the epilog of the book - that this 4T will involve, among other things, a confrontation between the West and the rest of Humanity over the West's continued existence, and that the West will manage to survive this 4T, but at a horrendous sociological price. To which I would add my belief that the outlying areas of the West (like Australia and New Zealand) will go under this time, just as Dacia (modern day Romania) and the Agri Decumates (modern day Baden-Wurttemburg, Germany) did in 3rd c. Rome.
Oh, I dunno. Who on Earth seriously resents Australia/New Zealand enough to want to harm them? Indonesia? The Aussies would lay them waste!
"Better hurry. There's a storm coming. His storm!!!" :-O -Abigail Freemantle, "The Stand" by Stephen King







Post#190 at 03-14-2009 07:35 PM by pbrower2a [at "Michigrim" joined May 2005 #posts 15,014]
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Quote Originally Posted by Odin View Post
As usually your Declinism is causing you to imagine what isn't there because of your deluded notion that folks in the 3rd World want to come and butcher Americans. We are still in the earliest part of Quigley's Universal state phase, which is equivalent to the last 100 years or so of the Time of Troubles of Toynbee.
The United States has one characteristic that separates it from other empires of the past: flexibility. The United States keeps redefining itself; the generational cycle may force that in America even if foreign powers don't get a chance to snip off territory or conquer America outright. Other empires tried to preserve what they were just before a crisis -- and preserved the rot as well as the old virtues.

3Ts are rot -- portents of far worse that can happen as corruption, cultural rot, and inequality intensify. They first scare thinking people, and they then hit everyone else: hard.
Last edited by pbrower2a; 03-14-2009 at 07:37 PM.
The greatest evil is not now done in those sordid "dens of crime" (or) even in concentration camps and labour camps. In those we see its final result. But it is conceived and ordered... in clean, carpeted, warmed and well-lighted offices, by (those) who do not need to raise their voices. Hence, naturally enough, my symbol for Hell is something like the bureaucracy of a police state or the office of a thoroughly nasty business concern."


― C.S. Lewis, The Screwtape Letters







Post#191 at 04-18-2009 01:00 PM by SVE-KRD [at joined Apr 2007 #posts 1,097]
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Quote Originally Posted by pbrower2a View Post
The United States has one characteristic that separates it from other empires of the past: flexibility. The United States keeps redefining itself; the generational cycle may force that in America (snip)

Perhaps the most pragmatic choice we could make would be to drop all immigration quotas IRT Latin America, make a working knowledge of Spanish (and maybe also French and Portuguese) mandatory for high school graduation while downplaying English, and drop our European ties like a bad habit. Then, begin to transition to a more Socialist economic system, and oficially encourage interracial relationships. Thus, we could at least begin to redefine ourselves as Latin American.

Canada should act similarly, but giving French top priority rather than Spanish.

BTW, this Anglo not joking. For us, the West is the past, and a fading, decaying present. Latin America is our future. (And a far better one than what Europe has to look forward to.)
Last edited by SVE-KRD; 04-18-2009 at 01:10 PM.







Post#192 at 04-18-2009 02:25 PM by Mr. Reed [at Intersection of History joined Jun 2001 #posts 4,376]
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Quote Originally Posted by SVE-KRD View Post
Perhaps the most pragmatic choice we could make would be to drop all immigration quotas IRT Latin America, make a working knowledge of Spanish (and maybe also French and Portuguese) mandatory for high school graduation while downplaying English, and drop our European ties like a bad habit. Then, begin to transition to a more Socialist economic system, and oficially encourage interracial relationships. Thus, we could at least begin to redefine ourselves as Latin American.

Canada should act similarly, but giving French top priority rather than Spanish.

BTW, this Anglo not joking. For us, the West is the past, and a fading, decaying present. Latin America is our future. (And a far better one than what Europe has to look forward to.)
*cough* collapsitarianism. *cough*
"The urge to dream, and the will to enable it is fundamental to being human and have coincided with what it is to be American." -- Neil deGrasse Tyson
intp '82er







Post#193 at 04-18-2009 03:11 PM by Chas'88 [at In between Pennsylvania & Pennsyltucky joined Nov 2008 #posts 9,432]
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Quote Originally Posted by SVE-KRD View Post
Perhaps the most pragmatic choice we could make would be to drop all immigration quotas IRT Latin America, make a working knowledge of Spanish (and maybe also French and Portuguese) mandatory for high school graduation while downplaying English, and drop our European ties like a bad habit. Then, begin to transition to a more Socialist economic system, and oficially encourage interracial relationships. Thus, we could at least begin to redefine ourselves as Latin American.

Canada should act similarly, but giving French top priority rather than Spanish.

BTW, this Anglo not joking. For us, the West is the past, and a fading, decaying present. Latin America is our future. (And a far better one than what Europe has to look forward to.)
I don't see that happening though. At least not for another 80 some years. Some Millennials say they aren't racist, and they aren't with regards to African-Americans. However some of my Hispanic friends will often complain to me about how often they meet with the white Millennial who "jokingly"/"condescendingly" says Mexican/Hispanic racist jokes to them, and my Hispanic friends have to take it all with a smile, less they get accused of being racist.

As for learning Spanish, my Hispanic friends all say that while it would be nice, it isn't necessary. Because usually by the 3rd generation, they no longer speak Spanish fluently anymore. Oh sure they know enough to understand some things & survive, but for the most part they say that their main language is English and Spanish becomes more of an auxiliary. My friends who told me that, used themselves as examples, but they knew of many others in similar situations.

My Silent/Boomer dad would agree with you that Spanish is taking over and we best "all learn it". He had to work in the Reading School District often enough. However what I think he failed to grasp is that most of the kids he were teaching were 1 or 2 generation Hispanic-Americans.

Now, I turn on any channel in the US & the most stereotyped race on television is not African-Americans, instead it's Hispanics. From the "Lazy Pedro" stereotype of Mexicans to the "Sexy Don Juan" stereotype it smacks of typical exoticization that occurred to African-Americans who this time in the last saeculum were accused/portrayed of being lazy & sex crazed. And the people who say that Hispanics aren't getting treated like the African-Americans were about this time in the last saeculum... I have to wonder what bubble they're living in. It's not like we have the Hispanic Baseball league or anything like that. However to quote Mark Twain "History doesn't repeat itself, but it tends to rhyme".

With Obama as the first African-American president I think we can safely say that African-American culture has been completely incorporated into mainstream America. Sure I think that there will still be holdover conservatives talking about how African-Americans are blah blah blah... however there were holdovers who talked about how Southern & Eastern Europeans were blah blah blah well into the last 1T. The Silents shut them up & the entire trend died, and has remained dead IMO. The Homelanders will do something similar to the holdover conservatives who complain about African-Americans. The new concern in the next saeculum that I see will be towards incorporating Hispanic-Americans into mainstream culture. With that there will probably be a few inclusions of Spanish words into English, but not enough to really dramatically change the language. However I don't see it completely changing anything, because we'll also be getting over the stereotypes we have of Asian culture & Native American culture, so in the next saeculum we'll probably be seeing a three-way cultural integration movement.

I think how inclusion into American society goes is this, and I'll put which group is in which at the current moment as far as I can tell:

First Contact - Middle Eastern - Fighting these wars will probably bring soldiers home with Middle Eastern wives & displaced Middle Eastern people might very well find a home in the US.
Exoticaztion & Demonization - Latin American (all the negative stereotypes) & Asian (all the "positive" stereotypes) & Native American (also gets "positive" stereotypes from Boomers--I read a Boomer memoir which really showed just how much so)
Integration & Acceptance - African-American

In the last saeculum:

First Contact - Hispanic & Asian & Native American - The Old West stereotypes were born here
Exoticization & Demonization - African-American
Integration & Acceptance - Southern & Eastern European

~Chas'88
Last edited by Chas'88; 04-18-2009 at 03:17 PM.
"There have always been people who say: "The war will be over someday." I say there's no guarantee the war will ever be over. Naturally a brief intermission is conceivable. Maybe the war needs a breather, a war can even break its neck, so to speak. But the kings and emperors, not to mention the pope, will always come to its help in adversity. ON the whole, I'd say this war has very little to worry about, it'll live to a ripe old age."







Post#194 at 04-19-2009 06:52 AM by SVE-KRD [at joined Apr 2007 #posts 1,097]
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Quote Originally Posted by Chas'88 View Post
I don't see that happening though. At least not for another 80 some years. Some Millennials say they aren't racist, and they aren't with regards to African-Americans. However some of my Hispanic friends will often complain to me about how often they meet with the white Millennial who "jokingly"/"condescendingly" says Mexican/Hispanic racist jokes to them, and my Hispanic friends have to take it all with a smile, less they get accused of being racist.
This would actually be compatible with my scenario where America, and the West in general, survive this 4T, if at a high price, and in a rickety fashion, with considerable damage, only to fall with the next 4t (around 2100).

With Obama as the first African-American president I think we can safely say that African-American culture has been completely incorporated into mainstream America. Sure I think that there will still be holdover conservatives talking about how African-Americans are blah blah blah... however there were holdovers who talked about how Southern & Eastern Europeans were blah blah blah well into the last 1T. The Silents shut them up & the entire trend died, and has remained dead IMO. The Homelanders will do something similar to the holdover conservatives who complain about African-Americans. (snip)

~Chas'88
I can see Afro-Americans coming to occupy the same spot in our history that the Illyrians did in the Later Roman Empire: the tough-as-nails soldiers and commanders, from a formerly disparaged part of the society, who rise to the top purely by merit, and provide the innovative leadership that saves us from annihilation now, and affords us the rest of the century. e.g. Aurelian (270-275), Probus (276-282), Diocletian (284-305), co-Emperor Galerius (293-311), Constantine I (306-337), and Valentinian I (364-375), among others. Obama may well be the precursor, paving the way to a similar lineup in our near future.

BTW, I remember reading once that Diocletian's father was a freed slave, which should give you an idea of just how meteoric a rise was possible, during the period of the Illyrian Emperors - from slavery to the Imperial Throne in just two generations. Meanwhile, Galerius' father was a shepherd in what are now the Transylvanian Alps of Romania. And Aurelian's nickname translates roughly as 'Hand on his Sword' - even as Emperor. To give you an idea of how they earned their meteoric rises from nothing to Imperial Rule.
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Post#195 at 04-19-2009 07:45 AM by Chas'88 [at In between Pennsylvania & Pennsyltucky joined Nov 2008 #posts 9,432]
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Quote Originally Posted by SVE-KRD View Post
This would actually be compatible with my scenario where America, and the West in general, survive this 4T, if at a high price, and in a rickety fashion, with considerable damage, only to fall with the next 4t (around 2100).



I can see Afro-Americans coming to occupy the same spot in our history that the Illyrians did in the Later Roman Empire: the tough-as-nails soldiers and commanders, from a formerly disparaged part of the society, who rise to the top purely by merit, and provide the innovative leadership that saves us from annihilation now, and affords us the rest of the century. e.g. Aurelian (270-275), Probus (276-282), Diocletian (284-305), co-Emperor Galerius (293-311), Constantine I (306-337), and Valentinian I (364-375), among others. Obama may well be the precursor, paving the way to a similar lineup in our near future.

BTW, I remember reading once that Diocletian's father was a freed slave, which should give you an idea of just how meteoric a rise was possible, during the period of the Illyrian Emperors - from slavery to the Imperial Throne in just two generations. Meanwhile, Galerius' father was a shepherd in what are now the Transylvanian Alps of Romania. And Aurelian's nickname translates roughly as 'Hand on his Sword' - even as Emperor. To give you an idea of how they earned their meteoric rises from nothing to Imperial Rule.
Just a little nitpick here: there are no Alps in Romania. Those are the Carpathian Mountains. The Carpathian Mountains used to form the natural border of Hungary until the end of WWI & is still considered by most Hungarians to be what the border SHOULD be.

The Alps are in: Austria, Switzerland, Italy, France, and Germany. Vienna is technically the end of the Alps and after it begins the plains of Hungary.

As for the rest of the post, interesting, but I think the only way that the "West" could fall is if a Civic generation of any sort failed to do what Civics do best. Also your theory runs well with The Grey Badger's idea of MegaTurnings, she thinks the next saeculum is going to be a long Unraveling like the 17th Century of Counter Reformation was after the 16th Century's Renaissance. Following that line of thought, the 18th Century was a MegaCrisis, and what came out of that was that slowly Europe ended being the only major power. The 19th Century was a MegaHigh or stretching the 17th Century values beyond their point of being able to endure. The 20th Century was another MegaAwakening or Rennaisance. What I see in store for us is probably a return or a popular revist to the 19th Century culture or at the very least reconcile it to modern minds--just like the late 80s & early 90s tried to reconcile the 1950s.

However I don't see the West "falling". Excuse me and call me a "Cock-eyed Optimist" but what I see is an evening out & perhaps a rise in power to other parts of the world that seem backwards/backwoods to us now--just like America seemed in the 18th & 19th centuries to Europeans--and the West retiring to being the "grandmother" of whoever the super power is.

I don't think the West will last for forever. That is impossible, but I don't think the end is so near as some cynics might want to think...

~Chas'88
"There have always been people who say: "The war will be over someday." I say there's no guarantee the war will ever be over. Naturally a brief intermission is conceivable. Maybe the war needs a breather, a war can even break its neck, so to speak. But the kings and emperors, not to mention the pope, will always come to its help in adversity. ON the whole, I'd say this war has very little to worry about, it'll live to a ripe old age."







Post#196 at 04-19-2009 07:57 AM by SVE-KRD [at joined Apr 2007 #posts 1,097]
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The name 'Transylvanian Alps' is slapped onto a spur of the Carpathians to the northwest of Bucharest, but south of Cluj-Napoca. Traditionally, the mountains formed the border between transylvania and Wallachia, in Romania.
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Post#197 at 04-19-2009 08:08 AM by SVE-KRD [at joined Apr 2007 #posts 1,097]
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Quote Originally Posted by Chas'88 View Post
As for the rest of the post, interesting, but I think the only way that the "West" could fall is if a Civic generation of any sort failed to do what Civics do best.
Which could happen if said the West has been so thoroughly delegitimized in the eyes of it's people that said civic generation grows up to see no point in trying to preserve it, much less renew it. Most likely hasn't happened yet, but probably will by ca. 2100.

I don't think the West will last for forever. That is impossible, but I don't think the end is so near as some cynics might want to think...

~Chas'88
If by 'so near', you mean the end of the Western World will not come during this 4T, I'm inclined to agree. However, come the next 4T...

However, I do think the West will emerge from this 4T considerably -and permanently - weakened, and with simple survival as the primary remaining imperative. The next 2T should then see the rise of new belief systems which have the effect of completely sapping what's left of the West's legitimacy in the eyes of the people, just as Christianity did the Classical World (read: Roman Empire).
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Post#198 at 04-19-2009 02:29 PM by Odin [at Moorhead, MN, USA joined Sep 2006 #posts 14,442]
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Quote Originally Posted by Chas'88 View Post
Just a little nitpick here: there are no Alps in Romania. Those are the Carpathian Mountains. The Carpathian Mountains used to form the natural border of Hungary until the end of WWI & is still considered by most Hungarians to be what the border SHOULD be.

The Alps are in: Austria, Switzerland, Italy, France, and Germany. Vienna is technically the end of the Alps and after it begins the plains of Hungary.

As for the rest of the post, interesting, but I think the only way that the "West" could fall is if a Civic generation of any sort failed to do what Civics do best. Also your theory runs well with The Grey Badger's idea of MegaTurnings, she thinks the next saeculum is going to be a long Unraveling like the 17th Century of Counter Reformation was after the 16th Century's Renaissance. Following that line of thought, the 18th Century was a MegaCrisis, and what came out of that was that slowly Europe ended being the only major power. The 19th Century was a MegaHigh or stretching the 17th Century values beyond their point of being able to endure. The 20th Century was another MegaAwakening or Rennaisance. What I see in store for us is probably a return or a popular revist to the 19th Century culture or at the very least reconcile it to modern minds--just like the late 80s & early 90s tried to reconcile the 1950s.

However I don't see the West "falling". Excuse me and call me a "Cock-eyed Optimist" but what I see is an evening out & perhaps a rise in power to other parts of the world that seem backwards/backwoods to us now--just like America seemed in the 18th & 19th centuries to Europeans--and the West retiring to being the "grandmother" of whoever the super power is.

I don't think the West will last for forever. That is impossible, but I don't think the end is so near as some cynics might want to think...

~Chas'88
My guess, as I states many times up-thread, is that the next 4T and thus the next Mega-Crisis, will involve the US becoming the Western universal state not though conquest but, as in the Graeco-Roman world, simple exhaustion, The US being the only Western state with a large military, and because international trade eating away resistance to consolidation. Most other Western states are effectively US satellites. and the US has complete, overwhelming naval supremacy, naval supremacy being the identifier of Hegemonic power in the Modern West.

Some tidbits from a website I ran into:

http://www.johnreilly.info/sf10.htm
Imperial Populism (1992-2022)

In the midst of any painful experience, there always comes a time when one first hopes that the worst is over. The dentist seems to be about to put away the drill, you suddenly reach a part of the cliff rich with handholds which seem to lead straight to the top. These expectations rarely turn out to be justified: the dentist has put down the drill to find a knife to cut the gum, the handholds are friable slate that lead to an overhang. Still, the delusion is a relief while it lasts, and in certain situations it may revive your enthusiasm sufficiently for you to make some real progress. In rather the same way, this period of history is characterized, not so much by the belief that all problems have been solved, but by the renewed hope that progress is possible. The world system is obviously still changing, indeed doing so at a faster rate than in the previous period. Still, it seems to be headed toward an acceptable condition, one that can be realized with no major disjunctures. Predictably, it is the very successes achieved under these misapprehensions which inspire the folly and carelessness that eventually require a later age of discipline.

In the earlier regions of modernity, imperial expansion had usually been accomplished with the enthusiastic support of the popular party. The military, especially in conjunction with conscription, had become one of the great equalizers of citizens. More to the point, it permitted populist politicians to use the state to despoil the resources of the traditional aristocracy. During the annihilation wars and reforms of two generations ago, this connection had become far more tentative, since the enormous personal cost of a forward national strategy was eventually brought home to every family. In the previous generation, foreign adventure had become more of a cause of the patrician classes than otherwise. Distant wars for subtle objectives could still be mounted, but the enthusiasm of the people could be engaged, if at all, only by invoking xenophobic themes and justifying the operations with platitudes. The effect was to remove serious discussion of foreign policy questions from the public arena.

This political configuration changed quite dramatically during this period. The engine for the new expansion was precisely popular enthusiasm. This was made possible by the fact that, as had been true a century and a half before, most people did not have to be concerned with military affairs if they did not want to be. The adventures of armies could be followed with the sort of detached goodwill usually reserved for favorite local sports teams. Even more important, the material advantages of these activities, whether in the form of lots of cheap slaves or a lowered cost of consumer goods, tended to dampen principled objections.

Again, every civilization is unique, so that the proportion of economic advance to military conflict is different from example to example. In Islam and China, the military element predominated, though the command economy of Ch'in prospered mightily from that nation's string of ever easier military successes. In Egypt and the West, the expansion was far more economic. Indeed, aside from actual changes in military potential, the most significant feature of the period for the West was the return of the United States to almost the position of economic predominance which it had held after the Second World War. Egypt, as it recovered from the disaster of the Hyskos Period, dealt with the rest of the world in this phase of its history primarily through border skirmishes. Even so, it was quickly developing a system of trade and tribute to the south and east.

The West, on the other hand, developed a science of conducting short, annihilating, brushfire wars, designed to achieve clear and limited objectives. Ideally, these could be conducted anywhere in the world at a few days' notice. When conceived and implemented according to strict criteria, these efforts were invariably successful. Their purpose, at least in theory, was to regularize the environment for the new international economic system which came into effect among already developed countries. Though the point was not always fully appreciated at the time, this meant seeking to ensure, everywhere in the world, that minimum security of person and property which is necessary for the operation of a market economy. In practice, of course, the strict criteria for these police wars were often set aside for reasons of American domestic politics. Still, the general effect was to make foreign and domestic policy mutually reinforcing.

As tends to happen in any system involving positive feedback, tensions were building which would eventually make the new modus vivendi untenable. Though submerged for most of this period, the conflict between the "patricians" and "plebeians" experienced by mature civilizations sometimes flares up during this epoch. "Plebeians," of course, despite their self-designation and their propaganda, represent neither "the people" nor the national interest. "The people" in reality is simply an abstract image of the population, one that leaves out the peculiar characteristics and mutual hostilities found among actual human beings. In Rome, "the people" included persons who owned several slaves, and who were often richer than the ancient families of the senatorial class. Politicians of all stripes tended to also be financiers, usurers, and commodity speculators. There is, in fact, a strong link between democracy and money wherever they appear. The "people" are the new class, whether they are bureaucrats chosen by merit in the State of Ch'in, the "symbolic analysts" of the West, or resourceful military men of no background who appear everywhere.

As a rule, these groups can be kept in harmony, or at least in a state short of civil war, as long as prestige and material benefits are open to both kinds of people. There are exceptions, of course. The attempt by the Gracchi brothers of Rome to proscribe the persons and confiscate the goods of large sections of the senatorial class was the first whiff of the political chaos which eventually destroyed the Republic. This episode, however, represented the hightide of truly ideological politics. The Gracchi were, after all, regularly elected officials. Indeed, the elder brother organized what may have been the only truly representative election in Roman history. The demagogues which followed them, whatever offices they might hold, sought formless power as the leaders of mobs. Though "the people" usually win the struggle of modernity, principled popular government does not survive this period.

There are, after all, other things for ambitious people to think about. Conquered lands and foreign markets and the wonderful possibilities for arbitrage available at the center of the world have the effect of resigning people who otherwise would think little of each other to cooperate in one imperial adventure after another. Eventually, because the accessions of wealth and power promote change and opportunity, entrepreneurship becomes associated more with the popular party than otherwise.

As the international system, and the domestic system of the nucleating nation, move into the final stage, the social space which can be occupied by the most successful necessarily narrows. This is because, in a unified world, local success becomes devalued. Anyone can be rich, many people can be famous, but only one man can be king. By this time in a civilization's history, it begins to become apparent in just what this "kingship" might consist. In the West and China, it is in the nature of a revival of a tradition of immemorial unity. In the former, the primitive "universal state" was the Holy Roman Empire; in the latter, it was the early Chou Dynasty. Indeed, this period marks the first time since the beginning of modernity that anyone dared lay claim to the unoccupied throne, under whatever form of words. The claim is indignantly rejected by the whole world, but the prospect can never be withdrawn. Whether the universal monarch is thought of as the permanent president of a council of princes, or as the popular (new class) dictator of the nucleating state, or as the conductor of the concert of nations, the goal has become clear.

With the prize in view, it can become the object of conscious ambition. When policy is made from ambition rather than on the merits, mistakes are far more likely. Sometimes, there are mistakes about who the realistic contestants are. In China, the State of Ch'i organized a futile alliance to forestall the ambitions of Ch'in, as the European Community did in the later West. Both ended on a farcical note. More important is the decay of political discipline in the nucleating state. It is always an illusion to think that you can reach the top of a social structure by eliminating all your rivals in turn. Since such a structure is a pyramid of living bodies, one finds that eliminating its constituent members, even if only from public life, has the effect of destroying the pyramid, apex and all. However, this is rarely apparent at the time. In this epoch, in fact, domestic politics becomes what all believe to be a zero-sum game. Note that this occurs precisely at what seems to be the moment of maximum international security, because internal business need no longer be deferred in the face of a hostile world. In the next period, policies based on this misplaced confidence in the safety of the international system have predictable results.
http://www.johnreilly.info/sf12.htm
Final Agony (2061-2080)

This is the epoch of the last world war. The victor is often regarded in later years as the most terrible man in history, or as the greatest hero who ever lived, the model for all future rulers. In the case of Western civilization, whose universal state came to include the whole human race and the whole planet, one or the other of these assessments was literally the truth.

This is the period when the final restraints are removed. The international system has been so damaged, partly by war and partly by the interdigitation of the societies which compose it, that it loses all resistance to consolidation. Domestic politics in all major powers have lost whatever restraint constitutional forms may once have provided. The extraordinary cynicism and viciousness of political life is ultimately debilitating. For a season, however, it provides a reservoir of available energy, of competent people willing to do literally anything which seems to suit their interests, which can be harnessed by the right man. Against this force, properly directed by a single will, there is nothing in the human world that can stand.

The stronger a civilization is in absolute terms, the more terrible these years are. For Egypt, the smallest and weakest of the great civilizations, the beginning of the Empire seems to have involved nothing more than a coup at home and the undertaking of a spectacularly successful raid into Asia. Islam, intrinsically stronger but weaker even than Egypt in comparison to its environment, actually failed to unite its whole culture area when its advance to the east was checked; the failure was never wholly made good thereafter. (It did, however, succeed in securing its barbarian hinterland in southeastern Europe.) The great event that signaled the end of modernity, the capture of the traditional world capital at Constantinople, was not an easy undertaking, but the conflict which accompanied it was not on the scale of a world war. The Byzantine Empire was long-since conquered in detail; the occupation of the capital was a matter of tactics rather than strategy.

At Rome there was a civil war that at least implicated the whole world, since the participants had nations for their clients and supporters. Perhaps the most interesting thing about this conflict was that it constituted final victory for the popular party. Unlike a generation before, however, this victory did not precipitate class war or mass executions. The new dictator, Caesar, was at pains to conciliate the hostile elements of the existing society, rather than to destroy them. The only setbacks to expansion were secondary. The most notable one was in the east, where a Roman invasion of Parthia had been attempted as much for domestic political reasons as for strategic ones. The period also saw the final absorption of the Republic's traditional Celtic enemies to the northwest and the acquisition of territories which would prove vital to the well-being of the future empire.

In China there was waking nightmare. The most ruthless state ruled by the most merciless regime in the civilization's history had followed a policy of aggression and intimidation for over a century. Now it paid off. All traditional morality could be said to have failed, to have been proven wrong, simply because those who attempted to abide by it were seen to have been defeated once and for all in this world. Despite desperate resistance, more than was ever shown by the Hellenistic cities against Rome, the states at the center of the civilized Chinese world fell in quick succession to Ch'in, until finally the last of its traditional Great Power opponents surrendered. The worst that could have happened did happen, in the view of the educated. The victory of evil appeared to be complete.

In the West there was civil war and international war, fanatical resistance and the implosion of ancient non-Western civilizations into civil chaos. Nuclear, chemical and (non-lethal) biographical weapons were used again and again against civilian populations. Strategic ballistic missile defenses worked just well enough to leave the combatants sufficiently intact to conduct conventional warfare in the aftermath. Meanwhile, throughout the developed world, and particularly in America, there grew up a terrible exhilaration with the prospect that, at last, it would all be over. The day had finally come when all the bad people in the world, foreign and domestic, could finally be brought to justice. It was a great age for commissions of inquiry and international tribunals concerned with other people's malefactions.

Like the other great transitions in the life of a civilization, this cusp between modernity and empire is often experienced as a different kind of time. It is as if the eschatological horizon had been met. Throughout history, people say that, if we continue our present course, then in the long-run thus-and-so will happen. This is the era when the end of the long-run is reached. At this time, all ideologies, all theories of society, must perform or be considered refuted. The apparent refutation of traditional ethics and expectations, the apparent breakthrough beyond the system of good and evil, give the whole episode, almost a generation, an uncanny undertone. It is a time of desolating miracles, of dismay and wonder. The elements are seen to revolt, whether in fact or because people are attuned to the unexpected. The light of the sun is a different color, for a few years.

Not the least unsettling thing about this terrible chain of events is that nothing in particular seems to cause it. At the beginning of the period, all know that there is a great deal not right with the world, indeed that there are any number of accidents waiting to happen. The well-informed even know the outline of what the world would have to look like to make it a reasonably safe place to live; they have the sense to tremble at the jury-rigged state of things. Still, the event that turns these chronic worries into an all-engulfing flood is small out of all proportion to the result. A lost election, an assassination in a royal family, the renunciation of a minor treaty, any of these can put every important question in the world at stake, if the time is right.

This is not to say that this transition is a time of random or even meaningless violence. Nothing important can lack substance, and so the people of this time are driven by real hopes and fears. Their fears are produced by the sickening realization that a defeat which they and their ancestors had been fighting off for two and a half centuries, both at home and abroad, can no longer be held at bay. It will happen in their lifetime, to themselves. The mob will finally rule, the infidels will take the holy city, their inhuman enemies will occupy the ancient homelands of the brave and true.

Modernity was about the elimination of borders between societies and those institutions within them which intermediate between the subject and the sovereign. At its end, therefore, there is no place for losers to hide. For these few years, the private and the political have merged, so that one cannot simply withdraw and try to make a personal peace; there is no place of peace, either social or physical, to withdraw to.

This is also a season of hope. There is the fierce joy of the victors in the fact that they now can do all as they would. There is the more modest hope among society's passive but intelligent classes, the people who usually make things work at ground level, that at least rigorous reform will now be possible, that radical solutions can be tried and may even be necessary. Finally, most important for the future, there is the species of hope that can grow only after despair has achieved complete victory. It can have no public voice for decades yet, but it eventually outlives every civilization.

Modernity was in some ways a vast hallucination. For ten generations, it threw up terrifying shapes and aroused strange enthusiasms, all the while making promises of limitless power and knowledge. Then, almost suddenly, it was gone, as transient and inconsequent as a thunderstorm. It is only when the world of time seems to be collapsing, when all philosophy has refuted itself and the philosophers have taken to composing panegyrics for the victors, that the truth behind history can again become visible.
To recommend thrift to the poor is both grotesque and insulting. It is like advising a man who is starving to eat less.

-Oscar Wilde, The Soul of Man under Socialism







Post#199 at 04-19-2009 06:14 PM by Chas'88 [at In between Pennsylvania & Pennsyltucky joined Nov 2008 #posts 9,432]
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Quote Originally Posted by Odin View Post
My guess, as I states many times up-thread, is that the next 4T and thus the next Mega-Crisis, will involve the US becoming the Western universal state not though conquest but, as in the Graeco-Roman world, simple exhaustion, The US being the only Western state with a large military, and because international trade eating away resistance to consolidation. Most other Western states are effectively US satellites. and the US has complete, overwhelming naval supremacy, naval supremacy being the identifier of Hegemonic power in the Modern West.

Some tidbits from a website I ran into:

http://www.johnreilly.info/sf10.htm


http://www.johnreilly.info/sf12.htm
Ahh, so you're in belief of what Network (1976) said would come. One world where there is no wars, famines, brutalities, or oppression: one great ecumenical company where all peoples are shareholders and workers for the company, where all pain is alleviated, where all necessaries are provided, all anxieties are tranquilized, and all boredom is amused. And individualism is as dead as Jacob Marley.

Network speech

Quite frankly, if that's the future of the West, I'd gladly help my children and grandchildren--heck maybe even my great-grandchildren--tear it apart.

~Chas'88
"There have always been people who say: "The war will be over someday." I say there's no guarantee the war will ever be over. Naturally a brief intermission is conceivable. Maybe the war needs a breather, a war can even break its neck, so to speak. But the kings and emperors, not to mention the pope, will always come to its help in adversity. ON the whole, I'd say this war has very little to worry about, it'll live to a ripe old age."







Post#200 at 04-19-2009 07:03 PM by SVE-KRD [at joined Apr 2007 #posts 1,097]
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Quote Originally Posted by Chas'88 View Post
Ahh, so you're in belief of what Network (1976) said would come. One world where there is no wars, famines, brutalities, or oppression: one great ecumenical company where all peoples are shareholders and workers for the company, where all pain is alleviated, where all necessaries are provided, all anxieties are tranquilized, and all boredom is amused. And individualism is as dead as Jacob Marley.

Network speech

Quite frankly, if that's the future of the West, I'd gladly help my children and grandchildren--heck maybe even my great-grandchildren--tear it apart.

~Chas'88
I can understand your feelings on the matter. Fortunately, if I'm right about where the Western World really stands, our period of 'Universal Empire' ran from roughly 1946 to roughly 1970, with the Fifties and early Sixties as the 'Golden Age'. We've been in decline since 1970. Thus, individualism, IMO, is under no threat from any global dystopia disguised as a global utopia.
Last edited by SVE-KRD; 04-19-2009 at 07:17 PM.
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