Originally Posted by Kurt Horner

It depends on how late we are and also how you interpret previous Crises. If you are correct that 2001 marks the 3T/4T boundary, than I would agree that a spiral of violence is unlikely. However, if instead the boundary is at 2005 (the most common view here, I think) then we have a few more years before such a thing can be ruled out.

No I'd say the (bare) majority view here is that 9/11 probably started the 4T, with most of the rest believing it started either last year with the September stock market crash, or the year before with the subprime lending debacle/housing bubble slow-leak.

Only a handful of folks believe the Catalyst was Katrina in '05... though they do bring up some good points.

Some may say, 1-party absolute rule is a necessity in today's environment. I think not. Besides, Obama is now responsible for everything right/wrong for whatever direction he takes us for now on. We are dangerously on our way to war with either, Iran or Pakistan and the last 30 years have made it so. Call me a wacko, I haven't been wrong yet.

Originally Posted by Roadbldr '59

No I'd say the (bare) majority view here is that 9/11 probably started the 4T, with most of the rest believing it started either last year with the September stock market crash, or the year before with the subprime lending debacle/housing bubble slow-leak.

Only a handful of folks believe the Catalyst was Katrina in '05... though they do bring up some good points.

You mean plurality, don't you? I think if we took a poll again, no view point out of the four major ones (9/11, Katrina/housing market peak, financial panic of 2008, or We Still Be 3T) would command a majority of support.

Originally Posted by Bob Butler 54

The NY Times reports an Abortion Doctor Shot to Death in Church

I was watching this sort of thing back in the Clinton years. For the most part the Pro Life movement is against death. I don't expect cheers from them advocating more such violence. I would think this ought to be an isolated incident.

Still, it is violence related to a culture wars issue, an indication that there are still violent extremists on the hard right.

Is it my imagination, or have there been a few more church shootings in the last several years than would be the norm? There is the old phrase 'going postal' that reflects a surge in mail men going violent a few decades back. The message of committing murder in church is interesting, especially in this case.

The rhetoric at both Democratic Underground and Free Republic is becoming more and more violent, radical, and authoritarian. Folks on DU are calling for these wacko right-wing militia types to be rounded up, locked up, and waterboarded in response to this.

Add this to the budget crisis in California and the shit is going to hit the fan real soon.

Long, Hot Summer, anyone?

Originally Posted by Mr. Alan Bock

...Years ago the political scientist James Kurth did something of a morphology of empires based on the age of people who were generally admired or who defined the cultures of the Roman, British, French, Austro-Hungarian, and other empires. He dubbed the American the "adolescent empire" ... I’m not sure we actually worship youth in this country, but most of us spend considerable energy during the course of our lifetimes trying to deny that it will ever fade and evolve into anything resembling wisdom.

Adolescents are simultaneously adventurous and fearful – eager to test their growing independence but still expecting that if anything goes wrong Mommy and Daddy will be there to make sure nothing really terrible happens, or to pay for any damage done in the process of limits-testing. Americans still seem to be ready to embrace the notion – absurd to anyone with much reflectiveness and experience but attractive perhaps to the still-forming adolescent mind – that the cure for blowback from imperial overstretch is more imperial overstretch, just as the cure for too much loose money is more loose money.

Man-Children Crown of Creationists in a late Unravelling; the merchandizing of Turning Yearning (& Fear Itself) in Our Commercial Republic

Originally Posted by Mr. John Gray

in Gray's Anatomy (UK)
No traditional myth is as untruthful as the modern myth of progress. All prevailing philosophies embody the fiction that human life can be altered at will. Better aim for the impossible, they say, than submit to fate. Invariably, the result is a cult of human self-assertion that soon ends in farce.

The line of thinking that is traced in this book runs in an opposite direction -- not only in questioning the idea of progress but also, and more fundamentally, in rejecting the idea that it is only through action that life can be meaningful. Politics is only a small part of human existence, and the human animal only a very small part of the world. Science and technology have given us powers we never had before, but not the ability to refashion our existence as we wish. Poetry and religion are more realistic guides to life.

The Observer (UK) on Mr. Gray's tome:

We think we are making progress, but all we are ever doing is saying boo to our own ghosts.

I think the Unravelling is producing a (yet another) bubble in the specter of Schicklgrubery business.

Originally Posted by Odin

The rhetoric at both Democratic Underground and Free Republic is becoming more and more violent, radical, and authoritarian. Folks on DU are calling for these wacko right-wing militia types to be rounded up, locked up, and waterboarded in response to this.

Add this to the budget crisis in California and the shit is going to hit the fan real soon.

Long, Hot Summer, anyone?

I don't think we'll reach the intensity of the 1960s long hot summers this year. It took some time to brew up to that level. The current incidents are too few, far between, deal with diverse issues, and are not so organized. For all the vaunted power of the internet and supposed millennial generation networking, where is the equivalent of the SDS or weather underground?

There is no lack of talk, scattered action, but the spiral isn't anywhere near the long hot summer level.

Yesterday, a doctor that performs abortions. Today, an Army Recruiter Is Fatally Shot

Different issues. Different wings, I would think. Not related at all, I hope. And the full moon isn't until next week...

Originally Posted by Roadbldr '59

No I'd say the (bare) majority view here is that 9/11 probably started the 4T, with most of the rest believing it started either last year with the September stock market crash, or the year before with the subprime lending debacle/housing bubble slow-leak.

Only a handful of folks believe the Catalyst was Katrina in '05... though they do bring up some good points.

I don't think it was Katrina or any other event that "started" the 4T. The question is, at what point in this decade did the 3T/4T mood shift occur? The number of people who say we are still 3T has dwindled to Virgil and . . . who else? In 2005, whether we were in 4T or not was still hotly debated, now nearly everyone says we are. It seems much more likely the transition occurred between then and now rather than earlier in 2001.

Originally Posted by The Wonkette

You mean plurality, don't you? I think if we took a poll again, no view point out of the four major ones (9/11, Katrina/housing market peak, financial panic of 2008, or We Still Be 3T) would command a majority of support.

No, I meant majority.

From my observation I'd say that a tad over 50% feel 9/11 was probably the 4T Catalyst. Next would come the people who feel it was probably the Panic Of 2008 (including the subprime lending and housing bubble debacles that led up to it) at around 40% or so. My estimate is that less than 10% of us believe Katrina was the Catalyst, and only a handful of denialist stragglers still insist We Be 3T.

Originally Posted by Kurt Horner

I don't think it was Katrina or any other event that "started" the 4T. The question is, at what point in this decade did the 3T/4T mood shift occur? The number of people who say we are still 3T has dwindled to Virgil and . . . who else? In 2005, whether we were in 4T or not was still hotly debated, now nearly everyone says we are. It seems much more likely the transition occurred between then and now rather than earlier in 2001.

You're confusing the Catalyst with Social Moment, Kurt, like many of us have. The Catalyst does not (necessarily) bring about an immediate shift in the public mood... it didn't in 1929, in 1945, or in 1963. Rather, it sets in motion a series of falling dominoes which culminate in a Social Moment... the point at which a palpable mood shift DOES occur, when nearly EVERYONE knows we're in deep doo-doo and there's no going back to the past.

In my opinion 9/11 was the Catalyst that set in motion those dominoes, not necessarily the events themselves, but our reaction to them as a Nation:

• The postal anthrax scare
• The DC Sniper
• "Mission Accomplished" and our continuing Iraq misadventure
• The government's bungled response to Hurricane Katrina
• Subprime lending and the bursting of the housing bubble
• AIG and the wave of corporate bankruptcies

The final domino appears to have been the September 2008 stock market crash, which virtually assured the election victory of now-President Obama. With that I would call the Obama election the Social Moment, much as FDR's was the last time around.

I agree with Roadbldr on all points above. This Crisis has had a painfully slow Cascade phase, with Election 2008 being the Social Moment.

The oddest thing about this Crisis is how... suspended in air... everything feels. Ever since 9/11, I've been waiting for the SHTF. But nothing... nothing... quite has jarred everyone out of our postmodern ennui in quite the same way as that morning in September eight years ago. Not the tsunamis, not Katrina, not even the crash, and definitely not GM disappearing from the NYSE. People are worried, and some habits have changed (we're consuming a wee bit less), but life for many Americans on an individual level hasn't shifted from 3T to 4T. Yet.

I wonder when that will change...

I thought it more likely that the Progressive styling of "denialist" would come from the shores of the Red River of the North upon the matter of Turnings, as it had come from the Commonwealthman upon the issue of Homo Global Warmth. That it comes from a GWN-wannabe from Vancouverville; well that's just sad.

It is the Present Day equal of that tattered banner of "racialist*" which Mr. Skabungus (& that other Progressive peascod, the late Mr. Marc Lamb) tried to bestow. Clio doesn't believe one ought obey King Numbers anymore than Gaia does. I shan't give my allegiance to King Numbers or his minions on matters of art or matters of science as I don't give it in Politics (the embrace of torture by Commercial Republicans and their Elected Representatives) or Culture (the criminalization of sexting by reddled Crown of Creationists).

Majority rules and majority errs. And even Progressive pluralities have empowered Mittel European water colorists and Crawfordian brush choppers in their Romantic Idealisms. Three more years of 3T I affirm; and then I might deny no more.

I do not deny the Trinity, the Constitution, or flowing waters of Rupert's Land. I don't affirm the fleeting enthusiasms of the Mobility such as they changeably are.

Yo. D-ying & Uralic Powered* Sv.
VKS

Originally Posted by XerTeacher

I agree with Roadbldr on all points above. This Crisis has had a painfully slow Cascade phase, with Election 2008 being the Social Moment.

The oddest thing about this Crisis is how... suspended in air... everything feels. Ever since 9/11, I've been waiting for the SHTF. But nothing... nothing... quite has jarred everyone out of our postmodern ennui in quite the same way as that morning in September eight years ago. Not the tsunamis, not Katrina, not even the crash, and definitely not GM disappearing from the NYSE. People are worried, and some habits have changed (we're consuming a wee bit less), but life for many Americans on an individual level hasn't shifted from 3T to 4T. Yet.

I wonder when that will change...

One observation I've been making for a long long time is that the establishment power whose culture, economy and military has benefitted most from the status quo is apt to resist change. Alas, this time around, that power is us.

In the Revolutionary, Civil War and mid 20th Century crises, it was fairly easy to see something wrong on both moral and economic levels. The revolution had colonial imperialism and denial of democratic representation. The Civil War had slavery and the question of whose economic system got to expand westward. The mid 20th had boom bust unregulated economies and fascist military expansionism. In all these cases, it was fairly easy for a good many people to see a fairly obvious threat and buy into a collective effort to fix stuff.

When one's nation has been on the top of the world and perceives of itself as rightful owner of the best of all possible systems, people might not be likely to throw themselves into a strong effort to change things. It is easy to convince one's self that we have it good so things ought to stay that way.

Let's start with my chain which attempts to tie the various problems together into one problem. Ecology is at core. We have pollution, global warming, peak oil, increasing population and stressed oceans. These lead to economic stress, especially in the third word. The current capitalist system encourages divisions of wealth, with rich countries and poor, and much wealth concentrated within most countries in the hands of a few. The economic problems often trigger ethnic and religious struggles and conflicts that build into military problems.

Very few people are looking at this as a single problem to be attacked systematically. Some might be concerned about one set of symptoms or another. Some are ready to use military force to maintain the status quo without addressing underlying fundamentals. There are very few attempting to envision what the world has to look like and implement specific programs to get there.

My young millennial niece just finished her third year at Carolina Coastal working learning ocean science. She recently made a decision to go on to law school. The magic word for her is 'sustainability.' She sees the oceans as collapsing. Fish stocks are going to pot. The quotas being set on the amount of fish caught per boat aren't sufficient to maintain family owned boats. There is a vital policy question in saving the fish without destroying the fishing industry. She believes there will be a need for lawyers who know the ocean.

Sustainability is a key concept. This is especially true in the fishing world, but one might want to keep it in mind across the board. We have been sneering at Malthus and scoffing that his worst case predictions have never come true...

We love that river in Egypt... Denial. One could walk through my chain of related problems. What is more important? Should we solve the problems, or perhaps The Problem, or should we attempt to maintain the life style to which we have become accustomed? Is a systematic commitment to remaking the world more important than restoring the unraveling economic situation? Is everyone aware that the unraveling economic situation is The Problem, that it is not sustainable?

Obama talked about change. He has decent positions on most issues. He seems willing to make incremental improvements to relieve symptoms, which is vastly better than the prior administration's attempts to frustrate any attempt to act on any underlying issues.

But underneath are we not collectively fat, dumb and happy?

Originally Posted by >>>----->

Is a systematic commitment to remaking the world more important than restoring the unraveling economic situation?

Originally Posted by <-----<<<

...not only in questioning the idea of progress but also, and more fundamentally, in rejecting the idea that it is only through action that life can be meaningful. Politics is only a small part of human existence, and the human animal only a very small part of the world. Science and technology have given us powers we never had before, but not the ability to refashion our existence as we wish.

On the Seventh Day the Whigs rested and began to scold any and all Enjoyment.

Originally Posted by >>>----->

But underneath are we not collectively fat, dumb and happy?

In Our Information Age when Fecal Data hits the Blades of the Media why do so many think it is Refreshening the Providential Air? Do advise?

Originally Posted by Virgil K. Saari

I thought it more likely that the Progressive styling of "denialist" would come from the shores of the Red River of the North upon the matter of Turnings, as it had come from the Commonwealthman upon the issue of Homo Global Warmth. That it comes from a GWN-wannabe from Vancouverville; well that's just sad.

It is the Present Day equal of that tattered banner of "racialist" which Mr. Skabungus tried to bestow. Clio doesn't believe one ought obey King Numbers anymore than Gaia does. I shan't give my allegiance to King Numbers or his minions on matters of art or matters of science as I don't give it in Politics (the embrace of torture by Commercial Republicans and their Elected Representatives) or Culture (the criminalization of sexting by reddled Crown of Creationists).

Majority rules and majority errs. And even Progressive pluralities have empowered Mittel European water colorists and Crawfordian brush choppers in their Romantic Idealisms. Three more years of 3T I affirm; and then I might deny no more.

I do not deny the Trinity, the Constitution, or flowing waters of Rupert's Land. I don't affirm the fleeting enthusiasms of the Mobility such as they changeably are.

Yo. D-ying Sv.
VKS

Alas for Gaia, delay is death. I feel no further need to illustrate 'fat, dumb and happy.'

I am becoming more aware that while the ecological awareness of the 70s and 80s resulted in sewage plants for humans and more controls for industry, it left the agricultural sector essentially untouched. At the mouth of the Mississippi River, enough fertilizer remnants are flowing into the sea to cause an algae bloom that is causing death by oxygen depravation in an area roughly the size of Rhode Island. Industrial farming, particularly of pigs and chicken, are problematic as well as fertilizers for plant crops. Thus far, agricultural industry lobbyists have been playing 'delay is death' games, preventing any action.

Are you fairly traditionalist in your land use? Are your Bovine Americans doing no worse to the land and the water supply than the bison used to? Idly curious.

Over fertilization of local cranberry bogs has been causing algae problems in local lakes here in Plymouth County. Massachusetts is requiring settling ponds before water is released. A good number of bogs are shutting down as a result. While people might not think of it as a Crisis issue, an evaluation of the agriculture industry might well come out of all this. Spending energy to manufacture massive amounts of fertilizer which throws the ecology out of whack is problematic.

Originally Posted by Virgil K. Saari

In Our Information Age when Fecal Data hits the Blades of the Media why do so many think it is Refreshening the Providential Air? Do advise?

Well, the fecal stuff is hitting the Chesapeake Bay, Gulf of Mexico, and elsewhere. As far as I can tell, no one but PBS is trying to educate anyone on it. This seems likely to be part of why we have gone 4T only mildly. If the problem doesn't manifest in one's own back yard, one can pretend it doesn't exist. The corporate media doesn't seem interested in changing the 3T corporate culture.

Originally Posted by Bob Butler 54

Alas for Gaia, delay is death. I feel no further need to illustrate 'fat, dumb and happy.'Ah, yes emotive (feeling) ecology and hatred of happiness. The Boomer Whig in action.

...hatred snipped...

Are you fairly traditionalist in your land use? Well if you mean four field rotation and the mouldboarded plough and little input of man-made chemicals, yes. Are your Bovine Americans doing no worse to the land and the water supply than the bison used to?Rupert's Land here North of the Mesabi was the province of the Alcene-Rupert's Landers in the Past and again in the Present with the return of Pine Forests. The Bison is a creature of the Mississippi-Missouri watershed that Mr. Jefferson acquired in a shady real estate deal with Dubya's Corsican cousin. The Bovines in my charge deposit their fermented offerings in the green pastures along the Pike. The Alcene population pooped directly into the waters as they dined upon water lilies and alders and a Salix of the not deeply saddened sort. Is this retrograde upon the part of my kine or just a change of cow pies for moose tarts? Is nearness to water a Progress? Idly curious.Chesterfield warns us that this sort of curiosity arises from the "refuge of weak minds". I couldn't possibly think that.

...sanity snipped... .

To an idly curious Progressive, a bold reply. HTH

Originally Posted by Bob Butler 54

... This seems likely to be part of why we have gone 4T only mildly. ...

Originally Posted by A ROUNDHEAD

I beseech you, in the bowels of Christ, think it possible you may be mistaken.

3 August 1650

and even earlier

Originally Posted by that very ROUNDHEAD

A few honest men are better than numbers.

September 1643

Alas, to such depths has whiggery fallen.

Originally Posted by a ROUNDHEAD's Last Words

My design is to make what haste I can to be gone.

Virgil, seem to be taking Mr. Butler’s remarks quite personal. I don’t know, maybe he means it to be so, but I doubt it.

On to the point.

I have gleaned from Virgil’s postings in the past that he manages a low imput traditional family farm much like something we might have seen in the 1T turning 2T with a broad selection of crops and modest selection of animals designed in a manner that permits a good number of revenue streams so that, should one revenue stream fall short, nobody will starve. I’ve also noted from time to time his preference for the traditional direct-to-customer dealings. I’d have to guess that Virgil’s place is a rather clean farm operation generally free of commercial imputs, and, if I can venture to guess, generally free of USDA COST SHARE AND SUBSIDY. Am I right Virgil?

If the above is the case, I tip my hat to him for having weathered the storm of temptation to follow the vast majority of the agricultural community down the road to hell paved by the farm lobby, Monsanto, ADM and the USDA. Hats off to the modest farmer.

In the past year I know that Virgil has opted for some solar power amendments to reduce his costs and make his farm more sustainable as a commercial operation. I can only guess that if there were other sustainable options well suited to his operation, that he’d add them as well. Virgil has great respect for the utilitarian approach…….I suspect.

Virgil, I’m most interested in what you think of the Dutch factory dairies now plaguing Ohio, or the factory pork and poultry popping up throughout America’s heartland? Are you so dyed in the wool agrarian that you would defend these operations as fellow farmers rather than side with us progressive types who seem to favor something closer to what you are doing, and more sustainable? Give it up! Tell us where you stand! Do you think our complaints (people like me who farms small scale, organic, sustainable and tractorless) are silly? Do you think the folks upset about the contamination of wetlands and rivers are blowing things way out of proportion? If so, I’d really like to here you articulate why. I think it would do the forum a great bit of good to hear from a real career farmer on this issue. After all, I admit to only being a subsistence farmer engaged in eccentric practices that certainly do not represent much above a hobby if you ask my local extension agent. Your words, as a career professional should be full of punch.

Wax on my friend. But so your words are not lost, could I ask that you write them in the mundane modern English so I don’t miss your points?

Back to topic -

Opening the gates to hell for a society -

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lYKSjvSmMfE

The religious right has been working long and hard to bring about the christian version of Jihad here in America.

Their madrassas have been training the army of god for action!!!!!

There message is rightous violence!

Originally Posted by Skabungus

Virgil, seem to be taking Mr. Butler’s remarks quite personal. I don’t know, maybe he means it to be so, but I doubt it.

On to the point.

I have gleaned from Virgil’s postings in the past that he manages a low imput traditional family farm much like something we might have seen in the 1T turning 2T with a broad selection of crops and modest selection of animals designed in a manner that permits a good number of revenue streams so that, should one revenue stream fall short, nobody will starve....

That has been my impression and hope as well. He talks a good game with his archaic values. I'd just like to confirm his life is lived with some respect to the goddess Gaia he spoke of.

Originally Posted by Skabungus

Wax on my friend. But so your words are not lost, could I ask that you write them in the mundane modern English so I don’t miss your points?

What? You wish him to rectify names? Good luck with that. Propaganda and emotiveness are far more central to his values than truth or clarity. He not likely to eschew obfuscation.

While I would take his word that he himself is treating Gaia with far more respect than he treats the Muses, he has repeatedly opposed government interference with farming. I personally have no beef with traditional farming, but the modern factory farm is badly in need of regulation in many respects. I have mentioned the run off problems from the chicken and pig factory farms, and this is being done with cattle. Human girls have been developing breasts earlier in recent decades, and I suspect the chemicals used to fatten meat animals are part of it.

I'd like to think Mr. Saari is responsible in managing his small piece of Rupert's Land, but he is very emphatic in his rejection of ecological values and the government's place in seeking responsibility and sustainability in land use and food production. When he rejects modern values, I wonder just how much he is rejecting. While some individual farmers might be responsible without oversight, the industry as a whole is part of The Problem. Agriculture needs to be looked at nearly as much as energy.

Originally Posted by Bob Butler 54

I personally have no beef with traditional farming, but the modern factory farm is badly in need of regulation in many respects. I have mentioned the run off problems from the chicken and pig factory farms, and this is being done with cattle. Human girls have been developing breasts earlier in recent decades, and I suspect the chemicals used to fatten meat animals are part of it.

Would these factory and large-scale farms exist at all without an exploitable regulatory and subsidy regime? Small farms are sunk by minor health & environmental issues all the time - industrialized farms are "too big to fail."

Any industry that requires Congressional advantages is prone to be dominated by the most colossal corporation around - the one that can donate more total "political capital" as a lower percent of their per dollar business costs.

Cut them off from the freebies first, and only then can we know the true external costs & what should be regulated.

Originally Posted by Kurt Horner

I don't think it was Katrina or any other event that "started" the 4T. The question is, at what point in this decade did the 3T/4T mood shift occur? The number of people who say we are still 3T has dwindled to Virgil and . . . who else? In 2005, whether we were in 4T or not was still hotly debated, now nearly everyone says we are. It seems much more likely the transition occurred between then and now rather than earlier in 2001.

I agree with this 100%. The only direct effect that Katrina contributed was a bewilderment at our own incompetence. Still, something tripped in the communal psyche about that time. Katrina may have just been there when we were all ready to call for a fresh deck anyway. Using Katrina as a marker is convenient, but, perhaps, not necessary.

Originally Posted by Skabungus

The religious right has been working long and hard to bring about the christian version of Jihad here in America.

Their madrassas have been training the army of god for action!!!!!

There message is rightous violence!

Ugh. A link to the Times review...