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.

Those chemicals could appear in meat -- or in drinking water.

We Americans over-eat meat. The dirty little secret is that we eat like ranch hands, stevedores, commercial fishermen, and lumberjacks even if we have sedentary work. Obesity contributes to diabetes and perhaps cancer -- let alone to such delights as gout and arthritis.

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.

We would be better off without all the cheap hamburger, cheese, and corn sweeteners.

Originally Posted by The Rani

This might come as a shock, but it IS possible to stop eating those things without being forced into it by the government.

I avoid those when I have a chance.

Originally Posted by independent

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.

I tend to agree with this. I'd like to see a tax and regulation scheme where the small farms can compete on a favorable basis with the large scale and factory organizations. I feel the same way about the retail outlets, where a few national chains come to dominate.

Originally Posted by Roadbldr '59

You're confusing the Catalyst with Social Moment, Kurt, like many of us have.

No, I'm not. I'm just having difficulty drawing a line of distinction between a late-Unraveling "rumbling of discontent" and an early-Crisis "domino." Somehow, the year 2000 election crisis was not a 4T domino, but 9/11 was. I'm having difficulty seeing the difference. Which is why regardless of whatever S&H said in their (somewhat contradictory) books, I have to call the Crisis as beginning when the mood changes.

Moreover, as I've pointed out in other threads, the number of Boomers in positions of power was still rising in 2001, which would imply late Unraveling, not early Crisis.

Originally Posted by Kurt Horner

No, I'm not. I'm just having difficulty drawing a line of distinction between a late-Unraveling "rumbling of discontent" and an early-Crisis "domino." Somehow, the year 2000 election crisis was not a 4T domino, but 9/11 was. I'm having difficulty seeing the difference. Which is why regardless of whatever S&H said in their (somewhat contradictory) books, I have to call the Crisis as beginning when the mood changes.

Moreover, as I've pointed out in other threads, the number of Boomers in positions of power was still rising in 2001, which would imply late Unraveling, not early Crisis.

It's how people respond that indicates what era one is in. Think of the panic that Orson Welles' production of the radio play of H.G. Welles' War of the Worlds created in a country not in obvious danger of war. 1939 was 4T in America, and people who confused the radio play with a news broadcast acted as if they were in a 4T.

After Pearl Harbor, the government quickly regimented the economy, and people went into lockstep. People quickly accepted rationing and the sudden disappearance of luxury goods. They put up with a 35 mph speed limit.

9/11? Nothing of the kind happened. The president told us to go shopping -- which was the exact opposite of what FDR told people to do. No activity is more 3T than shopping at the mall for "retail therapy".

Originally Posted by pbrower2a

It's how people respond that indicates what era one is in. Think of the panic that Orson Welles' production of the radio play of H.G. Welles' War of the Worlds created in a country not in obvious danger of war. 1939 was 3T in America, and people who confused the radio play with a news broadcast acted as if they were in a 3T.

After Pearl Harbor, the government quickly regimented the economy, and people went into lockstep. People quickly accepted rationing and the sudden disappearance of luxury goods. They put up with a 35 mph speed limit.

9/11? Nothing of the kind happened. The president told us to go shopping -- which was the exact opposite of what FDR told people to do. No activity is more 3T than shopping at the mall for "retail therapy".

You think that the 1930s, with the Depression and the New Deal, was 3T?????

Originally Posted by Kurt Horner

No, I'm not. I'm just having difficulty drawing a line of distinction between a late-Unraveling "rumbling of discontent" and an early-Crisis "domino." Somehow, the year 2000 election crisis was not a 4T domino, but 9/11 was. I'm having difficulty seeing the difference. Which is why regardless of whatever S&H said in their (somewhat contradictory) books, I have to call the Crisis as beginning when the mood changes.

Moreover, as I've pointed out in other threads, the number of Boomers in positions of power was still rising in 2001, which would imply late Unraveling, not early Crisis.

That is why I consider Katrina the catalyst., it was the 2nd half of 2005 when I noticed a distinct change in mood, as if the energy holding up the culture wars started to rapidly dry up. The image of the right-wing culture warriors became that of the Terry Schiavo craziness.

When the 3T mindset is still in place even a major spark, like Election 2000 and 9/11, flash brightly for a while then cool off. But when the generational alignment is right even little sparks can catalyze the 4T.

Originally Posted by Kurt Horner

No, I'm not. I'm just having difficulty drawing a line of distinction between a late-Unraveling "rumbling of discontent" and an early-Crisis "domino." Somehow, the year 2000 election crisis was not a 4T domino, but 9/11 was. I'm having difficulty seeing the difference. Which is why regardless of whatever S&H said in their (somewhat contradictory) books, I have to call the Crisis as beginning when the mood changes.

Moreover, as I've pointed out in other threads, the number of Boomers in positions of power was still rising in 2001, which would imply late Unraveling, not early Crisis.

I have no trouble distinguishing between E2K and September 11th. E2K felt like an extension of the eternal Red / Blue 3T squabbling. I feel that if Clinton had managed to keep his pants zipped or if the Democrats figured out an election cycle earlier that gun control was not an issue they could win with nationally we would have been spared Bush 43. It should have been about the economy, but the Democrats blew it.

September 11th was not only a big emotional shocker, but turned our foreign policy and willingness to go on foreign adventures around considerably. During the Clinton years, any attempt to defuse international problems or fight terrorism resulted in an accusation of 'wag the dog.' Republicans accused Clinton of trying to distract the People from important stuff like Monica. The loss of a single US soldier was not worth whatever it was Clinton 42 was trying to do overseas.

After September 11th, Bush 43 saw the light and declared his War on Terror. The importance of the culture wars issues faded instantly, and have never recovered, though they are not entirely faded.

But many liberal leading folk don't like to remember how important security issues seemed to be in the first Bush 43 years.

Originally Posted by Bob Butler 54

I have no trouble distinguishing between E2K and September 11th. E2K felt like an extension of the eternal Red / Blue 3T squabbling. I feel that if Clinton had managed to keep his pants zipped or if the Democrats figured out an election cycle earlier that gun control was not an issue they could win with nationally we would have been spared Bush 43. It should have been about the economy, but the Democrats blew it.

If this political analysis were even remotely true, how did Bush get re-elected?

Originally Posted by Bob Butler 54

September 11th was not only a big emotional shocker, but turned our foreign policy and willingness to go on foreign adventures around considerably. During the Clinton years, any attempt to defuse international problems or fight terrorism resulted in an accusation of 'wag the dog.'

Yet, even in the Clinton era, the bombs still fell. The only thing 9/11 did is get right-wingers back on board the Empire bus after disembarking post-Cold War. In other words, rather than being a sharp break, 9/11 restored and invigorated the post-Nixon rejection of non-intervention on the right.

The real change from 9/11 was that it got the left to start revisiting foreign policy debates thought settled from the 60s. Anti-imperialism came back, but only really got traction until after Bush's re-election.

Originally Posted by Bob Butler 54

After September 11th, Bush 43 saw the light and declared his War on Terror. The importance of the culture wars issues faded instantly, and have never recovered, though they are not entirely faded.

I don't think the culture wars have faded because of their "irrelevance" in a 4T as is often asserted. They've faded because the right-wing side has collapsed into self-parody. Assuming that issues of personal liberty can never have relevance in a 4T is yet another example of assuming that all 4Ts are like the last American one.

Originally Posted by The Wonkette

You think that the 1930s, with the Depression and the New Deal, was 3T?????

I'm sure (hope?) that his was a mere slip of the, um, keyboard.

It's obvious enough to me that the reaction of Americans to the "War Of The Worlds" radio play was one of people deep in Crisis, who expected war to drop in on them at any moment, and were none too surprised when it appeared to do exactly that.

Originally Posted by The Wonkette

You think that the 1930s, with the Depression and the New Deal, was 3T?????

Whoops! A typo. That should say 4T.

Thanks for the correction.

Originally Posted by Odin

That is why I consider Katrina the catalyst., it was the 2nd half of 2005 when I noticed a distinct change in mood, as if the energy holding up the culture wars started to rapidly dry up. The image of the right-wing culture warriors became that of the Terry Schiavo craziness.

When the 3T mindset is still in place even a major spark, like Election 2000 and 9/11, flash brightly for a while then cool off. But when the generational alignment is right even little sparks can catalyze the 4T.

The late 3T is a time of weak leadership, intensifying inequality, reckless speculation, political polarization, and vanishing civility. In America, leadership in the last ten or so years of a 3T has been generally dreadful (Pierce, Fillmore, Buchanan; Harding, Coolidge, Hoover; George W. Bush -- and Bill Clinton seems to have been iffy). Leadership of colonial America going into the American Revolution seems to be forgotten. The last 3T leader seems to have no clue about the seriousness of the decay of public life.

The bungled response to Katrina allowed Dubya to become an object of contempt -- enough that his Party lost control of the Legislative Branch of government in 2006. The mortgage meltdown of 2007 showed the gross folly of economic decisions.

We may have made the political transition to a 4T.

Originally Posted by Bob Butler 54

I tend to agree with this. I'd like to see a tax and regulation scheme where the small farms can compete on a favorable basis with the large scale and factory organizations. I feel the same way about the retail outlets, where a few national chains come to dominate.

Right on with this one! For more when it comes to reigning in retail outlets, please feel free to view and if so moved sign my petition on this very topic at www.petitiononline.com/bb3838. Then, should you have any other ideas on this, please feel free to voice them. It wasn't until after I wrote this that I learned that there was an act passed back in 1936 called the Robinson-Patman Act which was for all intents and purposes a civil rights bill for small retailer. It did effectively prohibit suppliers from showing such huge favoritism to large retailers over small ones. My understanding of it was that it was passed as a backlash to retailers such as A & P, which was considering that era's equivalent of Wal-Mart.

And while you're at it, feel free to check out my second petition at said website/bb3839, which deals with capping credit card interest rates at 18 percent. I titled it "18 is Enough".

Originally Posted by Kurt Horner

If this political analysis were even remotely true, how did Bush get re-elected?

When violence starts, humans rally around their leaders. The bombing of London in the Blitz improved British morale and resolve. If one looks at Bush 43's popularity numbers, the only two times he gained approval significantly were after September 11th and after the invasion of Iraq. Other than that, he trailed down hill in a significant way.

Bush got re-elected by fighting terror at a time it was popular, in the aftermath of September 11th. Wars can rouse enthusiasm early, but the enthusiasm fades. Even Washington, Lincoln and FDR had problems maintaining support for their wars.

Originally Posted by Kurt Horner

Yet, even in the Clinton era, the bombs still fell. The only thing 9/11 did is get right-wingers back on board the Empire bus after disembarking post-Cold War. In other words, rather than being a sharp break, 9/11 restored and invigorated the post-Nixon rejection of non-intervention on the right.

The real change from 9/11 was that it got the left to start revisiting foreign policy debates thought settled from the 60s. Anti-imperialism came back, but only really got traction until after Bush's re-election.

They fell.... From 30,000 feet. Clinton didn't feel he could take risks, which meant his operations 'sent a message' rather than being attempts at effective military action. September 11th changed that.

Yes, the Iraq war debates were in the minds of many reprises of the Vietnam debates. Yet, the official motivations kept shifting. There was fear of quagmire on the left, and a feeling that Bush 43 cooked the data in justifying the war in the first place. The war was being fought to get those who caused September 11th, to take away weapons of mass destruction, to get troops near the oil, to destroy a regeme with a poor human rights record and to spread democracy by force. The reasons to fight changed every time the last reason to fight was rebutted.

It just took them a while to run out of reasons to fight. Meanwhile, the news from the front was part of why Republican popularity was constantly going down hill.

Originally Posted by Kurt Horner

I don't think the culture wars have faded because of their "irrelevance" in a 4T as is often asserted. They've faded because the right-wing side has collapsed into self-parody. Assuming that issues of personal liberty can never have relevance in a 4T is yet another example of assuming that all 4Ts are like the last American one.

I can buy that. In some respects, the culture war issues might have been reactions to the changes of the Blue Awakening. The changes that grew out of the 1960s caused 'Future Shock,' which resulted in a reaction that clung to more traditional cultural values. After Vietnam was over, blacks weren't sitting in the back of the bus, the rivers and air were significantly cleaned and reproductive choices were available for most women in most places, the liberals became complacent and the conservatives became stubborn. Thus, 3T stagnation and squabling.

In a classic sense of the theory, one might propose that the values of the awakening are implemented in the following crisis. That is still somewhat true of this crisis. Themes like anti-war, ethnic tolerance, and ecological perspectives might be reprised if we are going to come out of the crisis relatively cleanly.

And yet, what has manifested in the crisis is taking a very different shape than it did in the Awakening. The GIs did address many of the problems the young Boomers were concerned with. If the broad values might still apply, the specifics of how the problems are manifesting are very different. On the ecological front, the rivers are much cleaner today, but we have global warming and dead zones in the oceans. The ethnic strife is for the most part overseas. We aren't defending a corrupt regeme, we're invading.

Prior crises could be anticipated to a large degree. The Enlightement philosophies of equality, rights and democracy had been bubbling up long prior to the Revolution. Difficulties with slavery had been occuring well before the Civil War. Boom bust economic cycles and horrid working conditions were a concern all through the Gilded Age. The rise of fascism had been observable well before Pearl Harbor.

This crisis, we're caught in a bit of a whiplash, I think. We were focused on the Culture War remnants of the awakening struggles while we were ignoring militant islam, the debt economy, division of wealth, global warming, peak oil and agricultural pollution. Politically, we were fighting the last war, focusing on echoes of the awakening while a whole new set of problems were building to a point of demanding solutions.

That, and the most successful power in any given epoch tends to resist change when the crisis comes. We had it good after World War II, so it is natural for us to resist creating an entirely new order.

Anyway, we aren't focused and driving in my opinion. The resolve and drive of prior crises is missing. The conservative leader just prior to the crisis trying to deny change was reelected. As a result, many of the problems had four more years to develop.

And still we're not focused...

Originally Posted by Brian Beecher

And while you're at it, feel free to check out my second petition at said website/bb3839, which deals with capping credit card interest rates at 18 percent. I titled it "18 is Enough".

I would simply favor closing the loophole in federal law that says that interest rates are set only by the bank's state (wherever it chooses to put its credit card operations). Currently Delaware, South Dakota, and a few other states don't have a rate limit at all. My compromise, rather than getting Congress into the business of setting rates, would be that if the bank's state has no limit, whatever rate the customer's state has prevails.

Originally Posted by Bob Butler 54

... This crisis, we're caught in a bit of a whiplash, I think. We were focused on the Culture War remnants of the awakening struggles while we were ignoring militant Islam, the debt economy, division of wealth, global warming, peak oil and agricultural pollution. Politically, we were fighting the last war, focusing on echoes of the awakening while a whole new set of problems were building to a point of demanding solutions.

I think you've just described a typical 3T. The point of having an unraveling is to focus on the trivial so any real efforts to solve real and difficult problems can be kicked as far down the road as possible. Eventually, we had to get to the end of the road.

Originally Posted by Bob Butler

... That, and the most successful power in any given epoch tends to resist change when the crisis comes. We had it good after World War II, so it is natural for us to resist creating an entirely new order.

I think Mike Alexander has a good point on this issue. As the hegemon, and the single most powerful economy to boot, we got arrogant and complacent. With no real external threat, we've decided to settle for being afraid of each other.

Originally Posted by Bob Butler

... Anyway, we aren't focused and driving in my opinion. The resolve and drive of prior crises is missing. The conservative leader just prior to the crisis trying to deny change was reelected. As a result, many of the problems had four more years to develop.

And still we're not focused...

We are getting focused, but not as quickly as we should. It's hard to switch from worrying that our neighbors may be <fill in the unacceptable behavior or trait of your choice> to actually realizing that really important things are broken, they are not going to mend themselves, and that we actually have to do the mending ourselves.

Originally Posted by Bob Butler 54

Bush got re-elected by fighting terror at a time it was popular, in the aftermath of September 11th.

Sure, that played a major role, but your argument was that E2K was somehow distinguishable from 9/11 as a turning indicator. But really, what institutions were really questioned as a result of either event? All 9/11 did was re-activate institutions that had been somewhat dormant or less overt.

Originally Posted by Bob Butler 54

Yes, the Iraq war debates were in the minds of many reprises of the Vietnam debates.

There are differences between the two circumstances. In both cases the right accused the left of sympathy with the enemy, but this made more sense when the enemies were communists. Now that our enemies are religious fundamentalists, the charge rings hollow. Morevoer, while hawkish foreign policy views used to correlate with economic conservatism, now it correlates much more strongly with social conservatism. This is in line with a general realignment of the core political issues in our society.

Originally Posted by Bob Butler 54

Themes like anti-war, ethnic tolerance, and ecological perspectives might be reprised if we are going to come out of the crisis relatively cleanly.

I would argue that they must be. Economic centralization and military buildup were the chosen solutions last time. Now those solutions are the status quo.

Originally Posted by Bob Butler 54

Anyway, we aren't focused and driving in my opinion. The resolve and drive of prior crises is missing. The conservative leader just prior to the crisis trying to deny change was reelected. As a result, many of the problems had four more years to develop.

And still we're not focused...

Indeed we're not, and that argues for a later start to the 4T than 2001.

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...

It doesn't seem suspended in the air to me. I had that feeling in and around 2003 and 2004, but not today. And as far as I can tell, all of that has already happened to some level. In fact, I think that the individual 4T life had shifted by 2008, and that the SHTF at around the same time. You might not have been totally shaken by the Crisis, but a lot of people have, and most people are in fear. Also, don't expect your personal life to be immediately uprooted. For most of a Crisis in most parts of America and the world, daily life continues, with, of course, some setbacks. For most of the South, for instance, daily life was overturned only in 1778 and 1779 when the war reached there. And during the Depression, people who didn't lose jobs still lived rather normal lives. Usually, it is not until the climax when everything totally changes.

I am someone who views 2005 as the point of mood change from 3T to 4T. I agree with Kurt that the hurricane was not the exact beginning, but I still use it as a symbolic marker. But I agree that 2008 marked the social moment. Looking back at that year (and also 2009 thus far), I see lots of evidence of a Crisis SHTF type of event; speaking of which, a SHTF type of event doesn't matter; the reaction to it matters 9/11 could've happened in any era since WWII. The leaders tried to make it a 4T, but it ultimately lost steam. Americans totally changed their economic habits in 2008, and were very jittery and panicky throughout the year. The rice panic which swept the world (even the US) is evidence of the widespread sense of fear and panic. And then there were gas panics many times throughout that year. SUVs established a new standard for being passe. People were dumping them in droves, and they went unsold at car dealerships. The decades long consumption binge finally ended. Americans bought a lot less, and began to save a lot more. The Housing market continued to tank throughout the year. Thrift started to become a popular philosophy. And on top of that, the nation went through a frightening stock market crash. I think that the SHTF made its debut very well in 2008.

And keep in mind that the regeneracy leader has been in office only a few months. That's a little more than FDR's first hundred days. Since Obama's presidency, we have clearly been slipping further into Crisis. The latest Crisis event was the AIG bailout, which generated a wave of anger. That anger has calmed down somewhat, but there are plenty of possible sparks to come. GM has just declared bankruptcy a couple of days ago. I think we should give more time for the situation to develop.

I think that, as a nation, the mood is equivalent to what it was in 1933. Real unemployment and underemployment currently stands at about 16% in the US.

I hear you, Mr. Reed, but at the same time, I think I have a different perspective, since I'm at the epicenter (or at least one of the epicenters) for the early 4T. I'm a native Detroiter who still lives in SE Michigan. While people are paying lip service to fear and change, their habits are changing only insofar as much they can no longer afford certain indulgences. I have a wide social circle, and no one is in 1930s mode, even here at the scene of the crime (the murder of industrial America). One spouse loses their job; the other keeps working. Both spouses lose their job; they leave the state. Apparently there are still places with jobs, and many, many thousands of Michiganders are still flocking to those places.

When the rest of America reminds me of Detroit and SE Michigan in the slightest, maybe I'll agree. But to my weary eyes, everywhere I've traveled this spring seems to hum with prosperity in comparison to the Rust Belt, from Iowa City to San Diego. I ask people everywhere how the "economic downturn" is affecting them. The answer is always: it's affecting us, but we're still here.

Even in the midst of our worst Crisis in more than 100 years, Detroit is wasting precious dollars tearing down our landmarks:
http://www.freep.com/article/2009060...+Tiger+Stadium

I still think "suspended in air" is an applicable metaphor here. I was going to say "house of cards". People might know in their hearts that we be 4T, but our actions tell a different tale. The economy is like a chicken with its head gone... still flapping about and giving signs of life, although it's all over. What happens when the synapses stop firing, and we wake up one morning, and it's given up the ghost at long last?

About Obama as the Regeneracy leader: I have divided my thoughts about the present administration in two. I like what the Obamas have done for the culture and morale of the country. However, I'm still waiting to be blown away by his governance, and I am concerned that this local, national, and global tinderbox might be beyond our country's ability to cope. (Yes, I realize it's early days yet.)

Originally Posted by XerTeacher

I hear you, Mr. Reed, but at the same time, I think I have a different perspective, since I'm at the epicenter (or at least one of the epicenters) for the early 4T. I'm a native Detroiter who still lives in SE Michigan. While people are paying lip service to fear and change, their habits are changing only insofar as much they can no longer afford certain indulgences. I have a wide social circle, and no one is in 1930s mode, even here at the scene of the crime (the murder of industrial America). One spouse loses their job; the other keeps working. Both spouses lose their job; they leave the state. Apparently there are still places with jobs, and many, many thousands of Michiganders are still flocking to those places.

When the rest of America reminds me of Detroit and SE Michigan in the slightest, maybe I'll agree. But to my weary eyes, everywhere I've traveled this spring seems to hum with prosperity in comparison to the Rust Belt, from Iowa City to San Diego. I ask people everywhere how the "economic downturn" is affecting them. The answer is always: it's affecting us, but we're still here.

Even in the midst of our worst Crisis in more than 100 years, Detroit is wasting precious dollars tearing down our landmarks:
http://www.freep.com/article/2009060...+Tiger+Stadium

I still think "suspended in air" is an applicable metaphor here. I was going to say "house of cards". People might know in their hearts that we be 4T, but our actions tell a different tale. The economy is like a chicken with its head gone... still flapping about and giving signs of life, although it's all over. What happens when the synapses stop firing, and we wake up one morning, and it's given up the ghost at long last?

About Obama as the Regeneracy leader: I have divided my thoughts about the present administration in two. I like what the Obamas have done for the culture and morale of the country. However, I'm still waiting to be blown away by his governance, and I am concerned that this local, national, and global tinderbox might be beyond our country's ability to cope. (Yes, I realize it's early days yet.)

I live in Pennsylvania, near Pittsburgh, which is the eastern anchor of the old Rust Belt. Nothing much has changed here since I was a child, for the simple reason that the region has been depressed since before I was born. The so-called Pittsburgh Renaissance, which has supposedly transformed the city since the 1990s, seems to be built entirely on the very exclusive prosperity of the universities and hospitals, in which only a handful of people are qualified to participate. Everyone else has either fled the area or, having failed in that, consigned themselves to the doldrums of a region without any significant surviving economic infrastructure or cultural relevance. The locals are rabidly dedicated to their sports teams (Go Pens!), but they have little else to cheer for. I think the whole Great Lakes periphery is probably like this, and I know that a similar malaise is taking hold in the Sunbelt. I moved back home from Florida in early 2007, just as new housing construction was grinding to a definitive halt there and property insurance premiums were reaching crisis levels. An old high school buddy who was working in Arizona as a construction engineer recently moved back to PA telling tales of entire housing developments sitting empty on the outskirts of Phoenix. He was planning on marrying his girlfriend before the move, but that plan has been put on indefinite hiatus while he looks for work. For me, none of this seems out of the ordinary. I've lived a lot of places in the eastern U.S., and they have all struck me as equally desolate. A Wal-Mart is the same sterile big box full of sullen employees in Orlando as it is in Baltimore. Even the floor plans are identical.

Originally Posted by Kurt Horner

Sure, that played a major role, but your argument was that E2K was somehow distinguishable from 9/11 as a turning indicator. But really, what institutions were really questioned as a result of either event? All 9/11 did was re-activate institutions that had been somewhat dormant or less overt.

It was security related. The Homeland Security Department was created, absorbed many other institutions, whose original tasks were allowed to fade. The military changed from the Department of Containment to the Department of Invasion and Nation Building. The mood changed from fighting failed states and terrorists not being worth the life of one US serviceman to a feeling of dire threat. All of this was indeed questioned, but Bush 43 got his way.

Originally Posted by Bob Butler 54

Yes, the Iraq war debates were in the minds of many reprises of the Vietnam debates.

Originally Posted by Kurt Horner

There are differences between the two circumstances. In both cases the right accused the left of sympathy with the enemy, but this made more sense when the enemies were communists. Now that our enemies are religious fundamentalists, the charge rings hollow. Morevoer, while hawkish foreign policy views used to correlate with economic conservatism, now it correlates much more strongly with social conservatism. This is in line with a general realignment of the core political issues in our society.

I agree 100%. The two wars in many ways are very different. Thus the words "in the minds of many." I felt a real struggle during the early parts of the Iraq war to get people to pay attention to Iraq rather than their ideological opinions on the nature of war.

Originally Posted by Kurt Horner

I would argue that they must be. Economic centralization and military buildup were the chosen solutions last time. Now those solutions are the status quo.

I would not say that the solution to the prior crisis is always the problem in the following crisis. Slavery was not a significant issue in the Revolutionary Crisis. Still, in this particular case, I'm with you. Dealing with the current crisis in all its complexity will require a lot more nuance and balance than the containment of fascism and communism.

Originally Posted by Bob Butler 54

Anyway, we aren't focused and driving in my opinion. The resolve and drive of prior crises is missing. The conservative leader just prior to the crisis trying to deny change was reelected. As a result, many of the problems had four more years to develop.

And still we're not focused...

Originally Posted by Kurt Horner

Indeed we're not, and that argues for a later start to the 4T than 2001.

It may be a problem in definition. At what point in the cascade, in the spiral of violence, does one label the start of the crisis? S&H don't set the clearest of precedents. In the Civil War, the start of the crisis was Fort Sumpter. Bleeding Kansas, the core of the lead up spiral, is left out. In the Revolutionary War they chose an incident in the middle of the spiral. There were prior incidents, and the real fighting was still years away. In the mid 20th Century, the first big emotional jog, the Stock Market Crash, got labeled as crisis start.

Does one put the label at the first big mood shift, or only when the regeneracy is well and truly underway? If we wait until we are in full scale 'blood, toil, tears and sweat' mode, we aren't there yet. But by that standard, the stock market crash couldn't be labeled as crisis start.

If we had a clear rigid set of criteria for crisis start we might be able to settle where the crisis started. We don't. I'll argue for September 11th as it created a large mood swing and set into motion a chain of events that led to everything else. If FEMA was intact rather than part of Homeland security, Katrina wouldn't have been a big catalyst. If the budget hadn't been stretched by deficit spending to fight the war, the economic problems wouldn't be as severe.

But I can't say with certainty that mine is the only possible set of criteria that one could wring out of the books. I will disagree with people who put the marker later, but I can't claim I'm definitively right, while they are definitely wrong.

But I do feel the lessons learned from Iraq are important. Iraq gave us many lessons learned in dealing with the foreign aspects of the ecology - economy - ethnic - security interrelated crisis. True lessons were learned far away. We now have to look at things closer at home.

Thus, I am rubbed wrong by those who don't want to start the crisis until we are in full fledged blood, toil, tears and sweat regeneracy. The Iraq War feels to me like part of the crisis, part of the values shift and transformation that comes with crisis.

But, alas, I can't say my argument feels conclusive.

Originally Posted by Brian Beecher

It wasn't until after I wrote this that I learned that there was an act passed back in 1936 called the Robinson-Patman Act which was for all intents and purposes a civil rights bill for small retailer. It did effectively prohibit suppliers from showing such huge favoritism to large retailers over small ones. My understanding of it was that it was passed as a backlash to retailers such as A & P, which was considering that era's equivalent of Wal-Mart.

Heh-heh... and we all know what happened to them in the end. By 1968, A&Ps were being burned down left and right for the insurance money .

Does The Atlantic & Pacific Tea Company still exist at all? I seem to recall seeing a few left in the Northeast during the 1980s and '90s. But just that... a few. Not even a pretense of competition with Safeway and Kroger, let alone Wal-Mart.

Originally Posted by Roadbldr '59

Does The Atlantic & Pacific Tea Company still exist at all? I seem to recall seeing a few left in the Northeast during the 1980s and '90s.

Yes, this seems to be all that is left of A and P.

On a personal note, I will add that A and P were still in the Charlotte area until somewhere in the early 80's. Right after I turned 16 and became work eligible in North Carolina in 1977 I placed my very first job application with an A and P that was about 4 miles from where we lived. It was the first place I saw that had a help wanted sign in the window. The store manager interviewed me right away and after asking me several work related questions said to me "you look fairly athletic, do you play sports?" I proudly told him about my recovery from an ankle injury the year before and that I hoped to play basketball at the high school level later that year. He told me that he didn't hire jocks because they were undependable and that they always wanted time off for practice and games.
Right then and there I learned my very first lesson in business-the importance of conceilment and outright straight faced lying.
I've never lost a potential job since then by giving out personal info. ::

In terms of where we are in the cycle relative to violence, I will say that everything I see indicates to me that in our personal and public behavior, such as the recent ending of debt finance and the fact that the government still hasn't faced up to the problem of a trashed, bloated banking sector, tells me that we are still early in the 4T. As much as I don't want to say so, I feel that a spiral of violence is still a real possibility.

Originally Posted by herbal tee

On a personal note, I will add that A and P were still in the Charlotte area until somewhere in the early 80's.

I remember shopping at the Boone A&P in the late 70s and 1980 - only to return to Boone in 1985 to find that the location had been taken over by Appalachian State University as a partying spot called 'Legends'.

As much as I don't want to say so, I feel that a spiral of violence is still a real possibility.

Especially if both parties end up equally (and fatally) discredited by 2012 or 2016.

Originally Posted by SVE-KRD

Especially if both parties end up equally (and fatally) discredited by 2012 or 2016.

I wonder if that will end up happening? No matter what Obama does, it never seems as good as what was expected of him before he won, and is always overshadowed in the news by what the Dems in Congress are failing to do. (At this point I have no respect for them.)