Why do you think I raised the possibility? There's NO WAY the Repubs will make a real comeback to credibility during the timeframe I posited, while there's a very real possibility (IMO, at least), for the reasons you mentioned, among others, that the Dems may likewise self-destruct ITO credibility.Originally Posted by writerGrrl
1. Liberals expect more of Obama than they did of Dubya (that he wouldn't do anything really bad even as he served the special interests who bankrolled his campaign and delivered lemming votes to him) -- and probably more than conservatives expected of Dubya. Liberals had low expectations of Dubya and found even those betrayed. Conservatives would find in the end that what he achieved would be a sham.
So most of us expect more of Obama than they did of Dubya. Isn't that an improvement?
2. He can't order Congress about. He is a democratic President -- not a despot. You don't want a despotic executive, do you? Iraq had that under Saddam Hussein, and the Iraqi parliament did exactly what Saddam Hussein told it to do very consistently.
We have an appropriations process. We have committees in Congress. We have an opposition party that would love to thwart Obama should he go too far.
3. He has competing concerns for his time. If one figures that he spends ten hours a day on official duties of one kind or another, and he can't deal with both American health care and the nuke programs of Iran and North Korea at the same time. He must set priorities lest everything fail.
4. Even one of our President's harshest critics, Karl Rove, calls him "cautious". The opposite of "cautious" is rash, careless, or reckless. Anything worth doing -- including legislation, public addresses, analysis of intelligence, military command, nominations, and diplomacy -- is best done with due care. Surely you remember Dubya's sloppy rhetoric -- and much else that was shoddy. Shoddy thought gets shoddy results.
Considering what befell his predecessor, you can expect that he has already discussed what to do if The Big One hits California, Missouri, or Utah (the Wasatch range is as seismically-troublesome as the San Andreas Fault)... and how to deal with another Katrina-like event.
We survived a dreadful GWB Presidency; we can fare better under Obama even if he falls short of achieving all of the intended achievements of his optimism.
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
How the war on terrorism should be fought.
The only way to restore our county as well as win the war is the reestablishment of a technological industrial base, as well as the building up of the army to at least 10 million men. To end the terrorist threat at home the building up of an official paramilitary internal security protection force which would compose of several million men as well as recieve the same training as the traditional military should be the highest priority for the government. Finally the citizenry at large should recieve at least rudimentary military training so that they could be arrayed as a home defense militia if nessesary. Regarding the war, to defeat terrorism we must stop speaking in terms of hearts and minds or even in terms of crime and justice and start speaking more in terms of strength and weakness, atrocity and vengeance, victory or annihilation. The very presence of US troops in a given region should strike fear and terror into the hearts of our enemies. Only the annihilation of the mideast as currently constituted, the total destruction of the environment that creates islamic terrorism, root and branch, will end the problem. This destruction should be accoplished by a total war campaign starting with countervalue carpet bombing, followed by full-scale invasion. After the campaign a systematic purge of the occupied mideast of all islamists elements, such as ideologues, islamist extremist intelligensia, and the muslim clergy should take place. This purge would be carried out by military and paramilitary special task forces. Military and paramilitary commanders would be given wide latitude as to how to carry out these operations. This purge would target islamic extremists, terrorists, terrorist agitators within the muslim intelligensia and general population who are our enemies, and all elements within the muslim population that aid terrorists and who we consider to be enemies. The aformentioned military forces would also be tasked with the long-term pacification of the middle east after the campaign is over. I once considered reform of the islamic world to be impossible, however I have warmed up to the possibility of forcible reform which would drag the muslim would back into the realm of respectible civilization.
These are the only numbers I remember when it comes the the Middle East, 241 dead /189 wounded. Sounded like we once had this; a competent government who allowed soldiers to be soldiers. Now that Obama has embolden fundamentalists with his, 'I'm Sorry for my Country's Action Pity Speech', prepare for more War in the Middle East. The one thing I agree with his speech is this, if you want the homeland stop bitching and attempt to live with each other. Honestly, I could care less now who lives where and in what town in Judea. Let's Federalized our private mercenaries and add to our numbers when we decide to blow up another Country.
Last edited by wtrg8; 06-07-2009 at 05:55 PM.
So, what were Haiti, Somalia, Bosnia, Kosovo, etc.? There were fewer boots on the ground, but the change you describe is one of degree not kind.
No, but the major problem in any particular Crisis will always be due to the present inapplicability of an earlier process that worked (or appeared to work) back then, but now just exacerbates the situation. A Crisis does not repudiate everything about the last Crisis, but it certainly repudiates some of it.
Neither -- the start of the Crisis should be determined by the first net decrease in Prophets occupying positions of power. Alas, there isn't easily usable data* on this and you'd have to definitively decide when the Boomer generation actually ends.
I agree, but even a 2008 Crisis start can't possibly be at or after the regeneracy, since, as I'm sure you'll agree, the regeneracy can't possibly have occurred earlier than this year. It may not even have occurred yet.
* It is there, though. You could use wikipedia to track the birth year and departure from office of every congressman and senator for the last decade. It would take hours to put in a useful format, though, since tables with birth year as a column only occur for a couple congresses. Armed with that data, you could make statements like "If the last Boomer years is 196X, then the Crisis began in 200X." If anyone does have the time to pursue this unenviable task, or has such data already, please let me know.
Spiral and Regeneracy
I see them as attempts by earlier administrations to defuse the basic ecological - economic - ethnic - security chain of problems that defines the crisis. They were attempts to reduce the number of trouble spots that would be present when the main event hit. I think Clinton in particular was aware of the theory. I've heard a few comments that he might have wanted to have been a crisis president.
Perhaps you could say this was a difference of degree not kind. They certainly weren't viewed as crisis critical. No one felt threatened by the existence of said threats. There was no sense of urgency about them. However, I for one am happy that at least some of them were in part addressed, that they weren't simmering when Bush 43 came into power. He ran in 2000 under a platform of not wasting US military assets doing peace keeping stuff, preferring to reserve them for supporting important US interests.
I didn't like his perspective then, and still don't. Still, the nation as a whole didn't see the above troubles as part of any International Spiral of Violence, as illustrating problems that would continue to grow and present challenges. To me, the above were forerunners to crisis, but most weren't seeing them as such.
I don't see this as overly useful. No historian is going to write up a given legislator of a given generation leaving politics as a sign of crisis. I agree that the generations are part of a picture, but am not interested in defining turnings in terms of statistics. I'm looking for emotional events that cause values shifts.
I'm not sure. The unraveling might include any number of minor warning events, strong enough to be seen as warning of problems, but not strong enough to shake the selfish mood or begin concerted action. The earliest you might label the crisis would be when a major event does being to shake the selfish mood and begin action. The first response might not be the correct one. This would be an 'On to Richmond' response. The temptation is to maintain the status quo by force without addressing underlying causes. The true Reganeracy might not begin until the general population accepts the problems are serious, and a serious program to transform and fix the underlying causes begins.
The Surge might count as a provisional foreign security issues only regeneracy. Instead of trying to push Republican ideology on Iraq, they started to address Iraq's problems. I see this as a big deal. Few others see it that way. The general public wasn't involved or overly aware. The transformation was internal to the government, and mostly the military. The general public really wasn't involved. It really wasn't a national regeneracy, no matter that major lessons were being learned.
So, yes, Obama's inauguration might well be the earliest one might start saying 'regeneracy,' and those hopping for marching bands and trumpets might not yet be satisfied that said regeneracy is real.
But this is a messy enough crisis that more might need be said.
Thank you very much, Arkham, for telling the truth. I arrived in Pittsburgh in the year of your birth and remained utterly unimpressived by the "Renaissance" for my ten unhappy years there.
David Kaiser '47
My blog: History Unfolding
My book: The Road to Dallas: The Assassination of John F. Kennedy
That's because many people didn't view them as threats. In fact, many didn't view Iraq as a threat*, nor do they view Iran as one. It's interesting that your theory of a 2001 Crisis start necessarily entails a certain perspective on the key issues of the Crisis. You assume that the main question of the Crisis is "How will the U.S. fix the world's problems?"
Unfortunately, that leaves a little too much room for personal bias. Note how our discussion about the Crisis start is quickly leading to a discussion about foreign policy. Our views on policy issues should in no way be a determinant of when the Crisis started.
If few other see it that way, shouldn't that count against your theory using your own method of "events that cause values shifts"? The Surge doesn't appear to have shifted anyone's values. Proponents of the war cheered that we'd turned the corner and opponents sneered that we'd done so primarily by bribing Sunni elders.
* And I should point out that those folks seem to be on the winning side of history. Perhaps by the end of this Crisis, you'll end up being considered a conservative.
Transformation
If there is to be a crisis with a 'blood, toil, tears and sweat' mood, there has to be a fairly united population that sees a dire problem with the current society that requires a change in the society. The Theory suggest that this happens about every four score and seven years. I might propose that if the People don't share a perception of a great problem or set of them, a blood, toil tears and sweat regeneracy isn't going to happen.
As fans and advocates of The Theory, we ought to be looking to find problems or sets of problems that might so unify the People. Spirals of violence are one tool which might help on find such problems. That's why I focus so much on monitoring them.
The problem set I have been following is the linked ecological - economic - ethnic / religious - securty related chain. There are too many people, too few resources and too much waste. This results in division of wealth, which in turn leads to ethnic and religious related security problems. I have been pushing variants on this theme since the Clinton years.
The US has a role to play. We have spent more money on projecting force far abroad than anyone else. I think it likely there will be further need to project force abroad.
However, I also believe we need to reduce the division of wealth, which implies the US will not be able to continue enjoying a vastly superior life style at the expense of consuming far too much energy. A goal should be that each continent or region should be able to police its own area so the US won't have an excuse to meddle. A goal should be to focus more on the US civilian economy, less on the US military.
However, warlord government may also be a problem to be resolved. If we do not vastly reduce the division of wealth, the poorer areas will embrace terror and cause problems. I believe we ought to be working to get out of Iraq and Afghanistan, but the underlying ecological and economic stresses underneath what Bush 43 called the War on Terror cannot be simply ignored.
And, yes, I'm from the US and might be US centric, but the problem is global and the solutions will have to be global.
I disagree. A crisis is about transforming cultures to solve problems. If we are not in agreement on what transformations are required to solve what problems, we cannot meaningfully discuss the state of the crisis. If a T4T fan cannot articulate a society transforming problem that is capable of getting people behind a major values shift, he is not going to be able to say much interesting or decisive about the status of the crisis.
Generations in power might make it easier to transform values. However, the values will not change until the old values have clearly failed. A whole bunch of people will have to see something new as necessary. We aren't there yet, which is why we are still arguing about where in the crisis we are.
A very good point. I believe a very basic shift has occured within the government. We now understand how difficult it is to transform nations at gunpoint and export our values. The general public does not understand this as well as the military does, but the debate on stay the course v flee the quagmire has essentially resolved. The People do understand enough to vote intelligently. There has been a values shift to some degree.
At the start of the 1T, new values that might have been considered radical and unachievable at the start of the prior 4T become the new normal. The fixed rigid inflexible conservative culture of the 1T is to a great degree a codification of transformations that would have been radical during the cascade.
I advocated containing Iraq rather than invading. I was not advocating invasion of Iraq in 2002, and I am not advocating invasion of Iran now. I see militant Islam and weapons of mass destruction as serious problems. I do not believe we can resolve these problems by invading Islamic countries and trying to contain the spread of WMD technology. I believe we are going to have to offer a better solution to the division of wealth problem than the militant warlords and fundamentalists autocratic leaders.
I often feel pretty much alone in seeing the ecological, economic, ethnic, religious and security symptoms as illustrating different aspects of the same problem. Even on this site, people will focus on one or two areas that interest them most, and ignore the rest. I don't think the crisis can be solved without a comprehensive understanding of the big picture and a systematic approach to solution. Until these things exist, the situation will slowly get worse while the People don't understand why and thus will not commit seriously to resolving things.
So... What problem do you see that will cause the People to unite and transform the world? If you don't see such a problem, should you be surprised that we have not entered a blood, toil, tears and sweat regeneracy? The just the world getting older isn't going to get things going. People must understand what they are working for.
And since the status quo has been so good for the United States, Americans generally won't be particularly quick to see a need for change.
That was kind of my point, that you're assuming without question that the U.S. will continue to play a role in the world similar to what it has since WWII. That is not necessarily so, nor IMO particularly desirable.
There is always dissent in a Crisis. While the "progress" side will always win, the degree of victory is in doubt. Thus, the extent to which the apparent winning team is producing results is not a good metric of how far along we are in a Crisis.
I suppose this is true, but at any given moment in any turning one could speculate on what current events are transformative. However, our debate over foreign policy cannot be readily linked with the theory unless we have an idea of when the Crisis started. If it started in 2001 it's easier to conclude that the sort of gentler Empire you advocate is what will be sought. OTOH, the later the start date of the Crisis, the more reasonable it is to conclude that America's imperial status will be seen as the problem in and of itself. (Note that I'm talking about perceptions, not actuality. What matters is what people perceive to be the core problems.)
Also, while a statistical study wouldn't definitively establish Crisis dates, it would rule out certain combinations. One might find that a 2001 start date is only compatible with a certain range of Boomer birth years and thus one could not, say, hold to a 2001 4T start without also accepting 1939 as a Boomer birth year.
The second quoted sentence need not be true if the third sentence is. The old values only need to be perceived to have failed by a majority of people.
Actually, I'm arguing that "the world getting older" is precisely what triggers the values shift. The old fossils die or retire and are replaced with younger people determined to correct the errors of the generation they have labored under their entire career. I'm defining a Crisis as specifically the time when Prophets pass their positions off to Nomads. Prophets do the best they can to leave an imprint on the world and Nomads determine which of their wild schemes to keep and which to jettison. At the same time, Heroes observe this transition and form opinions about what the Nomads do wrong, which in turn will shape the subsequent High (and so on through the cycle).
We can be almost certain the transition from 3T to 4T occurred during the Bush administration. This means that the social framework typical of that time period will come to signify the central problems of the 4T. However, what precisely will get the strongest attention depends on when exactly that shift happened.
Generation Alignment and Perceived Problems
I saw a recent report that 42% of the world's military spending was from the United States. This might well reflect that current US values and policy. I do not believe this is sustainable or desirable. I see much less need than in the past to contain expansionist major powers. I do not think it prudent or cost effective to invade and change cultures through force. I don't know how many times I need to repeat this before people stop straw manning my position.
What is? The percentage of each generation in political power isn't adequate either.
You seem to be waiting on what I've been calling a mood of blood, toil, tears and sweat regeneracy. The generation constellation might enable such a mood, but the perception that there is a problem deserving of the mood is also a factor. I personally believe the generation constellation is subtle. Many or most Americans are not aware of it, nor is that surprising. The degree to which large problems confront a population might be more important than the alignment of generations.
I'm not sure that an intense mood can be sustained. In the aftermath of a Pearl Harbor or September 11th, people might enlist in the military or seek a new job. People become aware of a new problem and reevaluate their values. From experience, though, that sort of time of emotion and introspection seems a passing thing. It lasts a few weeks or months, then one just lives every day, though perhaps while wearing a uniform or working a new job.
If we are expecting a feeling like that of September 2001 or November 2008 to sustain, we might not be being realistic.
I might propose that the 'readiness to act' might reflect 'able to see the problem' times 'problem seen as serious' times 'constellation in alignment.' You are focusing on the last factor. I am focusing on the first two. Shortly after September 11th and the 2008 economic collapse, the ability to perceive problems and perceived seriousness were very high. At both times, there were a good number of people here who were ready to say we were in 4T.
But intense moods like that fade. Bush 43 famously asked the People to go shopping. Obama is playing technical games with the economy that seem appropriate, but is he asking any more of the People than Bush 43 did?
It might be worth asking, if we were in a blood, toil tears and sweat regenerating mood, what would we be doing with all that emotional and physical energy? If there is no need to fight a major crisis war and no need to send all the women to munitions plants or to roll up bandages, can such a mood sustain itself in an obvious way?
The major effort that might happen in the United States would be to remake our energy sector. We might at some time be building new wind, solar, nuclear power generators, green cars, and power transmission lines. This might be correct and perhaps even necessary, but would it create a sustained intense mood comparable to fighting a major war? Also, is not infrastructure rebuilding a first turning thing?
I see the generational alignment as slowly coming into and out of phase. September 11th was early. 2008 ought to be reasonably near generational peak. The degree of the alignment and the perceived size of the problem are both factors.
I don't see people as looking at the big picture, as relating the ecological, economic, ethnic and security related aspects. Without such a big picture, neither a comprehensive response nor a sustained effort seem likely. Also, without a demand for people to do something a sustained effort to do something won't happen.
Yet, if the problems aren't addressed the problems will get worse. Things might go downhill until sufficient effort materializes for improvements to start happening.
This probably happens because you criticize such policy as "imprudent" rather than "immoral." It's really easy to distance ourselves from the pile of bodies overseas, and the establishment view of foreign policy (of which you represent the left-wing) tends to ignore these in favor of a cost-benefit analysis. While the monetary cost of intervention is astronomical, that's not my chief objection. My chief objection is the effect that militarism has had on our culture and civil liberties. That's the cost I don't want to pay. Which is why I'm so deeply disappointed in Obama's near total capitulation on the issues of surveillance, detention and torture.
Perhaps generational alignment isn't a sufficient precondition, but is a necessary one. Otherwise, you'd have to conclude that a Crisis can happen at any time -- that we could have gone into Crisis in, say, 1978. As long as we're talking about a generational theory, we can't have turnings occurring much out of sync with the generational alignments. (I would argue not at all, but will concede that alignment may not be the sole determinant of what turning we're in.)
Actually, I'm not. Not having been present in any prior Crisis, I can't really tell how "Crisis-like" the mood is with any certainty of experience. It feels like a mood shift occurred in 2005. But others here have a different subjective assessment ranging through the entire decade. Partly, my insistence on generational alignments is in order to step outside myself and get a more "objective" perspective.
I agree. I don't think human psychology allows for a long-term crisis mentality (small 'c'). This is partly why it doesn't surprise me that the 3T/4T boundary is a matter of debate. Human beings adapt to adverse circumstances pretty readily and that tendency to adapt to adversity could easily be misinterpreted as a reversion to 3T "apathy."
See above. I'm putting the last factor in a position of primacy, because we are talking about a generational theory here. The fact that I tend to be dismissive of other factors is a bias I'll admit to and am willing to adjust. I do have strong opinions about turning theory.
No, which is why I think that the Crisis mood cannot be gauged by executive leadership styles either. After all, in a Crisis featuring a revolution it wouldn't be the head-of-state's leadership style that would be indicative but rather that of the revolutionaries.
A friend of mine once said, "Humans aren't so much good problem solvers as they are good problem finders." It could be argued (and has, see for example Human Smoke) that WWII didn't need to be fought. It's long been argued that the Civil War could have been avoided by just letting the South secede and some historians have noted that the Revolutionaries were complaining about very modest taxes and impositions, far lighter than the people in Great Britain itself experienced. But, nonetheless, there was a strong perception of a need for struggle.
Generational alignment, 2001, adult generations (9/11):
GI (Civic) 77-100
Silent (Adaptive) 59-76
Boom (Idealist) 41-58
13th (Reactive) 20-40
Clearly a 3T constellation. The Civic component was very old, the Adaptive component was getting old but had some people still in middle age, the Idealist component was in midlife, and the Reactive component was not fully out of childhood. Now we can understand how the President could tell people to "go shopping"
Generational alignment, 2005, adult generations (Katrina response):
GI (Civic) 81+
Silent (Adaptive) 63-80
Boom (Idealist) 45-62
13th (Reactive) 24-44
Millennial (Civic) 4?-23
An awkward time in history, the consequence of 3T politics on autopilot as they became increasingly irrelevant and awkward. 3T/4T cusp.
Generational alignment, 2008, adult generations (Subprime meltdown, 2008 election):
GI (Civic) 84+
Silent (Adaptive) 66-83
Boom (Idealist) 48-65
13th (Reactive) 27-47
Millennial (Civic) 7?-26
The Adaptive component is undeniably old and on the fade, Boomers are entering elderhood, Thirteeners are entering midlife, and the Civic component has gone from very old to very young. The political environment was changing even before the loansharking economy melted down. The Crisis attitude is underway, ready or not.
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
Which is why I believe the Crisis began before the September Crash of 2008. The social and cultural environment had already changed radically by the beginning of 2008, and the political environment had changed by 2006.
"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
Those numbers reflect S&H's proposed generation dates which are not necessarily accurate. Still, though, 2001 does seem to have a 3T alignment.
With retirement age well into the late 60s now, we might be able to argue for as late as a 2009 start for the 4T -- at least using S&Hs birth years.
Unfortunately, while a good approximation, a better (but much more difficult) analysis would be to find the average birth year of deaths and retirements (voluntary or involuntary) for each congressional session. The Crisis should begin in whichever congressional session shows a D&R birth year between 1941 and 1946. There would probably be two or four sessions that would count, creating up to an 8 year window for the Crisis start.
So, I took the time to do a quick and dirty analysis of people leaving the Senate in recent years and use that as a proxy for the average birth year of people leaving positions of power. The averages I came up with were:
106th Senate (1999-00) -- 1934
107th Senate (2001-02) -- 1937
108th Senate (2003-04) -- 1940*
109th Senate (2005-06) -- 1943
110th Senate (2007-08) -- 1944
111th Senate (2009-10) -- 1944 (so far)
* Technically, I left Strom Thurmond out. He threw off the average by five years, so it's fair to call him an outlier.
So, that means people who left the senate between January 2001 and Dec 2002, mostly based on the results of the 2000 election had an average birth year of 1937. That seems a bit early for a Boomer birth year. In the next session we have 1940, still a bit early but not that much. Assuming this data is within a year of accurate, and assuming that the first Boomer birth years are somewhere between 1941 and 1946, the Crisis should have started somewhere between 2002 and still not yet (with 2004 as the answer using S&H's date of 1943).
By this measure, at least, a 2001 Crisis seems to require that late '30s cohorts are actually Prophet archetypes. Also, if Boomer birth years actually correspond to the demographic Baby Boom (1946-1964), then we would have to conclude that the Crisis still hasn't started yet. However, I would be shocked if the next congress doesn't have an average departing birth year of 1946 or later, so I'd say 2011 is the latest reasonable start date for the 4T.
I still contend that for nations to survive through a 4T, it is far better to be the predators than to be the prey. Even if the predator is ultimately defeated he would have still likely suffered far less than the victims he targeted. Remember the ultimate responsibility of a nation especially in periods of crisis is to ensure the safety, survival and prosperity of that nation's people and culture. In 4Ts especially nations must put their own surival and prosperity above that of others, especially above that of enemy nations. It is the unfortunate reality of human nature in that usually kind hearted people generally recieve not respect, but instead are spat on and treated with contempt. On the other hand those who blatanly show selfishness and disrespect for others are rewarded with free-passes and are often even pampered and excused from having to participate in heavy-lifting. Even in the lessons of the last crisis failed to notice that the victim groups hoped merely to live in peace with their aggressors, as a result the suffered massive population losses notably the jews who lost 2/3 of their population. Meanwhile the aggressor states while they were ultimately defeated generally escaped with at most 10 percent population losses, and usually got off with less than 5 percent population losses.
Uh, Cynic, IIRC, the predator nations lost and were occupied by us, who were distinctly neither predator nor prey. Between the wolves and the sheep there is an entity called a guard dog.
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.
The predators were defeated but the prey still suffered higher losses than the predator nations, Thus the point I made still stands. This plus cognitive dissonance theory which states that an aggressor would be more brutal toward an innocent victim than he would be toward a victim who had diliberately provoked the aggressor explains why genocidal actions like the holocaust and the rwanda genocide have an air of irrationality around them. The nazis used the jews as scapegoats and knew full well the jews were innocent, however it was this very fact that caused the nazis to increase their brutality toward the jews. This also explains why the nazis did not extend their racism toward the british and lesser extent, the french, even though the british and french were the ones who were actually responsible for imposing the treaty of versailles. Cognitive dissonance theory explains why the nazis directed their hatred toward the completely innocent jews, gypsies and slavs. It also explains why the greatest serb atrocities during the 90's war in bosnia were against muslims and not against croats even though the croats massacred nearly a million serbs in WW2. The more irrational the hatred, the more violent the aggression generated. If for example the US actually carried out a large scale pacification campaign against the islamic world followed by mass purges of the intelligensia and general population, a policy similar to the infamous japanese "Three alls", ironically it would actually reduce anti-americanism in those regions. Even if a long-term an anti-americanism is generated by such actions the resulting (justified) anti-americanism would actually be less virulent then the current (unjustified) anti-americanism that presently exists. The evidence presented above therefore indicates that the worst position one could be in a 4T is to be the prey, actions that could turn one's nation or people into prey include eccentricies such as unilaterally disarming "in the name of world peace". Bin laden in particular has voiced his hopes that americans become prey, therefore the only course of action that would end the threat that he and his ilk poses would be to root out him, his followers and anyone who voices sympathy for their ilk. They would have to be rooted out ruthlessly, without pity or mercy.
Last edited by Cynic Hero '86; 06-10-2009 at 12:41 AM.
I once saw one incident on a wildlife program in which a zebra stallion being chased by a lioness went into a shallow pond that held some crocodiles. The zebra got through little the worse for wear but the lioness unwisely followed. The lioness disappeared into the pond, apparently being killed and eaten by the crocodiles.
Zebras have a nasty kick, too, and if the zebra kicks the lioness' mouth the kick may break the lioness' jaw, ensuring that the lioness dies of starvation.
In a contest between an elephant and any one of the animals that it considers a possible predator (humans, lions, tigers, and dogs -- dogs act too much like lions for elephants to not take them seriously), an adult elephant has multiple means of killing a tormenter, none of them pleasant ways to die.
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
Rambling on...
OK. I'll add that invading and changing cultures is generally immoral as well as imprudent. Thing is, I don't want to make both arguments -- prudence and morality -- every time I post here. I also found that those representing the conservative side will have justified the morality of Bush 43's actions. He was after WMDs, trying to spread democracy, and getting rid of a regime with a poor human rights record.
I don't much buy it. I believe he was putting troops near the oil, as stated in the neocon manifesto Rebuilding America's Defenses. The moral arguments were window dressing.
But if everything else is subjective, so is the moral argument. We've gone around in those circles often enough that I'm not too eager to repeat it.
I'll second your disappointment about Obama's reluctance to prosecute and more fully renounce the Bush 43 human rights and rule of law record. In the Clinton 42 Years I endorse the Clinton Doctrine, that the developed nations should respond to severe human rights violations. By severe, I mean genocide, ethnic cleansing, organized rape and political famine. Bush 43 didn't quite step over that line in Iraq, though he stepped to near it in my opinion. His strategy of imprisoning and torturing males of military age while not providing the manpower level required to suppress insurgency resulted in massive death and segregation of Shiite and Sunni. To say Bush 43 is guilty of genocide and ethnic cleansing is pushing it. The Shiite and Sunni did it more to each other than we to them. Still, it happened under his watch.
Anyway... I believe crimes against humanity should be suppressed on both a practical and moral level, but at the same time one can't and shouldn't invade and change people's values lightly or easily. I might be guilty of excessive nuance there. Anyway, I don't believe we should have gone into Iraq. Having gone in, we should have had sufficient troops available to suppress regeneracy, should have respected human rights, and should have respected the local culture. Bush 43 went in arrogant and caused a good deal of death and suffering as a result.
I might suggest that generational alignment makes one more inclined to perceive and act to solve a problem, but something has to be there to be perceived and acted against. Again, we have been the dominant power since World War II, so we are less apt to see a need to change the world order than most nations. It might be that our pride and self interest might be a more potent force in hiding problems than the generational alignment is in making us ready to see problems.
Or it might be that the problems are just more subtle than in the past. If I am correct that one must see the ecological - economic - ethnic - security chain as interrelated and requiring a systematic solution, but that most people do not perceive of the crisis in this manner, then perhaps we aren't going into decisive action mode as most folks cannot perceive a reason to do so.
I know I 'felt' a crisis like mood shift in 2001, stronger but temporary than 2005. 2005 was where Bush 43's popularity went below 50% for good. This reflects a nation that was rejecting the Republican perspective, values and policies. That might be called value change, and 2005 might be when it happened.
I too could wish for objective markers. Did Bush 43's popularity go below 50% just as Boomers achieved dominance as elders in politics? If this happened, can we go back to prior crises as say that the same things happened then too? One could wish for such objectivity. It is hard to get. Still, I think we'd want objective measurable criteria on both the generations side and the values / policy side. If we wish to prove and refine the Theory through objective observation, we want to work both sides.
Good enough.
Good enough. I may have a bias in rejecting the generational stereotypes. They remind me of horoscopes in assigning large groups of people the same personalities, motivations and fates. I find members of any given generation to be very diverse. To say that the Xer or the Boomer has a given personality and motivation seems to me a lie, an over simplification. People are more complex than that. The stereotypes exist, if they do exist, only as a very broad generalization averaged out as an over sized whole.
Thus, I tend to minimize the stereotyping.
Yep. I'd add that practical self interest makes it easier to work one's self up about a moral problem. Would we have cared so much about taxation without representation if Britain's colonial policies allowed direct trading with ports other than in the mother country? Would we have cared so much about slavery if the political arguments about it were not blocking westward expansion? Would we have fought fascism so hard if we hadn't thought their dominating the world economy would have put our own economy in peril?
I tend to see any crisis as involving both a new elite class seeking to gain influence and a moral cause that can gather popular support. Perhaps this is not unique to crises. With Iraq, Bush 43 may have been supporting Big Oil by putting troops near the oil and trying to give contracts to US oil companies instead of allowing the deals Saddam was making with Russia and France. There were economic hardball reasons for the Iraq war, but when the time came to justify war to the public, the economic hardball reasons couldn't be mentioned. Instead, the war was presented as moral and necessary.
I don't see that as unique to the Iraq War, but as par for the course. Politicians and other ruling elite will use wealth and power to acquire wealth and power, but the People will be less willing to spill blood to acquire power. Thus, I would expect a divide between reasons given and reasons true.
Wouldn't it be funny if we actually did engage in said 'eccentricity', only to still be identified by the rest of the world as the 'monstrous villain' who had to be stopped at all costs - especially since doing so would actually create the opportunity to do so.
(Which is what gets me about all these claims that 'we're way too militarily strong for anyone to successfully attack, therefore no-one will ever even try to attack us; so we should therefore immediately and unilaterally disarm since there is no real threat, and never will be.')
Ah, but I forget! If we did unilaterally disarm, and were then attacked, it would only be because we so richly deserve it. (Here I would actually agree with that claim, though most definitely not for the same reasons. I would say that we would deserve to be attacked and destroyed under said circumstances not for our 'sins' which are actually no worse than most other nations' given half a chance, but rather, for being so IMBECILICALLY STUPID!!!)
Last edited by SVE-KRD; 06-10-2009 at 10:27 AM.
I don't think anyone is suggesting we unilaterally disarm except a handful of extreme idealists on the left.
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.
No nation with nuclear weapons and ICBMs need ever maintain a significant army. Such weapons are more than sufficient to deter attack by anything other than terrorists and a conventional army is pointless overkill against terrorist groups. The U.S. military could be stripped down to nuclear missiles, subs, spec ops and drones and we would still be unconquerable and we'd spend about a quarter of what we currently do.(Which is what gets me about all these claims that 'we're way too militarily strong for anyone to successfully attack, therefore no-one will ever even try to attack us; so we should therefore immediately and unilaterally disarm since there is no real threat, and never will be.')
Of course, such a military would not allow for imperial adventures, nor would it fatten the wallets of a galaxy of government contractors -- thus, the bloated, wasteful, belligerent military we actually have. The military I describe above in no way constitutes "disarmament" since the capacity for the U.S. to defend itself would not change in the slightest.
You figure it'd take a whole quarter of what they spend now? That's still a massive chunk of change.
"Qu'est-ce que c'est que cela, la loi ? On peut donc être dehors. Je ne comprends pas. Quant à moi, suis-je dans la loi ? suis-je hors la loi ? Je n'en sais rien. Mourir de faim, est-ce être dans la loi ?" -- Tellmarch
"Человек не может снять с себя ответственности за свои поступки." - L. Tolstoy
"[it] is no doubt obvious, the cult of the experts is both self-serving, for those who propound it, and fraudulent." - Noam Chomsky
It's 4T -- lets get the Jews
From the Washington post online.
3 People Shot at U.S. Holocaust Museum
By Debbi Wilgoren
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, June 10, 2009 1:49 PM
A security guard and two other people were shot today inside the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum in downtown Washington, authorities said.
U.S. Park Police said a gunman armed with a shotgun opened fire on the security guard and that other security guards returned fire. The gunman was reported wounded.
The shooting was reported to police at 12:52 p.m., and officers rushed to the scene just south of Independence Ave. bordering the Mall.
D.C. Fire Department spokesman Alan Etter said there was no immediate information on the shooter. He said two men were transported to a hospital with "serious" gunshot wounds.
One witness, Dave Unruh, of Wichita, Kan., said he was waiting to enter the museum when he heard one gunshot, then a sequence of four or five gunshots. He said he then heard someone scream, "Hit the floor!." He and his wife, Karen, and their two teenage grandchildren hit the floor and were subsequently herded out of the building by authorities.
Unruh called the experience "intensely, extremely frightening."
By 1 p.m., the street in front of the museum was blocked by a museum police officer. A group of schoolchildren was rushed onto a chartered luxury coach and the bus driver struggled to pull away from the block.
I want people to know that peace is possible even in this stupid day and age. Prem Rawat, June 8, 2008
