The Fourth Turning

You’ve heard of the Fire triangle. This is the three elements without all three of which, you can’t have a fire. Take away any one of them and the fire goes out. These things are Heat, Oxygen, and something to burn. Often problems need several simotanious things to exist together or the problem will no longer be there. I have noticed this in a negative way in my own life. But then there is the phenomenon of reactionary thinking that has run so rampant today where everybody wants to go back to a hundred years ago. And by the way, I don’t think their views would be too welcome there, either. .Let’s get psycho-analytical for a moment. We all know that Fear is a normal human emotion called the “fight or flight” sydrone in mammals. But fear should be a transitory emotion impelling action and not a permanent state of existence. If fear is allowed to persist for protracted periods of time it can have unhealthy consequences on the human psyche. But today we are talking about an inherently unhealthy fear. This is the sort of “Mindless, paralyzing fear” that Roosevelt talked about in that speech, crippling needed actions. When someone is in such a state they begin to psychologically “shut down” and refuse to receive any new input or information. I think my Dad was in such a state for the latter part of his life. Anyhow since they have undergone this psychological shutdown, no new information gets in, producing ignorance. And ignorance is sort of a mental void in the brain where knowledge should be. And they say that science hates a vacuum. And things like prejudice creeps in. Often prejudice gets reinforced with each cycle. Because prejudice produces fear. But it’s a fear that is produced by an emotion you yourself generated. This is how it is with the tea party crowd. They have inoculated themselves against any enlightenment. (Selah)

You know I’m not going to talk any more about the stuff at the beginning of this file that appeared on my last blog. I did a little of that at the end of the previous file, called “fiddling” as in “Nero fiddled while Rome burned”. I guess in order to describe the evolutionary state we are in now I would have to refer to the death of my cat, Bo. It was mid March of 1985 when I noticed Bo was slowing down. Upon examining her I noticed an unnatural firmness in the lower abdominal area. I immediately knew what the problem was and revolved to feed her only good canned cat food, and not the dry kind. But after a while the cat disappeared. After more time elapsed I found the cat in the back yard under a bush- - Dead. We right now in our evolution with the US debt ceiling thing are “past the point of no return”. The cat has gone away and we’re in the out of sight, out of mind phase of our being. Nobody is even thinking about next Tuesday August 2^nd right now. It’s as though that date were a million miles away. But clearly it’s the most serious economic crisis we’ve faced in a long time- - and the consequences will be very real and impact us all. Those “new taxes” the Republicans dreaded so much will become a reality as interest rate hikes and inflation eat into our savings, driving down economic activity and casting us at long last into that second leg of the double dip recession.

This morning Thom Hartman had the usual Friday visit with Bernie Sanders. Of course both the Boehner and the Harry Reed bill should be voted down, at least according to Hartman, since neither raises taxes on the rich at all. Seemingly a poll shows that 72% of Americans would like to see taxes hiked on the rich, who can afford to make a greater sacrifice to get us out of this hole. Ideally the debt ceiling should not even be tied to budget reduction. Now the Republicans want a cut in corporate taxes, and a constitutional balanced budget amendment and a prohibition against raising any taxes with out a two-thirds vote in Congress. Actually I’ve said all I can say on the matter. Now it’s just a case of putting the whole thing out of my mind. Yesterday morning and Wednesday I drank a lot of coffee. I cut way back on that today. There is nothing worth trying to “figure out” right now. What’s going to happen will be what happens. Nobody wants to take any intelligent advice anyhow. They would prefer “acting stupidly” to use Obama’s words. And the President has “acted stupidly” numerous times since he’s been in office. So it’s kind of sit back and just entertain ourselves with other matters now. We will get at least one more S S I check for August, anyhow. Now they’re calling for a residents council meeting for this month right now. I guess I’ll be there and take this up later. But first I’m having a cigarette- to maybe organize my thoughts better.

I could like to discuss the ideas in “The Fourth Turning”, which I think is by De Fezzio and Howe, which came out in 1997, according to Thom. I would dispute the length of the average cycle as normally shorter than eighty years. Normally it’s sixty. But then people didn’t use to live as long as they do now. The sixty year cycle conforms to the grand Chinese sixty year cycle combining Chinese elements and years. For instance, Jim Cooper would be a late Aquarius fire cock. I have known quite a few fire cocks in my day, and have had at least four of them as house mates as a matter of fact. These would be Jim Cooper, Bill T, Henry, and Bobby Hayden. Some years such as the Monkey seem to signal revolution and tumult, for instance the first election of FDR, the Normandy invasion, Elvis Presley coming to national fame, and the assasenation of Martin Luther King, “Prague Spring”, and the Chicago convention riots. Years of the Dog tend to be recession years. Michael Jackson is an earth dog. Pete Richards is a wooden horse. Becky Daniels is a Leo water snake. I graduated in an H S class of mainly metal tigers. Of course the Kandratiav wave is only 52 years. That’s a long stock market cycle they talk about. But lets go back a few cycles and run through them. Let’s start with the 1837 Panic, and they started calling them recessions after that because Panic was such an alarmist word. Andrew Jackson refused to renew the National Bank system we had to regulate the economy. This may be part of the problem. Then we had a trough war - - the Mexican War. Normally trough wars are “good wars” because they help us out economically. Our next cycle or cycle two in the book would be the “generation of quiet builders”. There was a period of great Western expansion and the laying down of trails and railroads and “fifty-four forty or fight” and all that. The size of the nation greatly expanded. Cycle three began around 1859 or ’60. This is a period of introspection, discontent, and looking inward. Of course John Brown kicked off the whole Slavery issue for most people. We had the Civil War which divided people, just as the Viet Nam war did. And then we had the reconstruction amendments, and strict enforcement of voting laws at first for Blacks. Then we enter Cycle four. This was the period of greed and the robber barrons, and relaxation of laws. Here we first heard that corporations were people. This period of laxity ended in 1892 or so when we entered one of the worst business recessions our Country has faced. There were all sorts of Industrial strikes even back then- - and the economy was paralyzed. Then we had another trough war to get us out of it. This was the Spanish American war. I see we’re on page six already. After this we had a very brief “quiet builder” phase or normalcy, and celebrated good times in 1900 reelecting William Mc Kinley, but mainly we leaped right into Cycle three, or the era of Reform, let by Teddy Roosevelt where all sorts of acts were passed and trusts were broken up. This was a happy, optimistic time for Americans. We had another peak war and then went into Cycle four or another period of greed, or the roaring twenties where we slid tword reactionary ways. Then the whole cycle starts over again with the stock market crash, panic, the great depression, World War II, another trough war. Then in cycle two we have more “quiet builders” in the late forties, fifties and early sixties. In this period you saw a most phenominal rise in the consumer standard of living. I think the 1956 Republican slogan was "You never had it go good". You saw our space program build up. You had the St. Laurance seaway opening. You had "New Frontiers" and you had the massive interstate highway program. Then we have another period of both revolution and introspection and cultural moray change- - the mid to late sixties and the ‘seventies. You saw liberalized abortion laws and "no fault" divorce laws, and women's liberation and Earth ecology consciousness. In 1980 Ronald Reagan’s election signaled cycle four or another era of greed. This is the period that has been unnaturally prolonged. Ravi Batra predicted we would have a recession in 1990. We started to have a downturn but I think two things saved us. First Gulf War I, another possible trough war, stimulate the economy and turned around the stock market to the positive side to past three thousand for the first time. The other thing that saved us that wasn’t available before was borrowing money from China. Without these two things I honestly believe “the end” would have come much sooner. Another thing that saved our bacon was Bill Clinton’s raising the income tax rate, thus doing something real about our mounting national deficit. But today we have forgotten all these lessons- - as the last people who lived through the Great Depression are dying off. So we pass bills in congress that would have been "Dead on arrivel' at any previous point, such as the massive take down of all Securities regulations, doing away with the "Fairness" laws in broadcasting, and five people in black robes throwing out a century of campaign regulation laws. So since we don’t remember history we are doomed to repeat it. We are now in the process of doing this in a step by step devolution process where any ethical standards are blown up, almost described in almost uncany detail even unto failure to get out Social Security checks because of a credit crunch. Suddenly not paying our bills violates nobody's moral concerns. The stock market has been down all this week and we may not see another up week again in a long time. All this is unfolding and will unfold precisely outlined in “The Fourth Turning”.

I was going to do a whole "Death of Bo" thing but we'll pass. The House passed that Boehner bill, apparently with trouble securing votes, but he did. But the Senate immediately voted the thing down, which, like we all feared, means we are back to square one.

Congress has a Boehner that’s in danger of failing

Get your asses in gear so Boehner can do his thing

Boehner is now going for an unexpected bill insertion

Bushmen are becoming an endangered species now that the tea party has arrived.

Lisa Simpson says her Reed is too dry and she doesn’t even live in Nevada

“What did you come to the Jordan to see? A Reed blowing in the wind?”

Boehner may be suffering from a disease infection of the green stuff

The Bush gets thinner and thinner as the years proceed

Orange you glad you don’t have a Boehner like that one

Grab the ankles and assume the position

One attractive female on an astrology page said she was born under a waxing gibbus moon - - so like is she a sexual dynamo in bed or something?

Rev Moon has been permanently eclipsed

The woman's baby was born under a bad sign. Yeah, the sign collapsed right on the spot and killed her baby

So, is the nerd side of Milhaus Van Hauten of the house or Orange?

"You can't catch me because the rabbit done died." Yeah, and you just ate it and it was infected with the ebola bacteria, so now you're not going anywhere.

A Boehner with joints enables for quicker concealment when necessary.

End the war on drugs with a joint resolution

Last night our computer wasn’t working. He had a migraine.

The screen play didn't come off successfully, so the Democratic team lost points

The question is, is the Boehner now firing blanks?

My name is Gunn; I have an impressive rod.

A better Resolution requires better reproduction power than we now have in the house. But you have to go to caucus with the person you’re in bed with now.

A little Darrren before dinner makes a better Stevens I always say

Is that a la carte or on the Darren?

These rubber balls were a major hit for Bobby Darren

"You mean Bobby Vee, don't you" "Yeah, that's what I said"

I think Stevens would have made a great president