tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8746692.post1551599315626244808..comments2024-03-29T02:03:49.151-04:00Comments on History Unfolding: The Collapse of American Politics, Part IIDavid Kaiserhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05020082243968071584noreply@blogger.comBlogger5125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8746692.post-1082480968838282172020-02-19T13:51:44.197-05:002020-02-19T13:51:44.197-05:00Part I referred to "The State of the Democrat...Part I referred to "The State of the Democrats," a few weeks ago.<br /> David Kaiserhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05020082243968071584noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8746692.post-65009753678920882552020-02-18T09:59:27.254-05:002020-02-18T09:59:27.254-05:00"The Collapse of American Politics, Part II.&..."The Collapse of American Politics, Part II." Prof.: Could you post a link to Part I, please and thanks?peter forbeshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06167675526182828505noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8746692.post-81392129874459154892020-02-16T13:05:18.204-05:002020-02-16T13:05:18.204-05:00Gray Champions are best declared after the First T...Gray Champions are best declared after the First Turning opens, but they always emerge from the elders who, back in the Fourth Turning (where we now reside), envisioned and championed the future that came into being because its cause was embraced by society’s midlife and, especially, young adult generations.<br /><br />One would have to turn a blind eye to fail to see that Sanders and Warren are the two best-positioned American political figures capable of filing the Gray Champion role. While some other Boomer politicians and non-politician celebrities could become co-stars and supporting actors (depending on how the political crisis plays out), these two speak to the future’s need: a green new deal, a job guarantee at sustainable wages, health care for all, debt relief, and diplomacy, not war. Biden is entirely off-message; Blomberg isn’t suitable (a shrill for the corporate sector); and Buttigieg and Klobuchar (so far), despite hearts and minds in the right place, seem too faint for Championship duty. <br /><br />My thinking is: Warren regains strength and Sanders gains further strength as the primaries advance. Meanwhile, politicians who don’t tap the urgency behind our future’s demands continue to fracture and decline. After the primaries are over, Sanders, Warren and Steyer, plus Yang, Booker, Harris, Castro, Abrams, AOC, et al (the progressive wing), maybe even Klobuchar and Buttigieg, will forge a united plan to take the nomination on the first ballot at the convention. After all, this is a generational tidal wave, not a matter of nit-picking difference of who gets to run for president.<br /><br />At long last, the neoliberal, corporate, “middle” seems to have been squeezed out of American politics. Now, we’re finally down to the choice between two radical agendas: more of Donald Trump’s wrecking-ball of personal corruption and strongman authoritarianism or dethroning corporate power, ensuring peace and social justice, and saving the planet under (most likely) Bernie Sanders’ socialist (people over profit) ethics. Hallelujah!<br />Steve Clarkhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13303155653751466240noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8746692.post-63399305082683423072020-02-15T16:41:44.366-05:002020-02-15T16:41:44.366-05:00Collapse of politics is really a global theme. Thi...Collapse of politics is really a global theme. Think of Duterte in Phillipines and Bolsonaro in Brasil, Salvini in Italy and the right wing governmentsin Poland and Hungary plus Brexit and Boris Johnson, a Trump type. Essentially the powerful conservative straight talking, straight shooting type has become the norm. Putin was just the beginning. Erdogan came even earlier I think. Modi's nationalist Hinduism and Xi Jinping starting a personalty cult next. People want a superman, a savior, not a manager, bureaucrat party operative. It is crisis transformation time. So if Trump fits the bill on this Greek drama, so be it. Party renewal, national renewal even. Ike meant his farewell address seriously. Obviously American power has been based on its successful leveraging of all its resources in two Wars in Europe and then Asia and then continuing in the same vein the cold war against communism which was won. Now it just keeps on running on autopilot using the Middle East since 2001, even 1991 as a theater of expansion, to end its Greek tragedy, seking a dragon to kill, a gorgon or two. Internally though the system, the people itself have no motive, internal reason to continue fighting for eternal justice in the world. Most have long since noticed that, as in Orwell's famous work, this is propaganda to keep arms manufacturers in the profit zone while the local population earns little money, schools, roads deteriorate. Why be so concerned about PC talk while supporting secretly al queda in Syria through CIA and supplying the Saudi monarchy with bombs against yemen? I never trusted the anti Iran thing even in 1979 as a teen. Why support dictators exclusively against populist uprisings and create populist uprisings artificially against demoratic governments with Bernie Sanders type ideas. Obviously military security types, NeoCon, CIA spooks are ruining the globe. Even Stalin, Soviets were blown way out of proportion with scaremongering. After the fact one could see they were not that dangerous. Now for example the New red scare prevents cooperation with Russia and it is a fake manufactured to maintain weapons sales, expand hegemony. Meanwhile back at the ranch dictators of Trump type are preferred by joe normals who tell the truth over bureaucrats who are empty suits to read off the teleprompter from CIA press releases and virtue signalling hypocritical social marxists who feign love of foreigners at home but cheer mass murder abroad to spread 'human rights' so as not to be called unpatriotic or shamed by the term 'unamerican'. Reading Roman history would be instructive about now. You expect decent people doing the right thing only that chance was passed up even by Ike letting Dulles do his dirty work and then certainly by Kennedy, Johnson and Vietnam. We have slowly become engulfed by the arrogance of empire. Not letting the dollar slip away but accepting a fiat tied to oil for example was Kissinger's stroke of genius. CIA boss Bush sitting behind idiot Reagan. Darth Vader Cheney and corporate Rummey runnng show for stupid W after a likely faked 9/11. Where were those WMDs so much discussed in Iraq? 20 years in Afghanistan will run to 50 or 100. Sick. Mental. Real questions aren't being asked by you or any mainstream pubished source. Any sane 'man on the street' with even a below average IQ is sick of t all. Only radical politicians of right and/or left like Trump/Sanders/Gabbard say real things that people think, but is not allowed on google, twitter, mainstream. Prerevolutionary days when the apparatchik of the Politburo and Pravda rule the roost and don't notice the people storming the 'Berlin Wall'. Mene mene tekel.Energyflowhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14476915209268786507noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8746692.post-17361644999687027132020-02-14T16:11:32.287-05:002020-02-14T16:11:32.287-05:00Professor
Interesting analyses.
I see this as a L...Professor<br />Interesting analyses.<br /><br />I see this as a Lincoln moment, a really really divisive moment, for both parties, for the right candidate, whoever that is.<br /><br />Re your inquiry below:<br /><br />"The really interesting question about Buttigieg, it seems to me, is whether his big-tent moderation will prove to be more characteristic of Millennial politicians than Ocasio-Cortez's left wing militance. I suspect that the answer is yes."<br /><br />My view is: neither, neither big tent moderation, nor left wing militance.<br /><br />All the bestBozonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/18078858723231122013noreply@blogger.com