Posted on 09/01/2013 5:39:05 AM PDT by Kaslin
Have you ever heard of the 70-year cycle in history? Here's an excerpt from an essay by Eric A. that introduces the concept:
Many of you may be familiar with the Foundation series by Issac Asimov. In it, mathematician "Hari Seldon spent his life developing a branch of mathematics known as psychohistory. Using the laws of mass action, it can predict the future, but only on a large scale; it is error-prone on a small scale."
In practice, we can see that this would be theoretically correct: we study history precisely because human nature is relatively the same and the same events recur with the same predictable responses. If history really were chaos--a muddle of events appearing randomly and being resolved in unpredictable ways--there would be no point in studying it.
So what of 70 years? It seems that American politics goes through a roughly 70 year long cycles where it swings from one side of the political pendulum to the other. For example, if we start in 1789, which marks the real beginning of the United States as a single nation with the inauguration of George Washington as the nation's first president under the Constitution, the passage of 70 years suddenly puts us on the cusp of the U.S. Civil War in 1859 as the nation was getting set to try to tear itself apart.
From then, Random Jottings' David Weidel notes a general 70-year cycle in American politics:
The theory says that America became a Republican country starting about the year 2000. (From 1860 Republicans were dominant, and then the Dems starting about 1930.) Each cycle is about two political generations. The 70 years before 1860 don't have today's parties, but they fit otherwise, with the Revolutionary generation and then a follow-on generation stuck in old habits of thought. And then a problem that needed a new political alignment to solve.
But what if it's not just American politics? What if it's really a cycle that's driven by opposing ideologies in conflict?
For example, in 1896, the U.S. Supreme Court made it legal to institutionalize racial segregation in the United States. Almost 70 years later, the U.S. Congress was undoing the damage in the landmark Civil Rights Act of 1964.
This is 2013. What sort of conflict was the U.S. engaged in 70 years ago?
Well, that would put us in 1943. And in 1943, the United States fought and succeeded in forcing fascist Italy to surrender and switch sides in World War 2.
The Concise Encyclopedia of Economics explains what fascism in Italy was all about, emphasis ours:
As an economic system, fascism is socialism with a capitalist veneer. The word derives from fasces, the Roman symbol of collectivism and power: a tied bundle of rods with a protruding ax. In its day (the 1920s and 1930s), fascism was seen as the happy medium between boom-and-bust-prone liberal capitalism, with its alleged class conflict, wasteful competition, and profit-oriented egoism, and revolutionary Marxism, with its violent and socially divisive persecution of the bourgeoisie. Fascism substituted the particularity of nationalism and racialism—“blood and soil”—for the internationalism of both classical liberalism and Marxism.
Where socialism sought totalitarian control of a society’s economic processes through direct state operation of the means of production, fascism sought that control indirectly, through domination of nominally private owners. Where socialism nationalized property explicitly, fascism did so implicitly, by requiring owners to use their property in the “national interest”—that is, as the autocratic authority conceived it. (Nevertheless, a few industries were operated by the state.) Where socialism abolished all market relations outright, fascism left the appearance of market relations while planning all economic activities. Where socialism abolished money and prices, fascism controlled the monetary system and set all prices and wages politically. In doing all this, fascism denatured the marketplace. Entrepreneurship was abolished. State ministries, rather than consumers, determined what was produced and under what conditions.
Now that you've read what fascism entails, consider the following excerpt from an article yesterday at The Huffington Post, noting how nearly 40% of U.S. CEOs have come to have a very large portion of their income paid for by U.S. taxpayers:
WASHINGTON -- More than one-third of the nation's highest-paid CEOs from the past two decades led companies that were subsidized by American taxpayers, according to a report released Wednesday by the Institute for Policy Studies, a liberal think tank.
"Financial bailouts offer just one example of how a significant number of America's CEO pay leaders owe much of their good fortune to America's taxpayers," reads the report. "Government contracts offer another."
IPS has been publishing annual reports on executive compensation since 1993, tracking the 25 highest-paid CEOs each year and analyzing trends in payouts. Of the 500 total company listings, 103 were banks that received government bailouts under the Troubled Asset Relief Program, while another 62 were among the nation's most prolific government contractors.
Meanwhile, that all would be occurring as American entrepreneurs would appear to be harder and harder to find:
The US entrepreneurial spirit may be faltering. Check out these data points from The Wall Street Journal: a) In 1982, new companies made up roughly half of all US businesses, according to census data. By 2011, they accounted for just over a third; b) from 1982 through 2011, the share of the labor force working at new companies fell to 11% from more than 20%; c) Total venture capital invested in the US fell nearly 10% last year and is still below its prerecession peak, according to PricewaterhouseCoopers.
The United States would appear to be well on its way to adopting fascist Italy's political-economic system, favoring the politically-connected while starving entrepreneurs out of the economy. Although today in America, we call it "crony capitalism". And the people who practice it "progressives".
Do you think we should start calling it what it really is?
“Do you think we should start calling it what it really is? “
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I do not know what to call it, other then the “Obamination”, even though the roots of decay started before anyone knew his name. With the vastly expanding Afro and Latino population I see little hope for America ever returning to be the country that I grew up in. My one salvation is that I am a senior citizen, and able to live my own life where and how I want.
See also their book "The Fourth Turning".
And, yeah, we are a fascist society. Eisenhower spoke about the Military-Industrial Complex and many people nodded sagely and thought he just meant defense contractors and the army. Nope. The alliance between Big Government and Big Business is all around us and it is a bad thing. It has utterly corrupted the Republic and, I would say, destroyed it.
Amen brother ... Amen.
I don’t know about all the math, but this I’m sure of, we are definitely in a 70yr psycho stage.
And we aint seen nothing yet.
“Amen brother ... Amen.”
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Thank you knarf. Sadly, I have run into a few, very few, dog in a manger “so called” FReepers that castigate me for the way I live my retirement. They think I should suffer with them. If I did not care for, and love the country of my birth, I would not be a FReeper, would I?
This is nothing new. I’ve been pointing out that the Dems are really Fascists since the Clinton Admin, and more recently using Obamacare, which is state control enacted through corporations, as the main example.
If you ever want to get a Liberal ticked off, and I mean REALLY ticked off, start using the term “Third Position Economics” to refer to Obamacare and other Dem policies. Once you explain to them what it entails (state control and direction through corporate entities, they’ll fall into the trap and readily agree.
Once you have their full agreement, you spring the trap that “Third Position Economics” is really Mussolinian/Nazi fascism ... and get to watch them go thermonuclear.
I’m not feeling the 1943...
It’s really 70 years when nations start feeling their ‘oats’ and face the consequences. America was near 70 years old when the concept of Manifest Destiny came about. Don’t know what happened. Perhaps the Monroe Doctrine took care of that. Japan came about as a nation in 1868 and was defeated 70 years later. Germany came about in 1871. Within those 70 years Japan had defeated a western power-Russia-and was on the side of the allies in ww1. Germany? I don’t know. The biggie? The USSR came about in 1917 and thought it could kick butt on anyone. What happened 72 years later? Think Berlin wall.
What it means is that nations must remain vigilant. Think what might have happened if they all had their way?
In MY older age .. I see NO positive change in MY lifetime.
Certainly no return to my beloved Norman Rockwellian 50's childhood.
Physical ailments and the relief of same take up most of my time.
Try again on the “dog in the manger” metaphor; it doesn’t fit at all.
If you loved the country of your birth, you would not have run away.
You’re no different from the guy who sits in front if his TV, watching the game, and blathering on about how a player botched a play.
We’ve had plenty of people on FR over the years who loathed this country.
You’ve demonstrated in your personal life that you don’t plan ahead and think things through; if you post anything relevant here, it’s only by accident.
I think we are seeing the slow motion construction of a World Wide Government. In 50 years, nations may still exist (nominally), but they will be mechanisms for enforcing the dictates of the UN. I also expect the see the introduction of a world currency. There will also be a handful of “ungovernable” areas (like Afghanistan and Yemen). Also wouldn’t be surprised to see Islam as the official religion—its the one that has the tightest control over its adherents. All others will be demonized.
The only way freedom and liberty get preserved is by space travel and colonization of other worlds. Which is something a global, bureaucratic state will oppose. It’s too good an escape route.
And it all happened very quickly ... in the last 5 or so years.
None of us loathe our country ... after a certain age ... there's not much we CAN do .. but talk.
Cherish your youth and your health.
And if you feel so strongly .. get into the fight you accuse others of shunning ... I'll be watching the papers and news reports.
Mark Twain put it best:
“History doesn't repeat itself, but it does rhyme.”
I would also like to note that fascist control of the economy and “starving out of entrepreneurs” exists on a spectrum. It isn't possible kill the market or entrepreneurship. Like the poor, they will be with us always.
What a fascist-leaning government can do is make it impossible for an entrepreneur to succeed without the government allowing him to do so. As it moves farther down (or up) the the scale to extreme fascism, the entrepreneur must pay more and more homage to government, politicians and bureaucrats. This homage becomes just one part, and an increasingly controlling part, of the environment in which the unkillable market operates.
We are being plundered and dismantled by foreign and domestic totalitarians FORCING us to comply with their dictates/mandates.
DEFUND socialist/totalitarian collectives, foreign and domestic. DEPOPULATE socialists/totalitarians from all legislatures state and federal.
Above all, if you wish to be strong, begin by rooting out every particle of socialism that may have crept into your legislation. This will be no light task. - The Law; Bastiat 1801-1850
live - free - republic
Knarf, See post number 13, from the head stooge. He forwarded his msg to the other three stooges.
They have yet to offer one single suggestion as to what I could do to ease their pain...They are just pissed that I have a life and they do not. Slick use to say..”I feel your pain”..Sorry, but I do not feel theirs. America has been attacked only by its own citizens.
I am an American back to my great great great uncle, the Uncle Sam, 1812, but America has left me, and the four stooges can do nothing to save her.
They have yet suggested one single thing that we, or they, can do.
This is why I called them “dogs in a manger”, a term that they had no clue about.
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