Caesar

One of the useful attributes of generational theory is seeing extreme change as a natural part of history, and by extension of everyday life. 

Without it, it would seem ridiculous to suggest that the United States is entering a new civil war, or that the next two or four or eight years could be as bad as World War II. Instead, these declarations are backed up by a half-dozen year of posts on related topics; a decade of pushing this theory on anyone who will listen; and a twenty-five-year-old book that has forecast much of what has happened since it was published. 

Twenty-five years ago, the idea that the next president of the United States would be its last was extreme. Now, well, it’s a possibility.

Which is all prologue, a way to point out that this isn’t intended as hyperbole, or demonization. It’s just how history is working out.

Surprises

The empire of Japan achieved a stunning tactical victory when it snuck a half-dozen aircraft carriers across the Pacific in early December 1941. On the bright Sunday morning that was December 7, waves of planes attacked American ships and sailors in Pearl Harbor. Wielding bombs and air-launched torpedoes, Mitsubishi Zeroes left the pride of the American Pacific fleet as smoking hulks. Japan had gained unchallenged control of the western Pacific. 

For about 6 months. 

It was in May 1942 that the Battle of Midway revealed that the Americans had quickly learned the importance of air power. (The ability to crack Japan's  cryptography was also very helpful.) The victory there showed that the United States was going to fight back forcefully in response to the Day of Infamy. It took almost three more years of fierce fighting to move across other Pacific islands, but that December morning had given Americans all the incentive they needed. Soon, bombers were able to reach from American bases there to the Japanese home islands.

On July 16, 1945, the Trinity test confirmed the ability to trigger an atomic explosion using plutonium, in a weapon nicknamed "Fat Man". That same day, the USS Indianapolis departed San. Francisco with the "Little Boy" uranium device. It would arrive at Tinian ten days later. Only a week and a half passed before the Little Boy was loaded onto the Enola Gay and dropped upon Hiroshima. Three days after that, on August 9, a Fat Man was dropped on Nagasaki.

On August 15, less than a week later, Japan announced that it would be surrendering. Less than a month after the Trinity test, the war was over. The United States had achieved a surprise victory, one that avoided the need for a full invasion of the Japanese home islands which would likely have resulted in millions of American and Japanese casualties. 

The unexpected power vacuum was noticed quickly in a little-remarked area of Southeast Asia. After Japan's announcement of surrender, revolutionary forces immediately took control of Vietnam. In the North, anyway - Ho Chi Minh's Viet Minh were unable to do the same in the more diverse South of the country before Allied troops took over a month later. The division between north and south accentuated by the sudden changes would lead to nearly thirty years of war involving the French and, later, the United States. 

Great tactical successes may require surprise. They can also change power structures and invite a disproportionate response. Someone who has enjoyed an unexpected victory, however well-deserved, may want to keep this in mind. 

The Surprising 9/11 Response

If the planners of the 9/11 attacks really expected no immediate and deadly response, from Bush or any American president, they were a lot dumber than their planning indicated.

The source for this assertion is the man called the mastermind of the attacks, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, through a book by James E. Mitchell. Rather than taking this at face value, it may be worth considering the advantages that both men have in proposing an alternative narrative at this time. Revealing that Khalid Mohammed talked to him about what went wrong makes Mitchell seem like a hero. Calling Bush's response effective encourages a Republican government to repeat the mistakes made then.

The 9/11 attacks were planned to destroy the Twin Towers, the Pentagon, and the U.S. Capitol, using 4 airplanes with more innocent civilians aboard. The Towers alone could have meant the death of ten thousand people, and I recall estimates of up to fifty thousand on that day. It was fortunate, as far as it goes, that total casualties were only three thousand, with one of the terrorist cells unable to complete its mission. The 9/11 attacks were the deadliest day on American soil since Antietam, 149 years earlier. and comparable to Pearl Harbor, 60 years earlier. Knowing ahead of time the magnitude of expected casualties, and believing the response would be comparable to, say, the 1993 Twin Towers attack that was less than 1% as deadly, requires a vast misunderstanding of not just American policy but of human psychology.

When there are complaints about George W. Bush, they are usually not that his response was too violent or immediate. It’s that he went into Afghanistan, “The Graveyard of Empires,” with no plan for success or withdrawal. It’s that he set up a “detention center” that was not suitable either as POW camp or for civilian prosecution. It’s that a year later he pushed through an attack on Iraq using bogus intelligence fed to the United Nations. It’s that the Iraq war similarly had no realistic plan for success. It’s that the United States still has people in both of these war zones 16 YEARS after the 9/11 attacks that Bush so brilliantly responded too.

Responding quickly and militarily wasn't a mistake. Everything else was.

Don't Mess With the Hufflepuffs

At the Hogwart’s School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, House Hufflepuff is where you go if you value the attributes of friendship, loyalty, and hard work. We don’t see a lot of Hufflepuffs over the series. Harry Potter and the other main characters are in Gryffindor, while their enemies are mostly Slytherin. Hufflepuff seems on the surface like some sort of Isle of Misfit Toys, a place to go if you don't fit elsewhere. And despite the impressive skills of dueling champion Cedric Diggory or auror Nympadora Tonks, there’s a tendency to think of them as relatively weak.

In the rich world of Harry Potter fan fiction, the limited activities of Hufflepuffs has lead to speculation of what it would mean to be in that house. One possibility considered is that they may avoid the downsides of inclusiveness by working well together, being individually unexceptional but collectively United. 

Which could be summarized as: Attacking one Hufflepuff is a good way to get a pack of Hufflepuffs returning fire. 

Or put another way: Don't Mess With Hufflepuff. 

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There had been speculation in recent weeks, before the presidential election, about what would happen when Trump lost. Supporters had made comments about picking up their muskets, and fears of altright and militia groups taking up arms in

protest were out there.

There was much less talk about what would happen if Trump won. That was at least partly due to the consideration that his victory was an unlikely event. The expectations that weak, unarmed Blue-state Hillary supporters would certainly be opposed to anything gauche or crude as physical violence may have had a part, too. 

Which was a bad assumption on the face of it, one that Trump supporters in Blue states could easily advise you on. Even now.

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Some friends were complaining about Millennial reactions to the election results, such as “cry-in” days at universities and protests on the streets. One common meme has been a comparison between 18-year-olds storming Normandy with college students needing a safe space.

It’s worth noting that the average age was closer to 25, and that many of the young men there would have been blooded in Tunisia and Sicily. Those who made it to Normandy had been through an extensive training period that weeded out anyone constitutionally unable to be part of such an endeavor. The further one digs into what was really involved, the more you find that the comparison is not nearly as simple as this meme suggests.

It’s also somewhat ironic from a generational view, since the guys who coined “Millennials” in 1991 also predicted that they would be of a similar generational type as the GI or “Greatest” generation, the very ones who had landed at Normandy and advanced to Berlin.

The assumption of this part of the generational model is that generations like GenX, relatively neglected by parents during childhood, would supervise and support their children to a much higher degree. They would make “kids look alike and work together” and “implant civic virtue.” Working well is not valued quite as much as working well as a group. That means being exceptional isn’t a prize, while being part of the team is - and that is what a participation trophy is for, isn’t it?

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Millennials are Hufflepuffs, not necessarily exceptional individually, but able to work together and bring collective firepower to bear. Whatever their political leaning, don’t assume that they will lie down or roll over in response to adversity. They were told from the start to watch out for the people around them, to help them out and work with them. Sometimes that will mean joining the armed services  - like on September 12, 2001, when any young new recruits would certainly have been millennials.  Other times it will mean taking to the street in protest against a lawful result they don’t understand or accept. It’s all part of these ingrained personal attributes, the same personal attributes that helped those Normandy attackers win World War II. Take seriously that they will go after any perceived enemy, wands a-blazing. 

Crisis, Cloverfield, Et Cetera

Another little while since trying this.

Crisis: Problems in Michigan cities, warning of a Fiscal Crisis, Weapons of Math Destruction about the once and future financial crisis, and opioids in Ontario

Apocalypse: A few Trump == Apocalypse items, go figure.

Collapse: South China Sea fishery - which references the Chinese claims to an extraordinary area, one that could turn into a shooting war, eventually. Although less so if the fish are all gone, no doubt.

Cloverfield: Okay, so in part the recent news about closing Santa Monica airport is what jogged the memory of this anyway,but 10 Cloverfield Lane was released on DVD a few weeks ago.

A bit more diverse results than previous searches for these sorts of indicators. Maybe it means something, maybe not.

A Moment of Clarity

Today's problems won't be solved by looking to the past.

Reading through recent proposals of various sorts, including but not exclusively the Better Way proposed by Republican legislators, this truth has become clearer and clearer.

It's not that there's anything egregiously wrong with the ideas there. They are, however, more of the same, at least for Republicans: Smaller government, less regulation, lower taxes. If there was a counter from the other side of the aisle, it would likely be more of their same as well. Or looking at different problems in their same way: more gun control, more unions, more government to resolve any issue. It's not like those have worked so far, either. At this point, every ordinary way to fix what's wrong - whatever you think is wrong - has been proposed, debated, exaggerated, sometimes implemented, usually ignored.

Soon, a moment of clarity will occur. It always does.

Everyone will realize that there's not an alternate interpretation of the Constitution that will fix it all. Congress won't pass some law that will resolve all major problems to everyone's satisfaction. The next president won't magically realize how to convince the nation to enact policies that have been previously proposed over and over again.

We the people probably know the answer already, a certainty that we each hold onto, nursing quietly, acknowledging the difficulty, the problems we will have to endure, that personal disagreement - perhaps with some minor part - that keeps us from shouting out what should be done. 

In the early 1770s, options for taxation of the American colonies based on their representation in Parliament were brought up, debated, considered, sometimes approved, mostly ignored.

In the 1850s, there were multiple changes in how slavery was treated, sometimes in favor of the practice, sometimes not. Most of them satisfied few and antagonized everyone else, until the only solution was a war that effectively decided that slavery would no longer exist in the United States of America.

Today, different parts of the political spectrum propose what they consider appropriate ways to handle the economy, the role of government, the need for the populace to protect itself against the government, how the economy should work for the people, when the people should support the government...or not. Even if this isn't a problem that's well defined, it's clearly the case that a significant portion of the American people do not believe their government is helping them.

It's not relevant that the distrust of government is for different reasons, even antithetical ones. Trump supporters blame the Democrats, the elite, and immigrants. Sanders supporters blame the Republicans, the 1%, and banks. This fundamental distrust of existing institutions will eventually make it clear that the only resolution will come not from evolution, but from revolution - from a major change, not an incremental one.

There isn't a way out that will be painless, or perfect. What might have been proposed in the last year, decade, or half-century has already been debated endlessly.  If it's helpful there's no agreement; if there's agreement, it has downsides; if it's perfectly safe, it doesn't resolve anything.

This inability to do anything will end the only way it can. At some point, the standard options that have been chewed up and spat out will give way to options that are new, unexpected, creative - dangerous - not standard at all. No more than it was a standard option to replace a British (but Catholic) king with a Dutch (but Protestant) one. Nor to say "we are leaving, you can't stop us, if you try it's war."   Nor to fight people who had been countrymen a few short months before.

Whatever this solution might be, there will be those who oppose it. There will be others who think it won't go far enough. When it is over, some will think the battle must continue. At the end, the predominant attitude may be relief that it has passed. 

It might turn out that some of today's concerns are a distraction, a minor discomfort, a sign/portent that's not close to the real problem. A few people killed during civil unrest, environmental issues, overreaching by the head of state - important to understanding the problem, if you look at it with the right sort of squint, but not the source nor target of solutions. 

And of course, a moment's thought brings a reminder that this has all been said before, and surely will be said again. 

The dogmas of the quiet past are inadequate to the stormy present. The occasion is piled high with difficulty, and we must rise with the occasion. As our case is new, so we must think anew and act anew. We must disenthrall ourselves, and then we shall save our country.

A Fourth Turning is a point where there are no solutions available through appeals to history. Considering what They meant by how They set up the system will not help - whether that system was set up ten, twenty, one hundred, or five hundred years ago. Finding a solution will be the responsibility of today's living generations.

That's you and me.

Cultivate Patience and Keep Your Hands Clean

In this election year which feels too much like 1860, an obscure quote by Winston Churchill comes to mind. It's from page 91 of a 1961 book called "Official Secret." The author, Clayton Hutton, had worked for the Britsh military during World War II, creating equipment like silk maps, tiny compasses, and survival kits. With them, surviving crew members of shot-down aircraft could evade the enemy, and prisoners of war (POWs) could attempt escape and return to areas under Allied control. 

Although Churchill's name is not mentioned,  the allusions to the highest possible authority being a "cigar-smoking" "elderly gentleman" are clear enough. The meeting came about when Hutton had to justify having Red Cross parcels in his office. In his book he insists that he was only investigating their contents, not thinking of incorporating his escape tools into them. Including military supplies in Red Cross packages would have contravened the Geneva Conventions, and would also have risked having those parcels and others withheld from the POWs. He eventually used other channels to sneak in his inventions, such as "donations" to POW camps of unused books - which happened to have maps and currency hidden in their covers. 

Upon hearing Hutton's confirmation that his work had been legitimate, Churchill goes on to give a description of the planning for  the war:

Always remember that at the end of this war we want to be in a position to say that we fought and won it fairly. I think you’re trying to go much too quickly. Reconcile yourself to the fact that it takes us four years to attain victory. In the first year we have to sell the war to the public; in the second we are busy jiggering and tooling for the latest weapons; in the third supplies come pouring in; and in the fourth we press buttons everywhere and the enemy has a most unpleasant time. So cultivate patience and - keep your hands clean.

Which is quite good advice in general, and particularly here as we approach the peak of this Crisis.