Crisis Resurgent

This is about the Crisis. Nothing more nor less.

I was looking forward to an observation about the Regeneracy, which is a proposed mechanism in the generational model for how people start to take control of the Crisis period. The thought was that decisions in renewable energy - electric cars and solar on rooftops - indicated that we were no longer interested in solutions to terrorism that required violence.

And then Paris happened.

I've waited a day to write, and a day to post, and then another day to consider some more. I'm going to do my best not to make policy recommendations, or to blame, or to suggest that If Only X Then Not Paris. Not that it has really helped.

There are a limited number of reactions, to the current situation in Europe - and, if you like, the world.

A.We can accept that asymmetric warfare is a fact of life, that it's too clear that a single person can have an extreme impact, and therefore that every few years a dozen or a hundred or so will die for political causes. We will expect our government forces at all levels to do what they can to reduce such, but accept that they won't eliminate them. And if that means increased surveillance and drone strikes and  low-level combat, so it goes.

B. We can let other countries handle their own problems, and accept that they may have honor killings, destroy important cultural artifacts, and generally be unpleasant to the locals, potentially resulting in massive emigrations. We keep our nose out of such problems, and when someone points out that life sucks in Xlanistan, we can point to the results of these last 15 years for why we aren't going to do anything about it.

C. We can hold state or non-state actors responsible for actions they take responsibility for. If destroying them means destroying the other 90% of the country they currently occupy, then that's an unfortunate but unavoidable fact. Ignoring the Nazis for several years didn't bring World War II to a close any faster. We would have to mobilize in a real way to bring the problem to a resolution. While air strikes might be a part, boots on the ground, and lots of them, would have to be the goal, from the start and to the end.

Option A is the status quo, where we are now.  It's a pragmatic option, although it does imply ubiquitous government involvement in your life. You may need to send some of your offspring into harm's way, and/or they will be at risk of being in the dozen or hundred who die on occasion.

Option B should appeal if you like your own freedom and don't expect you can help with anyone else.  And it's really what we've done with problems in sub-Saharan Africa: Endless bloodshed and child armies? Make blood diamonds a thing and then ...  and people will forget about the rest. The idea that we can starve the beast by using renewable energy (i.e. not oil) supports this one. Although if we reduce the money flowing into the Middle East significantly, short-term disruptions might make the problems worse for a while. And it doesn't help with the emigration problem.

Option C, though, feels like the way things are headed. It may not occur without a really massive attack, and some will certainly say, like Pearl Harbor, such an attack could be a false flag in some way. Daesh is managing to push too many buttons, finding ways to make liberals and conservatives unhappy, that it will have to happen.

(Which seems so obvious, that couldn't there be a reason they are doing it? Do they believe that chaos is in their best interest? Attacks on the Muslim world getting Pakistan's nukes on the market, perhaps?)

Concerning which, notes of the sort "Where's the outrage on Lebanon/Baghdad/Kenya/Nasty Incident in Country Z" implicitly support Option C. If France is attacked because they are in Syria, then France can decide on a response. If everyone is being attacked everywhere, then it would seem a more unified resolution is called for. The clearer it becomes that this is a worldwide problem, the more it will require a forceful unified solution.

Not that I like the idea. It would mean, as David Kaiser noted, that the Crisis isn't going in a direction any of us might prefer. And it seems like what will happen next.

In 1991, Generations predicted that we would be in a Crisis period by now, and that the peak would start in 2020. That was a distant future date at the time, but is only half a decade away now. And a lot can happen in five years - I was thinking today how Pearl Harbor was only five years after Jesse Owens appeared in the Olympics in Berlin. Don't see how any of the options get better any time soon. 

Today in Crisis

Haven't done this in a while:

Crisis: Something new since last time: The migrant crisis in Europe, as Syrians attempt to leave their country and go anywhere that isn't torn apart by, well, by the kind of mess that Syria is right now.

Collapse:Not much, actually - some structural failures of various sorts, including one that killed a man who had noted safety issues at his worksite. Also, the president of France note the danger of a "collapse" of the Schengen border area because of the migrant crisis.

Apocalypse: Mostly about the upcoming X-Men movie, still. Although one story about how a meteor over Thailand brought fears of an "asteroid apocalypse."

Cloverfield: Nothing, really - a recent story from someone who liked the movie.

Maybe things are a little better. For a little while.

The Next Day

September 3, 1945, was a Monday - Labor Day, in fact. Japan's surrender had been signed the previous morning, and it was the first day of the post-World War II era.

Eleanor Roosevelt's daily article was about Labor Day. Not too surprising: she certainly had written many things ahead of time and it was probably not worthwhile to swap them out.  It doesn't mention the surrender of Japan or atomic bombs or anything about the war - perhaps, if you like, the tone suggests that she knew it would be over shortly

Trinity had been on Monday as well, exactly 7 weeks earlier - 49 days from that to the day after the end of the war. A lot had happened even in that short period of less than two months. It can be helpful to consider history in these smaller pieces, to realize how short or long some periods of time really are. They can make momentous events that much more comprehensible. 

George Orwell reviews Mein Kampf

Found on Twitter: Cory Doctorow posted a review of Mein Kampf by George Orwell. The date is given as March 1940 - which is to say, about six months after the invasion of Poland,  perhaps two before the invasion of France, during a period called the "Phoney War." While Hitler is recognized as the enemy of Britain, the review is almost matter-of-fact in tone, even when describing how Hitler's plans and philosophy appealed to the millions of (formerly) unemployed Germans.

For the purpose here, though, what's unexpected is how current it sounds. For example:

The Socialist who finds his children playing with soldiers is usually upset, but he is never able to think of a substitute for the tin soldiers; tin pacifists somehow won’t do. 

Or perhaps this assessment of the gap between progressive goals and human reality:

... [human beings] also, at least intermittently, want struggle and self-sacrifice, not to mention drums, flags and loyalty-parades. 

Other similarities are left as an exercise for the reader. Even if we aren't quite there yet, echoes are in the wind.

Capitol Investment

Here's a picture of the U.S. Capitol dome currently:

Here's one from 1861 - Lincoln's inauguration in March:

Crisis is a time for investment of all sorts, a time to repair and handle problems long put off. And here it is again.  Evidently there has been some significant damage to the dome since the last major restoration 55 years ago.

Although you have to think that the South should have seen that - a major addition to the existing government buildings for aesthetic reasons despite the pending conflict - and reconsidered secession...

Lana del Rabbit

Listening to Lana del Rey the other day, the idea that she was a Civic torch singer reminded me of Mrs. Jessica Rabbit.  Had anyone else thought of that idea? Well, yes - and fairly recently, at that.

Jessica Rabbit is the unexpectedly sultry wife of Roger Rabbit, in Who Framed Roger Rabbit. The movie is set in 1947, just after World War II. In addition to the persecution of Toons, it relies on post-war corruption as part of the tale.  Although her age is not precisely given, she appears to be in her 20s - perhaps early 30s -  which would have her born around or soon after 1917 - a solid Civic herself.

(Although, as a color Toon, she must be younger than Betty Boop, of course...)

In any case, Lana del Rey has been covering the Peggy Lee tune that Jessica Rabbit sang quite memorably. And she's been dressing up like her, as well.

Don's Monitor Top

Watching Singing in the Rain the other day and noticed that Gene Kelly's character, Don Lockwood, has a Monitor Top refrigerator in his kitchen. Which didn't seem anachronistic, necessarily, but didn't seem right, either.

Well, it's fine:As that earlier post noted, they were in production starting in 1925, a couple of years before The Jazz Singer came out.