Timeline of a Democratic Country - Are We Just About to the End?

[KMAN]

I saw this somewhere, don't know if it's true and it has probably already been posted sometime back but it's interesting to see where we are in our timeline...

It's funny how the founders of this country fled a government that told them what to do yet now we are going right back to it...

The average age of the world's greatest civilizations from the beginning of history, has been about 200 years. During those 200 years, these nations always progressed through the following sequence.


From Bondage to spiritual faith;
From spiritual faith to great courage;
From courage to liberty;
From liberty to abundance;
From abundance to complacency;
From complacency to apathy;
From apathy to dependence;
From dependence back into bondage."

Where do you think we are right now?

 

[editec]

Yup!

But here's something to consider...fish rot from the head first.

My point?

It's not the people who cause the downfall of societies, it's the leadership.

It's ALWAYS the leadership which forgets that the people come first.

 

[Mad Scientist]

Yup!
But here's something to consider...fish rot from the head first.
My point?
It's not the people who cause the downfall of societies, it's the leadership.
It's ALWAYS the leadership which forgets that the people come first.

True, but it's always been my belief that stupid people elect stupid leaders.

KMAN I believe that's called the "Taylor Cycle". I would put us somewhere between "From complacency to apathy" and "From apathy to dependence".

 

[KMAN]

I think we are just beginning this pahes.

From apathy to dependence

 

[Avatar4321]

I think this is cyclical. Its like the pride cycle:

We start out humble
We prosper
We beecome arrogant
We destroy ourselves

Then it starts all over again.

Its a cycle. We will survive though many will perish. And those who survive will be humble and prepared to lead to a new brighter future.

The thing is, the greater the prosperity and pride, the greater the fall. It took nearly 1000 years for a nation as great as the Roman Republic to rise. How long are we going to be on the bottom of the rung before we can start the uptake? Who knows.

 

[midcan5]

Where would Lincoln, FDR or LBJ fit here I wonder. Seems they broke this pattern.


From bondage to spiritual faith
* From spiritual faith to great courage
* From great courage to liberty
* From liberty to abundance
* From abundance to selfishness
* From selfishness to complacency
* From complacency to apathy
* From apathy to dependence
* From dependence back to bondage

Source: In the early 1700s, Professor Alexander Tyler wrote this
about the fall of the Athenian republic over a thousand years ago.

 

[mattskramer]

I disagree – at least with respect to America. I doubt that America’s timeline is linear but circular – so to speak. If America moves too far to the left (too far the wrong way in some people’s views) then we will move back to the right. Some people might be sheep but I doubt that most people are so blind and easily led. If America becomes more and more socialistic and, as a result, America goes too far “down hill”, then more and more people will become dissatisfied and vote for conservatives/Republicans and people who will vote to return us to earlier policies and ways of life. Carter brought us Reagan. Perhaps Obama will bring us another right-wing conservative to repair mistakes that some people think that he is making.

 

[mattskramer]

I think this is cyclical. Its like the pride cycle:

We start out humble
We prosper
We beecome arrogant
We destroy ourselves

Then it starts all over again.

Its a cycle. We will survive though many will perish. And those who survive will be humble and prepared to lead to a new brighter future.

The thing is, the greater the prosperity and pride, the greater the fall. It took nearly 1000 years for a nation as great as the Roman Republic to rise. How long are we going to be on the bottom of the rung before we can start the uptake? Who knows.

I sort of agree but I don’t think that it will come to the point of us destroying ourselves. The point at which we revert back will be when most people say, “Damn, I don’t l the direction that we are going!”

 

[sealybobo]

I saw this somewhere, don't know if it's true and it has probably already been posted sometime back but it's interesting to see where we are in our timeline...

It's funny how the founders of this country fled a government that told them what to do yet now we are going right back to it...

The average age of the world's greatest civilizations from the beginning of history, has been about 200 years. During those 200 years, these nations always progressed through the following sequence.


From Bondage to spiritual faith;
From spiritual faith to great courage;
From courage to liberty;
From liberty to abundance;
From abundance to complacency;
From complacency to apathy;
From apathy to dependence;
From dependence back into bondage."

Where do you think we are right now?

Actually, we are at a crossroad right now but I don't think you understand what the choices are.

Either We the People come first or the Corporations come first.

If the corporations come first, bye bye middle class. We already see how much it shrunk under Bush.

We have 60 votes in the Senate, a majority in the House and we have the White House, plus we have 72% approval/mandate from the American people. It will never get any better than this.

Just watch and see how much power the corporations have even though we control the entire government.

Stop your bs that the dems are socialists. They serve the corporations too.

 

[Annie]

I saw this somewhere, don't know if it's true and it has probably already been posted sometime back but it's interesting to see where we are in our timeline...

It's funny how the founders of this country fled a government that told them what to do yet now we are going right back to it...

The average age of the world's greatest civilizations from the beginning of history, has been about 200 years. During those 200 years, these nations always progressed through the following sequence.


From Bondage to spiritual faith;
From spiritual faith to great courage;
From courage to liberty;
From liberty to abundance;
From abundance to complacency;
From complacency to apathy;
From apathy to dependence;
From dependence back into bondage."

Where do you think we are right now?

Actually, we are at a crossroad right now but I don't think you understand what the choices are.

Either We the People come first or the Corporations come first.

If the corporations come first, bye bye middle class. We already see how much it shrunk under Bush.

We have 60 votes in the Senate, a majority in the House and we have the White House, plus we have 72% approval/mandate from the American people. It will never get any better than this.

Just watch and see how much power the corporations have even though we control the entire government.

Stop your bs that the dems are socialists. They serve the corporations too.

It's not just Bush or Clinton, or Reagan or Eisenhower who were under the influence of business. In fact, some of the smartest men around always thought the two went hand-in-glove. To change things around, that business is always 'evil' is a recipe for disaster:

International variation in the business-government interface: institutional and organizational considerations. (01-JAN-95) Academy of Management Review

International variation in the business-government interface: institutional and organizational considerations.
Publication: Academy of Management Review

Publication Date: 01-JAN-95

Author: Hillman, Amy ; Keim, Gerald
Scholars and practitioners from Adam Smith and Alexander Hamilton to Lester Thurow and Robert Reich have been concerned with the impact of government policies on business activities and, simultaneously, with the efforts by businesses to influence government policies. Alleged benefits of the consultative interaction of business and government in select European and Asian economies and the debate about explicit expansion of industrial policies in the United States are current examples underscoring the public policy significance of the relationship between business and government. From a managerial perspective, government policies and business efforts to affect government policy decisions can have a profound impact on the success of business endeavors (Keim & Baysinger, 1988; Marcus, Kaufman, & Beam, 1987; Mitnick, 1993; Weidenbaum, 1980; Yoffie & Bergenstein, 1985). From the perspective of nations, some scholars contend that the business and government interface can have a substantial impact on the rate of economic growth, the composition of such growth, and the allocation of the benefits and costs of economic growth within countries (Reich, 1991; Thurow, 1992; Wilson, 1990).
....

 

[Douger]

The movie was over 3 or 4 years ago. You just didn't notice since you were enterTrained.

 

[sealybobo]

I saw this somewhere, don't know if it's true and it has probably already been posted sometime back but it's interesting to see where we are in our timeline...

It's funny how the founders of this country fled a government that told them what to do yet now we are going right back to it...

The average age of the world's greatest civilizations from the beginning of history, has been about 200 years. During those 200 years, these nations always progressed through the following sequence.


From Bondage to spiritual faith;
From spiritual faith to great courage;
From courage to liberty;
From liberty to abundance;
From abundance to complacency;
From complacency to apathy;
From apathy to dependence;
From dependence back into bondage."

Where do you think we are right now?

Actually, we are at a crossroad right now but I don't think you understand what the choices are.

Either We the People come first or the Corporations come first.

If the corporations come first, bye bye middle class. We already see how much it shrunk under Bush.

We have 60 votes in the Senate, a majority in the House and we have the White House, plus we have 72% approval/mandate from the American people. It will never get any better than this.

Just watch and see how much power the corporations have even though we control the entire government.

Stop your bs that the dems are socialists. They serve the corporations too.

It's not just Bush or Clinton, or Reagan or Eisenhower who were under the influence of business. In fact, some of the smartest men around always thought the two went hand-in-glove. To change things around, that business is always 'evil' is a recipe for disaster:

International variation in the business-government interface: institutional and organizational considerations. (01-JAN-95) Academy of Management Review

International variation in the business-government interface: institutional and organizational considerations.
Publication: Academy of Management Review

Publication Date: 01-JAN-95

Author: Hillman, Amy ; Keim, Gerald
Scholars and practitioners from Adam Smith and Alexander Hamilton to Lester Thurow and Robert Reich have been concerned with the impact of government policies on business activities and, simultaneously, with the efforts by businesses to influence government policies. Alleged benefits of the consultative interaction of business and government in select European and Asian economies and the debate about explicit expansion of industrial policies in the United States are current examples underscoring the public policy significance of the relationship between business and government. From a managerial perspective, government policies and business efforts to affect government policy decisions can have a profound impact on the success of business endeavors (Keim & Baysinger, 1988; Marcus, Kaufman, & Beam, 1987; Mitnick, 1993; Weidenbaum, 1980; Yoffie & Bergenstein, 1985). From the perspective of nations, some scholars contend that the business and government interface can have a substantial impact on the rate of economic growth, the composition of such growth, and the allocation of the benefits and costs of economic growth within countries (Reich, 1991; Thurow, 1992; Wilson, 1990).
....

Are you saying it would be a mistake to try and change the fact that the rich run/own/control this country and our politicians?

Some of us understand seperation of church and state but they don't understand seperation of state and corporations.

Along with the answer to this question, we may also find the answer to another question historians have asked for two centuries: Why was the Constitutional Convention held in secret behind locked doors, and why did James Madison not publish his own notes of the Convention until 1840, just after the last of the other participants had died?

The reason, simply put, was that most of the wealthy men among the delegates were betraying the interests of their own economic class. They were voting for democracy instead of oligarchy.

As with any political body, a few of the delegates, "a dozen at the outside" according to McDonald, "clearly acted according to the dictates of their personal economic interests."

But there were larger issues at stake. The people who hammered out the Constitution had such a strong feeling of history and destiny that it at times overwhelmed them.

They realized that in the seven-thousand-year history of what they called civilization, only once before, in Athens - and then only for the brief flicker of a few centuries - had anything like a democracy ever been brought into existence and survived more than a generation.

Their writings show that they truly believed they were doing sacred work, something greater than themselves, their personal interests, or even the narrow interests of their wealthy constituents back in their home states.

They believed they were altering the course of world history, and that if they got it right we could truly create a better world.

Thus the secrecy, the locked doors, the intensity of the Constitutional Convention. And thus the willingness to set aside economic interest to produce a document - admittedly imperfect - that would establish an enduring beacon of liberty for the world.

As George Washington, who presided over the Constitutional Convention, wrote to the nation on September 17, 1787 when "transmitting the Constitution" to the people of the new nation: "In all our deliberations on this subject we kept steadily in our view, that which appears to us the greatest interest of every true American, the consolidation of our Union, in which is involved our prosperity, felicity, safety, perhaps our national existence."

He concluded with his "most ardent wish" was that the Constitution "may promote the lasting welfare of that country so dear to us all, and secure her freedom and happiness..."

Since the so-called "Reagan revolution" more than cut in half the income taxes the multimillionaires and billionaires among us pay, wealth has concentrated in America in ways not seen since the era of the Robber Barons, or, before that, pre-revolutionary colonial times. At the same time, poverty has exploded and the middle class is under economic siege.

And now come the oligarchs - the most wealthy and powerful families of America - lobbying Congress that they should retain their stupefying levels of wealth and the power it brings, generation after generation. They say that democracy doesn't require a strong middle class, and that Jefferson was wrong when he said that "overgrown wealth" could be "dangerous to the State." They say that a permanent, hereditary, aristocratically rich ruling class is actually a good thing for the stability of society.

How Rich is Too Rich For Democracy?

 

[Annie]

Actually, we are at a crossroad right now but I don't think you understand what the choices are.

Either We the People come first or the Corporations come first.

If the corporations come first, bye bye middle class. We already see how much it shrunk under Bush.

We have 60 votes in the Senate, a majority in the House and we have the White House, plus we have 72% approval/mandate from the American people. It will never get any better than this.

Just watch and see how much power the corporations have even though we control the entire government.

Stop your bs that the dems are socialists. They serve the corporations too.

It's not just Bush or Clinton, or Reagan or Eisenhower who were under the influence of business. In fact, some of the smartest men around always thought the two went hand-in-glove. To change things around, that business is always 'evil' is a recipe for disaster:

International variation in the business-government interface: institutional and organizational considerations. (01-JAN-95) Academy of Management Review

International variation in the business-government interface: institutional and organizational considerations.
Publication: Academy of Management Review

Publication Date: 01-JAN-95

Author: Hillman, Amy ; Keim, Gerald
Scholars and practitioners from Adam Smith and Alexander Hamilton to Lester Thurow and Robert Reich have been concerned with the impact of government policies on business activities and, simultaneously, with the efforts by businesses to influence government policies. Alleged benefits of the consultative interaction of business and government in select European and Asian economies and the debate about explicit expansion of industrial policies in the United States are current examples underscoring the public policy significance of the relationship between business and government. From a managerial perspective, government policies and business efforts to affect government policy decisions can have a profound impact on the success of business endeavors (Keim & Baysinger, 1988; Marcus, Kaufman, & Beam, 1987; Mitnick, 1993; Weidenbaum, 1980; Yoffie & Bergenstein, 1985). From the perspective of nations, some scholars contend that the business and government interface can have a substantial impact on the rate of economic growth, the composition of such growth, and the allocation of the benefits and costs of economic growth within countries (Reich, 1991; Thurow, 1992; Wilson, 1990).
....

Are you saying it would be a mistake to try and change the fact that the rich run/own/control this country and our politicians?

Some of us understand seperation of church and state but they don't understand seperation of state and corporations.

Along with the answer to this question, we may also find the answer to another question historians have asked for two centuries: Why was the Constitutional Convention held in secret behind locked doors, and why did James Madison not publish his own notes of the Convention until 1840, just after the last of the other participants had died?

The reason, simply put, was that most of the wealthy men among the delegates were betraying the interests of their own economic class. They were voting for democracy instead of oligarchy.

As with any political body, a few of the delegates, "a dozen at the outside" according to McDonald, "clearly acted according to the dictates of their personal economic interests."

But there were larger issues at stake. The people who hammered out the Constitution had such a strong feeling of history and destiny that it at times overwhelmed them.

They realized that in the seven-thousand-year history of what they called civilization, only once before, in Athens - and then only for the brief flicker of a few centuries - had anything like a democracy ever been brought into existence and survived more than a generation.

Their writings show that they truly believed they were doing sacred work, something greater than themselves, their personal interests, or even the narrow interests of their wealthy constituents back in their home states.

They believed they were altering the course of world history, and that if they got it right we could truly create a better world.

Thus the secrecy, the locked doors, the intensity of the Constitutional Convention. And thus the willingness to set aside economic interest to produce a document - admittedly imperfect - that would establish an enduring beacon of liberty for the world.

As George Washington, who presided over the Constitutional Convention, wrote to the nation on September 17, 1787 when "transmitting the Constitution" to the people of the new nation: "In all our deliberations on this subject we kept steadily in our view, that which appears to us the greatest interest of every true American, the consolidation of our Union, in which is involved our prosperity, felicity, safety, perhaps our national existence."

He concluded with his "most ardent wish" was that the Constitution "may promote the lasting welfare of that country so dear to us all, and secure her freedom and happiness..."

Since the so-called "Reagan revolution" more than cut in half the income taxes the multimillionaires and billionaires among us pay, wealth has concentrated in America in ways not seen since the era of the Robber Barons, or, before that, pre-revolutionary colonial times. At the same time, poverty has exploded and the middle class is under economic siege.

And now come the oligarchs - the most wealthy and powerful families of America - lobbying Congress that they should retain their stupefying levels of wealth and the power it brings, generation after generation. They say that democracy doesn't require a strong middle class, and that Jefferson was wrong when he said that "overgrown wealth" could be "dangerous to the State." They say that a permanent, hereditary, aristocratically rich ruling class is actually a good thing for the stability of society.

How Rich is Too Rich For Democracy?

Why am I unsurprised you failed to understand the argument wasn't made by me, but by progressives such as Adam Smith and Alexander Hamilton to Lester Thurow and Robert Reich?