Is history cyclical?

[BigMcLargehuge]

Is history cyclical?

Here I am sitting in my Brother’s kitchen looking over the book he offered me as a belated birthday present, “Dr. Seuss Goes to War” featuring a huindred or so cartoons from his stint as an editorial cartoonist during the 1940’s. As I read through each one it becomes more and more clear that several, if not half, of those cartoons apply directly to the state of the Union circa 2003.





Then,

Last night I’m listening to Mike Malloy rail against showing the dead bodies of Uday and Qusay Hussein and PAM. He bumpers the segment with a snippet of “The Bravery of Being out of Range” from Roger Waters 1991 album Amused to Death.



I have this CD downstairs. I haven’t listened to it in 10 years. I get it, rip it to my iMac, start listening while I reread the Seuss book.

“Crikey” I say “This is all so applicable...”

So what’s next? If history is cyclical what era can we expect to rear its head from this four year stretch of strife and worry? A return to the crazed conformity and consumerism of the 50s? A depression and massive internal strife a-la the 30’s? The widespread unreast of the 60’s? Or do we go all the way back to 1916, 1861, 1812, 1776, The French Revolution, The Crusades, The Fall of Rome, Greece, Egypt?

I guess I’m just tired, and maybe a little pessimistic (which is my nature anyway), but things seem to be sliding so fast now.... Our status among the other citizens of the world is diminised due to our beligerence, our arrogance, and our ignorance. Our economy continues to spiral towards the pipe end of the toilet. The ransk of the unemployed swell a little more every week.

People are getting desperate, frustrated, and angry. I know I am...

So where do we go? How do we pull the US back from the brink? Surely we can’t put all our eggs in the 2004 election basket, because the other guys have already proven they can and will circumvent the will of the people to retain their hold on power.... Can we work from the bottom up, enter and win local elections, then state, then federal? Will it make a difference? Is there enough time, or have we frittered away what little reaction time we had? I suppose the only other option is bottles, rocks, and molotov coctails in the streets, but I hope not.

What do we do? We’ve let them set the stage and now we have to play, but who has the script?

Okay, my self indulgent rant ends here. I’m just going to listen to Amused to Death and stew for a while. Who knows, maybe I’ll come up with an answer.

[SheepyMcSheepster]

1. what god wants god gets

nt

[DemocratSinceBirth]

The March of History

is linear with the eventual triumph of the proletariat.


This will occur sometime in 2525.

[DemocratSinceBirth]

2. The March of History

is linear with the eventual triumph of the proletariat.


This will occur sometime in 2525.

[DemocratSinceBirth]

3. The March of History

is linear with the eventual triumph of the proletariat.


This will occur sometime in 2525.

[DemocratSinceBirth]

4. Will The Mod

please remove the repetitive posts

[BigMcLargehuge]

5. and how

is that intentional or a software glitch?

[bif]

6. "History may not repeat itself, but it does rhyme."

Great quote. Not sure who said it.

[Shipwack]

7. Not necessarily...

History does not always repeat itself. Sometimes it merely shouts "Weren't you listening the first time?!?" and lets fly with a club. - unknown (at least by me and Google)

[HawkerHurricane]

9. Terry Pratchett

In the book "Thief of Time". See my sig line.

Also

History does not repeat itself, historians repeat each other.

And

History repeats itself, the first time as a tragedy, the second as a farce.

[LuminousX]

8. Yes

http://www.stygianlabyrinth.net/ariadne/articles/lawofcircles.html

But not an exact circle, more of a tightly wound spiral.

[BigMcLargehuge]

10. Interesting article

the childbirth example was a good one, add to that the slow food movement, home schooling, and a host of other cultural practices.

[sam sarrha]

11. in science [chemistry] there is the of "Law Mass Action", it states...

...that, "when all the elements for something to happen,..it probably will". so when you have a corrupt system of campain contributions from busisness and greed plus the power of curupt beligerant politicians = Fascism. throw in some religious extremism, and technology to alter the vote, and stacking the courts to reinterperate the protections developed over the last 228 years, add a wet brain drunk for president and you get a common cycle of history. sounds like about 1939........maybe so