(For @thanatoz per her request, and for my blog readers)
Yes, things are crazy and seemingly getting worse day by day hour after hour. It's certainly not the first time and we hope it is the last. The parallels are numerous and severe. First of all, I should say that I'm going to use US History as my examples as I studied it in college. A few examples: the repeats of the Great Recession, the repeats of the Great Depression, the financial crisis of 1819 - like most of our financial crises - the list goes on and on. The recession was caused by the exact same things they did to cause the great depression - merging of personal and investment banking, regulations repealed to invite corruption, massive pulling from taxes to give to the rich as benefits and bonuses, defunding from numerous social programs to fuel the corruption, massive negative impacts on the citizens cornering of the masses in hardships with few options leading to mass discontent, suffering and struggling. Whenever you see the repeal of Dodd-Frank and Glass-Steagel, you know that another corruption boom and bust cycle is about to come. With those still removed, the gates are still open. Hence why they started doing the exact same things, just under different names and terms, that caused the Great Recession and have been doing so since 2015.
The financial crisis of 1819 was pretty similar. You see how much the country was divided by racism, monied-interests are basically running things via mafia control, a pandemic is ravaging the masses, the economy is collapsing, so much so, in fact, that our dollar completely lost it's value! All while James Monroe was President, mind you. We've been down this road time and time again. We average a financial crisis every 20 years in the US. Professor Richard Wolff says we average a financial crash every 4 to 7 years. From what the Professor and many of his colleagues say, the crash started in February of 2020 and things are going to be very bad for millions of people and many businesses - big and small - come January 1st 2021 and the following months. Millions are about to be hit with heavy burdens through evictions, rent demands, court proceedings, et cetera. Many businesses have been floating on paying their monthly debt payments and have to take out loans - debt on top of debt - making them something called "zombie" companies and when their shit hits next year, multiple brankruptcies are expected, even more big businesses will cease to be. Among many other concerns.
Well, after two meaty paragraphs, you've probably been wondering when I'm going to talk about how it's not all bad. Frankly, it's not an easy thing for me to do, or any reasonable person, I would think. There's way too much bullshit and not enough awesome. Too much vituperative and not enough salubrious. However, history and logic dictate that, yes, indeed, we can and shall overcome this nightmarish reality as we have before.
It can come down to fundamental principles. A basic one being that there are strength in numbers, historians and anthropoligists could argue at great length about how many times our species have overcome worse situations and worse odds. Another principle is that most people are good in nature by default. So, we have the numbers on our side and the perceptions aligned to do morally correct things. The processes are not fast or easy, however, so there in lies some major challenges.
That go me thinking.
How long does it take for these events throughout history to turn out for the better? Is there an average?
It's hard to say. The events that lead up to the Great Depression are constant and/or reoccuring problems. We are still dealing with them. When did they start? Pretty much since the Puritans. So, pretty much since 1500. Well, probably more like 1600, when the slave trade was first becoming a thing. Reminder: the slave trade was brought to the New World by the Puritans because of their economy and way of life taking hits and having struggles, their literal interpretations of the Bible makes slavery acceptable, and with the Quakers arriving and just being better all around. That's when we see some of these foolish corporation laws and economic standards start. Famously around 1619 when the slave trade became officially open in what would become the USA. Earliest record of slave trade on US soil, that I recall from my college studies, was in 1607 by the Puritans with journal references of earlier trades.
Anyway, with the problems being pervasive since almost 200 years before the ratification of The Declaration of Independence, it is better to look at the periods of time when there were years of transformation and change, then the years following until the point of the return of the old pervasive bullshit.
From the perspective of the Civil War, the heavy amount of division happened in the 1850's, the fall and virtual disappearance of the The Whig party and majority, the infamous election of 1860, the cessation of states and the following 5 year war, THEN just over 13 years of Reconstruction. Of course, things went back to normal and we had about a decade of decency before things turned again.
From the perspective of the Great Depression, it lasted a full decade as far as records are concerned from 1929 - 1939, during that time they implemented the New Deal which ends in 1939 along with the Depression, both ending because of the start of World War 2 from 1939 to 1945. It get mixed into so much other stuff, it gets easier to see how they have used it as a playbook for the Great Recession and more. Arguably, you get a couple decades before things start taking turns in the 70's and change the economic landscape in the 80's.
The list of examples and similarities goes on and on.
We get these... pockets, for lack of a better term, in time where things look up and are good, generally speaking. As to be expected, living in the chaos realm, as it were, as the cliche goes, "it's always darkest just before the dawn".
We have been suffering and struggling for too much for far too long. The tunnel has been very dark and some light may very well be shining at the end. We will, as we must, take on even more hardship to overcome all the hardship we already have. It is the work of all of us, as many of the good people as we can get, to come together and dwarf the minorities in power that manipulate and disadvantage the people. We are looking at another grand bust cycle causing massive distress and discomfort. Things have to get worse before they get better. Since we know far too many people are still comfortable enough not to act still, then we know we still haven't passed our tipping point.
After the tipping point, we go into depression and reconstruction modes. After those modes, we get civility and prosperity. It will be upon our shoulders to ensure that the future generations, that will not experience these hardships, understand how not to repeat the mistakes of the past. The very challenge previous attempts have failed at or, otherwise, were successful then got overturned.
History keeps repeating.
We are poised in a grand position in time. We can choose how history repeats.
Do we want to show how we can cultivate grand societies, economies, and philosophies? Greece showed us how. The Roman Empire stole and expanded on it, as they did. A great deal of the world has benefited from a well informed public. The majority of our prosperity as a species comes from cultivating reason and harvesting logic. We tend to be pushed in that direction as a species when large portions of us are suffering and struggling too much for too long. They demand and enforce change.
It looks like we are at it again.
Maybe we'll point ourselves in the direction of becoming a Type 1 civilization.
I dare to dream.
It's not all bad. Just a lot of it. If we take it on, after the battles and reconstruction, we can expect some years of civility and prosperity for as long as we maintain it.