It feels like the end of an era. The dollar and the geopolitical economic system that has backed it up since Nixon is in free fall, commodity prices are skyrocketing, and all we know about the current economic crisis is that we know nothing. Obama has redefined politicking, with every contrived scandal from madrassas to Bittergate falling flat. The pundits, highly-paid consultants, and sound-bite spin doctors, once masters of the political universe, are fading into ineffectuality and irrelevance. The old system is dead.
I am not a historian. I took few history classes in college, and in the ones that I did I focused on Byzantine history, not American (nor do I wear a flag lapel pin....). Thus, my historical thinking has not really been rigorously trained, nor have any theories of mine been exposed to the harsh light of questioning. I have not been vetted, so to speak.
This might be the first part of a series. In the next part I will try to put together a political economy of the various party systems in U.S. history, and maybe how they match up with generational cycles. If I feel like it. Anyway, more after the fold....
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