Additional References
The Elliott Wave Theorist, September 1998
All government programs produce the opposite of what is intended. What will be the results of a government War on Terror ? If you think they will be anything other than a massive increase in terrorism, you should explain why this time will be an exception.
The Elliott Wave Theorist, September 11, 2001
A section on "Nuances" in Chapter 15 of The Wave Principle of Human Social Behavior explains that negative social themes due to appear in any approaching bear market first express themselves in milder form in the preceding fourth wave of one lesser degree. Stop for a minute until you get this idea. Here is a more detailed explanation: Social mood repeatedly traces out five waves up followed by three waves down. The negative themes in "wave four" within the "fives waves up" presage those that will dominate, more dramatically and on a much bigger scale, in the ensuing "three waves down."
This is true of the styles of cultural trends. For example, Psycho came out in 1962, at the end of a fourth wave correction of Primary degree. In the larger bear market of 1966-1982, slasher films (the Halloween and Friday the 13th series) were a dominant theme.
It is also true of the character of social events. In an earlier fourth wave from 1916 to 1921, collectivists took over Russia. In the larger fourth wave that followed, from 1929 to 1949, collectivists took over nearly half of the earth's population, in Germany, Italy, Eastern Europe and China.
In the current case, the most recent fourth wave of Cycle degree or higher took place from 1966 to 1982, roughly, "the '70s." Aside from a slew of terrorist incidents in the 1910s,* a decade dominated by a long bear market in stocks, the idea of "Terrorism" as a social force began with the 1966-1982 bear market. A 10-volume chronology of American social history over the last 100 years (American Decades, Manly Inc.) lists no acts of Terrorism in the 1920s, 1930s, 1940s, 1950s or the 1960s. In early 1970, when the Dow was in year four and the Value Line Composite in year two of a Cycle-degree bear market, the age of Terrorism began. An Arab terrorist strike killed one person and injured 23 in Munich. On February 21, 1970, another group of suspected Arabian terrorists hijacked a Swissair flight and crashed it. On September 6-9, 1970, Palestinian terrorists hijacked five planes and blew up three. Unlike the earlier period of "scattered terrorist bombings" in the 1910s, this era was distinguished by the frequency, extent and organization behind the attacks. As the bear market continued, the events grew in size and complexity. The increasing sophistication of terrorist tactics and their rising political power is revealed by the progression from the scattered strikes in 1970 to the PLO raid on the Olympic Village in Munich in 1972 and eventually to a state-sponsored takeover of the U.S. embassy in Iran in 1979. The worst of it ended approximately when the bear market did, as Iran finally released U.S. hostages in January 1981. In those first terrorist acts committed against the United States, we caught a glimpse of the style of conflicts that we would have to endure when the bear market of next bigger size arrived, which it certainly has.
Neither is this point made only in retrospect. Page 435 of At the Crest of the Tidal Wave lists 43 speculations as to specific social actions that will take place during Grand Supercycle wave . (Several of them have already come to pass.) One of them reads,
"Foreigners will commit terrorist acts on U.S. soil."
Here is a summary of today's event, which truly is "more dramatic and on much bigger scale" than those that occurred during the previous fourth wave of the 1970s:
New York, Sept. 11 (Bloomberg) The attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon today are the worst acts of Terrorism ever on U.S. soil and change the scope of foreign policy, experts say. Never before has a large-scale terrorist attack on the U.S. been coordinated successfully in more than one U.S. city. At this point, no organization has taken responsibility. "It's just an attack of extraordinarily sophisticated planning,'' said Michael R. Fischbach, a professor of history specializing in the Middle East at Randolph-Macon College in Ashland, Virginia. "The world that we know has now changed." "Americans' whole attitude about daily life, about foreign policy will be forever changed," Fischbach said.
"The world that we know has changed" is a correct statement, but it did not change "now." It changed between January 14 and March 24, 2000, a two-month period during which the three major U.S. stock indexes signaled the end of a Grand Supercycle uptrend that had been in force for 216 years. We are only now beginning to feel the lagging results of that change.
The 1966-1982 period had many other unfortunate characteristics that we will see again to a larger extent in the current bear market. However, the "preceding fourth wave" at Grand Supercycle degree actually refers to 1929-1949. As the Grand Supercycle bear market pattern unfolds over the next few generations, eventually it will bring on the kinds of conflicts that ruled that correction.
Do you recognize the value of this information? Most people understandably fret over whether or not an action is "a one-time event" and speculate on whether "the worst is over" without any idea of how to answer these questions. Socionomics can answer them, and it does. Right now, we can say with confidence, we are at the beginning of a long period of social unrest, and while it will wax and wane with the waves, overall it will intensify. The best time to prepare was two years ago, but it is not too late to do so now. |
