Historical and Cosmic cycles underlie personal, cultural, national and global events. The 100-year cycle is a notable example of the resonance of long cycles unfolding producing times when history and events rhyme. Yet no time or event is exactly the same as Evolution continues to move forward.

The United States in the 1920’s, the Roaring Twenties, had suffered from a deadly pandemic as the Spanish Flu killed millions; had emerged from the deaths and expenses of World War One to retreat into itself; politics was Conservative; Racism was ascendant as The Klu Klux Clan marched down Pennsylvania Avenue in white robes; a virulent anti-immigration hysteria was raging resulting in the restrictive immigration law of 2024; eugenics gripped the US approach to medicine/mental health and poverty; Jim Crow was firmly established and enforced; race riots erupted throughout the country. Fascism was growing deep roots in Europe; the Versailles Treaty had uneasily remade the Middle East and Europe hastily creating country’s boundaries that set up conflicts we are still attempting to settle today; the Russian Revolution had separated Russia from Europe as it became the Communist USSR threat to democracies. Business ruled the country after its Gilded Age success birthed extreme income inequality unlike any previous time in American history.

And yet, the coming Progressive Era was stirring in the growing Labor movement; the Women’s Suffrage movement; and, in Washington, DC Hooverville tent cities occupied the city with WW1 veterans demanding promised payments. America had pulled back from the world returning to isolationism and a skeleton military. America First reared its head founded on and supported by Christian Nationalism joined by other conservative religions demands to return to or protect the past.

Now as then, the US has suffered from a global pandemic, Covid, killing millions; ended our longest war in Afghanistan which had depleted our troops and treasury; resurrected Racism as acceptable among many (even trending according to gleeful Internet trolls); returned to another period of virulent anti-immigration rage chanting “mass deportation now”; is purposefully closing off the country to the world’s problems retreating from the US leadership role in Europe and the world; Conservative politics is again in power controlling all three branches of the federal government; Women’s rights are being lost in the Dobbs decision with ever more attacks on birth control and the role of women in our society; retrograde religious beliefs from past centuries are elevating growing demands for women to marry, have more babies and be more obedient; and LGBTQ rights are threatened. Business is again in power, therefore, financially and politically able to demand its wish list and control the national agenda.

We are currently facing income inequality even more extreme than the Gilded Age. European politics is again unsettled with Fascist leaning parties gaining power. Russia is again threatening Europe’s territory and independence. China continues to threaten Taiwan, Tibet and its own “others”.

Yet again, a new Progressive movement is stirring. This movement which looks impossible now is going to change American life in the coming decade more profoundly than FDR and the 1930’s changed the 20th century. It is time to imagine more, to develop a 21st century vision for a full embrace of freedoms for all of us in a shared, sustainable global world.

In both the 1920’s and the 2020’s the turning period into a new century came with new technologies, economic gain and pain, a flood of immigrants speaking different languages/introducing new cultures and foods, racial and ethnic differences that were unfamiliar and unwelcome to many who felt displaced, disregarded and frightened or angry facing a very different world than they grew up in. It becomes easier to blame the changes on “others” than on an evolving world. Jazz spoke to the new 20th century as rap now speaks to the 21st century. Music, art, literature and science are all leading the parade to a world never seen before.

Next week we will examine the 21st century’s model of democracy, economic justice, social justice, human relations, and global cooperation which will not be a reformed or better version of the past. It will be a visionary new world; the coming American Revolution/Global uprising is near.