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As I can say of Christian Protestant fundamentalists who could support the likes of Donald Trump and Roy Moore despite sexual depravity, I can also say of the Shi'ite fundamentalists who support the corrupt clerical regime in Iran: religious fanaticism and identity are no proof of support of ethical government.

Success to this Iranian revolution!

(01-02-2018, 12:53 AM)pbrower2a Wrote: [ -> ]> As I can say of Christian Protestant fundamentalists who could
> support the likes of Donald Trump and Roy Moore despite sexual
> depravity, I can also say of the Shi'ite fundamentalists who
> support the corrupt clerical regime in Iran: religious fanaticism
> and identity are no proof of support of ethical government.
> Success to this Iranian revolution!

Oh, give me a break. Trump may have bragged about groping a woman,
but you people on the loony left couldn't care less that Bill Clinton
was credibly accused of violently raping at least seven women, and is
a man who gropes, flashes, uses, abuses and rapes every woman in his
life, but that's OK with you, because a Democratic rapist is a GOOD
rapist.

Or that Hillary Clinton spent much of her career bashing and
victimizing her husband's abuse and rape victims, because to a person
on the loony left, any woman who accuses a Democrat of rape is herself
a worthless piece of trash.

While we're on the subject, the loony left loves Socialists, even
though Socialists massacred hundreds of millions of people in the last
century, while Nazis massacred tens of millions. But that's OK,
because to the loony left, Socialist violence is GOOD violence.

And let's add James Hoffa inciting violence against Tea Partiers,
Antifa inciting violence against free speech, and BLM inciting
violence against policemen. That violence is also GOOD violence
according to the loony left.

The right is far more moral than the left because the right is held to
a higher standard. When a person on the right gropes a woman that's a
high crime and misdemeanor. When a person on the left gropes a woman,
that's just fun. Actually, the left is held to no standard at all.
I've often thought that if Obama picked up a gun and shot Michelle,
then the NY Times would blame it on Republicans because of gun
control. Actually, the left have no standards, no morals and no
ethics whatsoever - just like the Iranian clerics.

(01-01-2018, 09:46 PM)pbrower2a Wrote: [ -> ]> On Japan and 'comfort women' (compulsory prostitutes of subjugated
> countries during WWII):

> it would be best for contemporary Japan to denounce the monstrous
> deeds (including plunder, and 'comfort women' were a form of
> plunder) to denounce the crimes. Japan is far from the depraved
> society that it was before it surrendered.

> Failure to do so aids countries hostile to Japanese diplomatic and
> commercial interests. Yes, I recognize that Japan is a tough sell
> in the Phllippines; the Philippines now has an autocratic
> government and a large and influential Chinese diaspora. But if
> Japanese firms want to make profitable investments then they will
> have to denounce the sordid past.

In the comments to my article on Breitbart, someone claimed that the
US Army had investigated comfort women in 1944 and found that many of
them were volunteers, having previously worked as prostitutes before
the war.

He didn't provide a link to the document, and it was hard to find, but
I finally did track it down on a Latin American web site:

http://www.exordio.com/1939-1945/codex/D...-orig.html

The ensuing discussion went on for dozens of comments, with extremely
vitriolic name-calling on both sides. I (wisely) stayed out of it,
but the debate was interesting to read.

http://www.breitbart.com/national-securi...ilippines/

(01-02-2018, 08:14 AM)John J. Xenakis Wrote: [ -> ]

(01-01-2018, 09:46 PM)pbrower2a Wrote: [ -> ]>   On Japan and 'comfort women' (compulsory prostitutes of subjugated
>   countries during WWII):

>   it would be best for contemporary Japan to denounce the monstrous
>   deeds (including plunder, and 'comfort women' were a form of
>   plunder) to denounce the crimes. Japan is far from the depraved
>   society that it was before it surrendered.

>   Failure to do so aids countries hostile to Japanese diplomatic and
>   commercial interests. Yes, I recognize that Japan is a tough sell
>   in the Phllippines; the Philippines now has an autocratic
>   government and a large and influential Chinese diaspora. But if
>   Japanese firms want to make profitable investments then they will
>   have to denounce the sordid past.

In the comments to my article on Breitbart, someone claimed that the
US Army had investigated comfort women in 1944 and found that many of
them were volunteers, having previously worked as prostitutes before
the war.

He didn't provide a link to the document, and it was hard to find, but
I finally did track it down on a Latin American web site:

http://www.exordio.com/1939-1945/codex/D...-orig.html

The ensuing discussion went on for dozens of comments, with extremely
vitriolic name-calling on both sides.  I (wisely) stayed out of it,
but the debate was interesting to read.

http://www.breitbart.com/national-securi...ilippines/

I'm not sure 20 Korean women is "many" compared to the numerous rapes in Nanking and other cities.

(01-02-2018, 05:25 PM)Warren Dew Wrote: [ -> ]> I'm not sure 20 Korean women is "many" compared to the numerous
> rapes in Nanking and other cities.

If you're looking for someone to debate this with, consider joining
the discussion in the comment section of the article. You'll have
loads of fun!!

*** 3-Jan-18 World View -- US-Pakistan relations hit major crossroad, as US cuts aid

This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com

• In scathing criticism of Pakistan, Trump administration cuts $255 million in aid
  
• US-Pakistan relations at a crossroad
  
• Ohhhhhhhh noooooo! Chocolate may be extinct by 2050!
  

****
**** In scathing criticism of Pakistan, Trump administration cuts $255 million in aid
****


Pakistan army soldiers board an army vehicle in Peshawar on June 24, 2017 (AFP)

In a tweet posted on Monday, Donald Trump wrote:

<QUOTE>"The United States has foolishly given Pakistan more
than 33 billion dollars in aid over the last 15 years, and they
have given us nothing but lies & deceit, thinking of our leaders
as fools. They give safe haven to the terrorists we hunt in
Afghanistan, with little help. No more!"<END QUOTE>

On Tuesday, US Ambassador Nikki Haley at the United Nations
anncouned that Washington would withhold $255 million in assistance
to Pakistan. Haley said, "There are clear reasons for this. Pakistan
has played a double game for years. They work with us at times, and
they also harbor the terrorists that attack our troops in Afghanistan.
That game is not acceptable to this administration. We expect far more
cooperation from Pakistan in the fight against terrorism." Haley said
that the US may take additional steps.

Although Pakistani officials were infuriated by the tweet, a three-hour
meeting of Pakistan's National Security Committee (NSC) decided that
Pakistan must not give any "knee jerk" reaction to the tweet, and they
reached the conclusion that despite "unwarranted allegations, Pakistan
cannot act in haste."

Pakistan's government did summon the US ambassador and register a
protest, but did not take the next logical step of recalling its own
ambassador from Washington.

The NSC statement said that the committee was of the firm view that
the real challenges in Afghanistan were political infighting, massive
corruption, phenomenal growth of drug production and expansion of
ungoverned spaces inside the country full of sanctuaries for multiple
international terrorist organizations posing a serious and direct
threat to Afghanistan, its neighbors and the entire region. Reuters and Express Tribune (Pakistan) and CNN

****
**** US-Pakistan relations at a crossroad
****

Tuesday's tweet by Trump could not have been a surprise, as it was the
culmination of any number of announcements data back years.

In a surprise visit to Kabul, Afghanistan, three weeks ago, vice
president Mike Pence warned that it was putting Pakistan "on notice":

<QUOTE>"Pakistan has much to gain from partnering with our
efforts in Afghanistan. The days to shelter terrorists have
gone. It has much to lose by continuing to harbor terrorists.

For too long Pakistan has provided safe haven to the Taliban and
many terrorist organizations, but those days are over. President
Trump has put Pakistan on notice."<END QUOTE>

Major Geneneral Asif Ghafoor, Pakistan's chief military spokesperson,
responded angrily to Pence's claims, saying that there was no
organized infrastructure of any terrorist outfit inside Pakistan.
Ghafoor said that Pakistan will no long allow itself to be bullied by
the United States, and blamed India for the problems in Afghanistan:

<QUOTE>"We have fought an imposed and imported war twice in
Pakistan, and now we cannot do any more for anyone.

The US needs to check India’s anti-Pakistan role not only from
inside of Afghanistan but also through the enhanced and increased
ceasefire violations along the LoC [Line of Control in Kashmir]
and the Working Boundary so that Pakistan remains focused on peace
not only in Pakistan but beyond."<END QUOTE>

Ghafoor read out this statement in English, to make it clear that he
was directing it at the United States.

The US has been giving aid to Pakistan ever since 9/11/2001, when
America came to depend on Pakistan's help in the war against the
Taliban in Afghanistan. Annual aid to Pakistan peaked at $3.5 billion
in 2011, but the relationship with Pakistan was strained by the 2011
raid on al-Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden’s compound in Abbottabad that
revealed that he had been hiding in plain sight in Pakistan.

Pakistani officials claimed surprise that bin Laden was hiding out in
Pakistan, but those denials have never been believed. Since then,
both the Obama administration and Congress have been cutting aid to
Pakistan. Funding fell below $1 billion in the 2016 budget request.

So Trump's decision this week to very publicly cut aid to Pakistan is
not something out of the blue, but has been coming for several years.
China has previously said that it would make up for any aid reduction
by the US.

This bizarre relationship between the US and Pakistan can only be
understood in the context of the war in Afghanistan. Trump claims
that the US is going to defeat the Taliban and win the war in
Afghanistan, but as I've written in detail in the past, that's
completely impossible. There is no possible victory in Afghanistan.

I wrote a lengthy analysis in August in "23-Aug-17 World View -- Trump promises victory in Afghanistan by redefining 'victory'"
. As I pointed out then,
and numerous times in the past, Trump's foreign policy strategy is
completely consistent with the Generational Dynamics analysis of the
world. As long time readers are aware, I've worked on several
projects in the past with Steve Bannon, Trump's former chief adviser.
Bannon is an expert on world history and military history and, through
our association, is also an expert on Generational Dynamics theory,
whose principles he's passed on to Donald Trump. Mainstream
journalists and analysts are mostly completely baffled by Trump's
foreign policy decisions mainly because they have no clue about
generational theory.

So Trump knows that we're headed inevitably for war with North Korea,
China and Pakistan, and his policies are guided by that reality.
Trump's very public scathing criticism of Pakistan, and the decision
to cut aid, make perfect sense if you realize that there's no point in
paying money to a country that you're going to be fighting in a war.

Pakistan's leaders are generally contemptuous of America's leaders,
but now they've come to a crossroads and have to make a decision. On
the one hand, they want American aid, and they want access to a number
of American weapons systems. Trump's harsh message can be paraphrased
as follows: Help us in Afghanistan a lot more than you have, and try
to win back enough trust to get what you want from America, or else
continue as before on the path eventually to cutting all ties with
America.

The fact that Pakistan's government did not yet recall its ambassador
to Washington indicates that they realize that this is no easy
decision. Geo TV (Pakistan, 22-Dec) and Express Tribune (Pakistan) and Foreign Policy (23-Aug)

Related Articles

• Trump promises victory in Afghanistan by redefining 'victory' (23-Aug-2017)
  
  
• Trump's review of the Afghanistan war seeks solution where none exists (08-Aug-2017)
  
  
• Massive Kabul bombing on Monday leaves US Afghan policy in tatters (25-Jul-2017)
  

****
**** Ohhhhhhhh noooooo! Chocolate may be extinct by 2050!
****


According to NOAA, chocolate promotes science literacy among children by forming dinosaurs. (Daniele Civello)

According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration
(NOAA), climate change will force the plants that produce chocolate
into extinction by 2050. According to the NOAA, they'll die off
because the rain forests are disappearing.

Chocolate extinct! Thank goodness I won't be around to see that!
CBS News and National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA)

KEYS: Generational Dynamics, Pakistan, National Security Committee, NSC,
Nikki Haley, Mike Pence, Afghanistan, Asif Ghafoor, Osama bin Laden,
Steve Bannon, China,
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, NOAA, chocolate

Permanent web link to this article
Receive daily World View columns by e-mail
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John J. Xenakis
100 Memorial Drive Apt 8-13A
Cambridge, MA 02142
Phone: 617-864-0010
E-mail: john@GenerationalDynamics.com
Web site: http://www.GenerationalDynamics.com
Forum: http://www.gdxforum.com/forum
Subscribe to World View: http://generationaldynamics.com/subscribe

(01-02-2018, 08:12 AM)John J. Xenakis Wrote: [ -> ]

(01-02-2018, 12:53 AM)pbrower2a Wrote: [ -> ]>   As I can say of Christian Protestant fundamentalists who could
>   support the likes of Donald Trump and Roy Moore despite sexual
>   depravity, I can also say of the Shi'ite fundamentalists who
>   support the corrupt clerical regime in Iran: religious fanaticism
>   and identity are no proof of support of ethical government.
>   Success to this Iranian revolution!

Oh, give me a break.  Trump may have bragged about groping a woman,
but you people on the loony left couldn't care less that Bill Clinton
was credibly accused of violently raping at least seven women, and is
a man who gropes, flashes, uses, abuses and rapes every woman in his
life, but that's OK with you, because a Democratic rapist is a GOOD
rapist.

Or that Hillary Clinton spent much of her career bashing and
victimizing her husband's abuse and rape victims, because to a person
on the loony left, any woman who accuses a Democrat of rape is herself
a worthless piece of trash.

While we're on the subject, the loony left loves Socialists, even
though Socialists massacred hundreds of millions of people in the last
century, while Nazis massacred tens of millions.  But that's OK,
because to the loony left, Socialist violence is GOOD violence.

And let's add James Hoffa inciting violence against Tea Partiers,
Antifa inciting violence against free speech, and BLM inciting
violence against policemen.  That violence is also GOOD violence
according to the loony left.

The right is far more moral than the left because the right is held to
a higher standard.  When a person on the right gropes a woman that's a
high crime and misdemeanor.  When a person on the left gropes a woman,
that's just fun.  Actually, the left is held to no standard at all.
I've often thought that if Obama picked up a gun and shot Michelle,
then the NY Times would blame it on Republicans because of gun
control.  Actually, the left have no standards, no morals and no
ethics whatsoever - just like the Iranian clerics.

As I recall, pbrower has condemned violent Communist regimes on numerous occasions in these forums.  

The problem is, anytime anyone advocates any kind of government regulation of business and finance, or measures to help workers or the poor, the raving right screams "Commie!"

(01-02-2018, 11:50 PM)gabrielle Wrote: [ -> ]

(01-02-2018, 08:12 AM)John J. Xenakis Wrote: [ -> ]

(01-02-2018, 12:53 AM)pbrower2a Wrote: [ -> ]>   As I can say of Christian Protestant fundamentalists who could
>   support the likes of Donald Trump and Roy Moore despite sexual
>   depravity, I can also say of the Shi'ite fundamentalists who
>   support the corrupt clerical regime in Iran: religious fanaticism
>   and identity are no proof of support of ethical government.
>   Success to this Iranian revolution!

Oh, give me a break.  Trump may have bragged about groping a woman,
but you people on the loony left couldn't care less that Bill Clinton
was credibly accused of violently raping at least seven women, and is
a man who gropes, flashes, uses, abuses and rapes every woman in his
life, but that's OK with you, because a Democratic rapist is a GOOD
rapist.

Or that Hillary Clinton spent much of her career bashing and
victimizing her husband's abuse and rape victims, because to a person
on the loony left, any woman who accuses a Democrat of rape is herself
a worthless piece of trash.

While we're on the subject, the loony left loves Socialists, even
though Socialists massacred hundreds of millions of people in the last
century, while Nazis massacred tens of millions.  But that's OK,
because to the loony left, Socialist violence is GOOD violence.

And let's add James Hoffa inciting violence against Tea Partiers,
Antifa inciting violence against free speech, and BLM inciting
violence against policemen.  That violence is also GOOD violence
according to the loony left.

The right is far more moral than the left because the right is held to
a higher standard.  When a person on the right gropes a woman that's a
high crime and misdemeanor.  When a person on the left gropes a woman,
that's just fun.  Actually, the left is held to no standard at all.
I've often thought that if Obama picked up a gun and shot Michelle,
then the NY Times would blame it on Republicans because of gun
control.  Actually, the left have no standards, no morals and no
ethics whatsoever - just like the Iranian clerics.

As I recall, pbrower has condemned violent Communist regimes on numerous occasions in these forums.  

The problem is, anytime anyone advocates any kind of government regulation of business and finance, or measures to help workers or the poor, the raving right screams "Commie!"

Oh really? Has he condemned Bernie Sanders?

(01-02-2018, 08:12 AM)John J. Xenakis Wrote: [ -> ]

(01-02-2018, 12:53 AM)pbrower2a Wrote: [ -> ]>   As I can say of Christian Protestant fundamentalists who could
>   support the likes of Donald Trump and Roy Moore despite sexual
>   depravity, I can also say of the Shi'ite fundamentalists who
>   support the corrupt clerical regime in Iran: religious fanaticism
>   and identity are no proof of support of ethical government.
>   Success to this Iranian revolution!

Oh, give me a break.  Trump may have bragged about groping a woman,
but you people on the loony left couldn't care less that Bill Clinton
was credibly accused of violently raping at least seven women, and is
a man who gropes, flashes, uses, abuses and rapes every woman in his
life, but that's OK with you, because a Democratic rapist is a GOOD
rapist.

Bill Clinton did far worse than what would now be tolerated. The generational cycle has gone from the relatively-libertarian (at least on lifestyles) Culture Wars to a Crisis Era. I consider it a good thing. I think that young, aspiring, talented people will be wise to marry as early as possible instead of sowing any wild oats. Monogamy is a good thing -- as this 'leftist' states.

Quote:Or that Hillary Clinton spent much of her career bashing and
victimizing her husband's abuse and rape victims, because to a person
on the loony left, any woman who accuses a Democrat of rape is herself
a worthless piece of trash.

She "stood by her man", as was then expected -- and pragmatic. That may have imploded on her in 2016, and upon America. We cast off one rogue to get a far more dangerous rogue -- someone with the emotional maturity of kids who say "double-dog-dare you". Just look at his tweets for the juvenile style of writing, with inappropriate capitalization.

Quote:While we're on the subject, the loony left loves Socialists, even
though Socialists massacred hundreds of millions of people in the last
century, while Nazis massacred tens of millions.  But that's OK,
because to the loony left, Socialist violence is GOOD violence.

Social democrats, who have an excellent record on human rights, due process, and political clarity -- or totalitarian Marxist-Leninists? Murder has no political excuse, and the body count discredits Marxism-Leninism, which as badly lacks any good record on civil liberties, political process, or intellectual integrity. Besides, even Hitler wasn't much of a killer until 1938, and he had roughly seven years in which to kill those that he did kill.

All that kept the Ku Klux Klan from murdering on the scale of Nazis, let alone Commies, is that it never got power. (I'm contemplating a novel in which the Klan rules America... but Germany remains Democratic and Japan goes somewhat Democratic. A hint: Chicago becomes the infamously-divided city. Another hint: Japanese propaganda makes much of Mussorgsky's Night on Bald Mountain





which well fits a nocturnal, violent, primitive, and barbarous cause.

Science fiction, category alternative history.

Quote:And let's add James Hoffa inciting violence against Tea Partiers,
Antifa inciting violence against free speech, and BLM inciting
violence against policemen.  That violence is also GOOD violence
according to the loony left.

There are loose ends everywhere.

Quote:The right is far more moral than the left because the right is held to
a higher standard.  When a person on the right gropes a woman that's a
high crime and misdemeanor.  When a person on the left gropes a woman,
that's just fun.  Actually, the left is held to no standard at all.
I've often thought that if Obama picked up a gun and shot Michelle,
then the NY Times would blame it on Republicans because of gun
control.  Actually, the left have no standards, no morals and no
ethics whatsoever - just like the Iranian clerics.

Donald Trump is no liberal. You can be satisfied that if someone rich in melanin and having gang tattoos who grabs some pretty white girl by her crotch would (unless she consented) get a long prison term. That is sexual assault, and possibly even rape if there is even the slightest penetration. I would vote guilty on such facts. Hypocritical? Racist? I think the circumstances would explain enough.

I gave up on Al Franken once I heard of the multiple (to euphemize) indiscretions. Harvey "Swinestein" was a big donor to liberal causes. Good riddance. John Conyers? Get lost!

The idea that Obama might shoot someone is a bigger fantasy than "Bigfoot", "Sasquatch", or the Loch Ness Monster. He is not a violent person.

Allegedly, Saddam Hussein was a leftist -- but once he gassed the Kurds I made the comment that I wish that he would end up in the clutches of the KGB. Iranian ruling clergy? Fascists.

*** 4-Jan-18 World View -- Mongolia turns to India, as nationalism and xenophobia towards China grow

This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com

• Mongolia elects new president after highly nationalistic anti-China campaign
  
• India to help construct Mongolia's first oil refinery
  
• Brief generational history of Mongolia
  

****
**** Mongolia elects new president after highly nationalistic anti-China campaign
****


Mongolia's Oyu Tolgoi open-pit copper mine in South Gobi desert

Khaltmaa Battulga, a fierce critic of China, won the June 26, 2017,
election for president of Mongolia after a highly nationalistic
campaign, taking advantage of the deep anti-China xenophobia across
the population. At the beginning of the campaign his slogan was
"Mongolia First," echoing Donald Trump's "America First" motto. He
frequently mentioned "threats" from the east, meaning China.

During the campaign, Battulga even referred to his opponent
contemptuously as an erliiz, a person of mixed Mongolian and
Chinese heritage, and used the slogan "Mongol Ylna" (a Mongol will
triumph) to point out that only he had a Mongol origin. Battulga also
advocated greater economic independence from China.

There's a bit of a backstory to Battulga's campaign for president.

It's worthwhile pausing here to say again that China has always
claimed that it never interfered in other countries' internal affairs.
So whenever someone complained that China was jailing, torturing and
massacring peaceful protesters or Tibetans or Uighurs, Chinese
officials would ignore the complaints, saying it was an internal
matter.

China's policy was phony, of course, and that's illustrated by what
happened to Mongolia in 2016. In November, Mongolia invited the Dalai
Lama to visit for a four-day trip. The Dalai Lama is revered by
Buddhists in Mongolia, but also by Buddhists in China's Tibet, which
is why Chinese officials hate him.

So China punished Mongolia in December 2016 by closing part of the
border, leaving hundreds of trucks carrying copper and coal backed up
on the highway in sub-zero temperatures. Mongolia was forced to make
an official apology.

So now move forward in time to the presidential election campaign in
2017. One can well imagine that this contemptuous treatment by China
infuriated the Mongolian electorate, stoking nationalism and
xenophobia towards China.

So it appears that China's policy of punishing Mongolia has backfired,
and was an important part of the election of China's nemisis,
Battulga. China would have been better off following its fictional
policy of non-interference in other countries' internal affairs.
East Asia Forum (11-Aug-2017) and The Diplomat (3-Oct-2017) and Foreign Policy (5-Dec-2016) and The Citizen (India)

****
**** India to help construct Mongolia's first oil refinery
****

Much to China's displeasure, India will be invading China's backyard
by helping to build Mongolia's first oil refinery. India is also
providing a $1 billion credit line to finance the projects. The
20-year loan will have an interest rate of 1.75 percent and principal
payments will be waived during the first five years. This rate is
considerably lower than China is reportedly charging countries for One
Belt One Road infrastructure, with the objective of avoiding a
disaster similar to the one Sri Lanka suffered when they had to give
China control of Sri Lanka's seaport in lieu of repaying the loan to
finance building the seaport.

Mongolia is landlocked, lying between Russia and China, and those
countries are its main trading partners. Presently, Mongolia exports
crude oil to China, but imports refined petroleum products from
Russia. Once the project is completed, The refinery will have a
processing capacity of 1.5 million metric tons of oil per year and
will annually produce 560,000 tons of gasoline and 670,000 tons of
diesel fuel, as well as 107,000 tons of liquefied gas, giving an
enormous boost to Mongolia's economy.

The project will substantially reduce Mongolia's dependence on China
for its energy needs, and bring Mongolia closer to India. Sputnik News (Moscow) and Swarajya Magazine (India) and Tribune (India)

****
**** Brief generational history of Mongolia
****

Mongolia is a land-locked country nestled between Russia and China.
Thus, most of its history is dominated by its relationship with those
two countries. In the 1200s, the Mongols under Genghis Khan conquered
and dominated China, in a generational crisis war that climaxed in
1206, forming the Mongol Empire, the largest empire in history. In
the next generational crisis war, Genghis Khan's grandson, Kublai Khan,
conquered all of China, and created the Yuan Dynasty.

They Yuan Dynasty ruled all of China until it was overthrown by the
Chinese Ming Dynasty in 1368. By 1636, all of Mongolia was conquered
and ruled by its successor, the Qing Dynasty.

The Qing dynasty fell in 1911 in a generational Awakening era climax,
part of which was a proxy war between China and Russia in Mongolia.
Mongolia was under a Soviet-dominated Communist regime for almost 70
years, from 1921 to 1990. In 1932, a crisis war began in the form of
a Buddhist rebellion against Russia's communist government.

After declaring independence from China in 1924, the People's Republic
of Mongolia remained embroiled in rivalries between Russia and China,
and so maintained its communist identity, giving up its Buddhist
identity for secularism. Thus, Javzandamba Hutagt, the 9th Bogd
(spiritual leader of Mongolian Buddhists), born in Tibet in 1932, was
barred from traveling to Mongolia until the end of Mongolia's
communist era in 1990, as the Soviet Union collapsed. Since then,
Mongolia has been increasingly turning from secularism back to its
Buddhist roots, and the Dalai Lama has played an active part, much to
the consternation of the Chinese. In particular, the Dalai Lama hopes
to defeat China's attempt to name his successor, by declaring that the
next Dalai Lama will be born on Mongolian soil.

Mongolia is a resource-rich country, with big deposits of copper,
coal, gold and oil. In 2011, Mongolia economy grew by an astronomical
17.5%, thanks to its huge reserves of copper, coal and gold, making
the economy seem invincible. Instead of saving some of that money,
Mongolia borrowed billions of dollars to invest in huge road and
infrastructure projects. When the price of commodities collapsed,
Mongolia's economy was in serious trouble.

Mongolia is hugely dependent on China, which receives 90% of its
exports. So Mongolia was hurt even further when China decided to
punish Mongolia, after the visit by the Dalai Lama. Mongolian Embassy and University of Central Arkansas and CS Monitor

Related Articles

• China punishes Mongolia for Dalai Lama visit during financial crisis (29-Dec-2016)
  
  
• Mongolia in economic crisis asks the IMF for a bailout (05-Oct-2016)
  
  
• China's yuan devaluation causes currency chaos in Asia (20-Aug-2015)
  
  
• Mongolia's natural resource riches lost to corruption and foreigners (08-Aug-2013)
  
  
• Japan and Mongolia cooperate to counter China's influence (19-Apr-2013)
  

KEYS: Generational Dynamics, Mongolia, Khaltmaa Battulga, China,
Dalai Lama, India, Russia, Sri Lanka,
Genghis Khan, Mongol Empire, Yuan Dynasty,
Ming Dynasty, Qing Dynasty

Permanent web link to this article
Receive daily World View columns by e-mail
Contribute to Generational Dynamics via PayPal

John J. Xenakis
100 Memorial Drive Apt 8-13A
Cambridge, MA 02142
Phone: 617-864-0010
E-mail: john@GenerationalDynamics.com
Web site: http://www.GenerationalDynamics.com
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(01-03-2018, 03:10 PM)pbrower2a Wrote: [ -> ]> Bill Clinton did far worse than what would now be tolerated. The
> generational cycle has gone from the relatively-libertarian (at
> least on lifestyles) Culture Wars to a Crisis Era. I consider it a
> good thing. I think that young, aspiring, talented people will be
> wise to marry as early as possible instead of sowing any wild
> oats. Monogamy is a good thing -- as this 'leftist'
> states.

That's just a left-wing excuse. Clarence Thomas was subjected to a
high-tech lynching because he asked someone out on a date. Bill
Clinton was credibly charged with violent rape by multiple women, and
was excused by the loony left. I don't know what you mean by "would
now be tolerated."

(01-03-2018, 03:10 PM)pbrower2a Wrote: [ -> ]> She "stood by her man", as was then expected -- and
> pragmatic.

So you agree that in the 1990s, liberals and feminists considered it
to be OK for a democrat to rape a woman, and it's OK for his wife to
"stand by her man." That is what you're saying isn't it -- that rape
was OK in the 1990s?

(01-03-2018, 03:10 PM)pbrower2a Wrote: [ -> ]> The idea that Obama might shoot someone is a bigger fantasy than
> "Bigfoot", "Sasquatch", or the Loch Ness Monster. He is not a
> violent person.

Neither is Trump. The comment I was making was not about Obama, but
about the NYTimes.

(01-03-2018, 03:10 PM)pbrower2a Wrote: [ -> ]> All that kept the Ku Klux Klan from murdering on the scale of
> Nazis, let alone Commies, is that it never got power.

What's your point? That Trump is like the KKK? You're an idiot.

So you conflate Trump with the KKK, and you excuse rape by Democrats
in the 1990s. If Trump merely tweets something you dislike, you say
he's Hitler, but it's OK for Clinton to rape someone, because it was
in the 1990s.

(01-03-2018, 03:10 PM)pbrower2a Wrote: [ -> ]> There are loose ends everywhere.

Those were well-documented threats directed by the left at the right.
There were no loose ends. You call them "loose ends" because you
don't want to admit they occurred.

On the other hand, everything you write about Trump is just one
incoherent loose end after another. Have you read lately what you
wrote in "The most dangerous time since the Civil War"? Really, it's
just one idiotic thing after another. Implying that Trump is a
fascist pig. Calling the tax cut "extreme legislation." Calling
Trump a "dictator" when he's rebuffed by the courts and needs Congress
to pass laws. Or "low-service government that privatizes everything
on behalf of rapacious monopolists." I could go on, but these are
some of the stupidest things I've read -- well no, that's an
exaggeration, there are a lot of people on the loony left who say
equally stupid things. Stupidity is the norm on the left.

(01-03-2018, 03:10 PM)pbrower2a Wrote: [ -> ]> Social democrats, who have an excellent record on human rights,
> due process, and political clarity -- or totalitarian
> Marxist-Leninists?

Everyone's a "democrat." Hitler was a democrat. Putin is a democrat.
Maduro is a democrat.

Hugo Chávez and Nicolás Maduro were/are social democrats with great
records on human rights, due process, and political clarity. You can
see it today in Venezuela, right before your eyes.

Here's what "social democrats" are really like:

** 29-May-16 World View -- Hugo Chávez dismantled Venezuela's businesses on purpose to create Socialist Paradise
** http://www.generationaldynamics.com/pg/x...tm#e160529

In that article, I described what "social democrat" Chávez did:

• Dismantle all the private businesses one by one
  
  
• Use the vast oil wealth to import everything that had previously
  been produced internally.
  
  
• Eventually dismantle all private businesses while importing
  everything.
  
  
• Finally, the government would own all businesses, and the
  government would produce everything

That's how "social democrats" work. That what Bernie Sanders and your
friends on the loony left would do if they got power. That's what the
loony left means by "great records on human rights, due process, and
political clarity."

And I notice one other thing: I haven't heard you or any of your loony
left friends condemn Chávez or Maduro for how they destroyed Venezuela
with "social democracy." Oh sure, you're willing to condemn Stalin
now (though in the 1930s you would have praised him to the skies).
And you're willing to excuse Clinton's rapes in the 1990s, but say
that today they're "no longer tolerated" -- though you wouldn't be
saying that if Hillary still had a chance to run. But you and your
loony left friends refuse to say a word about Venezuela, even though a
disaster is unfolding right before our eyes.

Like all leftists, you advocate the stupidest, most destructive
policies, and then when they fail you just say "Awww, that's too bad,"
and go on to the next stupid, destructive policy. That's why I say
that people on the left have no morals and no ethics.

Pbrower and JohnX, LOL; A left-leaning selfish boomer and a right-leaning selfish boomer happily arguing with each other over partisan nonsense, but when no-nonsense Xers and Millies try to advocate ACTUAL policies neither side has any interest in genuine policy reform with the young.

Boomers have tyrannized the young for decades. Note the forced implementation of intervention in Bosnia and Kosovo Even though Americans and Westerners especially from the younger generations were always against doing so. We regarded the Serbs as implementing their natural rights to martial prowess not as evil villains that boomers wanted everyone to see them as. Later when 9/11 occurred the government imposed searching everyone rather than profiling Muslims; Because of selfish Boomers old grannies were being searched for bombs instead of security searching Muslims and middle easterners. The Government implements policies protecting everyday Muslims from Americans instead of protecting everyday Americans from Muslims. The Fact the terrorist prisoners other than captured commanders and high-profile operatives were allowed the chance to surrender at all shows the pure selfishness of the boomers. We otherwise wouldn't have needed Guantanamo's facilities. I have mentioned on numerous other posts both in this forum and the old forums about how the ground war after 9/11 should have been conducted and probably would have been conducted if Xers were in their rightful place ruling the country instead of boomers. Boomers refuse to launch a preemptive Nuclear strike on Pyongyang and other targets in North Korea. How can boomers claim not to be selfish when everything done revolves around their delusion of "world peace" and "america should be the good guy".

(01-02-2018, 07:15 PM)John J. Xenakis Wrote: [ -> ]

(01-02-2018, 05:25 PM)Warren Dew Wrote: [ -> ]>   I'm not sure 20 Korean women is "many" compared to the numerous
>   rapes in Nanking and other cities.  

If you're looking for someone to debate this with, consider joining
the discussion in the comment section of the article.  You'll have
loads of fun!!

(01-04-2018, 09:57 AM)John J. Xenakis Wrote: [ -> ]

(01-03-2018, 03:10 PM)pbrower2a Wrote: [ -> ]>   Bill Clinton did far worse than what would now be tolerated. The
>   generational cycle has gone from the relatively-libertarian (at
>   least on lifestyles) Culture Wars to a Crisis Era. I consider it a
>   good thing. I think that young, aspiring, talented people will be
>   wise to marry as early as possible instead of sowing any wild
>   oats. Monogamy is a good thing -- as this 'leftist'
>   states.

That's just a left-wing excuse.  Clarence Thomas was subjected to a
high-tech lynching because he asked someone out on a date.  Bill
Clinton was credibly charged with violent rape by multiple women, and
was excused by the loony left.  I don't know what you mean by "would
now be tolerated."

Check the thread on sexual harassment and careers ruined. we are no longer in the 1990s.

Quote:

(01-03-2018, 03:10 PM)pbrower2a Wrote: [ -> ]>   She "stood by her man", as was then expected -- and
>   pragmatic.

So you agree that in the 1990s, liberals and feminists considered it
to be OK for a democrat to rape a woman, and it's OK for his wife to
"stand by her man."  That is what you're saying isn't it -- that rape
was OK in the 1990s?

They were standing behind Bill Clinton because he was a 'good liberal' Thatt was no help for someone like John Conyers or Harvey Weinstein last year.

Quote:

(01-03-2018, 03:10 PM)pbrower2a Wrote: [ -> ]>   All that kept the Ku Klux Klan from murdering on the scale of
>   Nazis, let alone Commies, is that it never got power.

What's your point?  That Trump is like the KKK?  You're an idiot.

So you conflate Trump with the KKK, and you excuse rape by Democrats
in the 1990s.  If Trump merely tweets something you dislike, you say
he's Hitler, but it's OK for Clinton to rape someone, because it was
in the 1990s.

I was conflating the Klan to the Nazis.

(01-03-2018, 03:10 PM)pbrower2a Wrote: [ -> ]>   There are loose ends everywhere.

Those were well-documented threats directed by the left at the right.
There were no loose ends.  You call them "loose ends" because you
don't want to admit they occurred.

On the other hand, everything you write about Trump is just one
incoherent loose end after another.  Have you read lately what you
wrote in "The most dangerous time since the Civil War"?  Really, it's
just one idiotic thing after another.  Implying that Trump is a
fascist pig.  Calling the tax cut "extreme legislation."  Calling
Trump a "dictator" when he's rebuffed by the courts and needs Congress
to pass laws.  Or "low-service government that privatizes everything
on behalf of rapacious monopolists."  I could go on, but these are
some of the stupidest things I've read -- well no, that's an
exaggeration, there are a lot of people on the loony left who say
equally stupid things.  Stupidity is the norm on the left.[/quote]

Is it safe to trust President Trump? I see his tweets, and I recognize the emotional mturity of a grade-school school kid in his syntax, logic, and grammar. There needs to be an adult around when one has lots of people of such moral and emotional development. That's why we have schools and teachers for normal ten-year-olds and why we have prisons and guards for adults and adolecents of similar levels of moral and intellectual development.

I look at Donald Trump, and I see someone who fits a Marxist stereotype as a capitalist. I look at the economic agenda of he Republican Party, the Club for Growth, FreeomWorks, and the John Birch Society, and I see a Marxist stereotype of capitalism.
Can technology and GDP per capita reddeem the bad capitalist order that the GOP and related entities seem to want? If anything it is even more inexcusable and despicable. A rich gangster is no better than a street thug.

Quote:

(01-03-2018, 03:10 PM)pbrower2a Wrote: [ -> ]>   Social democrats, who have an excellent record on human rights,
>   due process, and political clarity -- or totalitarian
>   Marxist-Leninists?

Everyone's a "democrat."  Hitler was a democrat.  Putin is a democrat.
Maduro is a democrat.

Hugo Chávez and Nicolás Maduro were/are social democrats with great
records on human rights, due process, and political clarity.  You can
see it today in Venezuela, right before your eyes.

Here's what "social democrats" are really like:

** 29-May-16 World View -- Hugo Chávez dismantled Venezuela's businesses on purpose to create Socialist Paradise
** http://www.generationaldynamics.com/pg/x...tm#e160529

In that article, I described what "social democrat" Chávez did:

• Dismantle all the private businesses one by one
  
  
• Use the vast oil wealth to import everything that had previously
  been produced internally.
  
  
• Eventually dismantle all private businesses while importing
  everything.
  
  
• Finally, the government would own all businesses, and the
  government would produce everything
  

That's how "social democrats" work.  That what Bernie Sanders and your
friends on the loony left would do if they got power.  That's what the
loony left means by "great records on human rights, due process, and
political clarity."

And I notice one other thing: I haven't heard you or any of your loony
left friends condemn Chávez or Maduro for how they destroyed Venezuela
with "social democracy."  Oh sure, you're willing to condemn Stalin
now (though in the 1930s you would have praised him to the skies).
And you're willing to excuse Clinton's rapes in the 1990s, but say
that today they're "no longer tolerated" -- though you wouldn't be
saying that if Hillary still had a chance to run.  But you and your
loony left friends refuse to say a word about Venezuela, even though a
disaster is unfolding right before our eyes.

Like all leftists, you advocate the stupidest, most destructive
policies, and then when they fail you just say "Awww, that's too bad,"
and go on to the next stupid, destructive policy.  That's why I say
that people on the left have no morals and no ethics.

[quote]

I'm thinking more of European social democrats -- not Chavez, Castro, Mugabe, etc. European social democrats see nothing wrong with capitalist success. Their socialism needs a strong private sector.

Government operation of manufacturing, retail trade, and agriculture does not work well. That is well demonstrted. Countries that overthrew Commie rule or seceded from the USSR typically sold off the 'socialized' sector to make possible a social market society -- and not some Gilded-Age nightmare that Trump and company lust for.

Maybe countries emerging from a feudl order and frontier societies need to go through the Gilded stage of development that I understand that Trump means in "Make America Great Again". Things were great for shysters, slumlords, loan-sharks, and sweatshop exploiter in those times. No thanks!

(01-03-2018, 12:03 AM)John J. Xenakis Wrote: [ -> ]

(01-02-2018, 11:50 PM)gabrielle Wrote: [ -> ]

(01-02-2018, 08:12 AM)John J. Xenakis Wrote: [ -> ]

(01-02-2018, 12:53 AM)pbrower2a Wrote: [ -> ]>   As I can say of Christian Protestant fundamentalists who could
>   support the likes of Donald Trump and Roy Moore despite sexual
>   depravity, I can also say of the Shi'ite fundamentalists who
>   support the corrupt clerical regime in Iran: religious fanaticism
>   and identity are no proof of support of ethical government.
>   Success to this Iranian revolution!

Oh, give me a break.  Trump may have bragged about groping a woman,
but you people on the loony left couldn't care less that Bill Clinton
was credibly accused of violently raping at least seven women, and is
a man who gropes, flashes, uses, abuses and rapes every woman in his
life, but that's OK with you, because a Democratic rapist is a GOOD
rapist.

Or that Hillary Clinton spent much of her career bashing and
victimizing her husband's abuse and rape victims, because to a person
on the loony left, any woman who accuses a Democrat of rape is herself
a worthless piece of trash.

While we're on the subject, the loony left loves Socialists, even
though Socialists massacred hundreds of millions of people in the last
century, while Nazis massacred tens of millions.  But that's OK,
because to the loony left, Socialist violence is GOOD violence.

And let's add James Hoffa inciting violence against Tea Partiers,
Antifa inciting violence against free speech, and BLM inciting
violence against policemen.  That violence is also GOOD violence
according to the loony left.

The right is far more moral than the left because the right is held to
a higher standard.  When a person on the right gropes a woman that's a
high crime and misdemeanor.  When a person on the left gropes a woman,
that's just fun.  Actually, the left is held to no standard at all.
I've often thought that if Obama picked up a gun and shot Michelle,
then the NY Times would blame it on Republicans because of gun
control.  Actually, the left have no standards, no morals and no
ethics whatsoever - just like the Iranian clerics.

As I recall, pbrower has condemned violent Communist regimes on numerous occasions in these forums.  

The problem is, anytime anyone advocates any kind of government regulation of business and finance, or measures to help workers or the poor, the raving right screams "Commie!"

Oh really?  Has he condemned Bernie Sanders?

I voted for Bernie Sanders in the 2016 primaries.

I was tempted to vote for Kasich out of a dread of Demagogue Don until I recognized the futility of doing so.

Demagogues, Left or Right, are similarly objectionable. All that I could see in Trump was an ominous quality of his style of governing. I regret to say that this President achieves my fears and nothing else.

*** 5-Jan-18 World View -- North Korea reveals major change in strategic direction

This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com

• North Korea reveals major change in strategic direction
  
• North Korea's 'clarification' of the New Year speech
  
• The stark choice facing the Trump administration
  

****
**** North Korea reveals major change in strategic direction
****


I believe that this is an artist's rendering of what North-South negotiations in Panmunjom will look like. The talks are scheduled for next week. (Yonhap)

A few days ago, I quoted a couple of sentences from the New Year
speech of North Korea's child dictator Kim Jong-un. It now appears
that the speech fits into a much larger North Korean strategy, so I'm
quoting a lengthier excerpt, translated directly from the original
Korean by KGS Nightwatch:

<QUOTE>"A significant achievement accomplished last year by
our party, state, and people is the fact that we achieved the
great historic cause of the perfection of the state nuclear
forces.

A year ago, precisely at this place, I, representing the party and
the government, made public that the preparatory work for a test
launch of an intercontinental ballistic rocket was being carried
out in the finishing stage, and many rounds of test launches were
conducted in a safe and transparent manner over the past year for
its implementation, and its definite success was proved to the
whole world.

Last year, we conducted a super-powerful thermonuclear weapon test
as well, in addition to all kinds of nuclear delivery means, and
thereby successfully and victoriously achieved our general aim and
strategic goal, and our Republic, at long last, possessed a
powerful and reliable war deterrent that no force and nothing can
reverse.

Our state nuclear force can smash and respond to any nuclear
threat by the United States, and it serves as a powerful deterrent
that restrains the United States from the adventurous game of
playing with fire.

The United States can never provoke a war against me and our
state.

The United States should clearly know that the fact that the
entire US mainland is in our nuclear striking range, and that a
nuclear button is always on my office desk, are never a threat but
reality. ...

The nuclear weapons research and rocket industry sectors must mass
produce nuclear warheads and ballistic rockets, whose might and
reliability are already firmly guaranteed, and put spurs to the
work of deploying them for action.

It is also necessary to always maintain an immediate nuclear
counterattack operational posture to cope with the enemies'
nuclear war maneuvers. ...

Speaking of the winter Olympic games to be held soon in South
Korea, they are a good opportunity to demonstrate the nation's
status and we sincerely hope that the games will be held
successfully. From this aspect, we are willing to take necessary
measures, including sending a delegation, and the North and South
authorities can urgently get together for this. It is natural for
the people who share the same blood to be happy together and help
with fellow countrymen's happy events."<END QUOTE>

The speech was considerably harsher and more belligerent than has been
reported in the mainstream media, which have mostly focused on the
"nuclear button" on his desk.

Donald Trump tweeted the following in response:

<QUOTE>"North Korean Leader Kim Jong Un just stated that the
“Nuclear Button is on his desk at all times.” Will someone from
his depleted and food starved regime please inform him that I too
have a Nuclear Button, but it is a much bigger & more powerful one
than his, and my Button works!"<END QUOTE>

The mainstream media responses to this appear to have been written by
teenage idiots. Some question his mental state, and as I'm typing
typing this, I'm watching CNN discuss this topic: "Psychiatrist to
lawmakers: Trump is unraveling." As one analyst on Fox pointed out,
the loony left accused Goldwater, Reagan and both Bushes of being
mentally unstable, so the latest rounds of loony left comments are no
surprise.

There's no question in my mind that Trump's tweet had a strategic
purpose. One possibility -- and this is the sort of thing I've
suspected for a while -- is that Trump is trying to goad Kim into
doing something stupid, to justify an American attack to take out
North Korea's missile and nuclear weapon capability. A more prosaic
possibility is that he's trying to force Kim into a box to reduce his
negotiating leverage, and that apparently has happened with regard to
South Korea.

Trump takes the credit for planned talks between North and South
Korea:

<QUOTE>"With all of the failed “experts” weighing in, does
anybody really believe that talks and dialogue would be going on
between North and South Korea right now if I wasn’t firm, strong
and willing to commit our total “might” against the North. Fools,
but talks are a good thing!"<END QUOTE>

As I'm typing, CNN is now broadcasting an interview with an analyst,
Ian Bremmer, who is critical of Trump but describes a likely strategic
purpose of Trump's tweets: He is crediting Trump with causing China to take
a harsher position against North Korea, and possibly causing North
Korea to talk to South Korea, while adding that the tweets might
backfire and result in a miscalculation that causes a war. Reuters and KGS Nightwatch and Chosun Ilbo (Seoul)

Related Articles

• Donald Trump in Seoul issues stern warning to North Korea -- and to China (09-Nov-2017)
  
  
• North Korea crisis: Would the United States sacrifice Los Angeles for Seoul? (18-Oct-2017)
  
  
• Japan will shoot down N. Korean missiles via 'collective self-defense' (13-Aug-2017)
  
  
• Donald Trump's speech in Warsaw Poland evokes the Clash of Civilizations (07-Jul-2017)
  

****
**** North Korea's 'clarification' of the New Year speech
****

Following Kim's New Year's speech, a North Korean official announced
that the hotline between North and South Korea has been reactivated
for the first time since February 2016. There were apparently
negotiations conducted over the hotline, there may have been a
decision that a North Korean delegation would attend the South Korea
Olympics in February, and North Korea may have been informed that
South Korea and Donald Trump had acceded to the North's demand to
postpone the joint military drills between South Korea and the US
until after the Olympics. There are reports that talks between the
North and the South will begin on January 9 in Panmunjom.

On Wednesday, North Korean media issued a "clarification" of Kim's New
Year speech beginning:

<QUOTE>"Comrade Kim Jong Un, who is chairman of the
Democratic People's Republic of Korea State Affairs Commission,
after receiving a report -- that South Korea's Ch'o'ngwadae
announced official support and welcome upon hearing his stand on
participation in the PyeongChang Olympic Games and the issue of
improvement of North-South relations that he announced in the 2018
New Year's address, and that at the first cabinet meeting on 2
January, president Moon Jae-in personally expressed an active
intention of support and instructed relevant sectors to establish
working-level measures -- gave a highly positive assessment of it
and expressed his welcome for it."<END QUOTE>

Here is the KGS Nightwatch analysis of the full clarification:

<QUOTE>"The so-called clarification is Kim’s follow-up to
South Korea’s acceptance of his offer. It is unprecedented. Kim’s
personal involvement indicates he sees this proposal as much more
than an offer to participate in the Olympics.

The agreement to work with South Korea is now as formal as an
exchange of notes can get. Kim mentioned South Korean President
Moon by name in respectful fashion. This is the first time he has
done so.

Kim personally ordered agencies and organizations to begin
working-level measures that reciprocate the measures that
President Moon ordered. The listing of the party and government
organizations that received direct orders from Kim reinforce the
judgment that this is a highest priority, serious initiative and
stratagem.

We have mentioned in prior editions of NightWatch that Kim’s
highest objective in the nuclear and ballistic missile programs
has been to hold one of more US cities hostage to a nuclear
missile threat for the purpose of keeping the US out of a future
Korean war. The logic of that position also applies to
North-South in general, especially reunification.

For Kim Jong Un, the proposal to participate in the Olympics is
not just a first step towards improving North-South relations. It
also is his first initiative in the new strategic environment in
which, in his view, South Korea cannot necessarily rely on the US
for automatic protection, owing to the threat to US cities.

This is not the same old wedge-driving tactic. In our judgment it
is the start of the second phase of Kim’s reunification
strategy. The first phase was to complete the strategic nuclear
force so that it deters the US. The second phase is to manipulate
the Korean political climate under that new strategic condition.

A key question for Kim and his acolytes is whether South Korea
will react differently to North Korean overtures, now that the US
is under a North Korean nuclear threat. The Olympics proposal
tests whether North Korean nuclear blackmail makes South Korea
more cooperative. If it is successful, Kim may be expected to cite
it as an example of what can be accomplished by the Koreans
working together without US interference.

Kim’s authorization of a clarification suggests that he and his
men are interpreting President Moon’s enthusiastic response to
Kim’s proposal as an initial success in phase two. For example,
the US Ambassador to the UN said the US would not take the North’s
proposal seriously absent a move on denuclearization. That
statement is out of step with the South Korean response to Kim’s
proposal.

Kim’s strategic weapons are integral to his reunification
strategy. Moon thus far is validating Kim’s estimate of the
prospects for improved relations with South Korea without the US
under North Korean leadership."<END QUOTE>

Yonhap News (Seoul) and KGS Nightwatch and CNN and Chosun Ilbo (Seoul)

****
**** The stark choice facing the Trump administration
****

Kim's New Year speech contains some extremely harsh messages that are
rarely mentioned in the mainstream media:

<QUOTE>[i]According to Kim, North Korea now has "a
super-powerful thermonuclear weapon" such that "the entire US
mainland is in our nuclear striking range," so that "The United
States can never provoke a war against me and our state." North
Korea will "mass produce nuclear warheads and ballistic rockets,"
in order to create an arsenal of such weapons.<END QUOTE>[/i]

We know that North Korea will not hesitate to sell its missile and
nuclear technology. In 2007, Israel bombed and destroyed a nuclear
reactor in Syria that had been built by the North Koreans. There's
little doubt that North Korea would once again sell its technology to
Syria, Iran, and another other rogue nation.

So that's the disastrous reality that the Trump administration is
facing. Those idiots who are calling Trump "mentally unstable" and
such are people who are endorsing the decades of policies that have
inevitably led to this disastrous reality.

Trump has indicated that he will not permit the above reality to
occur. I've quoted other officials, such as Lindsey Graham, who say
that a war between the US and North Korea is inevitable. In fact,
I've quoted high level Chinese officials quoted in Chinese media
saying that a war before March is likely.

As regular readers are aware, I've frequently described how Steve
Bannon, Trump's former chief adviser. Bannon is an expert on world
history and military history and, through our association, is also an
expert on Generational Dynamics theory and analysis. Trump's foreign
policy in the last year has not only been completely strategic and
rational, it has been entirely consistent with the Generational
Dynamics analyses of what's going on in the world, in particular the
certainty that a war with North Korea cannot be avoided.

As everyone knows, during the last two days there have been explosions
and fireworks in the media over name-calling between Trump and Bannon.
A split between Trump and Bannon does not mean that Trump no longer
believes that a war with North Korea is inevitable.

Kim Jong-un is aware of all this as well, and a large part of Kim's
strategy must be to derail Trump's plans, whatever they are. This is
a crucial point that the KGS Nightwatch analysis misses. There is
absolutely no way that Kim is going to get away with using nuclear
blackmail to allow him to create a nuclear missile arsenal aimed at
the US. For that matter, Japan, South Korea, and even China will not
allow that kind of blackmail, since they know that Kim would just
continue blackmailing them on other issues, and that Kim could turn
those missiles on them, and also sell the nuclear and missile
technology to other Asian states.

The South Korean Olympic games are scheduled to run from February 9 to
February 25. Whether the child dictator's new strategy will work
should become evident soon after that. National Interest and Chosun Ilbo (Seoul)

Related Articles

• Chinese experts warn China to prepare for nuclear war in North Korea (17-Dec-2017)
  
  
• China's media predict nuclear war in North Korea by March (19-Dec-2017)
  
  
• China's envoy to North Korea fails to end nuclear crisis (21-Nov-2017)
  
  
• Donald Trump in Seoul issues stern warning to North Korea -- and to China (09-Nov-2017)
  
  
• US officials plan for military strike on North Korea and war (05-Dec-2017)
  
  
• Chinese geologists warn of looming nuclear disaster from North Korean tests (01-Nov-2017)
  

KEYS: Generational Dynamics, North Korea, Kim Jong-un,
South Korea, Moon Jae-in, Panmunjom,
Ian Bremmer, PyeongChang Olympic Games,
Syria, Israel, Lindsey Graham, Donald Trump, Steve Bannon,
Japan, China

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(01-04-2018, 01:21 PM)pbrower2a Wrote: [ -> ]> I'm thinking more of European social democrats -- not Chavez,
> Castro, Mugabe, etc. European social democrats see nothing wrong
> with capitalist success. Their socialism needs a strong private
> sector.

> Government operation of manufacturing, retail trade, and
> agriculture does not work well. That is well
> demonstrted. Countries that overthrew Commie rule or seceded from
> the USSR typically sold off the 'socialized' sector to make
> possible a social market society -- and not some Gilded-Age
> nightmare that Trump and company lust for.

> Maybe countries emerging from a feudl order and frontier societies
> need to go through the Gilded stage of development that I
> understand that Trump means in "Make America Great Again". Things
> were great for shysters, slumlords, loan-sharks, and sweatshop
> exploiter in those times. No thanks!

I notice that you didn't take this opportunity to condemn Venezuela's
leaders for their utter destruction of its economy with Socialism.

Here are two articles:

https://www.usnews.com/opinion/articles/...-really-do

http://www.nationalreview.com/article/42...rich-lowry

The first is written by someone on the left, the second is written by
someone on the right. They both have ideological spins, but they
agree on the facts: Sweden turned to Socialism in the 1970s, but then
retrenched in the 1990s, when it became clear that Socialism was an
economic disaster.

This is not a surprise. Socialism has a 100% failure record, and I've
posted the reason many times:

As I've written many times in the past, Socialism is mathematically
impossible as population grows. The number of regulators grows
exponentially faster than the population grows, so by the time you get
to, say, 50-100K people, everyone would have to be a regulator.

When you impose Socialism on an existing wealthy population, as was
done in Sweden and Venezuela, and what Bernie Sanders would like to do
to the US, then it works ok until, as Margaret Thatcher would say, the
government runs out of other people's money. Then disaster ensues.
This is for the same reason. If the population has more than, say,
100K people, then there aren't enough government regulators.

So those are the two relevant economic factors: regulators, and other
people's money. Socialism requires a steady and growing supply of
both. As soon as one or both runs out, the economy is in disaster
territory, which is where Venezuela is today.

A country can save itself from that disaster by retrenching from
Socialism -- as Sweden, Cuba and even Russia have done. North Korea
and Venezuela are what happens when the country leaders refuse to
retrench.

Socialism is the greatest economic disaster in world history. It's
much worse than Naziism or Fascism. In the last century, Socialism
has killed hundreds of millions of people. Socialism has never
succeeded, for the reasons I've given. Socialism has a 100% failure
rate, for the reasons I've given. There is literally nothing worse
than Socialism.

(01-04-2018, 05:39 PM)pbrower2a Wrote: [ -> ]> I voted for Bernie Sanders in the 2016 primaries.

> I was tempted to vote for Kasich out of a dread of Demagogue Don
> until I recognized the futility of doing so.

> Demagogues, Left or Right, are similarly objectionable. All that I
> could see in Trump was an ominous quality of his style of
> governing. I regret to say that this President achieves my fears
> and nothing else.

Sanders is a much worse demagogue than Trump. At least Trump wants to
make America great again, while Sanders just wants to destroy America.

When you voted for Bernie Sanders, you were voting for Venezuela and
North Korea, not for Sweden, which has retrenched. We're all very
lucky that your vote didn't count.

(01-05-2018, 11:12 AM)John J. Xenakis Wrote: [ -> ]Sanders is a much worse demagogue than Trump.  At least Trump wants to
make America great again, while Sanders just wants to destroy America.

And I've got a bridge to sell you.

Or rather, I've got a fence to sell you...

First phase of Trump border wall gets $18 billion price tag, in new request to lawmakers

*** 6-Jan-18 World View -- Iranian advisors are 'on the ground' with Houthis in Yemen, supplying weapons and intelligence

This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com

• Iranian advisors are 'on the ground' with Houthis in Yemen, supplying weapons and intelligence
  
• Forces realign in the Yemen war following the death of Ali Abdullah Saleh
  

****
**** Iranian advisors are 'on the ground' with Houthis in Yemen, supplying weapons and intelligence
****


Map of Yemen showing areas controlled by Houthis, Saudi-led coalition, and al-Qaeda (Economist)

On Friday, Iran-backed Shia Houthis launched a ballistic missile from
Yemen into Saudi Arabia's southwestern province of Najran. The Saudi
military confirmed the launch, but said that it did no damage, as it
was intercepted by Saudi air defenses of Najran.

The Houthis have launched several missile attacks on Saudi Arabia
recently, and the Iranians have been accused of supplying the Houthis
with these missiles and other weapons.

However, the death of Ali Abdullah Saleh last month provides unique
evidence that not only is Iran supplying weapons to the Houthis, it's
also providing intelligence and possibly directing all the actions of
the entire Houthi force.

Saleh's Sunni forces had been working side-by-side for years with the
Houthis in opposition to the Saudi-led coalition. This alliance was
always a marriage of convenience of two groups that disliked each
other, and it's not surprising when the alliance finally fell apart on
December 4 of last year. Two days later, the Houthis ambushed Saleh
and killed him and his entire family.

The Houthis gained a huge cache of weapons, and they killed many of
Saleh's former aides and fighters, but not all of them, and some of
them fled to Aden.

BBC reporter Nawal Al-Maghafi, speaking on the BBC World Service on
Friday, said she had tracked down Saleh's closest aide, now in Aden.
The aide said:

<QUOTE>"I was with him, and he was defending his home, with
his aides and nephews by his side. Three or four tanks surrounded
his house. They began firing."<END QUOTE>

Al-Maghafi asked the aide about the presence of Iranians, and he said:

<QUOTE>"There are Iranians by their side, and they tell them
exactly what to do. I saw them with my own eyes. They give them
weapons, but it's the information they give that is most
important. I met the Iranian advisers when I was with Saleh.
They were always beside the Houthi leaders."<END QUOTE>

Al-Maghafi said that while she was in Sanaa, she was able to speak
with "other well-placed sources [who] all confirmed the existence of
the Iranian advisers."

Iran's substantial support for the Houthis has been long suspected,
but of course always denied by the Iranians. Al-Maghafi's reporting
provides the first on-the-ground proof of the Iranian support.
AFP and Al Jazeera and Sky News

****
**** Forces realign in the Yemen war following the death of Ali Abdullah Saleh
****

The Yemen war began for real in March 2015, when the Iran-backed
Houthis took control of the capital city Sanaa, forcing the Sunni
government to flee to the port of Aden in the south. Since then, at
least 10,000 civilians have been killed, mostly in airstrikes in the
Saudi-led coalition against the Houthis. There have been 40,000
injuries.

According to UN humanitarian official Mark Lowcock:

<QUOTE>"The situation in Yemen - today, right now, to the
population of the country - looks like the apocalypse.

The cholera outbreak is probably the worst the world has ever seen
with a million suspected cases up to the end of 2017.

[A] terrible new epidemic of diphtheria (a bacterial disease which
should be completely preventable by immunization) has already
affected up to 500 people with dozens and dozens of deaths in the
past few weeks. That is going to spread like wildfire.

Unless the situation changes, we're going to have the world's
worst humanitarian disaster for 50 years."<END QUOTE>

The war worsened substantially when the Houthis launched another ballistic missile on November 4.
It
reached the King Khalid International Airport near Riyadh, about 800
km from the Yemen border, the farthest any Houthi missile had
traveled.

In retaliation, Saudi Arabia broadened a land, air and sea blockade,
preventing even food and medicines from entering Yemen. This was
threatening massive starvation and causing a deepening and increasing
humanitarian disaster that was too much for Ali Abdullah Saleh, who at
that time was still in his marriage of convenience with the Houthis.
Saleh split with the Houthis, and offered to mediate between the
Houthis and the Saudis.

On December 4, the Houthis ambushed Saleh and his family, killing them
all.

Since that time, there's been a realignment of forces. Some of
Saleh's fighters have stayed with the Houthis, but most of them have
headed south to Yemen, joining the official Yemen army still led by
former president Abdrabbuh Mansur Hadi.

According to some reports, the Houthis have been losing ground to
Yemen army, backed by Saudi coalition airstrikes, but things are
extremely fluid.

We can now be certain that the Yemen war is a full-fledged proxy war
between Saudi Arabia, which is providing airstrikes and weapons to
Yemen's army, versus Iran, which is providing weapons, intelligence
and direction to the Houthis. It seems certain that the Yemen war is
not nearly over. Al-Ahram (Cairo) and Al-Jazeera and Arab News and
The National (UAE)

Related Articles

• Three crises accelerate: Yemen's Saleh killed, Brexit collapses and North Korea war looms (05-Dec-2017)
  
  
• Yemen war changes direction with collapse of Iran-backed Houthi coalition (03-Dec-2017)
  
  
• Saudi Arabia blockades Yemen, threatening millions to die in famine (10-Nov-2017)
  
  
• Yemen's Houthi missile attack on Riyadh called a 'dangerous escalation' (06-Nov-2017)
  

KEYS: Generational Dynamics, Yemen, Saudi Arabia, Najran, Iran, Houthis,
Ali Abdullah Saleh, Sanaa, Aden,
Nawal Al-Maghafi, Mark Lowcock, Abdrabbuh Mansur Hadi

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John J. Xenakis
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(01-05-2018, 08:54 PM)gabrielle Wrote: [ -> ]> And I've got a bridge to sell you.

> Or rather, I've got a fence to sell you...

>
First phase of Trump border wall gets $18 billion price tag, in
new request to lawmakers

I've always criticized Trump's xenophobic policies, and expressed
relief when he backed off from the worst of them. Pure xenophobia does
little to make America great again.

(01-05-2018, 11:12 AM)John J. Xenakis Wrote: [ -> ]

(01-04-2018, 01:21 PM)pbrower2a Wrote: [ -> ]>   I'm thinking more of European social democrats -- not Chavez,
>   Castro, Mugabe, etc. European social democrats see nothing wrong
>   with capitalist success. Their socialism needs a strong private
>   sector.

>   Government operation of manufacturing, retail trade, and
>   agriculture does not work well. That is well
>   demonstrted. Countries that overthrew Commie rule or seceded from
>   the USSR typically sold off the 'socialized' sector to make
>   possible a social market society -- and not some Gilded-Age
>   nightmare that Trump and company lust for.

>   Maybe countries emerging from a feudl order and frontier societies
>   need to go through the Gilded stage of development that I
>   understand that Trump means in "Make America Great Again". Things
>   were great for shysters, slumlords, loan-sharks, and sweatshop
>   exploiter in those times. No thanks!

I notice that you didn't take this opportunity to condemn Venezuela's
leaders for their utter destruction of its economy with Socialism.

Here are two articles:

https://www.usnews.com/opinion/articles/...-really-do

http://www.nationalreview.com/article/42...rich-lowry

The first is written by someone on the left, the second is written by
someone on the right.  They both have ideological spins, but they
agree on the facts: Sweden turned to Socialism in the 1970s, but then
retrenched in the 1990s, when it became clear that Socialism was an
economic disaster.

I put Chavez (and by logical extension Maduro) in the classification with Castro and Mugabe. Enough said, I thought.

Quote:This is not a surprise.  Socialism has a 100% failure record, and I've
posted the reason many times:

As I've written many times in the past, Socialism is mathematically
impossible as population grows.  The number of regulators grows
exponentially faster than the population grows, so by the time you get
to, say, 50-100K people, everyone would have to be a regulator.

When you impose Socialism on an existing wealthy population, as was
done in Sweden and Venezuela, and what Bernie Sanders would like to do
to the US, then it works ok until, as Margaret Thatcher would say, the
government runs out of other people's money.  Then disaster ensues.
This is for the same reason.  If the population has more than, say,
100K people, then there aren't enough government regulators.

So those are the two relevant economic factors: regulators, and other
people's money.  Socialism requires a steady and growing supply of
both.  As soon as one or both runs out, the economy is in disaster
territory, which is where Venezuela is today.

A country can save itself from that disaster by retrenching from
Socialism -- as Sweden, Cuba and even Russia have done.  North Korea
and Venezuela are what happens when the country leaders refuse to
retrench.

Socialism is the greatest economic disaster in world history.  It's
much worse than Naziism or Fascism.  In the last century, Socialism
has killed hundreds of millions of people.  Socialism has never
succeeded, for the reasons I've given.  Socialism has a 100% failure
rate, for the reasons I've given.  There is literally nothing worse
than Socialism.

But monopolistic capitalism is itself a failure except at creating wealth, privilege, and power for monopolistic capitalists and their retainers. Capitalism is no better than the moral values of the capitalists. Without question, the Marxist-Leninist forms of socialism have been gross failure from economic and moral standpoints. Any ideology that puts economic gain above moral standards beyond any intellectual attack will get horrid results. Such is true both of monopolistic capitalism and Marxism-Leninism. The appeal of Marxism-Leninism was that it could rush economic growth by taking out the indulgent opulence of aristocrats and plutocrats.

One needs market mechanisms to punish irrational behavior. You may find it hard to believe that economics has taken on the characteristics of the physical sciences, as in recognizing the self-evident truth of the Second Law of Thermodynamics. Economic rationality recognizes that feeding pork to pigs is a waste.

The fault with Marxism-Leninism was its rejection of a market. It failed to connect production to consumer satisfaction. Marxist-Leninist regimes produced without contemplating the value or desirability of what was produced, thus creating gluts of junk and shortages of desirable goods. Marxist-Leninist regimes could at best be about twenty years behind the times in the West in consumer technologies.

(01-04-2018, 05:39 PM)pbrower2a Wrote: [ -> ]>   I voted for Bernie Sanders in the 2016 primaries.

>   I was tempted to vote for Kasich out of a dread of Demagogue Don
>   until I recognized the futility of doing so.

>   Demagogues, Left or Right, are similarly objectionable. All that I
>   could see in Trump was an ominous quality of his style of
>   governing. I regret to say that this President achieves my fears
>   and nothing else.

Sanders is a much worse demagogue than Trump.  At least Trump wants to
make America great again, while Sanders just wants to destroy America.

When you voted for Bernie Sanders, you were voting for Venezuela and
North Korea, not for Sweden, which has retrenched.  We're all very
lucky that your vote didn't count.[/quote]

Sweden could retrench because it is a democracy with free and competitive elections, and of course civil liberties that do not now exist in North Korea (which is really an absolute monarchy, basically Saudi Arabia without Islam or wealth from oil) or Venezuela.

Make America Great Again?  Do you mean as in the 1920s or the 1890s? Seventy-hour workweeks and forty-year lifespans for industrial workers as used to be the norm? No thanks. Such might appeal to people of such low levels of intellectual and moral development as Donald Trump (who isn't even a good capitalist -- he's nothing more than a rent-grabbing rentier) so long as they get their way.

I am old enough to have known people who lived in the 1920s as adults, and the only thing that they missed about the 1920s was that they were still young in the 1920s. I remember people who remember the late 1930s with some relish -- but then, things were generally getting better.  People had some idea that the government was something other than the enforcer of elites. OK, the people that I knew who had lived in the 1920s were farmers, industrial workers, small businessmen, or low-level professionals (clergy, teachers, and physicians -- and physicians did not yet live much better than such people as clergy and teachers).

What really is harder is that real estate is much more expensive and commutes are longer and more expensive, the result of population growth. The only thing that I would find more pleasant about the 1920s or earlier times would be lower real-estate costs.

300 million people means higher rents and longer commutes than when America had 150 million people. No evasion of that reality is possible. We of course have better technology, especially in medicine; we have better roads (I can take a two-way 65-mile freeway trip as a minor inconvenience but would not have made the same trip on the Blood Alleys that those freeways supplanted), and of course some marvelous technologies of entertainment. Bringing back the social conditions of the 1920s or earlier on grounds that such would make the masses more self-reliant would make lifer more miserable than thins were in the 1920s. There would be more population pressure on the land.

With someone like Donald J. Trump one must practically apply a Marxist analysis to understand him. He is an extreme classist, and his objective is clearly to take from the educated middle class on behalf of the Master Class to which he belongs. He is the most despotic leader that America has known since at least George III, and he makes the corruption of Warren G. Harding and incompetence of Dubya look trivial by contrast.

Woe is it to live under a political regime that Marxist analysis well fits -- one corrupt, highly-centralized in power and economics, grossly inegalitarian, and contemptuous of working people.