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Galen · 10-25-2017, 03:07 PM

(10-25-2017, 01:37 PM)Cynic Hero Wrote:
(10-25-2017, 12:31 PM)John J. Xenakis Wrote:
(10-25-2017, 11:58 AM)Cynic Hero Wrote: > Seoul would probably have be sacrificed, they would just have to
> accept bombardment. North Korea has a lot of launchers but a very
> limited amount of potentially ICBM capable launchers. The strike
> would focus and on the destruction of the long-range missiles as
> well as the nuclear production centers and fissile material
> stockpiles. This would be followed by a ground invasion.

And why wouldn't that lead immediately to WW III with American
involvement from day one?

Because this would be separate war from the later WW3. Russian and Chinese acquiescence to the attack would be negotiated beforehand where they would be compensated geopolitically elsewhere.

Given the belligerence towards Russia and China the US government has shown in recent years, which started while Obozo was still president, this seems to be an unlikely outcome.

Warren Dew · 10-25-2017, 09:55 PM

(10-25-2017, 01:37 PM)Cynic Hero Wrote:
(10-25-2017, 12:31 PM)John J. Xenakis Wrote:
(10-25-2017, 11:58 AM)Cynic Hero Wrote: > Seoul would probably have be sacrificed, they would just have to
> accept bombardment. North Korea has a lot of launchers but a very
> limited amount of potentially ICBM capable launchers. The strike
> would focus and on the destruction of the long-range missiles as
> well as the nuclear production centers and fissile material
> stockpiles. This would be followed by a ground invasion.

And why wouldn't that lead immediately to WW III with American
involvement from day one?

Because this would be separate war from the later WW3. Russian and Chinese acquiescence to the attack would be negotiated beforehand where they would be compensated geopolitically elsewhere.

Russia could be compensated elsewhere, for example by recognizing their takeover of Crimea. North Korea is a critically important buffer for China, though; what could compensate for that?

**John J. Xenakis** · 10-25-2017, 09:58 PM

*** 26-Oct-17 World View -- UN Secretary-General in Central African Republic begs for more funding

This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com

UN Secretary-General in Central African Republic begs for more funding
Bangassou becomes the most dangerous town in Central African Republic

****
**** UN Secretary-General in Central African Republic begs for more funding
****

[Image: g171025b.jpg]

Young Christian militiamen pose in southeastern Central African Republic on August 16. (AFP)

The ethnic and religious civil war that began in Central African
Republic (CAR) in 2013 was supposed to have ended long before now, but
instead the violence has been increasing steadily, and at the same
time, the amount of funding for peacekeeping efforts from donor
nations is decreasing, leading to fears of an even larger bloodbath
than we've seen so far.

At a press conference in CAR on Wednesday, United Nations
Secretary-General António Guterres said:

<QUOTE>"We need the commitment of the international community
not only to reduce this suffering, but because there is an
opportunity to build a new Central African Republic in peace and
security.

This international solidarity can allow the Central African
Republic to engage in a process of development for the benefit of
all its people.

I am optimistic [that] it is the moment for the international
community to commit because it is worthwhile."<END QUOTE>

Well, if Guterres is really that optimistic, then he's delusional.

CAR is in the midst of a generational crisis war, and a generational
crisis war can only end in one way. This is what politicians don't
understand. Since 2013, they've sent in different waves of
peacekeepers, they've had several elections for president, they've
even had a visit from the Pope. Each of these events was supposed to
bring an end to the war, but that hope was always delusional. A
generational crisis war comes from the people, not from the
politicians or the religious leaders. Central African Republic is a
huge country, and the war is both religious and ethnic, pitting
Christians against Muslims and land-owning farmer tribes against
nomadic herder tribes.

Not surprisingly, there is often an alignment between the
farmer-herder fault lines and the sectarian fault lines. In Central
African Republic, the Muslims are mostly from nomadic herder tribes,
while the Christians are mostly from land-owning farmer tribes.
However, this division isn't monolithic. As I described
a couple of months ago, there are also Muslim
farmer tribes, and in some cases the Muslim and Christian farmer
tribes are banding together to fight against the Muslim herder tribes.

The politicians and religious leaders are not going to end this war.
The people of CAR will have to end it on their own. From the point of
view of Generational Dynamics, the only way that a generational crisis
war can end is with an explosive climax. The climax could be
literally explosive, as in the case of the firebombing of Dresden and
Tokyo and the nuking of Hiroshima at the end of World War II. But
more likely it's a genocidal explosion that's so horrific that both
sides decide that they have to stop fighting. An example is the
Rwanda genocide of 1994, when Hutus killed almost a million Tutsis in
three months.

It's impossible to predict what sort of explosive climax will end the
CAR war, or when it will occur. But it's likely to involve millions
of people and be a bloodbath of a kind that's usually remembered for
decades or even centuries. And increased international funding of
peacekeepers will do nothing to affect it. Newsweek and United Nations
and Anadolu

****
**** Bangassou becomes the most dangerous town in Central African Republic
****

A United Nations situation report on Central African Republic (CAR)
indicates that violence in CAR has been increasing steadily since
October 2016, and has become increasingly widespread, affect more and
more regions of the country. It's possible that this is building to
some kind of explosive genocidal climax.

According to Tuesday's situation report:

<QUOTE>"Since October 2016, violent clashes and
inter-communal tensions fueled by armed groups have continuously
increased in the Central African Republic (CAR). In the absence of
an effective judicial system and basic services by the public
administration, armed groups have continued to perpetrate violent
and destabilizing acts, of which the civilian population is the
main victim. The targeting of minorities, including women and
children, has resurfaced, with killings and attacks against
communities multiplying.

Conflict and forced displacement is increasingly widespread and
impacting previously unaffected parts of the country. Today, the
CAR is one of the few countries in the world where almost one
person out of two depends on aid to survive.

The number of people displaced has reached an ever-recorded high
of 1.1 million people. As the crisis further expands towards the
East and North West of the country, there are new massive
displacements and there is a significant risk that the condition
of people previously displaced that remain in camps will
deteriorate. Nearly one family out of four has already been forced
to flee. In July 2017, the number of IDPs exceeded 600,000, which
represents an increase of almost 50 per cent since
January."<END QUOTE>

Since 2013, we've described a number of bloody clashes between Muslims
and Christians in different regions of CAR. Today, the most dangerous
town in CAR is the southeastern town of Bangassou.

Bangassou is a Christian-controlled town of about 35,000. In May,
Christian militias launched an assault on other armed groups,
including pro-Muslim groups or militias from the Fula ethnic group.
Seventy-six civilians and six peacekeeping troops were killed.
Moroccan peacekeepers rescued about 2,000 people and brought them to
the town's Catholic church compound. Since then, unidentified gunmen
have been shooting at the church on an almost daily basis. About a
million people have been displaced from their homes. All the
businesses and buildings have been deserted.

Because there have been increased attacks on UN peacekeepers, in
Bangassou and elsewhere, at a ceremony on Tuesday, Secretary-General
António Guterres paid tribute to the peacekeepers:

<QUOTE>"I want to say that we need to make sure that the
world fully appreciates the heroic contributions of peacekeepers
protecting civilians, sometimes in extremely difficult
circumstances, like the ones we face in the Central African
Republic."<END QUOTE>

It's a great sentiment, but as a practical matter, there have been few
situations where peacekeeping forces have accomplished much. In CAR,
peacekeeping forces have been able to keep the two sides apart in the
capital city Bangui, but haven't been effective elsewhere.

The violence in Bangassou is being repeated in towns and villages all
across CAR. Sometimes it's Muslims slaughtering Christians, or
vice-versa, or sometimes it's one ethnic group slaughtering another,
irrespective of religion. The current peacekeeping force's mandate
expires on November 15. Guterres has urged the UN Security Council to
add 900 troops to the 12,500 already there, to enable the force "to
shape and influence security situations, rather than react to them."

In a country of 4.7 million people, in thousands of villages at war
with each other, it's hard to see what 900 additional troops is going
to accomplish. UN ReliefWeb and Gulf Times and AFP and United Nations

Related Articles

KEYS: Generational Dynamics, Central African Republic, CAR,
António Guterres, Bangassou

Permanent web link to this article
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John J. Xenakis
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Warren Dew · 10-25-2017, 11:54 PM

(10-25-2017, 10:50 AM)John J. Xenakis Wrote:
(10-24-2017, 05:00 AM)Warren Dew Wrote: > I think you're getting your Friedmans confused. This is George
> Friedman, not Thomas, and he's anything but left wing.

Sorry about that.

(10-24-2017, 05:00 AM)Warren Dew Wrote: > The fact is, Xi's military is now comparable to - slightly weaker
> than - France's. His timetable is realistic; it takes a very long
> time to build up a navy, and he has a long way to go.

The timetable may be realistic in a technical sense, but not in a
political sense. The Chinese people consider themselves superior to
us and their system superior to ours. They consider the US and the
West to be weak and indecisive. They believe that they can defeat us
today, just as Japan thought they could beat us and the South thought
they could beat the North. These things are not rational decisions,
any more than the decision to have a sexual affair is rational, no
matter what the consequences. I also believe that Xi knows that the
Chinese people have no intention of waiting until 2050 to assert
their rightful place as rulers of the world.

In the 1930s, the Chinese people believed that they could all spit and the invading Japanese army would drown. They were wrong. What the people believe sometimes has little to do with reality.

Xi, however, is not so stupid or misinformed, as his technically realistic timetable shows. He knows China will have no chance against the US until 2050. Maybe in 2040, he could convince himself that he could win the way Japan and the Confederacy convinced themselves, but the crisis war will have occurred long before then and his plan will long since have been overcome by events.

On the other hand, Xi does believe that the party can control the people. After all Mao did it during the revolution, and again in the cultural revolution. Under Deng, Tiananmen - incidentally a probable approximate example of your 58 year rule with respect to the gap between the death of Chou En Lai and the death of Yuan Shikai, the latter of which initiated a bloodbath in the form of the Warlord Era - demonstrated that the government could put down a popular uprising. Xi probably believes that he could handle any revolt equally well.

None of those events happened during a crisis era, of course, so Xi is probably mistaken. What would instead happen is an uprising that results in a major revolution or civil war. And that's in fact the most likely resolution of the crisis in China - provided we're not stupid enough to provoke a war with them ourselves, which we would win but which would cost us a lot more cities.

Quote:
(10-24-2017, 05:32 AM)Warren Dew Wrote: > You might not want to put too much trust in teachers who thought
> Communism was good and capitalism was bad.

> The fact is, National Socialism is not capitalist at all; it's
> socialist. In Germany, it happened to include former "captains of
> industry" in its chain of command, but the only difference from
> Communism was that the central planning apparatus was less tightly
> controlled by the dictator.

Sez u. People on the left absolutely HATE it when you say that
National Socialism is Socialism.

Which is what always happens when the left is confronted with a truth that it doesn't want to believe, as you well know.

Quote:A Socialist economy during a non-Crisis era simply falls apart.
We've seen this happen in Russia, China, East Germany and Cuba,
for example. A country that tries to maintain Socialism gets
defeated by the mathematics of the situation, and the economy
simply gets frozen, as we've seen in all of these countries.

As the Crisis era approaches, the country can go in either of two
directions. The Socialist economy can simply collapse, as happened in
the above countries, and get replaced by capitalism or partial
capitalism. Or the leader can try to maintain the socialism into the
Crisis period -- through nationalism, xenophobia and racism -- blaming
the United States and other Western countries for their economic
troubles.

So instead of collapsing into Capitalism, that's the point when the
Socialist economy takes the second route -- National Socialism
(Nazism).

Which is exactly what happened with national socialist Germany, which I'm sure you're aware of, so you agree with me about national socialism being socialist.

Quote:So the reason that Xi's Socialism with Chinese
Characteristics for a New Era is identical to Hitler's National
Socialism is not because the minute details of the economy are the
same, but because in a generational Crisis era, the Socialism has been
combined with nationalism, xenophobia and racism.

Except that, as you point out, any actual socialism in China has already fallen apart, and China has been more capitalist than the US for a couple of decades now. What we have in China is an authoritarian capitalist regime rather than an authoritarian socialist one, and it's far from clear that the two follow the same path. Rebellion or civil war along the lines of traditional Chinese dynastic collapse is much more likely.

**John J. Xenakis** · 10-26-2017, 01:45 PM

(10-25-2017, 11:54 PM)Warren Dew Wrote: > On the other hand, Xi does believe that the party can control the
> people. After all Mao did it during the revolution, and again in
> the cultural revolution.

I'm sure Xi also remembers Mao's Great Leap Forward, in which the
"revolution" went completely out of control, and tens of millions of
people were executed or starved to death. It was a total Socialist
disaster.

** 16-Sep-10 News -- Cuba's seismic shift has global implications
** http://www.generationaldynamics.com/pg/x...tm#e100916

(10-25-2017, 11:54 PM)Warren Dew Wrote: > Under Deng, Tiananmen - incidentally a probable approximate
> example of your 58 year rule with respect to the gap between the
> death of Chou En Lai and the death of Yuan Shikai, the latter of
> which initiated a bloodbath in the form of the Warlord Era -
> demonstrated that the government could put down a popular
> uprising. Xi probably believes that he could handle any revolt
> equally well.

I'm sure he does, just like Hitler.

(10-25-2017, 11:54 PM)Warren Dew Wrote: > Except that, as you point out, any actual socialism in China has
> already fallen apart, and China has been more capitalist than the
> US for a couple of decades now.

I have no idea how you measure that. Do you have some numeric measure
to back this up? Also, do you have a numeric comparison to Nazi
Germany?

The point that I was trying to make is that pure Socialism is
mathematically impossible, and pure Capitalism is politically
impossible. There's very likely some universal constant representing
the percentage of the country's GDP under regulatory control, and that
roughly the same percentage applies to both nominally Socialist and
nominally Capitalist societies.

Therefore, the choice of whether to call an economy Socialist or
Capitalist cannot be determined numerically, and therefore it's a
completely political choice.

So China says that its economy is "Socialist with Chinese
Characteristics," and therefore it's Socialist. America calls itself
Capitalist, and therefore its economy is Capitalist. Hitler said that
it was National Socialist, so therefore it was Socialist.

During the last few days I've been reading some of Hitler's old
speeches.

http://www.worldfuturefund.org/wffmaster...0Index.htm

Hitler constantly talks about Socialism and National Socialism.

In one of his speeches, he compared Germany and Italy and said:

Hitler Wrote:> Both Revolutions [[Germany and Italy]] had about the same course;
> each one had severe setbacks, but finally won the fight. Both
> nations brought about a socialistic, national
> renaissance.

http://www.worldfuturefund.org/wffmaster....01.30.htm

So there's no doubt from Hitler's speeches that Nazi Germany was
Socialist, and there's no doubt from Xi's speeches that China is
Socialist. Both versions of Socialism are highly nationalistic and
xenophobic, and so both of them are forms of National Socialism. And
both of them are the agents of historic catastrophes.

Cynic Hero '86 · 10-26-2017, 04:08 PM

(10-26-2017, 01:45 PM)John J. Xenakis Wrote: http://www.worldfuturefund.org/wffmaster....01.30.htm

While hitler was being disingenuous here, you do realize that everything he said in that speech was essentially True: Germany did not declare war on Britain and France, Britain and France declared war on Germany. There is also that fact that Britain had not intention of marching troops into Germany in retaliation for the invasion of Poland. In reality the west at all points from 1919 on to the present day has imposed wilsonianism on the world (the post-ww2 world was essentially a improved version of the post-ww1 Versailles order) and pretty much regards any government that voices opposition to the Wilsonian system as somehow illegitimate.

The Boomers today have absorbed all the mistakes of the missionaries uncritically and seeks to tyrannically brainwash millennials into being good little boy scouts by usurping choices and tyrannically disempowering the millennial until the millennial absorbeds the boomers disgusting doctrines uncritically. Millennials will never embrace "freedom" as defined by boomers because that doctrine intrinsically contradicts millennials inner nature and is seen by the millie as starry-eyed nonsense forced upon the by boomers.

Actual Millie attitudes toward wilsonian "freedom"

https://qz.com/848031/harvard-research-s...democracy/

**John J. Xenakis** · 10-26-2017, 09:54 PM

*** 27-Oct-17 World View -- US sends three aircraft carrier strike groups to waters around North Korea

This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com

North Korea renews threat of massive hydrogen bomb test over Pacific
US sends three aircraft carrier strike groups to waters around North Korea

****
**** North Korea renews threat of massive hydrogen bomb test over Pacific
****

[Image: g171026b.jpg]

Farm workers in North Korea (Michael Havis)

In an interview with CNN on Wednesday, Ri Yong-Pil, a senior diplomat
in North Korea’s Foreign Ministry said that previous threats of a
large hydrogen bomb test over the Pacific should be taken seriously.

The original threat came from North Korea's foreign minister Ri
Yong-ho in September, who said that North Korea was planning to test
"an unprecedented scale hydrogen bomb," just before giving a speech to
the United Nations:

<QUOTE>"It could be the most powerful detonation of an H-bomb
in the Pacific. We have no idea about what actions could be taken
as it will be ordered by leader Kim Jong-un."<END QUOTE>

At the time, President Donald Trump tweeted a response: "Kim Jong Un
of North Korea, who is obviously a madman who doesn’t mind starving or
killing his people, will be tested like never before!"

So on Wednesday, Ri Yong-Pil renewed the threat:

<QUOTE>"The foreign minister is very well aware of the
intentions of our supreme leader, so I think you should take his
words literally."<END QUOTE>

Up until now, North Korea's nuclear tests have taken place underground
on North Korean soil. A hydrogen bomb test over the Pacific would be
an enormous escalation. The hydrogen explosion would threaten
shipping and planes flying overhead, and would release a great deal of
radiation and cause environmental damage.

The North Korean threat has been particularly alarming to the Japanese
people, since the missile carrying the hydrogen bomb would have to fly
over Japanese airspace. The Japanese are obviously concerned that a
failure in the propulsion system could bring the missile down on a
Japanese city.

It's quite likely that this threat was a factor in the landslide victory of Shinzo Abe's party

in last week's parliamentary elections. The prime minister, who is
leader of Japan's Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) took a highly
nationalistic stance against North Korea during the campaign, and
said:

<QUOTE>"We can no longer let ourselves be fooled by North
Korea. We cannot succumb to its threats. By taking advantage of
our strong diplomacy, we have to make sure the North will have no
other option but change its policy and return to the negotiating
table."<END QUOTE>

Now with Wednesday's renewed threat by Ri Yong-Pil, nationalism is
likely to surge even higher. Abe has vowed to change Japan's
constitution, and bring an end to Japan's pacifism, and North Korea's
renewed threat should make that easier. Guardian (London, 22-Sep) and CNN and Reuters and Daily Star (London)

Related Articles

****
**** US sends three aircraft carrier strike groups to waters around North Korea
****

The Pentagon on Tuesday announced that the USS Theodore Roosevelt
aircraft carrier and strike group would enter the US 7th Fleet area of
operations in the western Pacific. The flagship will be joined by
several guided-missile cruisers and destroyers.

It joins the Ronald Reagan Carrier Strike Group already in the region,
where it has been taking part in joint exercises with the South Korean
navy. The Ronald Reagan is permanently stationed with the 7th Fleet.

According to commanding officer Capt. Carlos Sardiello:

<QUOTE>"USS Theodore Roosevelt is prepared to carry out the
full spectrum of possible missions, from humanitarian relief to
combat operations. When a carrier leaves on deployment, we have
to be ready for anything."<END QUOTE>

Then on Wednesday, the Pentagon announced that USS Nimitz aircraft
carrier and strike group would also enter the US 7th Fleet area of
operations in the western Pacific.

The Nimitz had previously been deployed with the 5th Fleet in the
Mideast in Operation Inherent Resolve, the name of the US military
operation against the so-called Islamic State (IS or ISIS or ISIL or
Daesh) in Iraq and Syria. Eventually, the Theodore Roosevelt is
expected to take the place of the Nimitz in the 5th Fleet area of
operations, covering the Middle East.

Having three aircraft carrier strike groups in the region is extremely
rare, and represents a huge show of force in response to North Korean
threats, in advance of President Trump's scheduled visit to Seoul and
Beijing next month.

However, Pentagon officials claim that the deployment of three Navy
aircraft carrier groups has been planned for some time. According to
spokesman Dana White:

<QUOTE>"This was a unique opportunity to show that the
U.S. is the only power in the world that can demonstrate that kind
of presence and a unique opportunity for them to be together.

It’s not directed towards any particular threat. But it is a
demonstration that we can do something that no one else in the
world can."<END QUOTE>

This is the first time since 2007 that three carrier groups have
deployed together to the same location. Navy.mil
and Military.com and The Hill and Navy.mil
and Russia Today

Related Articles

KEYS: Generational Dynamics, North Korea, Ri Yong-Pil, Ri Yong-ho,
Japan, Shinzo Abe, Liberal Democratic Party, LDP,
Theodore Roosevelt, Ronald Reagan, Carlos Sardiello, Nimitz,
Dana White, 7th Fleet, 5th Fleet, Operation Inherent Resolve,
Islamic State / of Iraq and Syria/Sham/the Levant, IS, ISIS, ISIL, Daesh

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
Forum: http://www.gdxforum.com/forum
Subscribe to World View: http://generationaldynamics.com/subscribe

pbrower2a · 10-26-2017, 11:02 PM

(10-26-2017, 04:08 PM)Cynic Hero Wrote:
(10-26-2017, 01:45 PM)John J. Xenakis Wrote: http://www.worldfuturefund.org/wffmaster....01.30.htm

While hitler was being disingenuous here, you do realize that everything he said in that speech was essentially True: Germany did not declare war on Britain and France; Britain and France declared war on Germany. There is also that fact that Britain had not intention of marching troops into Germany in retaliation for the invasion of Poland. In reality the west at all points from 1919 on to the present day has imposed wilsonianism on the world (the post-ww2 world was essentially a improved version of the post-ww1 Versailles order) and pretty much regards any government that voices opposition to the Wilsonian system as somehow illegitimate.

It may have been the way of kings to break treaties when such was convenient, said Raynald de Chatillon (who had raided caravans in violation of a treaty that he had made earlier with Saladin) in the presence of Saladin (his captor) and Guy de Lusignac (a fellow captive). At that, Saladin beheaded Raynald de Chatillon. As Guy de Lusignac cowered in fear that he would get the same treatment, Saladin told Guy de Lusignac that having done nothing wrong, Saladin's surviving captive had nothing to fear. Guy de Lusignac was released. Just rulers might execute those who committed perfidy, but not those who had done nothing wrong. Such may have contributed to the recognition in even the Crusader world (and the Crusaders were thugs) that Saladin was a just ruler.

For the invasion of Belgium despite the unfortunate country's official neutrality, Germany was judged guilty of a perfidious crime against peace. Occupations and annexations resulting from aggression could not be recognized as legitimate. Brutality to a country and its people, including massacres, enslavement, and plunder in the wake of aggression would be damnable crimes. The United States did not recognize the Japanese annexation of Manchuria or the Italian invasion of Ethiopia. The non-totalitarian world would not recognize the Soviet takeovers of the three tiny Baltic Republics in 1940, either, let alone every act of fascist aggression from the Nazi occupation of Denmark to the Japanese attacks on the USA, Britain, the Netherlands, and Free France.

Since World War II there have been other acts of blatant aggression, including the Soviet suppression of democratic revolutions in East Germany and Hungary, the American incursions into Laos and Cambodia, the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, and -- most uniformly reviled -- the invasion of Kuwait by Satan Hussein.

Quote:The Boomers today have absorbed all the mistakes of the missionaries uncritically and seeks to tyrannically brainwash millennials into being good little boy scouts by usurping choices and tyrannically disempowering the millennial until the millennial absorbed the boomers disgusting doctrines uncritically. Millennials will never embrace "freedom" as defined by boomers because that doctrine intrinsically contradicts millennials inner nature and is seen by the millie as starry-eyed nonsense forced upon the by boomers.

First of all, we Boomers do not form a cultural or political monolith. We split on the merits of the two Boomer Presidents (Clinton and the younger Bush) and the one Generation X President (Obama) who preceded Trump. With Donald Trump -- he may be part of our Boomer Generation, but many of us thoroughly despise him. Indeed, America split very evenly between Dubya and Gore, two very different politicians.

A Boomer politician has no natural constituency just for being a Boomer. We have our liberals and our conservatives, our radical leftists and our radical rightists, and even commies and fascists. We have people convinced that no human suffering is in excess so long as it enriches and pampers elites while maintaining the power of those elites, and people who think such abominable. Some of us believe in Pie in the Sky When You Die as a valid reason for inflicting mass poverty upon those who will get their rewards in Heaven in return for suffering in This World and people who believe that an unconscionable offering. Some of us are cultural cosmopolitans who don't see "American" as a cause to accept or reject culture; some of us reject anything foreign because it isn't American. Some of us consider finely-honed rational thought the means of achieving anything worthy; some of us find all the answers in the Bible and don't need or want any book-learning that contradicts the Bible.

Some of us thought the War in Vietnam a noble purpose; some of us thought it a crime. Boomers are the last generation to live under the influence of the divide about the Vietnam War. All that I can say about Howe and Strauss is not that there is one Boomer way of looking at the world, but whatever Boomers believe they seem to believe it firmly, as is true of prior Idealist generations.

Quote:Actual Millie attitudes toward wilsonian "freedom"

https://qz.com/848031/harvard-research-s...democracy/

pbrower2a · 10-26-2017, 11:54 PM

Now on the article:

[Image: mounk-and-foa.jpeg?quality=80&strip=all&w=640]

...Did you notice that the percentage of Americans disbelieving in democracy increased for all age groups? Maybe it seemed to be working better in 1995 than in 2014. American politics were much less acrimonious in 1995 than in 2014. Democracy and political acrimony do not go well.

Maybe there is a generational factor. In 1994 there was still a large number of living GIs who firmly believed in democracy. After all, they knew what promise tyranny had for Humanity:

(OK, we do not need another Holocaust image to make the point).

I miss the GI generation in American politics. So long as they were numerous, GIs were able to convince us of the need for shared purpose and to recognize the need for good intentions on both sides. Once they retired from public life or died off, the political polarization could run wild. GIs did not like demagogues, as demagogues were obviously untrustworthy tro them as they were not so obviously untrustworthy to younger generations.

Note also that politics became more a theater for getting what one could while one could, and that the political donors became far more important as time passed. Since January 21, 2017, they are the only people who matter. Lobbyists are the real power in Congress, and we have a President who better resembles Wilhelm II of Germany than he resembles any President since the start of the 20th Century. But this chart stops in 2014.

[Image: atlas_ryAdGBiGx.png]

From 2016, just after the election of Donald Trump.

This is from when America was a democracy. It is not a democracy now. One Party now calls all the shots, and it may seek to entrench itself permanently. There is no room for compromise. In case people speak about times when one party had the Presidency and both Houses of Congress under either Dubya or Obama, at least there was then some effort to seek compromise. There were real moderates in both Parties. Such is not so under Donald Trump. We have a president acting much like a dictator, fitting the character of a bad noble who acts impetuously on whatever hurts his feelings at the time.

I would guess that the percentage of people who believe that a military coup is unacceptable in America is lower now than the figures shown above. But that is an imperial President at his worst, a reckless glory-seeker who insists that things go his way no matter what. Military coups are rare in well-functioning democracy, but they are much more common in non-democracies. If it takes a military coup to prevent a horrific war in the Korean peninsula or an unjustifiable invasion of Cuba or Venezuela, then so be it.

Senior officers are responsible for their roles in planning or executing a war of aggression. If they must choose between a coup and war crimes, then they must choose a coup. Of course that would create its own mess. It would be at the least an impeachment by people with no legal power with which to impeach a sitting President and his cabinet. Of course there would also be legislators culpable in the situation.

We have a President who has already shown admiration for dictators instead of politicians in the American tradition from Washington to Obama. This is worse than, for an example, a Greek leader showing admiration for Metaxas, a Hungarian leader showing admiration for Horthy or Kadar, or a Spanish leader showing admiration for Franco -- because dictatorship is 100% un-American!

Warren Dew · (This post was last modified: 10-27-2017, 03:13 PM by Warren Dew.)

(10-26-2017, 01:45 PM)John J. Xenakis Wrote:
(10-25-2017, 11:54 PM)Warren Dew Wrote: > On the other hand, Xi does believe that the party can control the
> people. After all Mao did it during the revolution, and again in
> the cultural revolution.

I'm sure Xi also remembers Mao's Great Leap Forward, in which the
"revolution" went completely out of control, and tens of millions of
people were executed or starved to death. It was a total Socialist
disaster.

** 16-Sep-10 News -- Cuba's seismic shift has global implications
** http://www.generationaldynamics.com/pg/x...tm#e100916

Sure, that's another example which Xi probably views as showing that the party can control the populace.

Quote:
(10-25-2017, 11:54 PM)Warren Dew Wrote: > Except that, as you point out, any actual socialism in China has
> already fallen apart, and China has been more capitalist than the
> US for a couple of decades now.

I have no idea how you measure that. Do you have some numeric measure
to back this up?

Government spending as a percentage of GDP is a good measure, with some allowance for price controls. Government spending in the US is a little under half the GDP, while in China it is a little over a quarter, and price controls are largely limited to utilities in both countries, so China is pretty clearly more capitalist.

I haven't been able to find the same number for Nazi Germany, though it seems to be in the neighborhood of a half, certainly considerably more than modern China. More importantly, the Nazi regime took over effective managerial control of much of German industry, so much of supposedly private industry was actually government controlled; accounting for that would bring the figure up well above one half.

Quote:The point that I was trying to make is that pure Socialism is
mathematically impossible, and pure Capitalism is politically
impossible. There's very likely some universal constant representing
the percentage of the country's GDP under regulatory control, and that
roughly the same percentage applies to both nominally Socialist and
nominally Capitalist societies.

Roughly the same number applies to modern social democracies and modern capitalist democracies, yes; the US and European countries hover around one half. That wasn't true in the 1930s, though. In the 1930s, there were still truly socialist countries, not just wimpy social democracies; in addition to Nazi Germany there was the Soviet Union, which like Communist China under Mao was almost fully socialist, with the number close to one. Yes, they were doomed eventually to collapse, but that process took decades.

From an economic standpoint, the US is closer to Nazi Germany than China is. From a political standpoint, China is closer, since the US isn't authoritarian, but socialism is an economic attribute, not a political one.

**John J. Xenakis** · 10-27-2017, 10:48 PM

*** 28-Oct-17 World View -- Burundi's Hutu government leaves International Criminal Court to avoid crimes against humanity charges

This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com

Burundi's Hutu government leaves International Criminal Court to avoid war crimes charges
Burundi to amend constitution to let Nkurunziza hold power until 2034

****
**** Burundi's Hutu government leaves International Criminal Court to avoid war crimes charges
****

[Image: g170906b.jpg]

Nyarugusu refugee camp in Tanzania. Over 400,000 people have fled to other countries to escape the Burundi government violence (MSF)

Burundi on Friday completed its formal withdrawal from membership in
the International Criminal Court (ICC), one year after the government
informed the ICC that it would do so.

Burundi officials are saying that the reason for the withdrawal is
that the court is racially biased against Africans, since of the 10
preliminary examinations that have proceeded to full investigations,
nine have involved conflicts in Africa. But six of those nine cases
were investigations requested by African nations, while two of them,
Libya and Sudan (both considered to be Arab countries, but not Black
African countries) were referred by the UN Security Council.

Both South Africa and The Gambia also filed plans last year to
withdraw from the ICC, citing the same bias against Africa, but both
countries later took back their withdrawals.

It's much more likely that the reason for Burundi's withdrawal from
the ICC is that one UN report after another has found that Burundi's
government, with Hutu president Pierre Nkurunziza, has repeatedly
committed crimes against humanity, mostly against members of Tutsi
tribe, the historic enemies of the Hutu tribe.

In 2016, there was an initial United Nations report on Burundi, based
on interviews with more than 500 people among the over 500,000 who had
fled the country from the violence. The violations included torture,
rape, beatings, arbitrary jailings and summary executions.
Nkurunziza's reaction to that report was to ban the United Nations
from Burundi, and to withdraw Burundi's membership from the
International Criminal Court (ICC).

The latest report, issued six weeks ago, focused on the Imbonerakure,
the youth wing of Nkurunziza's political party. The word Imbonerakure
means "visionaries," and for these kids, being "visionary" means
raping women and beating people with iron bars. Reports in 2015
indicated that Nkurunziza's police would select targets in the
opposition, and would give kids in the Imbonerakure police uniforms,
along with instructions to go to the homes of the targets, kill the
men with iron bars, rape the women, and then kill the women and
children.

Burundi officials were celebrating on Friday on the "great
achievement" of withdrawing from the ICC.

Burundi's Justice Minister Aimée Laurentine Kanyana said:

<QUOTE>"Without any problem, in total peace and security, we
have been able to leave ICC. Let's rejoice!"<END QUOTE>

A presidential spokesman said:

<QUOTE>"The ICC has shown itself to be a political instrument
and weapon used by the West to enslave [African states]. This is
a great victory for Burundi because it has defended its
sovereignty and national pride."<END QUOTE>

Members of Burundi's government now believe that the countries war
crimes and crimes against humanity are now beyond the reach of the
ICC, but ICC officials disagree:

<QUOTE>"Burundi’s withdrawal does not affect the jurisdiction
of the court with respect to crimes alleged to have been committed
during the time it was a state party, namely up until 27 October
2017."<END QUOTE>

A spokesman for Amnesty International said: "The Burundian government
has made a cynical attempt to evade justice by taking the
unprecedented step of withdrawing from the ICC. But perpetrators,
including members of the security forces, cannot so easily shirk their
alleged responsibility for crimes under international law committed
since 2015."

Overall, the violence in Burundi has claimed between 500 and 2,000
lives, according to differing tolls provided by the UN or NGOs and
more than 400,000 Burundians have fled abroad. Iwacu (Burundi) and Standard Media (Kenya) and Amnesty International and Xinhua

Related Articles

****
**** Burundi to amend constitution to let Nkurunziza hold power until 2034
****

The violence and crimes against humanity began in 2015, when president
Pierre Nkurunziza announced that he would run for a third term, in
violation of the constitution. Nkurunziza did run, and won the
election as president. There were peaceful protests in opposition to
Nkurunziza, and that's when Nkurunziza began his crimes against
humanity, targeting the opposition.

Now Nkurunziza plans to amend the constitution so that he can continue
to hold power. Under the planned amendments, he'll be able to hold
power until 2034.

Burundi's last generational Crisis war was the war the 1994 Rwanda
genocide, in which Hutus tortured, raped and massacred Tutsis, killing
over 800,000 in 100 days. Three countries, Rwanda, Burundi and
Uganda, were all participants in the Hutu-Rwanda genocide. The Hutu
and Tutsi tribes have been historic enemies for centuries, and have
conducted extremely brutal wars with each other, the most well-known
of which is the 1994 Rwanda genocide.

Today, all three countries are in a generational Awakening era, which
follows a familiar generational pattern. When a country's
generational crisis war is a civil war between two ethnic groups
within the country, then in the decades following the end of the war,
especially during the next generational Awakening era, the ethnic
group that won the war and took power begins new violence, atrocities,
rapes, and arbitrary jailings and executions against the ethnic group
that lost the war.

From the point of view of Generational Dynamics, we've seen this time
after time, in Syria, Zimbabwe, South Sudan, Burundi, Thailand,
Uganda, Democratic Republic of Congo, Cameroon, Eritrea, and other
countries, where leaders in generational Awakening and Unraveling eras
use arbitrary jailings, violence and atrocities to keep the opposition
ethnic group out of power. Over a period of years, the violence
worsens until it turns into a full-scale generational crisis civil war
when the next generational crisis era arrives.

The leaders of all three countries involved in the 1994 genocide are
using force and violence to remain in power. Uganda's president
Yoweri Museveni, 73 years old, allied with the Tutsis, took part in
many of these gruesome atrocities and slaughter. The current
president of Rwanda is Paul Kagame, a Tutsi, also taking extraordinary
measures to stay in power.

President Pierre Nkurunziza was not just a Hutu soldier in the 1994
Rwanda genocide. He was also a Hutu militia leader, and undoubtedly
was responsible for many atrocities against Tutsis during the massive
slaughter of Tutsis. So from the point of view of Tutsis, you have a
hated Hutu militia leader responsible to atrocities and slaughter of
Tutsis, and of course they're going be furious and want revenge.

The people of Burundi finally settled the 1994 genocide in 2005, with
all sides signing the "Arusha Accords" that set down rules for how the
country would be governed. The Arusha Accords specified that a
president could only hold power for two terms. They also specified
that the constitution could not be amended.

So now a militia leader from a tribe of vicious war criminals, Pierre
Nkurunziza, is using extreme violence to stay in power illegally, and
prevent his political opponents, the Tutsis from taking power. This
will not end well. Iwacu (Burundi) and AFP

Related Articles

KEYS: Generational Dynamics, Burundi, Pierre Nkurunziza, Hutu, Tutsi,
International Criminal Court, ICC, Libya, Sudan,
South Africa, The Gambia, Tanzania,
Rwanda, Paul Kagame, Uganda, Yoweri Museveni,
Imbonerakure, Aimée Laurentine Kanyana, Arusha Accords

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pbrower2a · 10-28-2017, 02:17 AM

It is ironic that what was once one of the most radical parties of its time (the Communist party of China) has become a conservative (if undemocratic) party in all but name.

**John J. Xenakis** · 10-28-2017, 01:01 PM

(10-28-2017, 02:17 AM)pbrower2a Wrote: > It is ironic that what was once one of the most radical parties of
> its time (the Communist party of China) has become a conservative
> (if undemocratic) party in all but name.

(10-27-2017, 03:13 PM)Warren Dew Wrote: > Government spending as a percentage of GDP is a good measure, with
> some allowance for price controls. Government spending in the US
> is a little under half the GDP, while in China it is a little over
> a quarter, and price controls are largely limited to utilities in
> both countries, so China is pretty clearly more
> capitalist.

You two have gone completely off the rails. Saying that America is
Socialist and China is Capitalist is about as moronic as anything I
can think of.

First off, GDP is not any sort of measure for comparing Socialism to
Capitalism, since the figures are open to lying. To take one obvious
example, Obamacare is an extremely expensive government expense, but
my guess is that China calls all health care "private." Also, the US
defense budget is all attributed to government expenditures, and we
know that China lies about its military spending.

The point is that the International Criminal Nation of China, which is
building illegal massive military bases in the South China Sea and
lies about everything else, is certainly lying about how much of its
GDP is public vs private.

But GDP is irrelevant anyway. Here's one obvious example: China has
clamped down on mobile phone apps in China to prevent any app that
could be used to criticize the government, or could be used to
communicate with the outside world (like VPNs). This is the kind of
control that makes China a Socialist dictatorship. Obviously, we have
no such restrictions in America, and that wouldn't appear in the GDP
at all.

In America, the Justice Dept tried to get Apple to unlock an iphone so
that a criminal investigation could be pursued, and Apple refused.
Can you imagine what would happen to a Chinese exec who similarly
refused? They'd be feeding his body to the fishes. Once again, this
kind of Socialist government control is not reflected in the GDP.

Here's an article about how China is implementing computerized systems
called "City Brain" to keep track of the movements and actions of
every person in the city. The systems combines input from thousands
of cameras, social networks, credit cards, mobile phones, GPS systems,
and any other possible technology, merging all that data into a
database that keeps track of everything that any individual says,
does, goes or buys. It's 1984 on steroids. It's currently
implemented in Hangzhou, and China is planning to implement it across
the country.

China has horrific restrictions on what anyone can say online, and
everything is monitored. The government deletes postings that don't
fit the party line, and anyone who criticizes the government risks
getting thrown into a bottomless pit.

In America, people say that Trump is "Hitler," and they give as
reasons that he didn't remember some soldier's first name, or he
supposedly admires some foreign dictator, or whatever idiotic reason
du jour the liberals come up with. But in America, Trump is
criticized and mocked by everyone, with one idiotic reason after
another, and nothing happens to those people. They can simply go on,
day after day, giving more idiotic reasons. In America, you're free
to criticize your leaders, without getting arrested. So we don't have
any Hitlers in America.

Hitler was responsible for the deaths of tens of millions of people,
and everyone on both the left and the right condemns Hitler and the
neo-nazis in the US and Europe.

But violence and dictatorships on the left? Liberals LOVE those. To
liberals, BLM is great! Who cares if a few white policemen are
murdered? And Antifa is great! Who cares if a few free speech
advocates are bloodied and beaten? Those white policemen and free
speech advocates deserve it, don't they? Liberals LOVE that.

And Stalin and Mao were responsible for hundreds of millions of deaths
-- far more than Hitler. But liberals LOVE Stalin and Mao. "You have
to break a few eggs to make an omelet!" Haha.

Not to mention that liberals LOVED the fascist Benito Mussolini in the
30s. "Hey! He may be a dictator, but he keeps the trains running on
time!!"

So contrast America to the farce at the People's Congress last week,
when Xi Jinping was elected General Secretary of the Communist Party
of China. All 2,400 delegates voted yes. The world watched on
television as they were asked if anyone was opposed, and not a single
person dared to raise his hand. It looked like a pathetic joke. In
America, anyone can vote against Trump, or mock and criticize Trump,
but China's government is so pathetic that not a single person dares
to oppose the leader. The Chinese Communist Party is so fragile that
they're afraid that they'll fall apart if anyone is allowed to
criticize them.

Then Xi introduced the Politburo Standing Committee: Comrade Li
Keqiang, Comrade Li Zhanshu, Comrade Wang Yang, Comrade Wang Huning,
Comrade Zhao Leji, and Comrade Han Zheng.

[Image: 69a00818-b951-11e7-affb-32c8d8b6484e_128...105624.jpg]

[Image: 69a00818-b951-11e7-affb-32c8d8b6484e_128...105624.jpg]

Watching these seven old men on stage, one can see that this is the
face of evil.

This cabal of Adolf Hitlers is going to bring the worst catastrophe in
world history to China and the rest of the world.

So for you two guys to suggest that China is a modern, free,
capitalist society, while America is some kind of socialist
government-controlled state just shows the lengths of total idiocy to
which today's political discourse has gone.

**John J. Xenakis** · 10-28-2017, 01:27 PM

Sorry, I forgot to include the link to the "City Brain" article:

http://www.iflscience.com/technology/sma...elligence/

Cynic Hero '86 · (This post was last modified: 10-28-2017, 09:33 PM by Cynic Hero '86.)

If china is such a threat, why did the Chinese back down in front of the Indian defenses just a few months ago? Nations go to war if they think they could win, given Chinese decisions in the Doklam crisis, they apparently did not think they beat India. Also once again you imply that its the US's job to monitor the world and also imply that the west should not be satisfied even in China pulls back from the south china sea. This boils down to a consistent refusal on your part as well as other boomer ideologues part to accept that the CCP government is Legitimate, and the view that chiang-kai-shek was really china's legitimate government; in other worlds the same propaganda that has got our nose in East Asian affairs since at least 1950 and arguably since 1931.

Also regarding practical geopolitical strategy and security strategy, the burden of proof in terms of competence and wisdom of their strategic conceptions is on Boomer neocons and "free world" ideologues like yourself, since it was you guys who presided over 9/11, it was you guys who allowed Iran and North Korea to develop wmds with no modification of the sanctions strategy, it was under your generations watch that both Russia and China caught up with the US militarily; it was you boomers interventionists who brought us first the sanctions regime on Iraq and later the Iraq war and even later arab spring occured. Given your particular political wing of your generation's track record of failure: why should anyone trust you guys political and military assessments and strategies at all. Americans did not give Admiral Kimmel and General Short another chance at running the pacific fleet after they presided over pearl harbor.

**Ragnarök_62** · 10-28-2017, 07:22 PM

(10-27-2017, 03:13 PM)Warren Dew Wrote: <snip>
Roughly the same number applies to modern social democracies and modern capitalist democracies, yes; the US and European countries hover around one half. That wasn't true in the 1930s, though. In the 1930s, there were still truly socialist countries, not just wimpy social democracies; in addition to Nazi Germany there was the Soviet Union, which like Communist China under Mao was almost fully socialist, with the number close to one. Yes, they were doomed eventually to collapse, but that process took decades.

From an economic standpoint, the US is closer to Nazi Germany than China is. From a political standpoint, China is closer, since the US isn't authoritarian, but socialism is an economic attribute, not a political one.

1. The US is a flawed democracy and a Neocon addled war state.
2. I certainly agree the US is more like Nazi Germany than China, because ... neoliberalism.

Lamestream media, do your fucking job and clue us in on these fucking wars of choice!

[Image: weed-light-effects-smiley-emoticon.gif]

(what was old, is new again, man.

pbrower2a · (This post was last modified: 10-28-2017, 10:29 PM by pbrower2a.)

(10-28-2017, 01:01 PM)John J. Xenakis Wrote:
(10-28-2017, 02:17 AM)pbrower2a Wrote: > It is ironic that what was once one of the most radical parties of
> its time (the Communist party of China) has become a conservative
> (if undemocratic) party in all but name.

(10-27-2017, 03:13 PM)Warren Dew Wrote: > Government spending as a percentage of GDP is a good measure, with
> some allowance for price controls. Government spending in the US
> is a little under half the GDP, while in China it is a little over
> a quarter, and price controls are largely limited to utilities in
> both countries, so China is pretty clearly more
> capitalist.

You two have gone completely off the rails. Saying that America is
Socialist and China is Capitalist is about as moronic as anything I
can think of.

I did not say the China was democratic by any stretch of the imagination. It has a dictatorship, but one that allows a formal but powerless opposition. The normal civil liberties and political process of a liberal democracy do not exist in China. Workers have no rights to unions, let alone to strike. There is no real welfare state. But China has heavily privatized large sectors of the economy. There may still be iconic images of Marx, Engels, Lenin, and Mao, but those are about as meaningful to the political reality now (the dictatorship, but no longer proletarian) as images of Ruth, Gehrig, DiMaggio, Berra, and Mantle are to the current New York Yankees baseball team.

If some evil people were to establish a dictatorship in America (essentially someone who believes much what Donald Trump does, only far more effective), then the opposition would be whittled away until it was visible but impotent. If conservative it would probably dismantle the welfare state and become a paradise for millionaires (but miserable for most people). China has a very high GINI coefficient. Images of Washington, Jefferson, Lincoln, and FDR would remain -- but their meaning would be gutted. Gutting Marx, Engels, Lenin, and Mao is a very good thing. Gutting Washington, Jefferson, Lincoln, and FDR would be horrible. Democrats might still be mayors of giant cities (think of "Red Budapest" run by Social Democrats under the Horthy dictatorship in interwar Hungary) and maybe governors of a couple of states, but very few states. Most state legislators would be fully owned and operated subsidiaries of lobbying firms (whoops! We are already there). Local political power would be gutted even though the formality of federalism might be kept for show. The dominant Party would call the shots. Of course it would be as plutocratic as the Communist Party of China has become in practice.

Quote:First off, GDP is not any sort of measure for comparing Socialism to
Capitalism, since the figures are open to lying. To take one obvious
example, Obamacare is an extremely expensive government expense, but
my guess is that China calls all health care "private." Also, the US
defense budget is all attributed to government expenditures, and we
know that China lies about its military spending.

The People's Liberation Army has real economic power with control of at the least entities connected to military procurement.
On the other side, it is hard to see how many of America's defense contractors would exist as profitable entities in a free market.

Quote:The point is that the International Criminal Nation of China, which is
building illegal massive military bases in the South China Sea and
lies about everything else, is certainly lying about how much of its
GDP is public vs private.

But GDP is irrelevant anyway. Here's one obvious example: China has
clamped down on mobile phone apps in China to prevent any app that
could be used to criticize the government, or could be used to
communicate with the outside world (like VPNs). This is the kind of
control that makes China a Socialist dictatorship. Obviously, we have
no such restrictions in America, and that wouldn't appear in the GDP
at all.

...and there are people who would like to do much the same here in America, trading others' freedom for their gain, indulgence, and power. Some are already rich and powerful.

Quote:In America, the Justice Dept tried to get Apple to unlock an iphone so
that a criminal investigation could be pursued, and Apple refused.
Can you imagine what would happen to a Chinese exec who similarly
refused? They'd be feeding his body to the fishes. Once again, this
kind of Socialist government control is not reflected in the GDP.

We still have the formality of a search warrant, so a judge has some control against pointless searches and seizures. Of course China has legal formalities different from ours, and the Chinese legal system is very efficient in turning a criminal suspect into a jailbird or a cadaver. China has a death penalty, applies it to offenses that are not capital in America (like drug trafficking, human trafficking, piracy, and various forms of economic corruption) and is more likely to sentence someone convicted of a capital crime to death. Chinese prisons are also to be avoided, and not only because poorer countries tend to have worse prisons.

Quote:China has horrific restrictions on what anyone can say online, and
everything is monitored. The government deletes postings that don't
fit the party line, and anyone who criticizes the government risks
getting thrown into a bottomless pit.

Well documented and undeniable.

Quote:In America, people say that Trump is "Hitler," and they give as
reasons that he didn't remember some soldier's first name, or he
supposedly admires some foreign dictator, or whatever idiotic reason
du jour the liberals come up with. But in America, Trump is
criticized and mocked by everyone, with one idiotic reason after
another, and nothing happens to those people. They can simply go on,
day after day, giving more idiotic reasons. In America, you're free
to criticize your leaders, without getting arrested. So we don't have
any Hitlers in America.

We still have over 200 years of a Constitutional heritage without anything like Mao as a founding father. But this said, I see plenty wrong with Donald Trump and little right (unless 'right-wing'). There are plenty of reasons du jour to hold him in contempt because he seems to come up with a new one on the average of once a week. Yes, he is a pathological narcissist; he shows little empathy except among family members and close associates; he is reckless in his speech and his "tweets"; he says that there are good people on both sides when one of the sides is fascist (which is as absurd as saying that there are good people on both sides between armed robbers and the people that they rob); he uses regulations to circumvent Congress when legislation might do the job but not be as swift; he baits a dangerous and capricious foreign leader; he and his family suggest that profitable dealings with him are good for them if they want favors with the government; he brags about what a great job he is doing with hurricane relief in Puerto Rico before the job is done; and that is before I mention his campaign.

Yes, he is completely unsuited to be President, but people were foolish enough to vote for him.

I will concede that if his questionable behavior and dubious reasoning results from mental deterioration, then he might be excused. I can imagine this happening if Joe Biden had been elected President, as anyone over 55 has a chance of going senile and the possibility increases with every added year of age. Mental inadequacy due to insanity or low intelligence are mitigating factors. Senility? It's not so clear.

Quote:Hitler was responsible for the deaths of tens of millions of people,
and everyone on both the left and the right condemns Hitler and the
neo-nazis in the US and Europe.

But violence and dictatorships on the left? Liberals LOVE those. To
liberals, BLM is great! Who cares if a few white policemen are murdered? And Antifa is great! Who cares if a few free speech
advocates are bloodied and beaten? Those white policemen and free
speech advocates deserve it, don't they? Liberals LOVE that.

To endorse any dictatorship is illiberal, whether the dictator is a left-wing savage like Fidel Castro or a right-wing savage like Agosto Pinochet. It's hard to establish whether Saddam Hussein or Idi Amin was "left" or "right" -- whatever his place on the political spectrum, either is horrible. You tell me whether you think ISIS is "Left" or Right". The only good thing that I could say of a more clement dictator like Schuschnigg or Jaruzelski is that he is better than some alternatives such as a full-blown Nazi or Stalinist.

As for Black Lives Matter -- nobody thinks it OK to kill a cop. Anyone who pulls a gun on a cop, due to bullet-proof vests, can expect to die because the crook must point the gun at a vital organ not covered by the bullet-proof vest (head or neck) and the cop ca fire a lethal shot faster. Maybe the cops are more trigger-happy with black people under shaky circumstances. What do we do about that? Good question.

Quote:And Stalin and Mao were responsible for hundreds of millions of deaths
-- far more than Hitler.

Debatable about Stalin vs. Hitler on the body count. First, some of the body count involving Stalin was double-counting. A "bourgeois nationalist" might also have been an "enemy of the People" and thus counted twice . Of course Stalin is still a large-scale killer even if the count is cut down by a thousand. Hitler wasn't much of a killer until 1939; Mussolini may have had more blood on his hands for the suppression of Libya and his murderous invasion of Ethiopia, and the Japanese militarists far exceeded the carnage of Hitler in the Massacre of Nanjing alone than Hitler did in Germany before he invaded Poland. But once Hitler invaded Poland there was no limit to the murder of Hitler except the six month window of time before he offed himself in the bunker. Add to that, Hitler was undeniably the chief aggressor in World War II, so he is responsible for war deaths from Belfast to Stalingrad and on the high seas around Europe. On the Baltic States, and eastern interwar Poland and eastern interwar northeastern Romania I split responsibility for the Stalinist crimes because Hitler dealt those territories to the Soviet Union contrary to any will of the peoples therein in full knowledge of what he would do. If you hand a child to a molester in knowledge that that person is a child molester, then you are guilty too.

Quote:But liberals LOVE Stalin and Mao. "You have
to break a few eggs to make an omelet!" Haha.

We do? I didn't know that.

Quote:Not to mention that liberals LOVED the fascist Benito Mussolini in the
30s. "Hey! He may be a dictator, but he keeps the trains running on
time!!"

I didn't know that. I also did not know that the Earth is flat and that fire-breathing dragons are real.

Quote:So contrast America to the farce at the People's Congress last week,
when Xi Jinping was elected General Secretary of the Communist Party
of China. All 2,400 delegates voted yes. The world watched on
television as they were asked if anyone was opposed, and not a single
person dared to raise his hand. It looked like a pathetic joke. In
America, anyone can vote against Trump, or mock and criticize Trump,
but China's government is so pathetic that not a single person dares
to oppose the leader. The Chinese Communist Party is so fragile that
they're afraid that they'll fall apart if anyone is allowed to
criticize them.

I paid no attention. But I also recognize Donald Trump acting much like another sort of undemocratic leader, a bad feudal lord of the manor who can lash out when something doesn't go his way -- and can make others hurt. He is by far the closest thing that America has had to a dictator. Sure, Lincoln and FDR regimented the economy during their wars, but that is understandable. So did Churchill, even more so. Donald Trump can give official pronouncements on scientific matters. Trofim Lysenko would feel right at home in Trump's America. Global warming isn't happening, coal can be 'clean', and pollution is a price of progress -- more pollution means more progress. Give me a break!

Quote:Then Xi introduced the Politburo Standing Committee: Comrade Li
Keqiang, Comrade Li Zhanshu, Comrade Wang Yang, Comrade Wang Huning,
Comrade Zhao Leji, and Comrade Han Zheng.

Watching these seven old men on stage, one can see that this is the
face of evil.

I don't recognize the faces. Not knowing who they are, they could as well be Hong Kong or even San Francisco (Chinatown) businessmen. OK, so I know the context. But there were plenty of baby-faced Nazis, too. Donald Trump is evil, and he looks benign, too. To be sure there are some well cultivated "I be bad" looks, usually on people that I know enough to avoid.

Quote:This cabal of Adolf Hitlers is going to bring the worst catastrophe in
world history to China and the rest of the world.

For now I am more concerned about the mad ruler, the King-in-all-but-name of North Korea. And, I regret to say, the current President of the United States. Besides, so far as China is concerned, I can think of three calamities hard to top: the Mongol invasion, which killed 20 million people, about half of them in China, the Japanese invasion, and Mao's absurd and destructive Great Leap Forward.

Quote:So for you two guys to suggest that China is a modern, free,
capitalist society, while America is some kind of socialist
government-controlled state just shows the lengths of total idiocy to
which today's political discourse has gone.

The United States has Big Government, and much less economic competition than it used to have. Much of the economic choice by our politicians is dividing the marketplace.

If it takes Big Government to secure public safety and welfare or to protect the People from such calamities as invasions, then so be it. But if Big Government has less benign purposes like deciding who wins and who loses, then Big Government is not so benign. But that is how all technologies and other economic tools work -- is that controversial at all?

**John J. Xenakis** · 10-28-2017, 11:49 PM

*** 29-Oct-17 World View -- New Somalia terror bombings again raise question of US military strategy in Africa

This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com

Dozens killed in Mogadishu, Somalia, bombings, two weeks after hundreds killed
Somalia attack comes as Niger ambush leads to review of US military aims in Africa

****
**** Dozens killed in Mogadishu, Somalia, bombings, two weeks after hundreds killed
****

[Image: g171028b.jpg]

Aftermath of two car bombs in the heart of Mogadishu, Somalia, on Saturday (CNN)

At least 23 people were killed and dozens injured from a series of
coordinated suicide bombings and gun battles on Saturday afternoon in
Mogadishu, the capital city of Somalia.

The al-Qaeda linked Somalia terror group Al-Shabaab claimed credit for
the terror attack. The first attack was a car bomb outside the Nasa
Hablod hotel, usually frequented by Somalia politicians. A second car
bombing in the same area targeted security forces and ambulances as
they arrived at the hotel to respond to the first bombing. A third
bombing occurred when an attacker detonated his explosive vest inside
the hotel. The explosions were followed by heavy gunfire.

Saturday's bombings came just two weeks after a massive truck bombing
in a busy marketplace in Mogadishu killed 350 people. That was by far
the worst terror attack in Somalia's modern history.

If there's any black humor in this horrific situation, it's that
al-Shabaab claimed credit for Saturday's attack, but not for the
attack two weeks ago. According to most analysts, the reason that
they didn't claim credit for the previous attack is that so many
civilians, including many women and children, were among the 350 dead,
and al-Shabaab feared a public relations disaster. Nonetheless,
Somali civilians are furious at al-Shabaab and hold them responsible
for all those civilian deaths. The latest attack targeted
politicians, security forces and ambulance drivers, and apparently the
al-Shabaab terrorists believe that ordinary people will love them for
helping to stamp out (or blow up) government corruption. Garowe Online (Somalia) and Long War Journal and AP and CNN

****
**** Somalia attack comes as Niger ambush leads to review of US military aims in Africa
****

Since October 8, when I first reported on the deaths of four US troops in Niger,
this little-known
event has become the subject of major political controversy.

The story that has emerged pretty much follows what was known at that
time. A convoy of American soldiers were ambushed by a group of
dozens of militants, believed to be linked to Islamic State in Greater
Sahara (ISGS), a militant group that has sworn allegiance to the
so-called Islamic State (IS or ISIS or ISIL or Daesh). There have
been additional details coming out that indicate that the ambush was
planned by local villagers, who tipped off the militants, and then
delayed the American convoy from leaving long enough for the militants
to get into place for the ambush.

The first controversy that has arisen was national and international
scandal as it was debated for in media around the world whether
President Trump had or had not momentarily forgotten the name of one
of the soldiers, surely a question of galaxial significance, and well
worth five or six days of constant 24-hour media coverage.

And second, there was shock and surprise on the part of many people
that there are some 800 American troops in Niger. South Carolina
Republican Lindsey Graham admitted that he hadn't known that, but
said, "They were there to defend America. They were there to help
allies. They were there to prevent another platform to attack America
and our allies." The 800 US troops in Niger work with 4,000 military
personnel from France, the former colonial power in the region, and
35,000 local partners.

There are actually some 6,000 American soldiers in missions in 53
African countries. These soldiers typically provide training and
security assistance for local forces, including intelligence and
reconnaissance help.

[Image: afribig.gif]

Africa is larger than Europe, America, Alaska, China, and New Zealand (not shown) combined. (Source: Boston Univ)

(In one sense, 6,000 American soldiers in Africa really isn't a lot,
given the size of Africa. Africa is the size of the ENTIRE United
States INCLUDING Alaska PLUS all of China PLUS all of Europe -- and
there's still enough room left over to throw in New Zealand.)

The reasons given for the increase in American forces is to confront
the challenges from Islamic extremists, traffickers, smugglers and
antigovernment militias on all sides. In the case of Niger and the
Sahel region, al-Qaeda has been long established there in the form of
Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM), and lately has reorganized
into JNIM (Jama’at Nusrat al-Islam wal-Muslim, or Group for the
Support of Islam and Muslims). Now, adding to that, with ISIS being
expelled from its major strongholds in Syria and Iraq, there are
ISIS-linked militias in Africa, including Islamic State in Greater
Sahara (ISGS), which was responsible for the deaths of the American
soldiers in Niger.

From the point of view of Generational Dynamics, this effort in Africa
is nothing more than a holding action. No one can possibly believe
that we can defeat these militias in Africa, just as we haven't been
able to defeat the Taliban in Afghanistan, just as the French haven't
been able to defeat AQIM in Mali, just as UN peacekeepers haven't been
able to end the war in Central African Republic. The two recent
bombings in Mogadishu, Somalia, shows how far off any such defeat
would be. On the other hand, a complete US withdrawal could be
destabilizing to countries where the US troops are providing support.

So the main American mission is to provide support and training to
local national troops, while taking steps to guarantee that no
American troops become casualties -- which means that everything
possible will be done to learn the lessons from the Niger ambush, to
make sure it doesn't happen again.
CS Monitor and Deutsche Welle

Related Articles

KEYS: Generational Dynamics, Somalia, Al-Shabaab, al-Qaeda,
Black Hawk Down, Battle of Mogadishu, Nasa Hablod hotel,
Mali, Niger, France,
Group for the Support of Islam and Muslims,
JNIM, Jama’at Nusrat al-Islam wal-Muslim,
ISGS, Islamic State in the Greater Sahara,
Islamic State / of Iraq and Syria/Sham/the Levant, IS, ISIS, ISIL, Daesh

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John J. Xenakis
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Warren Dew · (This post was last modified: 10-29-2017, 12:20 AM by Warren Dew.)

(10-28-2017, 01:01 PM)John J. Xenakis Wrote: First off, GDP is not any sort of measure for comparing Socialism to
Capitalism, since the figures are open to lying. To take one obvious
example, Obamacare is an extremely expensive government expense, but
my guess is that China calls all health care "private." Also, the US
defense budget is all attributed to government expenditures, and we
know that China lies about its military spending.

The point is that the International Criminal Nation of China, which is
building illegal massive military bases in the South China Sea and
lies about everything else, is certainly lying about how much of its
GDP is public vs private.

You don't have to use the figures their government publishes, and I'm not using them. And while the artificial islands are against international law, they aren't really all that expensive in the greater scheme of things: they are basically just small airbases built on landfill.

Quote:But GDP is irrelevant anyway. Here's one obvious example: China has
clamped down on mobile phone apps in China to prevent any app that
could be used to criticize the government, or could be used to
communicate with the outside world (like VPNs). This is the kind of
control that makes China a Socialist dictatorship. Obviously, we have
no such restrictions in America, and that wouldn't appear in the GDP
at all.

This and the other examples you give most certainly make China a police state with no civil liberties.

It does not, however, make China socialist. Socialism is an economic system, and what's relevant is GDP and similar economic measures, not political repression. And as the figures show, China is more capitalist than the US. The idea that whether a country is socialist or capitalist based on what it calls itself, rather than on how its economy actually works, sounds like the kind of excuse the left comes up with to justify more and more socialism in the US.

China is basically a capitalist dictatorship, not a socialist dictatorship. The US is a mixed economy that is not a dictatorship.

Quote:So for you two guys to suggest that China is a modern, free,
capitalist society, while America is some kind of socialist
government-controlled state just shows the lengths of total idiocy to
which today's political discourse has gone.

pbrower can speak for himself, but I'm suggesting no such thing, as should have been obvious had you read with a modicum of care.

pbrower2a

With the extensive privatization (repudiation of the collective economy that was a failure) and practically no welfare state, China is more capitalist than many advanced western societies. Because of the heavy role of the military it is less capitalist than such an analogue of the USA in the 1920s.

I interpret Donald Trump's "Make America Great Again" as a return to most of the norms of the 1920s -- no welfare state, no concern for the environment except for profits that can be extracted from it, much higher inequality of income, weak-to-nonexistent unions, ess reliance upon education, bosses fully in control of employees, and no welfare state. He can't shrink the military, and he would not dare bring back Jim Crow. Obviously he can't undo the technological improvements from then.

This is what I expect from someone whose behavior resembles that of medieval nobility -- someone with an insatiable appetite for indulgence, a despotic attitude toward subordinates, an unromantic and exploitative view of women or girls, a contempt for formal learning, and a quick temper (a/k/a "short fuse"). His type used to dominate the Western World (including Russia until 1917). This type went down in revolutions or aligned itself with fascism in the 1930s and 1940s only to fall with fascism to the Soviet Army. Trump is an anomaly in most of the West, and he is beginning to look like such in the USA. He is not the normal conservative.

Addendum:

Character matters greatly in any leadership. Consider the expenditure that the federal government puts into a cadet at the Service academies, and what it expects of a cadet. The Army. Navy, and Air Force have their cultures in the officer corps befitting the purposes of hose services. Figuring that the armed forces can be the difference between annexing territory and losing it, maintaining independence and losing it, and that war is the most costly of activities in critical times (that is, Crisis eras) it is best that officers from the Lieutenant or Ensign to the top General and Admiral of the time be competent, loyal, and ethical. That is character. The Academies select cadets carefully and then do everything possible to instill character beyond what the cadet comes in with. Any officer can be in a critical position in battle, whether in a skirmish or a major campaign depending on rank.

Maybe the needs of combat are not relevant to political life, commerce, or the professions -- but all of them require some minimum standard of character. It should be obvious by now that those who lead the leaders need to weed people out for themselves alone before those people can advance through an organization or have responsibilities, failure at which can have grievous consequences, toward assets and people. I don't know if there is an 'embezzler' profile, but if someone shows signs of being an embezzler you do not want him as an accountant. K-12 teaching may not be the most respected profession that you think of, but there are some people that you do not want near a classroom -- like those with hot tempers, those who get too far from a lesson plan, and those who would exploit children or expose them to age-inappropriate behavior. I've been there as a sub, and I try to keep the classroom 'rated G'. You may be surprised that I have used a marginally-vile word (specifically "Damn!") in any semblance of anger. Circumstances: I had a student on the brink of expulsion, and he disrupted the class. That usually takes more than one, but his fellow students were trying to get him to stop, and that made things only worse. I told those students not to even talk back to him, and he kept acting up. I promptly made clear what situation he was in and issued sanctions appropriate for the situation. As a sub, I expect that students will talk a little more than they might with a regular teacher, but I made clear that he was not to say anything without my permission and that he could agree or face consequences. I think that he had used a not-so-marginal word, but I couldn't connect it to him. He mocked what I said, and for that I referred him to the principal's office. He was expelled for the rest of the school year, and he flunked every class and had to repeat seventh grade. He took a file of classwork from the previous hour, spat upon it, and emptied the file into the waste basket. That's when I said "Damn!"

But that is a middle-school classroom. I have said much about President Trump that you may consider harsh, but that is about behavior below my expectations of myself and of people over whom I have responsibility. This is not about ideology. A liberal Democrat who pulled the shenanigans that President Trump does would be a disaster.

Obviously there is no book entitled "How to Be President"; I look at some of the stuff that President Trump does and think "I would never do that". I wouldn't bait the mercurial tyrant in charge in North Korea. I would never tweet opinions as he does, as those have been the source of almost all my gaffes. I would put anything that I say publicly to the critical eye of someone capable of telling me that I need to change it to avoid ambiguity, just as an author expects an editor to check material before it is published. If I were to do something outside the norms for 44 other Presidents I would want an advisor capable of telling me that such is unwise. Yes, I can get away with saying derogatory things about people by twisting their names, as in "Harvey Swinestein" for the disgraced movie mogul, on the web. But the President cannot get away with such. Whatever faults I might have and whatever tendencies I have I would try to be better than those. I know as well as anyone that my first instinct is not invariably the best.

If I had any economic interests, I would make sure that those would not show any evidence of leading me to certain decisions. Surely I would be looking at th e history of the United States through the Presidency to inform me on what to do and what not to do. No, that might not be enough to have an adequate Presidency.

Of course that is cheap on my part. I never went into politics. After all, I would have to go up the political chain, with the US Senate or the Governorship of a State

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