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**John J. Xenakis** · 07-09-2019, 03:24 PM

** 09-Jul-2019 South Korea and Japan

(07-09-2019, 11:16 AM)Warren Dew Wrote: John - you talk about how the Chinese and the Japanese hate each
other, and that's true - but you realize it's not just the Chinese,
right?

Quote: A Japan-South
Korea trade
war?
First, some facts. South Korea is Japan’s third-largest export
destination (7.1 percent of all Japanese exports in 2018). Japan is
South Korea’s fifth-largest export destination (5.1 percent of all
South Korean exports in 2018). Both countries have an interest in
coordinating their economic, military and political power to curb
China’s growing regional footprint. And yet, the two seem incapable of
coordinating anything besides mutual annoyance. Last Thursday, Japan
began forcing Japanese companies to seek government approval before
exporting fluorinated polyamide, photoresists and hydrogen fluoride
etching gas – materials South Korea depends on for the production of
semiconductors and smartphone displays. Japan has justified the move
based on undefined national security risks. South Korea’s trade
minister said earlier today that the two sides were laying the
groundwork for a potential Friday meeting to discuss the issue, but
Japan’s chief Cabinet secretary told reporters that “The measure is
not a subject for consultation and we have no intention of withdrawing
it.” That doesn’t sound like a trade spat on the verge of being
resolved.

This is from the GPF newsletter. The following link may or may not work:
https://mailchi.mp/386148985920/daily-me...6b677b3791

Japan has been attacking Korea for centuries, and colonized Korea for
50 years in the last century, so the Koreans do indeed hate the
Japanese. However, South Korea is not planning a war of extermination
against Japan, while China is. A trade war is not an invasion, at
least not yet.

I would note that I've written Generational Dynamics analyses of
hundreds of countries over the years, and there's a lot of hatred out
there. In Britain, for example, the Gaelics hate the Scots, and the
Scots hate the English. But the situation with China and Japan is
special in that China is going to launch a world war by attacking
Japan.

**John J. Xenakis** · 07-11-2019, 10:29 PM

*** 12-Jul-19 World View -- Syria war may be fizzling, as al-Assad 'hits a wall' in Idlib

This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com

Syria war may be fizzling, with Idlib conflict frozen
Al-Assad 'hits a wall'
The instability of Idlib province
Does the Syria war have a political solution?
Sources:

****
**** Syria war may be fizzling, with Idlib conflict frozen
****

For the past three years, Syria's president Bashar al-Assad has
publicly vowed that he would regain control of all of Syria, even if
it meant exterminating all of millions of civilians in his Sunni Arab
opposition.

Al-Assad used a similar period in one region after another -- Aleppo,
Ghouta, Daraa, etc. He begins by bombing peaceful protesters,
particularly women and children. As soon as someone become violent in
revenge, he declares the whole community or ethnic group to be
"terrorists," and uses that as an excuse for full-scale genocide and
ethnic cleansing. The genocide is performed with missiles, barrel
bombs, chlorine gas and Sarin gas, all particularly targeting women
and children, as well as schools, markets, and hospitals. In each
region, under pressure from Russia and the United Nations, allowed
hundreds of thousands of people to flee to the northwest province of
Idlib.

Al-Assad has vowed since May 2018 that he would attack Idlib in
exactly the same way, in order take control of it. This has led to
widespread fears of a major humanitarian catastrophe, since "there's
no Idlib for Idlib," meaning that there's no place for the people to
flee to. Thanks to the influx of refugees from other regions, Idlib
now has over three million people, mostly women and children, and
al-Assad claims that all of them are "terrorists." Approximately
70,000 are believed to be members of Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), an
anti-Assad rebel group formerly associated with al-Qaeda.

If al-Assad assaulted Idlib in the same way as the other regions,
perhaps millions of people would try to cross the border into Turkey.
Turkey will bear the brunt of this disaster. Turkey is already
hosting 3.5 million refugees, and is doing everything possible to
prevent any more refugees from Syria from entering Turkey. If a new
mass of refugees does enter Turkey, then some of the Idlib refugees
will undoubtedly continue on into Europe, resulting in a new European
migrant crisis.

****
**** Al-Assad 'hits a wall'
****

I and many other people expected al-Assad's assault on Idlib to have
begun long before now. But there was almost know military action at
all in the last year, until April 26, when it began bombing
residential areas, schools, hospitals, markets and other places where
women and children are likely to be found. It seemed that the full
force of al-Assad's assault on Idlib had begun.

However, al-Assad's assault on Idlib appears to have "hit a wall."
More than two months of Russian-backed operations in and around Idlib
province have yielded little or nothing. Al-Assad's assault has been
met with a counterpunch from anti-Assad rebels who have been
well-armed with guided anti-tank missiles supplied by Turkey.

****
**** The instability of Idlib province
****

The fact that al-Assad has accomplished little in Idlib in the last
year, and has hit a roadblock since resuming operations on April 26,
is making observers wonder if the war may be reaching a diplomatic
solution, with no clear victory by either al-Assad or the anti-Assad
rebels. There are a number of political reasons supporting that
conclusion.

Russia's president Vladimir Putin has been under domestic pressure
because of the cost of Russia's support for Syria in the war. That's
not surprising, since Russia already has what it wants from the Syria
war. Russia was completely shut out of the Mideast in the 1990s after
the collapse of the Soviet Union. Now, for the first time in decades,
Russia has two military bases in the Mideast -- the Tartus naval base,
and the Hmeimim airbase, both of them in Syria, in return for
supporting al-Assad. Russia is now firmly in control of those two
bases, and now that it has the bases it wants, and also wants to spend
less money, it can pull back from the war in Syria.

In the past, Russia, Iran, and Iran's puppet Hezbollah were all
fighting alongside al-Assad's forces against his Sunni Arab
opposition. Turkey had no choice but to watch what was happening from
afar.

But now, Russia wants to be main power in the Mideast. Furthermore,
Russia does not want any more Mideast wars, since they would
inevitably require Russia to intervene. So Russia wants to support
Turkey in preventing a massive new refugee crisis in Idlib. Russia
would also like to keep Iran and Hezbollah under control, so that they
don't threaten a war with Israel.

However, there are also major political factors working against a
political solution. The HTS anti-Assad rebels have been attacking
Syrian forces. Theoretically, based on an agreement between Turkey
and Russia, Turkey is supposed to prevent these kinds of attacks
between HTS and al-Assad forces, by means of a buffer zone separating
them, but this has not been entirely successful.

****
**** Does the Syria war have a political solution?
****

When the war in Syria began in 2011, I wrote that it would fizzle
because Syria is in a generational Awakening era. That's what should
have happened. The war almost fizzled after four years in 2015 when
al-Assad's army, ridden with desertions, was facing defeat from his
Arab Sunni opposition. But that was point at which he was saved by
Russia, which brought the full force of its armed forces in support of
al-Assad.

Now another four years have passed, and once again it appears that war
is about to fizzle. Maybe this time there will finally be some sort
of political settlement. It's certainly true that after eight years,
pretty much everyone is sick and tired of fighting the war.

Syria's current "civil war" is also an Awakening era war because it
comes just one generation after the real civil war that occurred in
Syria.

Syria's last generational crisis war was a religious/ethnic civil war
between the Shia Alawites versus the Sunnis. That war climaxed in
February 1982 with the destruction of the town of Hama. There had
been a massive uprising of the 400,000 mostly Sunni citizens of Hama
against Syria's Shia/Alawite president Hafez al-Assad, the current
president's father. He turned the town to rubble and killed or
displaced hundreds of thousands. Hama stands as a defining moment in
the Middle East. It was so shocking that it largely ended the war.

That worked because at that time, Syria was in a generational crisis
era, and the destruction of Hama was the climax of the war. The
reason for Bashar al-Assad's delusions is that he thought that the
destruction of Aleppo in 2016 would end the war in the same way that
his father's destruction of Hama ended the war. But this is a
generational Awakening era, and that kind of outcome doesn't work.
The reason that it doesn't work is that there are many survivors who
were shocked by the destruction of Hama in 1982, but are no longer
shocked by similar actions since they've seen it all before. So the
destruction of Aleppo did not end the war, as Bashar al-Assad
delusionally hoped, and now the war is back in full force.

So that's why the war should have fizzled, since both the
Shia/Alawites and the Arab Sunnis have vivid memories of the 1982 war
and don't want it to repeat. So why didn't war fizzle quickly?

As I've written many times in the past, Bashar al-Assad is the worst
genocidal monster so far this century. He is apparently in some kind
kind of psychotic competition with his late father, and wants to prove
that he can slaughter just as many people, just as effectively.

(As an aside, North Korea's child dictator Kim Jong-un is also in a
similar psychotic competition with his own late father, Kim Jong-il,
as I've mentioned in the past.)

The Syrian war began in 2011 when al-Assad ordered his army and air
force to attack peacefully protesting civilians, including women and
children. Things really turned around in August 2011, when al-Assad
launched a massive military assault on a large, peaceful Palestinian
refugee camp in Latakia, filled with tens of thousands of women and
children Palestinians. He dropped barrel bombs laden with metal,
chlorine, ammonia, phosphorous and chemical weapons onto innocent
Sunni women and children, he's targeted bombs on schools and
hospitals, and he's used Sarin gas to kill large groups of people. He
considers all Sunni Muslims to be cockroaches to be exterminated.

This attack on Arab Sunnis attracked tens of thousands of young
jihadists to Syria to fight al-Assad. By 2014, these jihadists had
formed the so-called Islamic State (IS or ISIS or ISIL or Daesh).
There were numerous anti-Assad rebel groups, including the Free Syrian
Army (FSA), Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), al-Qaeda-linked Jabhat
al-Nusra (al-Nusra Front) later renamed Jabhat Fateh al-Sham or JFS,
and then renamed again to Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS). There were also
Kurdish forces including PYD = Kurdish Democratic Union Party, YPG =
Kurdish People’s Protection Unit, armed wing of the PYD, and YPJ =
Women’s Protection Units. And of course there were also Turkish
forces, American forces, Hezbollah and Iran's Islamic Revolution
Guards Corps (IRGC).

The point is that the Syrian civil war is not really a civil war.
Rather it's a mash of over a dozen different forces vying for control
of different parts of Syria.

In the past eight years since Syria's war began, I've written analyses
of Awakening era wars in many other countries, where the preceding
crisis war was an ethnic or tribal civil war. All the leaders in such
cases exhibit some level of violence against their former tribal or
ethnic enemies. These include Bashar al-Assad in Syria, Paul Biya in
Cameroon, Pierre Nkurunziza in Burundi, Paul Kagame in Rwanda, the
military junta in Thailand, Yoweri Museveni in Uganda, Robert Mugabe
in Zimbabwe, Salva Kiir in South Sudan, Joseph Kabila in Democratic
Republic of Congo (DRC), and Hun Sen in Cambodia.

From the point of view of Generational Dynamics, what we can expect
with respect to Idlab and the war in Syria is as follows: The Syria
war will not reach a climax (such as the climax in 1982). Intead, the
war will fizzle, or there will be some kind of poltical settlement.
Throughout history, what has always happened in such situations is
there are always alternating periods of peace and low-level violence
or war. Each period of violence will be worse than the previous one,
land will be settled by some kind of peace agreement, which will be
quickly broken by one or both sides. Finally, after several decades,
there is a massive new generational crisis war, and the cycle repeats.

At the very least, we can breath a sigh of relief that al-Assad
has "hit a wall" in Idlib, so that there won't be a new humanitarian
catastrophe.

****
**** Sources:
****

KEYS: Generational Dynamics, Syria, Aleppo, Hezbollah, Bashar al-Assad,
Islamic State / of Iraq and Syria/Sham/the Levant, IS, ISIS, ISIL, Daesh,
Syrian Democratic Forces, SDF, Idlib, Hama, Latakia,
Russia, Iran, Latakia, Aleppo,
Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, HTS, Jabhat al-Nusra, al-Nusra Front,
Kurds, Rajova, People’s Protection Units, YPG,
Free Syrian Army, FSA

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pbrower2a · (This post was last modified: 07-11-2019, 11:33 PM by pbrower2a.)

Wasn't Syria in a Crisis during the Second World War? It was a combat zone between the Vichy -associated colonial rulers on the one side, and the British and the Free French on the other. The Nazis tried to establish a corridor of pro-Axis regimes in Syria and Lebanon (the French mandate sheared off Ottoman Turkey), Iraq under the fascistic regime of al-Gailani, and the absolute monarchy of Reza Shah I (not to be confused with his son Reza Shah II, Shah of Iran until the Islamic Revolution of 1979). The British and Free French overthrew the Vichy rulers of Syria; the British overthrew the pro-Nazi fascistic regime in Iraq; the Soviet Union occupied northern Iran and the British occupied southern Iran.

The changes in all three countries (four if you count Lebanon, which seceded from Syria) were revolutionary in effect and may have prevented some Crisis-era genocides (the Vichy regime collaborated with relish with the Nazis in the Holocaust, and it is easy to imagine al-Gailani doing much the same).

It is possible that the experiences fostered the ultimate rise of Ba'ath fascism in Syria and Iraq. The rise of the theocratic regime in Iran may be of more subtle causes...

I recognize the rise of any totalitarian order as a Crisis in itself, whether the initiation (examples; the rise of Lenin in Russia or Hitler in Germany; the full consolidation of totalitarian power under Mussolini in Italy; the establishment of military rule with the cover of the Imperial Rule Assistance Association in Japan; the conquest of Cambodia by the Khmer Rouge; the consolidation of the Marxist Derg in Ethiopia; the consolidation of power under Satan Hussein in Iraq) or the consolidation of the new order at its end (the establishment of the fossilized social order in Spain under Franco; the Communist takeover of China and much of eastern Europe in the late 1940s; the establishment of Apartheid in South Africa [which was certainly totalitarian to anyone not white]; Communist takeovers of Laos and southern Vietnam in 1975). The former begins chaos; the latter freezes society in some revolutionary, but totalitarian 'new order' that persists for decades.

Obviously not all Crises culminate in the establishment of totalitarian rule. Eastern Germany and northern Korea went from one form of totalitarianism to another, and totalitarian regimes were destroyed in favor of democracy in western Germany, Austria, Italy, and Japan in the wake of World War II. See also the end of colonial rule in Indonesia, the Philippines, and British India.

If you wonder how relevant this is to America -- this Crisis will either establish Donald Trump as the founder of a new political order -- at least authoritarian in its service of rentier-based capitalism or the repudiation of the plutocratic principles that Donald Trump expounds. It may have been hard to believe that democracy could die in America, but it can -- and it will not die of some predictable form of political senescence.

**John J. Xenakis** · 07-12-2019, 01:48 PM

** 12-Jul-2019 Syria in World War II

(07-11-2019, 11:29 PM)pbrower2a Wrote: > Wasn't Syria in a Crisis during the Second World War? It was a
> combat zone between the Vichy -associated colonial rulers on the
> one side, and the British and the Free French on the other. The
> Nazis tried to establish a corridor of pro-Axis regimes in Syria
> and Lebanon (the French mandate sheared off Ottoman Turkey), Iraq
> under the fascistic regime of al-Gailani, and the absolute
> monarchy of Reza Shah I (not to be confused with his son Reza Shah
> II, Shah of Iran until the Islamic Revolution of 1979). The
> British and Free French overthrew the Vichy rulers of Syria; the
> British overthrew the pro-Nazi fascistic regime in Iraq; the
> Soviet Union occupied northern Iran and the British occupied
> southern Iran.

No, absolutely not. World War I and the collapse of the Ottoman
Empire was a crisis war for Syria and the region. There were armies
on the ground in Syria during WW II, but they were mostly fighting
each other. WW II was an Awakening era war for the Mideast and
Russia.

Syria's next generational crisis was the Syrian civil war between
Shia/Alawites and Sunni Arabs, climaxing with the Hama massacre in
1982.

Here's an article that goes into the Alawite-Sunni history:

-- Roots of Alawite-Sunni Rivalry in Syria
https://www.mepc.org/roots-alawite-sunni-rivalry-syria
(Middle East Policy Council, Summer 2017))

(07-11-2019, 11:29 PM)pbrower2a Wrote: > I recognize the rise of any totalitarian order as a Crisis in
> itself ...

Lots of things are crises. The hurricane approaching New Orleans this
weekend is a major crisis, but it's not a generational crisis war.
Neither is the rise of a totalitarian order.

(07-11-2019, 11:29 PM)pbrower2a Wrote: > If you wonder how relevant this is to America -- this Crisis will
> either establish Donald Trump as the founder of a new political
> order -- at least authoritarian in its service of rentier-based
> capitalism or the repudiation of the plutocratic principles that
> Donald Trump expounds. It may have been hard to believe that
> democracy could die in America, but it can -- and it will not die
> of some predictable form of political senescence.

More idiotic nonsense based in vitriolic hatred of 60 million
Trump supporters.

pbrower2a · 07-12-2019, 02:46 PM

(07-12-2019, 01:48 PM)John J. Xenakis Wrote: ** 12-Jul-2019 Syria in World War II

(07-11-2019, 11:29 PM)pbrower2a Wrote: > Wasn't Syria in a Crisis during the Second World War? It was a
> combat zone between the Vichy -associated colonial rulers on the
> one side, and the British and the Free French on the other. The
> Nazis tried to establish a corridor of pro-Axis regimes in Syria
> and Lebanon (the French mandate sheared off Ottoman Turkey), Iraq
> under the fascistic regime of al-Gailani, and the absolute
> monarchy of Reza Shah I (not to be confused with his son Reza Shah
> II, Shah of Iran until the Islamic Revolution of 1979). The
> British and Free French overthrew the Vichy rulers of Syria; the
> British overthrew the pro-Nazi fascistic regime in Iraq; the
> Soviet Union occupied northern Iran and the British occupied
> southern Iran.

No, absolutely not. World War I and the collapse of the Ottoman
Empire was a crisis war for Syria and the region. There were armies
on the ground in Syria during WW II, but they were mostly fighting
each other. WW II was an Awakening era war for the Mideast and
Russia.

Syria's next generational crisis was the Syrian civil war between
Shia/Alawites and Sunni Arabs, climaxing with the Hama massacre in
1982.

Here's an article that goes into the Alawite-Sunni history:

-- Roots of Alawite-Sunni Rivalry in Syria
https://www.mepc.org/roots-alawite-sunni-rivalry-syria
(Middle East Policy Council, Summer 2017))

(07-11-2019, 11:29 PM)pbrower2a Wrote: > I recognize the rise of any totalitarian order as a Crisis in
> itself ...

Lots of things are crises. The hurricane approaching New Orleans this
weekend is a major crisis, but it's not a generational crisis war.
Neither is the rise of a totalitarian order.

(07-11-2019, 11:29 PM)pbrower2a Wrote: > If you wonder how relevant this is to America -- this Crisis will
> either establish Donald Trump as the founder of a new political
> order -- at least authoritarian in its service of rentier-based
> capitalism or the repudiation of the plutocratic principles that
> Donald Trump expounds. It may have been hard to believe that
> democracy could die in America, but it can -- and it will not die
> of some predictable form of political senescence.

More idiotic nonsense based in vitriolic hatred of 60 million
Trump supporters.

Many Trump voters of 2016 are far better people than the man that they voted for. This will show true in 2020. To be sure there are some thoroughly-obnoxious people who insist that unqualified support for this President (as has never been the case before) is the measure of patriotism and civic duty. Obama supporters never went that far.

Sure, I hold Donald Trump in contempt. He is ruthless, arrogant, selfish, divisive, cruel, and corrupt. He is intellectually shallow. The British diplomat Kim Darroch, canned for saying certain things

Describes bitter conflicts within Trump's White House – verified by his own sources – as 'knife fights';
Warns that Trump could have been indebted to 'dodgy Russians';
Claims the President's economic policies could wreck the world trade system;
Says the scandal-hit Presidency could 'crash and burn' and that 'we could be at the beginning of a downward spiral... that leads to disgrace and downfall';
Voices fears that Trump could still attack Iran.

about Donald Trump, is surely not alone.

[Image: 15717102-7220335-image-a-46_1562447949153.jpg]

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article...ional.html

Sure, it's the Daily Mail... but the story is corroborated. This would have never happened with either Bush or with Reagan, and certainly not with Obama or Clinton.

Trump is awful. We have never had a President like him, but 'more of the same' will be a disaster. This is a president with legal, diplomatic, and administrative chaos. Most people, so far as I can tell, await his political downfall in 2020 so that things can go back to normal.

.

Warren Dew · 07-12-2019, 06:07 PM

Just thought this might be interesting when thinking about what the crisis war might look like.
[Image: WG_Nuclear-Review.png?utm_source=GPF+-+P...-240041197]

[Image: WG_Nuclear-Review.png?utm_source=GPF+-+P...-240041197]

**John J. Xenakis** · 07-13-2019, 11:44 AM

** 13-Jul-2019 China's nuclear capability

[Image: WarheadInventories_190619_900px.png]

Supposedly, China's nuclear warhead inventory is nothing
to worry about

Official estimates are that China has an inventory of several hundred
nuclear weapons missiles. I hear this figure referenced in news shows
frequently, with the implication that the number is so low we really
don't have to worry about it.

Nobody seriously believes that. China has a stated policy of
subterfuge, lying and deception about such things. So other analysts
place the number of nuclear weapons missiles well into the thousands.

However, that only counts missiles that currently contain nuclear
weapons. China has many more nuclear-capable missiles that can
be convert to nuclear weapons missiles fairly quickly.

Furthermore, the Chinese acknowledge that they have an "Underground
Great Wall," a collection of 5,000 km of deep tunnels, with the
dual purpose of protecting Chinese missiles and also hiding them.

My own view of the Chinese Communist Party is that, in human terms,
it's psychopathically insane. The CCP has implemented one delusional
policy after another -- starting with the Mao Zedong's Great Leap
Forward in the late 1950s which killed tens of thousands of Chinese
through starvation, torture and execution; and moving forward to
locking up milions of Uighurs in concentration camps and crematoria;
locking up hundreds of thousands of their children in boarding schools
and forcing them to forget their Muslim culture and speak only Chinese
and recite verses praising the CCP as if they were Han Chinese; and
"Sinicizing" non-indigenous religions (Christianity, Buddhism, Islam)
so that, for example, you can be punished for worshipping Jesus Christ
instead of Xi Jinping.

These are some of the stupidest policies in the history of the world,
with no chance whatsoever of achieving whatever objectives the
sociopathic, delusional, paranoid CCP officials had in mind.

So I picture the CCP as being like a desperate old lady who
obsessively polishes the dining room table twice a day because she has
no idea what else to do. But instead of polishing the dining room
table, the CCP officials are doing the only thing they know how to do
-- develop and deploy more and more nuclear intercontinental ballistic
missile systems that have no purpose except to destroy American
cities, bases and aircraft carriers. Over the years, I've reported on
the development of several such missile systems.

So whatever the official figures are, my view is that the desperate
CCP officials are deploying as many thousands or tens of thousands of
nuclear weapons missiles targeting America as they can, because it's
becoming the only that they know how to do, and it's driving them
through their insanity to bring themselves and the world the greatest
catastrophe in world history.

The "good news" is that a nuclear weapon is that since a nuclear
weapon kills people only in a 10-20 mile range, including deaths
from radiation, the US will survive a Chinese missile attack.
You can't win a war with just missiles.

---- Sources:

-- The Expanding Chinese Nuclear Threat
https://www.realcleardefense.com/article...14399.html
(Real Clear Defense, 6-May-2019)

-- Nuclear weapon
https://www.armscontrol.org/factsheets/N...whohaswhat
(Arms Control, July 2019)

--- Related

*** 1-Feb-2019 Trump cancels Intermediate-range Nuclear Forces treaty (INF)
http://gdxforum.com/forum/viewtopic.php?...870#p43870

** 23-Oct-18 World View -- Trump targets China by cancelling arms control treaty with Russia
** http://www.generationaldynamics.com/pg/x...tm#e181023

Warren Dew · (This post was last modified: 07-13-2019, 01:17 PM by Warren Dew.)

Nobody said it's nothing to worry about. I just worry about France more.

You seem to have a real blind spot about continental Europe.

**John J. Xenakis** · 07-13-2019, 03:05 PM

(07-13-2019, 01:15 PM)Warren Dew Wrote: Nobody said it's nothing to worry about. I just worry about France more.

You seem to have a real blind spot about continental Europe.

I have no idea what this means.

Cynic Hero '86 · (This post was last modified: 07-13-2019, 10:44 PM by Cynic Hero '86.)

Thanks John for finally revealing yourself openly to be a "perestroika deception" type conspiratorial doomer. The Only difference between you and the TFP (the final phase)/Duduman prophecy nuts is that they thought a massive nuclear attack on the US would come from Russia and You think that the Massive nuclear attack would come from China. Because nothing you say about china makes sense if you base your assessments using intelligence estimates of world nuclear arsenals. Your statements only Make sense if you think that China not only outnumbers the US and Russia in nuclear arsenal size but outnumbers them by several orders of magnitude. Both the US and Russia has whole agencies dedicated toward tracking the progress of foreign nuclear arsenals if a third power (China) was building nuclear weapons and increasing its arsenal in absolute numbers, the political and especially military establishments would be clamoring for a buildup of nuclear missiles. In fact the opposite of the case the US Military currently considers and absolute increase in the US nuclear arsenal to be redundant, that in itself indicates that there is no current indications of foreign nuclear builds in absolute numbers.

You also need massive stockpiles of weapons grade uranium and plutonium to build such an arsenal. That's why this theory and the Russian equivalent the "yamantau stockpile" theory are both regarded by intelligence as implausible.

AspieMillennial · (This post was last modified: 07-13-2019, 09:13 PM by AspieMillennial.)

(06-30-2019, 04:48 PM)Cynic Hero 86 Wrote: Globalists like John and Pbrower still assume that the intellectual academic class (both progressive and conservative wings) would still be running the US when core of the crisis hits. The citizens are getting restless, globalists, we like being Homer Simpson, NOT Ned Flanders, we like our guns and second amendment remedies. We HATE free trade, the globalist demands to china is not about the issue China stealing tech from the US specifically, if it was the sanctions would be focused purely against that. Instead globalists are laughably trying to get china to change its trading practices toward ALL nations to be fair, a laughable notion. Protectionist oriented sanctions would have been far more effective rather than the globalist notion of worldwide fair trade. The American people HATE globalism and free-trade tyranny. Close the damn borders and build our own products.

The Younger generations and Non-globalist boomers despise your EFFETE globalism. An early 20th century Italian ideologist said that "the greatest mind in the world can be silenced with this (he held a knife)", we non-globalists happily and eagerly embrace those words and are ready to translate them into action against the political oligarchy's tyranny.

I wonder why a lot of people consider academia a place of free and critical thinking for most people. It's usually a place where people shout dogma where others are forced into believing what they say. Academia usually knows nothing about the real world and cares nothing for practicality. The liberals want us to go many years to be brainwashed just to get a living wage while learning no practical skills. They also claim to care about the wages of the worker while trying to import the entire third world and encouraging the worst labor abuses in places like China.

pbrower2a · 07-14-2019, 09:31 AM

(07-13-2019, 09:11 PM)AspieMillennial Wrote:
(06-30-2019, 04:48 PM)Cynic Hero Wrote: Globalists like John and Pbrower still assume that the intellectual academic class (both progressive and conservative wings) would still be running the US when core of the crisis hits. The citizens are getting restless, globalists, we like being Homer Simpson, NOT Ned Flanders, we like our guns and second amendment remedies. We HATE free trade, the globalist demands to china is not about the issue China stealing tech from the US specifically, if it was the sanctions would be focused purely against that. Instead globalists are laughably trying to get china to change its trading practices toward ALL nations to be fair, a laughable notion. Protectionist oriented sanctions would have been far more effective rather than the globalist notion of worldwide fair trade. The American people HATE globalism and free-trade tyranny. Close the damn borders and build our own products.

The Younger generations and Non-globalist boomers despise your EFFETE globalism. An early 20th century Italian ideologist said that "the greatest mind in the world can be silenced with this (he held a knife)", we non-globalists happily and eagerly embrace those words and are ready to translate them into action against the political oligarchy's tyranny.

I wonder why a lot of people consider academia a place of free and critical thinking for most people. It's usually a place where people shout dogma where others are forced into believing what they say. Academia usually knows nothing about the real world and cares nothing for practicality. The liberals want us to go many years to be brainwashed just to get a living wage while learning no practical skills. They also claim to care about the wages of the worker while trying to import the entire third world and encouraging the worst labor abuses in places like China.

Freedom is relative, and rarely absolute. We speak of free enterprise, but we all know that the profit motive dictates practically everything in any for-profit business. Maybe someone who does creative work for an ad agency or a film studio gets to be creative, but even then one knows the constraints. One may have the obligation to make cigarette smoking seem a wholesome and reputable activity when it is the antithesis of such. If one works for Disney... then one knows the rules that go beyond aesthetic standards.

It is safe to say that people in academia have usually worked at some time in private industry, even if such was at a fast-food place. Work in a fast-food place, and you know what capitalism demands of workers. Maybe academia, like much else, has plenty of people who find profit-directed activities inhuman. Consider also creative activities, government (including the military and police work), and the professions. Or for that matter -- owning and operating a business, even if it is 'only' being an owner-operator of a tractor-trailer, is one way to avoid working under the moment-to-moment direction of a bureaucratic corporation.

It is also safe to say that people who work in a for-profit entity have a reasonable expectation of a fair wage for their efforts just so that they can be able to feed and clothe themselves, have shelter, and have the means of getting to work, among other things. The alternatives to a living wage are slavery, peonage, a KZ-lager, or Gulag; any of these indicate a serious lack of both economic and political freedom. Recognize also that any well-run firm rewards increasing proficiency on the job, which implies that one develops more skill and more knowledge specific to the needs of that firm. If one has no cause to expect an improvement in opportunity with extended service, one might as well look for other employment unless one is reasonably at the top of the field.

But academia? Most of its graduates will be going into private industry, and business-related courses are supplanting the liberal arts. I would think that conservatives would consider it delightful that more people are studying accounting and marketing than there used to be, and that fewer people are studying 'impractical' liberal arts.

But note well the original objective of the liberal arts: to improve the student as a person. It is safe to assume that the content of a person's thoughts reflect to a great extent what that person has read. A certain body of literature has long been shown to make people more adept at understanding key concepts necessary for leadership beyond command-and-control bossing. If it takes liberal arts to make people recognize that there is more to life than 'sex&drugs&rock-n-roll', material indulgence, and bureaucratic power, then so be it. The learned people of America irrespective of ethnicity, religious heritage, and race could recognize Donald Trump for the capricious demagogue that he is. It is better that people be squeamish about doing bad stuff to others.Technical training bereft of any semblance of liberal learning makes machines out of workers. It may be surprising, but the grads with bachelor's degrees in business specialties have often proved incompetent at making coherent reports at which the language, history, and literature grads do well.

Warren Dew · 07-14-2019, 04:12 PM

(07-13-2019, 09:11 PM)AspieMillennial Wrote: I wonder why a lot of people consider academia a place of free and critical thinking for most people. It's usually a place where people shout dogma where others are forced into believing what they say.

Once upon a time, that was the way it actually worked. I remember taking a government course from a Marxist in college. I didn't even find out he was a Marxist until afterwards. In class, he was happy when we could just think clearly.

But that was back when Silents, who like to look at both sides of the question (endlessly), were in charge. Academia has since been perverted for political purposes, and that's all the Millenials have been exposed to.

Quote:Academia usually knows nothing about the real world and cares nothing for practicality. The liberals want us to go many years to be brainwashed just to get a living wage while learning no practical skills. They also claim to care about the wages of the worker while trying to import the entire third world and encouraging the worst labor abuses in places like China.

They've basically knuckled under to the elites that pay them to indoctrinate people into a culture which permits the elites to drive costs down with imported labor, so that those elites can further increase their profits. I miss the days when the elites made their money by providing better products to the masses.

**John J. Xenakis** · 07-14-2019, 09:24 PM

** 14-Jul-2019 World View: Hong Kong's Carrie Lam has job security -- Chinese style

The pro-democracy, anti-Beijing protests continued on Sunday,
and apparently will continue indefinitely.

One of the demands of the protesters is the Hong Kong leader
Carrie Lam, who was hand-picked by Beijing, must step down.

According to reports, Carrie Lam has offered to resign several
times, but Beijing is refusing to allow her to do so, saying
that it's her responsibility to clean up the "mess" that she
created, so she has to stay in office.

So Carrie Lam is in the enviable situation of having job
security, guaranteed by China's government.

---- Source:

-- Hong Kong chief Carrie Lam offered to go but Beijing said no:
report
https://www.smh.com.au/world/asia/hong-k...52765.html
(Sydney Morning Herald, 15-Jul-2019)

pbrower2a · 07-15-2019, 07:28 AM

(07-14-2019, 04:12 PM)Warren Dew Wrote:
(07-13-2019, 09:11 PM)AspieMillennial Wrote: I wonder why a lot of people consider academia a place of free and critical thinking for most people. It's usually a place where people shout dogma where others are forced into believing what they say.

Once upon a time, that was the way it actually worked. I remember taking a government course from a Marxist in college. I didn't even find out he was a Marxist until afterwards. In class, he was happy when we could just think clearly.

But that was back when Silents, who like to look at both sides of the question (endlessly), were in charge. Academia has since been perverted for political purposes, and that's all the Millenials have been exposed to.

Quote:Academia usually knows nothing about the real world and cares nothing for practicality. The liberals want us to go many years to be brainwashed just to get a living wage while learning no practical skills. They also claim to care about the wages of the worker while trying to import the entire third world and encouraging the worst labor abuses in places like China.

They've basically knuckled under to the elites that pay them to indoctrinate people into a culture which permits the elites to drive costs down with imported labor, so that those elites can further increase their profits. I miss the days when the elites made their money by providing better products to the masses.

With the caveat that I cannot speak for college professors because I am not one -- much of academic life offers little opportunity to brainwash students into believing some political agenda. In discussion of intellectual antiquity (basically anything before about 1950), professors must discuss something so basic as Platonic philosophy without running into anachronisms that students bring into academic life. We all know about the Holocaust; we generally recognize colonialism as a mistake; we cannot escape the subtle infiltration of Freudian thought that explains much in human nature; we all consider chattel slavery as a moral abomination; we cannot undo Karl Marx establishing the terminology of much of social science. Of those anachronisms, Karl Marx may inculcate fewer problems in discussing intellectual antiquity because his social ideas have serious flaws (Marx oversimplified history and showed excessive optimism in human progress through the intellect and political change) and most significantly because the people (Marxist-Leninists) who took him most seriously and developed a philosophy whose basis was his teachings have created a system that almost everyone finds obsolete. How obsolete is Marxism-Leninism? It has become a narrow cult. Aside from the dwindling number of those who call for a proletarian revolution and seizure of the means of production to cut out the capitalists and ensure that the bounties of modern productivity go to the proletariat or into investment that central planners direct, the people who now seem most informed by Marxism are those who accept his depiction of capitalist depravity correct -- and glorious. The people who owe the most to Karl Marx are those who want capitalism to serve themselves alone but to offer the common man the dubious honor of enriching and pampering those elites. Socialist realism as an aesthetic has proved deficient because didactic purposes have denied any possibility of criticism for artistic, musical, or literary failures.

To truly mess people up intellectually, nothing could ever be more effective than Christian Protestant fundamentalism; ironically it is comparatively new (even the word fundamentalism originates only in 1926 with the appearance of the book The Fundamentals), except for the soul-crushing, mind-sapping effects of mass low culture.

...................

(You probably have figured why I use the stream of periods -- a change of direction. You are right).

Among the generations that the Millennial Generation can have gotten to know, they knew elderly GIs as the last relics of a time similar to theirs in a world that they were too good for. But they could have never have known GI youth except in old newsreels. By current standards, GI youth was hardscrabble. They are the last to have any memory of the 1920s, the last gasp of the Gilded ethos in which the plutocrats were kings and everyone else had to beg for the scraps from the table after having worked for them for little. They were young enough to pick up the pieces when that ethos imploded in 1929. Above all they made America great as a military power as necessary for keeping the SS, Gestapo, and Kempeitai out of America and in deterring Soviet expansion. The GI Generation developed some good habits that caused America to prosper for more than economic elites. They could have seen the Silent of getting the best of all worlds -- massive reform of society in the Great Depression and in the wake of World War II -- except in political power. They saw economic elites among Boomers as the worst such monsters in American history, the sorts who exploit others yet insist upon praise as benefactors -- at least among generations that Millennial adults can know. Slave-owning Transcendental planters going into the American Civil War had no guilty feelings about owning slaves; they presented themselves as the best thing that could have ever happened to Africans who needed the guidance of the planters to keep those Africans from becoming dangerous savages. Millennial kids never met that attitude. They may have some fond recollections of Boomer parents who saw themselves more as victims of the bureaucratic, monopolistic capitalism of recent times. Generation X? This is now the generation that most shapes American culture, and except for a few well-rewarded sell-outs to the Boomer economic elite they cannot avoid expressing what they really feel about economic exploitation.

The System has so far treated the Millennial Generation badly, and it is not fooled. They know that America has been more equitable in the recent past. They have little stake in the trickle-down economy that demands greater sacrifices but allows the benefits to trickle down as low-paying, servile jobs. They are at best technically trained yet denied access to liberal education. As the oldest of the Millennial Generation approach midlife they find elderly Boomers in charge, and that those in charge are the very worst manifestations of the Idealist way -- extreme narcissists who exploit at will yet insist that they are benefactors to those that they exploit and dehumanize, people who see the proles as livestock if docile and servile, but vermin to be exterminated if they get too 'uppity'.

Donald Trump is more symptom than cause. We have a political heritage, including a Constitution, that interferes with his impulsive and infantile desires to reshape America. His dictatorial style can succeed only if collaborators can successfully gut the checks and balances of the system and give him the powers of a Lenin, Mussolini, Mao, Duvalier, or Saddam. The 2018 midterm election shows that Americans, especially Millennial adults, are getting wise to this. Whether such is a blip or a portent of a trend will become evident in 2020.

The mainstream media, which now include some Millennial journalists, have turned completely against Donald Trump and his dubious agenda of inequity and division. Millennial voters are hostile to everything about President Trump. He has nothing to offer but pain, shame, grief, and poverty. His idea of stewardship of resources is to burn through them at a greater rate as evidence of prosperity. People do not prosper, and neither do nations, by burning through resources.

**John J. Xenakis** · 07-15-2019, 09:22 AM

** 15-Jul-2019 World View: Ebola in DR Congo reaches Goma

There was something of a panic over the weekend, as the first
cases of Ebola were reported in Goma, in the Democratic
Republic of Congo (DRC).

Goma is a city of more than two million people, a transport hub for
all of central Africa. An Ebola outbreak in Goma has the ability
to spread rapidly to other countries throughout the region.

The story is that last Tuesday, a pastor in Butembo took a bus south
to Goma. Butembo is widespread in Butembo, and the priest apparently
had Ebola without yet having any obvious symptoms. While in Butembo,
the pastor held regular services in seven churches, during which he
laid his hands on worshippers, including people who were ill. During
the bus trip he shook hands with and touched all the other passengers,
as well as the bus driver.

According to DRC's health ministry, the pastor was treated quickly,
everyone on the bus has been identified, and they're all being given
vaccines, so they're hopeful that Ebola will not spread any further in
Goma.

--- Sources:

-- Ebola in DR Congo: Case confirmed in Goma
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-48985689
(BBC, 15-Jul-2019)

-- Ebola virus reaches Congolese city of Goma
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/j...ty-of-goma
(Guardian, 15-Jul-2019)

**John J. Xenakis** · 07-16-2019, 10:07 PM

*** 17-Jul-19 World View -- Japan - South Korea trade dispute worsens

This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com

Japan - South Korea trade dispute worsens
Chips -- the law of supply and demand
Roots of the Japan-Korea dispute
Korea-Japan flareups

****
**** Japan - South Korea trade dispute worsens
****

[Image: g190119b.jpg]

Japanese patrol plane launches anti-missile flares during a fleet review in 2015 (AFP)

Korean chip and display manufacturers, including Samsung Electronics, SK Hynix, and LG Electronics, are scrambling to recover from being hit with a one-two punch -- first the US-China trade war, and then Japan's export restrictions on needed materials.

The US-China trade dispute has roiled supply chain relationships
throughout Asia. Officials in many companies are moving factories
and finding new suppliers, hoping that the dispute will end soon or
that, at worst, Donald Trump will lose the next presidential
election and the trade dispute can then be settled.

So a lot of people are shocked and surprised that there's suddenly a
new trade dispute, this time between Japan and South Korea, and this
one may be as intractable as the US-China dispute.

Starting in July, Japan tightened restrictions on the export of three
materials used in manufacturing chips and displays, citing what it has
called “inadequate management” of sensitive items exported to South
Korea, as well as a lack of consultations about export controls. The
three materials are EUV photoresist, hydrofluoric acid (etching gas)
and fluorinated polyimide.

It's believed that Samsung's existing inventory of EUV photoresist is
not large, since stocks can expire within a few weeks, and require
demanding storage conditions.

It's going to be difficult to find alternate suppliers since Japan
controls 92% of the global resist supply and 94% of fluorinated
polyimid.

Two South Korean companies, Dongjin Semichem and Foosung Co,
do manufacture the restricted materials, but not in the
quantities needed by Samsung and SK Hynix.

****
**** Chips -- the law of supply and demand
****

Both Samsung and SK Hynix have announced 10% cuts in DRAM production,
and probably the same in NAND memory production, because of the
restrictions announced by Japan on July 1.

Perhaps counter-intuitively, this has benefited both companies, with
Samsung's stock shares increasing 2% since July 1, and SK Hynix shares
up 8%. This is despite a general fall in Seoul's stock market.

The reason is that the production cuts are reducing the supplies of
these chips, while demand remains the same, and so prices are going
up, and so profits at Samsung and SK Hynix are also going up. In
fact, the prices of DRAM chips have been falling in the last year, and
are now returning to their former levels.

The shortages of these chips will mean higher prices for consumers
wanting to buy iPhones and other electronic devices, but what is bad
for consumers in this case is good for the manufacturers.

****
**** Roots of the Japan-Korea dispute
****

The mutual hatred of the Japanese and Korean people goes very deep.
Korea has been the staging ground for earlier invasions by both China
and Japan against one another — for example, Kublai Khan's invasions
of Japan in 1274 and 1281 or Toyotomi Hideyoshi's attempts to invade
Ming China via Korea in 1592 and 1597.

During much of the last two millennia, Korea has been a vassal state
of China, in a tributary relationship, meaning that Korea paid China a
great deal of money, usually gold and slaves, in return for guarantees
of defense from outsiders (i.e., Japan).

Since Korea lies between Japan and China, there have been many wars
fought between Japan and Korea, or between Japan and China on Korean
soil. In my opinion, the most important and significant battle in
east Asia during the last millennium, prior to World War II, was the
Battle of Myongnyang (Myeongnyang) on October 26, 1597. The Koreans
won a brilliant naval victory against the Japanese navy, using
technologically advanced "turtle ships," believed to be the world's
first ironclad warship. A Korean contingent of 12 ships lured a
Japanese force of hundreds of ships into a narrow channel and
destroyed 133 Japanese vessels without any Korean losses. Even today,
the battle is described in mythic terms, as an almost miraculous
victory.

Japan finally achieved its revenge in the first Sino-Japanese war
(1894-95), which was a victory of Japan over China. China
relinquished all claims of influence over Korea, which became a
Japanese protectorate until it was annexed outright in 1910. Japan
also took control of Taiwan, the Penghu Islands, and the Liaodong
Peninsula. Korea was a Japanese colony until 1945, when Japan was
defeated in World War II.

Those interested in understanding the millennia of east Asian history
should read my book, "World View: War Between China and Japan: Why
America Must Be Prepared" (Generational Theory Book Series, Book 2)
Paperback: 331 pages, with over 200 source references, $13.99
https://www.amazon.com/dp/1732738637/

****
**** Korea-Japan flareups
****

So with those centuries of history, nobody should be particularly
surprised when differences between the two countries are flaring up
again. There have been two major flareups in the last year, and
neither of them appears close to resolutions.

During World War II, Japanese soldiers used Korean girls, both
prostitutes and civilians, as "comfort girls." Korea has demanded
reparations for the use of the comfort girls, and for other slave
labor performed by the Koreans.

The Japanese claim that all such awards were already paid in a
settlement concluded in a 1965 treaty.

Then, in 2015, Japan and Korea concluded a bilateral agreement which
was intended at the time as the “final and irreversible” resolution of
the comfort women issue. However, that turned out not to settle the
issue after all. South Korea is now saying that demands from the
victims are causing the agreement to "wither," and on October 30 of
last year, South Korea's supreme court awarded compensation to four
Korean citizens forced to work for the Japanese during World War II,
an award that the Japanese are refusing to acknowledge. This is
still an explosive issue with vitriolic views on both sides that are
unlikely to be settled in the near future.

A second dispute is related to a military issue that occurred late
last year.

According to Japan, on December 20 a South Korean warship locked its
fire-control radar onto a Japanese patrol plane, as if preparing to
shoot it down. Japan made a formal protest to South Korea, claiming
that it was a "hostile act." South Korea denied that the radar lock
had occurred. In the vitriolic talks that have occurred since then,
Korea has claimed that Japanese Self-Defense Force planes have
deliberately flown at low altitude near South Korean naval vessels
multiple times, terming the acts a "clear provocation."

This brings us back to Japan's announcement that it was restricting
sales of the three materials needed by South Korean firms to
manufacture chips. Japan has never given a reason for the
restriction, except to make some vague claims about national security.
At a meeting of the World Trade Organization (WTO), the Japanese
representative said the measures are "not a trade embargo but an
operational review necessary for proper implementation of Japan's
export control system based on security concerns," whatever that
means. But it's believed that the Japanese are retaliating for the
comfort girl and radar lock issues.

Japan and South Korea are US and Western allies, and have common
enemies -- North Korea and China. After centuries of war, there's
little chance that the people of the two countries will ever love each
other, or even that the current disputes will ever be completely
settled. All that we can hope for is some sort of ceasefire.

Sources:

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