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Generational Dynamics World View
(09-12-2019, 02:41 PM)John J. Xenakis Wrote: ** 12-Sep-2019 World View: The CCP Master Race

(09-11-2019, 10:27 AM)Ragnarök_62 Wrote: >   Yup, in the name of globalization, John.  I wouldn't say it was
>   "the US". Now if we explain why this happened , then the finger of
>   blame points to multinational corporations and their toadies in
>   all manner of places in the US government.

This is really silly, but it's not surprising that you would say that,
given your view that China and the United States are the same or, as
you put it, "two peas in a pod."

I've spent thousands of hours researching China's history, and how
over two millennia the culture has developed its belief that the
Chinese ("yellow race, black hair, brown eyes, yellow skin") are the
superior master race and why they're totally contemptuous of us and
our laws and our way of life because we're all barbarians.

Every Great Power tries to establish its right to rule in some cultural quality or in the ethnic origin of the people... if it comes to skin color, peoples of East Asian origin can have skin color indistinguishable from that of many Europeans. It may be ironic, but white racists burn themselves on their own petards when they argue that racial superiority is based on paleness of skin (North Chinese, Koreans, and Japanese are easy to distinguish from peoples of north-European origin in many ways, but not in skin color) and difference from African populations. Europeans are basically East Africans bleached out and are genetically far closer to West Africans (the most derided of people in white racist literature except perhaps for Jews) than are East Asians, American First Peoples, and Australian Aborigines. 

Chinese, Korean, and Japanese culture are easy to appreciate but difficult to crack. Linguistic difficulty? Fundamental differences of 
cultural foundation? You describe racism in China... and you make it sound much like Japanese racism during World War II. That is not to say that racism does not exist in China, but that it is fairly similar. 

A reality is that peoples of North China, Korea, and Japan score higher in IQ than white populations other than Jews... so I have had some encounters with white racists and asked them whether they are prepared to defer to their superiors... 


Quote:So the reason that the CCP believe they can arrest and enslave a
million Uighurs, or violently attack Buddhists and Christians, or can
ignore their own signed agreements over Hong Kong, or can ignore
international law in the South China Sea, or can steal intellectual
property or cheat on trade is because they believe that they've been
granted by the Kingdom of Heaven the right to do anything they want to
the barbarians.  I can assure you that this has nothing to do with
multinational corporations or the toadies in the US government.


Without question that is a vile political order, and how long it can endure without collapsing of its own contradictions that it fails to resolve may decide much of this Crisis. Note well that the crackdown in Tienanmen Square was fully thirty years ago, when the freedom-seeking people were contemporaries of America's Generation X. People contemporary to the revolutionaries of 1989 are now roughly the age of the political elite, and they are scarred. 

Obviously Chinese leaders have their own legacy of humiliation from the Opium Wars to the horrific Sino-Japanese struggles from 1931 to 1945 in which foreign powers attempted, in retrospect unsuccessfully, in partitioning China into spheres of influence (and exploitation) if not outright colonization. The colonial adventurers and overseas exploiters may be off the scene, but the legacy of national pain remains. Christianity was often seen as a fifth-column movement in ways in which it was not seen in Korea (it was part of modernity) or even Japan. Buddhism  is very much a part of Chinese heritage, but it is contrary to a warrior ethos. 

China has a long legacy of poor protection of intellectual property. Slavish imitation of cultural norms is part of the Chinese artistic tradition, explaining why much Chinese art is often inscribed "painted in the style of (older master)". It is as if I were to paint in much the same manner as Tomas Kincade (ha! ha!) or Norman Rockwell (probably gaining in respect now as his work becomes more a reflection of what America has lost) not with my name but instead with "painted in imitation of Norman Rockwell/Thomas Kincade".  (I would love to have a blend of Picasso and Matisse, but it would still be "P. Brower" because it could not avoid having my personality and time attached).   


Quote:Just as a murderer might justify his actions by blaming the way his
parents raised him, the CCP justifies its illegal atrocities by
referring to the Opium Wars and the "Century of Humiliation"
and the "Unequal Treaties."  They ignore, for example, the massive
atrocities committed by Mao Zedong that brutally killed tens of
millions of Chinese in the horrific Great Leap Forward and
the disastrous Great Cultural Revolution.

But Mao Zedong was Chinese (which excuses much to many Chinese), and he did drive out the last vestiges of power of colonial adventurers and their exploitation and degradation of Chinese life.
 
Quote:If you'd like to understand what's really going on with China, rather
than ridiculous things like toadies in the US government, then read my
book:

"World View: War Between China and Japan: Why America Must Be
Prepared" (Generational Theory Book Series, Book 2) Paperback: 331
pages, over 200 source references, $13.99
https://www.amazon.com/dp/1732738637/

If you actually want to know what's going on, then this will tell
you.

There are totalitarians in high places in American life, now largely on the Right (Marxism-Leninism is dead, and most left-wing radicals are post-Marxist), and they would love to imitate the dictatorial rule of China, establishing it in America in a controlled and inequitable order that well serves people who might have a different rationale of their culture.
The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated Communist  but instead the people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists -- Hannah Arendt.


Reply
*** 22-Sep-19 World View -- Kids protest worldwide in new Children's Crusade against climate change

This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com
  • Kids protest worldwide in new Children's Crusade against climate change
  • Earth Day, 1970 -- déjà vu all over again
  • The stupidity of today's climate scientists

****
**** Kids protest worldwide in new Children's Crusade against climate change
****


[Image: g190921b.jpg]
Protesters on Friday in Brussels (top) and Hamburg (bottom) (CNN)

There's a new Children's Crusade going on, as kids in cities around
the world took part in a general strike from school on Friday, and
held protests with hundreds of thousands of kids in cities around the
world.

On Saturday, hundreds of kids attended a Youth Climate Summit,
sponsored by the United Nations. The kids demanded an end to climate
change, and many said they've decided not to have children, rather
than bring children into a world destroyed by climate change. They
said they wanted an end to use of fossil fuels, and parroted the claim
that the world come to an end if carbon emissions didn't stop by 2030.

As usual, it's really only about money. Activists demanded money for
a fund to help poorer nations adapt to a warming world. The whole
purpose of the Paris Climate Treaty was to extract money from the
West, particularly the United States, to give to the pet projects of
the activists. As far as the US is concerned, Donald Trump has
already withdrawn the country from the Paris treaty, so the activists
have no hope of getting American money for their pet projects.

One of the facts that the kids won't be talking about at the climate
change protests is that, of all the major countries that signed the
Paris treaty, there's only one that's actually reducing carbon
emissions -- the United States. America's power plants will emit 2.3%
less carbon dioxide this year compared to 2018. That's because of
fracking and abundant supplies of natural gas.

One other thing that won't be mentioned is that China already has
largest number of coal-fired power plants in the world, and that China
has just announced plans for a massive number of new coal-fired power
plants. You can be sure the leftist climate activists will never
mention this, or anything else that criticizes their beloved Communist
country.

****
**** Earth Day, 1970 -- déjà vu all over again
****


A recent article quoted some of the predictions that climate
scientists were making in 1970, in celebration of "Earth Day."

Here are some examples:
  • Harvard biologist George Wald: "Civilization will end within
    15 or 30 years unless immediate action is taken against problems
    facing mankind."
  • NY Times: "Man must stop pollution and conserve his resources, not
    merely to enhance existence but to save the race from intolerable
    deterioration and possible extinction."
  • Population studies scientist Paul Ehrlich: "Population will
    inevitably and completely outstrip whatever small increases in food
    supplies we make. The death rate will increase until at least 100-200
    million people per year will be starving to death during the next ten
    years.
  • Denis Hayes: "It is already too late to avoid mass
    starvation."
  • North Texas State University professor Peter Gunter: "Demographers
    agree almost unanimously on the following grim timetable: by 1975
    widespread famines will begin in India; these will spread by 1990 to
    include all of India, Pakistan, China and the Near East, Africa. By
    the year 2000, or conceivably sooner, South and Central America will
    exist under famine conditions.... By the year 2000, thirty years from
    now, the entire world, with the exception of Western Europe, North
    America, and Australia, will be in famine."

Today we can see how ridiculous these 1970 predictions by population
scientists turned out to be. Below we'll show how today's predictions
by climate scientists are equally ridiculous, but for now I want to
make the point that these 1970 scientists were incredibly stupid.

It's a fair question: If they're scientists, then how come they were
so disastrously wrong? And why would anyone think that today's
scientists would be any less disastrously wrong?

To show how stupid these scientists were, look particularly at the
last of the predictions referenced above. Let's assume that their
prediction that came true that there wouldn't be enough food to feed
the world. Then would widespread famine have occurred -- 1975 in
India, all of Asia by 1990, South and Central America by 2000, the
rest of the world after that? Is that guy a total idiot?

There's no way the people of India would just sit there and starve to
death. And there's no way that the rest of the world would let them.
The same with the other countries.

So people like Paul Ehrlich. George Wald and Peter Gunter are really
stupid. It's hard to believe anyone, let alone a scientist, could be
stupid enough to believe that the people in India, Asia, Africa, and
so forth, would just sit there are starve to death.

So what would happen? There would be riots, demonstrations, and
international conferences, but if things got really bad, there would
be war. But nobody would just sit there and die of starvation, and
these "scientists" are total idiots to believe so.

****
**** The stupidity of today's climate scientists
****


I will show that today's climate scientists are just as stupid as the
one that predicted disaster after 1970 Earth Day.

But first, let's make note that climate scientists have been wrong,
time after time. Al Gore quoted climate scientists as saying that the
Arctic ice cap would disappear completely by 2013, and so those
climate scientists were wrong.

And then there's the biggest prediction of them all: That the world
will end unless carbon emissions end by 2030. What does that even
mean? If the temperature of the earth increases by 1 degree or so,
then does everyone burn to death? That's ridiculous. Maybe some
polar ice caps will melt and some islands and beach fronts will
disappear, but that won't be the end of the earth.

So what will really happen? Once again, the climate scientists are
too stupid to understand that even if their predictions about global
warming are true, it will mean war.

In fact, there will be one or two world wars in this century with or
without climate change. In the last century, there were two world
wars, and massive additional wars in Asia and Africa. In every
century for millennia, there were massive wars on every continent and
every region. So it's 100% certain to happen in this century.

You can already see the signs of it. There are millions of refugees
in Asia, Syria, Africa and Latin America traveling in large groups to
other countries, including America, Europe and Indonesia. There are
sky-high military tensions in China and the Mideast. All that's
needed is for some small event to flare up into a regional war, and
then a larger war.

And what of the Paris treaty and climate change? That's just a silly
fantasy anyway. The only country reducing carbon emissions is the
United States, and all the other major countries are increasing their
carbon emissions. In particular, China is aggressively planning a
massive number of new coal-fired power plans. China needs these as it
prepares to launch a world war, and will not stop building them under
any circumstances.

Getting back to those kids who are protesting climate change in cities
around the world, some of them have said that they won't have kids,
because how can you bring kids into a world to be destroyed by climate
change?

Well, with world war coming, now they have another reason not to have
kids.

John Xenakis is author ofP "World View: War Between China and Japan:
Why America Must Be Prepared" (Generational Theory Book Series, Book
2), June 2019, Paperback: 331 pages, with over 200 source references,
$13.99 https://www.amazon.com/dp/1732738637/

Sources:

Related Articles:



KEYS: Generational Dynamics, climate change, China,
Earth Day 1970, George Wald, Paul Ehrlich, Peter Gunter,
Al Gore

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John J. Xenakis
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Reply
Global warming is a reality. The bulk of record-warm months are in recent years. The last below-average months for temperature occurred after the eruption of Mount Pinatubo about a quarter-century ago. The greenhouse effect is real, and its effects are not on the whole to the good. Warming climates imply that climate zones will move. In one expression, Michigan will become like Oklahoma.

Hot tropical locations will become so hot and humid that people will be unable to sweat away waste heat. If the wet-bulb temperature is high-enough (body temperature), then atmospheric moisture will literally condense on people. OK, so we turn up the air-conditioner? The Second Law of Thermodynamics goes into effect: it takes energy to run even a heat pump, and that energy leaves the machinery as... heat. More use of air conditioners means a hotter world even if people successfully cool themselves.

The most immediate effect will be upon agriculture. Don't fool yourself; we have been taking our food supplies for granted. Note well: Battle Creek, Michigan is a center for the production of grain-based breakfast cereals because it is on the borderline between the corn and wheat belts. Although winter may seem a waste in much of America, winter blizzards supply the snow that protects soil moisture and that melts just in time for the germination of grain plants in Dfa climates -- and protects young crops known as winter wheat in the Dakotas and the Prairie Provinces. Turn those blizzards into rainstorms, and (1) erosion accelerates, (2) nutrients leach from the soil, and (3) soil moisture more likely evaporates.

There is no techno-fix for hunger. The worst effects will be the inundation of lowlands that now produce large parts of the world food supply or at least the local food supply. Where do all the peasants of China and Bangladesh go? Inundation of prime farmland (and most of it is in vulnerable lowlands) imply that people must leave, but where do they go? If anything could prompt horrific wars -- then there you have it!

The consequences of such an ecological disaster as global warming would be mass death on scales that would trivialize World War II and the Black Death.
The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated Communist  but instead the people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists -- Hannah Arendt.


Reply
Here is one climate projection for the United States:

[Image: Koppen-Geiger_Map_USA_future.svg]

in contrast to something more familiar (current reality):

[Image: US_50_states_K%C3%B6ppen.svg]

Such is the result of playing "greenhouse-gas roulette" Desert zones expand, appearing in places in which they are not in existence -- yet. Hot deserts expand in Utah, New Mexico, and western Texas  (the Permian Basin). Semi-arid steppe The tropical zone reaches roughly Tampa-St. Pete and Orlando. Real winters disappear in Nebraska, Iowa, and the southern Great Lakes... but drought more than offsets a longer growing season in central Nebraska. 

I concede that southwestern Alaska might be a good grain-growing area -- but soils are now poor and will not improve rapidly.
The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated Communist  but instead the people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists -- Hannah Arendt.


Reply
** 22-Sep-2019 World View: What happens when idiots run Mideast policy

In 2006, the Congressional Quarterly published the results of an
informal survey of Mideast experts, to see what they knew. It turns
out that so-called "experts" of many years couldn't answer the
simplest question. The one I remember the best was that the long-time
experts couldn't answer whether al-Qaeda was a Sunni or Shia
organization, but most of them thought that al-Qaeda was a Shia
organization. This was the case with both Republicans and Democrats.
So that's when I first learned that most "experts" in Washington and
in the media are idiots. The London Times did a similar survey,
showing the British media and politicians were also idiots.

** Guess what? British politicians and journalists are just as ignorant as Americans
** http://www.generationaldynamics.com/pg/x...m#e070114b



In 2006, the idiots in the mainstream media thought that the Iraq war
was like Vietnam War. NBC News were the biggest idiots of all,
putting on a big dog and pony show, declaring that it was official NBC
News policy that the Iraq war was a civil war, like the Vietnam War,
so the "surge" would fail. These people were too stupid to understand
that the Iraq war being fought by Iraqis versus foreign fighters from
Jordan and Saudi Arabia, so it wasn't a civil war.

** News as theatre: NBC announces it will call Iraq war a 'civil war'
** http://www.generationaldynamics.com/pg/x...tm#e061129



** Iraqi Sunnis are turning against al-Qaeda in Iraq
** http://www.generationaldynamics.com/pg/w...070401.htm



The Democrats, especially Barack Obama, were extremely humiliated
when the "surge" worked. Then they turned to the Afghanistan war,
and decided that a "surge" would work there as well. They were
too stupid to understand that while al-Qaeda in Iraq were external,
invading jihadists, the Taliban in Afghanistan were internal
jihadists, so the "surge" had no chance of working in Afghanistan.

In other words, while the idiots in 2006 believed stupidly that the
Iraq war was like the Vietnam war, the idiots in 2009 believed
stupidly that the Afghan war was like the Iraq war. This gives new
meaning to the old saying, "The politicians are always fighting the
last war."

** Barack Obama endorses growing American troop force in Afghanistan
** http://www.generationaldynamics.com/pg/x...tm#e080721



** India is on high alert as synchronized bombs strike two cities
** http://www.generationaldynamics.com/pg/x...tm#e080730



** American army general warns of imminent defeat in Afghanistan war
** http://www.generationaldynamics.com/pg/x...tm#e090926



It's clear that all the people in the media and the Obama
administration in 2009 were idiots, and had no clue what was going on
in Afghanistan. I doubt that many of them could even find Afghanistan
on a map. You don't actually have to know anything to become an
"expert." You just have to be pretty. The Obama administration was
just as clueless at the end as it was in the beginning.

As I've written many times, it was clear that Donald Trump was just as
clueless as Obama, and therefore his administration's decisions would
be made by idiots as well. But much to my surprise, Steve Bannon
became his principal advisor, and Bannon does know what's going on in
the world. With Bannon gone, John Bolton was the only person left in
Washington who knew what was going on.

** 11-Sep-19 World View -- Donald Trump fires John Bolton over Afghanistan 'Peace Negotiations'
** http://www.generationaldynamics.com/pg/x...tm#e190911



Now with Bolton gone, it's increasingly clear that the Trump
administration's foreign policy is being run by idiots, the same kinds
of idiots as in the Obama administration.

In the last few weeks, Trump's policies have flip-flopped inexplicably
in Afghanistan and Iran. It looks to me that Trump is applying "The
Art of the Deal," but without the historical understanding that he
applied in other areas, like North Korea and China. There is no
sensible strategy that I can discern. I attribute this to the firing
of Bolton.

Maybe I'm judging too quickly. So, I'll be watching, but today it
looks like the idiots are in full charge again in Washington.
Reply
** 23-Sep-2019 World View: Trump's strategy with China

For months, I've heard so-called "experts" on television criticize
Donald Trump's use of trade sanctions with China.

It's now been generally agreed worldwide that a way must be found to
curtail China's hostile and illegal trade practices (cyber intrusion
into business networks, forced technology transfers in exchange for
market access, intellectual property theft). So those who want to
criticize Trump without criticizing the objectives have to criticize
the way Trump did it.

What I've been hearing for months was some variation of the following
strategy:

Quote: "It's necessary to curtail China's forced technology
transfer and intellectual property theft, but Trump is doing it
all wrong by imposing unilateral sanctions, isolating the United
States. What he should have done is formed a coalition with other
countries -- Canada, the European Union, Japan, South Korea, and
so forth -- and negotiate China's trade practices as a
group."

I've heard different versions of this for months, and it's a widely
accepted view among certain groups of analysts. The problem is that
the above strategy is so clearly disastrous that we can only assume
that any journalist, analyst or politician expressing this view is
truly ignorant, is truly an idiot, and probably can't find China on a
map.

The first and most obvious problem is that forming such a coalition is
impossible. Several European countries would balk, and at most one or
two countries would join the coalition before it fell apart
completely, making Trump look like a loser. Indeed the proposed
strategy would violate many concepts in "The Art of the Deal," and so
it's almost impossible that Trump would adopt it.

But let's suppose Trump DID adopt this policy anyway. This would be a
complete disaster. China's media would portray it as a revival of the
"century of humiliation" and the imposition of new "unfair treaties."
They would particularly point to the Versailles Betrayal, when all the
Western countries, including Japan, ganged up on China and forced them
to accept the terms of the Versailles Treaty after World War I. This
triggered extreme nationalism and the May Fourth movement, and led to
adoption of Soviet Communist "theory."

So it's absolutely certain that this strategy, which I've heard
"experts" propose repeatedly for the last few months, would fail
disastrously.

Instead, Trump followed a strategy apparently recommended by John
Bolton: He began by imposing tariffs that affected all of America's
allies, including the EU, Mexico and Canada, with a 25% tariff on
imports of steel and 10% on aluminum from these countries. After
that, he could pose unilateral tariffs on imports from China, without
being open to the accusation that everyone in the world was ganging up
on China. Ironically, the perception was (and is) that everyone in
the world is ganging up on Donald Trump, but that seems to be Trump's
strategy.

"https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-44426442"

Once again, this is what I mean. I see this every day -- different
"experts," usually young and pretty, who really know absolutely
nothing about anything, who believe that they know everything, who
believe that history always begins this morning, making really
incredibly stupid statements. If Trump had followed the pretty boy's
strategy, it would have been a disaster, but by following Bolton's
strategy, there are actual negotiations going on. (Although, as I
always point out, the world is headed for World War III with 100%
certainty, no matter what Trump does.)

Yesterday, National Interest online posted an article by Ali Wyne and
James Dobbins called "How Not to Confront China." The authors are
described thus: "Ali Wyne is a policy analyst and James Dobbins is a
senior fellow at the nonprofit, nonpartisan RAND Corporation."


https://nationalinterest.org/feature/how...hina-82356

Here are their pictures:

[Image: Ali%20Wyne.jpg]
[Image: 220px-James_Dobbins_May_2014.jpg]
  • Ali Wyne (top) and James Dobbins (bottom)


So Wyne is pretty enough, and Dobbins is definitely not, and is old
enough and from the venerable Rand Corporation, so he should know
better, but this shows that even old people in the Rand Corporation
have no clue what's going on in the world.

So let's take a look at some of the claims in the article.

Quote: "First, the administration is undercutting America’s
ability to form a coalition that can manage China’s resurgence. It
has expressed little interest in continuing negotiations on a
Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership with the European
Union (EU) and has abandoned the Trans-Pacific Partnership
(TPP). ... Even before it imposed its first tranche of tariffs on
China, in July 2018, the administration had penalized exports from
Canada, the EU, Japan, Mexico and South Korea."

I read this and I have to laugh at how naïve it is, for the reasons
already explained. By first penalizing exports from other countries,
Trump has avoided the accusation that the West was ganging up on
China, as in the "unfair treaties" and the Versailles Betrayal. If
Trump had gotten together with Canada, the EU, Japan, Mexico and South
Korea to demand that China change its trade practices, the result
would have been explosive. The real question is: Why don't these
so-called "experts" -- Ali Wyne and James Dobbins -- already know
that? It's bad enough not knowing what you're talking about, but you
have to be really stupid to not know that you don't know what you're
talking about.

Quote: "Second, while the present configuration of
technological entanglement between the United States and China
indeed presents significant security risks, the Trump
administration’s push to decouple the two countries’ economies and
derail companies such as Huawei and ZTE could redound to Beijing’s
benefit. China now feels compelled to accelerate its drive towards
indigenous innovation, find alternative suppliers of high-tech
inputs and reroute exports that were headed for the United
States."

This is just babble. At least they recognize that Huawei and ZTE
present security risks. But blocking them from taking control of much
of the global internet is not the same as "decoupling the two
countries' economies."

Quote: "Third, in withdrawing from the Joint Comprehensive
Plan of Action with Iran and making sanctions a central component
of its foreign policy, the Trump administration has incentivized
friends and competitors alike to probe more intensely for means of
circumventing the reach of the dollar, which is one of the
foundations of U.S. preeminence. The EU, China, and Russia are
partnering to develop special purpose vehicles, and a growing
number of individuals who shape monetary policy are calling to
reduce the dollar’s centrality. Even Bank of England Governor Mark
Carney proposing a digital reserve currency to “dampen the
domineering influence of the U.S. dollar on global
trade.”"

I've been hearing about these attempts to circumvent the dollar for
decades, and so far all attempts have failed. This is an empty threat
that has nothing to do with current round of sanctions. Furthermore,
most countries have quietly expressed agreement with Trump's sanctions
on China, since everyone agrees that China's illegal trade practices
have to be confronted. They may dislike Trump, but they know that
he's the only one who can do it.

Quote: "Fourth, while sharply criticizing core elements of
China’s geoeconomic agenda—often with good cause—the Trump
administration seems unable to offer a coherent one of its own,
thereby making its criticism seem less like an expression of
concern for its longstanding partners than a manifestation of
anxiety about its own competitiveness. That signaling reinforces
China’s twin narratives: that Beijing is confident and ascendant,
while Washington is nervous and declining."

More silly babble. Nobody believes the narrative that Beijing is
confident and ascendant, while Washington is nervous and declining.
Only a nevertrumper would say something so stupid.

Quote: "Fifth, and perhaps most fundamentally, while it has
undertaken a series of notionally competitive measures, the Trump
administration has not explained what it ultimately hopes to
accomplish. In seeming to countenance what Claremont McKenna’s
Minxin Pei calls “an open-ended conflict, with no measurable
indicators of progress,” there is an increasing risk that the
United States could focus more on a highly improbable quest to
contain China than on an eminently achievable effort to renew
itself."

This certainly is the "most fundamental" of Wyne's and Dobbins'
mistakes. Like most people in the media, they're totally baffled by
Trump's policies, and they blame it on Trump rather than their own
stupidity.

Trump's objective -- and it's been succeeding as far as I can tell --
is to disrupt critical places in China's economy in order to stop or
slow its headlong rush to launch a war with Japan, Taiwan and the
United States.

China was on a path where it could pour as much money as possible into
its war machine, supplemented by all the intellectual property and
technology that it could steal from the west, all the intelligence it
could steal through cyber attacks on the West's business and military
sites, and with complete control of a significant part of the global
internet through Huawei.

All of those Chinese plans are now in shambles, but of course they are
simply slowed down. China will start again on all those plans, until
finally some event triggers a new war. That's why I say that World
War III is coming with 100% certainty, no matter what Trump does.
Reply
*** 25-Sep-19 World View -- The Brexit comedy continues as the UK Supreme Court repudiates Boris Johnson

This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com
  • The Brexit comedy continues as the UK Supreme Court repudiates Boris Johnson
  • The intractable Ireland land border
  • The default solution: No-deal Brexit

****
**** The Brexit comedy continues as the UK Supreme Court repudiates Boris Johnson
****


[Image: g190924b.jpg]
Placards demanding Brexit on October 31, as Boris Johnson has promised (Reuters)

It's hard to know whether it's more accurate to describe the Brexit
drama in Britain as a situation comedy or as a Greek tragedy.
Actually it's both, since a well-written tragedy always contains some
humor in the form of "comic relief," until finally the tragedy reaches
its catastrophic conclusion.

What happened on Tuesday is pure comedy. The UK Supreme Court, which
only came into existence in 2009, ruled that prime minister Boris
Johnson's attempt to shut down Parliament for five weeks was illegal.
Johnson has promised that the UK will exit the EU on October 31, and
he used a parliamentary trick to suspend or "prorogate" the Parliament
for five weeks, in order to give himself some breathing room to
negotiate, or pretend to negotiate, a final "deal" with the EU on the
terms of the Brexit, in order to avoid the hated "no deal Brexit." So
the Parliament will start meeting again on Wednesday, and it should
provide a lot of laughs.

The real zinger in the UK Supreme Court ruling is that the court said
that when Boris Johnson went to the Queen earlier this month to ask
her to prorogate the Parliament, he "misled" her about the reasons.
So this means that Johnson lied to the Queen about the reasons, and
that the Queen was too dumb and credulous to know the real reasons,
which she and her staff could have quickly learned by reading the
newspaper or turning on the TV. So the ten-year-old UK Supreme Court
has firmly established itself by ruling that Johnson is a criminal and
the Queen is an idiot. Somebody's going to pay for that opinion in
the months to come.

****
**** The intractable Ireland land border
****


The Brexit referendum was passed in June 2016, and it was clear
almost immediately that it was a disaster.

The major intractable problem has been that, after the UK leaves the
EU, Northern Ireland will be in the UK, and Southern Ireland (the
Republic of Ireland) will be in the EU. So there will have to be
solid border crossings, and tariffs placed on goods crossing the
border.

There have been centuries of violent history between Ireland's
indigenous ethnic Gaelic people versus the descendants of the Scottish
and English invaders. This violence continued in modern times until
the "Good Friday Agreement" was signed in 1998. Many people say that
they fear that new border crossings would result in renewed violence.

The solution that the EU wants is called the "Irish Backstop." In
this case, the border would remain completely open, and then either
Northern Ireland would become part of the EU and separate from the UK,
or else Britain would have to follow all EU regulations and court
decisions, but have no say in making them. This solution is so
ridiculous that it serves as monument to the stupidity of this whole
process.

The "Brexiteers," led by Boris Johnson, claim they don't want a "no
deal Brexit," so they say they're going to tweak the Backstop as part
of a deal, something that the EU refuses to allow. The "Remainers"
don't want to admit they're remainers, since then they would be
ignoring "the will of the people," as expressed in the the 2016
referendum, so they advocate the "deal" with the Irish Backstop,
hoping that means that Brexit will be abandoned entirely.

****
**** The default solution: No-deal Brexit
****


Tuesday's court decision changes nothing, except the rhetoric.
It's still the case that unless a new arrangement is negotiated,
then the UK Brexit will take place with no deal on October 31.

I've been saying for a long time that I expect the final result
to be a no-deal Brexit, simply because the Generation-X is now
in charge in Britain and the EU.

Government leaders in the 1990s were in Silent generation that grew up
during the horrors of World War II, including the Nazi bombing of
London, and had the skills to negotiate and compromise. Today, the
Gen-Xers are in charge, and Gen-Xers have no skills to negotiate and
compromise. So there are different camps in the government, each
dominated by a different group of Gen-Xers, and they're all in
hardened positions opposed to each other.

My expectation for a long time is that a no-deal Brexit would occur
because it's the default, and it's the only option that doesn't
require anyone to negotiate and compromise with anyone else. So far,
that expectation has proven to be correct.

In the last year, the Parliament has repeatedly voted NO every
chance it could get -- no on remaining, no on a no-deal Brexit,
and noes on various "deal" Brexits. There's always a major to
reject any solution, but never a majority to say YES to any proposal.

The Parliament did vote in favor of a law forbidding Boris Johnson
from taking the UK out of the EU in a no-deal Brexit, but I don't
understand how that would work. A no-deal Brexit is the default, so
if Johnson does nothing, then a no-deal Brexit would occur
automatically on October 31.

Possible scenarios in the next few weeks include leaving the EU
with a no-deal Brexit on October 31, asking the EU to postpone
the October 31 date, or having a new British election. However,
none of these scenarios would resolve any of the differences.
There are also calls for a new referendum, but there's wide
disagreement on what options should be on it, and so the disagreements
on the text of the referendum could be as vitriolic as the disagreements
about Brexit itself.

The Brexit issue has badly split the British people, as well as the
two major British political parties, the Conservative Tories and
Labor, although the smaller Liberal Democrat party says that it's
united in wanting to Remain. It's possible that by the time this is
over, there will be a major realignment of British politics. There's
also talk of drawing up a constitution for the British government,
since it currently plenty of traditions, but they are not written
down.

And even though Britain voted in 2016 to leave the EU, today nobody
can say for sure whether Britain will actually leave the EU, and how
long it will be before a decision is reached. The comedy continues,
and the tragic dénouement awaits.

Sources:

Related Articles:



KEYS: Generational Dynamics, Ireland, Northern Ireland, Brexit, EU, UK,
Boris Johnson, Irish backstop

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John J. Xenakis
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Reply
.....<snip>
Yesterday, National Interest online posted an article by Ali Wyne and
James Dobbins called "How Not to Confront China." The authors are
described thus: "Ali Wyne is a policy analyst and James Dobbins is a
senior fellow at the nonprofit, nonpartisan RAND Corporation."
.... <snip>

Actually the RAND Corporation is a Neocon oriented Stink Tank.  It's little wonder the have their collective heads up their asses.  Just an FYI, y'all. Big Grin
---Value Added Cool
Reply
"Government leaders in the 1990s were in Silent generation that grew up
during the horrors of World War II, including the Nazi bombing of
London, and had the skills to negotiate and compromise. Today, the
Gen-Xers are in charge, and Gen-Xers have no skills to negotiate and
compromise. So there are different camps in the government, each
dominated by a different group of Gen-Xers, and they're all in
hardened positions opposed to each other."

Uh, no.  The actual involvement of GenX is to burn down the rotten stinking edifice known as the "establishment".  You know the same one from the 1970's.  It's the same damn thing and it's mutated into a Globalist,Neoliberal austerity imposing piece of shit.  Go BoJo,  let's all say it, BURN, BABY BURN!  It was the Boomers after all who taught the kiddies well. It's the same thing, the establishment sold out the lower classes to a bunch of international capitalists/transnational companies.  Since the establishment didn't end austerity in the UK, the folks voted leave as a way of burning it all down.  In the US, same for Trump. He's a symptom of the rage that's expressing itself now as polarization. 




---Value Added Cool
Reply
** 25-Sep-2019 Burning down the world

(09-24-2019, 11:06 PM)Ragnarök_62 Wrote: > Actually the RAND Corporation is a Neocon oriented Stink Tank.
> It's little wonder the have their collective heads up their
> asses. Just an FYI, y'all. Big Grin

That's why Dobbins should have known better.

(09-24-2019, 11:13 PM)Ragnarök_62 Wrote: > Uh, no. The actual involvement of GenX is to burn down the rotten
> stinking edifice known as the "establishment".

That's what I said. And by the time WW III ends, Gen-Xers can boast
and brag about how you burned down the entire world.
Reply
** 25-Sep-2019 World View: Mao Zedong

(09-19-2019, 07:43 AM)pbrower2a Wrote: > Every Great Power tries to establish its right to rule in some
> cultural quality or in the ethnic origin of the people... if it
> comes to skin color, peoples of East Asian origin can have skin
> color indistinguishable from that of many Europeans.

It's typical of the left that when you can't deal with facts you
immediately go to Hillary Clinton's "basket of deplorables -- racist,
sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, Islamaphobic — you name it."

When I was writing the book, someone suggested that I could be
criticized for being racist about criticizing the Chinese. That's why
I went to a great deal of trouble to point out that the same Chinese
people lived in Taiwan and colonial Hong Kong. By 2010, Taiwan and
Hong Kong had 10 times the income as China. It's not the Chinese
people, but the fanatical, catastrophic CCP that infinitely damaged
the wonderful Chinese people living in China.

The same is true of the Japanese and South Koreans, as well as
Taiwanese and colonial Hong Kongers. They've all done very well since
WW II, while the mainland Chinese have faced abuse, jailings,
arbitratry arrests, beatings, rapes, enslavements, a one-child policy,
and poverty from the CCP.

(09-19-2019, 07:43 AM)pbrower2a Wrote: > Chinese, Korean, and Japanese culture are easy to appreciate but
> difficult to crack. Linguistic difficulty? Fundamental differences
> of cultural foundation? You describe racism in China... and you
> make it sound much like Japanese racism during World War II. That
> is not to say that racism does not exist in China, but that it is
> fairly similar.

The fact that the CCP is planning a war of revenge against Japan and a
war of annexation against Taiwan is difficult to blame on racism,
especially since the Taiwanese are Chinese too.

(09-19-2019, 07:43 AM)pbrower2a Wrote: > But Mao Zedong was Chinese (which excuses much to many Chinese),
> and he did drive out the last vestiges of power of colonial
> adventurers and their exploitation and degradation of Chinese
> life.

No he didn't do anything of the sort. It amazes me what the loony
left would say to defend this monster Mao. I remember in the 1960s
students were walking around with copies of Mao's "little red book" in
their back pockets, and praising Mao as he was implementing the worst
and most disastrous agicultural policy in the history of any country
at any time in the world.

In my book, I quoted Soviet communist theory dating back to the 1920s,
as well as Mao's own writings. The Great Leap Forward catastrophe was
caused by Mao's fanatical obsession to prove that Marxism, Socialism
and Communism were economically superior to Capitalism. Instead, what
he did was so disastrous, he ended up completely humiliating himself
and completely proving that Marxism, Socialism and Communism are all
disastrously inferior to capitalism. However, it was only after Mao
died in 1976 that Deng Xiaoping finally was able to initiate the
"Reform and Opening Up," replacing Marxism, Socialism and Communism
with "Socialism with Chinese Characteristics," which turns out to be
the same as Hitler's National Socialism.

Oh wait! Now I get your point! You're right! Mao did want to
replace the last vestiges of Western colonialism -- democracy, good
governance, concern for human rights, independent judiciary, free
elections, free markets, and so forth --- He replaced those last
vestiges of Western colonialism in China with dictatorship, beatings,
torture, rape, mass slaughter, mass jailings, slave labor, starvation,
and so forth.

So you're right! You've made an amazing point! Mao replaced the
vestiges of colonialism -- democracy, human rights, free markets --
with the tenets of Socialism -- beatings, torture, rape, starvation.
So Mao DID get rid of the last vestiges of colonialism in China, as
you say. That was VERY insightful for someone on the loony left to
say. But aren't you afraid that by saying something like that the
other people on the loony left are going to accuse you of becoming a
traitor and a scumbag collaborator, and of turning into a fascist, a
racist, a misogynist and a white supremacist? You'd better be
careful. The loony left is watching you, and they're coming to get
you.

(09-19-2019, 07:43 AM)pbrower2a Wrote: > There are totalitarians in high places in American life, now
> largely on the Right (Marxism-Leninism is dead, and most left-wing
> radicals are post-Marxist), and they would love to imitate the
> dictatorial rule of China, establishing it in America in a
> controlled and inequitable order that well serves people who might
> have a different rationale of their culture.

This is laughable, when people on the loony left have such psychotic
hatred of 60 million Trump supporters, who can't tell the difference
between a tweet and an action, and who have adopted Antifa as this
generation's Ku Klux Klan, attacking 60 million Trump supporters.

(09-22-2019, 11:03 AM)pbrower2a Wrote: > The consequences of such an ecological disaster as global warming
> would be mass death on scales that would trivialize World War II
> and the Black Death.

This is completely hallucinatory. There's no limit to the total
craziness of loony left climate activists.
Reply
** 23-Sep-2019 World View: Greta Thunberg

This actually makes me want to vomit:

Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DYqtXR8iPlE

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DYqtXR8iPlE


Hey guys! Line up! She might be looking for a husband!
She would make a wonderful wife!
Reply
John, just a bit of feedback - as a longtime lurker I have enjoyed reading your threads for years; however your increasingly patronizing tone and ability to turn every comment that isn't supportive into a personal attack have made you completely unreadable, to me at least. If you want to have any kind of a diverse reader base you might want to consider changing that. Or don't ... whatever.
"But there's a difference between error and dishonesty, and it's not a trivial difference." - Ben Greenman
"Relax, it'll be all right, and by that I mean it will first get worse."
"How was I supposed to know that there'd be consequences for my actions?" - Gina Linetti
Reply
** 25-Sep-2019 Response to feedback

(09-25-2019, 11:12 AM)tg63 Wrote: > John, just a bit of feedback - as a longtime lurker I have enjoyed
> reading your threads for years; however your increasingly
> patronizing tone and ability to turn every comment that isn't
> supportive into a personal attack have made you completely
> unreadable, to me at least. If you want to have any kind of a
> diverse reader base you might want to consider changing that. Or
> don't ... whatever.

One thing that comes with age is that I care less and less what people
think of me.

So after more than two years of seeing the loony left make one sleazy
accusation after another against Trump, not to mention the sleaziest
accusations against Kavanaugh -- and each sleazy accusation was
described as "explosive" and "the end of Trump's presidency" -- and
each sleazy accusation was obviously just a lie -- and each sleazy
accusation just disappeared the next day and was replaced with another
sleazy accusation -- after over two years of that, I'm just sick of
it.

One of worst sleazes was Adam Schiff, who kept claiming to have
ironclad proof, but never did -- one sleazy lie after another, from a
sleazy piece of garbage Adam Schiff.

After the Mueller report completely humiliated and disgraced the loony
left, a lot of people, including myself, hoped finally it would be
over.

But now it's still going on with these new sleazy accusations about
the phone call, when anyone who reads what's going on can see that it
was Biden and his son taking hundreds of millions of dollars in an
extortion scheme backed by Obama, and Trump asked Ukraine to look into
the extortion scheme, which to me was a perfectly reasonable thing to
ask.

And this morning, I watched a half-hour press conference by sleazebag
Adam Schiff, playing his usual role of spewing garbage.

And this didn't start with Trump. For years, the left has been
inciting violence against the Tea Partiers, whom they addressed with
the epithet "teabaggers," which is as bad as the n-word, and have been
doubling down on inciting violence since Trump became president. The
Ku Klux Klan was the military arm of the Democratic party for a
century after the end of the Civil War, formed because the Democrats
wanted slavery to continue, and now Antifa is the new military arm of
the Democratic party, but instead of targeting 12 million blacks,
they're targeting 60 million Trump supporters.

So I'm just totally sickened and disgusted by all this. But if you
really don't want to read about this, then don't. There are plenty of
other threads in this forum, not to mention a whole internet full of
stuff.

As an aside, thousands of people read my web site every day, about a
thousand people read the Generational Dynamics forum every day, and
about 700 people are on my mailing list. So there are people who are
as sick and disgusted as I am, and who want to read about what's going
on in the world, from the technical, non-ideological methodology that
I provide.

P.S.: I commend pbrower2a for having the guts to challenge what I've
written. The vast majority of people, on both the left and right, are
total cowards, and wouldn't dare.
Reply
(09-25-2019, 08:44 AM)John J. Xenakis Wrote: ** 25-Sep-2019 Burning down the world

(09-24-2019, 11:06 PM)Ragnarök_62 Wrote: >   Actually the RAND Corporation is a Neocon oriented Stink Tank.
>   It's little wonder the have their collective heads up their
>   asses. Just an FYI, y'all. Big Grin

That's why Dobbins should have known better.

(09-24-2019, 11:13 PM)Ragnarök_62 Wrote: >   Uh, no.  The actual involvement of GenX is to burn down the rotten
>   stinking edifice known as the "establishment".

That's what I said.  And by the time WW III ends, Gen-Xers can boast
and brag about how you burned down the entire world.
---Value Added Cool
Reply
(09-25-2019, 12:16 PM)Ragnarök_62 Wrote:
(09-25-2019, 08:44 AM)John J. Xenakis Wrote: ** 25-Sep-2019 Burning down the world

(09-24-2019, 11:06 PM)Ragnarök_62 Wrote: >   Actually the RAND Corporation is a Neocon oriented Stink Tank.
>   It's little wonder the have their collective heads up their
>   asses. Just an FYI, y'all. Big Grin

That's why Dobbins should have known better.

(09-24-2019, 11:13 PM)Ragnarök_62 Wrote: >   Uh, no.  The actual involvement of GenX is to burn down the rotten
>   stinking edifice known as the "establishment".

That's what I said.  And by the time WW III ends, Gen-Xers can boast
and brag about how you burned down the entire world.
GenX wants to burn down the rotten establishment, while the establishment, wants to burn down the earth with wars for resources and screw everyone who ain't rich.

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/ar...8515000767

After all, that's what 4T's are all about. The prior order becomes defunct.  I've already accepted the fact that it's a multipolar world now wrt economic output and assorted world powers can checkmate each other. The sooner out Stink Tanks, MIC, multinationals, etc. 

BTW, China got lots of IP from the multinationals willingly, you know, because markets. Sure China steals, the US steals.  IOW,  everyone's asshole stinks. 

I've experienced the dawning of the age of Aquarius.  Now it's the dawning of the age of Ragnarök. Cool  I'd guess we agree here as well. After all, GenX ain't the only thing with a lighter.  Looks like the Shiite's have some nice little 4th generation warfare weapons.  Looks like they want to do a Burn, Baby, Burn to Saudi Arabia.
---Value Added Cool
Reply
(09-25-2019, 10:25 AM)John J. Xenakis Wrote: ** 23-Sep-2019 World View: Greta Thunberg

This actually makes me want to vomit:

Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DYqtXR8iPlE

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DYqtXR8iPlE

Hey guys!  Line up!  She might be looking for a husband!
She would make a wonderful wife!

She's looking about 30 years into her future.  That won't be an issue for us, but it certainly will for her and her entire generation.  We Boomers, Xers and even older generations have created a mess, refuse to fix it, and claim we're doing it for them.  She's calling bullshit on that.
Intelligence is not knowledge and knowledge is not wisdom, but they all play well together.
Reply
Her future looks bleak, but it has nothing to do with global warming, which has been happening for decades already. Rather, it has to do with her government's willingness to let the elites import cheap labor to prevent her own upward mobility.
Reply
(09-22-2019, 11:59 AM)pbrower2a Wrote: Here is one climate projection for the United States:

[Image: Koppen-Geiger_Map_USA_future.svg]

in contrast to something more familiar (current reality):

[Image: US_50_states_K%C3%B6ppen.svg]

Such is the result of playing "greenhouse-gas roulette" Desert zones expand, appearing in places in which they are not in existence -- yet. Hot deserts expand in Utah, New Mexico, and western Texas  (the Permian Basin). Semi-arid steppe The tropical zone reaches roughly Tampa-St. Pete and Orlando. Real winters disappear in Nebraska, Iowa, and the southern Great Lakes... but drought more than offsets a longer growing season in central Nebraska. 

I concede that southwestern Alaska might be a good grain-growing area -- but soils are now poor and will not improve rapidly.

(09-25-2019, 10:23 AM)John J. Xenakis Wrote: ** 25-Sep-2019 World View: Mao Zedong

(09-19-2019, 07:43 AM)pbrower2a Wrote: >   Every Great Power tries to establish its right to rule in some
>   cultural quality or in the ethnic origin of the people... if it
>   comes to skin color, peoples of East Asian origin can have skin
>   color indistinguishable from that of many Europeans.

It's typical of the left that when you can't deal with facts you
immediately go to Hillary Clinton's "basket of deplorables -- racist,
sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, Islamaphobic — you name it."

Racism, sexism, homophobia, xenophobia, and religious bigotry are all deplorable. The problem is that Hillary gave Trump supporters a word about themselves that they thought worthy of pride when in truth it is the opposite. 


Quote:When I was writing the book, someone suggested that I could be
criticized for being racist about criticizing the Chinese.  That's why
I went to a great deal of trouble to point out that the same Chinese
people lived in Taiwan and colonial Hong Kong.  By 2010, Taiwan and
Hong Kong had 10 times the income as China.  It's not the Chinese
people, but the fanatical, catastrophic CCP that infinitely damaged
the wonderful Chinese people living in China.

Criticizing a government is not racist. Note well that China took a huge step forward in economic development when the Chinese Communist Party abandoned Marxist economics -- if not the dictatorship. It is hardly surprising, in view of the disaster that Marxist economic pose in imposing some insane economic ideas (a market does wonders in stopping waste) that capitalist Taiwan and capitalist Hong Kong, neither of which experienced Marxist economic madness, had huge head starts over the PRC. 

And let's not forget Overseas Chinese, model minorities everywhere that they are, including the USA. 

 


Quote:The same is true of the Japanese and South Koreans, as well as
Taiwanese and colonial Hong Kongers.  They've all done very well since
WW II, while the mainland Chinese have faced abuse, jailings,
arbitratry arrests, beatings, rapes, enslavements, a one-child policy,
and poverty from the CCP
.
Don;t ask me to defend Marxism-Leninism in any form, including Maoism. 

Quote:[quote pid='46046' dateline='1568897033']
pbrower2a

>   Chinese, Korean, and Japanese culture are easy to appreciate but
>   difficult to crack. Linguistic difficulty? Fundamental differences
>   of cultural foundation? You describe racism in China... and you
>   make it sound much like Japanese racism during World War II. That
>   is not to say that racism does not exist in China, but that it is
>   fairly similar.

The fact that the CCP is planning a war of revenge against Japan and a
war of annexation against Taiwan is difficult to blame on racism,
especially since the Taiwanese are Chinese too.
[/quote]

Not proved. 


Quote:
(09-19-2019, 07:43 AM)pbrower2a Wrote: >   But Mao Zedong was Chinese (which excuses much to many Chinese),
>   and he did drive out the last vestiges of power of colonial
>   adventurers and their exploitation and degradation of Chinese
>   life.

No he didn't do anything of the sort.  It amazes me what the loony
left would say to defend this monster Mao.  I remember in the 1960s
students were walking around with copies of Mao's "little red book" in
their back pockets, and praising Mao as he was implementing the worst
and most disastrous agicultural policy in the history of any country
at any time in the world.


I'm not in the loony left. Mao has a huge and inexcusable body count. Note well that there were plenty in the New left of the 1960's who still believed in Marxism because they thought that capitalists were "pigs" and still believed in the Marxist promise of a more just and equitable society. 

That is over. The real menace is in people who endorse qualities in bad capitalism that suggest a need for drastic reform, if not outright revolution. 

 

Quote:In my book, I quoted Soviet communist theory dating back to the 1920s,
as well as Mao's own writings.  The Great Leap Forward catastrophe was
caused by Mao's fanatical obsession to prove that Marxism, Socialism
and Communism were economically superior to Capitalism.  Instead, what
he did was so disastrous, he ended up completely humiliating himself
and completely proving that Marxism, Socialism and Communism are all
disastrously inferior to capitalism.  However, it was only after Mao
died in 1976 that Deng Xiaoping finally was able to initiate the
"Reform and Opening Up," replacing Marxism, Socialism and Communism
with "Socialism with Chinese Characteristics," which turns out to be
the same as Hitler's National Socialism.

Mao, I believe, had no clue about the harm that he was doing. That goes with the territory of the True Believer. 


Quote:Oh wait!  Now I get your point!  You're right!  Mao did want to
replace the last vestiges of Western colonialism -- democracy, good
governance, concern for human rights, independent judiciary, free
elections, free markets, and so forth --- He replaced those last
vestiges of Western colonialism in China with dictatorship, beatings,
torture, rape, mass slaughter, mass jailings, slave labor, starvation,
and so forth.

Chiang Kai-Shek's regime was no paragon of "democracy, good governance, concern for human rights, independent judiciary, free
elections, free markets, and so forth". Maybe if it had been it might have made Mao irrelevant. Lord Acton's dintum that absolute power corrupts absolutely applies well to Mao Zedong.   



Quote:So you're right!  You've made an amazing point!  Mao replaced the
vestiges of colonialism -- democracy, human rights, free markets --
with the tenets of Socialism -- beatings, torture, rape, starvation.
So Mao DID get rid of the last vestiges of colonialism in China, as
you say.  That was VERY insightful for someone on the loony left to
say.  But aren't you afraid that by saying something like that the
other people on the loony left are going to accuse you of becoming a
traitor and a scumbag collaborator, and of turning into a fascist, a
racist, a misogynist and a white supremacist?  You'd better be
careful.  The loony left is watching you, and they're coming to get
you.

The loonier they are, the more certain is their failure. Don't get me wrong: a commie like Ceausescu can be much like Mussolini in many respects other than the means of demise for both. 

Quote:
(09-19-2019, 07:43 AM)pbrower2a Wrote: >   There are totalitarians in high places in American life, now
>   largely on the Right (Marxism-Leninism is dead, and most left-wing
>   radicals are post-Marxist), and they would love to imitate the
>   dictatorial rule of China, establishing it in America in a
>   controlled and inequitable order that well serves people who might
>   have a different rationale of their culture.

This is laughable, when people on the loony left have such psychotic
hatred of 60 million Trump supporters, who can't tell the difference
between a tweet and an action, and who have adopted Antifa as this
generation's Ku Klux Klan, attacking 60 million Trump supporters.

If one million of those Trump supporters decide that their 2016 votes were catastrophic mistakes, then Trump loses. I'd rather flatter some into recognizing that they need not make the same mistake in 2020.   

You seem like an intelligent and perceptive fellow -- so how can you defend Donald Trump? He is a pathological liar, a sex fiend, and a bad businessman; he holds decades of American political and legal heritage in contempt. Casting off 240 years of history is something one does not do lightly. One needs compelling reason.

The distinction between expressions of hatred and acts of horror against the same people is not enough to have kept Julius Streicher from being hanged and Froduald Karamira (Rwanda) from being shot. The difference is that there is still free expression in America, so his words are not tantamount to command as were those of Streicher or Karamira.   

(09-22-2019, 11:03 AM)pbrower2a Wrote: >   The consequences of such an ecological disaster as global warming
>   would be mass death on scales that would trivialize World War II
>   and the Black Death.

This is completely hallucinatory.  There's no limit to the total
craziness of loony left climate activists.[/quote]

The death could come from wars that global warming makes certain.
The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated Communist  but instead the people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists -- Hannah Arendt.


Reply
** 25-Sep-2019 Greta Thunberg


(09-25-2019, 12:38 PM)David Horn Wrote: > She's looking about 30 years into her future. That won't be an
> issue for us, but it certainly will for her and her entire
> generation. We Boomers, Xers and even older generations have
> created a mess, refuse to fix it, and claim we're doing it for
> them. She's calling bullshit on that.

Actually, I doubt that she even knows what she's talking about. She's
a puppet, mouthing the words of her puppetmaster, the climate change
activists who couldn't care less about the climate, but who are
looking for fat monetary payouts into their climate funds to keep
themselves employed and keep African warlords fully supplied with
weapons.

As for Greta Thunberg, she's proven herself to be able to deliver
lines very dramatically, so I would not be surprised at all if she's
currently negotiating for a part in a movie or tv situation comedy.
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