Generational Dynamics World View

[John J. Xenakis]

** 05-Aug-2020 World View: Ammonium Nitrate

• What's left of Beirut's seaport

Guest Wrote:> With the different stories coming out of Lebanon regarding the
> port explosion, wouldn't that red coloration of the smoke give an
> idea as to the composition of the explosive? Is anyone familiar
> enough with demolitions and pyrotechnics to guess?

The explosive material was 2,700 tons of ammonium nitrate fertilizer,
that had been confiscated in 2013, and left sitting in a storage
warehouse, adjacent to a fireworks factory, in the midst of a densely
packed residential area. 300,000 people lost their homes, hundreds
were killed, and thousands were wounded. 85% of the country's grain
storage was destroyed. Several hospitals were destroyed. The
explosion was far larger than anyone had ever seen, and property was
damaged and windows broken all across the city, and for miles around.

For all the good it will do them, the people are furious at the
incompetence of the politicians, especially Hezbollah, which controls
the seaport, for leaving 2,700 tons of ammonium nitrate fertilizer
sitting around for almost ten years.

The politicians are all posturing. The president has had all the port
workers arrested (LOL!), and he's announced that there will be a
"transparent" investigation to find out what happened (LOL!).

Meanwhile, the last "transparent" investigation, of the 2005 Hariri
car bombing, took 15 years to be completed, and its results are
scheduled to be announced on Friday, August 7. It's expected that
Hezbollah will be blamed.

-- Beirut explosion: Port officials under house arrest as rescue
effort
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-53670839
(BBC, 5-Aug-2020)

[David Horn]

(08-05-2020, 01:20 PM)John J. Xenakis Wrote: ** 05-Aug-2020 World View: Ammonium Nitrate

The explosive material was 2,700 tons of ammonium nitrate fertilizer, that had been confiscated in 2013, and left sitting in a storage warehouse, adjacent to a fireworks factory, in the midst of a densely packed residential area.  300,000 people lost their homes, hundreds were killed, and thousands were wounded.  85% of the country's grain storage was destroyed.  Several hospitals were destroyed.  The explosion was far larger than anyone had ever seen, and property was damaged and windows broken all across the city, and for miles around.

Just as a benchmark for how serious this is, the Oklahoma City bomb built by Timothy McVeigh used 1 ton of the same fertilizer.

[Bob Butler 54]

(08-05-2020, 01:20 PM)John J. Xenakis Wrote: The politicians are all posturing.  The president has had all the port workers arrested (LOL!), and he's announced that there will be a "transparent" investigation to find out what happened (LOL!).

Well, the port users should have at least known of the danger. They are not totally innocent, though they were likely not the people who set up the situation. While I am usually repulsed by the way you use LOL to replace real analysis, that last one is deserved.

[John J. Xenakis]

** 05-Aug-2020 World View: Port employees

(08-05-2020, 02:06 PM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote: > Well, the port users should have at least known of the
> danger. They are not totally innocent, though they were likely not
> the people who set up the situation. While I am usually repulsed
> by the way you use LOL to replace real analysis, that last one is
> deserved.

And what were the port employees supposed to do -- except notify their
bosses, the people in power -- which they did do? Throwing all the
poor port employers into jail is a way for the politicians who were
actually responsible to cover their asses and pass the blame. It's a
big joke, and an extremely big Lol!

[Bob Butler 54]

(08-05-2020, 04:22 PM)John J. Xenakis Wrote: ** 05-Aug-2020 World View: Port employees

(08-05-2020, 02:06 PM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote: >   Well, the port users should have at least known of the
>   danger. They are not totally innocent, though they were likely not
>   the people who set up the situation. While I am usually repulsed
>   by the way you use LOL to replace real analysis, that last one is
>   deserved.

And what were the port employees supposed to do -- except notify their
bosses, the people in power -- which they did do?  Throwing all the
poor port employers into jail is a way for the politicians who were
actually responsible to cover their asses and pass the blame.  It's a
big joke, and an extremely big Lol!

Except the size of the hole is not funny.

[John J. Xenakis]

** 05-Aug-2020 World View: Corruption

(08-05-2020, 04:32 PM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote: > Except the size of the hole is not funny.

Almost everything I write about is "not funny," and is in fact sad and
tragic. But after even the most sad and tragic situation, corrupt
politicians whose corruption caused the problem are so desperate to
pass the blame to the innocent that they are ever more deserving of
being mocked and ridiculed, often with a hearty lol. And Lebanon's
politicians, especially Hezbollah, are some of the most corrupt and
ridiculous politicians in the world.

All people are equal, but the pigs are more equal than others.

[John J. Xenakis]

** 06-Aug-2020 World View: Three fires

Guest Wrote:> Oh, it gets worse. The food supplies of the UAE and Iraq have also
> been targeted. Explosion at the Ajman fruit and vegetable market;
> 20+ food storage warehouses in Najaf set ablaze.

> The Middle East is burning.

> https://www.indiatoday.in/amp/world/stor...2020-08-05

> https://en.shafaqna.com/159413/fire-in-f...af-photos/

I can't find any news report that links these two stories to
each other or to Beirut. The fact that three fires are occurring
in three different countries at the same time could easily be
just a coincidence, even if one of the fires has been set.

[John J. Xenakis]

** 06-Aug-2020 World View: Ammonium Nitrate fertilizer

(08-05-2020, 01:57 PM)David Horn Wrote: > Just as a benchmark for how serious this is, the Oklahoma City
> bomb built by Timothy McVeigh used 1 ton of the same
> fertilizer.

Thank you for pointing that out. It's absolutely staggering that this
amount of fertilizer was left sitting there for years, with no proper
precautions, in a packed residential area in a densely populated city.

By the way, the estimate is of 2,750 tonnes = 2,750 metric tons = over
3,000 US tons.

The blast was heard as far away as Cyprus.

There is a growing fury in Beirut that the politicians who have been
destroying Lebanon's economy for years by lining their own pockets
have allowed this to happen. Apparently a lot of people knew about
the stored fertilizer, and a lot of people complained about it during
the last six years, but nothing was done. It was just allowed to sit
there, without proper precautions taken. Meanwhile the corrupt élite
politicians just continued growing fat and happy, allowing the
economic collapse to worsen month after month, allowing garbage to
pile up around the city, taking kickbacks for approving defective fuel
oil so there's been no electricity, and still going on tv and spouting
the usual unbearable self-serving crap that comes from all politicians
who are incapable of accomplishing anything but the enrichment of
themselves and their cronies.

[John J. Xenakis]

** 08-Aug-2020 World View: 1990s Orthodoxies Have Obviously Been Disproven

This morning there was a news panel show on the BBC, and one of the
panelists was Jef McAllister, introduced as an American journalist.
He is apparently the former London Bureau Chief of Time Magazine.

He was asked whether today's leaders have a handle on the pandemic
crisis, and he answered as follows:

Quote:> "I think you can see in the stimulus packages that
> have been put forward in the major countries at least, also in
> developing countries, a willingness to spend big in a way that the
> orthodoxies of the 1990s and 2000s said that debt would kill you,
> and that the bond market would come and destroy everything about
> you if you overspent. That has OBVIOUSLY been disproven by the
> pandemic. Governments are spending big, and they are spending on
> the bottom of the social hierarchy, as well the middle and the
> top, and I think that the pent-up demand to do better in that way
> -- more infrastructure, more education -- "Hey! We CAN afford
> this!" --- and you've shown us in these few months that it might
> be possible. I think that could be a very salutary long-term
> affect of what could happen in Covid."

I used to just laugh at stuff like this, but this is so utterly
ridiculous, all I can do is shake my head. I always say that the only
people stupider than AOC are the people who believe her, and I assume
that this is one of them.

At any rate, this is a quote worth saving, as it will be useful later.

[Bob Butler 54]

(08-05-2020, 07:25 PM)John J. Xenakis Wrote:

(08-05-2020, 04:32 PM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote: Except the size of the hole is not funny.

Almost everything I write about is "not funny," and is in fact sad and tragic.  But after even the most sad and tragic situation, corrupt politicians whose corruption caused the problem are so desperate to pass the blame to the innocent that they are ever more deserving of being mocked and ridiculed, often with a hearty lol.  And Lebanon's politicians, especially Hezbollah, are some of the most corrupt and ridiculous politicians in the world.

All people are equal, but the pigs are more equal than others.

Acknowledged, but if you want to be taken more seriously than your average comic strip, you might not want to treat everything as a joke.

[Warren Dew]

(08-05-2020, 01:57 PM)David Horn Wrote: Just as a benchmark for how serious this is, the Oklahoma City bomb built by Timothy McVeigh used 1 ton of the same fertilizer.

Or to put it another way, the yield was comparable to North Korea's early, imperfect, nuclear explosions.

[John J. Xenakis]

*** 9-Aug-20 World View -- Beirut Lebanon police clash with furious protesters following Tuesday's catastrophic explosion

This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com

• Beirut Lebanon police clash with furious protesters following Tuesday's catastrophic explosion
  
• Why was 2750 tonnes of ammonium nitrate fertilizer in Beirut's seaport for years?
  
• Theory of Government in Lebanon - Generational Dynamics
  
• Seeking a political solution in Lebanon
  
• The future of Lebanon
  

****
**** Beirut Lebanon police clash with furious protesters following Tuesday's catastrophic explosion
****


Protests in Beirut Lebanon's Martyrs' Square on Saturday.

Police are firing rubber bullets and teargas at protesters in Martyrs'
Square in central Beirut, Lebanon's capital city. One person was
killed and dozens injured on Saturday, as government buildings were
occupied by protesters.

There is a growing anti-government fury in Lebanon, following
the catastrophic explosion on Tuesday at the Beirut seaport.
Hundreds were killed, thousands were injured, hundreds of thousands
are now homeless because their homes were destroyed.

The exploded materials were 2,750 metric tons of ammonium nitrate
fertilizer that had been stored in the seaport since 2013. As a point
of comparison, Timothy McVeigh used only about one ton of ammonium
nitrate fertilizer to destroy the Oklahoma City federal building in
1995.

There is a growing fury in Beirut that the politicians who have been
destroying Lebanon's economy for years by lining their own pockets
have allowed this to happen. A lot of people knew about the stored
fertilizer, and a lot of people complained about it during the last
six years, but nothing was done. It was just allowed to sit there,
without proper precautions taken. Meanwhile the corrupt élite
politicians just continued growing fat and happy, allowing the
economic collapse to worsen month after month, allowing garbage to
pile up around the city, taking kickbacks for approving defective fuel
oil so there's been no electricity, and still going on tv and spouting
the usual unbearable self-serving crap that comes from all politicians
who are incapable of accomplishing anything but the enrichment of
themselves and their cronies.

Even before the explosion, even before the Wuhan Coronavirus pandemic,
the country Lebanon was already on the verge of collapse. Nearly 50%
of the population are living in poverty. Lebanon has two problems.
The Iran-controlled terrorist group Hezbollah runs the country, but is
receiving less money from its puppetmaster Iran, thanks to US
sanctions. And second, there is massive government corruption,
stemming from its "confessional system of government," where power is
divided based on sectarian affiliation or confession (Sunni, Shia,
Christian), as I've described in detail in the past. The confessional
form of government has worked fairly well in resolving disputes in
both Iraq and Lebanon, but it gives each sectarian group unrestricted
access to the funds of the portions of government it controls, leading
to a situation where government officials take all the money for
themselves, and let the people starve and freeze in darkness. Now,
for the first time, there is massive anger growing against Hezbollah
in both Lebanon and Iraq, and Lebanon's government may collapse
completely.

The country has been in free fall for months. The currency has
collapsed. The unemployment rate is over 30%. A tainted fuel oil
scandal revealed enormous corruption -- bribes, forged documents, and
falsified tests. There have been anti-government protests for months,
and after the explosion they are now propelled by a new fury.

The 2750 tonnes of ammonium nitrate fertilizer was left sitting in a
storage warehouse, adjacent to a fireworks factory, in the midst of a
densely packed residential area. 300,000 people lost their homes from
the explosion, hundreds were killed, and thousands were wounded. 85%
of the country's grain storage was destroyed. Several hospitals were
destroyed. The explosion was far larger than anyone had ever seen,
and property was damaged and windows broken all across the city, and
for miles around. The explosion could be heard as far away as Cyprus.

Public officials in Lebanon are all trying to cover their asses to
claim that they had nothing to do with storing 2750 tonnes of
fertilizer in the seaport for several years, and each one is pointing
to someone else to blame. Citizens in Lebanon are blaming the entire
government, and demanding that all of it be thrown out.

It's interesting that none of Lebanon's politicians is willing to come
to Martyrs' Square to talk with the people. The only politician who
did so was France's president Emmanuel Macron, who visited Beirut on
Thursday and poignantly went into the square to talk to the people
that Lebanon's leaders didn't dare talk to.

Marwan Bishara at al-Jazeera is reporting that Hezbollah officials are
referring to the protesters in Martyrs' Square as "the scum of the earth."
We'll discuss this more later.

****
**** Why was 2750 tonnes of ammonium nitrate fertilizer in Beirut's seaport for years?
****

The sequence of events was so ridiculous that it would be a joke if
it hadn't ended in catastrophe. Here's a summary:

• In September 2013, the Moldovan-flagged cargo ship MV Rhosus
  left Georgia's Batumi Port in the Black Sea, carrying the 2750 tonnes
  of ammonium nitrate, headed to Biera in Mozambique.
  
  
• The ship passed from the Black Sea, through Turkey's Bosphorous,
  and reached the eastern Mediterranean Sea, where technical problems
  forced the ship to enter Beirut seaport.
  
  
• However, a different narrative has emerged that the reason that
  the ship stopped in Beirut seaport was because additional money was
  needed to pay for passage through the Suez Canal. So the plan in
  Beirut was to collect an additional cargo of heavy machinery, but as
  it turned out, the machinery was too heavy to load.
  
  
• Either way, the ship's owner did not pay port fees and fines, and
  so Lebanon authorities impounded the ship and its cargo, and the
  owners abandoned the ship.
  
  
• Lebanon's "Urgent Matters Court" took over. At first the judge
  refused to let the crew return home from the impounded ship, but
  eventually they were allowed to go, though some waited on the ship for
  over a year and almost starved to death. The judge ruled that the
  ammonium nitrate should be moved into "Warehouse 12", next to the
  grain silos in the seaport, where the cargo remained for years,
  "awaiting auctioning and/or proper disposal."
  
  
• Since 2014, Lebanon's "Urgent Matters Court" was asked repeatedly
  to allow the dangerous cargo to be removed. Customs authorities
  proposed three options: Export the ammonium nitrate, hand it over to
  the Lebanese Army, or sell it to the privately-owned Lebanese
  Explosives Company. The judge ignored all such requests, probably
  because he was being paid off by someone who wanted to keep control of
  the ammonium nitrate. This is typical of corruption in Lebanon's
  political class.

****
**** Theory of Government in Lebanon - Generational Dynamics
****

Imagine if there were no checks and balances in the US constitution.
Donald Trump would have been able to impose all sorts of immigration
and other policies with no resistance from the courts or Democrats.
Similarly, if the Democrats were in power, they would be able to
impose far left Socialist green new deal policies without resistance.
It's the checks and balances in the US constitution that prevent
radical policies from being implemented, and force compromises.

China illustrates what happens when there are no checks and balances.
An example of what happens is Mao Zedong's Great Leap Forward policy
in 1958-60. This may have been the stupidest, most destructive policy
of any nation in the history of the world, and it resulted in tens of
millions of unnecessary deaths of innocent Chinese, from starvation,
execution and torture, all to impose a Socialist ideology. China's
economy still has not recovered from the disaster. It happened
because there were no courts to stop it, and any politician who
pointed out to Mao that it was failing was tortured and executed.
Today, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and dictator Xi Jinping are
repeating mistakes in the same way -- genocide, executions, torture,
invasion, annexation, and so forth -- and there are no courts or
opposition to stop him. China is headed for another disaster. That's
what happens when you don't have government checks and balances like
the United States.

So that brings us to Lebanon's "dynastic confessional" system of
government. Lebanon's "confessional" system of government is defined
in its constitution, which requires that the three main government
offices be occupied by specific sectarian groups:

• The prime minister, must be a Sunni Muslim. Hassan Diab
  is the prime minister. He assumed office on Jan 21, 2020.
  
  
• The president, currently Michel Aoun, must be a Syriac Maronite
  Catholic.
  
  
• And the speaker of parliament, currently held by Nabhi Berri, must
  be a Shia Muslim. The Shia Muslim sect in Lebanon is controlled by
  the terrorist militia Hezbollah, which is led by Sayyed Hasan
  Nasrallah.

Because each sect has complete control of one portion of the
government, there are no checks and balances and corruption is
rampant, with the leaders of each sect able to steal as much money as
they like from their own part of the government.

As time goes on, each sect creates its own dynasty within the section
of government that it controls. So one way to think of Lebanon's
government is, not as a dictatorship, but as a triple dictatorship,
which each dynastic sect have complete dictatorial control over one
part of government, with complete power of corruption, and no
controls, no checks, no balances.

This system of government was set up that way for a reason. Recall
that several paragraphs back I referred to Hezbollah politicians
referring to the protesters as "scum of the earth." The different
sects of Lebanon are not capable of simply getting along with each
other. The level of mutual hatred between the sects runs extremely
deep.

Recall Lebanon's last generational crisis war, the civil war of
1975-90, mainly between Muslims versus Christians, killing some
200,000 people. A major event occurred on September 15-16, 1982, when
Maronite Christian militias massacred 2-3,000 Palestinian civilians in
the Sabra and Shatila Palestinian refugee camps. This act has haunted
Lebanon to this day.

That was less than 40 years ago. Most of the people today vividly
remember the horror of that mass slaughter, and many are still
traumatized by it. 15 years ago, when I wrote about the 2006 war between Israel and Hezbollah. I
quoted Lebanese President Émile Geamil Lahoud as saying:

<QUOTE>"Believe me, what we get from [Israeli bombers] is
nothing compared to [what would happen] if there is an internal
conflict [a new civil war] in Lebanon. So our thanks comes when we
are united, and we are really united, and the national army is
doing its work according to the government, and the resistance
[Hizbollah] is respected in the whole Arab world from the
population point of view. And very highly respected in Lebanon as
well."<END QUOTE>

In 2006, the people of Lebanon were still more sickened and horrified
by what they had done to each other in 1982 than in the bombing by
Israel's warplanes. The Lebanese feared, above all else, a repeat of
something like the 1982 massacre at Sabra and Shatila, and considered
that to be a worse possibility than Israeli bombers.

Some 14 more years have passed, but those feelings still remain.
There's a terror in the population that a spark will be lit,
and there will be another huge, bloody massacre of Lebanese people
by other Lebanese people, as happened in 1982.

Lebanon's political situation is complicated in another way. Lebanon
has become a vassal state of Iran, which uses Iran to fight its
Mideast wars. Iran itself has turned into a full-fledged vassal state
of China, who is buying Iranian oil as long as the Iranians do as
they're told. A political change in Lebanon could have some kind of
chain reaction in Iran and China.

****
**** Seeking a political solution in Lebanon
****

Lebanon is in a generational Awakening era, a time when older
traumatized generations who had survived the war to anything possible
to prevent it from happening again, which the younger naive
generations rebel against the strict rules and institutions that their
parents had put in place. In America and Europe, the last Awakening
era was the 1960s, following the horrors of World War II.

One thing that WON'T happen in this current crisis in Lebanon is a new
civil war. There are too many people who are still traumatized by the
memories of the last one, and they won't let it happen again.

But what does happen during an Awakening era is a political climax --
a regime change, a "velvet revolution," "palace coup" or non-violent
coup that fundamentally changes the government in a significant way.
In America, this was the resignation of Richard Nixon in 1974.
Another example is Germany's change of government that led to the
Weimar Republic in 1918.

So today's protesters in Martyrs' Square are seeking a major political
reform: Repeal the dynastic sectarian form of government and replace
it with a real democracy with checks and balances.

A solution of this kind will probably be adopted, but it has the
problem that it will tear down the firewalls between the sects that
the strictly confessional government provides. This would normally
lead to low-level clashes among the sects, and then full-scale
sectarian civil war again probably around 2040.

****
**** The future of Lebanon
****


Beirut seaport after the explosion on Tuesday (EPA)

It's hard to overstate how devastated Lebanon is. The economy was in
a state of collapse before Tuesday, and now hundreds of thousands more
are homeless and the food stocks have been destroyed. Lebanon is
desperately in need of international aid.

Lebanon has been negotiating for a bailout with the International
Monetary Fund (IMF) for years. The problem is that there's no point
in giving money to Lebanon's corrupt government, since it would just
go into the coffers of the cronies of the sleazebag Sayyed Hasan
Nasrallah, and the others. So the IMF refused to provide money to
Lebanon unless Lebanon reforms, which was never going to happen.

On Sunday, Emmanuel Macron will lead an international donors'
conference. Macron has already promised that aid to Beirut will not
fall into "corrupt hands," but whether there are any non-corrupt hands
left in Beirut remains to be seen.

Sources:

• Lebanese protesters storm ministry buildings as anger over Beirut blast grows (Reuters, 8-Aug-2020)
  
• Thousands of protesters in Beirut call for “the fall of the regime” in the wake of the blast (Vox, 8-Aug-2020)
  
• Satellite imagery shows scale of destruction after explosion at Beirut port (NBC News, 5-Aug-2020)
  
• Beirut explosion: Captain Boris Prokoshev on why Rhosus was in Beirut (Youtube, 7-Aug-2020)
  
• Beirut explosion: How ship's deadly cargo ended up at port (BBC, 7-Aug-2020)
  
• Beirut blast: Tracing the explosives that tore the capital apart (AlJaz, 5-Aug-2020)
  
• The Arrest: m/v Rhosus - Arrest and Personal Freedom of the Crew (Arrest News, PDF, Oct-2015)
  
• 'Tsunami Of Rage': Lebanon Braces For Mass Protests Over Blast, Economy In Free Fall (Zerohedge, 7-Aug-2020)
  
• First pictures emerge of a Russian man whose ammonium nitrate cargo detonated in the port of Beirut (Siberian Times, 5-Aug-2020)
  
• 'He Abandoned The Deadly Cargo': Meet The Mysterious Businessman At Center Of The Beirut Blast Saga (Zerohedge, 7-Aug-2020)

Related Articles:

• Lebanon: A country in free fall (17-Jul-2020)
  
  
• Violence surges in street protests in Lebanon as economy collapses (19-Jan-2020)
  
  
• Israel-Hezbollah-Lebanon border clash fizzles quickly, no repeat of 2006 war (02-Sep-2019)
  
  
• Israel bombs Lebanon, Syria and Iraq all in one weekend (31-Aug-2019)
  
  
• How Israel panicked in pursuing the summer Lebanon war with Hezbollah (23-Dec-2006)
  
  
• Israel/Lebanon war forces Muslims to choose (24-Jul-2006)

KEYS: Generational Dynamics, Lebanon, Beirut, ammonium nitrate, fertilizer,
Timothy McVeigh, Oklahoma City bombing, Iran, Hezbollah,
France, Emmanuel Macron, MV Rhosus, Martyrs' Square,
Dynastic confessional system of government,
Hassan Diab, Michel Aoun, Nabhi Berri, Sayyed Hasan Nasrallah,
International Monetary Fund, IMF

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

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

[Bob Butler 54]

(08-08-2020, 08:32 PM)John J. Xenakis Wrote: ****
**** Seeking a political solution in Lebanon
****

Lebanon is in a generational Awakening era, a time when older traumatized generations who had survived the war to anything possible to prevent it from happening again, which the younger naive generations rebel against the strict rules and institutions that their parents had put in place.  In America and Europe, the last Awakening era was the 1960s, following the horrors of World War II.

One thing that WON'T happen in this current crisis in Lebanon is a new civil war.  There are too many people who are still traumatized by the memories of the last one, and they won't let it happen again.

But what does happen during an Awakening era is a political climax -- a regime change, a "velvet revolution," "palace coup" or non-violent coup that fundamentally changes the government in a significant way.  In America, this was the resignation of Richard Nixon in 1974.  Another example is Germany's change of government that led to the Weimar Republic in 1918.

Those examples don't seem encouraging.  I guess what you are saying is that awakenings are followed by unravellings.  After the protests demanding reform stop, you get an unravelling period that leads to a government of selfishness.  Eventually you get a Hitler or a Trump out of it.  I'm not sure this is what Lebanon needs.

[Bob Butler 54]

The AP has France attempting neocolonialism in Lebanon.  Normally, anything that resembles European dominance over a third world country would seem a bad idea.  Lebanon?  With a corrupt government, becoming a French protectorate again might not be a totally bad idea.

AP Wrote:His critics denounced the overtures as a neocolonialist foray by a European leader seeking to restore sway over a troubled Middle Eastern land – and distract from mounting problems at home. A meme circulating online dubbed him Macron Bonaparte, a 21st century Emperor Napoleon.

[John J. Xenakis]

** 09-Aug-2020 World View: Hitler vs checks and balances

(08-08-2020, 11:25 AM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote: > Acknowledged, but if you want to be taken more seriously than your
> average comic strip, you might not want to treat everything as a
> joke.

OK, I'll talk to my doctor about getting a frontal lobotomy, so that
when politicians start spewing piles of unbearable self-serving
crap then instead of being outraged I'll be placated like you and so
many others, and just smile and nod pleasantly.

(08-08-2020, 09:46 PM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote: > Those examples don't seem encouraging. I guess what you are
> saying is that awakenings are followed by unravellings. After the
> protests demanding reform stop, you get an unravelling period that
> leads to a government of selfishness. Eventually you get a Hitler
> or a Trump out of it. I'm not sure this is what Lebanon
> needs.

No, my point is that Trump isn't a Hitler and never could be a Hitler,
for many reasons, including the fact that the US constitution contains
checks and balances that Hitler never had to cope with.

A better example for comparison is Barack Obama. He was a crazed
maniac with plans to try to bring peace to the world through
his unopposed policies.

In June 2008, he said, "I am absolutely certain that generations from
now, we will be able to look back and tell our children that this was
the moment when we began to provide care for the sick and good jobs to
the jobless; this was the moment when the rise of the oceans began to
slow and our planet began to heal; this was the moment when we ended a
war and secured our nation and restored our image as the last, best
hope on Earth."

At the time he said this, I thought it was just the usual crazy
nonsense crap coming from politicians, but I was shocked later that
Obama actually believed it. In the 2008 campaign, Obama said that he
was going to heal the world as soon as he took office. He would be
guided by facts, not like President Bush, who had been guided by
ideology and ignored facts. He would cure global warming, close
Guantánamo island prison, become friendly with Iran and North Korea,
bring a two-state solution to Palestinians and Israelis, beat the
Taliban and al-Qaeda in Afghanistan, impose strict gun control
policies, reflate the real estate and stock market bubbles and, of
course, provide universal health care.

Obama and his supporters actually believed this crap. Obama had the
same contempt for Bush that Hitler had for Paul von Hindenburg. Obama
would impose all his policies through force around the world, just as
Hitler had tried to do.

Fortunately, Obama was stopped by the checks and balances in the US
constitution. The Republicans and even many Democrats opposed his
nonsense.

Fortunately for all of us, catastrophe was averted by the US
constitution and its checks and balances. Every single one of Obama's
crazy policies -- from Guantánamo all the way through to universal
health care -- was a failure.

And that's a good thing. If Obama had had the same power as Xi Jinping,
then we would have been at war with North Korea, at war in the Mideast,
in a larger war in Afghanistan, and the American economy would have
been as thoroughly destroyed as Mao Zedong accomplished with China's
economy through the Great Leap Forward.

So the Democrats under Obama suffered one disastrous failure after another,
and then suffered another failure -- the failure to use the phony
Russia accusations to stop Trump. After the elections, Democrats
continued to try to overthrow America's democracy with the phony
Mueller investigation and the phony Ukraine impeachment.

After those humiliating failures, Democrats are moving on. They want
to send out 180 million ballot papers and let people vote through the
mail, so that they can use fraud to prevent Trump's reelection. And
they've put forward a candidate who is barely capable of speaking an
entire coherent sentence, with the obvious intention of having him die
or resign quickly and have his far-left vice president take office.
This kind of thing would be a dream come true for Hitler's supporters.
I don't know how the Democrats' criminal activity will pan out, but
I'm pretty sure that the US Constitution's checks and balances will
stop the worst of it, as they have in the past.

[Bob Butler 54]

(08-09-2020, 11:39 AM)John J. Xenakis Wrote: No, my point is that Trump isn't a Hitler and never could be a Hitler, for many reasons, including the fact that the US constitution contains checks and balances that Hitler never had to cope with.

A better example for comparison is Barack Obama.  He was a crazed maniac with plans to try to bring peace to the world through his unopposed policies...

As well as treating everything as a joke, you should not post partisan rants. If you assign absurd motivations, people cannot trust your analysis of motivations. It is just another way for people who do not share your biases to not take you seriously.

[John J. Xenakis]

** 09-Aug-2020 World View: Evangelism

(08-09-2020, 01:29 PM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote: > As well as treating everything as a joke, you should not post
> partisan rants. If you assign absurd motivations, people cannot
> trust your analysis of motivations. It is just another way for
> people who do not share your biases to not take you
> seriously.

Yeah, there's nothing worse in life than a rant mocking an
incompetent, self-serving clergyman like Obama.

Thanks for the advice, lol!

[David Horn]

(08-09-2020, 04:11 PM)John J. Xenakis Wrote: ** 09-Aug-2020 World View: Evangelism

(08-09-2020, 01:29 PM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote: As well as treating everything as a joke, you should not post partisan rants.  If you assign absurd motivations, people cannot trust your analysis of motivations. It is just another way for people who do not share your biases to not take you seriously.

Yeah, there's nothing worse in life than a rant mocking an incompetent, self-serving clergyman like Obama.

Thanks for the advice, lol!

There's humor here.  The Obama administration never suffered a serious (as opposed to nonsensical) scandal.  How many has Trump had?

[John J. Xenakis]

** 09-Aug-2020 World View: The CNN Bubble

(08-09-2020, 04:31 PM)David Horn Wrote: > There's humor here. The Obama administration never suffered a
> serious (as opposed to nonsensical) scandal. How many has Trump
> had?

I know the reason you believe that is because you're in the CNN
bubble, where news is very carefully filtered. I've told you and Bob
Butler before that you have no clue what's going on in the world, and
you have no clue what's going on in the Trump administration, so the
fantasy you've written here is not surprising.

The Trump scandals have been all hoaxes, as was proven by the
Mueller report and Unkraine impeachment disasters, which were extremely
humiliating for the Democrats.

On the other hand, evidence is finally tumbling out about all the
illegal activities that the Obama administration used to try to
overturn the election. All of that news is being carefully hidden on
cnn and msnbc, so that people like you won't know what's going on.

I won't attempt to educate you, except to suggest that you watch
Hannity for an hour every day. It will be good for you.

Sen. Lindsey Graham is uncovering plenty of evidence incriminating
Obama administration officials. Comey is particularly likely to spend
time in jail, and is being covered up by the mainstream media, so you
would be clueless about it. Here's an article from Fox News
describing it:

Network evening newscasts skip Sally Yates admitting James Comey went
'rogue' with Flynn interview (6-Aug-2020)

https://www.foxnews.com/media/network-ne...ey-hearing

P.S.: Another thing that you're completely clueless about is the
massive violence by Antifa.

[Bob Butler 54]

(08-09-2020, 05:13 PM)John J. Xenakis Wrote: I know the reason you believe that is because you're in the CNN bubble, where news is very carefully filtered.

Somebody is living in a bubble for sure.