Generational Dynamics World View

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[quote='John J. Xenakis' pid='73302' dateline='1610419935']
*** 12-Jan-21 World View -- America and the standard Genocide Playbook

This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com

• What is the standard Genocide Playbook?
  
• Democrats' attitude to Tea Partiers during Obama administration
  
• The January 6 attack on the Capitol building by Trump supporters
  
• How will this end?
  

****
**** What is the standard Genocide Playbook?
****


Jan 9 announcement by John Matze, CEO of Parler.com, of a coordinated attack by Twitter, Google and Amazon

As regular readers know, everything I write is, as much as possible,
from a historical perspective.  Plus ça change, plus c'est la même
chose.  As King Solomon said, there's nothing new under the sun.

So before describing how America is in the early stages of the
Genocide Playbook, I have to describe what the Genocide Playbook is,
and how common it is.

I want to emphasize that this is nothing rare.  This is going on in
multiple countries today.  As regular readers know, I've written
thousands of articles describing current and historical events in
hundreds of countries, and the Genocide Playbook is not only not rare,
but is actually very common, and is the rule.

Here's an outline of how it works:

• In the early stages, the government or the élites target a
  hated ethnic group with abusive policies, including violence, jailing
  without evidence, censorship and punishment of criticism of the
  government, and other forms of discrimination, with the purpose of
  humiliating and infuriating the target group.
  
  
• Frequently there is an analogue to the Nazi Kristallnacht, where
  police stand aside and allow violent mobs to attack homes and
  businesses of the target group.
  
  
• Sooner or later there is some kind of violent incident by a few
  people in the target group.  This incident might occur organically, or
  it might be a setup by the élites.
  
  
• The élites use this incident to justify complete censorship,
  violence, abuse and control towards the target group and, in the
  extreme, to commit genocide and ethnic cleansing.
  

I will repeat several times: This playbook is not rare.  It is common.
It is the rule.

Let's look at some examples where the Genocide Playbook is in use
today in its later stages:

• China: For years, the Chinese Communists targeted the Muslim
  Uighurs in Xinjiang province with abusive policies, including
  destroying mosques, mandatory Communist atheist education, forced
  sterilization of Uighur females, and looting Uighur resources.  These
  abuses triggered Uighur rioting in 2009.  Since then, the Chinese
  Communists have declared all Uighurs to be terrorists, and have
  arrested, tortured, beaten and enslaved millions of Uighurs.
  
  Hong Kong is in the early stages of the Genocide Playbook.  The
  Communists are already targeting pro-democracy activists with violence
  and jailing without evidence.  If some pro-democracy activist now
  commits an act of violence, whether organic or a setup by the
  Communists, then the Communists will declare all pro-democracy
  activists to be terrorists, and will crack down on them violently.
  
  Of all the countries today, China has been the most effective in using
  censorship in its genocide playbook.
  
  
• Burma/Myanmar: Starting in 2011, Buddhists, led by Buddhist Monk
  Ashin Wirathu, joined with Burma's security forces in committing mass
  atrocities on Muslim ethnic Rohingyas living in Rakhine State, which
  the United Nations described as "a textbook example of ethnic
  cleansing."  The atrocities included gang rape, violent torture,
  execution-style killings and the razing of entire villages, in a
  scorched earth campaign.
  
  In 2013 there was a super-Kristallnacht type attack, when a mob of
  Buddhists attacked a Rohingya village, hacking 20 boys to death, and
  reducing an entire established community of 12,000 Muslims, including
  homes, shops and mosques, to ashes and rubble.
  
  In August 2017, Rohingya insurgents carried out a series of
  coordinated attacks against 30 Burma police outposts and an army base,
  killing at least a dozen security force members.  This was the event
  that the Burmese were hoping and waiting for.  After that, they
  carried out a massive program of genocide and ethnic cleansing,
  forcing hundreds of thousands of Rohingyas across the border into
  Bangladesh refugee camps, where they remain to this day.
  
  
• Syria: The Syrian war began in 2011 when Bashar al-Assad ordered
  his army and air force to attack peacefully protesting civilians,
  including women and children.  Things really turned around in August
  2011, when al-Assad launched a massive military assault on a large,
  peaceful Palestinian refugee camp in Latakia, filled with tens of
  thousands of women and children Palestinians.  He dropped barrel bombs
  laden with metal, chlorine, ammonia, phosphorous and chemical weapons
  onto innocent Sunni women and children, he's targeted bombs and
  missiles on schools and hospitals, and he's used Sarin gas to kill
  large groups of people.  Even so, al-Assad would have lost the war
  until he received massive military support from Russia to continue his
  genocide and ethnic cleansing.
  

I wanted to give examples of genocide taking place today to show
that the Genocide Playbook isn't some science fiction concept,
but is commonly used in many countries.

Of course it was also used in Nazi Germany, when Hitler used the
burning down of the Reichstag to attack all communists, and then used
minor terrorist acts by Jews to claim that all Jews were terrorists,
leading to the Holocaust.

...OK... we either know or should know this. In my observation the people most vulnerable to genocide are Model Minorities who have the alleged crime of doing better while being somehow different. What differs in America is that America 

(1) has too many Model Minorities by race, ethnicity, or religion to target at once. Extreme bigots are anything but selective in their hatred. Whites who hate Jews typically also hate blacks, Hispanics, Arabs, Muslims, South Asians, Southeast Asians, and East Asians as well. As Adorno et al established in his Authoritarian Personality in 1950, haters hate even non-existent groups if asked about them. Aside from the mentally-handicapped (and this backfired on Hitler) he had only Jews as targets until he conquered what he considered the "subhuman" Poles.   

Haters are unlikely to be wise enough to go after one group at a time.  

(2) has far stronger Constitutional protections.

(3) has organizations that could turn in defense of any large group of non-lawbreakers in the event that any group is targeted. Law-breakers are fair game for prosecution, but innocent people are safe. There must be a clear indictment and logical presentation of evidence and testimony. 

(4) has no heritage of going after people for political affiliations except for the International Workers of the World, Nazis (when Nazism was a clear and present danger) and at several times, Communists.

(5) has a large share of the Establishment sympathetic to the objectives of the Tea Party  that will protect the Tea Party as such (if not law-breakers involved in the Bolshevik coup of 1917 Beer Hall Putsch 2021 attack on the Capitol building. 

I see America approaching the end of a Crisis Era, and although the attack on the Capitol while it was in session is an abomination (and it would be just as much so if Leftists did it)... well, this isn't the People's Republic of China in 1989. There have been deaths, so there could be an extreme sentence. There will be gradations from death or life imprisonment for someone culpable in a death to slaps on the wrist for simply following along. People will be made examples of in courts of law only for the sentences to be reduced as time passes. Draconian sentences are embarrassments because the victors of a struggle usually want to get some sort of reconciliation that allows a more durable peace. To be sure, the Allies could not forgive the Bataan Death March or the Nazi murder camps, but otherwise it is best to let trivial matters go unpunished. Defeat and its consequences are enough of a chastisement. With respect to Germany, Italy, and Japan, I would say that such is wise.  

(too long to preserve, and not particularly relevant -- about Garofalo, Obama, and Olbermann -- Olbermann is an obnoxious character who went too far in his political statements and lost jobs for his over-the-top behavior. Keith "Over-the-Top" is practically a left-wing version of "Rash Libel" -- OK, Rush Limbaugh). Characterizations about people who put out a sign like this:



are offensive, stupid, and pointless. The feeling is certainly mutual. 


[quote]

****
**** The January 6 attack on the Capitol building by Trump supporters
****

At the beginning of this article I described the Genocide Playbook,
and these were the last two items: "Sooner or later there is some kind
of violent incident by a few people in the target group.  This
incident might occur organically, or it might be a setup by the
élites.  The élites use this incident to justify complete censorship,
violence, abuse and control towards the target group and, in the
extreme, commits genocide and ethnic cleansing."

In the current situation, the violent incident was the January 6 attack
on the Capitol building by Trump supporters.

This resulted from Donald Trump's disastrous decision to hold a rally
with hundreds of thousands of supporters, and then tell them to march
to the Capitol building to pressure the politicians to do their jobs
and object to the electors in six states.  He's been accused of
purposely inciting violence, which was clearly the opposite of his
intention.  He may be accused of stupid blunders and reckless actions,
but it was clearly not his intention to incite violence, even if that
was the unintended consequence.
[/quote]

It is a custom that the defeated nominee concede when the state (and in five cases, Congressional districts) counts are complete in accordance with the law. President Trump could have taken a hint from Al Gore, who accepted the results of the 2000 Presidential election.  Had it not been for the takeover of the Capitol building, the effort to nullify the vote counts of Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin would be trivialities.  Trump tried to convince people who still supported him that their gut feelings are right and that official results are frauds. Gut feelings are not enough for deciding the validity of a count. 

The custom exists for good reason. Elections have consequences, and they must be definitive. There is no evidence of systemic fraud in the 2020 Presidential election. Trump did better than polling suggested that he was going to do. (I shall show a map suggesting how much better President Trump did than polling and a system of predicting the likelihood of wins was).  

The violent Capitol building incident is the culmination of the President egging people on, cultivating their beliefs that because they cannot imagine anyone else voting for Joe Biden, Biden cannot win. I have been in places where such is a belief is possible because Trump yard signs, bumper stickers, and flags are everywhere. Look at it this way: if everybody that you know is a young-earth creationist because you stay clear of people not attending your church is suspect as "spirit dead" and damned to Hell for such, then you are likely also a young-earth creationist. 

Yes, it was a disaster for President to hold a rally near the White House and encourage people in that protest to walk toward the Capitol Building. The counting of the Electoral Vote is typically a formality, and people broke into the Capitol and did disgusting things. Ultimately harmful? Aside from the apparent murder of a Capitol policeman (which is one death too many) the only real carnage will be the spread of COVID-19 among participants... and most likely Capitol Police. COVID-19 still kills, you know. 

Trump knows that his supporters are often full of rage. By any standard they are often delusional about the electoral process and its credibility. Trump lost in 2020 by the same criteria by which he won in 2016. There have been recounts mandated by state laws, and those were done. He did nothing to tell people that the electoral vote was going to go against him. He tried his damnedest to get state legislators and elected officials such as Governors and Attorneys-general to change the official winners of their states. None of that worked.   

[quote]

Genocide Playbook strategy towards Tea Partiers and Trump supporters
that the Democrats have been using since the Obama administration.
It's what they've been hoping for to crush the Trump supporters once
and for all.  The Democrats made vile attacks on Tea Partiers during
the Obama administration, as we've described, calling them terrorists,
racists and teabaggers, just for opposing Obama's policies.
Conservatives on college campuses and in businesses could lose their
jobs for saying something as simple as "Marriage is between a man and
a woman."
[/quote]

People are not racists for opposing the policies of Barack Obama. People are not disloyal for opposing the policies of Donald Trump. We need to remember that without the Tea Party, Donald Trump would have never become President. Maybe the Tea Party has had some loud and obnoxious exponents, and of course the Tea Party has largely done the bidding of people who believe that those not already rich have no purpose in life except to make those people even more filthy rich while their lives worsen -- and to never forget to count their blessings about having such a privilege. (snark intended). 

Same-sex marriage is here to stay. Adopting or maintaining a vile set of beliefs is not a way to make friends. 

[quote]The Democrats have gotten away with phony and illegal anti-Trump
investigations and impeachments, encouraging antifa-blm fascists to
riot and burn down small businesses, using pandemic lockdowns to shut
down millions of small businesses, censoring any news that criticizes
Biden or exposes Hunter Biden's criminality, and flooding the country
with millions of unsolicited ballots and using the the resulting chaos
to rig the election with voting fraud and steal the election from
Trump -- all with total impunity.  The Democrats are gloating that
they can get away with anything, and they are escalating their
threats.[/quote]

Given a choice between going along with a pandemic lockdown and missing out on some fun in the sun at the beach or some drinking in the presence of loudmouth drunks who might or might not have COVID-19 (and COVID-19 is about as likely to kill someone infected as is a rattlesnake bite)... I look at the numbers and decide that I can wait until things are safer. About as many people in America as live in either Bakersfield, California or Cleveland, Ohio have already died of COVID-19. It is impossible to speak well of any political leader who has acted irresponsibly toward a dangerous disease.

During the last year, antifa-blm fascists, encouraged by Democrats,
tore down statues and burned down not only businesses, but also police
stations, courthouses, and even St John's Episcopal Church, near the
White House.  These are clearly terrorist acts, but the Democrats not
only didn't condemn them, but encouraged them and censored them in the
media.  That's why these acts by the Democrats are analogous to the
Nazi Kristallnacht.

[quote]Biden's vitriolic comments towards Trump supporters at his press
conference last week not only expressed his personal hatred of Tea
Partiers and Trump supporters, but also incited further violence.
Biden even compared Republican Senators to Nazis.  I'm tempted to say
that these remarks prove that Biden is the one with the neurological
disorder, not the hated Tea Partiers.  Biden even was an admirer of
Robert Byrd, a Great Kleagle (or something like that) in the Ku Klux
Klan that lynched and tortured blacks.[/quote]

Anyone who supports the nullification of a lawful, honest election supports dictatorship because that is how a large number of dictatorships (beginning with Lenin when he annulled the election of the Constituent Assembly after the Bolshevik coup) start.

[quote]There's increasing evidence that the Democrats provoked the attack on
the Capitol building by providing only a bare skeleton security force
to protect the building, even though it was known for many days that
an attack was imminent.[/quote]

It is under control of Congress, so fault can be shared between both Parties. Note also that the Capitol police got harsh criticism for overreaction to protests of the death of George Floyd, so they may have decided to be less stringent than would prove necessary on January 6.

The White House, the Capitol, and other key buildings of the US Government are almost never armed camps except after such an event as the 9/11 attack, when such happens. ``

[quote]Obama's Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta criticized the Capitol
Police for being completely unprepared, even though "everyone knew
that there would be people ... creating havoc":

   <QUOTE>"What the hell was law enforcement on Capitol Hill
   thinking by not having secured the Capitol today? ...

   Everybody knew that there would be a disturbance.  Everybody knew
   that there would be people who were interested in doing nothing
   else but creating havoc in the Capitol. And very frankly, it was
   the responsibility of law enforcement and the Capitol Hill police
   to secure the Capitol, and I'm not sure what happened that allowed
   this event."<END QUOTE>

It is now reported that the FBI and the NYPD both warned the Capitol
police that there were groups planning violent attacks, but the
Capitol police only provided a skeleton force to block them, in effect
indirectly provoking those attacks.
[/quote]


The FBI does good intelligence against domestic terrorists. The Michigan plot should have been fair warning that the Trump-adoring Hard Right was capable of extreme and pointless mischief.

[quote]These facts may come out in the investigation.  But whether the
Democrats purposely provoked the attack, or whether it was simply
incompetence by the police, it is clearly the violent incident that
the Democrats hoped for and are using as part of their strategy to
completely destroy the Republican Party and Trump's supporters.
[/quote]

We can only wait for the investigation to do its work. I seek no rush to judgment. As for what Democrats wanted... I can't speak for all Democrats, but it would seem that an uneventful formality of counting the Electoral Vote was precisely what most of us wanted. We did not appear as counter-protesters.

[quote]As I've said repeatedly, these kinds of actions are not rare.  They're
common, and they're occurring today in many countries in various
stages.  Still, it is almost beyond belief to me that three monopoly
companies -- Twitter, Facebook and Amazon -- have successfully
colluded to completely shut down Parler.com, a successful and growing
online service with millions of users -- for purely political reasons
as part of the Democrats' Genocide Playbook strategy.  This is the
kind of thing that occurs in Russia and China and Cuba and North Korea
and Venezuela and totalitarian countries.  It was never supposed to
happen in America.[/quote]

Facebook takes down the websites and comments of people who do crimes with political consequences, including that of the man who attacked Steve Scalise. It also takes down medical quackery and pornography. Facebook is a private business, and one follows the rules of a private business if one wants to deal with that business (so long as those rules are not themselves illegal, as with discrimination.

[quote]Even though this is very common, I never never thought I'd see the
Genocide Playbook being used in America.  This is the darkest time
for America in my memory.[/quote]

Economics were of course far worse during the Great Depression, and with the qualification that I would not want to return in some time machine as a black person in the Jim Crow South, we haven't had so much nastiness in American politics since the Civil War. Even the much-derided Joe McCarthy got away with far less than Donald Trump has gotten away with.

[[quote]b]****
**** How will this end?
****[/b]

Will the Democrats' use of the Genocide Playbook lead to actual
genocide and ethnic cleansing?  No.  For that they would at least need
backing from the army, which obviously they don't have.

In fact, what the Democrats are doing is so completely bizarre and
outrageous, so destructive and self-destructive, and so un-American,
that it can't possibly last long.

Still, how is this going to end?

First, Donald Trump and his 75 million supporters are not dead and
buried. (but 81 million more voted against him -- PB, and that means more).
 Every Trump voter I've seen interviewed on TV says the same
thing: That Trump actually speaks to them, and the others in
Washington ignore them.  That's why they're loyal to Trump.  Trump
says that he has some major announcement coming.  We'll see what he
says.[/quote]

If everyone in a cult or under the control of a totalitarian state such as Iran of North Korea says much the same thing, then what does that prove? Nothing except that everyone is either right by coincidence or wrong by command. Say what you want about loyalty, but loyalty to a suspect cause, whether the KKK (which would do genocide if it got its way) or the Khmer Rouge (which did) is suspect. The demand for unqualified loyalty is more likely to come from a Mafia-like gang than from... well, a Masonic Lodge or an Elks' Club. Even in so authoritarian an organization as the US Armed Services one is expected to act in accordance with personal conscience if given a criminal order.

[quote]Second, Parler.com is not dead and buried.  The Democrats have gotten
Parler offline for now, but Parler has enough support to build its own
datacenter and cloud to replace Amazon's AWS, and it will be online
again.[/quote]

Maybe it will clean up its act.


[quote]In fact, if I were a business using Amazon's AWS cloud service, then I
would look at this situation in horror, knowing that Amazon could shut
me down at any time for any foolish reason.  No one believes that
shutting down Parler had anything to do with violence.  It had
everything to do with isolating 75 million Trump supporters and with
eliminating a competitor to twitter.  If Amazon can come after Parler,
they can come after anyone.[/quote]

Websites can go bad. Just think of the infamous Silk Road. Do you really have a problem with Stormfront or the Daily Stormer being shut down?

[quote]Furthermore, Twitter, Google and Facebook made huge amounts of money
because of Trump in the last few years because of Trump.  With Trump
gone, and with their contemptuous treatment of Trump supporters,
they're going to lose a lot of money.  But, no worry, the execs will
be ok.  Many of them are taking jobs in the Biden administration.[/quote]

There will still be politics, and thus Twitter. Google in its original purpose is a search engine. Facebook will remain a means of people doing non-political stuff, like sharing family life... or recipes. Obviously we should all know that Facebook is not itself a source of news. One could put a story on how the Detroit Lions are on track to win the Superbowl, which is as absurd as much as has been said in American politics.

[quote]It's quite possible that Parler will come back with a vengeance and
become a major business threat to Twitter.  If not Parler, then
another service.  This is what always happens.

In fact, another conservative social media service, Gab.com, has
signed up millions of new users in the last few days.  If you access
the site, the reason that it's slow is because it's being overwhelmed
by new users.[/quote]

Those two have soiled themselves.

Third, and this is how it will really end.

[quote]As I've been saying for years, there will be a global financial crisis
and third world war with China, and this will unify the country, and
end all political divisiveness.  That will be the end of silliness and
political correctness, and the beginning of a real existential crisis.
[/quote]

The economic meltdown of 2007-2009 united America somewhat, only for people with extreme wealth to decide to invest in buying the political process including by sponsoring the Tea Party as right-wing economics with populist garb. Then America really got divided. Left-wing political correctness is largely obsolete and irrelevant, but right-wing political correctness is still going strong.

I have my ideas on how America can unite in perhaps as few as two years. (Crisis eras that seem to move slowly for about ten years can wind up rapidly with sudden events that cut off many possible bifurcations of history fast. Once the Crisis is over everything seems obvious after the fact, but five years earlier all sorts of strange events seem possible. In May 1940 a Nazi victory seemed inevitable to about everyone other than Sir Winston Churchill. In May 1945 the Soviet army was closing in on the last pockets of resistance in Berlin. Things can change fast.

I see suggestions of the end phase of this Crisis era. I see the racist Right being discredited for its violence and cruelty. I see the end of the Trump Presidency as the end of an era in American history that began with the somewhat-successful Reagan Presidency and ending with a sick parody of Reagan in the form of Donald Trump. I see Americans demanding more economic equality even if such requires more personal enterprise (and tax policies that favor such). I see the impossibility of a speculative boom of the sort that made the Panic of 2008 a certainty. I also see Barack Obama as a portent of the sort of leadership, whether more conservative or liberal, that marks the mature Reactive as a secular leader. I see the Millennial Generation reshaping much of political and institutional life.