Generational Dynamics World View

[John J. Xenakis]

(06-14-2016, 11:35 AM)pbrower2a Wrote: > It makes sense. The Italo-Abyssinian War was an Awakening-Era war
> for Italy (the unification of Italy in the late-middle novecento
> being a Crisis era analogous to the American Revolution, with
> parts of Italy toppling Austrian rule) and a Crisis-era war for
> Ethiopia. The Sahelian famine, Eritrean secession, and the
> overthrow of the Ethiopian monarchy with the rise of Haile
> Mengistu, who made Benito Mussolini look like a humane and
> benevolent overlord by contrast, comprise a truly nasty 4T
> analogous to the Russian Revolution, Civil War, and Stalinist
> madness. Can a Crisis last 30 years? Sure -- in Russia between
> 1916 (catastrophic defeats of Tsarist armies and political
> collapse) and 1945 (end of the Great Patriotic War), and
> apparently in Ethiopia.

> Few countries do wars well in Awakening Eras (think of the
> American involvement in the Vietnam War, and the Italian part of
> the Italo-Abyssinian War).

That's a good analysis. However, I have to go back in time about ten
years, and return to the perennial argument of that time. My response
is:

• A Crisis era cannot possibly last 30 years, because the population
  cannot maintain a Crisis era mood for that long. As time goes on, if
  no Regeneracy events occur, then the population will slide into a
  Fifth Turning, with distinctly different characteristics than a Fourth
  Turning.
  
  
• A non-crisis war can last 30 years, usually with alternating
  periods of peace and low-level violence and police actions. But once
  the Regeneracy occurs, then it becomes a full-fledged crisis war. As
  far as I can tell, crisis wars tend to last about five years. If a
  crisis war lasts longer than that, then something else would have
  happened: a crisis war climax after about five years, and then it
  turns into a Recovery era war which, once again, is distinctly
  different from a crisis war.
  
  
• The Bolshevik Revolution was a crisis war. The crisis war climax
  occurred in 1927 when Stalin defeated Trotsky.
  
  
• World War II was an Awakening era war for Russia. Ten years ago,
  David Kaiser opined that WW II was an Awakening war for Russia, but it
  so thoroughly destroyed the Prophet generation that it postponed the
  next crisis war, which hasn't yet occurred. This is similar to the
  reasoning behind a "First Turning Reset," that occurs when a crisis
  occurs during a non-crisis era. This could be an unexpected massive
  invasion, or it could be a forced relocation of an entire population.
  In either case, the population acts according to its era, but returns
  to a First Turning Recovery Era following the crisis.

[pbrower2a]

(06-14-2016, 12:23 PM)John J. Xenakis Wrote:

(06-14-2016, 11:35 AM)pbrower2a Wrote: >   It makes sense. The Italo-Abyssinian War was an Awakening-Era war
>   for Italy (the unification of Italy in the late-middle novecento
>   being a Crisis era analogous to the American Revolution, with
>   parts of Italy toppling Austrian rule) and a Crisis-era war for
>   Ethiopia. The Sahelian famine, Eritrean secession, and the
>   overthrow of the Ethiopian monarchy with the rise of Haile
>   Mengistu, who made Benito Mussolini look like a humane and
>   benevolent overlord by contrast, comprise a truly nasty 4T
>   analogous to the Russian Revolution, Civil War, and Stalinist
>   madness. Can a Crisis last 30 years? Sure -- in Russia between
>   1916 (catastrophic defeats of Tsarist armies and political
>   collapse) and 1945 (end of the Great Patriotic War), and
>   apparently in Ethiopia.

>   Few countries do wars well in Awakening Eras (think of the
>   American involvement in the Vietnam War, and the Italian part of
>   the Italo-Abyssinian War).  

That's a good analysis.  However, I have to go back in time about ten
years, and return to the perennial argument of that time.  My response
is:

• A Crisis era cannot possibly last 30 years, because the population
  cannot maintain a Crisis era mood for that long.  As time goes on, if
  no Regeneracy events occur, then the population will slide into a
  Fifth Turning, with distinctly different characteristics than a Fourth
  Turning.
  
  
• A non-crisis war can last 30 years, usually with alternating
  periods of peace and low-level violence and police actions.  But once
  the Regeneracy occurs, then it becomes a full-fledged crisis war.  As
  far as I can tell, crisis wars tend to last about five years.  If a
  crisis war lasts longer than that, then something else would have
  happened: a crisis war climax after about five years, and then it
  turns into a Recovery era war which, once again, is distinctly
  different from a crisis war.
  
  
• The Bolshevik Revolution was a crisis war.  The crisis war climax
  occurred in 1927 when Stalin defeated Trotsky.
  
  
• World War II was an Awakening era war for Russia.  Ten years ago,
  David Kaiser opined that WW II was an Awakening war for Russia, but it
  so thoroughly destroyed the Prophet generation that it postponed the
  next crisis war, which hasn't yet occurred.  This is similar to the
  reasoning behind a "First Turning Reset," that occurs when a crisis
  occurs during a non-crisis era.  This could be an unexpected massive
  invasion, or it could be a forced relocation of an entire population.
  In either case, the population acts according to its era, but returns
  to a First Turning Recovery Era following the crisis.
  

Russia/Soviet Union  --

I think of the ferocity of the Thirty Years' War, a long Crisis war that did cultural damage that may have even contributed to the Holocaust. Protestants and Catholics who hated each other united against another group -- the Jews. it was only a matter of time.

That's duration.

I see Crisis eras as waves of danger, sometimes one (American Civil War), sometimes two (Great Depression, WWII for America). Three? In such I see the Russian Revolution and Civil War, Stalin's seizure of power from Trotsky et alia with the subsequent forced collectivization and the Great Purge, and finally the Great Patriotic War, a Crisis war imposed from outside that Stalin blundered into. The Soviet Union waged its war against Nazi Germany as a full-blown Crisis war with Crisis-like ferocity. NEP and the lull between Stalin's purges and the start of Operation Barbarossa were abortive respites.

In Germany I can see three waves of transformative Crisis and danger -- the economic meltdown corresponding to the rise of Hitler, World War II, and the postwar chaos that led to the division of Germany between the Federal Republic in the west and south and the communist "Democratic" Republic in the east, with the Berlin Airlift and the establishment of the German Democratic Republic as the end games.  One phase begins with the economic crash and ends with the Night of the Long Knives; the second wave of Crisis begins with the diplomatic bullying of Austria and ends with the Fuhrer blowing his brains out; the third begins with the practical end of the war, contains the legal judgment of surviving top Nazis, and ends with the establishment of a stable situation that undeniably resembles a 1T.

It's all a matter of interpretation.

[John J. Xenakis]

*** 15-Jun-16 World View -- German 10 year bund yield goes negative, as deflationary spiral continues

This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com

• German 10 year bund yield goes negative, as deflationary spiral continues
  
• Brexit: The polls versus the bookies
  

****
**** German 10 year bund yield goes negative, as deflationary spiral continues
****


The Sun (London) endorsed Brexit option to 'leave the EU', as stocks sold off and German bond yields went negative (ZeroHedge)

The interest rate paid by Germany's Bundesbank (central bank) if you
deposit money with them for ten years has gone negative. That means
that if you deposit money with them, then you'll get less money back,
instead of more money, as would happen in "normal" times.

That's the meaning of the announcement that the yield (interest rate)
on Germany's 10-year bund (bond) fell briefly on Tuesday to -0.033%,
before closing at the end of the day at -0.028%. It also means that
if the Bundesbank lends money to someone, then they'll pay you to take
their money, rather than charge you.

Of course, ordinary citizens can't borrow money from the central bank,
but regional banks can. The Bundesbank wants to encourage regional
banks to borrow money, and then lend that money out to businesses to
stimulate the economy. That's the reasoning behind negative interest
rates.

Germany is just the most recent country whose central bank has adopted
negative interest rates on 10 year bonds. The Bank of Japan (BOJ) and
the Swiss National Bank (SNB) have done the same.

Other countries still have positive interest rates for 10 year bonds,
but have negative interest rates on shorter term bonds. (As a general
rule, a shorter-term loan pays a higher interest rate than a
longer-term loan because a shorter-term loan is considered less
risky.)

Austria, Sweden, Netherlands, France, Denmark and Belgium have
negative interest rates on 4 or 5 year bonds, while Finland has
negative interest rates on 3 year bonds.

The yields on UK gilts (bonds) are still positive, but they fell to
1.18% on 10 year gilts on Tuesday, a record low in more than 3
centuries of trading.

All of these countries' central banks are adopting negative interest
rates in the hope of inflating their currencies and promoting growth.
Instead, growth is flat, and the currencies are increasingly
deflationary.

Generational Dynamics predicted that all of this would happen, as I've
been writing since 2003. Mainstream economists have repeatedly been
wrong about all this, time after time.

In fact, in the early 2000s, when interest rates were decreasing to
around 2%, mainstream economists began predicting inflation or
hyperinflation. They've continued predicting that high inflation
would begin next quarter for quarter after quarter, and they've been
wrong every time. Mainstream economists have consistently been
clueless about what's going on.

The fact is that Keynesian economics is dead wrong because it doesn't
take generational theory into account. Monetarist economics is dead
wrong because it doesn't take generational theory into account.
Austrian school economics is dead wrong because it doesn't take
generational theory into account. None of these branches has
predicted correctly for at least 15 years.

As I've pointed out many, many times, mainstream economists didn't
predict and can't explain the tech bubble of the 1990s, didn't predict
and can't explain the huge credit and real estable bubble of the
mid-2000s decade, and the real estate collapse and credit crisis after
2007. In almost all cases, they didn't even know that there'd been a
real estate bubble until around 2009, two years after it had started
to burst.

As I've been writing since 2003, the global financial system is in a
deflationary spiral. High inflation and superinflation, which many
economists have incorrectly predicted for years, is not going to
happen. Instead, deflation is growing and will continue to grow.
Central bankers are finally beginning to grasp this, which is why
they're adopting negative interest rates as a move of total
desperation to stop the deflationary spiral.

Generational Dynamics predicts that the world financial system is
headed for a global panic and crash, with 100% certainty. Deutsche Welle and CNBC and Bloomberg

****
**** Brexit: The polls versus the bookies
****

There was a global selloff of stocks on Tuesday. This is consistent
with the falling yields (interest rates) on bonds. When people sell
stocks and put the money into bonds, then by the law of supply and
demand, the price of the bonds goes up, which means that the yields go
down.

Since stocks are considered to be more risky than bonds, some analysts
are calling Tuesday's actions a "rush for safety." Investors who fear
that stock prices will fall can sell their stocks and use the money to
purchase bonds, even at negative interest rates, just so their money
will be safe.

Many analysts are blaming this rush to safety on the fact that on June
23, UK citizens will be voting on the "Brexit" referendum, to decide
whether the UK should leave the European Union. What's happened in
the last couple of weeks is that a number of new polls have come out
indicating that more and more Britons are favoring the "leave" option.
A Guardian/ICM poll gave "leave" a 7 point lead on Monday, while a
Times/YouGov poll gave "leave" a 5 point lead. Many investors believe
that a vote to leave the EU will cause financial chaos, at least in
the short run. According to analysts, this is the reason for the
"rush to safety."

However, many people believe that the polls are wrong. Many people
are reluctant to admit to pollsters that they're going to vote for a
"politically incorrect" choice, so they tell pollsters one thing and
then vote the other way in the privacy of the voting booth.

So it's perhaps not surprising the bookies and betting firms are
placing a 60% or better chance that voters will choose the "remain"
option in the Brexit referendum vote.

However, only a month ago, bookies were placing an 80% probability on
"remain." So although the bookies still favor "remain," the
probability has been falling, and may go below 50% by referendum day.
Bloomberg and Reuters and Bloomberg and ZeroHedge


KEYS: Generational Dynamics, Germany, Bundesbank, Bank of Japan,
Bank of England, Brexit

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

[John J. Xenakis]

(06-14-2016, 01:51 PM)pbrower2a Wrote: > I think of the ferocity of the Thirty Years' War, a long Crisis
> war that did cultural damage that may have even contributed to the
> Holocaust. Protestants and Catholics who hated each other united
> against another group -- the Jews. it was only a matter of time.
> That's duration.

You're using a kind of "glob of history" approach which says that if
people get angry at each other over a glob of years then it must be a
crisis war. If you want to believe that, then you're entitled to do
so, but it has no relationship whatsoever to either S&H generational
theory or Generational Dynamics.

(I'm always bemused by the fact that there are people who spent years
in the FTF forum, but who completely disbelieve the FTF theory.)

Let's take a more recent glob of years -- the Mideast since 1948.
Using your glob of history approach, you could say that the Mideast
has been in a crisis war for 70 years. After all, you've had one
brutal war after another -- the 1948 war between Jews and Arabs, the
1953 Egyptian revolution, the 1967 and 1973 wars between Israel and
Egypt, the Syrian revolution, the Syria-Lebanon war, the Iran/Iraq
war, the Israel-Hezbollah war, the Fatah-Hamas war, the Israel-Gaza
war, and others.

So according to your reasoning, you can glob all of those wars
together and call them one big crisis war. That's nice, but it bears
no relationship whatsoever to generational theory.

What you have to do is drill down into the individual conflicts. The
Jew-Arab war was a crisis war, the Syrian revolution and Syria-Lebanon
war were crisis wars, the Iran/Iraq war was a crisis war, and pretty
much all the rest are a bunch of non-crisis wars.

If you took the 30 years war and drilled down in the same way, then
you'd find that the 30 years war wasn't one long crisis war at all,
but a collection of crisis and non-crisis wars that spread across
Europe.

(06-14-2016, 01:51 PM)pbrower2a Wrote: > It's all a matter of interpretation.

In the last 15 years, I've done hundreds of these generational
analyses, maybe by this time into the thousands. And I can say with
absolute certainty that there's no "interpretation" about it.

In order to evaluate a war or collection of wars, you have to look at
multiple historical sources. If you can't tell whether a given war is
a crisis war or non-crisis war, then it doesn't mean that "it's a
matter of interpretation." What it means is that you haven't looked
at enough historical sources to make an unambiguous determination.
This kind of evaluation process is non-trivial. It takes a lot of
work. I've done this hundreds of times over the years, and I can tell
you that this evaluation process has never failed to produce an
unambiguous result.

Furthermore, these methodologies are backed up by theoretical advances
in generational theory that I've documented on my web site and include
from time to time in my World View articles.

When I first started out in the FTF forum, the usual suspects used to
attack me by saying that I'm not qualified to write about these
subjects because I haven't read enough history books. So today I'm on
the other side of that criticism. You can't evaluate a war or
collection of wars unless you've looked at numerous sources, usually
at least 10 or 20 sources, though for the 30 years war it would
probably need even more than that. After that, there's little or no
need for "interpretation."

[Cynic Hero '86]

JohnX your theory in my opinion is incorrect because I can give several examples from history. Take the French revolution in 1789 which led to the collapse of the existing geopolitical framework resulting in an Austrian and Prussian invasion of France in 1792. To respond against this attack, the french instituted levee in masses. While the majority of the french people enrolled into the levies, a minority took up arms against the government, resulting in a bloody civil war throughout 1793 and 1794 which devastated several regions especially the vendee. At the same time, the government itself collapsed into several rounds of purges culminating in the reign of terror. By 1794 french armies has turned the tide at the front lines resulting in prussia suing for peace in 1795 and war ending with the capitulation of Austria in 1797. Yet according to your theory the french in 1797 should have been focused on consolidating the results of the war and should have been pursuing conservative policies abroad. Internally the reign of terror according to generational dynamics should have inoculated the french against demagogic politics. But that was NOT what happened, how can GD explain how Napoleon was able to convince the french to first make him leader then to mobilize and attempt the conquest of Europe. All of this was after the bloodbath of 1792 to 1797. The war that napoleon initiated did not truly end until 1815.

Another example can be from ancient times during the first phase of the peloponnesian war from 431 BC to 421 BC; there was first the ravaging of Attica by spartan armies, the great plague of Athens, the Athenians adopting an offensive war strategy, the institution of collective punishment and genocide against rebellious cities in the Athenian empire, the offensive strategy turning into a stalemate, finally the Spartans and Athenians signing the peace of Nicias. How than can GD explain how Alcibiades was able to convince the Athenians to invade Sicily and restart the war, which then lasted until 404 BC.

[John J. Xenakis]

I haven't looked at the French Revolution in a long time,
but a quick read of the Wikipedia article reveals the following:

Quote:> The stalemate was broken in the summer of 1794 with dramatic
> French victories. They defeated the allied army at the Battle of
> Fleurus, leading to a full Allied withdrawal from the Austrian
> Netherlands. They followed up by a campaign which swept the allies
> to the east bank of the Rhine and left the French, by the
> beginning of 1795, conquering the Dutch Republic itself. The House
> of Orange was expelled and replaced by the Batavian Republic, a
> French satellite state. These victories led to the collapse of the
> coalition against France. Prussia, having effectively abandoned
> the coalition in the fall of 1794, made peace with revolutionary
> France at Basel in April 1795, and soon thereafter Spain, too,
> made peace with France. Of the major powers, only Britain and
> Austria remained at war with France.

That reads like a crisis war climax in 1794. So the First Turning
Recovery Era began in 1795. You seem to agree with that.

After that, the Directory came to power:

Quote:> The Directory denounced the arbitrary executions of the Reign of
> Terror, but itself engaged in large scale illegal repressions, as
> well as large-scale massacres of civilians in the Vendee
> uprising. The economy continued in bad condition, with the poor
> especially hurt by the high cost of food. A series of financial
> reforms started by the Directory finally took effect after it fell
> from power. Although committed to Republicanism, the Directory
> distrusted democracy. When the elections of 1798 and 1799 were
> carried by the opposition, it used the Army to imprison and exile
> the opposition leaders and close their newspapers. Increasingly it
> depended on the Army in foreign and domestic affairs, as well as
> finance. Finally the Army, under Napoleon, simply deposed the
> Directory on 9 November 1799 (see 18 Brumaire) and set up what
> amounted to a personal dictatorship under Napoleon.

That reads like pretty standard Recovery Era stuff, desperately trying
to recover from the war and imposing new rules and institutions to
prevent anything similar from ever happening again.

After that, Napoleon went on to conquer other countries in order to
consolidate the French Revolution. Each of these battles has to be
analyzed separately to determine whether that individual battle was a
crisis or non-crisis war.

By the way, the invasion of Russia was a non-crisis war for both
France and Russia.

** Book I / Chapter 5 -- Leo Tolstoy's War and Peace
** http://www.generationaldynamics.com/pg/w...olstoy.htm

I don't even know what you mean by a sentence like "How than can GD
explain how Alcibiades was able to convince the Athenians to invade
Sicily and restart the war, which then lasted until 404 BC."

Lots of wars, such as the Korean War, start in the First Turning, but
they're non-crisis wars.

How did Charles de Gaulle convince the French to invade Vietnam after
WW II, which then lasted until 1954?

[pbrower2a]

(06-15-2016, 11:15 AM)John J. Xenakis Wrote:

(06-14-2016, 01:51 PM)pbrower2a Wrote: >   I think of the ferocity of the Thirty Years' War, a long Crisis
>   war that did cultural damage that may have even contributed to the
>   Holocaust. Protestants and Catholics who hated each other united
>   against another group -- the Jews. it was only a matter of time.
>   That's duration.

You're using a kind of "glob of history" approach which says that if
people get angry at each other over a glob of years then it must be a
crisis war.  If you want to believe that, then you're entitled to do
so, but it has no relationship whatsoever to either S&H generational
theory or Generational Dynamics.

(I'm always bemused by the fact that there are people who spent years
in the FTF forum, but who completely disbelieve the FTF theory.)

 The Russian civil war between the Reds and Whites was genocidal; whoever won was going to slaughter millions. I see the Russian Whites similarly vicious as the Bolsheviki when they got the chance. Take the ferocity of the American Civil War, which also represented a Crisis war in which the opposing sides split into hostile and exclusive camps -- but with no semblance of mercy upon either side upon victory. The collectivization of Soviet agriculture, even if not strictly speaking a war, caused mass death characteristic of a genocidal war. The Soviet Union conducted its war against Nazi Germany with consummate ferocity.

This is at the minimum 28 years (more if one goes to the collapse of the Imperial Russian Armed Forces during World War I) of Crisis Era ferocity either ongoing or waiting to strike. It is freakish tragedy, and it may be nearly distinct to Russia. Saecula have lasted a century, and while Crisis Eras are usually short, this particular one is not far from a quarter of a saeculum.

Be thankful that you were not a Russian or Soviet citizen between 1915 and 1945!

Quote:Yours is take a more recent glob of years -- the Mideast since 1948.
Using your glob of history approach, you could say that the Mideast
has been in a crisis war for 70 years.  After all, you've had one
brutal war after another -- the 1948 war between Jews and Arabs, the
1953 Egyptian revolution, the 1967 and 1973 wars between Israel and
Egypt, the Syrian revolution, the Syria-Lebanon war, the Iran/Iraq
war, the Israel-Hezbollah war, the Fatah-Hamas war, the Israel-Gaza
war, and others.

All modern war is brutal. Not all of it is genocidal. The establishment of Israel in 1948 looks like the end of a Crisis Era, at least for Jewish survivors of the Holocaust, as political institutions of the State of Israel crystallized rapidly. The 1950s were undeniably 1T in Israel. The Suez Crisis is definitely a 1T war in Israel, and the Six-Day War is ambiguously near the end of a 1T and the start of a 2T in Israel. The 1973 war between Israel and the Arab World was a 2T war in Israel.

I do not follow intellectual trends of the Islamic world closely. War forces its own recognition. Crises in the Islamic world are hard to figure unless the hallmarks of a Crisis exist. Is the Iran-Iraq war a WWI-style war of attrition or is it so close to the end of 3T of Iraq that the invasion of Kuwait begins a Crisis Era for Iraq that has lasted nearly a quarter century?

Of course if ISIS dies (may such happen soon!) then the Crisis Era could be over in Iraq.

Quote:So according to your reasoning, you can glob all of those wars
together and call them one big crisis war.  That's nice, but it bears
no relationship whatsoever to generational theory.

I recognize Russia between 1917 and 1945 and Iraq between enduring a freakish succession of horrors. Wars and persecutions do not exist to fit theories; theories exist to fit wars and persecutions.

[/quote]What you have to do is drill down into the individual conflicts.  The
Jew-Arab war was a crisis war, the Syrian revolution and Syria-Lebanon
war were crisis wars, the Iran/Iraq war was a crisis war, and pretty
much all the rest are a bunch of non-crisis wars.[/quote]

The Arabs and Israelis may not have been on the same timetable.

If you took the 30 years war and drilled down in the same way, then
you'd find that the 30 years war wasn't one long crisis war at all,
but a collection of crisis and non-crisis wars that spread across
Europe.

(06-14-2016, 01:51 PM)pbrower2a Wrote: >   It's all a matter of interpretation.

In the last 15 years, I've done hundreds of these generational
analyses, maybe by this time into the thousands.  And I can say with
absolute certainty that there's no "interpretation" about it.

In order to evaluate a war or collection of wars, you have to look at
multiple historical sources.  If you can't tell whether a given war is
a crisis war or non-crisis war, then it doesn't mean that "it's a
matter of interpretation."  What it means is that you haven't looked
at enough historical sources to make an unambiguous determination.
This kind of evaluation process is non-trivial.  It takes a lot of
work.  I've done this hundreds of times over the years, and I can tell
you that this evaluation process has never failed to produce an
unambiguous result.[/quote]

Classification of historical events is often tricky even if one agrees on the realities of those events. The Thirty Years may have had some mobility in its worst horrors, as is true of all Crisis wars. If this is not Crisis, then what is? (Wikipedia, on the horrors of the Thirty Years' War:




Marauding soldiers, Vranx, 1647, Deutsches Historisches Museum Berlin

The war ranks with the worst famines and plagues as the greatest medical catastrophe in modern European history.[74][75] Lacking good census information, historians have extrapolated the experience of well-studied regions.[76] John Theibault agrees with the conclusions in Günther Franz's Der Dreissigjährige Krieg und das Deutsche Volk (1940), that population losses were great but varied regionally (ranging as high as 50%) and says his estimates are the best available.[77] The war killed soldiers and civilians directly, caused famines, destroyed livelihoods, disrupted commerce, postponed marriages and childbirth, and forced large numbers of people to relocate. The reduction of population in the German states was typically 25% to 40%.[78] Some regions were affected much more than others.[79] For example, Württemberg lost three-quarters of its population during the war.[80] In the territory of Brandenburg, the losses had amounted to half, while in some areas, an estimated two-thirds of the population died.[81] The male population of the German states was reduced by almost half.[82] The population of the Czech lands declined by a third due to war, disease, famine, and the expulsion of Protestant Czechs.[83][84] Much of the destruction of civilian lives and property was caused by the cruelty and greed of mercenary soldiers.[85] Villages were especially easy prey to the marauding armies. Those that survived, like the small village of Drais near Mainz, would take almost a hundred years to recover. The Swedish armies alone may have destroyed up to 2,000 castles, 18,000 villages, and 1,500 towns in Germany, one-third of all German towns.[86]
The war caused serious dislocations to both the economies and populations of central Europe, but may have done no more than seriously exacerbate changes that had begun earlier.[87][88] Also, some historians contend that the human cost of the war may actually have improved the living standards of the survivors.[89] According to Ulrich Pfister, Germany was one of the richest countries in Europe per capita in 1500, but ranked far lower in 1600. Then, it recovered during the 1600–1660 period, in part thanks to the demographic shock of the Thirty Years' War.


A peasant begs for mercy in front of a burning farm

Pestilence of several kinds raged among combatants and civilians in Germany and surrounding lands from 1618 to 1648. Many features of the war spread disease. These included troop movements, the influx of soldiers from foreign countries, and the shifting locations of battle fronts. In addition, the displacement of civilian populations and the overcrowding of refugees into cities led to both disease and famine. Information about numerous epidemics is generally found in local chronicles, such as parish registers and tax records, that are often incomplete and may be exaggerated. The chronicles do show that epidemic disease was not a condition exclusive to war time, but was present in many parts of Germany for several decades prior to 1618.[90]
When the Imperial and Danish armies clashed in Saxony and Thuringia during 1625 and 1626, disease and infection in local communities increased. Local chronicles repeatedly referred to "head disease", "Hungarian disease", and a "spotted" disease identified as typhus. After the Mantuan War, between France and the Habsburgs in Italy, the northern half of the Italian peninsula was in the throes of a bubonic plague epidemic (Italian Plague of 1629–1631). During the unsuccessful siege of Nuremberg, in 1632, civilians and soldiers in both the Imperial and Swedish armies succumbed to typhus and scurvy. Two years later, as the Imperial army pursued the defeated Swedes into southwest Germany, deaths from epidemics were high along the Rhine River. Bubonic plague continued to be a factor in the war. Beginning in 1634, Dresden, Munich, and smaller German communities such as Oberammergau recorded large numbers of plague casualties. In the last decades of the war, both typhus and dysentery had become endemic in Germany.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thirty_Years%27_War

Quote:

Furthermore, these methodologies are backed up by theoretical advances
in generational theory that I've documented on my web site and include
from time to time in my World View articles.

When I first started out in the FTF forum, the usual suspects used to
attack me by saying that I'm not qualified to write about these
subjects because I haven't read enough history books.  So today I'm on
the other side of that criticism.  You can't evaluate a war or
collection of wars unless you've looked at numerous sources, usually
at least 10 or 20 sources, though for the 30 years war it would
probably need even more than that.  After that, there's little or no
need for "interpretation."

Maybe I should have referred to classification instead of interpretation, interpretation following from classification. One can see patterns in history even if one does not know the whole history (think of Arnold Toynbee, whom I respect greatly even if I recognize his limitations as he did; after all, what did Socrates say of the true wise person? He knows that he is ignorant!). But neither of us is close to having the full knowledge of history.

The Thirty Years' War ended much like the end of a typical Crisis Era with a formal treaty and a "never again" attitude toward its horrors. Conformity would prevail in all areas affected by the war-ending settlements, and political systems would crystallize rapidly. (I am tempted to believe that the Crisis Era in the wake of World War II ends in 1948 and not 1945, with the mostly-clear division between the Soviet Bloc and the West after the February coup in Czechoslovakia, the failure of a Communist coup in Finland, the Berlin Airlift, the establishment of the German Federal Republic and a communist government in the Soviet zone of Germany, the break by Tito with Stalin, and the collapse of the Communist insurgency ion the Greek Civil War. Much still happens in 1948, but history freezes in Europe. Such is the end of a Crisis Era and the beginning of a 1T.

[John J. Xenakis]

I'm not saying that the wars you're describing did not occur, or that
they weren't horrors. I'm only saying they're not all crisis wars,
and that even non-crisis wars are horrors. For example, S&H
identifies WW I as a non-crisis war, and yet you have the Battle of
the Somme and the Battle of Verdun.

As another example, Mao's Communist Revolution climaxed in 1949, but
it was followed by the Great Leap Forward and the Great Cultural
Revolution. Both of these were horrors that killed tens or perhaps
hundreds of millions of people through famine and executions. So you
could say that China's crisis war began with the Long March in 1934
and ended with Mao's death in 1976, so it was a 42-year crisis war.

But it wasn't a 42-year crisis war. It was a non-crisis war from 1934
to 1945, then it was a crisis war that climaxed in 1949, and then the
the Great Leap Forward and the Great Cultural Revolution were Recovery
Era / Awakening Era events.

So it's never enough to say that "it was a horrible war, so it must be
a crisis war." Non-crisis wars can be horrible too. What matters is
public mood, not whether the war is horrible.

[John J. Xenakis]

*** 16-Jun-16 World View -- ASEAN makes humiliating South China Sea reversal under pressure from China

This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com

• ASEAN makes humiliating South China Sea reversal under pressure from China
  
• Obama administration reevaluates plans for Afghanistan troop withdrawal
  

****
**** ASEAN makes humiliating South China Sea reversal under pressure from China
****


Silly group picture of foreign ministers at Tuesday's ASEAN meeting purporting to portray unity (AFP)

Foreign ministers at the meeting of the Association of Southeast Asian
Nations (ASEAN), issued a statement on Tuesday criticizing China's
actions in the South China Sea, though without directly naming China:

[indent]<QUOTE>"We expressed our serious concerns over recent and
ongoing developments, which have eroded trust and confidence,
increased tensions and which may have the potential to undermine
peace, security and stability in the South China Sea. ...

We emphasized the importance of non-militarization and
self-restraint in the conduct of all activities, including land
reclamation, which may raise tensions in the South China Sea.

We stressed the importance of maintaining peace, security,
stability, safety and freedom of navigation in and overflight
above the South China Sea, in accordance with universally
recognized principles of international law including the 1982
United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea
(UNCLOS)."<END QUOTE>[/indent]

Within hours, apparently under pressure from China, Malaysia's foreign
ministry announced that the ASEAN statement was being withdrawn"

[indent]<QUOTE>"We have to retract the media statement by the ASEAN
foreign ministers... as there are urgent amendments to be
made."<END QUOTE>[/indent]

However, a day later, neither Malaysia nor any other ASEAN member has
issued an updated statement, or explained what the "urgent amendments"
are.

This is a major embarrassment for ASEAN. If they issue a new
statement with the South China Sea language watered down or missing,
then the media will say that ASEAN is a China puppet.

China has been following Hitler's example by annexing regions of the
South China Sea that have historically belonged to other countries,
including the Philippines, Vietnam, Brunei, and Malaysia.

ASEAN has ten members: Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia,
Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam. Of these
ten nations, Cambodia has been China's most reliable ally. At a 2012
meeting of the 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations
(ASEAN), Cambodia vetoed attempts to even discuss the South China Sea issues.
That's easy enough for
Cambodia, since China isn't confiscating any region belonging to
Cambodia.

For a long time, Laos sided with Vietnam on the issue, but last month,
Laos flip-flopped and sided with China.
That's also easy enough for Laos, for the same reason as
Cambodia.

Singapore has been trying to act as a mediator between China and the
other countries, but the withdrawal of the original ASEAN statement
apparently has angered Singapore, as Singapore Foreign Minister Vivian
Balakrishnan walked out of a press conference he was co-chairing with
China's foreign minister, Wang Yi.

Laos will be hosting the next ASEAN meeting in July, and fireworks are
expected. The Star (Myanmar) and The Diplomat and AFP

****
**** Obama administration reevaluates plans for Afghanistan troop withdrawal
****

U.S. Defense Secretary Ash Carter told a meeting at Nato headquarters
in Brussels on Wednesday the Obama administration is reevaluating its
previous plans to withdraw thousands of troops from Afghanistan by the
end of 2016.

There are currently 9,800 American troops in Afghanistan. The plan
was to reduce that level to 5,500 by the end of 2016, but now that
plan is apparently about to be changed, much to the surprise of no
one.

This new announcement comes just four days after another
administration reversal. ( "11-Jun-16 World View -- In a reversal, Obama allows US troops in Afghanistan in combat roles"
)

Here's what President Obama said in a speech in December 2009, just
one week before he was scheduled to leave to accept his Nobel Peace
Prize. He referred to a "review" of the situation in Afghanistan that
his administrations had been conducting:

[indent]<QUOTE>"This review is now complete. And as
Commander-in-Chief, I have determined that it is in our vital
national interest to send an additional 30,000 U.S. troops to
Afghanistan. After 18 months, our troops will begin to come home.
These are the resources that we need to seize the initiative,
while building the Afghan capacity that can allow for a
responsible transition of our forces out of
Afghanistan.<END QUOTE>[/indent]

Obama was bitterly criticized by military analysts for setting an
18-month deadline, and of course the analysts were right and Obama was
dead wrong. Obama has been forced to backtrack on his 18-month
commitment multiple times, and Wednesday's speech by Ash Carter
indicates that the next flip-flop is about to occur.

When Obama took office in 2008, he had expected to be able to direct
the American withdrawal from Iraq and then quickly win in Afghanistan.
Those promises are in shambles, as are all Obama's policies for
Afghanistan and the Mideast. This is what happens when we elect a
president with absolutely no clue what's going on in the world, and it
looks like it's going to happen again. Washington Post and Washington Times


KEYS: Generational Dynamics, China, South China Sea,
Association of Southeast Asian Nations, ASEAN,
Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, Philippines,
Singapore, Thailand, Vietnam, Vivian Balakrishnan,
Nato, Afghanistan, Ash Carter

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

[John J. Xenakis]

*** 17-Jun-16 World View -- UAE backs out of Saudi coalition in Yemen, saying 'War is over'

This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com

• UAE backs out of Saudi coalition in Yemen, saying 'War is over'
  
• Saudi Arabia is condemned for Yemen's humanitarian disaster
  

****
**** UAE backs out of Saudi coalition in Yemen, saying 'War is over'
****


Children in Yemen war zone (Reuters)

The United Arab Emirates' involvement in more than a year of war in
Yemen is "practically over", a top diplomat was quoted as saying on
Wednesday.

Up until late 2014, Yemen had been governed by a government closely
allied with Saudi Arabia. In late 2014, the Iran-backed Shia Houthi
militias from northwest Yemen moved south and took control of the
capital city Sanaa, and then continue to move south, capturing a
number of cities.

15 months ago, on March 26 of last year, Saudi Arabia announced that a
10-country coalition, led by the Saudis, would "free Sanaa and the
rest of the northern cities" from Houthi control.

The United Arab Emirates (UAE) has one of the best-equipped militaries
in the region, and has been a major contributor to the Saudi-led
coalition. However, the UAE have suffered numerous losses in the past
year. 80 UAE soldiers have been killed, including four pilots killed
in two separate helicopter crashes this week. In September, 45 UAE
troops were killed by a Houthi missile attack, marking the deadliest
day for the UAE military in its 44-year history.

In March, the Saudis announced that it would 'end major combat operations' in Yemen,
claiming that
they've met most of their objectives. However, most observers
consider the war to have been a failure. The Houthis are still in
control of Sanaa, while other parts of the country have gone back and
forth between control of the two sides. Furthermore, al-Qaeda in the
Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) has made strong gains in the last year, and
the so-called Islamic State (IS or ISIS or ISIL or Daesh) is
establishing a presence.

UAE's Minister of State for Foreign Affairs, Anwar Gargash, gave a
speech saying "Our standpoint today is clear: war is over for our
troops; we’re monitoring political arrangements, empowering Yemenis in
liberated areas." He then elaborated online:

[indent]<QUOTE>"[The UAE will remain] a capable and honest ally
alongside Riyadh in the military and political realm.

This is a partnership that was reinforced by the Yemen crisis and
it is essential for the future. The Riyadh-Abu Dhabi axis will
emerge out of this crisis with more strength and effectiveness,
and the strategic requirements of the region make this imperative.

Responsibility lies with the Yemenis - of all their components, to
build bridges of communication and to reach an agreement on the
state and its institutions. A spirit of national responsibility is
needed for success."<END QUOTE>[/indent]

Most of this appears to be wishful thinking, because the
outcome has been a disaster for both Saudi Arabia and UAE. The
Saudis have received international condemnation for the humanitarian
disaster in Yemen, and yet the Houthis are still in control of
Sanaa and much of Yemen.

It appears to be at least a partial victory for Iran, since Iran
has reportedly provided the Houthis with weapons and other
support. However, if it's a victory at all then it's a Pyrrhic
victory because Yemen has been practically destroyed by the fighting.

It may be that the real victors are the two jihadist groups, al-Qaeda
in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) and the so-called Islamic State (IS or
ISIS or ISIL or Daesh). Both organizations have taken advantage of
the chaos to gain territory. However, although AQAP is firmly
enmeshed in Yemen's tribal networks, ISIS is perceived as foreign.

Despite UAE's announcement, fighting is continuing in Yemen on several
fronts, with dozens of people killed and wounded in the the last
couple of days. Gulf News (Dubai) and AP and
Council on Foreign Relations (19-Apr)

****
**** Saudi Arabia is condemned for Yemen's humanitarian disaster
****

Although the blame for the damage to Yemen is shared by all the
participants, including Saudi Arabia, Iran, AQAP and ISIS, the Saudis
are receiving the bulk of the international condemnation because of
its bombing campaign. There have been repeated stories in the last
year that bombs from the Saudi coalition have struck schools,
hospitals, and civilian homes. There have also been reports that some
Saudi bombs have been US-made cluster bombs, which are considered
illegal.

According to the UN, at least 6,200 people - about half of them
civilians - have been killed and 2.8 million others have been
displaced.

At the beginning of June, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon issued a
report condemning both the Saudis and the Houthis for killing and
maiming children in Yemen. According to Ban's report, the Saudi
coalition was responsible for 60 percent of child deaths and injuries
last year, killing 510 and wounding 667.

[indent]<QUOTE>"Grave violations against children increased
dramatically as a result of the escalating conflict.

In Yemen, owing to the very large number of violations attributed
to the two parties, the Houthis/Ansar Allah and the Saudi
Arabia-led coalition are listed for killing and maiming and
attacks on schools and hospitals."<END QUOTE>[/indent]

Saudi Arabia was added to an annual blacklist of states and armed
groups that violate children's rights during conflict.

However, the Saudis protested and said that the casualty figures were
"wildly exaggerated." Saudi Arabia's permanent representative to the
UN, Abdullah al-Mouallimi, complained to Ban about the report, and
said, "If there are any casualties from the coalition side, they would
be far, far lower." He added that used "the most up-to-date equipment
in precision targeting."

So a few days later, Ban removed Saudi Arabia from the list. Human
Rights Watch sharply criticized the removal, saying that Ban's office
had "hit a new low." A UN spokesman says that Saudi Arabia was
removed from the list pending an investigation of the numbers
in the report.

However, this isn't the time something like this has happened. In the
2014 report, Israel and Hamas were put onto the blacklist, and then
removed a few days later. Al-Jazeera and Reuters and BBC


KEYS: Generational Dynamics, Yemen, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, UAE,
Sanaa, Houthis, Anwar Gargash, Ban Ki-moon,
Islamic State / of Iraq and Syria/Sham/the Levant, IS, ISIS, ISIL, Daesh,
Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, AQAP, Abdullah al-Mouallimi,
Human Rights Watch, Hamas, Israel

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

[Cynic Hero '86]

Regarding the Orlando attack and US policy toward Muslims since before 9/11; The government is overstepping its prerogatives by imposing tolerance of Muslims on the American People. The government is governing tyranny because it is implementing policies that are opposed by the people. The government has no right to implement any policy if the majority of the populace has not granted the government consent to pursue those policies. Xers and Millies are demanding that the government governs constitutionally. Because boomers refuse to submit their policies to approval by the populace before carrying them out, Xers and Millies have rallied behind Donald Trump to force the boomer elites to submit to the will of the people. The Muslim Ban will be carried out because that is the will of the majority of the people. Xers and Millies will not accept Hillary being shoved down their throats by boomers obsessed with "Human Rights".

This isn't just the case here in America: In Britain a local politician, Jo Cox was murdered recently by a Muslim Immigrant angered that women would have rights anywhere. To counter this scourge it is becoming increasingly likely that only mass expulsions would solve the problem.

[John J. Xenakis]

*** 18-Jun-16 World View -- Pressure mounts on European Union to resume admitting Syrian refugees

This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com

• Children in Calais and Dunkirk refugee camps forced into rape, prostitution
  
• Médecins Sans Frontières announces it will reject further European aid
  

****
**** Children in Calais and Dunkirk refugee camps forced into rape, prostitution
****


People demonstrate in support of refugees in Athens on Thursday (Guardian)

A report by Unicef has found that sexual exploitation of children
living in refugee camps in northern France is common on a daily basis.
Many young boys are raped, and many young girls are raped and forced
into prostitution.

The study was based on interview with 60 unaccompanied children aged
from 11 to 17 between January and April. There are 500 unaccompanied
children in camps in Calais and Dunkirk at the end of March.

Many of them have family members in the UK who are waiting for them to
arrive. However, processing of children has been very slow, and only
30 of the 500 unaccompanied children have so far been brought to the
UK.

In order to reach France, human traffickers have already charged them
$3,000 to $12,000. They are forced to pay an "entry fee" before
they're allowed to live in the camps. Once in the camp, traffickers
are charging another $6,000 to cross the channel into Britain,
a higher price than ever before.

The Unicef report quotes one 16 year old girl as saying "I know that
if I pay or offer sex, I will cross more quickly. I have been asked
to do this. It’s hard to say no." A boy says that he's "gassed and
beaten here" in France.

For these unaccompanied children, there's little protection from the
cold and no access to schooling, and they are subjected to sexual
exploitation, violence and forced labor on a daily basis. There's
also evidence that they're being forced to commit crimes.

Unicef is demanding that, at the very least, unaccompanied children
with families in the UK should be processed more quickly and allowed
to travel to their families.

This is an explosive situation. On the one hand, you a massive
humanitarian disaster involving children on a daily basis, in one
modern, developed country, France, wishing to travel to another
modern, developed country, Britain, to see their families. On the
other hand, you have European populations in Europe that are
increasingly resistant to allowing refugees into their countries under
any circumstances whatsoever. This situation will not change if the
"Brexit" referendum passes, and Britain leaves Europe, and almost
certainly will worsen, because France will no longer be under any
obligation to prevent refugees in Calais from crossing the Channel to
Britain.

Those who don't like these conclusions shouldn't blame me. Think of
me as the weatherman. I'm not saying whether the category 5 hurricane
is good or bad, but I'm only telling you that it's coming. There is
no happy ending to this crisis. Unicef and Christian Today and Belfast Telegraph

****
**** Médecins Sans Frontières announces it will reject further European aid
****

In a move that my mother would probably have called "cutting off your
nose to spite your face," the international aid organization Médecins
Sans Frontières (MSF - Doctors without Borders) announced on Friday
that they will no longer accept money from the European Union because
of its "shameful" response to the refugee crisis, especially as the
EU-Turkey refugee deal is being implemented.

According to International Secretary General Jerome Oberreit:

[indent]<QUOTE>"For months MSF has spoken out about a shameful
European response focused on deterrence rather than providing
people with the assistance and protection they need. The
EU-Turkey deal goes one step further and has placed the very
concept of “refugee” and the protection it offers in danger. ...

Is Europe’s only offer to refugees that they stay in countries
they are desperate to flee? Once again, Europe’s main focus is not
on how well people will be protected, but on how efficiently they
are kept away. ...

Europe’s attempt to outsource migration control is having a domino
effect, with closed borders stretching all the way back to
Syria. People increasingly have nowhere to turn. Will the
situation in Azaz where 100,000 people are blocked between closed
borders and front lines become the rule, rather than the deadly
exception?"<END QUOTE>[/indent]

The last sentence refers to Azaz, a city in Syria with 300,000 people,
of which 200,000 are already displaced. The forces of the so-called
Islamic State (IS or ISIS or ISIL or Daesh) are now within 5 km of
Azaz, and have threatened a huge massacre if they take control of the
city.

It's not clear what MSF is advocating for Azaz. The city is close to
the border of Turkey, and perhaps the point of Oberreit's statement is
that he wants those 300,000 people to be permitted to flee to Turkey,
and perhaps from there to Europe.

This is a total fantasy on MSF's part. As I read the situation, ISIS
is going to torture, massacre and slaughter tens or hundreds of
thousands of people in Azaz, and nobody is going to stop them. Those
people are already as good as dead.

Oberreit is turning down something like $50 million in aid from the EU
that it could use to help people as part of its mission. By turning
this money down, Oberreit apparently hopes to shame Turkey and the EU
into permitting those 300,000 refugees to flee reach the EU. Instead,
they're just going to lose $50 million in aid for no reason at all.
Médecins Sans Frontières and Reuters and Middle East Eye


KEYS: Generational Dynamics, France, Calais, Dunkirk, Britain, Unicef,
Médecins Sans Frontières, MSF, Doctors without Borders,
Jerome Oberreit, Turkey, Syria, Azaz,
Islamic State / of Iraq and Syria/Sham/the Levant, IS, ISIS, ISIL, Daesh

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

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

[John J. Xenakis]

*** 19-Jun-16 World View -- Pak-Afghan border crisis revives controversy over 120 year old Durand Line

This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com

• Pakistan reopens border crossing with Pakistan after week of gunfights
  
• Tensions grow over the Durand Line defining the Pak-Afghan border
  

****
**** Pakistan reopens border crossing with Pakistan after week of gunfights
****


Hundreds of trucks backed up at the Torkham border crossing between Pakistan and Afghanistan (Reuters)

Pakistan reopened the Torkham border gate, a major border crossing
with Afghanistan on Saturday, after keeping it closed for almost a
week amid cross-border gunfights that killed at least one Afghan
border police officer and one Pakistani army major.

Thousands of vehicles normally pass through the Torkham crossing every
week, making it a vital trade link between the countries. During the
last week, there have been long lines of trucks backed up and waiting
at the Torkham gate, on both sides of the Khyber Pass, a well-known
mountainous transit route linking the two countries.

The border between the two countries has been tense for years. It's
been particularly ironic that for many years the headquarters of the
Afghan Taliban was in Pakistan, while the headquarters of the Pakistan
Taliban was in Afghanistan. Each group would cross the border
to commit terrorist acts, and then would flee back across the
border to escape approaching security forces.

A turning point for Pakistan was reached after a horrific January 20
terror attack on Bacha Khan University in Charsadda in northwest
Pakistan, killing 21 lives including a professor. Investigation
showed that the perpetrators had crossed the border from Afghanistan,
and then crossed back. Pakistan's army decided that it was necessary
to build a fence along the border, and to control the border
crossings.

Afghanistan opposed this plan because hundreds of trucks and thousands
of people cross the border every week for trade, work and medical
care, and because the location of the border is in dispute. Pakistan
went ahead with the construction of the border gates, and that lead to
the gunfights last week.

Pakistan finally reopened the border crossing on Saturday, but will
only allow people to cross from Afghanistan to Pakistan if they have
the proper documents - a visa and a valid passport. Since thousands
of people have been crossing the border for years with no documents,
this crisis is far from over.

Thousands of Afghans conducted protests earlier this week in two
Afghan cities, Jalalabad and Lashkar Gah, chanting "Death to
Pakistan." Afghanistan's ambassador to Pakistan, Dr. Omar Zakhilwal,
has threatened to resign. "I don't see any reason for me to continue
my current job" unless Pakistan suspends its construction of new
installations pending negotiations.

However, a Pakistan official says, "This gate (is) considered
essential to check and verify documentation of all border crossers."
CNN and Dawn (Pakistan) and Khaama (Afghanistan) and Al-Jazeera

****
**** Tensions grow over the Durand Line defining the Pak-Afghan border
****


Pakistan army image showing the Torkham border gate 37 meters inside Pakistan

According to Pakistan's military, "In order to check movement of
terrorists through Torkham, Pakistan is constructing a gate on (our)
own side of the border as a necessity to check unwanted and illegal
movement." According to Pakistan, the Torkham border gate is being
built 37 meters within Pakistan. However, Afghanistan disagrees,
saying that the gate is being built one kilometer within Afghanistan.

The disagreement is over the border line separating the two countries.
In 1893, Sir Mortimer Durand, Britain's Indian foreign secretary at
the time, signed an agreement with Abdur Rahman Khan, the Amir of
Afghanistan, defining the 2640 km border, known as the "Durand Line."

However, after the 1947 Partition war that partitioned the Indian
subcontinent into India and Pakistan, Afghanistan reneged on the
agreement, and asserted claims to additional territory with Pakistan.
Since then, efforts to renegotiate the agreement have been torpedoed
by both sides. Since 9/11/2001, the Durand Line has taken on special
significance, because of Afghan war and by the bombing by American
warplanes and drones of Taliban targets in Pakistan's tribal area.

It seems pretty certain that the border crossing crisis is far from
over. Thousands of people are going to be inconvenienced by
Pakistan's requirement that anyone crossing the border must have a
visa and valid passport, and anyway, Afghanistan is certain to renew
is claim that the Durand Line is not valid, and Pakistan's new border
crossing is actually on Afghan territory. AFP and The Diplomat and The Nation (Pakistan)


KEYS: Generational Dynamics, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Torkham border crossing,
Khyber Pass, Afghan Taliban, Pakistan Taliban, Bacha Khan University,
Charsadda, Jalalabad, Lashkar Gah, Omar Zakhilwal,
Sir Mortimer Durand, Abdur Rahman Khan, Durand Line

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

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

[pbrower2a]

(06-17-2016, 03:51 PM)Cynic Hero Wrote: Regarding the Orlando attack and US policy toward Muslims since before 9/11; The government is overstepping its prerogatives by imposing tolerance of Muslims on the American People. The government is governing tyranny because it is implementing policies that are opposed by the people. The government has no right to implement any policy if the majority of the populace has not granted the government consent to pursue those policies. Xers and Millies are demanding that the government governs constitutionally. Because boomers refuse to submit their policies to approval by the populace before carrying them out, Xers and Millies have rallied behind Donald Trump to force the boomer elites to submit to the will of the people. The Muslim Ban will be carried out because that is the will of the majority of the people. Xers and Millies will not accept Hillary being shoved down their throats by boomers obsessed with "Human Rights".

This isn't just the case here in America: In Britain a local politician, Jo Cox was murdered recently by a Muslim Immigrant angered that women would have rights anywhere. To counter this scourge it is becoming increasingly likely that only mass expulsions would solve the problem.

1. The First Amendment establishes freedom of religion -- all religion -- including religious beliefs that people may find absurd, unsettling, or offensive. It does not say "all religion so long as it is Christian" or "all religion so long as it is not Islam". Replace "Islam" with "Judaism" in "freedom for religion except Islam", and you get the reality of religious freedom in Nazi Germany.  Christianity remained legal as such, but it had to make compromises with an ideology inimical to Christian morals.

So if you dislike Islam -- then avoid Islam.

2. Start proscribing any religion, and you put your religion at risk of being defined to its detriment. It is not up to the State to dictate morals, typically a mandate for unqualified obedience to leadership beyond criticism, scrutiny, or dissent.

3. The assassination of MP Jo Cox had absolutely nothing to do with Islam. It was on whether the UK is to remain within the European Union. The suspect was found with much right-wing stuff, and he seems very loopy. Don't draw conclusions until you have data, lest you be willing to see yourself as a fool.

[John J. Xenakis]

*** 20-Jun-16 World View -- Historic Orthodox Christian gathering in Crete exposes sharp divisions

This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com

• Orthodox 'Great and Holy Council' marred by defections and controversies
  
• History of Catholic and Orthodox Christian 'Ecumenical' Councils
  

****
**** Orthodox 'Great and Holy Council' marred by defections and controversies
****


Eastern Orthodox icon 'Christ's Descent into Hades'. Unlike Muslims, who forbid the depiction of Mohammed, Orthodox Churches are adorned with many such icons and monuments

It's been in the planning stages since it was first announced in 1961,
and now that it's taking place, the news is more about the defections
and controversies than the event itself.

It's called the "Great and Holy Council (GHC) of the Eastern Orthodox
Churches," and it's meant to be the first ecumenical meeting of all
the Orthodox churches 787. At that time, the Catholic and Orthodox
Churches were still together, and they held the Seventh Ecumenical
Council of (almost) all the Christian Churches to decide such
important issues as whether it's sacrilegious to display images and
icons of Jesus Christ in churches.

Since 787, the Orthodox and Catholic churches have been split. In the
"Schism of 1054," the Pope and the Patriarch of Constantinople
excommunicated each other, and in 1204 the Catholic Crusades attacked,
sacked and plundered the Orthodox church in Constantinople.

So Sunday was the first day of the Great and Holy Council, hosted in
Crete by Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I of Constantinople,
considered "first among equals." It would be the first ecumenical
meeting of Orthodox churches since 787. It would bring together the
leaders of all 14 independent Eastern Orthodox churches, representing
more than 300 million Orthodox Christians.

Unfortunately, there have been several disagreements and defections.

The first disagreement was that Russia and Bulgaria did not want to
recognize Bartholomew as "first among equals," so they insisted that
the meeting be held at a round table. That issue was resolved, but
Bulgaria pulled out anyway, citing a lack of "particularly important"
topics on the agenda.

The Damascus-based Antioch Patriarchate also pulled out because a
dispute it was having with the Jerusalem Patriarchate over which of
them had jurisdiction over the small Orthodox community in Qatar. The
Georgian Orthodox Church pulled out over a doctrinal issue.

One of the most divisive issues in Orthodoxy is the relationship with
the Catholic church. Some groups want to have closer relations with
the Catholics, while others consider them heretics, citing
particularly the 1204 Catholic sacking of Constantinople.

But the most divisive issue of all right now is that the Russians want
their Patriarch Kirill to displace Patriarch Bartholomew of
Constantinople as the "first among equals."

When the Ottoman Muslims sacked Constantinople (Istanbul) in 1453,
Russia chose to take on the mantle of being "the third Rome," and head
the Orthodox Church. Whatever traction was gained by that plan was
thrown away by the Bolshevik Revolution in 1917, where Nicolai Lenin
(Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov) led the destruction and sacking of the
Russian Orthodox Church, and turned Russia and the Soviet Union into
atheistic states.

So now Vladimir Putin is in power in Russia. He wants to ignore the
historic role of Constantinople and also ignore Lenin's destruction of
the Russian Orthodox Church, and put Moscow in the leadership of
Orthodox churches worldwide.

So Russia has also announced that it will not be attending the
ecumenical council in Crete this week.

Another controversy overshadowing the Great and Holy Council is that
Putin used Orthodox religious history as a justification for the
Russian invasion and annexation of Ukraine's Crimea peninsula. ( "20-Mar-14 World View -- Russia's annexation of Crimea splits the Russian Orthodox Church"
)

The Ukrainian Orthodox Church has for centuries been a part of the
Russian Orthodox Church, but Russia's invasion of Ukraine and
annexation of Crimea have led to a debate as to whether the Kiev
Patriarchate of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church should be recognized as
an independent church, separate from Russia. Patriarch Bartholomew is
believed to be in favor of recognizing it, something that the Russians
would angrily oppose. Although that issue has been officially removed
from this week's agenda, it may return. Christian Today (2-June) and AP and Guardian (London) and Kiev Post and Tass (Moscow)

****
**** History of Catholic and Orthodox Christian 'Ecumenical' Councils
****

Christianity's first Ecumenical Council was held in 325 AD in Nicea,
an ancient city just east of today's Istanbul (Constantinople). The
Council of Nicea was a meeting of all Christian churches, led not by
the Pope but by the Emperor Caesar Flavius Constantine of Rome. The
objective of the meeting was to unify the different regional branches,
and to resolve some important questions.

At that time, many questions of Christian theology had not yet been
decided. One of the most important was the divinity of Jesus Christ.
If Jesus was born, then how could he be divine? Although there was
debate, the Council ratified the view that he was a man, but was God
in the form of human flesh.

The details of how it makes sense that Jesus was both human and divine
were extremely controversial. It was discussed further at the Second
Ecumenical Council in Constantinople in 381, again in the Third
Ecumenical Council, held Ephesus, an Aegean sea port, in 431. By the
time of the Fourth Ecumenical Council, held Chalcedon, near
Constantinople, in 451, the differences on this issue were extremely
vitriolic.

This was the time of the first major split within Christianity, as six
branches of Christianity refused to recognize the Fourth Ecumenical
Council, in a controversy that has never been resolved. Today, these
are usually called the "Oriental Orthodox Christian" churches,
comprised of the Ethiopian, Coptic (Egyptian), Armenian, Syrian,
Indian and Eritrean Churches. These were all churches that had
existed since apostolic times, and the major political issue was that
they didn't wish to be controlled by Rome. The Fifth Ecumenical
Council (in Constantinople in 553) and the Sixth Ecumenical Council
(in Constantinople in 680) attempted without success the resolve the
split.

The Seventh Ecumenical Council, in Nicea in 787, is the last one that
was recognized. At this one, the major controversy was was between
the "iconoclasts" and "iconophiles." "Iconoclast" means "image
smasher" or destroyer of religious icons and monuments. The
iconoclasts, who were outvoted, said that religious art was idolatry
and must be destroyed. If Jesus is divine, is it not sacrilegious to
worship an icon of Jesus as if it were Jesus himself? The iconophiles
loved icons, and argued that they were man's dynamic way of expressing
the divine through art and beauty. The latter argument won out.

There's also reason to believe that the argument over icons was
heavily influenced by the rise of Islam at that time. The Charlie
Hebdo terror attack in Paris in January 2015 was supposedly motivated
by artistic representations of the Prophet Mohammed, and this
prohibition was coming into effect at the time of the Seventh
Ecumenical Council.

That was the last time there was sufficient unity in the Christian
churches to hold a worldwide Ecumenical Council, although there were
smaller regional meetings.

In 1054, the Pope in Rome sent a letter to the Patriarch of
Constantinople demanding that the latter submit to the Pope as head of
all the churches. The Patriarch refused, and so the Pope and the
Patriarch excommunicated each other on July 16, 1054. The "Schism of
1054" has never been healed.

Things got much worse in 1204 during the Crusades. The Catholics, on
their way to fighting the Muslims in Jerusalem, sacked Constantinople,
and placed a prostitute on the Emperor's throne at the church of
St. Sophia. It was not until 2001 when the Pope John Paul visited
Athens and, encountering large anti-Catholic protests, that the
Catholics apologized for the sacking of Constantinople, and made a
plea for forgiveness. ( "25-May-14 World View -- Pope Francis visits Mideast to reconcile with Jews, Orthodox, and Muslims"
)

The Orthodox Christians were generally excluded from the Ecumenical
Councils held by the Catholics over the centuries, but they were
controversial nonetheless, even in modern times. The Second Vatican
Council held by the Catholics in 1962-65 created a new split within
the Catholic Church, when the Society of St. Pius X (SSPX) refused to
recognize the legitimacy of its edicts. Pope Francis is currently
working to heal this rift.

It was at the time of the Second Vatican Council that plans for an
Ecumenical Council of all the Orthodox Churches as announced in 1961.

So in view of that history, it should not be surprising to anyone that
the attempt to create a new Orthodox Christian Ecumenical Council, a
Great and Holy Council (GHC) of Eastern Orthodox Churches, announced
in 1961, has run into a great deal of controversy, as controversy has
always been the norm, since the beginning.

It's also interesting to note that it's the norm for religions to
target small regional or national populations. You can be a
"Catholic" anywhere in the world, but you can't just be an "Orthodox
Christian," unless you're a "Greek Orthodox" or "Russian Orthodox" or
some other branch. The same thing is true of the Protestant religion,
which has about 20 different churches in the United States alone, each
targeting a different group. There are only three religions that have
"gone viral" and become virtually universal: Catholicism, Sunni Islam
and Buddhism. For example, in China, you'll find plenty of Catholics,
plenty of Sunni Muslims, and plenty of Buddhists, but few Greek
Orthodox or Shia Muslims or Hindus. Orthodox Wiki
and Catholic World Report and World Council of Churches and National Catholic Register


KEYS: Generational Dynamics, Orthodox Christianity,
Great and Holy Council, GHC, Seventh Ecumenical Council,
Patriarch Bartholomew I, Constantinople, Istanbul,
Patriarch Kirill, Bulgaria, Russia, Ukraine, Crimea,
Nicolai Lenin, Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov,
Caesar Flavius Constantine, Rome, Oriental Orthodox Christianity,
iconoclast, iconophile, Charlie Hebdo, Islam, Crusades,
Society of St. Pius X, SSPX, Pope John Paul, Pope Francis

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

[John J. Xenakis]

(06-20-2016, 12:30 PM)X_4AD_84 Wrote: > Orthodox Christians who do not tout Anti-Western notions should be
> invited to merge with Western Christians. Those who do tout
> Anti-Western notions should be declared Anti-Christians.

Weird.

[John J. Xenakis]

*** 21-Jun-16 World View -- Iran threatens coup, after Bahrain revokes citizenship of Shia cleric

This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com

• Iran threatens coup, after Bahrain revokes citizenship of Shia cleric
  
• Iran reacts to a series of repeated anti-Shia moves by Bahrain and Saudi Arabia
  

****
**** Iran threatens coup, after Bahrain revokes citizenship of Shia cleric
****


Pearl Square in Manama, Bahrain, after March 15 2011 protests. The beautiful Pearl monument was torn down by the regime on March 18, because it was thought to be encouraging protests.

Bahrain has revoked the citizenship of the kingdom's most prominent
Shia cleric, Sheikh Isa Ahmed Qasim, accusing him of promoting
"sectarianism and violence."

Bahrain's population is 2/3 Shia Muslim, but the country is led by an
oppressive Sunni government closely allied with Saudi Arabia. In the
days following the "Arab Spring" protests in 2011, Bahrain's security
services overreacted with extremely violent and bloody massacres of
unarmed protesters, backed up by troops from Saudi Arabia. The
protests began in Bahrain on February 14, 2011. Dozens of protesters
were killed, over 1,600 were arrested, and thousands were injured.

According to a statement issued by Bahrain's government on
Monday:

[indent]<QUOTE>"Accordingly, the citizenship of Isa Ahmed Qasim has
been revoked. Ever since he received the Bahraini nationality,
Qasim has established organizations that follow an external
religious political authority, played a major role in creating an
extremist sectarian environment and worked on dividing the society
alongside sects and in accordance with subordination to his
orders.

Qasim has also adopted theocracy and emphasized on the absolute
allegiance to the Religious Clerics. Through his sermons and
“fatwas”, he exploited the religious pulpit for political purposes
to serve foreign interests. He also encouraged sectarianism and
violence. Qasim has kept his decisions and positions, which he
dictated as religious rituals, dependent on his continuous
communication with hostile foreign organizations and parties. In
addition, Qasim collected funds without complying with the
provisions of the law.

On several occasions, Isa Qasim has violated the supremacy of the
law by issuing edicts (fatwas) that affected the elections and its
processes. He influenced voters’ decisions using religious
sentiments. This extends to all aspects of public affairs,
undermining the rights of the people and the rule of law. He also
rallied many groups to prevent the issuance of the second section
of the Family Law (Jafari Section)."<END QUOTE>[/indent]

The phrase "to serve foreign interests" presumably refers to Iran and
Hezbollah. Although the 2011 protests were finally put down by
massacring the protesters, there have been sporadic protests since
then, and the Bahrain government evidently is afraid of a repeat of
2011's full scale anti-Sunni riots.

The government of Iran, which is an equally bloody regime that
massacres innocent protesters, issued a statement criticizing the
revoking of Qasim's citizenship, and appeared to threaten Bahrain's
government with a coup. The statement begins by reciting crimes of
Bahrain's regime, the same crimes that Iran's regime regularly
commits:

[indent]<QUOTE>"The oppressed Muslim nation of Bahrain had been under
the cruel, biased, unfair, and illegitimate regime of Al-Khalifa
for long years. Despite furious acts which included unashamedly
racist discrimination, arrest of their religious leaders,
imprisoning and torturing women and children, stripping
citizenship, violation of their rights without any qualms and
several other crimes, this patient people have exercised patience;
tightening the pressures has never distracted Bahraini people of
their non-violent approach. ...

Seemingly, the Al-Khalifa regime has underestimated and
misinterpreted the scope and magnitude of the public wrath;
encroachment of the religious leader's rights is definitely a sure
redline for the public the crossing of which would set the region
ablaze, leaving no alternative than resorting to armed resistance.

The consequences of the possible conflict would be beyond
estimation and would rewrite the history through toppling the
despotic regime. The supporters of the regime in Manama should
accept responsibility for legitimizing the brazen rulers of
Bahrain for any bloody confrontation."<END QUOTE>[/indent]

The last sentence can and will be interpreted as encouraging a coup
in Bahrain, and suggests that Iran would support a coup.

Iran's puppet terror organization, Lebanon-based Hezbollah, issued its
own threatening statement, criticizing Bahrain's action, and
"[calling] on the Bahrainis to decisively express their rage and
discontent in face of the regime's action against Sheikh Qasim."
Bahrain News Agency
and BBC and Mehr News (Tehran) and Al Manar (Beirut-Hezbollah)

****
**** Iran reacts to a series of repeated anti-Shia moves by Bahrain and Saudi Arabia
****

Normally, Iran is publicly silent about Bahrain's regime, lest it be
accused of meddling in Bahrain's affairs, and thereby inviting
outsiders to meddle in its own affairs. Furthermore, Bahrain's Shia
leaders prefer that Iran stay out, because they like to maintain the
public pretense that Iran is not supporting Bahrain's Shia
anti-government clerics.

However, the action of revoking the citizenship of Sheikh Isa Ahmed
Qasim appears to have been a kind of "last straw" for Iran, after a
series of actions by Saudi and Bahrain officials targeting Shia
leaders in their respective countries.

The most explosive action occurred in January, when Saudi Arabia
executed 47 alleged terrorists -- 46 Sunnis and one Shia, Mohammad
Baqir Nimr al-Nimr, Iran and Shias were infuriated because the
execution implied that Shia terrorism is equivalent to Sunni
terrorism. Iranian mobs firebombed the Saudi embassy in Tehran, and
attacked the consulate in Meshaad. Saudi Arabia and Iran broke
diplomatic relations as a result. Other Saudi allies followed suit.
( "18-Jan-16 World View -- Pakistan tries to mediate between Saudi Arabia and Iran"
)

Last month, Bahrain's courts sentenced Shia opposition leader Sheikh
Ali Salman, after he had been found guilty of charges relating to
"publicly inciting hatred, an act which disturbed public peace,
inciting non-compliance with the law and insulting public
institutions." Salman's Al Wefaq National Islamic Society issued a
statement calling the decision "an alarming politically-motivated
verdict [that] only deepens the political and constitutional crisis in
Bahrain."

Early last week, Bahrain's government shut down the Al Wefaq National
Islamic Society.

Then on Thursday, a Bahrain court sentenced eight people to 15-year
jail terms for forming a "terror group." They also had their
citizenships revoked, after convicting them of "establishing and
raising donations to fund a terror organization named 'Bahraini
Hezbollah'." The implication is that "Bahraini Hezbollah" is a terror
group funded by Iran.

Then on Monday, Bahrain revoked the citizenship of Sheikh Isa Ahmed
Qasim, Bahrain's leading Shia cleric, and a leader of the opposition.

Perhaps, under "normal" circumstances, this court action would have
been ignored by Iran and everyone else. But after so many actions of
the same kind, Iran's leaders may have felt they had to do SOMETHING,
and they made their veiled threat of a coup, even though they know
that an actual coup could lead to full-scale war between Iran and
Saudi Arabia. BBC (30-May)
and Al Wefaq (30-May) and Al Arabiya (17-Jun) and Press Tv (Tehran, 17-Jun)


KEYS: Generational Dynamics, Bahrain, Sheikh Isa Ahmed Qasim,
Iran, Hezbollah, Saudi Arabia, Mohammad Baqir Nimr al-Nimr,
Sheikh Ali Salman, Al Wefaq National Islamic Society,
Bahraini Hezbollah

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

[John J. Xenakis]

*** 22-Jun-16 World View -- China's 'ironclad proof' of South China Sea claims revealed as hoax

This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com

• China's 'ironclad proof' of South China Sea claims revealed as hoax
  
• The craziness of China's claims in South China Sea
  
• France calls for European navies to patrol the South China Sea
  
• A request to readers: Protect the Generational Dynamics legacy
  

****
**** China's 'ironclad proof' of South China Sea claims revealed as hoax
****


Supposedly, this is a picture of Su Chengfen's 600 year old book (China Daily)

An investigation by the BBC reveals that a Chinese claim of "ironclad
proof" of China's South China Sea claims is apparently a hoax.

For several weeks, China's state media has been making a big deal
about an "ancient book," 600 years old, that proves that Chinese
fishermen were fishing in the Paracel Islands and beyond. From there,
according to a leap of logic that isn't clear to me, China says that
this is "ironclad proof" that the Paracel Islands belong to China.

Here's the description from Chinese media:

[indent]<QUOTE>"Su Chengfen has spent all his life fishing in the
reef-filled South China Sea, guided by a handwritten book more
than 600 years old that depicts routes to various remote islands
from Hainan province.

The former fishing vessel captain, who lives in the town of
Tanmen, cherishes the book, wrapping it in layers of paper even
though at 81 it is impossible for him to return to the sea.

He has always known it is precious, as it contains detailed
information handed down over the generations, but at first he had
not realized its true significance.

Specialists say the information the book contains is undeniable
proof of China's sovereignty over Huangyan Island.

"Unlike other versions, it depicts the exact route to Huangyan
Island. It clearly proves that generations of Chinese fishermen
have worked on the island," said Zhou Weimin, a retired professor
at Hainan University."<END QUOTE>[/indent]

Another Chinese official says, "It is ironclad proof. ... We can
deduce China's historic fishing and sailing rights in the South China
Sea, as well as ownership."

Huangyan Island is China's name for Scarborough Shoal, a reef that is
a little less than 200 kilometers from Subic Bay, well within the
Philippines’ exclusive economic zone or EEZ. So there's absolutely no
way that that this book provides "ironclad proof" of anything. Even
if the book is as described, it only proves that Chinese fishermen
were fishing in Philippine waters centuries ago. It wouldn't be
surprising if someone discovered that Philippines fishermen fished in
Chinese waters centuries ago, but that doesn't mean that China is
Philippines' sovereign territory.

In the sixth decade BC, Julius Caesar's army conquered France, as he
described in his Gallic Wars. But that doesn't mean that France
is the sovereign territory of Italy. So Su Chengfen's book, even if
it existed, would have no value whatsoever that I can see.

However, the BBC sent its China correspondent, John Sudworth, to visit
81 year old Su Chengfen in the town of Tanmen on Hainan island. He
wanted to speak to Su, and see this wonderful book for himself.
According to Su:

[indent]<QUOTE>"It was passed down from generation to generation.
From my grandfather's generation, to my father's generation, then
to me.

It mainly taught us how to go somewhere and come back, how to go
to the Paracels and the Spratlys, and how to come back to Hainan
Island."<END QUOTE>[/indent]

OK. So Sudworth asked to see the book, but Su tells him the book
doesn't exist.

[indent]<QUOTE>"Although the book was important, I threw it away
because it was broken.

It was flipped through too many times. The salty seawater on the
hands had corroded it... In the end it was no longer readable so I
threw it away."<END QUOTE>[/indent]

According to Su, the book was thrown away in the late 1980s.

So apparently the whole thing is a hoax. The picture from Chinese
media, shown at the top of this article, is some other book. The
layers of paper, in which the "cherished book" was wrapped, don't
exist either. The "cherished book" was simply thrown out, according
to Su.

In particular, all the stuff depicting the "exact route" to the
Scarborough Shoal is a 30 year old memory in the head of the 81 year
old Su.

Some Chinese media reports claim that there are other books, but look
again at the paragraph quoted above:

[indent]<QUOTE>"Unlike other versions, it depicts the exact route to
Huangyan Island. It clearly proves that generations of Chinese
fishermen have worked on the island," said Zhou Weimin, a retired
professor at Hainan University."<END QUOTE>[/indent]

So the other books do not depict the route to Scarborough Shoal.

So China's "ironclad proof" consists of a book that doesn't exist,
that may or may not have ever existed, and whose contents if it
existed can only be guessed at. And even if it did exist, it only
proves that Chinese fishermen were fishing in waters belonging to the
Philippines, much as they're doing today. BBC and China Daily (24-May) and Julius Caesar - Gallic Wars - 58-51 BC

****
**** The craziness of China's claims in South China Sea
****

The above story is so crazy and farcical that I would barely believe
it happened if I hadn't verified that the claims were made on several
Chinese media sites and were refuted on the BBC site, as well as on
the televised BBC World News, which showed Sudworth's actual interview
with Su. And yet it did happen.

From the point of view of Generational Dynamics, a generational Crisis
era is in many ways similar to a human being's midlife crisis. A man
may have a happy home with a wife and kids, but suddenly he becomes
obsessed with a woman at work and has to have an affair with her, and
does, using any ridiculous or bizarre reason to justify it, and ends
up wrecking the lives of everyone around him. China is displaying the
same kind of destructive and self-destructive behavior as a nation.

A 2014 book called The South China Sea: The Struggle for Power in
Asia by Bill Hayton is a detailed analysis of all of China's
claims to the South China Sea and finds them, to no one's surprise,
invalid. If they had any validity, then China would not hesitate to
ask the relevant United Nations court to rule on them. Instead, China
has angrily refused to let any court tell them what to do, and instead
is spending billions of dollars in a vast military buildup that can
only lead to war.

Presumably, China is doing this for economic reasons, but Hayton
quotes oil industry experts who say that they're skeptical that the
South China Sea contains immense reserves of oil and gas, and that the
fish stocks are becoming depleted.

Instead, the South China Sea has become a highly nationalistic symbol,
backed up by highly irrational, farcical and bizarre justifications,
like the alleged 600 year old book described above, and by the
widespread belief that the United States is too weak or too tired of
war to fight, or that China will win such a war within a few days.
This is the same kind of irrational belief that caused America's South
to attack Fort Sumter, even though the North was three times as big,
or that caused Japan to bomb Pearl Harbor, even though the US was five
times as big. In all cases, including China today, these beliefs have
been totally delusional and disastrous for everyone.

China always says that its claims "are indisputable," and this much at
least is a total lie since the claims are very much in dispute, and
are currently being adjudicated by the Permanent Court of Arbitration,
a United Nations international court in the Hague, which is expected
to rule on counterclaims by the Philippines in the near future. China
has huffed and puffed and blustered on this issue, saying that the
court has no right to adjudicate or that any ruling would be ignored,
sounding like nothing so much as that middle-aged man caught having an
affair.

Irrational beliefs that lead to world wars are typical of generational
Crisis eras. The 600 year old book won't be the last one and the
Chinese themselves, the ones who survive, will regret it most of all.
Asia Sentinel and Economist (13-Sep-2014) and South China Morning Post (Hong Kong)

****
**** France calls for European navies to patrol the South China Sea
****

The military buildup in the South China Sea is not exclusively on
China's side. The US Navy has been conducting Freedom of Navigation
patrols in the South China Sea, and Japan has sailed warships into Vietnam's Cam Ranh Bay seaport,
for
the first time since Japan was forced to withdraw from Vietnam at the
end of World War II.

France's defense minister Jean-Yves Le Drian is calling for the
European Union to get involved in the South China Sea dispute.
According to Le Drian:

[indent]<QUOTE>"If we want to contain the risk of conflict, we must
defend this right, and defend it ourselves.

If the law of the sea is not respected today in the China seas, it
will be threatened tomorrow in the Arctic, in the Mediterranean,
or elsewhere. ...

This is a message that France will continue to be present at
international forums. It’s also a message that France will
continue to act upon, by sailing its ships and flying its planes
wherever international law will allow, and wherever operational
needs request that we do so."<END QUOTE>[/indent]

France's navy is already involved, as it has already been deployed
three times in the South China Sea so far this year. France has also
signed a $40 billion deal in April to sell advanced submarines to
Australia. Le Drian would like European navies to have a "regular and
visible" presence in the region, to uphold the law of the sea and
freedom of navigation.

China's aggressive and virtually unsupported claims to the South China
Sea are not the local or regional issue that one might expect, but are
quickly expanding to become worldwide international issues. Foreign Policy and Bloomberg and Straits Times (Singapore)

****
**** A request to readers: Protect the Generational Dynamics legacy
****

The text and images for all the 4000 articles that have appeared on
the Generational Dynamics web site since 2003 -- over six million
words and 4,000 images -- are now available to be downloaded. This
includes PDF files for the three books that I've written. They're now
available on the download site http://www.generationaldynamics.com/dl/.

With the worsening situation in the South China Sea, with several wars
going on in the Mideast, with more displaced refugees in the world
today than in decades, just one miscalculation by one person could
result in a war that spirals into something really major. The entire
internet, including my web site, could instantly become unavailable.

Add to that the fact that I, like anyone else, could be hit by a bus
tomorrow. Any one of these events could mean the immediate
disappearance of my web site and almost 15 years of work that I put
into developing Generational Dynamics would be gone.

So I've posted a download page providing downloads of all the major
documents and files, over six million words of text. I would like to
ask as many people as possible to download these files and save them
somewhere, so that if ten years from now someone is looking for the
information about Generational Dynamics, then somebody somewhere will
still have a copy, and the work will survive.

The purpose is to protect the Generational Dynamics legacy, and to
make sure that this work is preserved, and available to researchers
who write books, professors who teach courses, and governments that
make policy. Please download these files now. Generational Dynamics download page


KEYS: Generational Dynamics, China, South China Sea, Paracel Islands,
Su Chengfen, Zhou Weimin, Huangyan Island, Scarborough Shoal,
Philippines, Julius Caesar, France, Gallic Wars, Italy,
John Sudworth, Tanmen, Hainan island, Bill Hayton,
Fort Sumter, Japan, Pearl Harbor, Permanent Court of Arbitration,
France, Jean-Yves Le Drian, Australia

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

[Ragnarök_62]

,<snip>
****
**** A request to readers: Protect the Generational Dynamics legacy
****


So I've posted a download page providing downloads of all the major
documents and files, over six million words of text.  I would like to
ask as many people as possible to download these files and save them
somewhere, so that if ten years from now someone is looking for the
information about Generational Dynamics, then somebody somewhere will
still have a copy, and the work will survive.

The purpose is to protect the Generational Dynamics legacy, and to
make sure that this work is preserved, and available to researchers
who write books, professors who teach courses, and governments that
make policy.  Please download these files now.  Generational Dynamics download page
<snip>

OK, FWIW,  I saved the stuff, made a tarball , encrypted it, and sent a copy over to my backup drive as per my policy for non operating system data on my Linux box.  The only fly in the ointment is that it's copyrighted. That means I can't send the stuff to a 3rd party and of course you can always enforce a "take down" and I'd have to remove the stuff I saved. I would of course comply with any take down notice as required by law.

[John J. Xenakis]

(06-21-2016, 10:03 PM)Ragnarök_62 Wrote: > OK, FWIW, I saved the stuff, made a tarball , encrypted it, and
> sent a copy over to my backup drive as per my policy for non
> operating system data on my Linux box. The only fly in the
> ointment is that it's copyrighted. That means I can't send the
> stuff to a 3rd party and of course you can always enforce a "take
> down" and I'd have to remove the stuff I saved. I would of course
> comply with any take down notice as required by law.

Thanks.

Also, I'm not sure what a "take down" is exactly, but I think the
ointment is permanently out of the tube.