Generational Dynamics World View

[Ragnarök_62]

(01-01-2020, 10:44 AM)John J. Xenakis Wrote: ** 01-Jan-2020 World View: America's Manifest Destiny

(12-31-2019, 03:03 PM)Ragnarök_62 Wrote: >   From the post above this one...

>   ** 31-Dec-19 World View -- American airstrikes on Iraq's Kataib
>   Hezbollah provoke international fury

>   Uh, sounds like some sort of Shiite payback to me. Btw, I think
>   the 1979 hostage situation was due to the US./UK coup in 1953.
>   The US should just fucking leave the Mideast. We've trashed the
>   place enough already and I'd reckon lots of folks there just
>   totally hate us.  

As I described in my book on Iran, Iran's 1979 civil war was triggered
generationally by the 1890 Tobacco Revolt, the 1905-09 Constitutional
Revolution, and the 1963 White Revolution in which Ayatollah Ruhollah
Khomeini was exiled.  During all this time, the UK, Russia and later
America were bogeymen that various Iranian politicians blamed for
their own failures.  If the 1953 CIA coup played any part in that, it
was a small part of a large tableau.

It's laughable that you blame the US for trashing the Mideast.  As I
showed in my book on Iran, the Mideast has been trashing itself, over
and over and over, for millennia.

One thing I've discovered in 15+ years of developing Generational
Dynamics is that there are very few people in the world who hate us --
maybe some Palestinian groups, maybe some African black liberation
groups, maybe some anti-American hate politicians within the
Democratic party, maybe a couple of other groups -- despite the "ugly
American" stuff you read in American media.  Most people in the world
admire America and Americans, and many would love to come to America
and become Americans themselves.  Most of the vitriolic criticism of
America, and lately of Trump, is from politicians who are using it for
their own domestic political goals.  It's always easy to blame America
for any problem in the world, when a politician doesn't want to admit
his own stupidity.

As for withdrawing from the Mideast, or from the world, I do get
asked this question reasonably frequently, and in fact was just
asked a similar question in the Generational Dynamics forum.

There are practical reasons why this is impossible.  One is that
Israel is an important ally.  So is Egypt.  And we're committed to
providing security to Saudi Arabia so that the Saudis can provide the
world with oil.  Those commitments cannot simply be abandoned.

And the news today is that Trump is sending 700 more troops into Iraq
to protect the American embassy.  So withdrawing from the Mideast is
little more than a fantasy.

But it's more than that.  As I've written in the past, there are a lot
of people, in America and in the world, who believe in American
Exceptionalism, and who truly believe that America has a moral
obligation, or even a Christian obligation, or even an obligation
dictated by God, to fulfill American's Manifest Destiny, and to do the
right thing, and they would not consider withdrawing from the Mideast
or the world as the way to do the right thing.

In fact, you can see this dynamic in the Mideast today.  Trump said he
wants to withdraw troops from the Mideast and he's gotten howls of
outrage and criticism from pretty much everyone -- Democrats,
Republicans, liberals, conservatives.  He's still being criticized
constantly for reducing the number of troops in Syria after ISIS was
defeated.  There are many people, like yourself, who would like to see
America withdraw from the Mideast and just let them "trash" each other
without American involvement, but withdrawing from the Mideast is just
impossible, as it would be inconsistent with America's Manifest Destiny.

American Exceptionalism.  Yup, that is the meme for Empire and of course all empires have this stuff. However,
this sucker is going down.  Problem is, the US no longer has an industrial base nor 50% pf the world GDP.
That is one institutional framework that's gonna die in this 4T.  It's dying now and I'll dance on its grave.

1.  Rotten infrastructure.  After all bloated pentagram budgets leave little for anything else.
2. Americans are stupid. http://4brevard.com/choice/international...scores.htm





Americans:  Overshopped and under educated.    

Mideast again. Do our clusterfucks in Iraq, Syria, Libya, Afghanistan, and now Iran?   Where are the successes?  We leveled those places and trashed their infrastructure to look a little worse than ours. Hell, I'd be enraged if some country trashed everything and killed fellow citizens.  I see no reasons why the Mideast folks wouldn't feel different.  Hell, they should pop any American they see. Oh and Iran has a red button.  They can blow up the derivatives if they are attacked.

[John J. Xenakis]

*** 11-Jan-20 World View -- Taiwan's pro-independence party expected to win Saturday presidential elections

This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com

• Taiwan's pro-independence party expected to win Saturday presidential elections
  
• Hong Kong chaos boosts Tsai Ing-wen and DPP in Taiwan
  

****
**** Taiwan's pro-independence party expected to win Saturday presidential elections
****


The Lennon Ship on the campus of Taipei National University of the Arts, built by Hong Kong students in support of Tsai Ing-wen (SCMP)

Taiwan's presidential election occurs on Saturday. The voting has
already begun at the time I'm writing this article (Friday evening
ET), and the voting may be over by the time you read this.

The election results are almost certain to be very bad news for the
leaders of Chinese Communist Party (CCP). It is almost certain that
the current president Tsai Ing-wen will be reelected. Tsai is leader
of the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), which favors independence
of Taiwan from China.

China has repeatedly threatened military action to invade Taiwan and
annex it to China. Indeed, my book "War Between China and Japan - why
the US must be prepared" contains a detailed historical analysis of
China's current plans to invade Japan to get vengeance for World War
II, and to invade Taiwan to annex it.

In 2005, China passed an "Anti-Secession Law" that stated that China
will take military action in response to anything that even hints at
independence:

<QUOTE>"Article 8: In the event that the "Taiwan
independence" secessionist forces should act under any name or by
any means to cause the fact of Taiwan's secession from China, or
that major incidents entailing Taiwan's secession from China
should occur, or that possibilities for a peaceful re-unification
should be completely exhausted, the state shall employ
non-peaceful means and other necessary measures to protect China's
sovereignty and territorial integrity."<END QUOTE>

Passage of this law in China in 2005 provoked massive riots and
anti-China demonstrations in Taiwan.

Tsai's chief opponent is Han Kuo-yu of the opposition Kuomintang
Party, which is the modern day descendant of the Nationalist Party
formed by Chiang Kai-shek in the 1920s. Mao Zedong's Communist
Revolution civil war (1934-49), split northern China from Southern
China. Chiang lost militarily to Mao, and many people in southern
China fled to Hong Kong, which was then a British colony, and from
there to Formosa and Taiwan. Chiang's Kuomintang party maintained
iron rule in Taiwan until the 1990s, when the Taiwan independence
movement led by the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) began to rise,
especially after the Taiwanese people watched the 1989 Tiananmen
Square massacre in horror. Tsai has one more opponent, James Soong
Chu-yu, chairman of the smaller People First Party.

****
**** Hong Kong chaos boosts Tsai Ing-wen and DPP in Taiwan
****

The victory by Tsai Ing-wen and the DPP in January 2016 was considered
historic because it was a large, decisive victory, and so was a major
setback for the CCP.

However, the DPP lost badly in local elections in 2018, and might well
be on her way to losing the current presidential election, if it were
not for the chaos in Hong Kong from pro-democracy protests that began
in June of last year.

Hong Kong was a British colony prior to 1977, and Taiwan was a
Japanese colony prior to the end of World War II, but Hong Kong and
Taiwan see themselves as very close. They both favor the Cantonese
dialect of the Chinese language over the Mandarin dialect favored by
the CCP. And they both favor freedom and democracy, which the CCP
considers to be a Western plot to overthrow the CCP. They're still in
shock from 1991 when a pro-democracy movement in the Soviet Union
caused the Russian Communist Party to collapse.

The CCP has been trying to convince the people of Taiwan to adopt the
supposedly wonderful "one country, two systems" formula used in Hong
Kong. The argument appeared to be winning until last year, when it
became clear that the CCP was violating the agreement in Hong Kong,
with acts that led to the massive street protests. It became clear to
the Taiwan people that "one country, two systems" would just lead to
putting the island in control of the brutal, violent CCP dictatorship.

A number of analysts have been suggesting that things have calmed down
in Hong Kong because of the approaching Taiwan election, since the
pro-democracy students in Hong Kong are supporting the re-election of
Tsai Ing-wen. This follows a historic victory by pro-democracy
activists in Hong Kong in November. ( "25-Nov-19 World View -- Historic Hong Kong elections throw relations with China mainland into disarray"
)

If this is true, then it means that Saturday's election in Taiwan, if
the DPP wins as expected, has the potential to be extremely
significant. Two major pro-democracy elections at nearly the same
time in Hong Kong and Taiwan may throw the CCP thugs into a panic.
This could be even worse if, once the Taiwan election is over, Hong
Kong returns to extreme chaos again in the weeks to come.

The CCP leaders in Beijing are hoping that if they remain calm, then
the pro-democracy protests in Hong Kong will fizzle, and the
pro-independence movement in Taiwan will die. As I've said many
times, the pro-democracy protests in Hong Kong cannot end, because all
young people in Hong Kong know that if they marry and bring children
into the world, then the children will be under the control of the
brutal, violent CCP dictatorship in 1947. The same would happen in
Taiwan.

If the Taiwan election goes as expected, then the CCP leaders in
Beijing are going to be looking ahead to a long 12 months in 2020
where the pro-democracy movement in Hong Kong and the
pro-indenpendence movement in Taiwan will grow. This isn't going to
change, no matter how much the CCP thugs pretend to be "nice."

John Xenakis is author of: "World View: War Between China and Japan:
Why America Must Be Prepared" (Generational Theory Book Series, Book
2), June 2019, Paperback: 331 pages, with over 200 source references,
$13.99 https://www.amazon.com/World-View-Betwee...732738637/

Sources:

• Taiwan election: How Tsai stayed one step ahead (BBC, 10-Jan-2020)
  
• 'We need more dreams': Taiwan's 'Squad' rallies youth ahead of election (Guardian, London, 10-Jan-2020)
  
• West studies Beijing’s disinformation campaign in Taiwan looking for clues into its cyber playbook (South China Morning Post, Hong Kong, 11-Jan-2020)
  
• Hong Kong / Taiwan / Students from the city take their message to campus on the self-governing island (South China Morning Post, Hong Kong, 10-Jan-2020)
  
• Chinese university deletes study forecasting win for Tsai Ing-wen in Taiwan election (South China Morning Post, Hong Kong, 10-Jan-2020)
  
• China threat looms over presidential election in Taiwan (AP, 10-Jan-2020)
  
• Taiwan’s Presidential Election: What to Know (Council on Foreign Relations, 19-Dec-2019)
  
• How China Is Interfering in Taiwan’s Election (Council on Foreign Relations, 7-Nov-2019)

Related Articles:

• Hong Kong protests show historic split between northern and southern China (22-Jun-2019)
  
  
• Historic Hong Kong elections throw relations with China mainland into disarray (25-Nov-2019)
  
  
• Taiwan's pro-independence party wins historic presidential election (17-Jan-2016)
  
  
• Taiwan's presidential elections crucial to relationship with China (14-Jan-2012)
  
  
• Taiwan / China relations thaw in wake of election and earthquake (28-May-2008)
  

KEYS: Generational Dynamics, Taiwan, Hong Kong, China,
Tsai Ing-wen, Democratic Progressive Party, DPP,
Chinese Communist Party, CCP, Anti-Secession Law

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John J. Xenakis
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E-mail: john@GenerationalDynamics.com
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[Warren Dew]

(01-10-2020, 11:40 PM)John J. Xenakis Wrote: Hong Kong was a British colony prior to 1977, and Taiwan was a
Japanese colony prior to the end of World War II, but Hong Kong and
Taiwan see themselves as very close.  They both favor the Cantonese
dialect of the Chinese language over the Mandarin dialect favored by
the CCP.  And they both favor freedom and democracy, which the CCP
considers to be a Western plot to overthrow the CCP.

This is not correct.  Almost everyone in Taiwan speaks Mandarin, not Cantonese; the few that don't speak Mandarin speak Taiwanese, which is farther from either Mandarin or Cantonese than they are from each other.  To the extent that they see each other as close, it's only because they are both small democratic Han entities that live in the shadow of Mainland China, and thus have some common interests.

[John J. Xenakis]

** 11-Jan-2020 World View: Corrections to Taiwan article

Guest Wrote:> A few typos, John. But I can only assume these were do to a lack
> of sleep. Hong Kong was British until 1997, not 1977. Hong Kong's
> two systems, one country status ends in 2047, not 1947. Otherwise
> excellent analysis of the situation as usual. Thank you. I bought
> and like both of your GD books.

You're right about the lack of sleep. Thanks for the corrections.
Also, thanks for buying the books. I hope you enjoy them.

Quote:> Cantonese, is very different from Taiwanese
> (Fukienese, Southern Min). When I first studied Taiwanese for 1.5
> years in Taiwan in 1986, Taiwanese was the primary home language
> for about 70% of the people. Mandarin, while the national
> language or the ROC, was spoken natively in the home for only
> about 15% of the people, the Mainlanders. Another 7-8% was Hakka
> Chinese and the remaining 7-8% were from of the 6-7 indigenous
> tribes in the mountain regions. Taiwanese, Mandarin, and Hakka are
> all considered as ethnic Han Chinese.

> Cantonese, Taiwanese, and Mandarin, as well as four other
> "dialects" like the one of Shanghai, are completely different
> languages, all with similar grammars, all united by using the same
> Chinese character system. However, Ethnologue and most
> non-Chinese linguists (or those not pressured by China), will say
> those are all completely different languages. Ethnologue also
> stated, at least as of the last time I looked, that China has
> about 299 different languages.

> Cantonese and Taiwanese are about as mutually intelligible as
> English is to German. Mandarin may rank as French. Cultural
> background have tons of similarities, but the phonic systems,
> particularly the tonal and phonemic aspects, are 100% different. I
> gave up the study of Taiwanese for a number of reasons, then
> became fluent in Mandarin.

(01-10-2020, 11:57 PM)Warren Dew Wrote: > This is not correct. Almost everyone in Taiwan speaks Mandarin,
> not Cantonese; the few that don't speak Mandarin speak Taiwanese,
> which is farther from either Mandarin or Cantonese than they are
> from each other. To the extent that they see each other as close,
> it's only because they are both small democratic Han entities that
> live in the shadow of Mainland China, and thus have some common
> interests.

I thank both readers for their comments, and for the wealth of
information provided. I've corrected the article online to be
more ambiguous.

I note that both of these comments agree that most Taiwanese do NOT
speak Cantonese, which I had assumed would follow from Taiwan's
heritage in people fleeing the communists through Hong Kong in 1949.

However, I also take note of the fact that these two comments appear
to disagree on whether the most commonly spoken language is Mandarin
or Taiwanese.

Here's a comment from a reader in Taiwan:

Quote:> FROM THE ARTICLE: "It is almost certain that the
> current president Tsai Ing-wen will be reelected. Tsai is leader
> of the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP)"

> I think this is an overstatement at best. Han Guo Yu has bigger
> turn outs at his ralley and way more energy in his base. It
> splits along age lines with young voters opting for Cai and older
> voters opting for Han. In Taiwan there are more old voters than
> young voters and historically the older voters voter turnout has
> been on the order of 80% and young voter turnout has been on the
> order of 60%.

> Consequently I think it is more likely than the media would have
> you believe that Han Gu Yu will win. The weather is good and the
> turnout is going to be huge. It will in any case be very close.
> We are having and election watching party tonight.

I would wonder whether younger voters would have a low turnout in
this election, in view of the effect of the massive pro-democracy
protests by young people in Hong Kong. I would assume that the
events in Hong Kong have energized the young people in Taiwan.

At any rate, events have caught up to the situation:

Quote:> "Taiwan election: Tsai Ing-wen wins second
> presidential term

> 11 January 2020

> Taiwan's President Tsai Ing-wen has secured a second term after
> sweeping to victory in an election dominated by the island's
> relationship with China.

> With almost all votes counted, Ms Tsai had just over 57% of the
> vote, well ahead of her rival Han Kuo-yu."
> https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-51077553

I hope you're enjoying your election watching party. The night
(there) is still young.

Related Article:

** 11-Jan-20 World View -- Taiwan's pro-independence party expected to win Saturday presidential elections
** http://www.generationaldynamics.com/pg/x...tm#e200111

[John J. Xenakis]

** 11-Jan-2020 World View: Anti-regime protests grow as Iran admits shooting down passenger plane

• This image from Wednesday shows the crash site with a
  bulldozer burying the evidence so that Iran can deny
  culpability. (AP)

Iran is looking more and more like America during the height of the
antiwar protests during the late 1960s.

Today's admission by the Iranian regime is the equivalent of any of
the major admissions made by presidents Johnson and Nixon, triggering
new rounds of anti-American protests.

Protesters are furious not only that the plane was shot down, but also
that every agency in Iran's government lied about it for many days.
They're chanting "death to the liars" and they're calling for the
resignations of supreme leader Khamenei and president Rouhani.

President Nixon was, of course, forced to resign, but that was after
years of hearings and pressure that were necessary because the
US constitution is full of checks and balances.

In my book on Iran, I did a detailed analysis of Iran's constitution.
The remarkable thing about it is that it contains no checks and
balances whatsoever. Khomeini set it up that way so that he could
become a dictator with no checks and balances. That's why Iran
is a kleptocracy today, with no way for the government to do any
business at all except through bribery and extortion.

So now there's an ironic twist. The checks and balances that protected
Nixon for long time do not exist for Khamenei, and so if the protests
become too large and there's a loss of confidence in Khamenei, that's
all it would take for the "velvet coup" or "bloodless coup" or
"regime change" that I've been talking about. The result
could be a return of the Shah.

By the way, Russians shot down Malaysian Airlines MH17 passenger plane
in July 2014 and despite massive investigations providing in
controvertible proof of Russia's culpability, they still make
ridiculous statement blaming others. Iran's admission will put
pressure on Russia to make a similar admission.

John Xenakis is author of: "World View: Iran's Struggle for Supremacy
-- Tehran's Obsession to Redraw the Map of the Middle East"
(Generational Theory Book Series, Book 1) Paperback: 153 pages, over
100 source references, $7.00
https://www.amazon.com/World-View-Suprem...732738610/


---- Sources:

-- Iran says it shot down Ukrainian plane in 'disastrous mistake'
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-iran-...SKCN1ZA04Y
(Reuters, 11-Jan-2020)

-- Iran plane crash: Ukrainian jet was 'unintentionally' shot down
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-51073621
(BBC, 11-Jan-2020)

-- Hundreds protest against regime in Tehran after Iran admits it shot
down plane
https://www.timesofisrael.com/hundreds-p...own-plane/
(Times Of Israel, 11-Jan-2020)

[John J. Xenakis]

** 11-Jan-2020 World View: Chinese Creole

FishbellykanakaDude Wrote:> I'm pushing for an Austronesian-Speaker's revolt and takeover of
> Taiwan, and eventually all of "coastal" China, with Taiwan as the
> new "homeland", and having the VSO sub-languages be the TRUE
> "national languages" of the territory,.. namely: the Amis, Atayal,
> Bunun, and Paiwan "languages/dialects".

> A "synthetic" creole composed of the "popular" parts of each of
> the aforementioned "languages" should be created to be used as a
> lingua franca.

> ..I'm also a big supporter of the "Popular Front for the
> Restoration of Celtic Europe" (catchphrase: "Germans go [the f__k]
> HOME...!!").

When you take on this project, maybe you can use Esperanto as a model.

[Warren Dew]

(01-11-2020, 10:44 AM)John J. Xenakis Wrote: I note that both of these comments agree that most Taiwanese do NOT
speak Cantonese, which I had assumed would follow from Taiwan's
heritage in people fleeing the communists through Hong Kong in 1949.

However, I also take note of the fact that these two comments appear
to disagree on whether the most commonly spoken language is Mandarin
or Taiwanese.

The Chiang Kai Shek's nationalists were from primarily from "southern" China - that is, from the Yangtze River basin rather than from the Yellow River basin - but not so far south as to be Cantonese, which is perhaps best associated with the Pearl River basin.  The Yangtze River basin area is still Mandarin speaking, as opposed to the Pearl River basin.  When the Nationalists were driven out by the Communists, they did retreat south, but took their Mandarin speaking nationalist government with them to Taiwan.

Plenty of Cantonese fled the Communists, too - my mother was one of them - but they mostly either stayed in Hong Kong or emigrated to the US rather than going to Taiwan.

I think Taiwanese was the most commonly spoken dialect of Chinese in Taiwan in 1986.  However, Mandarin was becoming more common as a result of all official schooling being done in Mandarin from 1945-1990 or so.  Wikipedia says Mandarin is now the most commonly used language at home in Taiwan at 83.5%, but bilingualism is much more common than I realized, with Taiwanese at 81.9% using it at home.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Languages_of_Taiwan

[Warren Dew]

(01-11-2020, 02:02 PM)John J. Xenakis Wrote: Iran is looking more and more like America during the height of the
antiwar protests during the late 1960s.

That's what I've been thinking, too, though I guess I didn't post it here yet.  The difference is that Iran is sending money instead of troops to support their proxy wars, so people are protesting the lack of money at home, instead of protesting the draft.

I doubt they'll bring back the Shah, though that would be a nice touch; usually awakenings don't result in formal changes of government, right?  They could, however, instate a Supreme Leader who would restrict the IRGC to being a domestic secret police rather than an external provocateur, which would permit them to agree to a deal that included everything President Trump wanted.  I guess he would be a Reagan equivalent since he would usher in an economic rebirth, thanks to being able to export oil again.

[Classic-Xer]

(01-11-2020, 08:57 PM)Warren Dew Wrote:

(01-11-2020, 02:02 PM)John J. Xenakis Wrote: Iran is looking more and more like America during the height of the
antiwar protests during the late 1960s.

That's what I've been thinking, too, though I guess I didn't post it here yet.  The difference is that Iran is sending money instead of troops to support their proxy wars, so people are protesting the lack of money at home, instead of protesting the draft.

I doubt they'll bring back the Shah, though that would be a nice touch; usually awakenings don't result in formal changes of government, right?  They could, however, instate a Supreme Leader who would restrict the IRGC to being a domestic secret police rather than an external provocateur, which would permit them to agree to a deal that included everything President Trump wanted.  I guess he would be a Reagan equivalent since he would usher in an economic rebirth, thanks to being able to export oil again.

A Shah who is willing to share power and protect and oversee the formation of a democratic government/society would be ideal.

[John J. Xenakis]

** 11-Jan-2020 World View: The Shah

(01-11-2020, 09:37 PM)Classic-Xer Wrote: > A Shah who is willing to share power and protect and oversee the
> formation of a democratic government/society would be
> ideal.

That WOULD be ideal. But if the ideal can't be met, then at least let
him be an ally of the United States, like the last Shah.

[Warren Dew]

I agree that would be ideal. Reality is rarely ideal, though.

John, wouldn't a change of form of government be inconsistent with an awakening era? If you think it's consistent, can you outline how you think it could happen?

[John J. Xenakis]

*** 13-Jan-20 World View -- In historic reversal, Iran admits shooting down passenger plane

This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com

• In historic reversal, Iran admits shooting down passenger plane
  
• Why did Iran's government finally admit to shooting down the passenger plane?
  
• Iran's 'Vietcong Tet Offensive'
  
• Generational analysis of situation in Iran
  

****
**** In historic reversal, Iran admits shooting down passenger plane
****


This image from Wednesday shows the crash site with a bulldozer burying the evidence so that Iran can deny culpability. (AP)

Three days ago, overjoyed Iranian officials were watching as millions
of Iranians were in the streets for the funeral of Iran's Gen. Qassim
Soleimani, who had been killed by an American airstrike. Iranian
officials had thought that, finally!, the Iranian people were
returning to their support the government. As I pointed out in
my daily commentary in the Generational Dynamics forum, this was
mostly a show put on by Iran, and it wouldn't last.

Now the situation has flipped back again. Iranians, who had believed
the government's story that they were winning the war in Iraq against
the Americans, now learn that everything that government has told them
was a lie and cover-up, and that the only result of Iran's missile
attack on Americans was not dead Americans, as the government had
claimed, but hundreds of dead Iranians. There are growing
anti-government demonstrations. The new demonstrations are relatively
small, but they're expected to grow.

For any number of reasons, the decision on Saturday by the government
of Iran to admit to shooting down a Ukrainian airlines PS752 passenger
plane with a missile, killing all 176 people aboard, could turn out to
be the most historically consequential decision of Iran's experiment
with a government of Islamic Shia terror and dictatorship that
was created by the Islamic Revolution in 1979.

For several days, the government made increasingly outlandish lies to
defer blame for shooting down the passenger plane. They bulldozed the
crash site to hide the evidence. They refused to allow international
experts to examine the planes "black boxes." They blamed the crash on
a mechanical error, and they said that the plane has suddenly changed
direction ominously -- both claims that Iranian video showed were
untrue. All this was a lie, and the government knew it was a lie from
the very beginning. Iranians listening to the BBC heard that the US,
Canada and Ukraine said they had evidence to prove that Iran had shot
it down with a missile, but the government of Iran said that the BBC
reports were "fake news," part of the usual anti-Iran plot by the and
Israel.

Finally, on Saturday, Iran admitted shooting it down, saying that
doing so was a "disastrous mistake." General Hossein Salami said, "I
swear to almighty god that I wished I were in that plane and had
crashed with them and had burned but had not witnessed this tragic
incident."

****
**** Why did Iran's government finally admit to shooting down the passenger plane?
****

So, why did Iran do a U-turn and admit to shooting it down?

The narrative in the media today is that Iran was forced to do so by
the conclusive evidence that had been collected and presented by the
United States, Canada, Ukraine, and other sources.

But if you believe that, then you also have to explain why the
Russians have never admitted shooting down the Malaysian Airlines MH17
passenger plane over Ukraine in July 2014, but instead have made one
ridiculous claim after another, for example saying that the US had
purposely shot it down to embarrass Russia. Since then, there have
been numerous deep investigations that prove conclusively that MH17
was shot down by the Russians in eastern Ukraine, using a Russian Buk
missile. But Russia continues to make ridiculous excuses.

So if Iran was forced to admit its "disastrous mistake" after only
five days, then how come Russia still makes one ridiculous claim after
another for five years, and still refuses to admit its own mistake?
What's the difference between Russia and Iran?

There could be several reasons, but from the point of view of
Generational Dynamics, the most obvious reason is that Iran is in a
generational Awakening era, and with large and growing younger
generations born since the Islamic Revolution, and these younger
generations are generally pro-Western and pro-American. These younger
generations are coming to power in the government, and they would have
pressured their bosses in the government to tell the truth. The
goverment was also pressured by the large anti-government student
protests, which make Iran look every day more and more like America in
the 1960s and 1970s.

The demostrators are protesting that the government was incompetent
because it kept Tehran airport open at the same time that the armed
forces were launching missiles at American targets in Iraq. In fact,
officials in many countries have been highly critical of Iran for
this. Many have expressed incredulity that Iran would keep Tehran's
airport open in what is essentially a war zone. The passenger plane
that was shot down had just taken off from the airport, and the
Revolutionary Guide forces mistook it for an American missile.

But the main criticisms of the government were, of course, that the
government lied for three days, not only denying that an Iranian
missile had shot down the plane, but also that accusing Western
governments and Western media of "fake news" in claiming that a
missile had shot down the plane.

Protesters point out that the government was claiming that the IRGC
missile attack on Americans in Iraq would achieve victory by driving
the Americans out, but all it accomplished was getting hundreds of
Iranians killed.

****
**** Iran's 'Vietcong Tet Offensive'
****

This has dealt a major blow to the government's credibility. Iran's
government has always blamed every problem on the United States and
Israel, even claiming that peaceful protesters were terrorists funded
by the US. The claims always lacked credibility, but now protesters
will claim that every such claim was a lie. One of the chants on
Sunday was, "They’re lying when they say it’s America. Our enemy is
right here."

I heard one Tehran apologist on the BBC claim that the loss of
credibility was only a small, temporary blip, but if Iranian officials
actually believe that, then they're sadly delusional.

The analogous event during America's last Awakening era, in the 1960s,
was the "Vietcong Tet Offensive." This was a massive military
counterattack by North Vietnam's army in cities and villages across
the entire country, beginning in January 1968. It took weeks for the
American and South Vietnam forces to recapture the cities. The Tet
Offensive was a military disaster for the Vietcong and the North
Vietnam forces.

But it was political victory that won the war by turning Americans
against the war. Americans had been told that the war was nearly
won, and that "we're seeing the light at the end of the tunnel,"
but the Tet Offensive caused Americans, especially students, to believe
those were all lies.

The American government never recovered. President Lyndon Johnson
announced that he would have to step down and not run for reelection.
Richard Nixon became president, but he was relentless accused of lying
about everything. The protests against Nixon became worse and worse,
and eventually Nixon was forced to resign, under threat of
impeachment.

So that's the kind of thing that Iran's government is going to be
facing from now on. Iran's anti-government protests will take on new
energy following the recent disaster.

Does this mean "regime change" in Iran? I've been writing for years
that there will be "regime change" in Iran as it's Awakening era
climax, but it's impossible to predict the timing or scenario.

Last week's events have been so politically disastrous for Iran, that
they may at least trigger some resignations and firings in the regime.
There's a major parliamentary election Iran next month, and that may
bring some changes. But as Supreme Leader Seyed Ali Hosseini Khamenei
becomes increasingly embattled, a more drastic change may occur, just
as happened with Johnson and Nixon in America.

****
**** Generational analysis of situation in Iran
****

The complexity of the current situation in Iran and Iraq provides
me with the opportunity to write a deeper generational analysis.

The last week has been fairly dramatic for me personally, because the
article that I posted on Friday evening stated unequivocally, based on
a generational analysis of Iran and Iraq, that there would be NO WAR
with Iran. (See "4-Jan-20 World View -- Iran faces tough choices after Soleimani assassination"
)

This was at a time when the media was filled with analysts almost
unanimously predicting World War III, and left-wing media and
politicians were saying things like, "I can't see how a war can be
avoided." These idiots have now all been proven wrong, and
Generational Dynamics has, as usual, been proven right.

I reached my conclusion based on Iran's history, dating back at least
to Iran's disastrous 1800s border wars. Whenever I make a prediction
like this, I always take a deep breath and wonder whether this will
finally be the time that I'm wrong, and I look like an idiot.
Fortunately for me and for Generational Dynamics, that didn't happen
this time, and in fact has never happened in hundreds of such
predictions over the years, although this was one of the most
dramatic. What did happen in Iran is completely in line with the
generational analysis I posted. So it's been a relief for the world,
and also for me personally.

One thing that I've learned repeatedly is that the experts in
Washington have no clue what's going on in the world. As I've
mentioned several times in my articles, I learned this in 2006 when
Congressional Quarterly and the London Times did a survey of Mideast
"experts," many with years of experience, and found out that they
didn't know the answers to the simplest questions. ( "Guess what? British politicians and journalists are just as ignorant as Americans"
)

One of things that the experts didn't know was whether al-Qaeda was a
Sunni or Shia organization. Think about that. We had people --
Republicans and Democrats -- making foreign policy who were so
ignorant and stupid that they couldn't answer the simplest questions
about the subject they were supposed to be experts on. (And recall
that Pelosi famously declared that al-Qaeda was not in Iraq. Lol.)

Today's politicians and media are obviously just as ignorant, which is
obvious every time they open their mouths. I've previously singled
out the Connecticut senator Chris Murphy for criticism because
al-Jazeera has run video from him several times, and referred to him
as an "expert." He's been in Congress since 2007 and on the Senate
Foreign Relations Committee since 2013, so he should know what's going
on. And yet, he says the most incredibly stupid things. My theory is
that the reason that al-Jazeera runs video from him and others like
him is that they want to show to their Arab audience how stupid the
Americans are.

The generational analysis I'm about to give is not rocket science, but
it's beyond the mental capacity of almost everyone, since it requires
the ability to understand percentages and to do math at least the
fourth grade level, and most people cannot do fourth grade math. Say
what you want about Boomers, but we knew how to do percentages. But
in the past few decades, SAT scores have been falling, and college
graduates are so dumb, they don't even know how to read a map or
understand historical concepts. If you listen to many politicians,
reporters and analysts today talk about the economy and Socialism, you
quickly realize that they're too dumb to even do second grade
arithmetic.

It's obvious that none of the experts on tv has any idea of what's
going on in Iran, because they don't have the mental capacity to
understand it. Also, they know absolutely nothing about Iran's
history, because that's also beyond their mental capacity.

So let's take a look at what you'd have to know if you want to
understand Iran today. You may wish to have a pencil and paper
handy to take notes.

• It would be nice for you to know something about the
  relationship between the Constitutional Revolution and the Islamic
  Revolution in Iran's history, but that would be asking too much.
  
  
• You'd have to recognize the importance of the Iran/Iraq war of the
  1980s. But why would anyone know about that? There are two wars
  going on right now -- in Syria and Yemen -- and there have been other
  recent wars -- four Gaza wars, Lebanon war, Iraq war, Gulf war -- so
  why would anyone know anything about this ancient antedeluvian
  Iran/Iraq war that happened so long ago that it's totally meaningless
  and forgotten today?
  
  
• Then you'd have to be able to make generational connections. This
  is very abstract, and few people are capable of it, given that few
  people can do fourth grade percentage problems. Suppose a poll in
  2000 revealed that only 20% of 30-40 year old Iranians believe that
  ABC is true, and that a poll taken today says that 80% of 30-40 year
  olds believe that ABC is true. Most analysts, reporters, economists
  and politicians would say, omigod, 30-40 year olds have changed their
  minds about ABC. These baffled people fall back on the usual
  extraneous factors, such as changed poverty levels or a change in the
  US administration, since that all they're mentally capable of
  understanding. They would not be mentally capable of understanding
  that 30-40 year olds in 2000 would be 50-60 years old today, and 10-20
  year olds in 2000 would be 30-40 years old today, and so they haven't
  changed their minds at all. Examining the two poll results would
  reveal that everyone believes the same thing they did 20 years ago,
  but they've just gotten older. That concept is completely foreign and
  incomprehensible to the mainstream media, economists and analysts, but
  it's crucial to understanding what's going on in Iran today.
  
  
• Applying that abstract reasoning to the current situation, the
  students who were beaten, tortured and jailed by Iran's security
  policy for peaceful demonstrations 20 years ago are now going to be
  30-40 years old, and they're obviously going to remain extremely angry
  at the current hardline leaders, even if they did crowd the streets at
  Solomeini's funeral.
  
  
• Even more recently, those 30-40 year olds have not forgotten
  that just a month ago, Solomeini was overseeing the torture,
  rape, jailing and murder of peaceful anti-government protesters.
  
  
• Applying the same abstract reasons, everyone over age 35 in Iran
  today has some personal memory of the Iran/Iraq war, and how their
  fathers, uncles and brothers were tortured and killed by Iraqis. For
  these people, Solomeini is a war hero, and those feelings haven't gone
  away. So feelings about Solomeini are going to be mixed -- many
  revere him for fighting the Iraqis, and also loathe him for torturing
  and killing peaceful Iranian protesters. Once again, this is way too
  nuanced and abstract for anyone in Washington to understand.
  
  
• Finally, the situation in Iraq is even more nuanced. On the one
  hand, Solomeini is a war criminal because of the Iran/Iraq war, and
  Solomeini has been overseeing the Iran-backed People's Mobilization
  Forces (PMFs) in torturing, beating and jailing peaceful anti-Iran
  protesters, but on the other hand, Iran is pretty much in control of
  Iraq's government, which is pretty much in shambles anyway.

So if you understand the above, they you understand why my unequivocal
prediction that there would NOT be a war with Iran turned out to
be true, while the idiots on TV and in the media who were predicting
WW III really are idiots.

And quite seriously, Dear Reader, if you listen to these guys in the
mainstream media, you should understand that they literally don't have
a clue about anything. They probably couldn't find Iran on a map, and
they certainly know nothing about Iran's history. You might as well
get your news from the Saturday morning cartoon shows.

John Xenakis is author of: "World View: Iran's Struggle for Supremacy
-- Tehran's Obsession to Redraw the Map of the Middle East"
(Generational Theory Book Series, Book 1), September 2018, Paperback:
153 pages, over 100 source references, $7.00, https://www.amazon.com/World-View-Suprem...732738610/

Sources:

• Iran's handling of plane disaster sparks new challenge to rulers (Reuters, 12-Jan-2020)
  
• Fury at Air Crash Cover-Up Puts Iran’s Leaders Back on Defensive (Bloomberg, 12-Jan-2020)
  
• Thomas L. Friedman - Trump Kills Iran’s Most Overrated Warrior (NYTimes, 3-Jan-2020)
  
• [[Details: Iran/Soleimani's aid to Assad, Hezbollah, Hamas]] (Memri, 9-Jan-2020)
  
• Inside the plot by Iran’s Soleimani to attack U.S. forces in Iraq (Reuters, 4-Jan-2020)
  
• Qassem Soleimani and Iran’s Unique Regional Strategy (US Military Academy, Nov-2018)
  
• Stampede kills 32 at funeral for Iran general: state TV (France24, 7-Jan-2020)
  
• DOD Statement on Iranian Ballistic Missile Attacks in Iraq (DoD, 7-Jan-2020)
  
• Trump says Iran ‘appears to be standing down,’ missile strikes resulted in no casualties (Fox News, 8-Jan-2020)
  
• US knew Iranian missiles were coming ahead of strike; Trump announces new sanctions (USA Today, 8-Jan-2020)
  
• Iran says it shot down Ukrainian plane in 'disastrous mistake' (Reuters, 11-Jan-2020)
  
• Iran plane crash: Ukrainian jet was 'unintentionally' shot down (BBC, 11-Jan-2020)
  
• Hundreds protest against regime in Tehran after Iran admits it shot down plane (Times Of Israel, 11-Jan-2020)
  
• Suleimani’s death stifled rebellion in Iran. But a downed jetliner reignites dissent (LA Times, 11-Jan-2020)
  
• Anger after Iran admits downing plane: All the latest updates (Al-Jazeera, 12-Jan-2020)
  
• US seeking to amplify voices of protest in Iran amid turmoil (AP, 12-Jan-2020)
  
• Iran braces for protests after admitting shooting down plane (AP, 12-Jan-2020)

Related Articles:

• Iran faces tough choices after Soleimani assassination (04-Jan-2020)
  
  
• US sends troops to Baghdad to defend embassy from Iranian rioters (01-Jan-2020)
  
  
• Spiraling bloodbath in Iraq, as anti-Iran and anti-government riots spread (29-Nov-2019)
  
  
• Anti-Iran, anti-government protests spread across Iraq (03-Nov-2019)
  
  
• Riots in Iraq's Basra evoke fault lines of 1980s Iran-Iraq war (09-Sep-2018)
  
  
• Brief generational history of Iran and Saudi Arabia (21-May-2017)
  
  
• Guess what? British politicians and journalists are just as ignorant as Americans (14-Jan-2007)
  

KEYS: Generational Dynamics, Iran, Qassim Soleimani, Iraq,
Ukraine, Ukrainian Airlines PS752,
Vietnam, Vietcong, Tet Offensive,
Constitutional Revolution, Islamic Revolution,
Seyed Ali Hosseini Khamenei

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John J. Xenakis
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[pbrower2a]

(01-12-2020, 07:11 PM)Warren Dew Wrote: I agree that would be ideal.  Reality is rarely ideal, though.

John, wouldn't a change of form of government be inconsistent with an awakening era?  If you think it's consistent, can you outline how you think it could happen?

I once saw an interview of the son of the late Reza Shah Pahlavi II, and he said that he would function much like Juan Carlos of Spain... promoting a liberal and largely-secular Iran that respects the religious sensibilities of the People. Whatever that means...

[John J. Xenakis]

** 13-Jan-2020 World View: Reza Pahlavi son of Shah Mohammed Reza Pahlavi

(01-12-2020, 07:11 PM)Warren Dew Wrote: > I agree that would be ideal. Reality is rarely ideal, though.

> John, wouldn't a change of form of government be inconsistent with
> an awakening era? If you think it's consistent, can you outline
> how you think it could happen?

The Crisis Climax is typically a bloody, genocidal military event
that establishes the winner of the war, and the loser. It can
take many forms.

The Awakening Climax is typically a chaotic political event that
establishes the winner of the political struggle between the
generations of survivors of the preceding crisis war and the
generations growing up after the war, and resolves unfinished business
from the end of the crisis war.

The Awakening Climax, which typically occurs 30-50 years after the
Crisis Climax, can be thought of as a political event that settles and
solidifies the changes that occurred as a result of the Crisis Climax.

If the preceding crisis war was an internal ethnic or racial civil
war, then the Awakening Crisis is typically resolved with a political
victory by the older generations (survivors of the war), which
represent the winning race or ethnic group.

If the preceding crisis war was an external war, then typically the
country has political freedom, and the Awakening crisis is a free
political battle that is typically resolved with a political victory
by the younger generations (growing up after the war).

Either way, it signals the beginning of the Unraveling Era.

Some examples of Awakening climaxes:

• 1918 Germany: the Imperial government of Germany is replaced
  by the Weimar Republic.
  
  
• 1974 America: Richard Nixon is forced to resign.
  
  
• 1989 Czechoslovakia: The Velvet Revolution in Czechoslovakia ended
  communist rule, and turned the country into a parliamentary
  republic.
  
  
• 1989 China: Tiananmen Square massacre turned China into a far more
  oppressive dictatorship.

Identifying an Awakening Climax is a lot harder than identifying a
Crisis Climax, so this is an area that requires more research.

At any rate, with regard to Iran, the constitution that Khomeini set
up in 1979 is clearly defective, with no checks and balances, as I
described in my book. So I would expect that some kind of change to
the constitution would come out of the Awakening Climax. If there's a
reversion to the constitution adopted by the Constitutional Revolution
in 1906, then Reza Pahlavi, who is a leader of Iran's opposition, may
become the Shah of Iran, the country's new leader. He is the son of
Shah Mohammed Reza Pahlavi, the last official Shah of Iran. He's
quite popular among opposition groups outside of Iran.

However, all this is speculative and, even if it occurs, it may not
occur for years.

(01-13-2020, 12:48 AM)pbrower2a Wrote: > I once saw an interview of the son of the late Reza Shah Pahlavi
> II, and he said that he would function much like Juan Carlos of
> Spain... promoting a liberal and largely-secular Iran that
> respects the religious sensibilities of the People. Whatever that
> means...

Just promise the people whatever nonsense they want to hear, and then
forget about it when you get elected.

The last Shah of Iran was almost as violent and repressive as
Khomeini, so I don't expect much change.

---- Related:

** 9-Nov-15 World View -- Political crisis in Iran grows over nuclear agreement
** http://www.generationaldynamics.com/pg/x...tm#e151109

[John J. Xenakis]

** 13-Jan-2020 World View: Southern China

(01-11-2020, 08:44 PM)Warren Dew Wrote: > The Chiang Kai Shek's nationalists were from primarily from
> "southern" China - that is, from the Yangtze River basin rather
> than from the Yellow River basin - but not so far south as to be
> Cantonese, which is perhaps best associated with the Pearl River
> basin. The Yangtze River basin area is still Mandarin speaking,
> as opposed to the Pearl River basin. When the Nationalists were
> driven out by the Communists, they did retreat south, but took
> their Mandarin speaking nationalist government with them to
> Taiwan.

> Plenty of Cantonese fled the Communists, too - my mother was one
> of them - but they mostly either stayed in Hong Kong or emigrated
> to the US rather than going to Taiwan.

> I think Taiwanese was the most commonly spoken dialect of Chinese
> in Taiwan in 1986. However, Mandarin was becoming more common as
> a result of all official schooling being done in Mandarin from
> 1945-1990 or so. Wikipedia says Mandarin is now the most commonly
> used language at home in Taiwan at 83.5%, but bilingualism is much
> more common than I realized, with Taiwanese at 81.9% using it at
> home.

> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Languages_of_Taiwan

That's a lot of good information. Thank you.

That also puts into perspective the 1959 Rodgers and Hammerstein
Broadway show Flower Drum Song.

[pbrower2a]

(01-13-2020, 01:37 PM)John J. Xenakis Wrote:

(01-13-2020, 12:48 AM)pbrower2a Wrote: >   I once saw an interview of the son of the late Reza Shah Pahlavi
>   II, and he said that he would function much like Juan Carlos of
>   Spain... promoting a liberal and largely-secular Iran that
>   respects the religious sensibilities of the People. Whatever that
>   means...

Just promise the people whatever nonsense they want to hear, and then
forget about it when you get elected.

The last Shah of Iran was almost as violent and repressive as
Khomeini, so I don't expect much change.

---- Related:

** 9-Nov-15 World View -- Political crisis in Iran grows over nuclear agreement
** http://www.generationaldynamics.com/pg/x...tm#e151109

True about Reza Shah Pahlavi. Healthy social orders do not implode as did the absolutist-totalitarian hybrid of the Pahlavi monarchy.  Would I trust his son? Not on his word alone. If the Crown Prince has around him the same sorts of people who are close to the ideology of his father and a desire to settle old scores more than to establish a Constitutional democracy* -- and there would be scores to settle -- then his claims to be a democrat are a fraud. Any Iranian democracy will need to repudiate both the tyranny of the Ayatollahs and of Reza Shah Pahlavi II, and perhaps Marxism and Islamofascism in any form. 

Because the regime has resorted to shooting at peaceful protesters (that is a big difference between the Velvet Revolution of Czechoslovakia and the short civil war in Romania just a few days later) there will be no possibility of a peaceful transition of power. Note well that the United States warned the late Shah to not fire upon peaceful protesters. 

* I would expect any Iranian democracy to have an Islamic tinge.

[John J. Xenakis]

** 14-Jan-2020 World View: Bubble

Higgenbotham Wrote:> This stock market bubble is way, way crazier than the all time
> (dollar) high in silver in 2011. There's no comparison at all in
> my opinion.

> I would say this stock market bubble is at least an order of
> magnitude crazier than the 2011 silver top. We've even got a US
> president pumping the stock market bubble using his twitter
> account. It's completely nuts. We've got the financing of
> retirements tied to the performance of the stock market and
> completely dependent on a continuing stock market bubble, which is
> the biggest bubble in the history of the world. Nuts.

It's not clear that Trump even understands that there's a stock
market bubble. But if he does, he wouldn't want it to burst
before the election.

[David Horn]

(01-14-2020, 12:17 AM)John J. Xenakis Wrote: ** 14-Jan-2020 World View: Bubble

Higgenbotham Wrote:>   This stock market bubble is way, way crazier than the all time
>   (dollar) high in silver in 2011.  There's no comparison at all in
>   my opinion.

>   I would say this stock market bubble is at least an order of
>   magnitude crazier than the 2011 silver top.  We've even got a US
>   president pumping the stock market bubble using his twitter
>   account. It's completely nuts.  We've got the financing of
>   retirements tied to the performance of the stock market and
>   completely dependent on a continuing stock market bubble, which is
>   the biggest bubble in the history of the world.  Nuts.

It's not clear that Trump even understands that there's a stock
market bubble.  But if he does, he wouldn't want it to burst
before the election.

 
I think he understands that $1Trillion plus Federal deficits are expansionary.  Whether he understands that they can't go on forever I don't know.

[John J. Xenakis]

** 14-Jan-2020 World View: Bubble

John Wrote:> It's not clear that Trump even understands that there's a stock
> market bubble. But if he does, he wouldn't want it to burst
> before the election.

Higgenbotham Wrote:> If he doesn't understand, it's because he chooses not to
> understand. Because he understood at S&P 2100.

Trump on 26 Sep, 2016 | 22:05 Wrote:> Trump: 'We are in a big, fat, ugly bubble'

> Donald Trump reiterated his belief that Janet Yellen and the
> Federal Reserve are keeping interest rates low for political
> reasons during the first presidential debate on Sept. 26.

> "The Fed is being more political than Secretary Clinton," the
> Republican presidential candidate said.

> [urlhttps://www.spglobal.com/marketintelligence/en/news-insights/trending/qhue31vybncnasg4p7wxrq2[/url]

OK, but I think it's more nuanced than that.

When I was talking about a bubble and crash in the mid-2000s, people
would say, "That can't happen. After the 1929 crash, laws were passed
to make sure that a new crash would never happen again."

As I pointed out at the time, those laws had all been repealed in the
1980s and 1990s.

And then there's the continuing mystery of Alan Greenspan. I followed
all his speeches in the early 2000s. All the mainstream economic
reporters were whining, "Whaaa, whaaa, whaaa, Greenspan uses big
words, and even though I'm supposed to be an expert, I'm actually too
stupid to understand what he's saying."

I didn't understand Greenspan's speeches at first either, but I would
go the Federal Reserve web site and read it over a few times, and then
I always understood. But that was beyond the mental capacity of all
the "experts" at WSJ, CNBC, and elsewhere.

So as I wrote at the time, Greenspan knew in 2004 that there was a
housing bubble, but he thought it was a good thing, because it gave
people more money. In Dec 2004, he told the WSJ that he knew in the
late 90s that a bubble was growing, but that he decided to take care
of it later. It wasn't until 2005 that he became alarmed.

Milton Friedman had "proved" that the Great Depression had occurred
because the Fed kept interest rates too high, and could have been
prevented completely by lowering interest rates a bit. He said that
any depression could be ended quickly by using a helicopter to drop
money and spread it around.

And of course Ben Bernanke said that he didn't believe in bubbles, and
always "knew" that a bubble could be safely deflated by using
Milton Friedman's helicopter idea.

The 2008 financial crisis proved that Friedman, Greenspan and Bernanke
were all completely full of crap. But then the Fed took up the battle
with quantitative easing.

So now we're in a huge bubble again, the hugest bubble in all of human
history. But anybody who talks about a stock market "crash" says it
will only fall 10-20%, because now the Fed is oh so clever, and has
"saved some bullets" to be used if there's a recession.

So when I say that Trump may not believe there's a bubble, what I mean
is that he knows about the 2000 bubble and the 2007 bubble, but he
doesn't believe that a bubble bursting will have severe consequences.
That's really no different than not believing in a bubble at all.

One other memory: In the mid-2000s, no one believed that there was a
housing bubble, even though it was completely obvious, as I wrote in
many articles. Mainstream financial analysts, economists and
journalists would say, "Housing prices can't go down -- people have to
live somewhere," and "Banks won't foreclose -- it's not in their
interest to do so" and "These housing construction firms know what
they're doing, and they wouldn't be building houses if it were just a
bubble."

It wasn't until 2010 that mainstream economist idiots even admitted
that there had been a housing bubble --- five years earlier!!!

And of course there was the whole subprime mortgage fraud, the biggest
financial fraud in the history of the world, that Obama covered up by
accepting hundreds of billions of dollars in donations to himself and
his cronies in exchange for not prosecuting.

So that's all in the past. Today we have Trump. I've said many times
that, because of his connection to Steve Bannon, and Bannon's
expertise in Generational Dynamics through working with me, Trump is
well aware that war with China is coming. The reporters in the media,
most of whom couldn't find China on a map, are totally baffled by
Trump's foreign policy, 98% of which makes perfect sense when you
realize that the issue is war with China.

But Bannon is also very aware of the coming financial crisis. In
fact, that's what the documentary movie Generation Zero was mainly
about, and that's the movie that Bannon produced and I appeared in.
So Bannon would certainly have told Trump about the danger of a stock
market bubble and global financial crisis.

But that doesn't mean that Trump believes it. Trump may well believe,
like all the mainstream idiots, that there's a bubble going on, and
even if there is a bubble, and even if the bubble bursts, then it
won't be any worse than the bubbles that burst in 2000 and 2007.
That's just as good as not believing there's a bubble.

[John J. Xenakis]

** 14-Jan-2020 World View: Alec Baldwin: Trump supporters responsible for destruction of America

• Donald Trump and Alec Baldwin

I've written about the loathing hatred that Democrats have had for
years for Tea Partiers, now the Trump supporters, repeatedly
threatening and inciting violence against them, using the epithet
"teabaggers," which is as bad as the n-word. I still recall Anderson
Cooper and Peter Bergen on CNN giggling and laughing with each other
over calling them "teabaggers."

The level of loathing by actor Alec Balwin is so delusional, that
it's still startling. Unfortunately, Baldwin's loathing for Trump
supporters and incitement to hatred and violence is common among
Democrats.

In a series of tweets yesterday, Alec Baldwin wrote the following:

Quote:> "American democracy has always been a struggle between
> the misaligned protections of specific freedoms and a raging, at
> times intoxicating, 12 cylinder economy. It demanded
> vigilant/consistent regulation, compassion for the
> disenfranchised, and the periodic display of a necessary sacrifice
> that allowed for the long term health of our society at the
> expense of short term whims.

> The desecration of those ideals and the near moral collapse of
> this country falls squarely in the lap of Trump’s supporters, as
> opposed to Trump himself, who is merely what psychology labels the
> 'objective negative function,' like fire, floods and earthquakes,
> it destroys, and only destroys, by its very nature. Without
> prejudice.

> It is Trump voters, particularly those who would re-elect him who
> bear the blame. For the undeniable and colossal destruction of
> everything that matters to us as Americans that cannot be merely
> monetized."

As we watch the increasingly delusional impeachment show by the
Democrats in Washington -- with the latest humiliation being that
Pelosi finally will capitulate completely and send the documents to
the Senate -- it's becoming increasingly concerning what the Democrats
are going to do next.

My father, a Greek immigrant, once told me that the violence in America
in the 1930s was so bad that he thought America would not survive.

The Democrat loathing of and hatred of Tea Partiers / Trump supporters
has nothing to do with Trump. It's the same kind of tribal hatred
that I've written about many times, and it's indistinguishable from
Hutu vs Tutsi, Han vs Uighur, or Nazi vs Jew. It's as old as time,
and the same evil is happening exactly the same today in America.

In fact, if you read Alec Baldwin's tweets, quoted above, Hitler might
have used exactly the same words to describe the Jews. This is, as I
said, as old as time.

The Democrats supported slavery during the American Civil War, and
formed the militant Ku Klux Klan after the war. For a century, the
Democrats through the KKK promoted discrimination and violence against
blacks, and lynching and murder of blacks. The Democrats are headed
for something similar today. The Democrats' loathing for blacks is
shown by their hatred of all that Trump has done to improve the
economy for blacks to historic levels.

I'm really concerned about the Democrats becoming increasingly violent
in 2021 if Trump wins re-election, and the Democrats realize that
they're facing four more years of the loathsome, smelly Tea Partiers /
Trump Supporters. They've become so delusional and so desperate that
they might try anything.

---- Source:

-- Alec Baldwin blames Trump supporters for 'near moral collapse of
this country'
https://thehill.com/blogs/in-the-know/in...ollapse-of
(TheHill, 14-Jan-2020)