Generational Dynamics World View

[Warren Dew]

(02-05-2020, 12:36 PM)David Horn Wrote:

(02-05-2020, 11:36 AM)John J. Xenakis Wrote: So you have a choice.  If you want to just believe Schiff's crap, then just listen to CNN and MS-NBC and revel in the sewer.  If you'd like to see the counter-analysis, and find out what's really going on, the only place you can get it every day is Hannity. 

John, I'm really worried about you.  How can you be that gullible?

I see you've made your choice.

[John J. Xenakis]

** 05-Feb-2020 World View: MS-NBC

(02-05-2020, 12:36 PM)David Horn Wrote: > If you do a quick run-through of MS-NBC, you'll find several
> former GOP staffers and office holders, like Nicole Wallace and
> Elise Jordan, to say nothing of Michael Steel. In fact, the list
> is long. For that matter Joe Scarborough was originally a
> conservative GOP House member. I doubt Fox has anywhere near the
> concentration of left-of-center commentators, and zero hosting
> programs there. In the straight news part of the operation, there
> actually are. Chris Wallace, though certainly conservative, is
> one. Sheppard Smith had to leave. He had all he could
> take.

Nicole Wallace, Elise Jordan and Michael Steele may be Republicans,
and were George Bush supporters, but now they're all nevertrumpers and
Trump haters. Joe Scarborough has been a vitriolic hater of all
Republicans for years, which is why he has such a prominent position
on MS-NBC.

The examples that I gave (Mara Liasson, Juan Williams, Donna Brazile
and Mary Harf) were never never-obamers, and never hated Obama. To
the contrary, they're still strong supporters of Obama. But they are
all biased against Trump.

Therefore, all of those people that both of us listed (Nicole Wallace,
Elise Jordan, Michael Steele, Joe Scarborough, Mara Liasson, Juan
Williams, Donna Brazile and Mary Harf) are all on the same side --
hating Trump and biased against Trump. So you've been trying to play
me.

So you're completely full of crap. You're apparently so stupid that
you think that a Trump-hating Republican balances out the garbage on
MS-NBC, or else you're so stupid that you didn't think I would bother
to check. Either way you're a liar and a complete idiot. But let's
face it -- what else should anyone expect from the left?

(02-05-2020, 12:36 PM)David Horn Wrote: > What you call nonsense from Adam Schiff is now recognized by GOP
> Senators as fully valid and accurate. Please, point out any
> fabrication that can be shown to be one. Generalities don't cut
> it.

Oh, for heaven's sake, give me a break. There are hundreds of
examples. Schiff fabricated the text of the July 25 phone call and
read his fabrication on tv -- "I'm only going to say this seven times,
that I want you to dig up dirt on Biden, and I want you to do dig up
as much dirt as you can, and the more dirt you can dig up, the more
aid I'll give you."

The thing is, people like you are so deluded that you think that
Schiff was telling the truth. You probably think that what Schiff
said was the actual text of the phone call. Schiff is a complete,
worthless sleaze, a total piece of garbage, and you're as much of a
liar as he is.

(02-05-2020, 12:36 PM)David Horn Wrote: > John, I'm really worried about you. How can you be that
> gullible?

I rarely get angry any more, but I do get angry when someone tries to
play me the way you've been lying and trying to play me. You're a
jackass.

[John J. Xenakis]

** 05-Feb-2020 World View: Coronavirus cases from Tencent

FishbellykanakaDude Wrote:> https://www.taiwannews.com.tw/en/news/3871594

> "Tencent briefly lists xxxx infections and xxxx deaths from Wuhan
> coronavirus"

>

Those are pretty dramatic figures. I wonder if they're accurate?
Taiwan News is pretty reliable. Is Tencent reliable? I don't know.

Quote:> "On late Saturday evening (Feb. 1), Tencent, on its
> webpage titled "Epidemic Situation Tracker", showed confirmed
> cases of novel coronavirus (2019nCoV) in China as standing at
> 154,023, 10 times the official figure at the time. It listed the
> number of suspected cases as 79,808, four times the official
> figure.

> The number of cured cases was only 269, well below the official
> number that day of 300. Most ominously, the death toll listed was
> 24,589, vastly higher than the 300 officially listed that
> day."

If this is true, it would explain why China does not want the American
CDC to investigate.

[Warren Dew]

The article says that Tencent shows the larger numbers only briefly, followed by a change to the official numbers, so even if Tencent is reliable, it's not clear that numbers briefly flashed on the screen would represent anything real.

That said, if those are coronavirus numbers, yeah, 25k deaths out of 230k cases would make the situation look rather different. Still, the fatality rate outside of China has been low enough that if I had to guess, I'd guess those numbers are for some other illness.

[John J. Xenakis]

*** 6-Feb-20 World View -- Israeli diplomat reveals Israel's startling new 'pragmatic' foreign policy

This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com

• Israeli diplomat reveals Israel's startling new 'pragmatic' foreign policy
  
• Implications of Israel's new 'pragmatic' policy
  
• Bush, Obama and Trump -- Mideast peace plans
  

****
**** Israeli diplomat reveals Israel's startling new 'pragmatic' foreign policy
****


President Obama glares furiously after Benjamin Netanyahu rejects Obama's peace plan and 'lectures' Obama on the reason - in this iconic photo taken at an Oval Office meeting on May 20, 2011 (Reuters)

There was a program on al-Jazeera today that a discussed possible
close relationship between Israel and Sudan. One of the people
interviewed is Alon Liel, a former Israeli diplomat to a number of
different countries.

I found what he said about Israel's strategy to be quite
startling. It described a major change in strategy by Israel's
leadership that occurred 15 years ago:

<QUOTE>"The founders of Israel aimed at political, social,
cultural integration of Israel with the Middle East. The plan was
that this would result in integration with the Arabs and the
Palestinians, and peace.

About 15 years ago this was dropped. Nobody in Israel among the
Jewish politicians is speaking about peace with the Palestinians
today.

The basic assumption is that since we will not have peace with the
Palestinians, the Muslim-Arab world will never accept Israel
politically.

The change is that we are aiming at economic, technological, maybe
some intelligence relations, and supply the arab countries, muslim
african countries, with basic economic needs, in order to improve
relations bilaterally.

This does mean that Israel is aiming to be part of the Mideast.
We forgot about it. We behave as a European country, the
leadership of Israel today sees Israel as a Western country, part
of Europe, if you want, part of the United States, but definitely
not part of the Middle East.

Even with Egypt and Jordan, where we have really stable peace,
it's based on security and some economic technological issues, not
on political support. The public doesn't like us - no in Egypt,
not in Jordan - definitely no cultural relations, no tourism. So
there is a different approach in Israel. We are rich.

If you want, Sudan, if you want, any other poor country on the
globe, we can give you what you need, if you normalize relations
with us economically, because more we cannot give."<END QUOTE>

This could be described as a "very pragmatic" foreign policy.
Israelis and Arabs will always hate each other, but Israel is willing
to spend money to keep the peace.

****
**** Implications of Israel's new 'pragmatic' policy
****

This major change of policy took place about 15 years ago, or about
2004. I can't recall ever reading anything about this change of
policy. I guess I've been fooled as much as anyone else.

It was just a week ago that President Trump announced his "Peace to
Prosperity" Mideast peace plan. In my article, I said that there's no
way that this Rube Goldberg peace proposal is going to survive. ( "29-Jan-20 World View -- Trump announces fantasy 'Peace to Prosperity' Mideast peace plan"
)

So what the hell was all that? Was it just a big show that had
to be put on for international leaders who are always demanding that
the US take a "leadership role" in the Mideast peace process, so that
they can shoot it down. Is that why Trump put forth this farcical
peace plan?

There is one strange thing that I would like to mention. When
Benjamin Netanyahu was at the White House with Trump last week
to announce the "peace plan," I noticed something that was off --
Netanyahu was always had a broad grin on his face, and gave me
the impression that he was laughing at the whole thing. And now,
in retrospect, I would say that he probably was laughing at the
whole thing, because he knew it was just a show. Did Trump know
it was just a show? I don't know.

****
**** Bush, Obama and Trump -- Mideast peace plans
****

This policy change took place 15 years ago, soon after president
George Bush published his "Mideast Roadmap to Peace on May 1, 2003. I
predicted at that time that Bush's peace plan would never succeed,
because Israel and the Palestinians would be re-fighting the bloody
1948 war between Jews and Arabs that followed the partitioning of
Palestine and the creation of the state of Israel. ("Mideast Roadmap - Will it bring peace? (1-May-2003)")

A major policy change like this often is part of a major generational
change, and that seems to be the case here. From the point of view of
generational theory, Israel transited from a generational Unraveling
era, when the public mood strong favors compromise, into a
generational Crisis era, when the public mood becomes more xenophobic
and nationalistic. This occurred in 2006, 58 years after the end of
the bloody 1948-49 Jewish-Arab war, when enough of the survivors
of that war all disappeared (retired or died), all at once, leaving
behind younger, much more belligerent generations.

And recall that 2006 was the time of Israel's disastrous 2006 invasion
of Lebanon to attack Hezbollah. Israel panicked when two Israeli
soldiers were abducted near Lebanon's border, and conducted a highly
emotional, organic and uncontrolled invasion of Lebanon. The war was
a disaster for all involved. After a few months, the war had run its
course, with nothing accomplished except to destroy a lot of Lebanon's
infrastructure in airstrikes, and displace a lot of Lebanese from
their homes.

One more memory -- 2005 was the year when Israel withdrew from Gaza
and turned it over to the Palestinians as a gesture of peace,
something it now regrets. The was perhaps the last major decision of
Israel's Unraveling era, prior to the beginning of the Crisis era, and
the disastrous 2006 invasion of Lebanon.

The next event of note occurred in May 2011, when President Obama
offered his own Mideast "peace plan." ( "20-May-11 News -- Obama and Netanyahu in sharp disagreement after speech"
)

You may recall the picture at the beginning of this article, which was
taken on May 20, 2011, just after Obama presented his peace plan to
Netanyahu and the public. It became famous because Obama was glaring
at Netanyahu as the latter was rejecting Obama's plan, and was lecturing
Obama why it wouldn't work.

What's interesting about this today is that, just as I wasn't aware
that Israel had had a major change of policy five years earlier,
apparently Obama hadn't gotten that memo. Hadn't Obama bothered
to inform the Obama administration of Israel's new policy?

Which brings us back to Trump's "Peace to Prosperity" peace plan,
presented by Trump to Netanyahu in the White House last week.
Netanyahu didn't lecture Trump the way he had lectured Obama.
Instead, he was grinning broadly the whole time, and seemed to
be enjoying the joke. Did Trump get the joke? Had Trump
gotten the memo?

One way of looking at it is that Trump did get the memo, and the plan
was consistent with Israel's new "pragmatic" regional policy. In
particular, Trump promised $60 billion to Jordan, Lebanon and Egypt to
spend on Palestinians to implement the rest of the policy. That
certainly is consistent with the pragmatic approach.

Unfortunately, we get back to the other problems that I raised in my
January 29 article. The average in the Palestinian territories is
around 20, which means that most of the Palestinians are literally
children. And those children will not accept the "pragmatic"
proposals, even if their geezer leaders so.

Sources:

• White House on 'We can't go back': Israeli PM rejects 1967 border proposal Face to face, Netanyahu says Obama vision for Mideast peace unrealistic (NBC News, 20-May-2011)
  
• Trump’s Middle East peace plan ‘will die’ before president, Iran’s top leader says (Fox News, 5-Feb-2020)
  
• Palestinians say Trump's deal is racist. But their leaders are bereft of ideas on how to fight it (CNN, 5-Feb-2020)
  
• Palestinians push UN Security Council to condemn Trump plan, Israel (Jerusalem Post, 5-Feb-2020)

Related Articles:

• Trump announces fantasy 'Peace to Prosperity' Mideast peace plan (29-Jan-2020)
  
  
• Obama and Netanyahu in sharp disagreement after speech (20-May-2011)
  
  
• Channeling Sisyphus, Trump and Abbas say Mideast peace not as hard as it looks (04-May-2017)
  
  
• Palestinian 'Oslo Generation' relationship with Israel extremely toxic and explosive (18-Oct-2015)
  
  
• Obama administration ends effort to pressure Israel on settlements (08-Dec-2010)
  
  
• Mideast Roadmap - Will it bring peace? (1-May-2003)

KEYS: Generational Dynamics, Israel, Benjamin Netanyahu,
Alon Liel, Sudan, Egypt, Jordan, George Bush, Barack Obama

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

[David Horn]

(02-05-2020, 01:57 PM)Warren Dew Wrote:

(02-05-2020, 12:36 PM)David Horn Wrote:

(02-05-2020, 11:36 AM)John J. Xenakis Wrote: So you have a choice.  If you want to just believe Schiff's crap, then just listen to CNN and MS-NBC and revel in the sewer.  If you'd like to see the counter-analysis, and find out what's really going on, the only place you can get it every day is Hannity. 

John, I'm really worried about you.  How can you be that gullible?

I see you've made your choice.

Demonstrable lying is not the subject for opinion.  If you get caught, you can be humble or double down.  If you get caught on an ongoing basis, and chose the double-down option., then you've crossed the street into treachery and slander.  Hannity passed that mark years ago.

If this continues unabated, eventually, the Dems will have to stop being rule-followers too.  Then it gets really ugly.

[David Horn]

(02-05-2020, 03:08 PM)John J. Xenakis Wrote: ** 05-Feb-2020 World View: MS-NBC

(02-05-2020, 12:36 PM)David Horn Wrote: If you do a quick run-through of MS-NBC, you'll find several former GOP staffers and office holders, like Nicole Wallace and Elise Jordan, to say nothing of Michael Steel.  In fact, the list is long.  For that matter Joe Scarborough was originally a conservative GOP House member.  I doubt Fox has anywhere near the concentration of left-of-center commentators, and zero hosting programs there. In the straight news part of the operation, there actually are.  Chris Wallace, though certainly conservative, is one. Sheppard Smith had to leave.  He had all he could take.

Nicole Wallace, Elise Jordan and Michael Steele may be Republicans, and were George Bush supporters, but now they're all nevertrumpers and Trump haters. Joe Scarborough has been a vitriolic hater of all Republicans for years, which is why he has such a prominent position on MS-NBC.

The examples that I gave (Mara Liasson, Juan Williams, Donna Brazile and Mary Harf) were never never-obamers, and never hated Obama.  To the contrary, they're still strong supporters of Obama.  But they are all biased against Trump.

Therefore, all of those people that both of us listed (Nicole Wallace, Elise Jordan, Michael Steele, Joe Scarborough, Mara Liasson, Juan Williams, Donna Brazile and Mary Harf) are all on the same side -- hating Trump and biased against Trump.  So you've been trying to play me.

So you're completely full of crap.  You're apparently so stupid that you think that a Trump-hating Republican balances out the garbage on MS-NBC, or else you're so stupid that you didn't think I would bother to check.  Either way you're a liar and a complete idiot.  But let's face it -- what else should anyone expect from the left?

Just because a group of politicos fail to kiss the ring doesn't mean they are illegitimate. Many on the list I cited are still Republicans, though how that remains so is a mystery to me. The ones who left, did so in the same manner that Reagan left the Democratic Party: the party left them. If anything, a cult-of-personality is totally antithetical to democracy, the US Constitution and basic decency. So no, you don't get to handwave away with the never-Trump nonsense. Everyone has a right to his or her conscience, and the fact that Trumps seems to lack one doesn't imply that others must as well.

John Wrote:

David Wrote:What you call nonsense from Adam Schiff is now recognized by GOP Senators as fully valid and accurate.  Please, point out any fabrication that can be shown to be one.  Generalities don't cut it.

Oh, for heaven's sake, give me a break.  There are hundreds of examples.  Schiff fabricated the text of the July 25 phone call and read his fabrication on tv -- "I'm only going to say this seven times, that I want you to dig up dirt on Biden, and I want you to do dig up as much dirt as you can, and the more dirt you can dig up, the more aid I'll give you."

The thing is, people like you are so deluded that you think that Schiff was telling the truth.  You probably think that what Schiff said was the actual text of the phone call.  Schiff is a complete, worthless sleaze, a total piece of garbage, and you're as much of a liar as he is.

I heard Schiff's comment in real time. He never claimed it was anything other than his interpretation of the call -- a call, by the way, that has still to see daylight. If DJT gets to put his spin on the call and call it perfect, he opens the door for others to do the same. If you want authenticity, then demand that it be removed from the classified server and distributed to the press and Congress.

John Wrote:

(02-05-2020, 12:36 PM)David Horn Wrote: John, I'm really worried about you.  How can you be that gullible?

I rarely get angry any more, but I do get angry when someone tries to play me the way you've been lying and trying to play me.  You're a jackass.

Your biases have been on display for as long as I've read your stuff, but your take on foreign affairs is quite deep and useful. Your gullibility on Trump is simply baffling. He's such an obvious troll, and you buy it. Why?

BTW, let's add the source of the misinformation too. Murdock has his media claws into three countries: the US, UK and Australia. All three suffer from the same propaganda-laced politics. All three are falling apart in one way or another. The correlation index is 1.

[John J. Xenakis]

** 06-Feb-2020 Pelosi shreds Trump's speech

[David Horn]

(02-06-2020, 12:13 PM)John J. Xenakis Wrote: ** 06-Feb-2020 Pelosi shreds Trump's speech

Sure, it was petty, but look at the context.  Trump used the SOTU speech for one of his rallies -- complete with the very Nixonian "four more years".  I suspect she was insulted by a crass idiot coming into her House and raising his middle finger in defiance.  He even gave that the Medal of Freedom to Rush Limbaugh right in the middle of the speech -- Limbaugh, who he knew would piss-of the liberals in the crowd.  So yah, why not.  It was all theater at that point, so she closed the curtain.

[John J. Xenakis]

** 06-Feb-2020 World View: Feedback on Tencent coronavirus figures

I wrote to correspondents knowledgeable about the region asking if
they had any feedback on the Taiwan News story about the Tencent
astronomical coronavirus figures. Recall that this was the Taiwan
News story:

Quote:> "On late Saturday evening (Feb. 1), Tencent, on its
> webpage titled "Epidemic Situation Tracker", showed confirmed
> cases of novel coronavirus (2019nCoV) in China as standing at
> 154,023, 10 times the official figure at the time. It listed the
> number of suspected cases as 79,808, four times the official
> figure.

> The number of cured cases was only 269, well below the official
> number that day of 300. Most ominously, the death toll listed was
> 24,589, vastly higher than the 300 officially listed that
> day."

> https://www.taiwannews.com.tw/en/news/3871594

Here's one response:

Quote:> "I don't think anyone in China knows what is going on
> for sure. I saw some of the small city governments ordered
> everyone to euthanize their pets immediately to prevent the virus
> from spreading. I confirmed that they really did this with a
> friend in XiAn. This direction was quickly overturned by the
> central government but it shows the level of panic in China right
> now.

> I do suspect the number of infected and death toll is
> significantly higher than reported, but I think the death rate is
> mainly due to the hospitals being over run and not having the
> ability to treat or even isolate patients properly. I note that
> outside of China the death rate is much lower.

> I doubt the quarantine efforts will be effective. It's already
> gone to far and Chinese people are very bad at obeying laws. They
> are cats and really can't be controlled."

Another person responded as follows:

Quote:> "Fake news in fake news.

> No-one is reliable these days. I would trust Tencent over the
> government but if no-one is actually counting..."

He referenced another report that referred to the Taiwan News
story, and said the following:

Quote:> "This story [Taiwan News] made the rounds
> yesterday... ...and the Tencent miniapp who distributed the data
> has now been suspended.

> (China specialist sales Jimmy, who sent the above, believes the
> nCov numbers are being seriously under-estimated. He remains at an
> "8 out of 10" on concern level. This is a contrarian view.)

> Contrarian because Asia tech shares are back within 1% of all-time
> highs.

> Among other reasons (nCov death rate is seeming low, ex-China
> cases have not exploded, new cases look to have
> peaked)... ...Huawei announced a couple days ago they are
> basically back to full production."

In other news:

Quote:> "Original China Virus Whistleblower Doctor Dies

> The Chinese doctor who tried to raise the alarm about the new
> coronavirus before it was even identified has died of the deadly
> virus. ...

> As a reminder, Li Wenliang - who warned the public of a potential
> "SARS-like" disease in December 2019 - was questioned by local
> health authority, and warned: "We solemnly warn you: If you keep
> being stubborn, with such impertinence, and continue this illegal
> activity, you will be brought to justice - is that understood?"

> Dr, Li was later summoned by Wuhan police to sign a reprimand
> letter in which he was accused of "spreading rumors online" and
> "severely disrupting social order."

> https://www.zerohedge.com/health/origina...octor-dies

Th-th-th-th-th-th-th-th-that's all folks!

[Warren Dew]

There's so little reliable information on this. Just a few minutes ago ABC reported that the doctor was resuscitated after his heart stopped. I don't know whether that's before or after your report that he died.

https://abcnews.go.com/International/doc...d=68803847

[John J. Xenakis]

** 06-Feb-2020 World View: Li Wenliang

(02-06-2020, 03:10 PM)Warren Dew Wrote: > There's so little reliable information on this. Just a few
> minutes ago ABC reported that the doctor was resuscitated after
> his heart stopped. I don't know whether that's before or after
> your report that he died.

> https://abcnews.go.com/International/doc...d=68803847

Yeah. The BBC just reported that they didn't know if he was alive or
dead. They said that this is just one more example of the Chinese
hiding information.

Update 4pm ET: The BBC says that his death has just been confirmed.

[John J. Xenakis]

** 07-Feb-2020 World View: Diamond Princess and World Dream

Guest Wrote:> There is a luxury cruise ship docked and loaded with rich
> passengers in Hong Kong now under a 14 day quarantine. Bad
> idea. Why? Cruise ships have a central air system. Not a good idea
> keeping them all round up together.

> Yup, recirculating air. All fucked.

> Does anyone involved in containing the Wuhan virus even know what
> they are doing?

I believe that you're referring to the Diamond Princess, which is
quarantined in Yokohama, Japan, for at least two weeks.

Oh wait. There's another cruise ship, the World Dream, quarantined in
Hong Kong.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-51409800

• Cruise ship Diamond Princess quarantined off Yokohama, Japan

[Warren Dew]

A total of 61 of the 273 tests done on the Diamond Princess were positive. it will be interesting to see how many of the remaining 3400 people aboard are diagnosed before the end of the quarantine.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/japan-repor...cle_inline

Then there's the third cruise ship with no suspected cases which has nonetheless been refused permission to dock at previously scheduled stops in the Phillipines and Japan.

[Warren Dew]

(02-05-2020, 11:00 PM)John J. Xenakis Wrote: I found what he said about Israel's strategy to be quite
startling.  It described a major change in strategy by Israel's
leadership that occurred 15 years ago:

Very interesting article.  I remember concluding to myself at the time that peace between Israel and the Palestinians was not going to happen, after Israel had rejected negotiations with Hamas and it became clear that the PLO was structurally unable to make commitments that would be needed for peace, even if they had wanted to.  However, I don't remember articulation of a change in Israeli policy.

Quote:One more memory -- 2005 was the year when Israel withdrew from Gaza
and turned it over to the Palestinians as a gesture of peace,
something it now regrets.  The was perhaps the last major decision of
Israel's Unraveling era, prior to the beginning of the Crisis era, and
the disastrous 2006 invasion of Lebanon.

That's not how I remember it.  Israel was sustaining politically untenable casualties trying to maintain occupation of Gaza, and they were also killing politically untenable numbers of Palestinians there.  Israel had to withdraw or they would have faced isolation, even from the US, which was not something they could sustain; it was hardly a voluntary gesture of peace.  And in retrospect, it has worked out well for Israel, resulting in much reduced violence since they were able to put up effective border barriers.

Quote:Which brings us back to Trump's "Peace to Prosperity" peace plan,
presented by Trump to Netanyahu in the White House last week.
Netanyahu didn't lecture Trump the way he had lectured Obama.
Instead, he was grinning broadly the whole time, and seemed to
be enjoying the joke.  Did Trump get the joke?  Had Trump
gotten the memo?

I think Netanyahu was grinning for two reasons.  First, the proposal was something Israel could accept, were it to become reality.  Second and more importantly, Netanyahu knew, just as you point out, that there is no way the Palestinians would ever accept it.  He gets all the credit for being nice and reasonable and offering a workable peace plan, without the danger of having to live with it.

[David Horn]

(02-07-2020, 01:31 AM)Warren Dew Wrote: A total of 61 of the 273 tests done on the Diamond Princess were positive.  it will be interesting to see how many of the remaining 3400 people aboard are diagnosed before the end of the quarantine.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/japan-repor...cle_inline

Then there's the third cruise ship with no suspected cases which has nonetheless been refused permission to dock at previously scheduled stops in the Phillipines and Japan.

FWIW, the cruise industry should band together and cancel all Asian cruises for the foreseeable future.  This started as an anomaly; now it's getting to be a trend.

[pbrower2a]

Rush Limbaugh, or as I have called him "Rash Libel" (almost polite, but I think an apt description of him) does not merit a Presidential Medal of Freedom. This man bullied a domestic servant into 'scoring' oxycontin for him, which is doubly illegal. Bill Cosby did get one, but that was before he was identified as a serial rapist. Yes, there are people of controversy. When IBM was preparing its supercomputer "Watson" it was feeding "Watson" such material as the song lyrics of Bob Dylan.

Unlike the politicians and authors on the list of recipients he is an unoriginal crank. Sure, he has late-stage lung cancer, but lots of people get that.

Freedom? He did not stand up to harsh undemocratic regimes as did Rosa Parks or Vaclav Havel. Morals? Put him with Pope John Paul II or Billy Graham and the sparks would fly.

OK, so he is in a way a prophet of "Donald Trump thought" down to the science-denial and the vindictiveness. Wow!

[John J. Xenakis]

** 07-Feb-2020 World View: Coronavirus report

I received the following from a Chinese correspondent:

Quote:> "Latest coronavirus tally:
> https://multimedia.scmp.com/widgets/china/wuhanvirus/

> My wife and I are under voluntary 14-day quarantine in
> California... so to say the least, I have been following the topic
> very closely.

> The South China Morning Post (SCMP.com) in Hong Kong has been the
> source of most of my information.
> (https://www.scmp.com/topics/coronavirus-...ll-stories)

> You can usually get more up-to-date information about every 4-6
> hours there. Japanese newspapers also are interesting sources. An
> Israeli source mentioned that Wuhan is a center of China's
> biological warfare research.
> (https://www.ccn.com/israeli-analyst-one-...you-think/)

> Pandemic vs. Contained Epidemic?
> https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2020/02/...o-pandemic

> 1. It has *almost* confirmed that the virus is asymptomatically
> transmitted. Bad! Many articles allude to this, but the Tinajin
> and Singapore meeting cases seem to confirm it.
> https://www.scmp.com/news/china/society/...re-who-was

> 2. My brother-in-law is a public bus driver in Xi'an. He is
> supposed to go back to work on Monday. He, as well as all who
> provide transportation such as taxi drivers, has been instructed
> to see the national ID card of every boarding passenger. Anybody
> from Wuhan is not allowed on the bus.

> 3. China is providing all the medical care to patients "free of
> charge" according to my Chinese wife. If that happens in practice
> is yet to be seen.

> 4. In the housing communities throughout Xi'an, as well as in much
> of the more restricted areas of China, each house can send only
> one person to a market every other day. There are some that can go
> only once every three days. My wife's family is on an
> every-other-day basis.

> 5. The United States, through the Trump administration, first
> offered aid to China on January 6, while Beijing was still in full
> denial.
> https://www.eutimes.net/2020/01/china-re...ronavirus/

> 6. The way the CDC allowed a very sick person on my wife's plane
> to travel from Shanghai to SFO, totally on the basis of lies and
> deception, means there may already be thousands of cases here in
> the United States yet to appear.

> On that last point, one must remember that many of the Chinese
> that came over here initially came over illegally, then obtained a
> green card through deception. The last thing they will want to
> voluntarily admit is "I had been to Wuhan." Under the current set
> of fears the Trump administration has given the immigrant
> communities here in America, nobody knows what is coming down the
> pike that may cause deportation. Another thing is this: Even
> illegal aliens get better medical care in America than the Chinese
> may get back in China, especially if they got their green card a
> decade ago based on a persecution claim. Another common problem in
> America is that up until recently, many Chinese green card holders
> were doing illegal work, so everything was paid
> under-the-table. They could be filthy rich compared to most
> Americans, but because of using the underground economy, they
> qualified for food stamps, MediCal, housing subsidies, and all
> kinds of things. If they went to China, then came back sick, they
> would get medical treatment, but at the same time their income
> would be examined.

> Because of that, if that coughing woman that sat in the row behind
> my wife had the coronavirus, not only might both my wife and I
> might have been infected, but also every person that woman has
> been around during and after that flight. Multiply that by all the
> number of flights and potential people trying to flee China right
> now, and we may already have thousands of walking infected people
> at this point.

> The CDC is wrong to assume simple questionnaires of passengers
> that show no symptoms at the time of going past transit points
> will catch most cases. Furthermore, you and I know that it would
> be politically incorrect to call Chinese liars."

[John J. Xenakis]

** 24-Jan-2020 Amy Klobuchar claiming victory

(01-21-2020, 07:49 PM)Marypoza Wrote: > Bernie/Tulsi 2020

Amy Klobuchar is claiming victory this evening. Too bad. She isn't
as hot as Tulsi Gabbard.

[John J. Xenakis]

*** 9-Feb-20 World View -- Turkey sends tanks across border into Syria to confront al-Assad regime in Idlib

This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com

• Turkey sends tanks across border into Syria to confront al-Assad regime in Idlib
  
• The Turkey-Russia Astana agreements and Syria's de-escalation zones
  
• Turkey, Syria, Russia: The next steps in Idlib
  

****
**** Turkey sends tanks across border into Syria to confront al-Assad regime in Idlib
****


The view from Idlib, Syria (Ahval)

Turkey sent a convoy of hundreds of tanks and armored carriers last
week into Syria's Idlib province, to confront the army of Syria's
president Bashar al-Assad, which is backed by Russia.

Al-Assad has for years been saying that his army will take full
control of Idlib province, and there's every reason to believe that is
his intention. Al-Assad for years has been saying that the 3.5-4
million men, women and children in Idlib are terrorists. This is the
standard method used by war criminals to justify genocide and ethnic
cleansing. You pick out an illegal or terrorist act by a small group
of people, and declare that the entire ethnic group are terrorists.
This is the excuse that China is using to commit genocide and ethnic
cleansing of the Uighurs, and it's the excuse the Burmese are using to
to commit genocide and ethnic cleansing of the Rohingyas. Those are
all going on today. It's the same excuse that Hitler used to justify
genocide of the Jews. It's an excuse that's as old as time.

So there's no doubt that Bashar al-Assad intends to take control of
Idlib, even if it means exterminating as many of his Sunni Arab
political enemies as possible.

Probably nobody would even care, no matter how many of those Sunni
Arab men, women and children would be killed, but Turkey cares.
Turkey already hosts 3.6 million Syrians who have already fled across
the border to escape Bashar al-Assad, and now Turkey is facing the
possibility of 1-2 million more Syrians from Idlib fleeing into
Turkey.

Russia was supposed to stop this. Russia's president Vladimir Putin
and Turkey's president Recep Tayyip Erdogan met several times at such
glamorous meeting sites as Astana, Kazakhstan, and Sochi, Russia, to
create the Astana Accords. Under these agreements, Russia would stop
al-Assad from committing genocide in Idlib, if Turkey would separate
out the "terrorists" from the civilians in Idlib, so that al-Assad
could just exterminate the "terrorists," and leave civilians alone.

I've never understood why Erdogan agreed to that ridiculous condition,
since it's a completely idiotic demand. How is Erdogan's army
supposed to go into 3.5 Sunni Arabs in Idlib, and sort them into two
groups, so that al-Assad could kill one group and leave the other one
alone? That demand was so ridiculous and idiotic I can only assume
that Erdogan agreed to it out of total desperation.

So Erdogan responded by setting up 12 "observation posts" in Idlib
province, each of which had a few Turkish soldiers and a couple of
tanks. The idea, I guess, was that these observation posts would stop
al-Assad from going any further, since attacking a Turkish observation
post would result in clashes between Syrian and Turkish troops.

Well, that's a nice theory, but Syria attacked three of the
observation posts last week, killing some Turkish soldiers. Also,
nine of the 12 observation posts are now encircled by Syrian troops.
"B-b-b-but that's a violation of the Astana agreement," Turkish
officials are gasping. Quelle surprise!

****
**** The Turkey-Russia Astana agreements and Syria's de-escalation zones
****

These Astana agreements (the "de-escalation zones") between Erdogan
and Putin were all farcical anyway, since al-Assad was never party to
them, and Russia never had any intention of enforcing any of them
anyway. The agreements were simply a cover to give al-Assad's army
and warplanes, along with Russia's warplanes, free time and space to
exterminate Sunni Arabs in the more southern de-escalation zones, such
as Aleppo, Ghouta and Daraa.

So nobody cared about al-Assad's and Putin's extermination of the
hated Sunni Arabs in those other de-escalation zone. But now the
crunch is on in Idlib, since there are already over a million people
on Turkey's border, waiting for Turkey to open the border, and allow
them to enter Turkey as refugees, and from there go on to Europe.

Erdogan is under a lot of domestic pressure. When the Syrian refugees
began coming across the border in 2014-16, the Turkish public welcomed
them. However, now in 2020 the Turkish public is very tired of them,
and want them to return TO Syria. They definitely don't want a
million more refugees coming FROM Syrian.

Turkey is also playing a grand game between Russia and Europe.
Erdogan has repeatedly been slighted by the EU and Nato, and sees this
linkage with Putin as a way of taking a stand against the Europeans.

Then there's also the question of the millions of Syrian refugees that
entered Europe, especially in 2015-16. It was pretty clear that Putin
loved seeing that happen, while al-Assad couldn't have cared less.

****
**** Turkey, Syria, Russia: The next steps in Idlib
****

Bashar al-Assad is a sociopathic monster and war criminal who wants to
complete he work begun by his father, Hafez al-Assad, in exterminating
the Sunni Arabs in Syria and replacing as many of them as possible with
Alawites and Shia Muslims. His advance into Idlib might be slowed,
but won't be stopped unless al-Assad himself is killed.

A spokesman for Erdogan said:

<QUOTE>"[Syrian authorities] should know well that we won’t
leave any threat to our soldiers without a response. From now on,
any mistake by the [al-Assad] regime under the pretext of
struggling against terrorism and terrorist groups will have grave
consequences."<END QUOTE>

This weekend, Turkish and Russian officials are meeting to decide on a
new farcical peace process in Idlib. Putin couldn't care less about
Turkey's problems, and he would probably enjoy watching the millions
of additional refugees that could enter Turkey and move on to Europe.

So what is Turkey going to do? In the last few days, Turkey sent a
few dozen military vehicles into Idlib to provide its observation
posts with supplies and reinforcements. That's not going to stop
al-Assad. So will Russia find a way to force al-Assad to stop? Will
Turkey just "observe" as al-Assad mass-slaughters hundreds of
thousands of Sunni Arabs in Idlib? Or will Turkey capitulate and open
the border and let a million more refugees come into Turkey?

Or will Turkey attack Syrian forces, and try to inflict the "grave
consequences" promised by Erdogan's spokesman, risking war with
both Syria and Russia?

Let's watch and see what happens.

Sources:

• Turkey bolsters Idlib outposts as Syrian gov't forces make gains (Al-Jazeera, 7-Feb-2020)
  
• Russia unlikely to full-on push for Assad control over Idlib in Syria (Ahval, Turkey, 8-Feb-2020)
  
• Turkey reinforces troops in Syria's Idlib, talks with Russia (Reuters, 8-Feb-2020)
  
• Syria's Idlib offensive forces civilians to flee, pits Turkey against Russia (Axios, 6-Feb-2020)
  
• Idlib is an inferno. There are no good solutions left. (Washington Post, 7-Feb-2020)
  
• Turkey / Russia holds key to Idlib's fate as Syrian army advances (Reuters, 7-Feb-2020)
  
• Erdogan, Putin endure marriage of convenience (Al-Monitor, 8-Feb-2020)
  
• Syrian advance sends hundreds of thousands fleeing in Idlib (AP, 7-Feb-2020)
  
• Turkey’s Intervention in Syria Will Slow Assad, But It Won’t Stop Him (Foreign Policy, 7-Feb-2020)
  
• Turkey reinforces troops in Syria’s Idlib, talks with Russia (Middle East Monitor, 8-Feb-2020)
  
• Syria Showdown Looms as Third Turkish Base Besieged in Idlib (Bloomberg, 7-Feb-2020)
  
• Erdogan Threatens to Force Syria to End Siege of Turk Troops (Bloomberg, 5-Feb-2020)

Related Articles:

• Turkey, Russia and Greece face off in Syria, Libya and the eastern Mediterranean (26-Dec-2019)
  
  
• Syria, Russia veto humanitarian aid to Idlib as civilian massacre escalates (22-Dec-2019)
  
  
• Escalated bombing by Syria, Russia in Idlib sends tens of thousands to Turkey border (19-Dec-2019)
  
  
• Generational analysis of Turkey-Syria war and ceasefire agreement (18-Oct-2019)
  
  
• Evidence grows of Assad's 'final solution', extermination of Arab Sunnis in Syria (01-Dec-2018)
  
  
• Syria peace summit issues delusional call for political solution in Idlib (28-Oct-2018)
  
  
• Russia demands that US and EU pay to rebuild Syria (23-Aug-2018)
  
  
• US increasingly expresses total disgust with Syria regime for Bashar al-Assad's atrocities (21-Sep-2016)
  
  
• Turkey shoots down Russian warplane, evoking memories of many Crimean wars (25-Nov-2015)
  
  
• Turkey threatens Syria, as military attacks Palestinian refugee camp (16-Aug-2011)
  

KEYS: Generational Dynamics, Turkey, Russia, Syria, Idlib,
Bashar al-Assad, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Vladimir Putin

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