28-Mar-11 News -- Libya's rebels sweep towards Tripoli, as Nato reaches some mysterious agreement
China's food imports keep rising, while exports fall
** 28-Mar-11 News -- Libya's rebels sweep towards Tripoli, as Nato reaches some mysterious agreement
** http://www.generationaldynamics.com/cgi ... 28#e110328
Contents:
"Libya's rebels sweep towards Tripoli, as Nato reaches some mysterious agreement"
"China bitterly attacks Libya military intervention"
"Additional links"
China's food imports keep rising, while exports fall
Iran speaks out against Syria's pro-democracy protesters
28-Mar-11 News -- Libya's rebels sweep towards Tripoli
Re: 28-Mar-11 News -- Libya's rebels sweep towards Tripoli
I'm not sure we should refer to the current state of US reporting as "news", perhaps "news update talk shows" (NUTS) would be better. What you want is news, what you get is five minutes of "what's happening" on the hour and 55 minutes of "this is what I think about it" in a 24 hour cycle. The other day I walked into a room where Fox News was on, they had O'Reilly interviewing Glenn Beck! How on earth is that "news", one commentator interviewing another commentator? The news we get from most media outlets is garbage or worse, it's a disgusting situation. AP and Reuters still report news and there are two newspapers that are independant of ownership chains that would influence their reporting, outside that, actual news on the "news" is getting pretty rare.
The posturing of the Chinese is hardly surprising, that's meant for consumption by the older people, who remember China as the "spokesman for the third world" from 35 or 40 years back. China can't be thought of in those terms any longer, but attitudes of a generation are hard to shift, so they don't try, they just tailor stories to what they know they heard in their youth.
Turkey's position is political of course, but it's flopping around so much I have to think it's poll driven. No proof of that I can offer, but when political positions bounce all over on a hot issue, usually there's some polling going on.
China's farming issues have a lot to do with the overbuilding. Buildings have to go somewhere. But looking at a single crop will always provide distorted information in any country or region, due to shifts in prices and local tastes/markets. China is growing a lot of wheat now, much more than in the past, and a lot more meat as well. Since meat production can involve feeding grain back to animals, it results in a net calorie decrease when this gets overdone. Given the price of grain on world markets now, I expect to see meat comsumption dropping for a time. It's difficult to figure up overall, as much of what constitutes animal feed is agricultural waste, such as the "brewers grains" left over after production of ethanol in the American MidWest. That either goes to animals or it will rot, as the market for human consumption of such is very limited, mostly a novelty despite the fact that brewers grains are actually quite nutritious.
The only reliable measure of a countries agriculture is total calories produced, and that's a hard figure to get your hands on. In case anyone needs the raw data, this is the link to the most comprehensive database I know of for agriculture.
http://www.ers.usda.gov/Browse/view.asp ... iesRegions
The posturing of the Chinese is hardly surprising, that's meant for consumption by the older people, who remember China as the "spokesman for the third world" from 35 or 40 years back. China can't be thought of in those terms any longer, but attitudes of a generation are hard to shift, so they don't try, they just tailor stories to what they know they heard in their youth.
Turkey's position is political of course, but it's flopping around so much I have to think it's poll driven. No proof of that I can offer, but when political positions bounce all over on a hot issue, usually there's some polling going on.
China's farming issues have a lot to do with the overbuilding. Buildings have to go somewhere. But looking at a single crop will always provide distorted information in any country or region, due to shifts in prices and local tastes/markets. China is growing a lot of wheat now, much more than in the past, and a lot more meat as well. Since meat production can involve feeding grain back to animals, it results in a net calorie decrease when this gets overdone. Given the price of grain on world markets now, I expect to see meat comsumption dropping for a time. It's difficult to figure up overall, as much of what constitutes animal feed is agricultural waste, such as the "brewers grains" left over after production of ethanol in the American MidWest. That either goes to animals or it will rot, as the market for human consumption of such is very limited, mostly a novelty despite the fact that brewers grains are actually quite nutritious.
The only reliable measure of a countries agriculture is total calories produced, and that's a hard figure to get your hands on. In case anyone needs the raw data, this is the link to the most comprehensive database I know of for agriculture.
http://www.ers.usda.gov/Browse/view.asp ... iesRegions
Re: 28-Mar-11 News -- Libya's rebels sweep towards Tripoli
I am going to go against the grain and say that this attack on Libya will be viewed as maybe the biggest blunder in US foreign policy history. We are told the fairy tale when in reality, these interventions are disasters. What we have done is set the table for a major civil war. This mess is much larger than Kadaffi. If he didn't have support, they would have gotten rid of him 30 years ago.
People forget Abraham Lincoln sent an army into the south, which was made of of sovereign states and literally burned and destroyed half of them and the economies in them. Then the North sent looting business men to finish the job. That war was about a lot more than slavery, but the propaganda over the last 50 years or so has obscured that fact. There wasn't much complaint about the slaves the north held in the form of industrial workers and miners and such, the immigrants that were literally starved. The point isn't politics in general, but the response of governments in general to revolt. The people of the South were much more innocent than those in Libya.
The point is that Libya was a territory formed by Mussolini, not a nation formed on its own. What the attacks have done is weaken the government and the country in general. What will ensue is chaos and we will see the seeds sowed for war and more chaos. This isn't much different than a group of bandits coming into town and someone bombing the police station because the view is the police are corrupt. With the police out of business or weakened, the bandits will have a time. When the government falls, we will then see the real genocidal war the west has no clue has been brewing for maybe 80 years.
People forget Abraham Lincoln sent an army into the south, which was made of of sovereign states and literally burned and destroyed half of them and the economies in them. Then the North sent looting business men to finish the job. That war was about a lot more than slavery, but the propaganda over the last 50 years or so has obscured that fact. There wasn't much complaint about the slaves the north held in the form of industrial workers and miners and such, the immigrants that were literally starved. The point isn't politics in general, but the response of governments in general to revolt. The people of the South were much more innocent than those in Libya.
The point is that Libya was a territory formed by Mussolini, not a nation formed on its own. What the attacks have done is weaken the government and the country in general. What will ensue is chaos and we will see the seeds sowed for war and more chaos. This isn't much different than a group of bandits coming into town and someone bombing the police station because the view is the police are corrupt. With the police out of business or weakened, the bandits will have a time. When the government falls, we will then see the real genocidal war the west has no clue has been brewing for maybe 80 years.
Re: 28-Mar-11 News -- Libya's rebels sweep towards Tripoli
If so, then it likely will trigger WWIII, though exactly when would still be uncertain.
Re: 28-Mar-11 News -- Libya's rebels sweep towards Tripoli
Dear Barry,
or later I'm going to have to.
The question that hasn't been definitively answered is this: When
was Libya's last generational crisis war.
In a posting a few weeks ago, I opined that it was the Italian
invasion of Libya that began in 1911, and reached a climax in 1920
with the destruction of the Tripolitanian Republic, and the agreement
with the Sunusis with the al-Rajma agreement of 1920.
That would appear to make the 1969 coup or its aftermath the next
crisis war. The problem is that even when I typed this I didn't
really believe it, since the 1969 coup would be too soon, and there's
nothing in the aftermath that "reads" like a crisis war.
A couple of weeks ago, an online correspondent wrote to me, putting
the case that Libya's last crsis war climaxed in 1931 with the Italian
massacre of Bedouins in Cyrenaica, and the massive settling of
Italians in Tripolitania.
So I wrote back to him as follows:
predict things with certainty over a long time frame, or with some
uncertainty in a shorter time window.
So at this point, I don't completely buy into the Libyan disaster
scenario. There are too many uncertainties, and I've come to have too
much respect for the power of chaotic events and political
interventions to delay trend events and the inevitable. Furthermore,
it's my fault that I haven't tracked down whatever books or histories
or whatever of Libya in the 1920s and 1930s to be able to reach a
definitive conclusion on what happened there -- though I have no idea
when I would have had the time to do that anyway.
At this point, all I can really say is that, based on the information
I have so far, there is a non-trivial probability that Barry is right
and that the Libyan intervention will degenerate into a bloody crisis
civil war. However, whether that probability is 30% or 50% or 70%
is not something I can say at this time. If I ever get the time to
do a thorough study of Libya in the 1920s-30s, then I undoubtedly
could be a lot more specific.
John
I've been avoiding coming out of the closet on this question, but soonermannfm11 wrote: > I am going to go against the grain and say that this attack on
> Libya will be viewed as maybe the biggest blunder in US foreign
> policy history. We are told the fairy tale when in reality, these
> interventions are disasters. What we have done is set the table
> for a major civil war. This mess is much larger than Kadaffi. If
> he didn't have support, they would have gotten rid of him 30 years
> ago.
> People forget Abraham Lincoln sent an army into the south, which
> was made of of sovereign states and literally burned and destroyed
> half of them and the economies in them. Then the North sent
> looting business men to finish the job. That war was about a lot
> more than slavery, but the propaganda over the last 50 years or so
> has obscured that fact. There wasn't much complaint about the
> slaves the north held in the form of industrial workers and miners
> and such, the immigrants that were literally starved. The point
> isn't politics in general, but the response of governments in
> general to revolt. The people of the South were much more innocent
> than those in Libya.
> The point is that Libya was a territory formed by Mussolini, not a
> nation formed on its own. What the attacks have done is weaken the
> government and the country in general. What will ensue is chaos
> and we will see the seeds sowed for war and more chaos. This isn't
> much different than a group of bandits coming into town and
> someone bombing the police station because the view is the police
> are corrupt. With the police out of business or weakened, the
> bandits will have a time. When the government falls, we will then
> see the real genocidal war the west has no clue has been brewing
> for maybe 80 years."
or later I'm going to have to.
The question that hasn't been definitively answered is this: When
was Libya's last generational crisis war.
In a posting a few weeks ago, I opined that it was the Italian
invasion of Libya that began in 1911, and reached a climax in 1920
with the destruction of the Tripolitanian Republic, and the agreement
with the Sunusis with the al-Rajma agreement of 1920.
That would appear to make the 1969 coup or its aftermath the next
crisis war. The problem is that even when I typed this I didn't
really believe it, since the 1969 coup would be too soon, and there's
nothing in the aftermath that "reads" like a crisis war.
A couple of weeks ago, an online correspondent wrote to me, putting
the case that Libya's last crsis war climaxed in 1931 with the Italian
massacre of Bedouins in Cyrenaica, and the massive settling of
Italians in Tripolitania.
So I wrote back to him as follows:
Generational Dynamics forecasting is at best probabilistic. It canJohn wrote: > I guess I'm emotionally reluctant to accept your conclusions
> because if you're right then it means that the current Libya war
> is a full-fledged crisis war, which means that things are certain
> to go very, very badly.
> So I think that for emotional reasons I'm going to postpone a
> decision a while longer, until it's clearer which way things are
> going, now that we're in three simultaneous wars in Muslim
> countries.
predict things with certainty over a long time frame, or with some
uncertainty in a shorter time window.
So at this point, I don't completely buy into the Libyan disaster
scenario. There are too many uncertainties, and I've come to have too
much respect for the power of chaotic events and political
interventions to delay trend events and the inevitable. Furthermore,
it's my fault that I haven't tracked down whatever books or histories
or whatever of Libya in the 1920s and 1930s to be able to reach a
definitive conclusion on what happened there -- though I have no idea
when I would have had the time to do that anyway.
At this point, all I can really say is that, based on the information
I have so far, there is a non-trivial probability that Barry is right
and that the Libyan intervention will degenerate into a bloody crisis
civil war. However, whether that probability is 30% or 50% or 70%
is not something I can say at this time. If I ever get the time to
do a thorough study of Libya in the 1920s-30s, then I undoubtedly
could be a lot more specific.
John
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