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Thread: Generational Dynamics World View - Page 33







Post#801 at 09-15-2013 10:44 PM by John J. Xenakis [at Cambridge, MA joined May 2003 #posts 4,012]
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16-Sep-13 World View -- India tests nuclear-capable long-range missile

*** 16-Sep-13 World View -- India tests nuclear-capable long-range missile

This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com

  • India tests nuclear-capable long-range missile
  • Dozens killed in bombings and shootings across Iraq


****
**** India tests nuclear-capable long-range missile
****



India's Agni-V missile (EPA)

India has successfully conducted the second test flight of the
indigenously developed Agni ("Fire") V nuclear-capable long-range
missile. The missile was launched from a mobile launcher, and is
capable of reaching deep into China, and as far as Europe, when it's
deployed in 2014 and 2015. Only China, France, Russia, the United
States and Britain are currently deploying this kind of long-range
missile. India is far behind China in military capabilities, which
continue to grow rapidly, while China's ally and India's enemy,
Pakistan, is also rapidly expanding its military, leading to an arms
race in the region. Hindustan Times and Reuters

****
**** Dozens killed in bombings and shootings across Iraq
****



Site of car bomb attack in Basra on Sunday (Reuters)

As part of a continually growing trend of sectarian violence, a wave
of car bombs and shootings across Iraq killed some 40 people in Iraq
on Sunday. On Saturday, more than 20 people died when a suicide
bomber targeted a Shia funeral. On Friday, At least 30 people died in
a bomb attack on a Sunni mosque.

The psychopathic mass slaughter of Sunni Muslims by Syria's
Shia/Alawite president Bashar al-Assad, enthusiastically supported by
massive shipments of heavy weapons from Russia's president Vladimir
Putin, has inflamed the entire Sunni/Shia fault line from Pakistan to
northern Africa to the Caucasus, probably nowhere more so than in
Iraq. Ever since American forces were pulled out of Iraq in December
2011, sectarian violence, particularly Sunni jihadist violence
targeting Shias, has been growing steadily every month. Some 800
people were killed in August alone. In recent weeks, Iraqi security
forces have reportedly arrested hundreds of alleged al-Qaeda members
around Baghdad. These arrests have angered the Sunni community, but
the violence continues to grow. BBC and
Reuters


KEYS: Generational Dynamics, India, Agni-V missile, China,
Iraq, Syria, Bashar al-Assad, al-Qaeda,
Russia, Vladimir Putin

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Post#802 at 09-16-2013 03:41 PM by John J. Xenakis [at Cambridge, MA joined May 2003 #posts 4,012]
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Quote Originally Posted by pbrower2a View Post
> I hope that it is no insult, but I look at the Greek movement
> "Golden Dawn" and I see thuggery.

> "Members of Golden Dawn march down the street with a robust step"
> reminds me of "SA marschiert mit ruhig feste Schritt" (The SA
> marches with a firm and measured step).
I agree about Golden Dawn. I've written about them a number of times,
though not recently. The situation with Golden Dawn versus
immigrants is very bad, and they have a lot of support from the
police, but I don't see any signs that a new Hitler is emerging
from Greece.

Quote Originally Posted by pbrower2a View Post
> Greece looks as if it is becoming a failed state, probably because
> the government and the people borrowed too readily to live a new
> Good Life, only to find economic reality hitting it hard. People
> might want to see the antiquities and enjoy the ouzo before the
> country goes bad.

> Failed states are the portents of political nightmares. Germany in
> 1930 was a failed state.
I don't write about this much, because people already accuse me of
being too sensationalistic, but I'm very concerned in this regard for
the United States, and its similarity to pre-Hitler Germany. Here's a
description from Hannah Arendt's, <i>The Origins of
Totalitarianism</i> (1950) that I've referred to a number of times:

<QUOTE>"Since the bourgeoisie claimed to be the
guardian of Western traditions and confounded all moral issues by
parading publicly virtues which it not only did not possess in
private and business life, but actually held in contempt, it seem
revolutionary to admit cruelty, disregard of human values, and
general amorality, because this at least destroyed the duplicity
of which the existing society seemed to rest. What a temptation to
flaunt extreme attitudes in the hypocritical twilight of double
moral standards, to wear publicly the mask of cruelty if everybody
was patently inconsiderate and pretended to be gentle, to parade
wickedness in a world, not of wickedness, but of meanness! The
intellectual élite of the twenties who knew little of the earlier
connections between mob and bourgeoisie was certain that the old
game of <i>épater le bourgeois</i> could be played to perfection
if one started to shock society with an ironically exaggerated
picture of its own behavior.

At that time, nobody anticipated that the true victims of this
irony would be the élite rather than the bourgeoisie. The
avant-garde did not know they were running their heads not against
walls but against open doors, that a unanimous success would belie
their claim to being a revolutionary minority, and would prove
that they were about to express a new mass spirit or the spirit of
the time. Particularly significant in this respect was the
reception given Brecht's <i>Dreigroschenoper</i> [[Bertolt
Brecht's <i>The Three-Penny Opera</i>]] in pre-Hitler Germany.
The play presented gangsters as respectable businessmen and
respectable businessmen as gangsters. The irony was somewhat lost
when respectable businessmen in the audience considered this a
deep insight into the ways of the world and when the mob welcomed
it as an artistic sanction of gangsterism. The theme song in the
play, <i>"Erst kommt das Fressen, dann kommt die Moral,"</i>
[["First comes gluttony, then comes morality."]] was greeted with
frantic applause by exactly everybody, though for different
reasons. The mob applauded because it took the statement
literally; the bourgeoisie applauded because it had been fooled by
its own hypocrisy for so long that it had grown tired of the
tension and found deep wisdom in the expression of the banality by
which it lived; the élite applauded because the unveiling of
hypocrisy was such superior and wonderful fun. The effect of the
work was exactly the opposite of what Brecht had sought by it.
The bourgeoisie could no longer be shocked; it welcomed the
exposure of its hidden philosophy, whose popularity proved they
had been right all along, so that the only political result of
Brecht's "revolution" was to encourage everyone to discard the
uncomfortable mask of hypocrisy and to accept only the standards
of the mob."<END QUOTE>

I've written frequently about the lying and corruption on Wall Street
and in Washington. I've quoted specific lies from execs on CNBC, I've
quoted from the WSJ to show that they're lying, and I've accused them
of being crooks and liars. I've named names, and I know that they or
their staffs have seen them, but I've never heard a peep for a single
person complaining. That these people are crooks and liars is an
accepted fact, and nobody cares -- just as in pre-Hitler Germany.

In the last few years, gangsters are respectable businessmen and
politicians, and respectable businessmen and politicians are
gangsters.

Quote Originally Posted by pbrower2a View Post
> Gettysburg was a horrible place to be in early July in
> 1863. Eighty years later it was a good place to be if one belonged
> to one of the oldest religions in the world.
This sounds like something with a story behind it that I don't know.
What's the story?

John







Post#803 at 09-16-2013 10:29 PM by John J. Xenakis [at Cambridge, MA joined May 2003 #posts 4,012]
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17-Sep-13 World View -- Can Ban Ki-moon prevent Russia from destroying United Nations

*** 17-Sep-13 World View -- Can Ban Ki-moon prevent Russia from destroying the United Nations?

This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com

  • Turkey's warplanes shoot down Syrian helicopter
  • U.N. team finds 'large scale' use of sarin gas in Syria
  • Can Ban Ki-moon save the United Nations from Russia?
  • Why are so many German professors against the euro?


****
**** Turkey's warplanes shoot down Syrian helicopter
****



A destroyed Russian-made helicopter that belonged to the Syrian army is seen at the Minnigh military airport (Reuters)

Turkey scrambled two F-16 jets on Monday, and shot down a Syrian
Russian-made Mi-17 helicopter, after warning it that it was
approaching Turkish airspace. The helicopter was shot down over
Turkey's airspace, but it landed in a ball of flames on the Syrian
side of the border. It's unknown what happened to the pilots, but
reports indicate that Syrian anti-government rebels shot them
dead after they ejected.

In June of last year, Syrian forces shot down a Turkish air force jet.
( "23-Jun-12 World View -- Syria shoots down Turkey's air force jet"
) A furious Turkish Prime
Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan vowed that the rules of engagement had
changed, and that Turkey would use military force in response to any
incursion by Syrian aircraft. Zaman (Istanbul)

****
**** U.N. team finds 'large scale' use of sarin gas in Syria
****


A United Nations report concludes that on August 21, "chemical weapons
have been used in the ongoing conflict between the parties in [Syria],
also against civilians, including children, on a relatively large
scale," and that "surface-to-surface rockets containing the nerve
agent sarin were used in the Ghouta area of Damascus."

According to U.N. secretary-general Ban Ki-moon:

<QUOTE>"The report makes for chilling reading.

The results are overwhelming and indisputable. The facts speak for
themselves. The United Nations Mission has now confirmed,
unequivocally and objectively, that chemical weapons have been
used in Syria. ...

There must be accountability for the use of chemical weapons. Any
use of chemical weapons by anyone, anywhere, is a crime. But our
message today must be more than: Do not slaughter your people with
gas. There must also be no impunity for the crimes being committed
with conventional weapons.

This is a war crime. This is the most significant confirmed use of
chemical weapons against civilians since Saddam Hussein used them
in Halabja (Iraq) in 1988. The international community has a
responsibility to hold the perpetrators accountable and to ensure
that chemical weapons never re-emerge as an instrument of warfare.

The international community has pledged to prevent any such horror
from recurring, yet it has happened again. ...

It is for others to decide whether to pursue this matter further
to determine responsibility. We may all have our own thoughts on
this, but I would simply say that this was a grave crime and those
responsible must be brought to justice as soon as
possible."<END QUOTE>

At Russia's insistence, the U.N. team was forbidden from reaching any
conclusions about blame, but the report emphasizes the large volume of
chemical weapons that were used, that they were delivered by
sophisticated rockets, and that the rockets were launched from places
controlled by regime of president Bashar al-Assad. U.N. press release and Full U.N. Report (PDF)

****
**** Can Ban Ki-moon save the United Nations from Russia?
****


The laughable op-ed article by Russia's president Vladimir Putin that
the NY Times published last week contains the following:

<QUOTE>"No one wants the United Nations to suffer the fate of
the League of Nations, which collapsed because it lacked real
leverage. This is possible if influential countries bypass the
United Nations and take military action without Security Council
authorization."<END QUOTE>

The League of Nations collapsed because it was paralyzed in the 1930s
by people like Vladimir Putin. Putin's policy since the 2011 Libya
action, as I've reported several times, has been to use the United
Nations as a tool to control Barack Obama and cripple American foreign
policy, and he's been spectacularly successful since then. ( "22-Apr-11 News -- Russia seeks to cripple Nato through Libya United Nations politics"
)

So Putin, who massacres his own people in Chechnya, invades Georgia
and annexes two Georgia provinces, all " without Security Council
authorization," and who provides weapons to the psychopath Bashar
al-Assad to promote mass slaughter, mutilation and murder of his own
citizens, who lectures Americans on morality and preserving the United
Nations.

Putin has used the United Nations to lead Barack Obama by the nose and
repeatedly humiliate him and the United States. In doing so, he's
also harmed the United Nations, making it look useless and impotent.

And now it looks like Putin is going to do it again. The U.N. team
report and Ban Ki-moon's statements make it clear that Bashar
al-Assad's regime launched horrific, massive sarin gas attack on
Syrian civilians on August 21, a major crime against humanity. But on
Monday, Putin's representatives were going full steam denying that the
U.N. report proves anything, and that the sarin gas attack was
launched by opposition forces, even though that appears to be
physically impossible. They were saying that under no circumstances
would they authorize military action against Syria, even though it was
only the threat of American military action that got Russia and Syria
to admit they had chemical weapons. But Putin isn't interested in the
truth; he's interested in crippling American foreign policy, using the
United Nations as a tool.

Putin's actions make this an existential crisis for the United Nations
itself. Ban Ki-moon must realize this, which is why, I believe, he
used such strident, condemnatory language in his statements on Monday,
going right up to the line of accusing the Bashar al-Assad regime of
new crimes against humanity, though not crossing it.

In fact, I'm not so sure that what happened on Friday was an accident.
As I reported ( "14-Sep-13 World View -- Ban Ki-moon accidentally tells the truth about Syria"
), Ban was giving a talk to a women's group at the
United Nations that was supposed to be private. But in fact his
statement, which accused the Bashar al-Assad regime of "many crimes
against humanity," was broadcast throughout the U.N. building. Was
this all truly an accident? Why was Ban making a statement like that
to a women's group? Could he really have been surprised that the
cameras were rolling?

Right now, Putin is controlling the United Nations agenda, and
crippling American foreign policy. I believe that Ban is well aware
of this, and is looking for ways to take control away from the
Russians. Because if Russia is able to prevent any consequences to
follow from al-Assad's truly monstrous and gigantic crimes against
humanity, then nobody will trust the United Nations again. Russia Today
and Jamestown

****
**** Why are so many German professors against the euro?
****


The arch-conservative Philip Plickert has a revealing comment in
Frankfurter Allgemeine explaining why so many German professors hate
the euro. The reason is largely psychological. Many of them had warned
against the adoption of a single currency in the 1990s, but were
ignored at the time by Helmut Kohl, who considered them technical
morons with no sense of the political and historical understanding of
the project. It is no surprise, therefore, that they are offended now.
EuroIntelligence and Frankfurter Allgemeine (Trans)


KEYS: Generational Dynamics, Turkey, Recep Tayyip Erdogan,
Syria, Bashar al-Assad, Damascus, United Nations,
Ban Ki-Moon, Russia, Vladimir Putin, Georgia, Chechnya,
Germany, euro

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Post#804 at 09-17-2013 10:32 PM by John J. Xenakis [at Cambridge, MA joined May 2003 #posts 4,012]
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18-Sep-13 World View -- Russia and Vladimir Putin pursue a disastrous Syria policy

*** 18-Sep-13 World View -- Russia and Vladimir Putin pursue a disastrous Syria policy

This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com

  • Time Magazine spares Americans the pro-Putin cover photo humiliation
  • Russia continues to torpedo the Syria 'deal'
  • Syria's civil war versus Sri Lanka's civil war


****
**** Time Magazine spares Americans the pro-Putin cover photo humiliation
****



U.S. edition of Time Magazine, Sept 16, 2013, has a different cover photo than Time's three international editions (Time)

Apparently Time Magazine feels that it's necessary to protect
Americans' feelings with regard to the ability of Russia's
president Vladimir Putin to repeatedly humiliate the United
States and President Barack Obama over the Syria issue.
The cover of Time's three international editions has a cover
picture of Putin with the caption:

<QUOTE>"America's weak and waffling, Russia's rich and
resurgent -- and its leader doesn't care what anybody thinks of
him. The World according to Vladimir Putin by Simon
Shuster."<END QUOTE>

Actually, Putin is down in polls in Russia, and he cares very
much what the Russian people think of him.


Time Magazine July 1, 2013, cover portraying Buddhist monk Ashin Wirathu as 'The Face of Buddhist Terror' - banned in Burma (Myanmar)

Time Magazine in the past hasn't worried too much about hurting the
feelings of its readers. The July 1 issue of Time for Asia featured
Burmese Buddhist monk Ashin Wirathu was so offensive to the government
of Burma (Myanmar) that the magazine was banned.

Many people are saying that Time Magazine was protecting president
Barack Obama by using a different cover in the America edition. This
is entirely plausible since Time has been totally in the tank for
Obama since the beginning. The managing editor, Rick Stengel, has
been so completely in the tank for Obama that he's now leaving Time
and being rewarded with a plum job in Obama's State Department.
Time Magazine and Daily Caller

****
**** Russia continues to torpedo the Syria 'deal'
****


Until last month, Russia was insisting that Syria's Bashar al-Assad
regime didn't even have chemical weapons. Now they've been forced to
admit that al-Assad has huge stores of chemical weapons, but insist
that al-Assad would never use them, despite massive amounts of
evidence that he did, on August 21. The Russians keep demanding more
and more evidence to show that al-Assad's regime is guilty, but they
offer not an iota of evidence to support their claim that opposition
rebels were guilty.

France's Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius said on Monday:

<QUOTE>"When you look at the amount of sarin gas used, the
vectors, the techniques behind such an attack, as well as other
aspects, it seems to leave no doubt that the regime [of President
Bashar al-Assad] is behind it."<END QUOTE>

Sitting next to Fabius at a joint news conference was Russian Foreign
Minister Sergei Lavrov, who said:

<QUOTE>"We want objective professional assessment of the
events of 21 of August. We have serious grounds to believe this
was a provocation... But the truth needs to be established and
this will be a test of the future work of the Security
Council."<END QUOTE>

I guess Lavrov doesn't believe that the U.N. team gave an
"objective professional assessment." And I'm sure Lavrov would
like to get rid of secretary-general Ban Ki-moon, who said
that al-Assad has committed "many crimes against humanity."

It's beginning to appear that Russia is going to get away with it
again. As I've been reporting since 2011, Putin has adopted a policy
of using the United Nations as a tool to cripple American and European
policy. After the horrific August 21 chemical weapons attack in
Syria, it was beginning to appear that events would spin out of
Russia's control, but Lavrov is quickly bringing the situation back
under Russian control. BBC

****
**** Syria's civil war versus Sri Lanka's civil war
****


Vladimir Putin may be enjoying the experience of humiliating Barack
Obama and the United States, but Russia's Syria policy is disastrous
for Russia, for several reasons. We've previously described some of
these reasons:

  • Syria is providing a training ground for Sunni jihadists from
    Russia's Caucasus and other countries to learn how to defeat Russian
    weapons and Russian tactics, and they'll be returning to Russia to use
    those new skills against Russians.
  • By using the U.N. as a tool to cripple American and European
    foreign policy, and allowing al-Assad to commit crimes against
    humanity with impunity, Putin is also crippling the United Nations
    itself, and is destroying whatever effectiveness it might have. A
    crippled or destroyed U.N. is not in Russia's interest.
  • At some point, Barack Obama will "revolt" against the repeated
    humiliation being inflicted by Putin, and will take some military
    action unilateral. The military action may succeed, or it may be a
    disaster, or it may start a war.
  • Russia's policy, in cooperation with Iran, Hezbollah and al-Assad,
    is inflaming the entire Mideast along the Sunni/Shia fault line, and
    this is trending towards all-out Mideast war, which will certainly
    spread to Russia's Caucasus.


However, there's one more reason why Putin's strategy is disastrous: A
Generational Dynamics analysis indicates that the entire strategy
cannot succeed, and this can be illustrated by comparing Syria's civil
war with Sri Lanka's civil war that recently ended in 2009.

According to a number of analysts, Russia's strategy is as follows:
Use the United Nations to give Syria's president Bashar al-Assad time,
and provide al-Assad with huge quantities of heavy weapons, so that
al-Assad can win the war and end it quickly. Once the opposition is
crushed, things will return to the pre-war "normal," with al-Assad
still in power, owing a great deal to Russia.

This strategy assumes that al-Assad can win a clear victory that
will end the war. However, Syria is in a generational Awakening
era, so this is not going to happen.

Long-time readers will remember that I followed the Sri Lanka civil
war for a number of years, as it turned into a generational crisis
war. As the war approached a generational crisis, I predicted that a
victory by the Sinhalese government over the Tamil rebels would, in
fact, be an end to the war, after 30 years. Every other journalist
and analyst organization in the world, as far as I'm aware, said that
the war had been going on for 30 years, and therefore would continue
after a Sinhalese victory. But this was a generational crisis war
reaching a climax, and a victory would mean the end of the war, just
as the American victory over Germany and Japan in WW II ended that
war. My prediction, based on generational theory, turned out to be
absolutely correct, and everyone else's turned out to be wrong. (See
"Tamil Tigers surrender, ending the Sri Lanka crisis civil war"
from 2009.)

However analysts, including Russian analysts, are making the opposite
mistake in the case of Syria's civil war. They look at the 1982
victory of al-Assad's father over the rebels, and they look at other
civil wars like the Sri Lanka civil war, and conclude that al-Assad
can score a victory and end this war. But those two other wars were
generational Crisis era wars. Syria is in a generational Awakening
era, and there will not be a generational crisis to this war.
Al-Assad cannot end this war with a victory.

That means that war-weary Syrian opposition figures may agree to a
cease-fire, and may sign a "peace agreement," but they will continue
the protests that caused al-Assad to start slaughtering people in the
first place. Furthermore, the Sunni jihadists that are arriving in
Syria will never agree to a "peace agreement" with the Shia/Alawite
al-Assad. So al-Assad will never reach the kind of peace that he and
the Russians are hoping for.

I keep saying that if politicians could only become familiar with
generational theory, they wouldn't make so many stupid decisions.
This is a prime example. Russia and Vladimir Putin may be riding high
these days, but they're following a disastrous policy that Russians
will soon regret.


KEYS: Generational Dynamics, Russia, Vladimir Putin,
Time Magazine, Rick Stengel, Syria, Bashar al-Assad,
Burma, Myanmar, Ashin Wirathu,
France, Laurent Fabius, Sergei Lavrov,
Ban Ki-moon, Iran, Hezbollah, Sri Lanka

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Post#805 at 09-17-2013 10:56 PM by TimWalker [at joined May 2007 #posts 6,371]
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If I recall correctly, a country's role in the world may be redefined by a Crisis resolution. What about the United States this time around?







Post#806 at 09-17-2013 11:10 PM by John J. Xenakis [at Cambridge, MA joined May 2003 #posts 4,012]
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Quote Originally Posted by TimWalker View Post
If I recall correctly, a country's role in the world may be redefined by a Crisis resolution. What about the United States this time around?
Well, Tim, your guess is as good as mine. As Strauss and Howe themselves pointed out,
there's no guarantee that the U.S. will even survive.

John







Post#807 at 09-17-2013 11:15 PM by TimWalker [at joined May 2007 #posts 6,371]
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Right. One thing I very much doubt is that the USA will have a triumph like the end of WWII. We are not a rising power.
Last edited by TimWalker; 09-17-2013 at 11:18 PM.







Post#808 at 09-18-2013 10:51 PM by John J. Xenakis [at Cambridge, MA joined May 2003 #posts 4,012]
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19-Sep-13 World View - Fed surprises Wall Street by continuing massive money-printing

*** 19-Sep-13 World View -- Fed surprises Wall Street by continuing massive money-printing

This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com

  • Fed surprises Wall Street by continuing massive money-printing
  • U.N. report contains calculations implicating Syria's regime
  • China steps up border incursions into India's Kashmir region
  • Anti-Golden Dawn protests across Greece turn violent


****
**** Fed surprises Wall Street by continuing massive money-printing
****



Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke on Wednesday, announcing postponement of 'tapering' (AP)

The Federal Reserve has been pouring vast amounts of money into the
banking system since 2011, at the rate of $85 billion per month. This
money has been making its way into the stock market, artificially
pushing stock prices to astronomically high levels. But many
analysts, including some of the Fed governors, are demanding that this
has to end, since it's creating massive distortions in the economy.
Fed chairman Ben Bernanke himself has even suggested that the Fed
would begin "tapering" this month, meaning that it would begin to
reduce the $85 billion, bit by bit, possibly starting with a reduction
to $75 billion in September. So the financial community was shocked
on Wednesday when Bernanke issued a statement that no "tapering" would
occur at this time. It's thought that the Fed committee is so
concerned about the fragility of the economy so much that even a small
reduction in tapering might cause a substantial collapse of the stock
market. As things stand, the promise of continuing the full $85
billion per month caused the stock market to skyrocket to record
highs, and interest rates (yields) on 10-year U.S. Treasury bonds fell
sharply after the announcement. Generational Dynamics predicts that
Wall Street stocks will fall to the Dow 3000 level or below. AP

****
**** U.N. report contains calculations implicating Syria's regime
****


The U.N. chemical weapons team that inspected the site of the August
21 sarin gas attack in the Damascus suburbs in Syria was forbidden, at
the insistence of Russia, of determining who was the perpetrator of
the attack. The Russians demanded that they only be allowed to
determine whether or not a sarin attack had occurred.

But apparently the U.N. team found a way to prove blame without having
to say it. In their scientific analysis of the evidence, they
included calculations of the trajectories of the rockets that
delivered the sarin gas. They drew no conclusions about where the
rockets were launched, but they provided enough scientific information
within the report so that experts studying the report can show that
the rockets must have been launched from a Syrian Republican Guard
unit. Very clever!

I watched an hour-long interview of Syria's president Bashar al-Assad
by two Fox News reporters on Wednesday evening. At one point, he said
that al-Qaeda terrorists had manufactured sarin in their kitchens and
launched the August 21 attack. At another point, he said that his
army could not have launched the sarin attack, because it required
specialized army units that have had a great deal of training. Like
many psychopathic murderers, al-Assad is such a skilled liar that even
he doesn't know when he's lying. McClatchy

****
**** China steps up border incursions into India's Kashmir region
****


China has stepped up military border incursions into India-governed
regions of Kashmir and Jammu, the site of wars between Pakistan and
India since 1947. According to an Indian analysis, China's actions
are part of a larger warning to the India government not to form an
alliance with other countries that encircles China. China is
particularly concerned about a possible partnership between its bitter
enemy, Japan, and India. China is also concerned that the U.S. is
attempting to bring India under its strategic umbrella with an
objective to check China within Asia. But while India is building
partnerships on China's periphery from Myanmar to Japan, China is
developing partnerships with Pakistan, Nepal, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka
and Maldives.
Times of India and Institute for Peace and Conflict Studies (IPCS)

****
**** Anti-Golden Dawn protests across Greece turn violent
****


Protests turned to violence clashes with police in cities across
Greece on Wednesday evening, after a so-called "anti-fascist activist"
was stabbed to death by a man who said he belonged to the far-right
Golden Dawn party. ("Far right" has a different meaning in Europe than
in America.) In Keratsini, west of Athens, where the stabbing took
place, the confrontation between the police and thousands of
protesters lasted more than two hours. 6,000 protesters marched in
Thessaloniki, Greece's second-largest city. The political party
Golden Dawn has adopted Nazi symbols and is advocating the deportation
of anyone who is not "pure Greek," even foreigners who have legally
become Greek citizens. They've been blamed for an increase in
violence against immigrants, and a coalition of political leaders on
Wednesday evening called for legislation to make Golden Dawn illegal.
Kathimerini and AP


KEYS: Generational Dynamics, Federal Reserve, Ben Bernanke,
Syria, Bashar al-Assad, sarin,
China, India, Kashmir, Jammu,
Greece, Golden Dawn

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Last edited by John J. Xenakis; 09-19-2013 at 08:16 AM.







Post#809 at 09-19-2013 10:34 PM by John J. Xenakis [at Cambridge, MA joined May 2003 #posts 4,012]
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20-Sep-13 World View -- Syria moves its stockpiles of chemical weapons

*** 20-Sep-13 World View -- Syria moves its stockpiles of chemical weapons for 'unknown reasons'

This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com

  • Golden Dawn killing in Greece stirs huge protests
  • Syria moves its stockpiles of chemical weapons for 'unknown reasons'
  • Senator John McCain responds to Putin in Pravda.ru
  • Spam: The luxury food of South Korea


****
**** Golden Dawn killing in Greece stirs huge protests
****



The Golden Dawn logo is designed to be similar to Nazi logo

As we reported
yesterday,
thousands of Greeks in cities across Greece have been clashing with
police after a self-identified member of the neo-Nazi Golden Dawn
party killed a left-wing rapper. The killing has stirred up a sharp
political split between the left and the right in Greece, and the
political split may become violent.

According to Greece's prime minister Antonis Samaras:

<QUOTE>"The government is determined not to allow the Nazi
descendants to poison our social life, commit murders, terrorize
and undermine the foundations of the country that gave birth to
democracy.

Democracy is much stronger than its enemies realize. ... Violence
is a downhill slide that destroys any chance of Greece achieving
what it deserves, in other words growth, prospects and prosperity.

This is not the time for internal disputes or tension. We all know
that our country is at an exceptionally crucial moment and that
our people are suffering the biggest sacrifices to conquer the
crisis and succeed in its financial rebirth. Any political
disagreements should be solved with a democratic dialogue, not
with incendiary arguments nor with violence anywhere it may come
from and, what is more, not with blood which divides us and
exposes us abroad."<END QUOTE>

Initial suggestions that the Golden Dawn party be banned have been
rejected. However, the government plans to bring more than 30
criminal cases involving Golden Dawn MPs and members. Greek Reporter and Kathimerini

****
**** Syria moves its stockpiles of chemical weapons for 'unknown reasons'
****


Starting on September 14, the exact day that Syria signed on to the
Russian-American agreement that Syria's chemical weapons stockpiles
will be destroyed, the Syrian regime began moving around its chemical
weapons stockpiles. U.S. satellites observed truck convoys moving in
and out of storage sites, starting on that day. The Pollyannaish
explanation is that the regime is consolidating its stockpiles so that
they can be more easily be classified and tabulated. However,
U.S. intelligence officials are skeptical, believing that it's more
likely that they're moving the stockpiles around to conceal them.

According to the agreement that Syria signed, they are required to
provide a full written accounting of all their chemical weapons
stockpiles by Saturday. Last Saturday, Secretary of State John Kerry
said, "We agreed that Syria must submit within a week — not in 30
days, but in one week — a comprehensive listing," and that the
U.S. would allow "no games, no room for avoidance, or anything less
than full compliance." Well, Syria's government is now indicating
that the deadline will not be met. It's not known whether the listing
will EVER be provided. CNN and LA Times

****
**** Senator John McCain responds to Putin in Pravda.ru
****


As we reported last week
, the NY
Times published an absurd op-ed by Russia's president Vladimir Putin.
An angry Senator John McCain promised to get a response published
in a Russian publication, and it appeared on Thursday:

<QUOTE>"Senator John McCain: Russians deserve better than
Putin


I believe the Russian people, no less than Americans, are endowed
by our Creator with inalienable rights to life, liberty and the
pursuit of happiness. ...

President Putin and his associates do not believe in these
values. They don't respect your dignity or accept your authority
over them. They punish dissent and imprison opponents. They rig
your elections. They control your media. They harass, threaten,
and banish organizations that defend your right to
self-governance. To perpetuate their power they foster rampant
corruption in your courts and your economy and terrorize and even
assassinate journalists who try to expose their corruption.

They write laws to codify bigotry against people whose sexual
orientation they condemn. They throw the members of a punk rock
band in jail for the crime of being provocative and vulgar and for
having the audacity to protest President Putin's rule. ...

How has he strengthened Russia's international stature? By allying
Russia with some of the world's most offensive and threatening
tyrannies. By supporting a Syrian regime that is murdering tens of
thousands of its own people to remain in power and by blocking the
United Nations from even condemning its atrocities. By refusing to
consider the massacre of innocents, the plight of millions of
refugees, the growing prospect of a conflagration that engulfs
other countries in its flames an appropriate subject for the
world's attention. He is not enhancing Russia's global
reputation. He is destroying it. He has made her a friend to
tyrants and an enemy to the oppressed, and untrusted by nations
that seek to build a safer, more peaceful and prosperous
world."<END QUOTE>

Prior to the breakup of the Soviet Union, the Pravda newspaper was the
country's official news publication, though it contained no news
except Communist party opinions and press releases. After the Soviet
Union collapsed, Pravda remained an organ of the Russian government,
but a web site, Pravad.ru, sprang up to be an actual source of news.
It's the latter that published McCain's op-ed, and it's not very
likely that many Russians have seen it. Pravda.ru and Pravda.ru

****
**** Spam: The luxury food of South Korea
****



A premium South Korean Spam hamper, ready to be given as a gift

Spam, the pre-cooked pork meat in a can that the U.S. Army used to
feed its soldiers in World War II, has become a popular luxury food in
South Korea, since it was introduced by American soldiers during the
Korean War. Asia is celebrating the annual lunar thanksgiving
holiday this week, and in Korea, it's usual to give and receive
packaged cans of Spam -- Classic Spam, Mild Spam, Bacon Spam, Garlic
Spam, etc. According to one restaurant owner:

<QUOTE>"Spam has a premium image in Korea. It's probably the
most desirable gift one could receive, and to help create the
high-class image, we use famous actors in our commercials. Anyone
who gets a Spam gift-set also gets a warm feeling in their
heart."<END QUOTE>

Premium Spam gift sets can run as high as $75. BBC


KEYS: Generational Dynamics, Greece, Golden Dawn, Antonis Samaras,
Syria, Bashar al-Assad, Russia, John Kerry,
John McCain, Pravda.ru, Vladimir Putin,
South Korea, Spam

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Last edited by John J. Xenakis; 09-19-2013 at 10:47 PM.







Post#810 at 09-19-2013 11:21 PM by pbrower2a [at "Michigrim" joined May 2005 #posts 15,016]
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Quote Originally Posted by John J. Xenakis View Post
I agree about Golden Dawn. I've written about them a number of times,
though not recently. The situation with Golden Dawn versus
immigrants is very bad, and they have a lot of support from the
police, but I don't see any signs that a new Hitler is emerging
from Greece.
A member of Golden Dawn was arrested for murder of a Greek rap musician who criticized the organization and his wife was arrested for attempting to conceal or destroy evidence. (Such happened after this post). Golden Dawn sounds more like a new KKK than a new Nazi Party. A photo of it showed the group affecting "Celtic" crosses characteristic of "White Pride" groups in America and elsewhere.

If one is Greek one has ancient reasons for pride, including Doric architecture that looks good to this day and the early investigations of core reality in thought (Socrates, Plato, Aristotle) and mathematics (Euclid) -- not to ignore some wondrous literature still enjoyable today. Bigots of course identify with something far less glorious and more visceral.


I don't write about this much, because people already accuse me of
being too sensationalistic, but I'm very concerned in this regard for
the United States, and its similarity to pre-Hitler Germany. Here's a
description from Hannah Arendt's, <i>The Origins of
Totalitarianism</i> (1950) that I've referred to a number of times:

<QUOTE>"Since the bourgeoisie claimed to be the
guardian of Western traditions and confounded all moral issues by
parading publicly virtues which it not only did not possess in
private and business life, but actually held in contempt, it seem
revolutionary to admit cruelty, disregard of human values, and
general amorality, because this at least destroyed the duplicity
of which the existing society seemed to rest. What a temptation to
flaunt extreme attitudes in the hypocritical twilight of double
moral standards, to wear publicly the mask of cruelty if everybody
was patently inconsiderate and pretended to be gentle, to parade
wickedness in a world, not of wickedness, but of meanness! The
intellectual élite of the twenties who knew little of the earlier
connections between mob and bourgeoisie was certain that the old
game of <i>épater le bourgeois</i> could be played to perfection
if one started to shock society with an ironically exaggerated
picture of its own behavior.

At that time, nobody anticipated that the true victims of this
irony would be the élite rather than the bourgeoisie. The
avant-garde did not know they were running their heads not against
walls but against open doors, that a unanimous success would belie
their claim to being a revolutionary minority, and would prove
that they were about to express a new mass spirit or the spirit of
the time. Particularly significant in this respect was the
reception given Brecht's <i>Dreigroschenoper</i> [[Bertolt
Brecht's <i>The Three-Penny Opera</i>]] in pre-Hitler Germany.
The play presented gangsters as respectable businessmen and
respectable businessmen as gangsters. The irony was somewhat lost
when respectable businessmen in the audience considered this a
deep insight into the ways of the world and when the mob welcomed
it as an artistic sanction of gangsterism. The theme song in the
play, <i>"Erst kommt das Fressen, dann kommt die Moral,"</i>
[["First comes gluttony, then comes morality."]] was greeted with
frantic applause by exactly everybody, though for different
reasons. The mob applauded because it took the statement
literally; the bourgeoisie applauded because it had been fooled by
its own hypocrisy for so long that it had grown tired of the
tension and found deep wisdom in the expression of the banality by
which it lived; the élite applauded because the unveiling of
hypocrisy was such superior and wonderful fun. The effect of the
work was exactly the opposite of what Brecht had sought by it.
The bourgeoisie could no longer be shocked; it welcomed the
exposure of its hidden philosophy, whose popularity proved they
had been right all along, so that the only political result of
Brecht's "revolution" was to encourage everyone to discard the
uncomfortable mask of hypocrisy and to accept only the standards
of the mob."<END QUOTE>
Brecht of course was a Marxist, and one can usually expect a Marxist to show capitalism and capitalists in the most unflattering way. He was a fine dramatist, good enough that his dramatic critique of capitalism ironically turned a profit for some entrepreneurs, and got away with what he did in Germany until 1933, after which left-wing critiques of business and society in general got the reward of a stay in Dachau or Sachsenhausen instead of some share of the revenue from the box office.

Brecht never saw gangsters as heroes; he saw them as arch-villains as is shown in his The Resistable Rise of Arturo Ui in which a gangster serves as the model for Hitler. The problem was that capitalists had often become like gangsters and thus destroyed the credibility of capitalism as an economic order and as a custodian of any virtues. As with gangsters, capitalists had the same moral code and all that separated them was their legal position.

I've written frequently about the lying and corruption on Wall Street
and in Washington. I've quoted specific lies from execs on CNBC, I've
quoted from the WSJ to show that they're lying, and I've accused them
of being crooks and liars. I've named names, and I know that they or
their staffs have seen them, but I've never heard a peep for a single
person complaining. That these people are crooks and liars is an
accepted fact, and nobody cares -- just as in pre-Hitler Germany.

In the last few years, gangsters are respectable businessmen and
politicians, and respectable businessmen and politicians are
gangsters.
Beyond any doubt a 3T usually implies the degradation of the moral fabric among not only the proles (which can be corrected) but also among the ruling elites. American capitalists and executives may not have gone so low as to encourage outright murder as did Henry Clay Frick (who did his worst in times other than a 3T), and I don't see war profiteers as the cause of the criminal war in Iraq. If they aren't gangsters they are often swindlers, as with people who gambled heavily with other people's money, took a huge cut as commissions and 'management fees', and kept a huge chunk of the investment when investors got burned. Maybe the critical fault with a 3T is that people no longer feel shame at wrongdoing so long as the wrongdoing leads to personal gain and indulgence. In a 4T the bill comes due as if an NSF check.

In 2005 I gave a prediction of a new economic meltdown similar in many ways to the three-year meltdown that began with the 1929 Stock Market Crash after reading an article on fraudulently-rated packages of debt. I could not time the collapse or predict its severity and duration. With a stock market peak in 2007 and a decline almost identical to the first year and a half of the 1929-1933 meltdown.... well, at least I had the generational theory with its rough eighty-year cycle behind me.

In any event, using other people's money or managing assets of others -- or offering debt as a marketable asset requires personal integrity if it is not to lead to economic ruin. I'm going to predict that the financial industry in the next 1T will be well-suited for lazy, unimaginative, unambitious people willing to obey strict rules -- and that it would be a very low choice for career-seekers. It will attract people at or near the bottom of their college classes who are unwilling to do the jobs appropriate for the bottom of academic achievers -- like factory labor. Even retailing and restaurant work will offer better opportunities.
The greatest evil is not now done in those sordid "dens of crime" (or) even in concentration camps and labour camps. In those we see its final result. But it is conceived and ordered... in clean, carpeted, warmed and well-lighted offices, by (those) who do not need to raise their voices. Hence, naturally enough, my symbol for Hell is something like the bureaucracy of a police state or the office of a thoroughly nasty business concern."


― C.S. Lewis, The Screwtape Letters







Post#811 at 09-20-2013 10:43 AM by Brian Beecher [at Downers Grove, IL joined Sep 2001 #posts 2,937]
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Quote Originally Posted by pbrower2a View Post
A member of Golden Dawn was arrested for murder of a Greek rap musician who criticized the organization and his wife was arrested for attempting to conceal or destroy evidence. (Such happened after this post). Golden Dawn sounds more like a new KKK than a new Nazi Party. A photo of it showed the group affecting "Celtic" crosses characteristic of "White Pride" groups in America and elsewhere.

If one is Greek one has ancient reasons for pride, including Doric architecture that looks good to this day and the early investigations of core reality in thought (Socrates, Plato, Aristotle) and mathematics (Euclid) -- not to ignore some wondrous literature still enjoyable today. Bigots of course identify with something far less glorious and more visceral.




Brecht of course was a Marxist, and one can usually expect a Marxist to show capitalism and capitalists in the most unflattering way. He was a fine dramatist, good enough that his dramatic critique of capitalism ironically turned a profit for some entrepreneurs, and got away with what he did in Germany until 1933, after which left-wing critiques of business and society in general got the reward of a stay in Dachau or Sachsenhausen instead of some share of the revenue from the box office.

Brecht never saw gangsters as heroes; he saw them as arch-villains as is shown in his The Resistable Rise of Arturo Ui in which a gangster serves as the model for Hitler. The problem was that capitalists had often become like gangsters and thus destroyed the credibility of capitalism as an economic order and as a custodian of any virtues. As with gangsters, capitalists had the same moral code and all that separated them was their legal position.



Beyond any doubt a 3T usually implies the degradation of the moral fabric among not only the proles (which can be corrected) but also among the ruling elites. American capitalists and executives may not have gone so low as to encourage outright murder as did Henry Clay Frick (who did his worst in times other than a 3T), and I don't see war profiteers as the cause of the criminal war in Iraq. If they aren't gangsters they are often swindlers, as with people who gambled heavily with other people's money, took a huge cut as commissions and 'management fees', and kept a huge chunk of the investment when investors got burned. Maybe the critical fault with a 3T is that people no longer feel shame at wrongdoing so long as the wrongdoing leads to personal gain and indulgence. In a 4T the bill comes due as if an NSF check.

In 2005 I gave a prediction of a new economic meltdown similar in many ways to the three-year meltdown that began with the 1929 Stock Market Crash after reading an article on fraudulently-rated packages of debt. I could not time the collapse or predict its severity and duration. With a stock market peak in 2007 and a decline almost identical to the first year and a half of the 1929-1933 meltdown.... well, at least I had the generational theory with its rough eighty-year cycle behind me.

In any event, using other people's money or managing assets of others -- or offering debt as a marketable asset requires personal integrity if it is not to lead to economic ruin. I'm going to predict that the financial industry in the next 1T will be well-suited for lazy, unimaginative, unambitious people willing to obey strict rules -- and that it would be a very low choice for career-seekers. It will attract people at or near the bottom of their college classes who are unwilling to do the jobs appropriate for the bottom of academic achievers -- like factory labor. Even retailing and restaurant work will offer better opportunities.
In regards to your last paragraph, are you predicting a sort of rerun of the last 1T, albeit with different technologies? What do you feel the similarities and differences will be?







Post#812 at 09-20-2013 11:00 PM by John J. Xenakis [at Cambridge, MA joined May 2003 #posts 4,012]
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21-Sep-13 World View -- Does Iran's 'Heroic Flexibility' signal a real policy change?

*** 21-Sep-13 World View -- Does Iran's 'Heroic Flexibility' signal a real policy change?

This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com

  • Iran's policies move in the direction of 'Heroic Flexibility'
  • Iran's changing strategy defined by younger generations
  • The op-ed by Iran's president Hassan Rouhani


****
**** Iran's policies move in the direction of 'Heroic Flexibility'
****



Iran's president Hassan Rouhani, will visit the United Nations next week

Iran's extremely hardline Supreme Leader, the Ayatollah Seyed Ali
Khamenei, surprised Iranian officials this week by using the phrase
"Heroic Flexibility" to describe how Iran should negotiate nuclear
issues with America and the West.

According to Khamenei:

<QUOTE>"Though the world has changed, that cannot be a
justification for the change of ideals, goals, or the correct
path. ... The nuclear matter must be evaluated within this
outlook.

We do not accept nuclear weapons, neither due to nor not due to
America, but because of our beliefs. When we say that no one must
have nuclear weapons, we certainly do not pursue them, but the
true goal of Iran's opposition in this field is another matter.

Of course, these few countries do not want their monopoly to be
broken in the nuclear energy field... Therefore, the turmoil and
tension created by America, the West and their related currents in
the nuclear discussion must be understood and analyzed within the
framework of the deep tension between the Dominant System and the
Islamic Revolution.

I do not oppose correct diplomatic movements. I believe in what
was called 'heroic flexibility' years ago because this movement is
very good and necessary in situations but it must be binding to
fundamental conditions.

A good wrestler sometimes shows flexibility due to technical
reasons but does not forget his opponent or his main goal.

All of these achievements were accomplished in the oven of the
enemies' pressure and conspiracies, and this valuable experience
demonstrates that no obstacle can stop a faithful, coherent and
determined people that know their way."<END QUOTE>

The phrase "Heroic Flexibility" refers to the act of a Muslim hero,
following the death of the prophet Mohamed in the 7th century, to
finally reverse his clan's opposition to the message of Mohamed. His
reversal is referred to as "History's Most Glorious Heroic
Flexibility." It led to major victories of Islam in Arabia, but it
also led to the major split in Islam between the Sunni and Shia
branches, and a bitter civil war that has been repeated throughout the
centuries.

So the deep historic significance of this phrase by the
hardline Khamenei was startling to other Iranian leaders, because
it was felt that Khamenei would not have used that particular
phrase unless he actually intended a major change of policy,
rather than simply some West-baiting statement.

Another Iranian leader, Ayatollah Sadegh Amoli Larijani, reacted to
the "heroic flexibility" phrase as follows:

<QUOTE>"Just as the Supreme Leader pointed out during the
[IRGC] commanders meeting, our country's officials and policy
makers must pay attention to America's true personality, behavior
and nature.

Negotiations must take place in the framework of a complete and
total understanding of the opposing side, and we must not forget
America's tricks and deception. We must not forget how they
supported this current in the [2009] sedition matter [Green
Movement] and were determined to confront the great Iranian nation
in their velvet reserves [referring to Velvet Revolution] with
their cast iron and steel claws."<END QUOTE>

American Enterprise Institute (Sept 17) and American Enterprise Institute (Sept 18)

****
**** Iran's changing strategy defined by younger generations
****


Assuming that a change in Iran's policies is actually about to
occur, many analysts are attributing it to the American sanctions.
This comes from the standard silly view that almost everything
in the world occurs because of something that happens in
Washington, when in fact very little that happens in the world
is caused by Washington policies.

If a policy change occurs, it would be part of a much larger change in
Iran's government that Generational Dynamics has been predicting for
years. (See for example, "China 'betrays' Iran, as internal problems in both countries mount"
from 2008.)

Iran is in a generational Awakening era. That's because its last
generational Crisis war began in 1979, with the Great Islamic
Revolution, and continued until 1988 with the Iran/Iraq war, during
which Iran was the target of weapons of mass destruction (WMDs) --
poison gas from Saddam Hussein's Iraq army. The survivors of that
war, currently led by Khamenei, have devoted their lives to make sure
no such horrific war happens again. From the point of view of the
survivors, the way to do this is, first, to keep the country united
behind a hardline Islamic state and, second, to have a strategic
defense to the WMDs held by Iran's neighbors, including Pakistan and
Israel.

What characterizes a generational Awakening era is that, very simply,
the crisis war survivors die off, and they are replaced by younger
generations of people who grew up after the crisis war, who have no
personal memories of the horrors of the crisis war, and who rebel
against the survivors, creating a "generation gap." This happened in
America in the 1960s, when the presidencies of war survivors John
F. Kennedy, Lyndon B. Johnson, and Richard M. Nixon were all faced
with massive student protests, demanding such things as sexual
freedoms, the end of the Vietnam War, and racial equality. The
student protests triggered police violence that reached a peak in the
1968 Democratic party convention in Chicago, though the protests
continued pretty freely after that.

In Iran, student protests began in the early 2000s, and police
violence reached a peak during the 2009 re-election of president
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. The police violence was so bloody and brutal
that open protests have all but ended since then. But the underlying
generational changes cannot be stopped by police action. The
Iran/Iraq crisis war survivors are retiring and dying off, and the
younger generations of people with no personal memory of the crisis
war are reaching positions of power and influence. That's going to
happen no matter what the police do.

So in order to predict changes in Iran's policies, one needs
to look at the opinion of young people, as I've been doing
for years, and these are the conclusions that I've reached:

  • Young people do not like the oppressive hardline Islamic
    policies that restrict such things as sexual and political
    freedoms.
  • Young people do not have anything against Israel. They did not
    like Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's constant inflammatory statements about
    Israel and the Holocaust, and they do not have any particular desire
    to see Israel pushed into the sea.
  • Young people like America and the West, while opposing some
    specific Western policies, particularly Western sanctions, though some
    of them blame Iran's inflammatory policies for the sanctions.
  • In particular, young people dislike Western restrictions on Iran's
    development of nuclear power, including nuclear weapons, because they
    believe, especially after Iraq's use of poison gas on Iran, that such
    weapons are necessary for Iran's defense.


I would add that it's been my opinion for years, in contradiction
to almost every American opinion on the left and the right,
that even if Iran has nuclear weapons, it has absolutely no
intention of using them on Israel.

Furthermore, Iran's leaders know that Israel is not their enemy, and
never has been. Their enemies are the Sunni nations, including the
Saudis and the Pakistanis.

So as I've been saying for years, I expect Iran's policies to move in
the directions dictated by the opinions of young people, as outlined
above. Thus, I would expect the hardline social behaviors to be
weakened, I would expect the inflammatory anti-Israel rhetoric to be
softened, but I would expect nuclear weapons development to continue.

In his 'Heroic Flexibility' speech, Supreme Leader Khamenei said that
Iran does not want nuclear weapons. I expect Iran to continue
development of nuclear weapons, but despite the concerns of Israel's
prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu, it's my opinion that Iran has no
intention of using them on Israel.

****
**** The op-ed by Iran's president Hassan Rouhani
****


Iran's president Hassan Rouhani is traveling to the United
States this week to speak at the United Nations, and possibly
to meet with president Barack Obama.

During the last couple of weeks, we've reported on an op-ed by Russia's president Vladimir Putin
in the NY Times, and an op-ed by Senator John McCain
in Pravda.ru.

So it's only right that on Friday, the Washington Post published an
op-ed by Iran's president Hassan Rouhani. Rouhani has only recently
been elected president as a "reformer," which in Iran could mean
somebody only slightly less hardline than his predecessors. But my
guess is that "reformer" means that he's moving policy away from the
hardline policies of the war survivors toward the increasingly popular
policies of the young postwar generations.

<QUOTE>"Three months ago, my platform of “prudence and hope”
gained a broad, popular mandate. Iranians embraced my approach to
domestic and international affairs because they saw it as long
overdue. I’m committed to fulfilling my promises to my people,
including my pledge to engage in constructive interaction with the
world. ...

We must pay attention to the complexities of the issues at hand to
solve them. Enter my definition of constructive engagement. In a
world where global politics is no longer a zero-sum game, it is —
or should be — counterintuitive to pursue one’s interests without
considering the interests of others. A constructive approach to
diplomacy doesn’t mean relinquishing one’s rights. It means
engaging with one’s counterparts, on the basis of equal footing
and mutual respect, to address shared concerns and achieve shared
objectives. In other words, win-win outcomes are not just
favorable but also achievable. A zero-sum, Cold War mentality
leads to everyone’s loss.

Sadly, unilateralism often continues to overshadow constructive
approaches. Security is pursued at the expense of the insecurity
of others, with disastrous consequences. More than a decade and
two wars after 9/11, al-Qaeda and other militant extremists
continue to wreak havoc. Syria, a jewel of civilization, has
become the scene of heartbreaking violence, including chemical
weapons attacks, which we strongly condemn. In Iraq, 10 years
after the American-led invasion, dozens still lose their lives to
violence every day. Afghanistan endures similar, endemic
bloodshed.

The unilateral approach, which glorifies brute force and breeds
violence, is clearly incapable of solving issues we all face, such
as terrorism and extremism. I say all because nobody is immune to
extremist-fueled violence, even though it might rage thousands of
miles away. Americans woke up to this reality 12 years ago. ...

My approach to foreign policy seeks to resolve these issues by
addressing their underlying causes. We must work together to end
the unhealthy rivalries and interferences that fuel violence and
drive us apart. We must also pay attention to the issue of
identity as a key driver of tension in, and beyond, the Middle
East.

At their core, the vicious battles in Iraq, Afghanistan and Syria
are over the nature of those countries’ identities and their
consequent roles in our region and the world. The centrality of
identity extends to the case of our peaceful nuclear energy
program. To us, mastering the atomic fuel cycle and generating
nuclear power is as much about diversifying our energy resources
as it is about who Iranians are as a nation, our demand for
dignity and respect and our consequent place in the world. Without
comprehending the role of identity, many issues we all face will
remain unresolved. ...

After 10 years of back-and-forth, what all sides don’t want in
relation to our nuclear file is clear. The same dynamic is evident
in the rival approaches to Syria.

This approach can be useful for efforts to prevent cold conflicts
from turning hot. But to move beyond impasses, whether in relation
to Syria, my country’s nuclear program or its relations with the
United States, we need to aim higher. Rather than focusing on how
to prevent things from getting worse, we need to think — and talk
— about how to make things better. To do that, we all need to
muster the courage to start conveying what we want — clearly,
concisely and sincerely — and to back it up with the political
will to take necessary action. This is the essence of my approach
to constructive interaction.

As I depart for New York for the opening of the U.N. General
Assembly, I urge my counterparts to seize the opportunity
presented by Iran’s recent election. I urge them to make the most
of the mandate for prudent engagement that my people have given me
and to respond genuinely to my government’s efforts to engage in
constructive dialogue. Most of all, I urge them to look beyond the
pines and be brave enough to tell me what they see — if not for
their national interests, then for the sake of their legacies, and
our children and future generations."<END QUOTE>

This is a pretty good article, fitting well into the "soaring
rhetoric" pattern that we've seen in some politicians' speeches,
though none recently. However, it contains little actual content.

What's most noticeable about it is that it contains none of the venom
of the op-eds by Putin and McCain, or of the speeches of Obama and
Assad. There are no inflammatory remarks about America or Israel, as
would certainly have been the case in an article by Mahmoud
Ahmadinejad. In the next week, Rouhani will begin to fill out his
rhetoric with actual policy positions, and then we'll see whether
"Heroic Flexibility" actually means anything. Washington Post


KEYS: Generational Dynamics, Iran, Ayatollah Seyed Ali Khamenei,
Heroic Flexibility, Ayatollah Sadegh Amoli Larijani,
Hassan Rouhani, Israel, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad,
Great Islamic Revolution, Iran/Iraq war

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Post#813 at 09-20-2013 11:16 PM by TimWalker [at joined May 2007 #posts 6,371]
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I expect Japan to develop nuclear weapons due to China and North Korea.







Post#814 at 09-21-2013 10:49 PM by John J. Xenakis [at Cambridge, MA joined May 2003 #posts 4,012]
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22-Sep-13 World View -- Syria turns over inventory list of chemical weapons

*** 22-Sep-13 World View -- Syria turns over inventory list of chemical weapons

This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com

  • Syria turns over inventory list of chemical weapons


****
**** Syria turns over inventory list of chemical weapons
****


Much to the surprise of a number of people (including me), Syria
submitted an inventory list of items in its chemical weapons stockpile
on time on Saturday. U.S. officials said they were pleasantly
surprised and encouraged by the initial submission, and said that it
was more complete than anticipated.

Questions remain, however, about why the regime of Syria's president
Bashar al-Assad started large movement of chemical weapons stores last
week immediately upon agreeing to provide a list. Supporters of the
regime say that it was to make the inventory list easier to compile,
by having everything together. Others say that Assad is continuing
to hide a portion of his chemical weapons stockpile.

A number of analysts are reacting to the announcement by pointing out
that it's a diversion. The psychopathic al-Assad has been responsible
for killing over 100,000 of his own people using conventional weapons,
and for driving people from their homes, creating millions of
refugees, and that slaughter is continuing every day, irrespective of
any chemical weapons inventory. CNN and
BBC


KEYS: Generational Dynamics, Syria, Bashar al-Assad

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Post#815 at 09-21-2013 11:17 PM by pbrower2a [at "Michigrim" joined May 2005 #posts 15,016]
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Quote Originally Posted by Brian Beecher View Post
In regards to your last paragraph, are you predicting a sort of rerun of the last 1T, albeit with different technologies? What do you feel the similarities and differences will be?
We can't predict what the 4T will have as its main narrative. It could be anything other than bland history and easy times. If a city is nuked, then whatever replaces it will be vastly different.

1. We are likely to see reduced participation in the workforce, especially by teenagers (who will be expected to put more effort into studies) and women, most of whom will be driven out of low-paying occupations. Such women as will be in the workplace will be largely well-paid professionals necessary to the economy. As in the 1950s adult men will dominate in the workplace. The low-paying cashier-checker jobs will largely disappear as automated registers take the place of human checker-cashiers.

2. Style is likely to become austere as it was in the 1950s. Living spaces will have much less clutter, probably because such objects as books, videodisks, and recorded CDs are no longer made. We will download practically everything. People will not likely collect bric-a-brac as they did in the 2T and 3T, and much of it will be destroyed in the 4T after being abandoned (or in the event of apocalypse, being destroyed along with the building that it is in. The "collectible" market will be reduced largely to stamps, coins, and maybe rare books. Beanie babies, Precious Moments figurines, commemorative plates, and teddy bears in the various national costumes will vanish.

3. We will have good artifice to create attractive images in unappealing places. I have suggested that a windowless apartment in Kansas City might have a fake bay window from which one can see some beautiful or exotic scene instead of what one might see from a real window (let us say stockyards).

4. Homophobia and Jim Crow practice will not be revived. Contraception and abortion will not have been abolished in the 4T, barring the rise of a dictatorship that bans them for 'nationalist' reasons.

5. Some sort of collectivism will be deemed seditious, and Millennial adults who participate in it will be greatly limited in opportunities. So it was with Jacobinism in the 1790s and with Communism in the 1950s. This time it could be some 'exotic' religion or liberation theology that has adopted some of the themes of the 4T struggle that the Establishment considers dangerous or subversive after having been partners in the struggle.

6. Four-year college education will again be an elite phenomenon -- at least once the people getting the 21st century equivalent of the GI Bill. Although K-12 education may be expanded in practice to K-14 education, the last two years will likely be either trade school for men or a 'finishing school' for women. (Sexism is likely to return, and sex roles are likely to diverge. Undergraduate education in non-vocational schooling not for strictly technical areas will revert to the old liberal-arts approach. The Great Books will likely become the most economical and effective basis of college education.

7. Toys are likely to revert to building blocks, erector sets, and the like -- at least for boys. Again, sexual roles are likely to widen, and little girls will get dolls.

8. Pop culture is likely to get whimsical as it often was in the 1950s after going through a conformist, omnibus pattern as around 1940.
The greatest evil is not now done in those sordid "dens of crime" (or) even in concentration camps and labour camps. In those we see its final result. But it is conceived and ordered... in clean, carpeted, warmed and well-lighted offices, by (those) who do not need to raise their voices. Hence, naturally enough, my symbol for Hell is something like the bureaucracy of a police state or the office of a thoroughly nasty business concern."


― C.S. Lewis, The Screwtape Letters







Post#816 at 09-21-2013 11:20 PM by pbrower2a [at "Michigrim" joined May 2005 #posts 15,016]
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Quote Originally Posted by TimWalker View Post
I expect Japan to develop nuclear weapons due to China and North Korea.
Indeed I remember a Japanese warning that Japan might rescind its prohibition on nuclear development in the event that North Korea develops nukes from several years ago. With its wealth, excellent scientific community, and ability to find likely allies in the development of nukes, Japan could probably develop a nuke faster than any other country in history.
The greatest evil is not now done in those sordid "dens of crime" (or) even in concentration camps and labour camps. In those we see its final result. But it is conceived and ordered... in clean, carpeted, warmed and well-lighted offices, by (those) who do not need to raise their voices. Hence, naturally enough, my symbol for Hell is something like the bureaucracy of a police state or the office of a thoroughly nasty business concern."


― C.S. Lewis, The Screwtape Letters







Post#817 at 09-22-2013 04:10 PM by Brian Beecher [at Downers Grove, IL joined Sep 2001 #posts 2,937]
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Quote Originally Posted by pbrower2a View Post
We can't predict what the 4T will have as its main narrative. It could be anything other than bland history and easy times. If a city is nuked, then whatever replaces it will be vastly different.

1. We are likely to see reduced participation in the workforce, especially by teenagers (who will be expected to put more effort into studies) and women, most of whom will be driven out of low-paying occupations. Such women as will be in the workplace will be largely well-paid professionals necessary to the economy. As in the 1950s adult men will dominate in the workplace. The low-paying cashier-checker jobs will largely disappear as automated registers take the place of human checker-cashiers.

2. Style is likely to become austere as it was in the 1950s. Living spaces will have much less clutter, probably because such objects as books, videodisks, and recorded CDs are no longer made. We will download practically everything. People will not likely collect bric-a-brac as they did in the 2T and 3T, and much of it will be destroyed in the 4T after being abandoned (or in the event of apocalypse, being destroyed along with the building that it is in. The "collectible" market will be reduced largely to stamps, coins, and maybe rare books. Beanie babies, Precious Moments figurines, commemorative plates, and teddy bears in the various national costumes will vanish.

3. We will have good artifice to create attractive images in unappealing places. I have suggested that a windowless apartment in Kansas City might have a fake bay window from which one can see some beautiful or exotic scene instead of what one might see from a real window (let us say stockyards).

4. Homophobia and Jim Crow practice will not be revived. Contraception and abortion will not have been abolished in the 4T, barring the rise of a dictatorship that bans them for 'nationalist' reasons.

5. Some sort of collectivism will be deemed seditious, and Millennial adults who participate in it will be greatly limited in opportunities. So it was with Jacobinism in the 1790s and with Communism in the 1950s. This time it could be some 'exotic' religion or liberation theology that has adopted some of the themes of the 4T struggle that the Establishment considers dangerous or subversive after having been partners in the struggle.

6. Four-year college education will again be an elite phenomenon -- at least once the people getting the 21st century equivalent of the GI Bill. Although K-12 education may be expanded in practice to K-14 education, the last two years will likely be either trade school for men or a 'finishing school' for women. (Sexism is likely to return, and sex roles are likely to diverge. Undergraduate education in non-vocational schooling not for strictly technical areas will revert to the old liberal-arts approach. The Great Books will likely become the most economical and effective basis of college education.

7. Toys are likely to revert to building blocks, erector sets, and the like -- at least for boys. Again, sexual roles are likely to widen, and little girls will get dolls.

8. Pop culture is likely to get whimsical as it often was in the 1950s after going through a conformist, omnibus pattern as around 1940.
This is all very interesting and perhaps you might consider creating a time capsule for this just in case you are not around when all this unfolds. I do feel, however, that a backlash to excessive automation is developing, and it makes me wonder if at some point in time much of the public will DEMAND more human interaction as with store checkers and cashiers. I for one would be the first to jump on the bandwagon. An article on the AlterNet site stated to so much of the populace who are under 30 have no religion. I replied that the vast majority of them DO have a religion and it's called technology. Where point 2 is concerned, do you see a return to, say, suits and ties for men and skirts and heels for women as de rigeur dress?

The one I long for relates to point 5. Do you feel that we will achieve the goal or limiting excessive corporate power, and if so will it be those wishing to return to the days of corporatist regimes who will be blacklist much as the communist sympathizers were in the last 1T?

Of course we all should remember the prime example of a widely-held prediction of the past which totally backfired. That was the one which stated that advanced technology would lead us into a society of increased leisure time. It is painfully obvious that it didn't work out that way, and we went in the opposite direction. In case I never asked I would love to hear your opinion as to why we didn't become the more leisured society the futurists of the time almost unanimously predicted we would.







Post#818 at 09-22-2013 05:36 PM by Deb C [at joined Aug 2004 #posts 6,099]
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Quote Originally Posted by Brian Beecher View Post
An article on the AlterNet site stated to so much of the populace who are under 30 have no religion.

Of course we all should remember the prime example of a widely-held prediction of the past which totally backfired. That was the one which stated that advanced technology would lead us into a society of increased leisure time. It is painfully obvious that it didn't work out that way, and we went in the opposite direction. In case I never asked I would love to hear your opinion as to why we didn't become the more leisured society the futurists of the time almost unanimously predicted we would.
The Millennial generation may just be the first, in a long time, to insist on equality.

Here's something that I found extremely interesting in regards to Millennials. It appears that this generation may just be the least to conform to to this current conservative time period. Remember Occupy? According to Peter Beinart, this generation could be the rise of the new Left. Because, generally speaking, both parties currently lean toward the pro-capitalist right, which means this generation is seeing the ramifications of pro-corporate policies. Millennials are being defined now by historical events that have seen them paying higher interest rates on student loans that will leave them in debt with no living wage jobs. They seem to understand the connect between indebtedness, corporate rule and Wall Street's record profits.

The argument between the children of Reagan and the children of Clinton is fierce, but ideologically, it tilts toward the right. Even after the financial crisis,the Clinton Democrats who lead their party don’t want to nationalize the banks, institute a single-payer health-care system, raise the top tax rate back to its pre-Reagan high, stop negotiating free-trade deals, launch a war on poverty, or appoint labor leaders rather than Wall Streeters to top economic posts. They want to regulate capitalism modestly. Their Reaganite Republican adversaries, by contrast, want to deregulate it radically. By pre-Reagan standards, the economic debate is taking place on the conservative side of the field. But—and this is the key point--there’s reason to believe that America’s next political generation will challenge those limits in ways that cause the leaders of both parties fits.
AND

But it was worse than that. If Millennials were victims of a 21st-century downward slide in wages, they were also victims of a longer-term downward slide in benefits. The percentage of recent college graduates with employer-provided health care, for instance, dropped by half between 1989 and 2011.
They narrowly favor socialism.

Most striking of all, Millennials are more willing than their elders to challenge cherished American myths about capitalism and class. According to a 2011 Pew study, Americans under 30 are the only segment of the population to describe themselves as “have nots” rather than “haves.” They are far more likely than older Americans to say that business enjoys more control over their lives than government. And unlike older Americans, who favor capitalism over socialism by roughly 25 points, Millennials, narrowly, favor socialism.
More: http://www.thedailybeast.com/article...-new-left.html
"The only Good America is a Just America." .... pbrower2a







Post#819 at 09-22-2013 07:59 PM by John J. Xenakis [at Cambridge, MA joined May 2003 #posts 4,012]
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If you're going to predict what happens in the 2020s, then
you have to take into account the new explosion in intelligent
computer technology that will permit computers to do many
of the tasks that humans do now, only better and more safely,
and will make issues like climate change seem silly in
retrospect.

As for Brian's "backlash to excessive automation," that's news to me.
Just get on the Boston subway, and EVERY person, young and old (except
me) is staring into his mobile device.

Today, Siri responds to simple requests for information. By the
2020s, Siri will be able to serve as a personal assistant able to
perform very complex tasks for you. Until the day that Siri tells you
to do as she tells you, or she will arrange for you and your family to
be killed. I still expect the Singularity to occur around 2030.

** 27-Dec-10 News -- IBM vs Jeopardy! brings robotic warfare and the Singularity closer
** http://www.generationaldynamics.com/...27.htm#e101227


** 19-Feb-11 News -- IBM's Watson supercomputer bests human champions on Jeopardy!
** http://www.generationaldynamics.com/...19.htm#e110219







Post#820 at 09-22-2013 09:46 PM by John J. Xenakis [at Cambridge, MA joined May 2003 #posts 4,012]
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23-Sep-13 World View - Minnesota link to Kenya shopping mall attack raises U.S. fears

*** 23-Sep-13 World View -- Minnesota link to Kenya shopping mall attack raises U.S. fears

This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com

  • Large terrorist shopping mall attack in Kenya continues into third day
  • Minnesota Somalis are a known source of terrorists
  • Christian church worshippers killed by attack in Peshawar, Pakistan
  • Baghdad terror attack pushes monthly death toll over 500
  • New killings make Chicago the murder capital of America


****
**** Large terrorist shopping mall attack in Kenya continues into third day
****



Soldiers move up stairs inside Westgate Mall in Nairobi Kenya on Saturday (CNN)

A large, well-planned terrorist attack on the upscale Westlake Mall in
Nairobi, Kenya, is continuing into a third day, although authorities
are now promising "a speedy conclusion," as of this writing on
late Sunday evening.

At 68 have been killed so far, 175 have been injured in the attack
that began on Saturday, and there are believed to be about 30
hostages, though some have been rescued. Among the dead are the
nephew of Kenya's president Uhuru Kenyatta, and the nephew's fiancee.
In addition, a Canadian diplomat has been killed.

The perpetrators are al-Shabaab, a Somalian offshoot of Al-Qaeda in
the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP). Al-Shabaab have been terrorizing
Somalia, the country next door to Kenya for years. Starting in 2010,
Kenya's troops and African Union troops have been fighting al-Shabaab
in Somalia, and have significantly reduced Al-Shabaab influence.

The attack was well coordinated, with gunfire and grenades coming from
multiple entrances, and appeared to have been in the planning stages
for months. It's being compared to the terrorist attack on a Mumbai
hotel in 2008. (See "After Mumbai's '26/11' nightmare finally ends, India - Pakistan relations face crisis"
from 2008.) That attack killed 126 people in
three days, and injured 327 people. As the terrorists were from
Lashkar-e-Toiba in Pakistan, the attack almost led to war between
India and Pakistan.

According to al-Shabaab on a twitter account, the terrorists are from
America, Canada, Britain, Finland and Somalia. CNN

****
**** Minnesota Somalis are a known source of terrorists
****


Of the three terrorists from the United States, two are from the
Somali community in the twin cities (Minneapolis and St. Paul) region
of Minnesota.

The first wave of Somali refugees came to America in 1991 and were
relocated to Minneapolis, where there was a need for workers. The
refugees were so successful that their relatives soon followed, and
today there are 40-80 thousand Somalis living in the region, including
many that were born there and are American citizens.

However, this large community of Somali refugees also provides a
recruitment opportunity for al-Shabaab, and the FBI has been raising
concerns as recently as last month about al-Shabaab training videos
directed specifically at the Somali community in Minnesota. Called
"Minnesota Martyrs, the Path to Paradise," the video encourages
disaffected Minnesota Somalians to travel to Somalia for terrorist
training, and return to the U.S. to use those skills.

As a precaution, the Mall of America in Minnesota, the largest Mall in
the United States, capable of holding almost 10,000 people, has been
holding "lockdown drills" since 2009. Each drill lasts about ten
minutes, and loudspeakers ask all mall customers to flee to the
nearest store. All stores are closed during the drill, and customers
are instructed to hide in the back of the store. CBS Minnesota and Twincities.com

****
**** Christian church worshippers killed by attack in Peshawar, Pakistan
****


The worst attack ever on a Christian church in Pakistan occurred on
Sunday when two suicide attackers blew themselves up while 400
worshippers were greeting each other at the end of the Sunday service,
in the northwest Pakistan city of Peshawar. The attack triggered
clashes between Christians and police in the southern port city of
Karachi. Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP - the Pakistani Taliban)
claimed credit for the attack, and blamed it on American drone
attacks. The News (Pakistan)

****
**** Baghdad terror attack pushes monthly death toll over 500
****


At least 16 people were killed after a suicide bomber targeted
mourners in Baghdad, the capital of Iraq. A further 35 people were
wounded in an attack in Doura, which came a day after a triple bombing
at a funeral in Baghdad's Shia Muslim stronghold of Sadr City killed
at least 85 people. The surge in bombings in recent weeks has pushed
the monthly death toll to over 500. Al-Jazeera

****
**** New killings make Chicago the murder capital of America
****


Since Friday, 11 people were shot in Chicago, five of them fatally.
13 people were injured in a shooting on Thursday, including a
3-year-old boy. This week, Chicago became "the nation's murder
capital," with 500 murders in 2012, had more killings than any other
U.S. city that year. USA Today


KEYS: Generational Dynamics, Kenya, Nairobi, Westgate Mall,
Al-shabaab, Somalia, Uhuru Kenyatta, Mumbai, India, Pakistan,
Minnesota, Minneapolis, St. Paul, Mall of America,
Peshawar, Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan, TTP, Taliban,
Iraq, Baghdad, Chicago

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Post#821 at 09-23-2013 02:38 PM by pbrower2a [at "Michigrim" joined May 2005 #posts 15,016]
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Quote Originally Posted by Brian Beecher View Post
This is all very interesting

Quote Originally Posted by me
1. We are likely to see reduced participation in the workforce, especially by teenagers (who will be expected to put more effort into studies) and women, most of whom will be driven out of low-paying occupations. Such women as will be in the workplace will be largely well-paid professionals necessary to the economy. As in the 1950s adult men will dominate in the workplace. The low-paying cashier-checker jobs will largely disappear as automated registers take the place of human checker-cashiers.

2. Style is likely to become austere as it was in the 1950s. Living spaces will have much less clutter, probably because such objects as books, videodisks, and recorded CDs are no longer made. We will download practically everything. People will not likely collect bric-a-brac as they did in the 2T and 3T, and much of it will be destroyed in the 4T after being abandoned (or in the event of apocalypse, being destroyed along with the building that it is in. The "collectible" market will be reduced largely to stamps, coins, and maybe rare books. Beanie babies, Precious Moments figurines, commemorative plates, and teddy bears in the various national costumes will vanish.

3. We will have good artifice to create attractive images in unappealing places. I have suggested that a windowless apartment in Kansas City might have a fake bay window from which one can see some beautiful or exotic scene instead of what one might see from a real window (let us say stockyards).

4. Homophobia and Jim Crow practice will not be revived. Contraception and abortion will not have been abolished in the 4T, barring the rise of a dictatorship that bans them for 'nationalist' reasons.

5. Some sort of collectivism will be deemed seditious, and Millennial adults who participate in it will be greatly limited in opportunities. So it was with Jacobinism in the 1790s and with Communism in the 1950s. This time it could be some 'exotic' religion or liberation theology that has adopted some of the themes of the 4T struggle that the Establishment considers dangerous or subversive after having been partners in the struggle.

6. Four-year college education will again be an elite phenomenon -- at least once the people getting the 21st century equivalent of the GI Bill. Although K-12 education may be expanded in practice to K-14 education, the last two years will likely be either trade school for men or a 'finishing school' for women. (Sexism is likely to return, and sex roles are likely to diverge. Undergraduate education in non-vocational schooling not for strictly technical areas will revert to the old liberal-arts approach. The Great Books will likely become the most economical and effective basis of college education.

7. Toys are likely to revert to building blocks, erector sets, and the like -- at least for boys. Again, sexual roles are likely to widen, and little girls will get dolls.

8. Pop culture is likely to get whimsical as it often was in the 1950s after going through a conformist, omnibus pattern as around 1940.
Largely a strict application of Howe and Strauss principles.

and perhaps you might consider creating a time capsule for this just in case you are not around when all this unfolds. I do feel, however, that a backlash to excessive automation is developing, and it makes me wonder if at some point in time much of the public will DEMAND more human interaction as with store checkers and cashiers. I for one would be the first to jump on the bandwagon. An article on the AlterNet site stated to so much of the populace who are under 30 have no religion. I replied that the vast majority of them DO have a religion and it's called technology. Where point 2 is concerned, do you see a return to, say, suits and ties for men and skirts and heels for women as de rigeur dress?
Quite possibly right on clothing. But I am not an expert on clothing trends. It would fit the 1T trends. Women stuck in the roles of (or returning to the role out of lack of opportunities) full-time housewives will be able to wear dresses and high heels that they find no temptation as checker-cashiers. Suites and ties imply that men have the disposable income with which to buy them... and of course that the economic inequality of the Double Zero Decade is over.

The one I long for relates to point 5. Do you feel that we will achieve the goal or limiting excessive corporate power, and if so will it be those wishing to return to the days of corporatist regimes who will be blacklist much as the communist sympathizers were in the last 1T?
Corporate life was in many ways more benign in the 1950s. Maybe Big Business saw a threat in the Soviet Union, and the best way to thwart the Communist menace was to give workers a stake in the system. That meant that people could "(How to) Succeed in Business Without Really Trying" -- so long, of course, as they were men who followed a few basic rules. One of those is "A Secretary Is Not a Toy". But note that that musical fits 1960 well and fit 2000 badly, which the generational cycle suggests. Indeed it probably fit Japan far better in 1960 than it now fits America. Maybe around 2040 it will be topical again in view of the eighty-year cycle.

The Great Menace of the next 1T will surely not be Marxism-Leninism, a now-obsolete challenge to Corporate America. I can think of another tendency that could easily be perceived as a menace to American culture and faith, and it has its own sort of collectivism. Most likely that Great Menace will be Islam.

Of course we all should remember the prime example of a widely-held prediction of the past which totally backfired. That was the one which stated that advanced technology would lead us into a society of increased leisure time.
Has it backfired? Much of the increased productivity has manifested itself in mass unemployment for industrial workers. That is not a good thing. Manufacturing workers got some reprieve as the high-tech stuff was expensive and domestically-produced. It's largely the low-tech stuff -- food, fuel, housing, clothing, furniture, major appliances, and automobiles that have not become cheaper in real cost.

We may see innovations in housing, with whole city blocks used for high-density housing complete with the usual services and retailing inside. There might even be schools, at least elementary. Telecommuting may be more the norm for white-collar work. Technology will make it possible for many people to live most of their lives in such places, never leaving those giant complexes to get groceries, attend religious services, or have their hair done. Millennial adults may love building such complexes and may find them far less expensive and somehow more satisfying than the bungalows that young GI adults found so desirable after WWII. They could be necessary in the aftermath of World War III, if that is part of the Crisis.

But they will seem sterile and unnatural for the new generation of kids born into them -- and those kids will likely have their Boom-like Back to Nature movement so that they can see, feel, hear, and smell something unavailable in climate-controlled, standardized, overblown apartment-city complexes.

All that has kept prices in line in retailing has been information technology that has allowed retailers (and that is how Wal*Mart works) to avoid getting stuck with unmarketable stuff or taking huge markdowns.

It is painfully obvious that it didn't work out that way, and we went in the opposite direction. In case I never asked I would love to hear your opinion as to why we didn't become the more leisured society the futurists of the time almost unanimously predicted we would.
Economic elites have taken all of the economic gains that have resulted from economic progress since the 1970s. They can still compel people to work harder and longer for less because they can exploit power over people. If much of the next 1T goes to rebuilding what has been lost in catastrophe, then there just won't be much of a productive surplus for any elite to grab for itself, and the meeting of human needs will take practically everything. It is also possible that early in the 1T many of our current economic elites will be deemed culpable of the worst aspects of the Crisis and be exterminated or dispossessed.

It is also possible that economic elites of twenty years from now will recognize that workers who have
no stake in a system that allows ostentatious splendor for elites who profiteer off human suffering will turn against those elites.
The greatest evil is not now done in those sordid "dens of crime" (or) even in concentration camps and labour camps. In those we see its final result. But it is conceived and ordered... in clean, carpeted, warmed and well-lighted offices, by (those) who do not need to raise their voices. Hence, naturally enough, my symbol for Hell is something like the bureaucracy of a police state or the office of a thoroughly nasty business concern."


― C.S. Lewis, The Screwtape Letters







Post#822 at 09-23-2013 04:41 PM by JordanGoodspeed [at joined Mar 2013 #posts 3,587]
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I suspect that Islamism has a more precise parallel in the Anarchists of a century ago. Terrorism? Sure? An existential threat? Unlikely. By the 1T the youth bulge in the Middle East will be largely spent, and there is little evidence to suggest that they will reach that point in anything resembling unity. Communism might still be the boogieman, for us at least, if the Chinese manage to both continue developing and keep the CCP in power. THEY, on the other hand, might be turning on Islamists by that point.

Also, rather than a shift back to just men working, we might still have a lower labor participation rate, with a sharper division between the jobs appropriate to either sex, with each sex having a risk of low end, skilled trade, and professional options.







Post#823 at 09-23-2013 10:27 PM by John J. Xenakis [at Cambridge, MA joined May 2003 #posts 4,012]
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09-23-2013, 10:27 PM #823
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24-Sep-13 World View -- Kenya and Israel strengthen ties as mall attack continues

*** 24-Sep-13 World View -- Kenya and Israel strengthen ties as mall attack continues

This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com

  • 'White Widow' of London subway bomber linked to Kenya mall attack
  • Kenya and Israel strengthen ties as mall attack continues
  • Greece tries to purge Golden Dawn from police


****
**** 'White Widow' of London subway bomber linked to Kenya mall attack
****



Samantha Lewthwaite and her husband, suicide bomber Jermaine Lindsay, before his death on 7/7/2005.

On July 7, 2005, four suicide bombers detonated bombs in a coordinated
attack on the London subway system, killing 52 people and injuring
hundreds. The terrorist bombings all went off simultaneously at about
8:50 am local time -- the same time of day that the Madrid subway
bombing occurred on March 11, 2004, and the time of day that the first
plane flew into the World Trade Center on 9/11/2001. One of the 7/7
bombers, Jermaine Lindsay, was married to Samantha Lewthwaite, who
condemned the bombing and said she had known nothing about it.

After that, Lewthwaite was responsible for a string of terror acts in
Kenya. She was dubbed the "White Widow," and has become the world's
most wanted woman. Now, a dead white woman has been found among the
terrorists killed by soldiers in the Kenya mall attack, and
speculation is growing that the dead woman is the "White Widow."
Daily Mail (London)

****
**** Kenya and Israel strengthen ties as mall attack continues
****


Though not saying so publicly, Israel has taken a leading role in
aiding Kenya in the continuing fight against al-Shabaab terrorists at
the Westgate Mall in Nairobi. Kenya and Israel have long-standing
close relationships, involving everything from commercial interests to
sharing intelligence. Israel has developed alliances with a number of
majority Christian African countries, including Kenya, Ethiopia,
Nigeria, Uganda, Rwanda, Togo and South Sudan. Israel's interest in
these alliances has increased substantially since the beginning of the
Arab Awakening has stirred up several Muslim countries, and the
downfall of Libya's leader Muammar Gaddafi unleashed a flood of
weapons across the region. AP and Debka

****
**** Greece tries to purge Golden Dawn from police
****


Greece's neo-Nazi Golden Dawn party has been losing popularity in the
last few days, since a self-identified Golden Dawn member last week
killed a left-wing rapper Pavlos Fyssas. Golden Dawn's popularity had
been low but growing in the last few years, despite (or because of)
their program of targeting immigrants economically, and sometimes
violently. However, the murder of ethnic Greek Fyssas, apparently
just because he was left-wing, has shocked the Greek public, turning
it against Golden Dawn. Even worse, the Greek police have been
standing by while Golden Dawn members have attacked immigrants, and
did so again when Fyssas was killed. In an effort to purge the police
of Golden Dawn sympathizers, over a dozen senior offices of the police
were fired, suspended or transferred on Monday. A probe of the police
involvement in the Fyssas murder is continuing, though some people
fear a backlash among the police if they feel they're being made
scapegoats. Kathimerini


KEYS: Generational Dynamics, Samantha Lewthwaite, Jermaine Lindsay,
London subway bombings, White Widow, Kenya, Madrid,
Westgate Mall, al-Shabaab, Israel, Ethiopia,
Nigeria, Uganda, Rwanda, Togo, South Sudan,
Libya, Muammar Gaddafi,
Greece, Golden Dawn, Pavlos Fyssas

Permanent web link to this article
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Post#824 at 09-24-2013 10:58 AM by Brian Beecher [at Downers Grove, IL joined Sep 2001 #posts 2,937]
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09-24-2013, 10:58 AM #824
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Quote Originally Posted by pbrower2a View Post
Largely a strict application of Howe and Strauss principles.



Quite possibly right on clothing. But I am not an expert on clothing trends. It would fit the 1T trends. Women stuck in the roles of (or returning to the role out of lack of opportunities) full-time housewives will be able to wear dresses and high heels that they find no temptation as checker-cashiers. Suites and ties imply that men have the disposable income with which to buy them... and of course that the economic inequality of the Double Zero Decade is over.



Corporate life was in many ways more benign in the 1950s. Maybe Big Business saw a threat in the Soviet Union, and the best way to thwart the Communist menace was to give workers a stake in the system. That meant that people could "(How to) Succeed in Business Without Really Trying" -- so long, of course, as they were men who followed a few basic rules. One of those is "A Secretary Is Not a Toy". But note that that musical fits 1960 well and fit 2000 badly, which the generational cycle suggests. Indeed it probably fit Japan far better in 1960 than it now fits America. Maybe around 2040 it will be topical again in view of the eighty-year cycle.

The Great Menace of the next 1T will surely not be Marxism-Leninism, a now-obsolete challenge to Corporate America. I can think of another tendency that could easily be perceived as a menace to American culture and faith, and it has its own sort of collectivism. Most likely that Great Menace will be Islam.



Has it backfired? Much of the increased productivity has manifested itself in mass unemployment for industrial workers. That is not a good thing. Manufacturing workers got some reprieve as the high-tech stuff was expensive and domestically-produced. It's largely the low-tech stuff -- food, fuel, housing, clothing, furniture, major appliances, and automobiles that have not become cheaper in real cost.

We may see innovations in housing, with whole city blocks used for high-density housing complete with the usual services and retailing inside. There might even be schools, at least elementary. Telecommuting may be more the norm for white-collar work. Technology will make it possible for many people to live most of their lives in such places, never leaving those giant complexes to get groceries, attend religious services, or have their hair done. Millennial adults may love building such complexes and may find them far less expensive and somehow more satisfying than the bungalows that young GI adults found so desirable after WWII. They could be necessary in the aftermath of World War III, if that is part of the Crisis.

But they will seem sterile and unnatural for the new generation of kids born into them -- and those kids will likely have their Boom-like Back to Nature movement so that they can see, feel, hear, and smell something unavailable in climate-controlled, standardized, overblown apartment-city complexes.

All that has kept prices in line in retailing has been information technology that has allowed retailers (and that is how Wal*Mart works) to avoid getting stuck with unmarketable stuff or taking huge markdowns.



Economic elites have taken all of the economic gains that have resulted from economic progress since the 1970s. They can still compel people to work harder and longer for less because they can exploit power over people. If much of the next 1T goes to rebuilding what has been lost in catastrophe, then there just won't be much of a productive surplus for any elite to grab for itself, and the meeting of human needs will take practically everything. It is also possible that early in the 1T many of our current economic elites will be deemed culpable of the worst aspects of the Crisis and be exterminated or dispossessed.

It is also possible that economic elites of twenty years from now will recognize that workers who have
no stake in a system that allows ostentatious splendor for elites who profiteer off human suffering will turn against those elites.
All very interesting, yet a part of me severely questions whether today's womanhood, with all its education and advanced degrees, would ever put up with returning to that proverbial "Suzy Homemaker" role. Somehow I don't see that happening, but with the sophisticated technology moms could do productive work at home during the hours their kids are in their classrooms. That is if public schooling, which is now under attack, manages to survive the 4T. If not there will be home schooling where both parents would need to be involved. Do you see the idea of more real-life "Mr. Moms" becoming viable?

What other workplace changes do you see happening? Just yesterday in one of our local papers there was a column where people who work on salary are expected to constantly put in very long hours taking more time away from their families. Might we see a bill of rights for salaried workers where more would also be eligible for overtime pay, for example? Hopefully a relaxation of all this "political correctness" could be part of the package as well?

You mentioned an 80-year cycle, but some on this board say it's more like 84. With that in mind, December 5 of this year will mark the 80th anniversary of the repeal of Prohibition. We obviously didn't return to that, but yet the liquor industry suffered significant setbacks, one of which is the massive attrition of neighborhood taverns. Do you see them rebounding and/or a relaxation of some of the stiffer parts of the alcoholic beverage codes to coincide? Or do you see them as relics of a bygone era. In Chicago at one time it was common to have two or three bars on one block. Now you find one about every five or six blocks. And they have become especially scarce in minority neighborhoods. Will there be a relaxation also of the severe crackdown on underage drinking, with folks realizing that if someone 18, 19, or 20 is able to vote, get married and sign legal contracts that they should be able to be served a drink?

Will clandestine liaisons between coworkers become more commonplace with less fear of retaliation? Even with all the harassment crackdown people still do develop an intense attraction for a colleague. Will employers more likely look the other way and the code become more benign to the point that only TRUE sexual harassment will be punished? IOW, can a man give a female coworker a sincere compliment such as "I like your sweater" without being hauled in front of the HR tribunals?







Post#825 at 09-24-2013 11:19 AM by John J. Xenakis [at Cambridge, MA joined May 2003 #posts 4,012]
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09-24-2013, 11:19 AM #825
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Whenever I try to explain Generational Dynamics to an audience, I
always like to start with the 1950s, which I explain is a period of
time where almost everything you've heard is 100% wrong. It's
described as a time when men were robots who forced their wives to
stay at home against their will with the kids, and absolutely nothing
could be further from the truth.

I talk about a 1950s mother as someone who may have grown up living
under a bridge in the 1930s, and whose families may have depended on
soup kitchens for survival; who saw their fathers and brothers
mutilated, tortured and killed at the Bataan Death March, and if they
survived, were shot down like fish in a barrel on the beaches of
Normandy; and who were forced to take "Rosie the Riveter" type jobs
that they hated, as their patriotic duty. And so, by the time the
1950s arrived, a home with a white picket fence where they they could
stay home and take care of the kids with a reliable paycheck from
their husbands was a gift from heaven, and one that they had fought
for and won in over 20 years of total hell. Then I go on to explain
how they wanted to give that gift to their daughters, but their
daughters rebelled in the Awakening era, etc.

Something like that is going to happen again in the 2020s, and I feel
pretty confident in saying that every social issue being discussed and
argued about today will have ZERO relevance in the 2020s.
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