Cross-Posting in the Map Project Thread

Originally Posted by John J. Xenakis

A web site reader was making comments about Africa and South America, and I referred him to this thread and the "Official 'Map Project' Thread" thread.

He sent me a reply which I'm posting here:

Good information! Please tell him to register and contribute! He seems very thorough and I'd be extremely interested in any help he can give!

Thanks John for the repeated explanations and the links!

I meant to ask you for exactly this direction to a relevant African
generation thread.

Also, it appears that Easton and 1990 and Taylor Selseth largely
concur with my SubSaharan Africa classifications (I haven't yet
compared on other fronts), excepting that

1) they consider Sudan as one country, when it is actually at least 2
if not three countries, with slight offsets, eg South Sudan's war is
already over, Darfur's is reaching a crescendo, and Khartoum hasn't
fully broken out yet. The South Sudan's situation being settled is
already percolating out to Northern Uganda, where the Acholiland
(Lord's Resistance Army) has been routed by the combined actions of S.
Sudan and Ugandan gov'ts.

I'm afraid that this is a problem throughout all of Africa. By the time these nation-states were created, Africa still had a long way to go before there was a great amount of generational coherency among regions. Look at my map and you can see the difference between Africa and continents like Asia and Europe. So I'm sure that there are some countries that are on multiple timelines. Aside from Chad/Sudan, Somalia has been floated around as well as most of West Africa. It's an extremely complicated situation that requires expert attention. Of course, any help by a certain lurker would be appreciated.

2) they are agnostic on Southern Africa, whereas I am definitely not
and see it definitely as being in the end of the Recovery era, poised
to enter Awakening before 2015. The formation of the Union of South
Africa in 1910 was clearly and unambiguously the establishment of the
1T. The culmination of both the Boer War and the Zulu War.

The struggle against Apartheid was definitely an existential struggle
which impacted negatively both the Afrikaner White farmers and the
Black tribalists (eg. Inkatha/Buthelezi allied with the Afrikaners).

And the timing of the saeculum tracks back quite elegantly to the
Mfecane, an Nguni term or Difaqane, a Sesotho term), which means "the
crushing," wherein the militarization of the Nguni age-sets had a
civil war between the Ndwandwe and the Mthethwa. The leader of the
Mthethwa was Dinigswayo and his main lieutenant was Shaka Zulu. Shaka
Zulu's forces decisively defeated the Ndwandwe. A dissident offshoot
of his forces, led by Mzilikazi, ended up founding the Ndebele kingdom
in 1840 what is now known as Matabeleland, Zimbabwe.

And in fact, the reverberations of the ~1820 Mfecane were felt, with
some delay, in the establishment of Swaziland and Lesotho, the Gaza
kingdom in Mozambique and impacted Tanzania too.

The South African Saeculum
1820 - Mfecane - Shaka Zulu's Kingdom (blacks united)
1910 - Union of South Africa (whites united)
1995 - Non-racial South Africa (everyone united)

It's quite obvious that the Mfecane was a Crisis War. The Boer war required a bit more depth, but it certainly is one. I can't be too sure about the 1995 assertion. Something that I got from the 1960 era was that emotional roller coaster ride. So I was agnostic/leaning 4T. I don't get anything like that in the 1990s.

3) Ethiopia is 10-15 years ahead of Somalia

This I can't agree with. We've concluded that Somalia climaxed in the mid 1990s, and Ethiopia in 1991. What's his reasoning?

4) Kenya is definitely ahead of Uganda and Tanzania by about 10
years.

I have nearly 20 as of now. The Mau Mau uprising for Kenya (1952-1960) and the Ugandan-Tanzanian Conflicts and the overthrow of Amin (end 1979).

5) I'm agnostic on Zimbabwe since the two major peoples: Shona and
Ndebele could be on different timelines.

It's possible, but unlikely. The Ndebele arrived in the mid 1830s and I believe there was a Crisis War in the 1890s, which they both shared. The Ndebele should have been a 1T upon arrival so I suspect the timelines merged over the next 60 years. Then there was the Rhodesian Bush War.

It's generally believed by Angolans and Mozambiquans that their crises
were long overdue when they occurred, possibly because of
decolonization happening later there than elsewhere in the continent.
Portuguese were the first in and the last out of Africa (and the most
destructive of all other economic systems that existed previously).

It's a little bit hard to compare the maps, since they represent
snapshots at different years, the borders of countries don't really
represent the language groups/modes of production underneath them, and
classifying a 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 turning doesn't allow you to see whether a
turning is just being arrived at or just departing.

There needs to be color gradient generational timeline maps, and they
should be overlaid on real ethnolinguistic/mode of production defined
peoples independent of or in hybrid with country-political borders.

We'll need something like this. I consider my map to be Present+. China may be 3T, but it conveys the wrong message unless you have it in red.

The idiotic comments from a few that Africa has no saeculum were a
hoot. Anybody who knows anything about Africa knows that coming of
age-groups are a fundamental mechanism for society's organization
from the village on up through most of the SubSaharan environment.
These age-set loyalties are frateral bonds that last a lifetime and
are central to many forms of social and economic organization. It is
the militarization of the age-sets that signifies crisis.

YES!

In any event, it was nice to see my off the cuff generational
classifications largely confirmed by energetic folks who are focused
on this type of analysis.

Thank you!

I think the question of timeline Reset is crucial for understanding
many places.

Africa in particular experienced resets as colonialism invaded deeper
from the coasts, putting strains on available land and/or introducing
new crops and technologies which opened or closed off opportunities
and thus synchronized 1T's.

*cringe* I'm not sure of exactly what you mean.

The scramble for Africa's oil is having another such impact possibly
accelerating or delaying crises in many places, especially the Gulf of
Guinea in Western Africa, but also in Chad and Sudan.

Great book on this called - "Untapped"

http://www.amazon.com/Untapped-Scramble-Africas-John-Ghazvinian/dp/0151011389

Thanks for all your input, anonymous.

I know a fair bit about South African society especially last couple of decades, Zimbabwe as well. The whole country is very 3T, the anti-apartheid struggle years seem to be very 2T.

Plus I have read some analysis by an South African well versed in the Strauss and Howe theory, Graeme Codrington. Who came to the conclusion South Africa is only a few years behind North America.

http://www.youthpastor.com/lessons/i...lenial_124.htm

Dear Tristan,

Originally Posted by Tristan

> I know a fair bit about South African society especially last
> couple of decades, Zimbabwe as well. The whole country is very 3T,
> the anti-apartheid struggle years seem to be very 2T.

I have to agree with you. I don't know as much about Africa as you
guys do, but the "end of Apartheid" was a quintessential example of
an Awakening climax.

Sincerely,

John

John J. Xenakis
E-mail: john@GenerationalDynamics.com
Web site: http://www.GenerationalDynamics.com

Climate change behind Darfur killing: UN's Ban
http://www.breitbart.com/article.php...cle=1&catnum=0

Originally Posted by John J. Xenakis

A web site reader was making comments about Africa and South
America, and I referred him to this thread and the "Official 'Map
Project' Thread" thread.

He sent me a reply which I'm posting here:

Thanks John for the repeated explanations and the links!

I meant to ask you for exactly this direction to a relevant African
generation thread.

Also, it appears that Easton and 1990 and Taylor Selseth largely
concur with my SubSaharan Africa classifications (I haven't yet
compared on other fronts), excepting that

1) they consider Sudan as one country, when it is actually at least 2
if not three countries, with slight offsets, eg South Sudan's war is
already over, Darfur's is reaching a crescendo, and Khartoum hasn't
fully broken out yet. The South Sudan's situation being settled is
already percolating out to Northern Uganda, where the Acholiland
(Lord's Resistance Army) has been routed by the combined actions of S.
Sudan and Ugandan gov'ts.

Good point. That would suggest that Sudan is not a country but instead an "empire" of peoples of centrifugal cultures. The recognized government in Sudan has been waging some nasty wars against secessionists... I can't imagine that going on without major stresses to the people in Khartoum. I see the wars in Sudan as classic examples of genocidal wars that will leave bitter memories for all who remember them. 4T near completion?

2) they are agnostic on Southern Africa, whereas I am definitely not
and see it definitely as being in the end of the Recovery era, poised
to enter Awakening before 2015. The formation of the Union of South
Africa in 1910 was clearly and unambiguously the establishment of the
1T. The culmination of both the Boer War and the Zulu War.

The last Crisis Era for South Africa was the era including the Great Depression, World War II, and the establishment of Apartheid. That's roughly on the timeline for most of eastern Europe, the Crisis in both places involving the establishment of a totalitarian regime. It is the establishment of a totalitarian state, and not its abolition that is generally seen as the "history not to be repeated".

To be sure the South Africa that existed before World War II was the culmination of the Zulu War and the Boer War around 1900 -- but I could argue that South Africa couldn't avoid the effects of the Great Depression and World War II. As part of the British Empire it could hardly avoid World War II. Perhaps the short time between Crisis Eras in South Africa ensured that many Afrikaners sought to solve their 'racial' problem once or for all by ensuring that non-whites were 'put in their place', effectively undoing the undesired effects of both the Zulu War and the Boer War -- which means on call to do the dirty work on Afrikaners' terms.

But the end of Apartheid in South Africa seems to have had limited effects on anything other than the old racial classifications. The demise of Apartheid did not result in harsh retribution toward some defeated side. Absurd "Bantustans" were re-incorporated into a unified South Africa. The economic system of capitalism was not overthrown. The usual Crisis ends with the abrupt end of violence in which victors and vanquished concur that the circumstances leading to the Crisis must not be repeated. In South Africa, it would seem that the establishment of Apartheid in the 1940s is the horror to not be repeated.

The struggle against Apartheid was definitely an existential struggle
which impacted negatively both the Afrikaner White farmers and the
Black tribalists (eg. Inkatha/Buthelezi allied with the Afrikaners).

White farmers cut a deal to protect their lives and their ownership of land. Any short-lived alliance between the white Afrikaner farmers and the "Black tribalistrs" was possible only after the white establishment abandoned Aparthied as a social order.

And the timing of the saeculum tracks back quite elegantly to the
Mfecane, an Nguni term or Difaqane, a Sesotho term), which means "the
crushing," wherein the militarization of the Nguni age-sets had a
civil war between the Ndwandwe and the Mthethwa. The leader of the
Mthethwa was Dinigswayo and his main lieutenant was Shaka Zulu. Shaka
Zulu's forces decisively defeated the Ndwandwe. A dissident offshoot
of his forces, led by Mzilikazi, ended up founding the Ndebele kingdom
in 1840 what is now known as Matabeleland, Zimbabwe.

And in fact, the reverberations of the ~1820 Mfecane were felt, with
some delay, in the establishment of Swaziland and Lesotho, the Gaza
kingdom in Mozambique and impacted Tanzania too.

The South African Saeculum
1820 - Mfecane - Shaka Zulu's Kingdom (blacks united)
1910 - Union of South Africa (whites united)
1995 - Non-racial South Africa (everyone united)

Except: World War II, a major event that South Africa was forced into was a premature Crisis from a generational understanding of South African history.

I would give


1950 - Consolidation of Apartheid (formalization of the legal order of Apartheid)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aparthe...n_South_Africa

which includes the establishment of the Nationalist Party as the only viable political party for the next forty years, Prohibition of Mixed Marriages Act (1949), the "Immorality Act" (1950) which outlawed sexual relations between whites and non-whites, the Group Areas Act (1950) which established residential segregation, and the Suppression of Communism Act (1950) which allowed the Nationalist-dominated government to outlaw any political activity that it disliked.

Sure, that's arbitrary on my part; later laws tightened the screws. But the laws that I mentioned seem essential to establishing the system...

3) Ethiopia is 10-15 years ahead of Somalia

4) Kenya is definitely ahead of Uganda and Tanzania by about 10
years.

Okay on Ethiopia. I'd say that its previous Crisis ended in 1941 with the surrender of the Italian forces to British and Ethiopian troops.

The Mau Mau uprising in Kenya was a major Crisis by local standards. Decolonization of Kenya occurred after the settlement of the Mau Mau uprising and was not bloody. There was no mass expulsion of non-Africans from Kenya... unlike the case in Uganda, whose Crisis began with Idi Amin's bloodletting.

Change of governmental form with little preceding violence (for instance, a colony achieves independence, changes between a parliamentary and a presidential system, or a country establishes or abolishes a monarchy in a free election) or mass killing in an ensuing struggle for power is not a Crisis. A coup? It depends upon whether the coup leads to a civil war (probably a Crisis), establishes a totalitarian regime, or leads to a major bloodletting.

5) I'm agnostic on Zimbabwe since the two major peoples: Shona and
Ndebele could be on different timelines.

Not a country that I would discuss -- yet.

It's generally believed by Angolans and Mozambiquans that their crises
were long overdue when they occurred, possibly because of
decolonization happening later there than elsewhere in the continent.
Portuguese were the first in and the last out of Africa (and the most
destructive of all other economic systems that existed previously).

Struggles for independence in Angola and Mozambique were themselves Crises. I'd say that the Crisis ended almost at the time of independence in Mozambique because the winning faction quickly consolidated power. Angola? The civil war, which involved foreign meddling (Cuba versus South Africa and the USA) is Crisis activity by definition.

It's a little bit hard to compare the maps, since they represent
snapshots at different years, the borders of countries don't really
represent the language groups/modes of production underneath them, and
classifying a 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 turning doesn't allow you to see whether a
turning is just being arrived at or just departing.

Perhaps a date "last Crisis ended" would be appropriate for countries not now in Crisis eras. To be sure, I would give "1939" for Spain, "1944" for Syria, "1945" for most of the former Soviet Union -- central Asia and the Caucasus region in Crisis, "1948" for Germany and the tier of countries from Poland to Greece, "1948" for India, "1949" for China (except "1945" for Hong Kong and "1959" for Tibet), "1953" for Korea, "1962" for Algeria, "1975" for Vietnam and Laos...

Since many countries -- some large and significant ones like Russia, the USA, China, India, South Africa, and most of Europe are on the 3T/4T cusp, that common circumstance situation might merit a category of its own.

The Crisis as a rule is a time of decisive settlement irrespective of its desirability.

The USA, Canada, France, Belgium, Netherlands, Norway, Denmark, Italy, Australia, New Zealand, and Thailand would be marked "1945" -- end of the Second World War. But I'd have to define Switzerland, Portugal, Sweden, and Turkey as "1945" because those countries couldn't avoid some of the hardships of World War II because they were effectively under blockade at one time or another.

There needs to be color gradient generational timeline maps, and they
should be overlaid on real ethnolinguistic/mode of production defined
peoples independent of or in hybrid with country-political borders.

Good point. That would allow someone to establish that the Kurdish region of Iraq is for all practical purposes out of a Crisis era, in contrast to other parts of Iraq (should such be one's opinion). I notice some maps that show the whole of the former Yugoslavia having been in a Crisis -- Slovenia seems not to have been in a Crisis. Chechnya, a dependency of Russia with an insurgency, is more clearly in a Crisis than is any other part of Russia.

The idiotic comments from a few that Africa has no saeculum were a
hoot. Anybody who knows anything about Africa knows that coming of
age-groups are a fundamental mechanism for society's organization
from the village on up through most of the SubSaharan environment.
These age-set loyalties are frateral bonds that last a lifetime and
are central to many forms of social and economic organization. It is
the militarization of the age-sets that signifies crisis.

How ironic it is that the people who know least about Africa pretend to know the most -- and are wrong.

How do I create my own map?

Originally Posted by pbrower2a

How do I create my own map?

Search for "world map" on Wiki and then find the blank gray-and-white political map and copy-and-past the map in a paint program.

More from the mysterious stranger:

Did I mention to you that I visited a somber patriotic/religious
memorial in Uganda, to which they refer as the "African Holocaust" of
1886. It's a sanctified representation for the murder of several dozen
Catholic martyrs by the Kabaka (King) of Buganda, who had recently
taken the thrown after his dad died, and went from being kind of a
rebel in his youth to feeling threatened by the super rapid spread of
Christianity, whereby his authority was challenged by 'another king,'
and which even more gallingly, offered his people a day off from work.
It was a revolutionary situation. Evidently many Christians were
killed
http://www.buganda.com/martyrs.htm

I think their crisis started in the 1880's and finished in 1900 with
the Uganda Agreement with the UK.

Thus the 1966 Crisis where Obote abolished the Kingdom of Buganda,
had parallels to the previous crisis where the Kabaka felt threatened
by the advent of widespread conversion to Chrisitanity, tried to stamp
it out, but ultimately converted to it, and submitted to the Brits.

In effect, as the Crisis of the 1880-1900 period was defined by the
emergence of Christianity as a unifying force across kingdoms and
against tribal practices, but under the tutelage of the British, the
1966-1986 Crisis period was the emergence of a secular independent,
detribalizing force trying to subordinate all other identities to the
Black Ugandan one, and making use of the Indian community as a racial
contrast to define against (the whites were already gone), which also
contained strong elements of class struggle as did the 1880-1900
Crisis.

Of course, what made it so difficult was that tribalism kept on
rearing its head through defacto rule by Presidents who were members
of minority tribes, at first through Obote (Langi - small northern
tribe), then later through Amin (West Nile northern tribe), Obote's
reprise, Okello (Acholi =AD northern tribe) and the revolving door
until Musaveni (western tribe support), who came to power on the
strength of a resurgent Bagandan identity allied with the
intelligentsia broadly plus his own western tribal support (35% of
the population) and a Rwandan Tutsi power base headquartered in
Tanzania (a power standing outside of Ugandan tribal politics).

The Recovery has been incredibly austere as it has been colored
massively by AIDs and the relentless funerals and aggressive sexual
abstinence prior to marriage and then chaotic cheating outside of
marriage, thus actually jeopardizing married women even more than the
unmarried. Harsh justice is meted out for the smallest offense,
widespread paranoia about being spied upon if speaking up politically
or even about business ambitions via governmental processes.

I expect the terms of the Awakening will be a youth tribal and
regional consciousness against the Ugandan identity, also using
Christianity as an supra-group identification mechanism, but also
using new modes such as American-style individualism, high-techism
(cell phones/computers), socialist/environmentalist multiculturalism,
feminism and trade unionism, and a mutual reaching out with the
Ismaili Indians especially among the young Ismailis to expand the
East African Identity beyond race.

Young people, unprompted, proudly stated their tribal affiliations
("I'm a strong, beautiful Bugandan woman.") and equally confidently
stated that they were really citizens of East Africa. I see a
movement toward an East African Union picking up rapid steam and
being one of the prophetic dreams of this generation, capturing all of
those unifying cultural streams I pointed out earlier.

Evangelical Christianity is hugely popular. One of my friends there
just organized the audio logistics for a two-day, 200,000 rockstar
like mania for Benny Hinn.

The main drug is alcohol and Uganda is behind Moldova and Mauritius as
the highest per capita alcohol consumer in the world, with tons of
home brews coming from fermenting everything from bananas to finger
millet to sorghum to maize. They have a super intense drink called
waragi, which is like a vodka or gin; people are plastered everywhere
and driving like maniacs careening around the craters in the road.

Disciplined, nose to the grindstone, uninspired work and endless
AIDs, malaria and sleeping sickness hospices, accompanied by Christian
and alcoholic ecstasy.

A shabby, unmaintained infrastructure with command approaches from the
older Heroes, plaintive whining from the middle aged Artists, and
hopefully the beginning of some disillusionment and impatient dreaming
from the Prophets who are the >50% who are teenagers right now.

This is the Ugandan existence at this point in the Recovery.

My level of frustration with John is approaching critical. Observe the past exchange:

John says that

the cyber attack on Estonia was so large that it required a lot of resources -- more than an ordinary hacker or group of hackers could muster

to which I pointed out (quoting an expert on the field who actually was on the receiving end of the DoS attack) that in fact an ordinary hacker not only could do what was done, but in fact the spoofing of the origin IP addresses is something that any hacker worth a damn would do.

It may as well be a group of bot herders
showing 'patriotism,' kind of like what we had with Web defacements
during the US-China spy-plane crisis [in 2001].

To which John answers:

This doesn't provide any support for the claim that Putin wasn't responsible for the attack on Estonia.

Which is really funny, since

• It also doesn't prove that little invisible elves weren't behind it all
• I wasn't trying to argue any proof that Putin didn't do it all himself, even
• And what I was doing was merely arguing that John's initial assertion was groundless.

Then to the next of john's assertions

polonium can only be obtained from government nuclear institutions.

To which I replied with a pair of links to two places selling Po-210 to the general public. John's response to this of

So the cost of a lethal dose is: $69.00 * (16 / 5000 / 1e-7) = $2,208,000.

Seems to indicate his contention that no one outside of a government nuclear insitution could possibly come up with such a frighteningly large sum of money.
I trust the reasonability of that argument speaks for itself...

And so, all John is left with is re-iterating his factually groundless assertions, attempting to shore them up with "might have been" or "would have done". Even his claims of circumstantial evidence fall flat, as he has in fact no evidence to offer at all (Might have been and Would have done aren't evidence). At least it makes him feel better to go over tired old ground.

Then wrapping it up, John brings up in addition Khordorkovsky and the 'missile defense' stories.

I wasted a bit of time this weekend hunting down well-written position papers on these subjects among several others.
Perspective on the past eight years
A view on internal politics
A collection on Yukos

And to finish it off (for this installment, one must assume by now), John repeats to me a question that I have answered in its several iterations many times before.

Suppose that all these accusations against Putin turned out to be true. How would you feel about it? Would you say, "Turn that criminal out of office and hang him by his fingernails?"

I don't think you would. I think you would say, "I think it's absolutely wonderful that Putin is taking these steps to preserve Great Russia, and I hope that he does more things like that. I'm proud of him." I think that's what you'd say. Am I wrong?

Of course he is wrong -- as even a cursory reading of anything I've written would make clear. John's militant-binary worldview seems to make misreadings inevitable for him, though. But I'll answer his question anyway this last time.

Regardless whether Putin is guilty of the things you -- without evidence -- accuse him of, he has done more than his share of bad stuff. Of course, any person who has sought or gained power over others is pretty sure to have engaged in bad stuff. So while I am personally opposed to the position and the system that supports it, and would like for each and any wielder of political power to be called into account for his crimes, I can't say that any of the things Putin has been accused of -- even were they to be true -- are particularly worse than the things which he definitely has done.
That said, I'm a big fan of the Russian people, and to the extent that the leader that they accept over themselves refrains from making things worse for them, I'll give credit where credit is due.

Originally Posted by John J. Xenakis

More from the mysterious stranger:

Did I mention to you that I visited a somber patriotic/religious
memorial in Uganda, to which they refer as the "African Holocaust" of
1886. It's a sanctified representation for the murder of several dozen
Catholic martyrs by the Kabaka (King) of Buganda, who had recently
taken the thrown after his dad died, and went from being kind of a
rebel in his youth to feeling threatened by the super rapid spread of
Christianity, whereby his authority was challenged by 'another king,'
and which even more gallingly, offered his people a day off from work.
It was a revolutionary situation. Evidently many Christians were
killed
http://www.buganda.com/martyrs.htm

I think their crisis started in the 1880's and finished in 1900 with
the Uganda Agreement with the UK.

Thus the 1966 Crisis where Obote abolished the Kingdom of Buganda,
had parallels to the previous crisis where the Kabaka felt threatened
by the advent of widespread conversion to Chrisitanity, tried to stamp
it out, but ultimately converted to it, and submitted to the Brits.

In effect, as the Crisis of the 1880-1900 period was defined by the
emergence of Christianity as a unifying force across kingdoms and
against tribal practices, but under the tutelage of the British, the
1966-1986 Crisis period was the emergence of a secular independent,
detribalizing force trying to subordinate all other identities to the
Black Ugandan one, and making use of the Indian community as a racial
contrast to define against (the whites were already gone), which also
contained strong elements of class struggle as did the 1880-1900
Crisis.

Of course, what made it so difficult was that tribalism kept on
rearing its head through defacto rule by Presidents who were members
of minority tribes, at first through Obote (Langi - small northern
tribe), then later through Amin (West Nile northern tribe), Obote's
reprise, Okello (Acholi =AD northern tribe) and the revolving door
until Musaveni (western tribe support), who came to power on the
strength of a resurgent Bagandan identity allied with the
intelligentsia broadly plus his own western tribal support (35% of
the population) and a Rwandan Tutsi power base headquartered in
Tanzania (a power standing outside of Ugandan tribal politics).

The Recovery has been incredibly austere as it has been colored
massively by AIDs and the relentless funerals and aggressive sexual
abstinence prior to marriage and then chaotic cheating outside of
marriage, thus actually jeopardizing married women even more than the
unmarried. Harsh justice is meted out for the smallest offense,
widespread paranoia about being spied upon if speaking up politically
or even about business ambitions via governmental processes.

I expect the terms of the Awakening will be a youth tribal and
regional consciousness against the Ugandan identity, also using
Christianity as an supra-group identification mechanism, but also
using new modes such as American-style individualism, high-techism
(cell phones/computers), socialist/environmentalist multiculturalism,
feminism and trade unionism, and a mutual reaching out with the
Ismaili Indians especially among the young Ismailis to expand the
East African Identity beyond race.

Young people, unprompted, proudly stated their tribal affiliations
("I'm a strong, beautiful Bugandan woman.") and equally confidently
stated that they were really citizens of East Africa. I see a
movement toward an East African Union picking up rapid steam and
being one of the prophetic dreams of this generation, capturing all of
those unifying cultural streams I pointed out earlier.

Evangelical Christianity is hugely popular. One of my friends there
just organized the audio logistics for a two-day, 200,000 rockstar
like mania for Benny Hinn.

The main drug is alcohol and Uganda is behind Moldova and Mauritius as
the highest per capita alcohol consumer in the world, with tons of
home brews coming from fermenting everything from bananas to finger
millet to sorghum to maize. They have a super intense drink called
waragi, which is like a vodka or gin; people are plastered everywhere
and driving like maniacs careening around the craters in the road.

Disciplined, nose to the grindstone, uninspired work and endless
AIDs, malaria and sleeping sickness hospices, accompanied by Christian
and alcoholic ecstasy.

A shabby, unmaintained infrastructure with command approaches from the
older Heroes, plaintive whining from the middle aged Artists, and
hopefully the beginning of some disillusionment and impatient dreaming
from the Prophets who are the >50% who are teenagers right now.

This is the Ugandan existence at this point in the Recovery.

Duhhh Africa has no saeculum.

John, please tell this mysterious poster to join the TFT community!

Originally Posted by pbrower2a

To be sure the South Africa that existed before World War II was the culmination of the Zulu War and the Boer War around 1900 -- but I could argue that South Africa couldn't avoid the effects of the Great Depression and World War II. As part of the British Empire it could hardly avoid World War II. Perhaps the short time between Crisis Eras in South Africa ensured that many Afrikaners sought to solve their 'racial' problem once or for all by ensuring that non-whites were 'put in their place', effectively undoing the undesired effects of both the Zulu War and the Boer War -- which means on call to do the dirty work on Afrikaners' terms.

Personally, I like to use a turning-based methodology, but this goes too far. Plenty of countries around the world experienced the effects of the Great Depression and World War Two. However, this doesn't call for an automatic switch to 4T. The generational alignments couldn't possibly allow for this.

Hi Michael,
Glad I could be of some help here.
Africa is very huge, complex, ancient and dynamic; so I enjoy trying to make sense out of the puzzle pieces.

I primarily approach things from ethnolinguistic/economic mode of production/class struggle perspectives.

Generational dynamics provides another important demographic/materialist basis for understanding human social development, especially in terms of timing of Turnings.

So many things to respond to, i don't know where to start:

South Africa:
Apartheid Laws of 1948 weren't a qualitatively new thing; it was a continuation of the fundamental definition of the Union of South Africa, which politically excluded Blacks while treating Whites more or less equally.
Remember that the ANC was founded 1912 (renamed 1919), in direct response to the USA excluding Blacks but originally agitating for basic rights, not even voting rights.

Apartheid Laws were the culmination of an Awakening. Not every Awakening is pretty for everybody. The oppressed were awoken as they had increased economic opportunities to work in the mines and as domestic help in the cities, previously off limits. The dominant group in society "awoke" to the fact that Black labor in the mines was essential to their prosperity and that the slums that had arisen on the outskirts of town weren't going away.

Sharpeville Massacre 1960: Unravelling

Soweto Uprising 1976: begining of the Crisis

First Non-racial Election: 1995, ie a new High
The Truth and Reconciliation Committees were incredibly wrenching processes that accompanied an overall sense of Recovery and Austerity.
Large numbers were not killed in this Crisis, but it was a profoundly soul-reshaping experience for all. A real Gateway through which none can ever go back to a world which no longer exists.


Somalia: my reasoning is that the period that folks are calling a Crisis were actually an Unravelling.
The Crisis begins with the collapse of all central government in the early 90's, as chunk by chunk of Somalia seceded (somaliland 1991, Puntland 1998, Jubaland 1998, SW Somalia 2002), and we're now approaching the end of the Crisis with the Islamic Courts Union and the Transitional National Government vying for creation and control over a newly centralized state.

Kenya:
I originally meant to write at least 10 years ahead. I could go along with a 20 year offset. With Uganda's crisis starting NOT with Amin, but with Obote attacking the Bagandan Kingdom, and similarly not ending with the removal of Amin, but with the taking of power by Musaveni's folks with the backing of Tanzania and the Rwandan Tutsi.

Incidentally, the Tutsi/Tanzania connection and the Ugandans (and the Americans behind all of them) are the main force behind the new government of the Democratic Republic of Congo, which is mainly representative of peoples in the East and not the West (the election results were highly regionally skewed) and the new government is taking a hard line on Western DRC opposition.

The East African Community today just announced that Rwanda and Burundi will be joining Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania. Will be electing a president by 2013. Also there has been talk of DRC joining the EAC, and i would not be surprised to see South Sudan having some sort of affiliate status. The South Sudanese rebels were sheltered in Uganda during the war, and there are warm ties (and mutually beneficial trade possibilities of oil for water).

A subject that interests me alot regarding Africa is the globally unprecedented pace of urbanization.
Mike Davis in Planet of Slums points out that Africa's pace outstrips that of 19th Century Europe by 50-fold. In other words, Lagos growth since WW2 has been 10'sX more rapid than London from 1800-1900.

The Reset Cringe:
Since generational resets to 1T's can occur through invasions and large-scale population transfers, I think it is appropriate to examine the role of urbanization (depeasantization/detribalization) and corresponding social, economic and miscegenation of peoples in generating a consolidated timeline.
http://newleftreview.org/A2496

The immigrations/emigrations and virtual annihilations of mode-of-production-defined peoples within Africa are significant. To fully appreciate this, one should note that many peoples were defined solely by the products that they traded. Eg. A group might be referred to as the 'coffee-bean husk' people.
Changes in ecology, trade flows, new crops and technologies radically restructure relationships between peoples.

The varied geography/ecology of Africa has played a huge role in defining the boundaries and economic roles that peoples play in relation to one another. The North-South trading relationships at the interface between desert, sahel, forest, and savanah were central for millenia. Vast specializations in crops and merchandize and corresponding needs arose from that. And the labor intensiveness of salt and gold mining relative to the disease-kept small population size led to the development of slavery millenia ago to answer severe labor shortages and thus generated enduring relationships and expectations between peoples.
One can often discern patterns of peoples laterally across the continent playing similar roles at the ecological interfaces which exist horizontally.

eg. Livestock herders in the Sahel trading slaves with those who could provide grains from southern plains and salt from northern desert salt mines.
eg. Gold mining of West Africa requiring slaves from the interior and manufactured goods from Arabia and Europe.

The Swahili coast had another long standing flow related to the trade winds and interactions with Indians and Arabs.

I bring all this up because it is common among both imperialists and anti-imperialists to ignore that Africa has had its own dynamics going on long before the Europeans arrived. The waves of Atlantic slavery, colonialism, decolonization, industrialization, information economy were/are falling upon pre-existing dynamics, in some cases merely overlaying on top of them, in other cases, radically transforming or eliminating them, thus throwing whole groups of people into permanent disarray and assimilation into other social formations.

Africa has at least 400 major ethnolinguistic peoples and probably a total of another few thousand of minor peoples.

The advent of qualitative changes in transportation and communication have instantly transformed/amalgamated/annihilated peoples.

A village which once was essentially another country visited occasionally at most, now becomes a stop along a highway just an hour drive away.
Alternatively, the people of that village might have lost their independent existence and now live in a shantytown somewhere cheek to jowl with peoples that they had never even heard of.

Through this rapid, monumental urban migration, it is as if they have all become minority immigrants to a new country.

glad to join the discussion!

Welcome Nomad64!

I must disagree with you on South Africa, though. The mood over there screams 3T.

Originally Posted by MichaelEaston

Personally, I like to use a turning-based methodology, but this goes too far. Plenty of countries around the world experienced the effects of the Great Depression and World War Two. However, this doesn't call for an automatic switch to 4T. The generational alignments couldn't possibly allow for this.

Events outside South Africa forced a reset. The country may have been in an Awakening-like mood around 1930... but that came to an end. So did South Africa miss an Unraveling as its cycle shifted from one out of phase with most of Europe, whose Crises ended around 1870 to one in line with other participants in WWII?

World War II was clearly seen as a Crisis in South Africa because of the stakes of the war. The country was a participant in the war, and consequences of a German victory would have been very sharp changes in South African political and economic life -- mostly for ill -- because of what usually went along with a Nazi victory: genocide and a realignment of the economy for the indulgence of the Nazi hierarchy with a few scraps for the most blatant collaborators.

The politician Jan Smuts looks much like a Gray Champion. Such politicians emerge in Crises -- not before or after.

I use the consolidation of a New Order as the defining time for the end of a Crisis. I don't judge the results; the establishment of Commie rule in Romania and Bulgaria fits the definition of consolidation as does the end of the Greek Civil War that ensured that commies would not rule Greece.

In view of the establishment of Apartheid, South Africa's shortened cycle from the Boer War to the establishment of Apartheid is awkward. So is the cycle in Russia because of what I see as a Crisis of three horrible waves.

Some Crises are harder than others; some hit different countries differently. Sometimes the Crisis results in a restoration of roughly a status quo ante bellum ; sometimes it is a major restructuring of political life. It can be the establishment of new empires, the dissolution of old entities, or the splintering of old empires.

Dear Justin,

Originally Posted by Justin '77

> My level of frustration with John is approaching critical.

I'm really not trying to piss you off. It's true that I'm very
suspicious of Putin -- a lot more suspicious than other people are.

But if you don't want to discuss this, then let's drop the subject.
This is supposed to be "fun," isn't it?

From my point of view, the problem is that you're not responding to
the arguments I'm making. I'm talking about circumstantial evidence,
and you keep coming back to something I conceded right from the
beginning -- that there's no "smoking gun" proof that Putin did any
of this.

I agree with you that such proof does not exist. I'm saying that the
acts I'm discussing were done under his order or with his knowledge
with the express purpose of giving him deniability.

Let's take the polonium example. Here's what you wrote:

Originally Posted by Justin '77

> Those 'analysts' again! Then again Polonium has been available
> for sale even in toxic quantities for quite some time. In fact,
> it still is. How does it feel to get suckered so badly by people
> who call themselves 'analysts'? Embarrassing, I'd bet.
> http://www.iht.com/articles/2006/12/...n/edzimmer.php
> http://www.marcoscan.com/2006/11/pol...n_vendita.html
> http://www.unitednuclear.com/isotopes.htm

You pointed me at an article that seemed to say, "See? Polonium only
costs $69. Anyone could have spent $69, got the polonium, and killed
Alexander Litvinenko." You didn't use those exact words, but that's
what I felt you were saying when you talked about me being
"suckered."

Then I dug further and showed that a lethal dose doesn't cost $69; it
costs $2.2 million dollars.

So now you write:

Originally Posted by Justin '77

> Seems to indicate his contention that no one outside of a
> government nuclear insitution could possibly come up with such a
> frighteningly large sum of money. I trust the reasonability of
> that argument speaks for itself...

This is intended (I assume) to be a sarcastic response, implying that
there are a lot of people who could come up with $2.2 million for
polonium.

But surely you can see why I feel that you're evading the question.
$2.2M is a hell of a lot of money. If some ordinary person wanted to
spend that kind of money for polonium, it would be noticed by a lot
of people. If some private individual had spent $2.2M for polonium
in the period prior to Litvinenko's death, there's no doubt in my
mind that we'd know about it today.

So in fact I DO claim that, yes, no one outside of a government
nuclear institution could come up with that kind of money AND AND AND
could use it to buy a lethal dose of polonium.

So then you have to get to motivation. Who would be motivated to
pay that kind of money and make those kinds of arrangements to
kill Litvinenko? The obvious answer is Putin.

Now, please don't post another sarcastic response indicating that
there's no ironclad proof. I know that. But the circumstantial
evidence points directly at Putin, in my opinion.

Now that's where I stand. If that pisses you off, then let's just
drop the subject.

I won't go through the arguments about Estonia, except to say that
the issue is the SIZE of the cyber attack.

Finally, I want to tell you exactly why I'm so suspicious of Putin.

The following is a list of the articles that I wrote about Yukos in
2004. In July, when I started, I was just wondering what was
going on, because it just seemed suspicious. By the end of the year
there was absolutely no question in my mind that Yukos had jailed
Mikhail Khodorkovsky because he was a political enemy, and that he
had planned from the start to nationalize Yukos.

At the beginning, I was wondering if he was trying to emulate Lenin,
and I quoted this 1917 memo to the Politburo on the destruction of
the Russian Orthodox Church in order to harvest the Church's wealth:

Originally Posted by Nicolai Lenin in 1917

> We must pursue the removal of church property by any means
> necessary in order to secure for ourselves a fund of several
> hundred million gold rubles (do not forget the immense wealth of
> some monasteries and lauras). Without this fund any government
> work in general, any economic build-up in particular, and any
> upholding of soviet principles ... is completely unthinkable. In
> order to get our hands on this fund of several hundred million
> gold rubles (and perhaps even several hundred billion), we must
> do whatever is necessary.

During the entire Soviet era, the leaders were free to take anything
they wanted and keep it for themselves. The "reason" is that there's
"no private property" under Communism, which is a sick excuse for
allowing the Communist leaders to take what they want. This had been
the entire Russian culture at least since 1917.

So when I started writing in July, my question was whether Putin, the
former KGB official, was simply reverting to the culture he
understood best, one in which political enemies can be killed and the
government can take what they want.

So here's the list of articles that I wrote. It really gets funny at
the end, when Houston court (of all things) tries to prevent the sale
of Yukos' assets, so Putin has them acquired by a neighborhood liquor
store!!!!! Then the assets get shuffled to Putin's number two man,
whose daughter had just married the son of Prosecutor General Vladimir
Ustinov, who was in charge of the case that drove Yukos to
bankruptcy!! So Putin not only managed to nationalize Yukos, but he
even kept it all in the family! It was absolutely hilarious.

Since then, various political enemies have been knocked off
mysteriously -- murdered or jailed. Garry Kasparov is being
harrassed. Putin has also managed to extort the Sakhalin Island
project from Royal Dutch Shell last year, as well as an ExxonMobil
project, and recently a BP project in the Kovykta gas field.

The same thing happens over and over again: Putin's enemies die, and
Putin takes what he wants. It always ends up the same way, even
thought there's never any ironclad proof, and Putin always has
deniability.

Anyway, here's the list of my 2004 articles. These get really
hilarious by the end. Read them if you want, but don't read them if
they're just going to piss you off.

** I wish we knew more about Putin's plans for Yukos

http://www.generationaldynamics.com/cgi-bin/D.PL?xct=gd.e040706b#e040706b

** Yukos: Bankruptcy is near

http://www.generationaldynamics.com/cgi-bin/D.PL?xct=gd.e040722b#e040722b

** Kremlin orders Yukos to stop selling oil.

http://www.generationaldynamics.com/cgi-bin/D.PL?xct=gd.e040728#e040728

** Yukos freeze order rescinded after worldwide oil prices soar to all time high.

http://www.generationaldynamics.com/cgi-bin/D.PL?xct=gd.e040729b#e040729b

** Kremlin appears to be backing down on nationalizing Yukos

http://www.generationaldynamics.com/cgi-bin/D.PL?xct=gd.e040802#e040802

** Incredible! The Kremlin has frozen Yukos' assets again

http://www.generationaldynamics.com/cgi-bin/D.PL?xct=gd.e040805b#e040805b

** Yukos is now fit only for vultures, as rumors of insider trading fly

http://www.generationaldynamics.com/cgi-bin/D.PL?xct=gd.e040810#e040810

** Kremlin backs down and hires Dresdner to evaluate Yukos subsidiary

http://www.generationaldynamics.com/cgi-bin/D.PL?xct=gd.e040813c#e040813c

** Yukos still very close to bankruptcy as oil tops $47 per barrel

http://www.generationaldynamics.com/cgi-bin/D.PL?xct=gd.e040818b#e040818b

** After a week of high comedy, who the heck is Baikal? / Yukos

http://www.generationaldynamics.com/cgi-bin/D.PL?xct=gd.e041219#e041219

** Now we know - Baikal is a neighborhood liquor store / Yukos

http://www.generationaldynamics.com/cgi-bin/D.PL?xct=gd.e041220#e041220

** Yukos nationalization may set the pattern for Russia in 2005

http://www.generationaldynamics.com/cgi-bin/D.PL?xct=gd.e041229#e041229

Sincerely,

John

John J. Xenakis
E-mail: john@GenerationalDynamics.com
Web site: http://www.GenerationalDynamics.com

Would it be reasonable to describe a 5T as a Phony Fourth?

Here's something to chew on, courtesy of David Krein.
http://www.fourthturning.com/forum/s...1&postcount=14

To all:

I'd like to summarize an article that I posted on my web site today.
** As global economy continues to deteriorate, most people are oblivious
http://www.generationaldynamics.com/cgi-bin/D.PL?xct=gd.e070708#e070708

There are three major global financial imbalances that are coming to
a head right now:

• Last month's Bear Stearns debacle, where the company bailed out
  one of its one hedge funds heavily invested in credit derivatives, is
  having widespread repercussions. There are nominally tens or hundreds
  of trillions of dollars of credit derivatives in portfolios of banks,
  pension funds, college endowments, mutual funds, insurance companies,
  and so forth, and the Bear Stearns situation revealed that these
  credit derivatives are worth far less than their nominal value --
  perhaps 10-50 cents on the dollar. This is going to force all these
  organizations to re-value their holdings, based on mark-to-market
  accounting rules. It's already causing significant bankruptcies, and
  those are expected to increase.
  
  Of the three items I'm listing here, this one is already in progress
  and cannot be stopped, as far as I can tell. The other two require
  investor panic.
  
• The Shanghai stock market is well into extreme bubble territory,
  and the bubble is showing some first signs of collapsing, although
  this is not a sure thing. If it does collapse, it will have
  a disastrous impact on the Chinese economic, and this impact will
  spread throughout Asia and to Europe and the US.
  
• The Wall Street stock market, which is overpriced by a factor of
  over 250% (same as 1929), has been pushed to bubble levels by over 12
  years of corporate earnings growth averaging 18%. The long-term
  average is 11%, so this has been long in bubble territory. By the
  Law of Mean Reversion, earnings growth will have to fall to near-zero
  levels for several years to restore the long-term average of 11%.
  Earnings growth has fallen sharply in the previous two quarters, and
  is forecast to fall even further in Q2. When investors realize that
  the entire justification for the overpriced market no longer exists,
  a panic is inevitable.

As usual, it's impossible to predict when a panic is coming, although
the fact that it's coming -- sooner rather than later -- is 100%
certain. These three imbalances are clear dangers. The article
itself has many more details.

As I have before, I strongly urge everyone to get out of the stock
market (and associated investments, including mutual funds, money
funds, investment trusts, hedge funds, and so forth), and keep money
in cash or in short-term (6-12 month) Treasury bills.

Sincerely,

John

John J. Xenakis
E-mail: john@GenerationalDynamics.com
Web site: http://www.GenerationalDynamics.com

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationwo...,3132262.story

BAGHDAD — Although Bush administration officials have frequently lashed out at Syria and Iran, accusing it of helping insurgents and militias here, the largest number of foreign fighters and suicide bombers in Iraq come from a third neighbor, Saudi Arabia, according to a senior U.S. military officer and Iraqi lawmakers.

About 45% of all foreign militants targeting U.S. troops and Iraqi civilians and security forces are from Saudi Arabia; 15% are from Syria and Lebanon; and 10% are from North Africa, according to official U.S. military figures made available to The Times by the senior officer. Nearly half of the 135 foreigners in U.S. detention facilities in Iraq are Saudis, he said.

Fighters from Saudi Arabia are thought to have carried out more suicide bombings than those of any other nationality, said the senior U.S. officer, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the subject's sensitivity. It is apparently the first time a U.S. official has given such a breakdown on the role played by Saudi nationals in Iraq's Sunni Arab insurgency.

He said 50% of all Saudi fighters in Iraq come here as suicide bombers. In the last six months, such bombings have killed or injured 4,000 Iraqis.

No, not surprising...

Okay, that suicide rate is staggeringly high, even with generational knowledge. 5T!

Dear Matt,

Originally Posted by MichaelEaston

>
> http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-saudi15jul15,0,3132262.story


> No, not surprising...

> Okay, that suicide rate is staggeringly high, even with
> generational knowledge. 5T!

Thanks for posting this article. I hadn't seen it.

This is a very interesting development because it shows more than
ever the role of Saudis in the growing al-Qaeda network.

I had known that Iraqis, even Sunni Iraqis cooperating with al-Qaeda
in Iraq, were refusing to be suicide bombers, forcing al-Qaeda in
Iraq to import its suicide bombers from Jordan (Palestinians) and
Saudi Arabia (Wahhabis).
** Iraqi Sunnis are turning against al-Qaeda in Iraq
http://www.generationaldynamics.com/cgi-bin/D.PL?xct=gd.iraq070401

But there's been a puzzle: The mainstream news reports have been
emphasizing that militants in the "Sunni insurgency" have been the
cause of more violence than al-Qaeda.

The reason that this is a puzzle is that the only place I've seen
this kind of statement is in mainstream media reports that normally
describe the war with as much anti-American spin as possible, and
this description of the "Sunni insurgency" supports the political
"civil war" view of the Iraq war. Nonetheless, there must be
something to it, but I couldn't figure it out.

This news story answers the question. Al-Qaeda in Iraq is mainly a
foreign invasion force, but now we see that the "Sunni insurgency" is
also substantially a foreign invasion force. It isn't clear whether
the Saudi militants in the "Sunni insurgency" are part of al-Qaeda in
Iraq or not, but it really doesn't make any difference.

The point is that the violence in Iraq is being perpetrated mostly
(and probably predominantly) by Sunni militants from Saudi Arabia.
And that makes a great deal of sense from a generational point of
view, because Iraq is in an Awakening era, and Saudi Arabia is deep
(5th turning) into a crisis era.

There were two separate reports on the BBC today.

• The big report was the bomb blasts in Kirkuk, killing over 80
  people. As usual, al-Qaeda timed this blast as a public relations
  event to fit into the schedules for the BBC and other newscasts, and
  al-Qaeda wasn't disappointed. The BBC carried this as a lengthy lead
  story, describing it as one more failure in the "surge" policy to end
  the Iraqi "civil war," as violence that formerly had been in Baghdad
  was pushed out into the suburbs, and more "proof" that the war in
  Iraq is serving as a trading ground for Saudi terrorists, even though
  George Bush is pals with the Saudis. Another big PR win for al-Qaeda
  and their good pals at the BBC and other mainstream media.
  
• There was a separate report from BBC's Arab Affairs analyst Magdi
  Abdelhadi. He reported from Arab sources that al-Qaeda militants are
  now being blamed for the Red Mosque crisis in Islamabad last week;
  that al-Qaeda militants are the principal participants fighting the
  Lebanese army from Palestinian camps in Lebanon for the last few
  months; and that Saudis now make up half of the Sunni insurgents in
  Iraq (same as story above).
  ** Pakistan: Over 106 dead in spectacular assault on radical mosque in Islamabad
  http://www.generationaldynamics.com/cgi-bin/D.PL?xct=gd.e070712#e070712
  ** New al-Qaeda linked terrorist group provokes heavy gun battle in northern Lebanon
  http://www.generationaldynamics.com/cgi-bin/D.PL?xct=gd.e070521#e070521

Now, these two stories are logically closely related. Together, they
show that al-Qaeda's tentacles are spreading throughout the entire
region, and that Saudi Arabia is the center. (Of course, Osama bin
Laden was from Saudi Arabia, as were the 9/11 terrorists.) There are
now significant groups with links to al-Qaeda, with or without the
"al-Qaeda" brand name, in pretty much every country in the region.

This is a very significant new story. But we have to remember that
the BBC and other mainstream news reporters, as well as most
politicians, were too stupid even to know that al-Qaeda was in Iraq,
or that al-Qaeda was a Sunni organization, until recently.
** Guess what? British politicians and journalists are just as ignorant as Americans
http://www.generationaldynamics.com/cgi-bin/D.PL?xct=gd.e070114b#e070114b

To be fair, the politicians and the (very few) journalists on the
right are also too dumb to understand this, and they don't like to
talk about it because it's too scary.

But it's really funny to listen to some of these news reports when
al-Qaeda in Iraq is mentioned. The mainstream anti-American news
media can't stand it. I was listening to George Stephanopolous talk
to administration spokesman Steve Hadley yesterday, and
Stephanopolous could barely utter the words "al-Qaeda" and when he
did, he called it "al-Qaeda in Mesopotamia." It's really pathetic.

There are a couple more interesting news stories that are related.

Debka is the Israeli news organization with close links to Israeli
intelligence, which means that they don't always get things right.
They have a story out that says that Osama bin Laden's operatives
PROVOKED the Islamabad Red Mosque crisis because Pakistan's military
is close to capturing bin Laden and Zawahiri in North Waziristan.
I'll believe it when I see it.
http://www.debka.org/headline.php?hid=4411

A fascinating story came out of Yemen last week about the suicide
bombings that killed Spaniards and Yemenis a few weeks ago in Yemen.
An older al-Qaeda operative, now in custody, was insisting that the
bombing was NOT the work of bin Laden's al-Qaeda, but rather was
perpetrated by a bunch of younger generation al-Qaeda newbies who
really don't know what they're doing. "The new generation is not the
generation of Osama Bin Laden, it is the generation of Abu Musab Al
Zarqawi, which is different from Al Qaeda, although the word Al Qaida
is used by some groups." Unfortunately, the article doesn't give
enough details, but it's a juicy story anyway.
http://www.gulfnews.com/region/Yemen/10138233.html

Sincerely,

John

John J. Xenakis
E-mail: john@GenerationalDynamics.com
Web site: http://www.GenerationalDynamics.com

Thanks for the analysis!

There John goes again ranting on again about the supposedly "anti-American" MSM.

Dear Taylor,

Originally Posted by Odin

There John goes again ranting on again about the supposedly "anti-American" MSM.

By the way, what's your opinion of Fox News?

Sincerely,

John

Originally Posted by John J. Xenakis

Dear Taylor,




By the way, what's your opinion of Fox News?

An oxymoron.

Fox News is to the GOP what Pravda was to the Communist Party of the Soviet Union or the Voelkischer Beobachter was to the National-Satanist Party.

Originally Posted by pbrower2a

An oxymoron.

Fox News is to the GOP what Pravda was to the Communist Party of the Soviet Union or the Voelkischer Beobachter was to the National-Satanist Party.

Tsk, tsk. Sounds like a rant to me.

John

I much prefer getting my news online. I can hardly stand any of the crap that comes out of anyone's mouth: Fox News, CNN, MSNBC, all of them; they're all the same. People watch those prime-time shows (and a lot of the plain news) to verify what they already know and get confirmation of their politics - which by the way, can only be two possibilities, with little room for maneuver.

I can't tell if Bush is Hitler or Jesus, but it usually depends what station I'm on.