Generational Dynamics
Fourth Turning Forum Archive


Popular links:
Generational Dynamics Web Site
Generational Dynamics Forum
Fourth Turning Archive home page
New Fourth Turning Forum

Thread: Objections to Generational Dynamics - Page 109







Post#2701 at 02-23-2008 01:18 PM by John J. Xenakis [at Cambridge, MA joined May 2003 #posts 4,010]
---
02-23-2008, 01:18 PM #2701
Join Date
May 2003
Location
Cambridge, MA
Posts
4,010

Dear Sean,

Quote Originally Posted by sean '90 View Post
> How can you "crash upward". It violates the laws of the universe.
Of course you can crash upward.

Check out the line, "one day will flash and send you crashing through
the ceiling" in the following video:

http://youtube.com/watch?v=fyBffCiGr8c

Apparently the universe has some additional laws that you weren't
aware of.

Sincerely,

John

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







Post#2702 at 02-23-2008 03:29 PM by Zarathustra [at Where the Northwest meets the Southwest joined Mar 2003 #posts 9,198]
---
02-23-2008, 03:29 PM #2702
Join Date
Mar 2003
Location
Where the Northwest meets the Southwest
Posts
9,198

Quote Originally Posted by John J. Xenakis View Post
IPrime Directive: Your contributions should make the web
site and Generational Dynamics look good. Save your "Xenakis is a
psychopath" screed for your own blog.
Right. God FORBID there be any criticism or open inquiry. People who engage in such things are "fools".

PS. I still obsess about your daily. You are the only focus of my depressed, miserable little life. But the anti-depressants you suggested I go on have helped immensely. Thanks!
Last edited by Zarathustra; 02-23-2008 at 03:32 PM.
Americans have had enough of glitz and roar . . Foreboding has deepened, and spiritual currents have darkened . . .
THE FOURTH TURNING IS AT HAND.
See T4T, p. 253.







Post#2703 at 02-23-2008 03:53 PM by pbrower2a [at "Michigrim" joined May 2005 #posts 15,014]
---
02-23-2008, 03:53 PM #2703
Join Date
May 2005
Location
"Michigrim"
Posts
15,014

(numbering mine)

Quote Originally Posted by John J. Xenakis View Post
  • 1. Macro economy (2003): Deflation, rather than inflation,
    would dominate, and prices would fall by about 30% by 2010.
  • 2. Macro economy (2003): We're entering a new 1930s style
    Great Depression, and the stock market will fall to Dow 4000 or
    lower.
  • 3. Palestine/Israel (2003): The "Roadmap to Peace" would fail.
    Once Yasser Arafat disappeared, the region would descend into chaos,
    leading to a new genocidal war between Jews and Arabs.
  • 4. Iraq (2003): There would be no civil war and no
    anti-American uprising.
  • 5. Iran (2003): Pro-American and pro-Western student
    demonstrations (like America in the 60s) would continue
  • 6. America (2003): Unlike the 60s, there would be almost no
    student antiwar demonstrations, and any that start would fizzle
    quickly.
  • 7. America (2004): Men and women would return to
    stereotypical gender roles, with women focused increasingly on the
    children.
  • 8. America (2004): Politicians will resort to bitter fighting,
    and become less and less able to get anything done.
  • 9. Darfur (2004): 9. The UN would be completely irrelevant, and
    would have no effect on the Darfur conflict. It will continue until
    it's run its course.
  • 10. China (2004): 10. China is headed for a major internal civil
    war, as well as a war with the U.S. over Taiwan with absolute
    certainty.
  • 11. Lebanon (2005): Despite widespread fear following many
    assassinations, there will be NO new civil war in Lebanon.
  • 12. Lebanon (2006, as war began): Israel would fight an
    aggressive "existential war," while Hizbollah would fight
    half-heartedly.
  • 13. Burma / Myanmar (2007): The new burst of violence would
    fizzle soon, and would not spiral into a civil war.
  • 14. Kenya (2008): The new burst of violence is UNLIKELY to
    spiral into war right away, although a major civil war is almost
    certain within ten years.
  • 15. Europe (2004): The proposed Constitution would NOT be
    approved. There will be a new European war, one component of which
    will probably be France versus Britain.
  • 16. World (2003): A new "Clash of Civilizations" world
    war.


Anyone interested is invited to make suggestions, ask questions, or
provide actual articles, either here or in private e-mail.

Sincerely,

John

John J. Xenakis
E-mail: john@GenerationalDynamics.com
Web site: http://www.GenerationalDynamics.com
Let's take a look at the predictions. Some have been right; some have proved wrong.

1, 2: Deflation is one of the unusual characteristics of a depression, as opposed to a recession. A 30% deflation by 2010 remains possible... but it has yet to happen. That characterizes a 1929-1933 level of meltdown. Energy prices are fickle, and those dictate much of the cost of living. Most Americans would be satisfied with a 30% decline in energy costs because the runups in energy costs have created hardships without mitigation.

Real estate is a disaster, and the real estate crash means an end to much of the consumer spending. That may prove even more troublesome than the Stock Market Crash of late 1929.

3. I don't know about a genocidal war. The Israelis don't seem to like genocide, for obvious reasons, and collective memories of Hitler and the Holocaust have outlasted the survivors. I can't see the Israelis initiating or allowing genocide. They can assassinate a troublemaker who tries to fuse Mein Kampf with some interpretation of Islam.

4. I see an parallel in the American invasion of Iraq in the Nazi invasion of Yugoslavia. No, I don't compare Saddam Hussein to the benign government of royal Yugoslavia, the United States to the Third Reich, or Dubya to Hitler... but the swift conquest of Iraq created more problems than benefits for the invader. The justification for the invasion was specious. Resistance, first by loyalists of the old regime, gave way to resistance by more radicalized actors.

American leadership failed to figure how anything could go wrong. It saw the toppling of a gaudy statue of Saddam Hussein as a symbol of complete and permanent victory.

Such reflects a personal quirk in the American leadership of the time -- a quirk that few could have foreseen. Dubya has no obvious parallel in American history.

5. That's hard to see. Iranian censorship of the internal realities is so pervasive that the system could be on the brink of collapse and few would know -- which is much like the case in Iran in 1979.

6. America is far more repressive in this decade than in the 1960s. Youth of the 1960s knew that if they protested the Vietnam War, that such would not be held against them in a booming economy. Now kids know better; antiwar activity doesn't look good on a curriculum vitae, and it might ensure one that one's fast track to a career that can preserve middle-class comes to an abrupt end. 'Political reliability' has become essential to even the most menial of white-collar jobs.

7. See #1 and #2. That depends on the severity of the economic downturn. I predict that women in careers requiring much education (medicine, law, engineering, education) are going to keep their jobs. Women who supplement the family income will be the first fired due to the concern that unemployed men pose more social danger from crime and political extremism. Unemployed women can go back to traditional roles of childcare, cooking, sewing, and the like; men chafe at such roles; men are more likely to join paramilitary bands an d criminal gangs.

I can also predict that girls who in recent times would have been pushed into the professions (often with the excuse that if one had the talent one might use it, and having a professional career is one of the best ways to meet a professional husband) will be discouraged from 'taking jobs from deserving breadwinners'. But all in all we will see marginal workers driven out of the workforce (that includes youth and the elderly) and lots of low-paid jobs, as in shopping malls and fast-food emporia, disappear. Women will work in family businesses more to create wealth not to be enjoyed so much as to allow survival of the family business.

8. That rancorous trend is no change. If anything, I expect to see contests between competing visions on how the America of 2025 is to look. Achieving those visions will rely upon political astuteness not seen in either a gridlocked or lockstep politics as we have seen in alternation since about 1980. Gridlock and lockstep are all too similar. Those are likely to end in 2009.

I predict that very soon people will despair of the immediate future and look "long term" in a manner diametrically opposite that of the early and middle parts of this decade. I'm convinced that Dubya will be the whipping boy of American political history for the next sixty or so years, no matter how the Crisis turns out.

Generational history, after all, rejects the assumption that 'more of the same' is an inevitability.

9. I concur. Nothing can stop a genocidal war except the utter defeat or exhaustion of one side or another. There's no diplomatic solution to Darfur -- not by the UN, not by the Organization of African Unity, not by the Arab league, and not by binding arbitration by NATO or members of the Security Council of the United Nations.

10. Maybe -- maybe not. What I'd like to see -- political events similar to those in central and Balkan Europe in the late 1980s -- might still happen. Another trend in China has been for the Communist Party of China to allow business people, the dreaded bourgeoisie of Marxist claptrap, to become Party members. More pluralism within the Party has so gutted Marxist ideology that aside from rhetoric and iconic figures, the CCP might as well drop its claim to be Marxist.

As international tensions increase or economic distress mounts, I can imagine CCP leadership choosing to allow more personal liberty. China is no longer isolated from the world economy.

What I'd like to see might not happen. All-or-nothing stances are the norm early in a 4T; look at the American Civil War and the Russian Revolution. Look at the slogan "Liberty or Death!"; both sides take it literally. Revolutionaries offer death to the other side for failing to grant liberty, and reactionaries choose to impose death so that liberty can never challenge their class interests.

11. I see Lebanon as a powder keg. It might have no "new" civil war; it might only get a revival of an "old" and no-less-deadly one.

12. Hezbollah is probably dying. Becoming a hard-line leader of Hezbollah makes one 'uninsurable' If anything, the Israelis are likely to find trouble elsewhere.

13. Your accurate prediction surprises me. I thought that Burma was on the brink of a 4T implosion, its last Crisis ending with Burmese independence (1948) in the wake of World War II, a war in which Burma became a bloody battlefield between Britain and Japan and brutal Japanese occupation. It could be luck. Perhaps the thugs who rule Burma know that in the event of a successful revolution that their necks will roll. Even so, Burma is on the brink of a Crisis as is most of the rest of the world, including such giant neighbors as India and China, not-so-giant neighbor Thailand, and near-neighbor Indonesia.

14. Kenya's Crisis era was delayed to at least 1940, when Mussolini declared war on Great Britain. On the border of the Italian empire in East Africa (then including Ethiopia ), Kenya was in danger of invasion in 1940 and became a springboard for the British liberation of Ethiopia and Somalia. The end of the Mau-Mau rebellion of the 1950s marks the end of the Crisis in Kenya. (Achievement of independence from Great Britain was bloodless and posed no threat of bloodshed -- thus no Crisis).

Kenya is about ten years behind the most of the rest of the world; the electoral dispute looks to have about the same effect in Kenya as did the 2000 Presidential election in the US. 3T electoral disputes rarely lead to Crisis.

15, 16. A new European war? Over what? Liberal democracy is the norm in Europe except in Russia and Belarus. Rabid nationalism is rare, and where it appears it is ordinarily recognized as freakish and unrepresentative. Liberal democracies simply don't wage war against each other.

The only imaginable war that I can imagine in Europe (the Yugoslav Crisis seems to have all but fizzled out) would be with the Islamic world. Unassimilated Muslim immigrants in some countries might create trouble. But there's a huge difference between Turks and Kurds in Germany -- and the Arab Muslim minority in France. Even at that, the Islamic world within Britain is hugely rifted. If Islam can survive liberal democracy that includes the freedom to change one's religious identity

It's up to Muslims in the West who have not done so to give up the preaching of Jihad where freedom to practice Islam and the absence of discrimination are not in doubt -- or else to emigrate to places more suited to their beliefs. If Islam is as desirable as Muslims say that it is, then it is the wave of the future everywhere that it has sown the seed through immigration. But it's also up to the Christian majority of the West to not oppress Islam as Christian-derived cultures, like Tsarist Russia persecuted and especially the Devil's Reich annihilated Jews. Islam-bashing reminds me all too much of the "classical" Jew-baiting that culminated in the Holocaust.

The West cannot do to Islam what Hitler tried to do to the Jews and win. Heck, Hitler lost his war. Think of January 20, 1989: Hitler's hundredth birthday ... and Passover. Far more people celebrated Passover that day.







Post#2704 at 02-23-2008 06:43 PM by John J. Xenakis [at Cambridge, MA joined May 2003 #posts 4,010]
---
02-23-2008, 06:43 PM #2704
Join Date
May 2003
Location
Cambridge, MA
Posts
4,010

Quote Originally Posted by pbrower2a View Post
> Let's take a look at the predictions. Some have been right; some
> have proved wrong.
Thanks for your comments. I don't see anywhere in your list
where you claim to have proved anything wrong, and I'm not aware
that any of them are wrong. Many times you said something I
agree with. At any rate, it's a long list, so I probably won't
hit everything this time.

Quote Originally Posted by pbrower2a View Post
> >> Macro economy (2003): Deflation, rather than
> >> inflation, would dominate, and prices would fall by about 30%
> >> by 2010.

> >> Macro economy (2003): We're entering a new 1930s
> >> style Great Depression, and the stock market will fall to Dow
> >> 4000 or lower.

> 1, 2: Deflation is one of the unusual characteristics of a
> depression, as opposed to a recession. A 30% deflation by 2010
> remains possible... but it has yet to happen. That characterizes a
> 1929-1933 level of meltdown. Energy prices are fickle, and those
> dictate much of the cost of living. Most Americans would be
> satisfied with a 30% decline in energy costs because the runups in
> energy costs have created hardships without mitigation.

> Real estate is a disaster, and the real estate crash means an end
> to much of the consumer spending. That may prove even more
> troublesome than the Stock Market Crash of late 1929.
I think that we're going to know the answer to this pretty soon.

The situation is MUCH WORSE than most people realize. If you haven't
been closely following the problems of CDO writedowns and "monoline"
bond insurers, then you probably aren't aware of how critical the
situation has become, but I can assure you that even the optimists now
are are hoping for "only" an additional 20% stock market adjustment.
The pessimists (or, as I would call them, the realists) are expecting
a 50%+ adjustment.

Incidentally, there's a HUGE drama going on this weekend. Watch
for headlines on Monday or Tuesday concerning NY Insurance
Commissioner Dinallo. Every financial type in the world is
watching him right now.

Some analysts are saying that DOZENS of American banks will fail this
year.
http://www.reuters.com/article/reute...43367820080201

The Deutsche Bank CEO says that the expected bond insurer downgrade
will cause a 'tsunami' of further writedowns, leading to many more
major bank failures.
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?p...tA0&refer=home

Speaking of German banks, Der Spiegel says that all of the
state-owned banks are on the verge of collapse.
http://www.spiegel.de/international/...536635,00.html

The plan to nationalize Britain's collapsing Northern Rock bank is
running into a number of problems.
http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2008/...thern-Rock.php
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/new...cle3406368.ece

Merrill Lynch says that home prices will fall 25% through 2009. And
analyst Meredith Whitney says that Citi is going to need another
major infusion of capital to keep from collapsing.
(Read this article just for the pictures. She's a babe.)
** Merrill Lynch: Home prices to fall by 25% through 2009.
http://www.generationaldynamics.com/cgi-bin/D.PL?xct=gd.e080222b#e080222b


This comes after Abu Dhabi investors already invested $7.5 billion,
following Citi's massive mortgage-backed CDO writedowns, totally $18.6
billion.
** Throwing good money after bad: Bank of America acquires Countrywide Financial
http://www.generationaldynamics.com/cgi-bin/D.PL?xct=gd.e080113#e080113


If you want to read something really amazing, read what happened in
1931 when Austria's Credit-Anstalt bank and Germany's Danatbank
failed. This really reverberates with stuff above about the German
state-owned banks collapsing.
** The bubble that broke the world
http://www.generationaldynamics.com/cgi-bin/D.PL?d=ww2010.i.garrett071009


If you're interested in the math behind the current crisis, and how
banks turned BBB and CCC rated securities into AAA rated securities
by magic and alchemy, read the following.
** A primer on financial engineering and structured finance
http://www.generationaldynamics.com/cgi-bin/D.PL?d=ww2010.i.cdo080123


There's a debate going on in some quarters about whether we're headed
for hyperinflation or a deflationary spiral. There's absolutely no
question in my mind that we're headed for a massive deflationary
spiral. What I've discovered is that most people who are claiming
hyperinflation are using it as a justification for paying the
astronomically high bubble price of almost $1000/oz plus commissions
for gold.
** Both consumer and commercial credit is disappearing as deflationary spiral accelerates
http://www.generationaldynamics.com/cgi-bin/D.PL?xct=gd.e080206#e080206


** Will hyper-inflation make the dollar worthless (like the Weimar republic)?
http://www.generationaldynamics.com/cgi-bin/D.PL?xct=gd.e071221#e071221


I'm estimating that the probability of a major financial crisis in
any given week from now on is about 3%. The probability of a crisis
some time in the next 52 weeks is 75%, according to this estimate.
** Wealthy investors in auction rate securities can't get their money out
http://www.generationaldynamics.com/cgi-bin/D.PL?xct=gd.e080221#e080221


The huge credit bubble that was created in the early to mid 2000s
decade is now rapidly deflating. Nothing can be done to stop it. As
I've been saying since 2002, we're headed for a new generational
panic and crash, the first since 1929, and a new 1930s style Great
Depression. This is 100% certain, and no politicians can stop it any
more than they can stop a tsunami.

Quote Originally Posted by pbrower2a View Post
> >> Palestine/Israel (2003): The "Roadmap to Peace" would
> >> fail. Once Yasser Arafat disappeared, the region would
> >> descend into chaos, leading to a new genocidal war between
> >> Jews and Arabs.

> 3. I don't know about a genocidal war. The Israelis don't seem to
> like genocide, for obvious reasons, and collective memories of
> Hitler and the Holocaust have outlasted the survivors. I can't see
> the Israelis initiating or allowing genocide. They can assassinate
> a troublemaker who tries to fuse Mein Kampf with some
> interpretation of Islam.
The coming war between Jews and Arabs, when it comes, will be as
genocidal or more so than the 1948-49 war that followed the
partitioning of Palestine and the creation of the state of Israel.

** Ariel Sharon - Israel's political earthquake
http://www.generationaldynamics.com/cgi-bin/D.PL?d=ww2010.i.051129ariel


** - Will Mideast roadmap bring peace?
http://www.generationaldynamics.com/cgi-bin/D.PL?d=ww2010.i.may01


Quote Originally Posted by pbrower2a View Post
> >> Iraq (2003): There would be no civil war and no
> >> anti-American uprising.

> 4. I see an parallel in the American invasion of Iraq in the Nazi
> invasion of Yugoslavia. No, I don't compare Saddam Hussein to the
> benign government of royal Yugoslavia, the United States to the
> Third Reich, or Dubya to Hitler... but the swift conquest of Iraq
> created more problems than benefits for the invader. The
> justification for the invasion was specious. Resistance, first by
> loyalists of the old regime, gave way to resistance by more
> radicalized actors.

> American leadership failed to figure how anything could go wrong.
> It saw the toppling of a gaudy statue of Saddam Hussein as a
> symbol of complete and permanent victory.

> Such reflects a personal quirk in the American leadership of the
> time -- a quirk that few could have foreseen. Dubya has no obvious
> parallel in American history.
** The Iraq war may be related to the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
http://www.generationaldynamics.com/cgi-bin/D.PL?xct=gd.e080217#e080217


Quote Originally Posted by pbrower2a View Post
> >> Iran (2003): Pro-American and pro-Western student
> >> demonstrations (like America in the 60s) would continue

> 5. That's hard to see. Iranian censorship of the internal
> realities is so pervasive that the system could be on the brink of
> collapse and few would know -- which is much like the case in Iran
> in 1979.
** Iranian speedboats threaten to blow up US ships in Gulf of Hormuz
http://www.generationaldynamics.com/cgi-bin/D.PL?xct=gd.e080109#e080109


** Students at Tehran University risk protest against Ahmadinejad
http://www.generationaldynamics.com/cgi-bin/D.PL?xct=gd.e071008#e071008


** Iran's President Ahamadinejad facing a growing "generation gap"
http://www.generationaldynamics.com/cgi-bin/D.PL?xct=gd.e070702#e070702


Quote Originally Posted by pbrower2a View Post
> >> America (2003): Unlike the 60s, there would be almost
> >> no student antiwar demonstrations, and any that start would
> >> fizzle quickly.

> 6. America is far more repressive in this decade than in the
> 1960s. Youth of the 1960s knew that if they protested the Vietnam
> War, that such would not be held against them in a booming
> economy. Now kids know better; antiwar activity doesn't look good
> on a curriculum vitae, and it might ensure one that one's fast
> track to a career that can preserve middle-class comes to an
> abrupt end. 'Political reliability' has become essential to even
> the most menial of white-collar jobs.

> I really don't know what you're talking about here. No one is
> repressing college students here, and political freedom for
> college students is a lot more accepted today than it was in the
> 60s, when it was considered treasonous.
** The Iraq war may be related to the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
http://www.generationaldynamics.com/cgi-bin/D.PL?xct=gd.e080217#e080217


** Why aren't college students protesting against the Iraq war?
http://www.generationaldynamics.com/cgi-bin/D.PL?d=ww2010.i.060601antiwar


** Iraq Today vs 1960s America
http://www.generationaldynamics.com/cgi-bin/D.PL?d=ww2010.i.sixties040501


Quote Originally Posted by pbrower2a View Post
> >> America (2004): Men and women would return to
> >> stereotypical gender roles, with women focused increasingly
> >> on the children.

> 7. See #1 and #2. That depends on the severity of the economic
> downturn. I predict that women in careers requiring much
> education (medicine, law, engineering, education) are going to
> keep their jobs. Women who supplement the family income will be
> the first fired due to the concern that unemployed men pose more
> social danger from crime and political extremism. Unemployed women
> can go back to traditional roles of childcare, cooking, sewing,
> and the like; men chafe at such roles; men are more likely to join
> paramilitary bands an d criminal gangs.

> I can also predict that girls who in recent times would have been
> pushed into the professions (often with the excuse that if one had
> the talent one might use it, and having a professional career is
> one of the best ways to meet a professional husband) will be
> discouraged from 'taking jobs from deserving breadwinners'. But
> all in all we will see marginal workers driven out of the
> workforce (that includes youth and the elderly) and lots of
> low-paid jobs, as in shopping malls and fast-food emporia,
> disappear. Women will work in family businesses more to create
> wealth not to be enjoyed so much as to allow survival of the
> family business.
** Collapse of Duke rape case represents cultural change
http://www.generationaldynamics.com/cgi-bin/D.PL?xct=gd.e070422#e070422


** 'It's going to be the 1950s all over again'
http://www.generationaldynamics.com/cgi-bin/D.PL?xct=gd.e041011#e041011


** Gender gap replaced by a marriage gap or mother gap
http://www.generationaldynamics.com/cgi-bin/D.PL?xct=gd.e040928#e040928


Quote Originally Posted by pbrower2a View Post
> >> America (2004): Politicians will resort to bitter
> >> fighting, and become less and less able to get anything
> >> done.

> 8. That rancorous trend is no change. If anything, I expect to
> see contests between competing visions on how the America of 2025
> is to look. Achieving those visions will rely upon political
> astuteness not seen in either a gridlocked or lockstep politics as
> we have seen in alternation since about 1980. Gridlock and
> lockstep are all too similar. Those are likely to end in 2009.

> I predict that very soon people will despair of the immediate
> future and look "long term" in a manner diametrically opposite
> that of the early and middle parts of this decade. I'm convinced
> that Dubya will be the whipping boy of American political history
> for the next sixty or so years, no matter how the Crisis turns
> out.

> Generational history, after all, rejects the assumption that 'more
> of the same' is an inevitability.
This is straight out of S&H, and I've given many examples on my web
site.

** Today's Schadenfreude: The Congressional pay raise is blocked.
http://www.generationaldynamics.com/cgi-bin/D.PL?xct=gd.e070131#e070131


Quote Originally Posted by pbrower2a View Post
> >> Darfur (2004): The UN would be completely irrelevant,
> >> and would have no effect on the Darfur conflict. It will
> >> continue until it's run its course.

> 9. I concur. Nothing can stop a genocidal war except the utter
> defeat or exhaustion of one side or another. There's no diplomatic
> solution to Darfur -- not by the UN, not by the Organization of
> African Unity, not by the Arab league, and not by binding
> arbitration by NATO or members of the Security Council of the
> United Nations.
Speaking of Schadenfreude, I love the way that China is being
embarrassed by this issue.

** China walks Olympics / Darfur tightrope after Steven Spielberg resigns
http://www.generationaldynamics.com/cgi-bin/D.PL?xct=gd.e080223c#e080223c


Quote Originally Posted by pbrower2a View Post
> >> China (2004): China is headed for a major internal
> >> civil war, as well as a war with the U.S. over Taiwan with
> >> absolute certainty.

> 10. Maybe -- maybe not. What I'd like to see -- political events
> similar to those in central and Balkan Europe in the late 1980s
> -- might still happen. Another trend in China has been for the
> Communist Party of China to allow business people, the dreaded
> bourgeoisie of Marxist claptrap, to become Party members. More
> pluralism within the Party has so gutted Marxist ideology that
> aside from rhetoric and iconic figures, the CCP might as well drop
> its claim to be Marxist.

> As international tensions increase or economic distress mounts, I
> can imagine CCP leadership choosing to allow more personal
> liberty. China is no longer isolated from the world economy.

> What I'd like to see might not happen. All-or-nothing stances are
> the norm early in a 4T; look at the American Civil War and the
> Russian Revolution. Look at the slogan "Liberty or Death!"; both
> sides take it literally. Revolutionaries offer death to the other
> side for failing to grant liberty, and reactionaries choose to
> impose death so that liberty can never challenge their class
> interests.
When I first posted this analysis in January 2005 I was quite nervous
about it, but no more. The trends that I described have continued,
and China is coming apart at the seams.

** China approaches Civil War
http://www.generationaldynamics.com/cgi-bin/D.PL?d=ww2010.i.china050116


Quote Originally Posted by pbrower2a View Post
> >> Lebanon (2005): Despite widespread fear following
> >> many assassinations, there will be NO new civil war in
> >> Lebanon.

> >> Lebanon (2006, as war began): Israel would fight an
> >> aggressive "existential war," while Hizbollah would fight
> >> half-heartedly.

> 11. I see Lebanon as a powder keg. It might have no "new" civil
> war; it might only get a revival of an "old" and no-less-deadly
> one.

> 12. Hezbollah is probably dying. Becoming a hard-line leader of
> Hezbollah makes one 'uninsurable' If anything, the Israelis are
> likely to find trouble elsewhere.
One of the most amazing and even touching things about the 2006 war
in Lebanon is how war-aversive the people are.

Quote Originally Posted by Lebanese President Émile Geamil Lahoud at start of war
> "Believe me, what we get from [Israeli bombers] is nothing
> compared to [what would happen] if there is an internal conflict
> [a new civil war] in Lebanon. So our thanks comes when we are
> united, and we are really united, and the national army is doing
> its work according to the government, and the resistance
> [Hizbollah] is respected in the whole Arab world from the
> population point of view. And very highly respected in Lebanon as
> well."
Can you even imagine some foreign country bombing the United States,
and President Bush saying, "These bombs are nothing compared to what
we might do to each other"? This is an incredible statement.

The 2006 war was extremely humiliating to Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and
Hassan Nasrallah, because the Hizbollah "warriors" looked like
idiots, shooting off missiles and then running back to their
wives.

Whether Hizbollah is dying, I can't say -- but I do believe that
there's enormous Lebanese support for a political Hizbollah, even
though that support doesn't extend to Nasrallah's war goals.

** Hizbollah leader Nasrallah's latest coup attempt collapses again
http://www.generationaldynamics.com/cgi-bin/D.PL?xct=gd.e070124#e070124


** Israel/Lebanon war forces Muslims to choose
http://www.generationaldynamics.com/cgi-bin/D.PL?d=ww2010.i.060724hizbollah


Continued in next message

Sincerely,

John

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







Post#2705 at 02-23-2008 06:46 PM by John J. Xenakis [at Cambridge, MA joined May 2003 #posts 4,010]
---
02-23-2008, 06:46 PM #2705
Join Date
May 2003
Location
Cambridge, MA
Posts
4,010

Continued from previous message

Quote Originally Posted by pbrower2a View Post
> >> Burma / Myanmar (2007): The new burst of violence
> >> would fizzle soon, and would not spiral into a civil war.

> 13. Your accurate prediction surprises me. I thought that Burma
> was on the brink of a 4T implosion, its last Crisis ending with
> Burmese independence (1948) in the wake of World War II, a war in
> which Burma became a bloody battlefield between Britain and Japan
> and brutal Japanese occupation. It could be luck. Perhaps the
> thugs who rule Burma know that in the event of a successful
> revolution that their necks will roll. Even so, Burma is on the
> brink of a Crisis as is most of the rest of the world, including
> such giant neighbors as India and China, not-so-giant neighbor
> Thailand, and near-neighbor Indonesia.
Burma's last crisis war was the civil war that began in 1948 and
climaxed in 1958.

** Burma: Growing demonstrations by the '88 Generation' raise fears of new slaughter
http://www.generationaldynamics.com/cgi-bin/D.PL?xct=gd.e070926#e070926


Quote Originally Posted by pbrower2a View Post
> >> Kenya (2008): The new burst of violence is UNLIKELY
> >> to spiral into war right away, although a major civil war is
> >> almost certain within ten years.

> 14. Kenya's Crisis era was delayed to at least 1940, when
> Mussolini declared war on Great Britain. On the border of the
> Italian empire in East Africa (then including Ethiopia ), Kenya
> was in danger of invasion in 1940 and became a springboard for the
> British liberation of Ethiopia and Somalia. The end of the Mau-Mau
> rebellion of the 1950s marks the end of the Crisis in Kenya.
> (Achievement of independence from Great Britain was bloodless and
> posed no threat of bloodshed -- thus no Crisis).

> Kenya is about ten years behind the most of the rest of the world;
> the electoral dispute looks to have about the same effect in Kenya
> as did the 2000 Presidential election in the US. 3T electoral
> disputes rarely lead to Crisis.
Kenya's last crisis war was the Mau-Mau rebellion that began in 1952
and climaxed in 1956.

** Post-election massacre in Kenya raises concerns of tribal war
http://www.generationaldynamics.com/cgi-bin/D.PL?xct=gd.e080102#e080102


Quote Originally Posted by pbrower2a View Post
> >> Europe (2004): The proposed Constitution would NOT be
> >> approved. There will be a new European war, one component of
> >> which will probably be France versus Britain.

> >> World (2003): A new "Clash of Civilizations" world
> >> war.

> 15, 16. A new European war? Over what? Liberal democracy is the
> norm in Europe except in Russia and Belarus. Rabid nationalism is
> rare, and where it appears it is ordinarily recognized as freakish
> and unrepresentative. Liberal democracies simply don't wage war
> against each other.

> The only imaginable war that I can imagine in Europe (the
> Yugoslav Crisis seems to have all but fizzled out) would be with
> the Islamic world. Unassimilated Muslim immigrants in some
> countries might create trouble. But there's a huge difference
> between Turks and Kurds in Germany -- and the Arab Muslim minority
> in France. Even at that, the Islamic world within Britain is
> hugely rifted. If Islam can survive liberal democracy that
> includes the freedom to change one's religious identity

> It's up to Muslims in the West who have not done so to give up
> the preaching of Jihad where freedom to practice Islam and the
> absence of discrimination are not in doubt -- or else to emigrate
> to places more suited to their beliefs. If Islam is as desirable
> as Muslims say that it is, then it is the wave of the future
> everywhere that it has sown the seed through immigration. But it's
> also up to the Christian majority of the West to not oppress Islam
> as Christian-derived cultures, like Tsarist Russia persecuted and
> especially the Devil's Reich annihilated Jews. Islam-bashing
> reminds me all too much of the "classical" Jew-baiting that
> culminated in the Holocaust.

> The West cannot do to Islam what Hitler tried to do to the Jews
> and win. Heck, Hitler lost his war. Think of January 20, 1989:
> Hitler's hundredth birthday ... and Passover. Far more people
> celebrated Passover that day.
Of all the predictions I've made, this is the one that surprises most
people. My response is this: England and France have had regular
wars at least since 1066, and there's absolutely nothing new this
time that would change that. Many were surprises. The War of the
Spanish Succession was a great shock to everyone, and it's climaxing
battle, the 1709 battle of Malplaquet, was a great shock to everyone
for its genocidal ferocity. The French Revolution and subsequent
Napoleonic wars were a surprise. The 1871 Paris Commune was a civil
war, but it was such a shock that I think a lot of people today still
don't believe it could have happened.

When the French referendum rejected the proposed EU Constitution in
2005, all the pundits and politicians were in a tizzy, wondering why
this class or that ethnic group had changed its mind since the 1992
referendum on the Maastricht treaty.

Something that I complain about all the time is that analysts and
politicians and journalists are oblivious to any generational
factors, even when they're incredibly obvious. In this case, they
were incredibly obvious.

The analysts were perplexed about why people had changed their minds,
but from a generational point of view, they hadn't changed their
minds at all. If you look at the exit polls and compare them to the
1992 referendum results, what you see is that the generations that
survived WW II were in favor of the EU constitution, and those in
generations born afterward were not.

One voter, speaking to a BBC reporter, said: "My grandfather fought in
World War I. My father fought in World Wars I and II. I fought in
World War II. And now, for 60 years, my children and grandchildren
have lived in peace. That's a good enough reason to me to vote 'yes'
on the Constitution."
** France rejects EU Constitution
http://www.generationaldynamics.com/cgi-bin/D.PL?d=ww2010.i.eu050601


This same concept came through last year at the commeration of the
50'th anniversary of the Treaty of Rome.
** Angela Merkel tries to unify a fractured Europe on its 50th birthday
http://www.generationaldynamics.com/cgi-bin/D.PL?xct=gd.e070325#e070325


EU politicians have been wont to say that time is on the side of
approving the EU Constitution, once appropriate "education" (or
whatever) is completed. Quite the opposite is true. As the
generations that survived WW II disappear, the support for the EU
Constitution also disappears.

The xenophobia directed at Jews before and during WW II in Europe has
deep roots and has not ended. Today, however, that xenophobia is
directed more at Muslims than at Jews, and can resurface very quickly
at any time, as has been illustrated in various countries by
flare-ups between ethnic Europeans and Muslims.

** Riots sweep across Denmark as Mohammed cartoon controversy is revived
http://www.generationaldynamics.com/cgi-bin/D.PL?xct=gd.e080218b#e080218b


** France: Jacques Chirac caves in to street protests
http://www.generationaldynamics.com/cgi-bin/D.PL?xct=gd.e060411#e060411


** France's Nicolas Sarkozy says 'Let them eat cake!'
http://www.generationaldynamics.com/cgi-bin/D.PL?xct=gd.e051102#e051102


** Netherlands will deport Muslims who can't pass integration exam
http://www.generationaldynamics.com/cgi-bin/D.PL?xct=gd.e041214#e041214


It's expected that all of these fault lines will become very
prominent once people are forced to choose, on pain of life or death,
which side they're on.

Sincerely,

John

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







Post#2706 at 02-24-2008 07:26 PM by pbrower2a [at "Michigrim" joined May 2005 #posts 15,014]
---
02-24-2008, 07:26 PM #2706
Join Date
May 2005
Location
"Michigrim"
Posts
15,014

John Xenakis
> >> America (2003): Unlike the 60s, there would be almost
> >> no student antiwar demonstrations, and any that start would
> >> fizzle quickly.
I said:
> 6. America is far more repressive in this decade than in the
> 1960s. Youth of the 1960s knew that if they protested the Vietnam
> War, that such would not be held against them in a booming
> economy. Now kids know better; antiwar activity doesn't look good
> on a curriculum vitae, and it might ensure one that one's fast
> track to a career that can preserve middle-class comes to an
> abrupt end. 'Political reliability' has become essential to even
> the most menial of white-collar jobs.
John Xenakis:

> I really don't know what you're talking about here. No one is
> repressing college students here, and political freedom for
> college students is a lot more accepted today than it was in the
> 60s, when it was considered treasonous.
The repression is (or has been) against any challenge to Corporate power irrespective of its source -- whether from the "traditional" Old Left Communists) or from libertarian, humanist, counterculture, or populist opposition not clearly left-wing. Big Business had not had as much power over people while Dubya was President than ant any time in American history. Except for electronic gadgets, almost everything has become far more costly -- and at the same time, real pay has shrunk despite increases in productivity. Business ethics might have been worse in the Gilded Age -- but at least then, America was still largely rural, and one can excuse the pioneers of business for learning on the job. Today's financiers and executives have no such excuse. Economic security has vanished. That's a fascist economy, and it can control one as effectively through fear of job loss and resulting destitution as could a classic fascist regime control people through fears of violence against the person or imprisonment. Against a materialistic people, the threat of being cast to the street creates much the same fear as Dachau did in Hitlerite Germany. Perhaps the substance of the fear is not the same, but the effect is much the same. Poverty in a society that recognizes material gain as the only virtue is indeed a fearsome prospect.

Housing, college education, and energy have never been so costly in any decade of American history as in this decade. Credit is generous, but I see it more as an inducement to put middle-class wealth, perhaps that of one's parents, at risk of foreclosure (seizure) on behalf of Big Business. The goodies of our time come with huge debt, and so long as people are in debt they are in thrall to their creditors. Sure, one can still work after losing everything -- but the student loan can't be discharged even if one works for minimum wage at a convenience store.

Corporate power, in contrast, has never been so crushing. Perhaps that will change in a political and economic climate already changing. I don't know whether the government can resolve the menace of debt; but I can also imagine how Americans get out of the aftermath of the debt-fueled bubble. Part will be relief projects analogous to the WPA and the CCC -- with the government as investor and employer of last resort. Much of it will be the creation of wealth that creates survival now and security later through owner-operated small business unable to lobby the government for special breaks. Such small businesses will create wealth as sweat equity that people can't easily sell, mortgage, or bleed. They will be built on families putting in six-day, fourteen-hour weeks but still living frugally. That's how people built wealth in the 1930s -- in the recovery. That it would take until the late 1940s to enjoy the fruit of that creation of wealth well fit the plans of most entrepreneurs.

We Americans have been marvelously adept at siphoning, selling off, and mortgaging wealth in recent years. We have failed at has been in creating wealth. Much of the speculation-driven activity in real estate has created illusory wealth out of genuine assets -- assets better used elsewhere, as events will show.







Post#2707 at 02-24-2008 09:40 PM by pbrower2a [at "Michigrim" joined May 2005 #posts 15,014]
---
02-24-2008, 09:40 PM #2707
Join Date
May 2005
Location
"Michigrim"
Posts
15,014

(from John J. Xenakis)

England and France have had regular
wars at least since 1066, and there's absolutely nothing new this
time that would change that. Many were surprises. The War of the
Spanish Succession was a great shock to everyone, and it's climaxing
battle, the 1709 battle of Malplaquet, was a great shock to everyone
for its genocidal ferocity. The French Revolution and subsequent
Napoleonic wars were a surprise. The 1871 Paris Commune was a civil
war, but it was such a shock that I think a lot of people today still
don't believe it could have happened.

When the French referendum rejected the proposed EU Constitution in
2005, all the pundits and politicians were in a tizzy, wondering why
this class or that ethnic group had changed its mind since the 1992
referendum on the Maastricht treaty.

Something that I complain about all the time is that analysts and
politicians and journalists are oblivious to any generational
factors, even when they're incredibly obvious. In this case, they
were incredibly obvious.
Unless one considers the abject puppet state of Vichy France as being at war with Great Britain while under the Nazi thumb, Great Britain and France have not been in a significant war against each other since the Battle of Waterloo.

The generational theory is not the whole of history. It can't predict specifics. As late as 1937 nobody could have reasonably predicted that Adolf Hitler would go on a course of diplomatic bullying that would culminate in a war that would put London, Leningrad, and Moscow at risk of severe devastation or conquest. Nobody could have reasonably predicted the Holocaust; after all, the Germans had a reputation as a "civilized" people, and the Great Hater would eventually defer to reason. (That the Russians had a cultural heritage of considerable sophistication yet experienced the homicidal savagery of Josef Stalin should have suggested otherwise).

The generational theory, whether in your style or that of Howe and Strauss, suggests how temperaments will manifest themselves at regular times. Your emphasis on economic activity as a portent of a Crisis is spot-on. The attractive speculative boom that conceals its destructiveness until it has undermined all measure of economic security and debased the public trust in institutions -- political and economic -- creates the possibility of a blow-up in public life and international relations. The cozy relationship between debtor and creditor becomes an enmity as creditors try to collect what they are contractually eligible even though the debtor no longer has the means.

I see the rift lines most likely between despotic and dictatorial regimes and between democracies and dictatorships. In World War II as in World War I, the democracies ended up on the same side but the absolute monarchies and dictatorships split. I can't predict world will polarize -- but I can't see a war between Britain and France unless one or the other falls into dictatorial government.

Certainly it won't be quite like World War II. I can't imagine Germany, Italy, or Japan as enemies of the United States this time unless something goes very wrong in their political orders. Germany did unspeakable horrors to the Jews in the last Crisis; does anyone predict a war between Germany and Israel this time? Hardly.

Sure, democracy may be shaky in such countries as India, Indonesia, and Brazil... but expecting something like a war between India and the United States over Burma seems unlikely.

Yes, the Islamic world is particularly dangerous, as Iraq demonstrates. In the entire arc from Morocco to Pakistan I see only one democracy likely to remain as such over the next few years: Israel. (Turkey is a special case that seeks to be recognized as more European than Islamic...).

We can be glad that Marxism-Leninism is dead as an ideology. Someone who predicted events of 2010 using the theories of Howe and Strauss -- or you, had such theories been in existence in 1970 might have predicted that the Crisis of our impending time would have had as its focus Soviet troops driving through the Fulda Gap to slice through western Europe before the democracies could put up a defense. Such of course cannot happen.

The great danger to the democracies is -- internal overthrows notwithstanding -- dictatorial regimes. Here's one argument, and I find it very convincing:

(R.J. Rummell)Consider ... a centralized society with a totalitarian government. In the main, behavior is no longer spontaneous, but commanded; in its major, most significant outlines, what one is and does is determined at the center. The totalitarian model is familiar and need not be elaborated. Relevantly here, such a system turns a social field into an organization, with a task to achieve (such as equality, communism, social justice, development), a management-worker, communal-obey class division cutting across all society, and all the characteristics of an organization (coercive planning, plethora of rules, lines of authority from top to bottom) needed to direct each member's activities.

The consequence is to polarize major interests. If the satisfaction of one's interests depends always on the same "them"; if "they" are responsible for one's job, housing, quality and cost of food, and even life and death, then almost all that is important depends on whether one is in the command or obey class. In effect, these are two poles to which interests become aligned. Thus, and most importantly for us here, since most vital interests depend on one center, it is easy to see that the interests related to this center--who commands and what is commanded--are matters of grave concern. In a democracy one can shrug his shoulders over losing: "win some, lose some, I'll do better next time." But in a highly centralized system, a loss on one issue may result in a loss on all, including even one's life.

With so much at stake, therefore, violence comes easily, especially to the rulers who must use repression and terror against possible dissent or sources of opposition; the gun, prison, or concentration camp are the major tools of social policy. And, as happened in Poland, in such a polarized system, conflict and violence involving local interests soon engage the whole society. For the split between those who command and obey is a fault line: slippage in one place moves along the whole fault and causes a social quake--wide-scale conflict and, given the importance of the issues, quite possibly violence.

What about foreign violence? By virtue of the same cross-pressures restricting violence within democracies, the unification of public interests needed to pursue foreign aggression is usually missing. Given the lack of general public support, and perhaps the outright opposition of certain social or interest groups, a democratic leader would pursue a costly foreign conflict at great risk to his political future, even if he could get the government's counter-balanced machinery to work in the same perilous direction. This he can do, especially when some external threat or attack unites public opinion (as in Great Britain's military response to Argentina's invasion of the Falkland Islands), but not with anything like the political freedom with which a dictator or small ruling group can make war. And among democracies, each with its own pluralism, cross-pressures, and politically constrained leaders; and each quite possibly having a variety of political and commercial ties and transactions that create their own pro-peace interest groups; the forces opposing violence overwhelm any tendencies toward severe conflict, violence, and war between them.

A totalitarian ruler has no such natural constraints. True, there will be cross-pressures among the elite. There are calculations to be made about the cost in lost trade, aid, allies, and the like, not to mention in resources and manpower. But such cross-pressures are usually within a particular direction (Should we invade today or wait? Should we squeeze them into submission?) and among often hand-picked subordinates. Real, fundamental opposition is lacking, where as in a democracy even the basic constitutional laws governing the making of war are open to debate and political contest.
Even if they have a higher-than-average tendency to win wars, the democracies are slow to enter them unless provoked with an unambiguously warlike act. Democracies are not so effective as dictatorships at manufacturing hate and organizing aggression. Warlike activities by the majority scare the minority, and where the opposition is barely in the minority, such acts entail great risks. Tyrants, whether absolute monarchs (Wilhelm II and Nicholas II), insane despots (Idi Amin), and totalitarians (Mussolini, Hitler, Kim il-Sung, Saddam Hussein) have no such problem.

Nobody says that the next 4T won't have conflicts. How people handle them is part of the "noise" that makes highly-specific predictions of history as unreliable as astrological forecasts. Will creditors who have no empathy for debtors after an economic meltdown insist on the Shylock-like "pound of flesh" from defaulters -- for example through forced labor? How will people act when living standards fall abruptly? On a national scale, could a creditor nation mandate the sale of the assets of a country (such as roads) to pay off the debt?

I have my assumption that how well a country, nation, or civilization gets through the rough times depends on how well it has solved problems during recent decades. We in America have done some things right; the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the near-equalization of gender rights, deals to reduce nuclear danger, mainstreaming disabled people, building good roads... I question whether we have done much well since 1980. Even "tax cuts" suggest an abandonment by government of an active role in changing the conditions of most people for the better.







Post#2708 at 02-25-2008 10:11 AM by catfishncod [at The People's Republic of Cambridge & Possum Town, MS joined Apr 2005 #posts 984]
---
02-25-2008, 10:11 AM #2708
Join Date
Apr 2005
Location
The People's Republic of Cambridge & Possum Town, MS
Posts
984

Quote Originally Posted by pbrower2a View Post
Unless one considers the abject puppet state of Vichy France as being at war with Great Britain while under the Nazi thumb, Great Britain and France have not been in a significant war against each other since the Battle of Waterloo.
Precisely. Britain and France don't hate each other enough anymore to go to war with each other -- or France and Germany, or Italy with anyone. All one needs do is compare the Balkans, now late in their 4T, to the rest of Europe in its early 4T, to know that it's ridiculous to compare the two.

The worst that could happen internally to Europe is a Paris Commune-type uprising over the issue of Muslim immigration. This is a MAJOR unresolved issue in European society, which has been heretofore been defined racially. I expect continuing disagreements over the structure of the European Union.. and yes, Britain and France will be on opposite sides of that argument. But Europe is not going to war over deck chairs in Brussels.

Now, you want a total war involving Europe? Here's a candidate: economic and military defense against a resurgent Russia that thinks it "don't get no respect"...
'81, 30/70 X/Millie, trying to live in both Red and Blue America... "Catfish 'n Cod"







Post#2709 at 02-25-2008 10:43 AM by The Grey Badger [at Albuquerque, NM joined Sep 2001 #posts 8,876]
---
02-25-2008, 10:43 AM #2709
Join Date
Sep 2001
Location
Albuquerque, NM
Posts
8,876

Quote Originally Posted by catfishncod View Post
Precisely. Britain and France don't hate each other enough anymore to go to war with each other -- or France and Germany, or Italy with anyone. All one needs do is compare the Balkans, now late in their 4T, to the rest of Europe in its early 4T, to know that it's ridiculous to compare the two.

The worst that could happen internally to Europe is a Paris Commune-type uprising over the issue of Muslim immigration. This is a MAJOR unresolved issue in European society, which has been heretofore been defined racially. I expect continuing disagreements over the structure of the European Union.. and yes, Britain and France will be on opposite sides of that argument. But Europe is not going to war over deck chairs in Brussels.

Now, you want a total war involving Europe? Here's a candidate: economic and military defense against a resurgent Russia that thinks it "don't get no respect"...
Ouch. Yes. That is a recipe for war, sin't it? We may see those Russian troops rolling through Fulda Gap yet! But my money's on resurgent Islam trying to undo the last 500 years of history.
How to spot a shill, by John Michael Greer: "What you watch for is (a) a brand new commenter who (b) has nothing to say about the topic under discussion but (c) trots out a smoothly written opinion piece that (d) hits all the standard talking points currently being used by a specific political or corporate interest, while (e) avoiding any other points anyone else has made on that subject."

"If the shoe fits..." The Grey Badger.







Post#2710 at 02-26-2008 02:59 PM by catfishncod [at The People's Republic of Cambridge & Possum Town, MS joined Apr 2005 #posts 984]
---
02-26-2008, 02:59 PM #2710
Join Date
Apr 2005
Location
The People's Republic of Cambridge & Possum Town, MS
Posts
984

Quote Originally Posted by The Grey Badger View Post
Ouch. Yes. That is a recipe for war, sin't it? We may see those Russian troops rolling through Fulda Gap yet! But my money's on resurgent Islam trying to undo the last 500 years of history.
Except that the forces actually capable of doing more than being a nuisance are not aimed at Europe. Much is made of 'Eurabia' but when all is said and done that can't be more than significant civil unrest. The total Muslim population of Europe is about seven percent, and the Europeans are far more organized to control the Muslims - if that is required - than the Muslims are to attack effectively.

Pakistan, on the other hand, is ready and able to attempt large-scale modern and thermonuclear jihad on India. Fortunately, most of its population is unwilling; for some odd reason, they'd rather live than see the Valley of the Indus glow with radionuclides for the supposed glory of Allah. However, if they are starving, and there's little left to lose...

The other incipient Muslim powers have more interest in dominating the ummah. This includes Iran, Saudi Arabia, and Turkey. Attacking infidels (Jews and Christians both) has always been merely a means to permit greater Arab or Muslim unity, no matter what faction you speak of (Pan-Arabs, Baath, Ayatollahs, Hamas, Fatah, Hezbollah, al-Qaeda...). Convince the Muslims that they have free reign to go after each other, and they'll leave us alone. The only reasons we haven't done this is that 1) The Spice Must Flow, and 2) the Holy Land's inhabitants and the pilgrimages (now called "Holy Land tourism") must be safeguarded. Otherwise, the Mideast would be treated the same as Africa or South America -- trade optimization and mild meddling for better human rights.

If a military Caliphate ever were re-established encompassing a large percentage of the Muslim world -- in other words, if there were a Muslim Great Power -- then there would be serious concern for Europe. But there is no Ottoman sultan, no Shah in Iran, and the King of Saudi Arabia makes no pretence to be heir of the Prophet. I don't think the Muslims ever really realized how feared they were in Europe, all those centuries when the Ottomans were advancing through the Balkans.

Of course, if there were a Caliphate that was more than a religious association, it would have to act like a Great Power -- or be ganged upon by all the other Powers. Can you imagine it with a Security Council seat, negotiating the terms of the peacekeeping mission to the Sudan?
'81, 30/70 X/Millie, trying to live in both Red and Blue America... "Catfish 'n Cod"







Post#2711 at 02-26-2008 09:34 PM by John J. Xenakis [at Cambridge, MA joined May 2003 #posts 4,010]
---
02-26-2008, 09:34 PM #2711
Join Date
May 2003
Location
Cambridge, MA
Posts
4,010

Quote Originally Posted by pbrower2a View Post
> The repression is (or has been) against any challenge to Corporate
> power irrespective of its source -- whether from the "traditional"
> Old Left Communists) or from libertarian, humanist,
> counterculture, or populist opposition not clearly left-wing. Big
> Business had not had as much power over people while Dubya was
> President than ant any time in American history. Except for
> electronic gadgets, almost everything has become far more costly
> -- and at the same time, real pay has shrunk despite increases in
> productivity. Business ethics might have been worse in the Gilded
> Age -- but at least then, America was still largely rural, and one
> can excuse the pioneers of business for learning on the job.
> Today's financiers and executives have no such excuse. Economic
> security has vanished. That's a fascist economy, and it can
> control one as effectively through fear of job loss and resulting
> destitution as could a classic fascist regime control people
> through fears of violence against the person or imprisonment.
> Against a materialistic people, the threat of being cast to the
> street creates much the same fear as Dachau did in Hitlerite
> Germany. Perhaps the substance of the fear is not the same, but
> the effect is much the same. Poverty in a society that recognizes
> material gain as the only virtue is indeed a fearsome prospect.

> Housing, college education, and energy have never been so costly
> in any decade of American history as in this decade. Credit is
> generous, but I see it more as an inducement to put middle-class
> wealth, perhaps that of one's parents, at risk of foreclosure
> (seizure) on behalf of Big Business. The goodies of our time come
> with huge debt, and so long as people are in debt they are in
> thrall to their creditors. Sure, one can still work after losing
> everything -- but the student loan can't be discharged even if one
> works for minimum wage at a convenience store.

> Corporate power, in contrast, has never been so crushing. Perhaps
> that will change in a political and economic climate already
> changing. I don't know whether the government can resolve the
> menace of debt; but I can also imagine how Americans get out of
> the aftermath of the debt-fueled bubble. Part will be relief
> projects analogous to the WPA and the CCC -- with the government
> as investor and employer of last resort. Much of it will be the
> creation of wealth that creates survival now and security later
> through owner-operated small business unable to lobby the
> government for special breaks. Such small businesses will create
> wealth as sweat equity that people can't easily sell, mortgage, or
> bleed. They will be built on families putting in six-day,
> fourteen-hour weeks but still living frugally. That's how people
> built wealth in the 1930s -- in the recovery. That it would take
> until the late 1940s to enjoy the fruit of that creation of wealth
> well fit the plans of most entrepreneurs.

> We Americans have been marvelously adept at siphoning, selling
> off, and mortgaging wealth in recent years. We have failed at has
> been in creating wealth. Much of the speculation-driven activity
> in real estate has created illusory wealth out of genuine assets
> -- assets better used elsewhere, as events will show.
This is a really bizarre polemic, although I actually agree with
selected parts of it.

But what's going on today has nothing to do with politics. It's
purely generational.

It's true that "business ethics" in financial institutions is at an
all time low, but that's because of the power of the Generation-Xers.

What Gen-Xers don't realize is that, as bad as Boomers are, Gen-Xers
are worse. The hatred and fury that Xers direct at Boomers is
translated into a utter contempt for everything that came before
them, resulting in a recklessly eager willingness to destroy it.

Gen-X "financial engineers" have created a set of "structured
finance" constructs -- structured investment vehicles, collateralized
debt obligations, variable interest entities, auction-rate
securities, and so forth -- that have destroyed the world financial
system. Their excuse is that they didn't know that what they were
doing was "bad." That excuse might have worked in 2002 or 2003 or
2004 or 2005 or maybe even 2006. But the worst of the abuses
occurred in 2007, and there is absolutely no way that they didn't know
what they were doing at that time, and that they were defrauding the
general public for their personal gain.

Call it "fascism" if you want. Call it "materialism" if you want.
But its source is the nihilism, destructiveness and
self-destructivness of Gen-Xers, who believe that's OK to destroy the
world so that they can make it over from a blank slate.

** The nihilism and self-destructiveness of Generation X
** http://www.generationaldynamics.com/...0121c#e080121c

** Reader comments on the Nihilism of Generation-X
** http://www.generationaldynamics.com/...080129#e080129

However, that isn't what we were talking about. We were talking
about antiwar protests, and no one is stopping anyone from protesting
against the war.

Quote Originally Posted by pbrower2a View Post
> Unless one considers the abject puppet state of Vichy France as
> being at war with Great Britain while under the Nazi thumb, Great
> Britain and France have not been in a significant war against each
> other since the Battle of Waterloo. ...

> Certainly it won't be quite like World War II. I can't imagine
> Germany, Italy, or Japan as enemies of the United States this time
> unless something goes very wrong in their political orders.
> Germany did unspeakable horrors to the Jews in the last Crisis;
> does anyone predict a war between Germany and Israel this time?
> Hardly.
You're arguing against yourself. In the first paragraph your
argument is essentially that a war between Britain and France is
unlikely since it hasn't happened for a long time. In the second
paragraph, your argument is that a war between Germans and Jews is
unlikely even though it's happened recently before. These arguments
are not contradictory, but they're generally inconsistent with one
another.

One conceptual tool for dealing with these difficulties is is Pólya's
Urn, which I discussed a couple of years ago.
http://www.fourthturning.com/forum/s...365#post183365

Pólya's Urn provides a conceptual framework for turning long-term
trend predictions into more specific short-term predictions. It's
then possible devise realistic scenarios about what's coming in
various countries, and then adjust these scenarios when new chaotic
events occur.

In the case of Britain versus France, it's a fair question to ask
whether the Urn is accumulating red balls (war) or green balls
(peace). I see a lot of red balls, especially in dicussions of EU
budgets. S&H talk about a series of unexpected and surprise "sparks"
leading to war in a fourth turning. There have already been a few of
these "sparks," and there will be plenty of opportunity for more.

There's no certainty about a war between Britain and France. What I
wrote was, "There will be a new European war, one component of which
will probably be France versus Britain." I think that's a fair
statement of the situation. We'll see.

Sincerely,

John

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







Post#2712 at 02-26-2008 09:36 PM by John J. Xenakis [at Cambridge, MA joined May 2003 #posts 4,010]
---
02-26-2008, 09:36 PM #2712
Join Date
May 2003
Location
Cambridge, MA
Posts
4,010

Quote Originally Posted by catfishncod View Post
> Precisely. Britain and France don't hate each other enough anymore
> to go to war with each other -- or France and Germany, or Italy
> with anyone. All one needs do is compare the Balkans, now late in
> their 4T, to the rest of Europe in its early 4T, to know that it's
> ridiculous to compare the two.
Actually, this argument proves the opposite point. The Serbs and the
Bosnians got along swell. They lived in the same neighborhoods,
intermarried, had play dates with each other's kids, etc. Maybe they
went to different places to pray, but for the rest of the week they
were quite chummy.

The feelings of hatred get buried in solemn, politically correct
enunciations of the joy of being human. It's only when the
politically correct mask is pulled away that real feelings get
exposed and real actions take place, as described here:

Quote Originally Posted by Amy Chua, World On Fire, page 5
In the Serbian concentration camps of the early 1990s, the women
prisoners were raped over and over, many times a day, often with
broken bottles, often together with their daughters. The men, if
they were lucky, were beaten to death as their Serbian guards
sang national anthems; if they were not so fortunate, they were
castrated or, at gunpoint, forced to castrate their fellow
prisoners, sometimes with their own teeth. In all, thousands were
tortured and executed.
Could that happen between the French and the Anglo-Saxons? You're
damn right it could.

Quote Originally Posted by catfishncod View Post
> Now, you want a total war involving Europe? Here's a candidate:
> economic and military defense against a resurgent Russia that
> thinks it "don't get no respect"...
Naaah. Won't happen. Deep in their hearts, the Russians love the
Europeans. Just ask either of the two Justins. The hatred that's
buried deep in their DNA is the mutual hatred between the Orthodox
civilization and the Muslim civilization -- e.g., Serbia vs Bosnia,
Russia vs. Turkey.

Sincerely,

John

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







Post#2713 at 02-27-2008 07:13 AM by catfishncod [at The People's Republic of Cambridge & Possum Town, MS joined Apr 2005 #posts 984]
---
02-27-2008, 07:13 AM #2713
Join Date
Apr 2005
Location
The People's Republic of Cambridge & Possum Town, MS
Posts
984

Quote Originally Posted by John J. Xenakis View Post
Actually, this argument proves the opposite point. The Serbs and the
Bosnians got along swell. They lived in the same neighborhoods,
intermarried, had play dates with each other's kids, etc. Maybe they
went to different places to pray, but for the rest of the week they
were quite chummy.
This is still ridiculous. What you describe is civil war -- a European Civil War, as a matter of fact, since the main points of contention between Britain and France are now the structure of the European Union. Britain wants a looser union, France wants a more centralized (and thus more France-like) power structure. This looks, at first glance, like the American Civil War -- also a war between similar, intermarrying, previously chummy civilizations in a formal union who had significantly dissimilar cultures.

The trouble is that people don't fight and die in a genocidal conflict over bureaucracy design, or trade negotiations. They have to have some motivating spark, something that really gets their knickers in a twist enough to kill. They have to be convinced that it's do or die. You can spin a scenario where the Gauls and Gaels try to use the European Union structure to twist each other into compliance; that is, after all, how the American Civil War started. But the gerentocracy of Brussels has the situation stuffed with Silents -- precisely to stop exactly that sort of nonsense. And they're much better at it than James Buchanan ever was.

It's that design that makes me think Europe's Crisis won't be a European Civil War. By the time the Crisis comes, other fault lines -- the Muslim fault line, the Russian fault line -- will go off first, long before the barriers preventing the failure of the Entente Cordiale do. Then they'll be sucked into the alternate vortex. To use your red/yellow/green threat level metaphor, the EU civil war is a yellowish-green, while the Russians are yellow and the Muslims are orange. The canaries in the coal mine -- the irredentists, the ultranationalists, the troublemakers who would be the ringleaders of ethnic conflict -- sure, they grumble about Gaul and Gael, and they fret about who could screw up their economy -- America and Russia being the leading candidates. But don't get them started on the Muslims. They're far more ready to go pogram on the immigrants.

Britain and France could have gone after each other in the last two Crises. It was theoretically possible. But Germany became so much more of a problem that the cross-Channel conflicts were put off. It's just been too long since a Frog and a Redcoat actually shot at each other for the rift to magically reappear at the drop of a hat; someone would have to work at it.

North and South Germany used to really, profoundly hate each other. The inter-German conflicts always included a rift between the Hochdeutsche up in the mountains and the Niederdeutsche of the plains. At one point it was over Pope/Emperor power shifts; later, Protestants vs. Catholics; later still, Prussia vs. Austria. It went on for just as long as Britain/France did. In fact, it only stopped because Austria -- seeing an opening in the disintegration of their more important enemy, the Ottomans -- stopped contesting control of Germany. After that, it was likely that North Germany would succeed in German unification (aside from the Austrians, of course). And then, in the World Wars, suddenly they are allies. What the hell happened? Answer: other threats became more important.

Naaah. Won't happen. Deep in their hearts, the Russians love the
Europeans. Just ask either of the two Justins. The hatred that's
buried deep in their DNA is the mutual hatred between the Orthodox
civilization and the Muslim civilization -- e.g., Serbia vs Bosnia,
Russia vs. Turkey.
That you could be right on. I was looking at European conditional probabilities, not overall probabilities.
'81, 30/70 X/Millie, trying to live in both Red and Blue America... "Catfish 'n Cod"







Post#2714 at 02-27-2008 02:38 PM by pbrower2a [at "Michigrim" joined May 2005 #posts 15,014]
---
02-27-2008, 02:38 PM #2714
Join Date
May 2005
Location
"Michigrim"
Posts
15,014

Quote Originally Posted by John J. Xenakis View Post
... what's going on today has nothing to do with politics. It's
purely generational.

It's true that "business ethics" in financial institutions is at an
all time low, but that's because of the power of the Generation-Xers.

What Gen-Xers don't realize is that, as bad as Boomers are, Gen-Xers
are worse. The hatred and fury that Xers direct at Boomers is
translated into a utter contempt for everything that came before
them, resulting in a recklessly eager willingness to destroy it.

Gen-X "financial engineers" have created a set of "structured
finance" constructs -- structured investment vehicles, collateralized
debt obligations, variable interest entities, auction-rate
securities, and so forth -- that have destroyed the world financial
system. Their excuse is that they didn't know that what they were
doing was "bad." That excuse might have worked in 2002 or 2003 or
2004 or 2005 or maybe even 2006. But the worst of the abuses
occurred in 2007, and there is absolutely no way that they didn't know
what they were doing at that time, and that they were defrauding the
general public for their personal gain.
Unlike the case in most other industries, the least troublesome lenders are those who display little imagination. Lending at its best is a simple activity: the would-be borrower submits an application for a loan and the loan officer analyzes the application for veracity before deciding whether the desired loan is good for both the lender and the borrower. Ordinarily the lender and borrower are both local. Does the borrower have something to lose in the event of a default? Does the borrower show a track record of meeting obligations or fit the norm for those who do? Banking is not rocket science... but those who try to ride a wave can get dashed into the pilings.

I look at both Boomers and Generation X as culpable -- and necessary to bring out the worst tendencies in both. I look at Boom executives who have ensured that work is vastly underpaid and offers no measure of economic security. I look at Boom executives who have been supplanting the Silent in top positions due to the retirements of the Silent... and I see people paid very well for treating the Little Man very badly. I see a crack-the-whip style of management suited more to a plantation than to a modern office or factory. I look at the typical education that "prepares" a Boom executive for his role -- the hollow MBA -- and I see little usefulness in that academic specialty for a breadth of learning suitable for seeing people as something other than expendable automatons. If someone has Howe and Strauss' stereotyped vices of arrogance, ruthlessness, and selfishness -- then such are the motivators for those at the apex of economic power.

With Generation X one sees the entrepreneurialism that at its best creates capital instead of playing games with it while taking some of it (as percentages) themselves. Such entrepreneurialism will revive when "other people's money" becomes a rarity due to high taxes on liquid income and the understandable caution of those who still have wealth. I'm going to predict that when things go really bad -- when paper profits vanish and speculative gain evaporates -- that lots of those 'creative' financiers and hustlers will end up in prison or commit suicide.

The latter part of a 3T seems to bring out the worst in living generations. Look at America before the Civil War: Compromise geezers were grasping for new and irrelevant compromises that would not outlast them; the Transcendentals were polarizing into hostile factions; the Gilded sought profitable adventure. Look at Russia going into World War I (or just read Doctor Zhivago or watch the movie). Adaptive adults were dropping off the scene, Idealist adults were polarizing into reactionaries and revolutionaries who sought the obliteration of each other, and Reactive young adults were looking at the Revolution as an opportunity to do well by either protecting class privilege or stealing wealth. Once a Civic generation comes onto the scene at the least as voters, things improve -- if the Crisis hasn't hit... yet.

Call it "fascism" if you want. Call it "materialism" if you want.
But its source is the nihilism, destructiveness and
self-destructivness of Gen-Xers, who believe that's OK to destroy the
world so that they can make it over from a blank slate.
The part of Generation X that will make the world over is very different from that part that does the destroying.

However, that isn't what we were talking about. We were talking
about antiwar protests, and no one is stopping anyone from protesting
against the war.
It's a bad idea to be associated while a college student with a "NO WAR FOR OIL" placard if one finds out that one is otherwise qualified for a job at Exxon-Mobil, Shell, Chevron, or the like -- unless the job entails doing oil and lube jobs or cashiering in a service station.



In the first paragraph your
argument is essentially that a war between Britain and France is
unlikely since it hasn't happened for a long time. In the second
paragraph, your argument is that a war between Germans and Jews is
unlikely even though it's happened recently before. These arguments
are not contradictory, but they're generally inconsistent with one
another.
To the contrary. I contend (with Rummell as my backing) that democracies like (today) Britain, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Israel, and the US are unlikely to go to war against each other. I think of the Holocaust as something possible only when the government is capable of suppressing all action contrary to the whims of the Leadership -- like Nazi Germany, thug Japan, or Fascist Italy during the 1930s and 1940s. Or the Soviet Union. Thug regimes like the Third Reich and the Soviet Union.. or gangster Japan and warlord China can turn on each other quickly. They can also deem the democracies as "weak, decadent, and vulnerable" and thus easy marks for conquest. Democracies don't wage war on each other... and they rarely do the mass killings such as those of Hitler, Stalin, Tojo, Mao, Pol Pot, Kabanda, and Saddam Hussein that drench later history texts with blood.

Even more, democracies don't have famines. Famines represent economic and moral failings of a leadership beyond accountability. Contrast Botswana (which itself experienced as severe a drought as any country in Africa during the 1970s) with Ethiopia under either the absolute monarch Haile Selassie or the Marxist regime of Mengistu. Botswana borrowed money to buy grain stocks; Ethiopia waged pointless wars of choice.

The contention that nations have bloated populations that make bloody wars for Lebensraum no longer holds. Birth control has allowed some national populations to stabilize far short of some danger zone.

There's no certainty about a war between Britain and France. What I
wrote was, "There will be a new European war, one component of which
will probably be France versus Britain." I think that's a fair
statement of the situation. We'll see.
Part of history is iron laws; part is noise.







Post#2715 at 02-27-2008 09:35 PM by John J. Xenakis [at Cambridge, MA joined May 2003 #posts 4,010]
---
02-27-2008, 09:35 PM #2715
Join Date
May 2003
Location
Cambridge, MA
Posts
4,010

Quote Originally Posted by catfishncod View Post
> This is still ridiculous.
I wish it were ridiculous, but after dealing with this stuff for
almost six years now, I can assure you it isn't.

Before I respond to your specific points, let me step back for a
moment. I'm not saying that a war between France and Britain is
certain - I'm saying it's likely. That's a big difference, and it
means that I agree with, or at least sympathize with, many of the
points that you're making.

What I'm trying to do is reach a conclusion by counting red balls
(war) and green balls (peace) in Pólya's Urn.

I'll concede that there's been a major bunch of green balls recently
in the election of the strikingly and openly pro-American Nicolas
Sarkozy as President.
** Euphoric Nicolas Sarkozy supporters celebrate victory over Ségolène Royal
http://www.generationaldynamics.com/cgi-bin/D.PL?xct=gd.e070508#e070508


After years of French hatred directed at us by President Jacques
Chirac and sleazebag Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin, it's a
very welcome change to have a French leadership that doesn't have
knee-jerk hatred of the "Anglo-Saxon model" and America in
particular.
** How France screwed Secretary of State Colin Powell
http://www.generationaldynamics.com/cgi-bin/D.PL?xct=gd.e041116#e041116


If you didn't see the extremely stirring speech that Sarkozy gave
to a joint session of Congress, then take a look at my transcription
of the (simultaneous translation of) the speech. I took the time to
do that and comment on it because it was a truy amazing speech.
** Nicolas Sarkozy gives stirring speech to joint session of Congress
http://www.generationaldynamics.com/cgi-bin/D.PL?xct=gd.e071108b#e071108b


However, when you really look at the speech, and this has become more
apparent to me in retrospect, this speech may have been a love song
to America, but it was NOT a love song to the "Anglo-Saxon model." It
actually contained quite a few zingers directed at Britain, and it
was obviously an attempt for France to gain political advantage over
Britain with America.

What was quite amusing is that a few days later, Gordon Brown also
came out with a speech saying how much he admires America. It's nice
to see people pandering to us for a change.
** British Prime Minister Gordon Brown loves America too.
http://www.generationaldynamics.com/cgi-bin/D.PL?xct=gd.e071113#e071113


So, I think that the the Sarkozy election victory over the sleazebag
de Villepin counts as at least one green ball, but there are too many
subleties to be certain whether the victory counts as additional green
balls or red balls with respect to Britain.

Quote Originally Posted by catfishncod View Post
> What you describe is civil war -- a European Civil War, as a
> matter of fact, since the main points of contention between
> Britain and France are now the structure of the European Union.
> Britain wants a looser union, France wants a more centralized (and
> thus more France-like) power structure. This looks, at first
> glance, like the American Civil War -- also a war between similar,
> intermarrying, previously chummy civilizations in a formal union
> who had significantly dissimilar cultures.
I won't argue whether it should be called a "civil war," but if it's
a civil war then WW I and WW II were also civil wars.

But here I strongly disagree with you.

First, as I always say on my web site, Generational Dynamics analyzes
the attitudes and behaviors or large masses of people, entire
generations of people. The attitudes and behaviors of politicians
are unimportant, except insofar as they reflect the attitudes of the
masses of people.

Quote Originally Posted by catfishncod View Post
> The trouble is that people don't fight and die in a genocidal
> conflict over bureaucracy design, or trade negotiations. They
> have to have some motivating spark, something that really gets
> their knickers in a twist enough to kill. They have to be
> convinced that it's do or die. You can spin a scenario where the
> Gauls and Gaels try to use the European Union structure to twist
> each other into compliance; that is, after all, how the American
> Civil War started. But the gerentocracy of Brussels has the
> situation stuffed with Silents -- precisely to stop exactly that
> sort of nonsense. And they're much better at it than James
> Buchanan ever was.
So I have a mixed reaction to this paragraph. The Brussels
gerentocracy really has nothing to do with what we're talking about
since, as you say, ordinary people don't care about bureaucracy
design.


<i>June 2005: Jean-Claude Juncker, Tony Blair, Jacques Chirac</i>

What are we to make of the bitterly acrimonious European summit
meeting in June, 2005.
** Acrimonious European Union summit ends in crisis
http://www.generationaldynamics.com/cgi-bin/D.PL?xct=gd.e050618#e050618


Was the rancor a dispute by the gerentocracy over "bureaucracy
design"? Or did the rancor represent something that reaches into the
depths of the European people's psyche?

There's certainly no doubt in my mind that the latter is the case.
The top-level dispute was about bureaucratic details. The next level
debate was over agricultural subsidies. At its heart, the bitterest,
most visceral bottom-level disagreement is the French "social model"
versus the "Anglo-Saxon model." This is a "way of life"
disagreement, and that's at the heart of many crisis wars.

It's worth noting that the vitriol came from one side only -- the
French side. Blair's role was to insist on maintaining the <i>status
quo</i>, retaining a rebate that everyone agreed on in the 1980s. In
the end, the pressure on Blair was so enormous that Blair caved in in
December, 2005, giving Chirac a total political victory in
humiliating Blair.
** Tony Blair caves, and the EU reaches a budget agreement
http://www.generationaldynamics.com/cgi-bin/D.PL?xct=gd.e051217#e051217


The vitriol of the French people comes through in other ways.

These are a lot of red balls in the relationship between the French
and the Anglo-Saxons, and there are very few if any green balls to
compensate.

Quote Originally Posted by catfishncod View Post
> It's that design that makes me think Europe's Crisis won't be a
> European Civil War. By the time the Crisis comes, other fault
> lines -- the Muslim fault line, the Russian fault line -- will go
> off first, long before the barriers preventing the failure of the
> Entente Cordiale do. Then they'll be sucked into the alternate
> vortex. To use your red/yellow/green threat level metaphor, the EU
> civil war is a yellowish-green, while the Russians are yellow and
> the Muslims are orange. The canaries in the coal mine -- the
> irredentists, the ultranationalists, the troublemakers who would
> be the ringleaders of ethnic conflict -- sure, they grumble about
> Gaul and Gael, and they fret about who could screw up their
> economy -- America and Russia being the leading candidates. But
> don't get them started on the Muslims. They're far more ready to
> go pogram on the immigrants.
We'll see. Maybe you're right.

Quote Originally Posted by catfishncod View Post
> Britain and France could have gone after each other in the last
> two Crises. It was theoretically possible. But Germany became so
> much more of a problem that the cross-Channel conflicts were put
> off. It's just been too long since a Frog and a Redcoat actually
> shot at each other for the rift to magically reappear at the drop
> of a hat; someone would have to work at it.

> North and South Germany used to really, profoundly hate each
> other. The inter-German conflicts always included a rift between
> the Hochdeutsche up in the mountains and the Niederdeutsche of the
> plains. At one point it was over Pope/Emperor power shifts; later,
> Protestants vs. Catholics; later still, Prussia vs. Austria. It
> went on for just as long as Britain/France did. In fact, it only
> stopped because Austria -- seeing an opening in the disintegration
> of their more important enemy, the Ottomans -- stopped contesting
> control of Germany. After that, it was likely that North Germany
> would succeed in German unification (aside from the Austrians, of
> course). And then, in the World Wars, suddenly they are allies.
> What the hell happened? Answer: other threats became more
> important.
Here's a map that shows the support for Hitler's party in the 1932
election. It supports your distinction between North and South, but
raises questions about your claim that the differences stopped
entirely.


(http://www.spiegel.de/international/...531909,00.html)

An interesting question is: Assuming that I'm right, and the Germans
have to choose sides between France and Britain, whom will they
choose?

The thing is, though, you can't assume that just because two people
stopped having wars with each other, they won't again. Fault lines
continue almost forever, and hostilities can emerge in any saeculum.
So, for example, the Chinese were our ally in WW II, and will be our
enemy in the clash of civilizations.

The whole point of the Pólya's Urn model is that it gives us a way to
understand that. When a crisis war ends, the Urn is empty. Then it
starts accumulating red and green balls. This determines whether the
same two countries will be allies or enemies in the next crisis war.
There's no guarantee that the alignments will be the same.

Sincerely,

John

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







Post#2716 at 02-27-2008 10:33 PM by Cynic Hero '86 [at Upstate New York joined Jul 2006 #posts 1,285]
---
02-27-2008, 10:33 PM #2716
Join Date
Jul 2006
Location
Upstate New York
Posts
1,285

I doubt a serious war will occur with china unless, it involves china as a sidekick of russia. Opinion poll consistantly state that most americans oppose going to war if china attacks taiwan. I'm far more worried about putin currently assembling a new arsenal of advanced topol-m nuclear missiles.







Post#2717 at 02-27-2008 10:50 PM by Cynic Hero '86 [at Upstate New York joined Jul 2006 #posts 1,285]
---
02-27-2008, 10:50 PM #2717
Join Date
Jul 2006
Location
Upstate New York
Posts
1,285

Quote Originally Posted by John J. Xenakis View Post
Naaah. Won't happen. Deep in their hearts, the Russians love the
Europeans. Just ask either of the two Justins. The hatred that's
buried deep in their DNA is the mutual hatred between the Orthodox
civilization and the Muslim civilization -- e.g., Serbia vs Bosnia,
Russia vs. Turkey.

Sincerely,

John

John J. Xenakis
E-mail: john@GenerationalDynamics.com
Web site: http://www.GenerationalDynamics.com
Remember that the serbs also went to war with croatia during the 1991-1995 conflict and also had a short war with slovenia prevent separation with yugoslavia prior to outbreak of the general war. Both croatia and slovenia are western catholic based countries.







Post#2718 at 02-27-2008 10:57 PM by pbrower2a [at "Michigrim" joined May 2005 #posts 15,014]
---
02-27-2008, 10:57 PM #2718
Join Date
May 2005
Location
"Michigrim"
Posts
15,014

Quote Originally Posted by John J. Xenakis View Post


Here's a map that shows the support for Hitler's party in the 1932
election. It supports your distinction between North and South, but
raises questions about your claim that the differences stopped
entirely.


(http://www.spiegel.de/international/...531909,00.html)

An interesting question is: Assuming that I'm right, and the Germans
have to choose sides between France and Britain, whom will they
choose?
In general, the largely-Catholic German South and West voted against Hitler -- even though Hitler was brought up an Austrian Catholic. Maybe it was the 1923 Beer-Hall Putsch; maybe Catholics recognized him as a rebel against what they cherished. If you look at the areas that voted against Hitler, then you find that the Nazis had to repress these areas before going on their later, more absurd campaigns of aggressive war and genocide. It's hardly surprising that the most infamous camp in pre-1938 Hitlerland was Dachau, a few kilometers outside of Munich.

The thing is, though, you can't assume that just because two people
stopped having wars with each other, they won't again. Fault lines
continue almost forever, and hostilities can emerge in any saeculum.
So, for example, the Chinese were our ally in WW II, and will be our
enemy in the clash of civilizations.

The whole point of the Pólya's Urn model is that it gives us a way to
understand that. When a crisis war ends, the Urn is empty. Then it
starts accumulating red and green balls. This determines whether the
same two countries will be allies or enemies in the next crisis war.
There's no guarantee that the alignments will be the same.
Conflicts can exist and fall far short of war. Those could be aspects of a 4T that proves less bloody and destructive than the last one.







Post#2719 at 03-13-2008 09:45 AM by Virgil K. Saari [at '49er, north of the Mesabi Mountains joined Jun 2001 #posts 7,835]
---
03-13-2008, 09:45 AM #2719
Join Date
Jun 2001
Location
'49er, north of the Mesabi Mountains
Posts
7,835

Right Arrow On their suckiness?

What do Iraq, bubbles, Bush, Bernanke, and Obama all have in common? at LewRockwell.com Blog

Quote Originally Posted by Mr. Michael S. Rozeff at March 12, 2008 03:50 PM
Over-confidence. Xenakis, who wrote Generational Dynamics, in 2004 wrote this: "Ten years ago, all the major senior business, government and education leaders were risk-averse people from the generation that grew up during the Great Depression and World War II. Today, all the major leaders are from the risk-seeking, arrogant, hubristic, narcissistic, self-assured 'baby boomer generation.'"

His hypothesis applies to the Iraq War instigators. And they are so hubristic they'd start a war with Iran.

It applies to Bush II, born in 1946, who thinks he can remake the world.

It applies to the credit bubble, which is a manifestation in part of lowered risk aversion. Those contracting big debts, both in the business world and out, didn't think about the risks or factor them in to pricing. It applied earlier to the internet bubble.

These are history. My main point is that Bernanke, born in 1953, is in this group. He thinks that he can stem another Great Depression, if not with helicopter money, then with some other gimmick. He thinks he can manipulate the stock market and stem its decline. He cannot do either of these things. He's overconfident.

Obama, born in 1961, is a Generation X-er. He's just as overconfident as the Baby Boomers and will be just as activist, as he is not separated that far in time from them. But his agenda is a different set of "problems", namely, social problems.







Post#2720 at 04-20-2008 11:42 PM by John J. Xenakis [at Cambridge, MA joined May 2003 #posts 4,010]
---
04-20-2008, 11:42 PM #2720
Join Date
May 2003
Location
Cambridge, MA
Posts
4,010

Generational Dynamics Country Studies

Generational Dynamics Country Studies -- 'beta'
version is now online


Useful information for 267 different countries is now available.

** Click here for Index to Generational Dynamics Country Studies
http://www.generationaldynamics.com/cgi-bin/D.PL?d=ww2010.cs.index


This is something I've been wanting to do for a long time. When it's
finished, it will contain generational information for all countries,
including crisis wars, generational timelines, and generational
histories, as well as a cross-reference to related articles on this
web site.

Actually, it's already the best "first stop" if you want to research
a particular country, because there are already links to many other
resources for each country. You can go to the country page, and
quickly click on 5 or 6 other resources, bringing them up in
different tabs of your browser.

Here's what's currently available for each country:
  • Country map, country flag.
  • Links to other resources: CIA Fact Book, State Department, BBC
    Country Profiles, online searches, Wikipedia, Library of Congress
    histories.
  • List of generational Crisis Wars.


Additional links will be added, and more generational information
will be provided, as time permits.

As usual, suggestions are welcome. I'd particularly like to hear
about other country resources that can be linked to.

Matt and Nathaniel: I've incorporated your crisis war list. I'd love
to give you credit. Just tell me how you want me to identify you.

** Click here for Index to Generational Dynamics Country Studies
http://www.generationaldynamics.com/cgi-bin/D.PL?d=ww2010.cs.index


Sincerely,

John

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







Post#2721 at 04-21-2008 02:45 AM by Matt1989 [at joined Sep 2005 #posts 3,018]
---
04-21-2008, 02:45 AM #2721
Join Date
Sep 2005
Posts
3,018

John,

Wow. Unexpected. It looks like a fantastic start.

A "thanks to Matt" or something like that is fine.

As a side note: I haven't worked on this stuff in quite some time. I have a tendency not to finish projects that I start (I usually hop on to the next one!), but there is a chance I can contribute to this again. Seeing it organized like this sure can help!
Last edited by Matt1989; 04-21-2008 at 02:49 AM.







Post#2722 at 04-21-2008 06:46 PM by John J. Xenakis [at Cambridge, MA joined May 2003 #posts 4,010]
---
04-21-2008, 06:46 PM #2722
Join Date
May 2003
Location
Cambridge, MA
Posts
4,010

Dear Matt,

Quote Originally Posted by MichaelEaston View Post
> Wow. Unexpected. It looks like a fantastic start.

> A "thanks to Matt" or something like that is fine.
Nathaniel -- What about you? Do you want me to use your last name,
so that posterity will know who you are?

Quote Originally Posted by MichaelEaston View Post
> As a side note: I haven't worked on this stuff in quite some time.
> I have a tendency not to finish projects that I start (I usually
> hop on to the next one!), but there is a chance I can contribute
> to this again. Seeing it organized like this sure can
> help!
I'm looking at how to lay these country study pages out. I'm
thinking of having a "crisis war" section, as there is now, and also
a "generational history and strategy" section that provides a more
complete narrative -- history, details about generations and eras,
and predictions about the future. I have many of these generational
history narratives scattered around different sections of my web
site, and I'm going to start moving them into the country study
pages. In other cases, I may just write a sentence or two about the
country to fill out the section. There'll also be a cross-reference
list of other articles from my web site referencing that article.

Incidentally, I just added to each page a link to the country profile
from the Canadian Foreign Affairs web site. The Canadian web site
provides useful travel advisory information.

One thing that you might be able to do easily to help is if you can
pull together all the generational country narratives that you've
written, probably mostly on this thread and the map thread. You
don't have to do anything with them -- just provide the narrative,
along with a comment like "Here's the narrative for Botswana." Even
if all you have is a sentence or two, that's better than nothing, and
it will save me the trouble of trying to write a sentence or two.

Sincerely,

John

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







Post#2723 at 04-22-2008 12:12 AM by Matt1989 [at joined Sep 2005 #posts 3,018]
---
04-22-2008, 12:12 AM #2723
Join Date
Sep 2005
Posts
3,018

Quote Originally Posted by John J. Xenakis View Post
I'm looking at how to lay these country study pages out. I'm
thinking of having a "crisis war" section, as there is now, and also
a "generational history and strategy" section that provides a more
complete narrative -- history, details about generations and eras,
and predictions about the future. I have many of these generational
history narratives scattered around different sections of my web
site, and I'm going to start moving them into the country study
pages. In other cases, I may just write a sentence or two about the
country to fill out the section. There'll also be a cross-reference
list of other articles from my web site referencing that article.

Incidentally, I just added to each page a link to the country profile
from the Canadian Foreign Affairs web site. The Canadian web site
provides useful travel advisory information.

One thing that you might be able to do easily to help is if you can
pull together all the generational country narratives that you've
written, probably mostly on this thread and the map thread. You
don't have to do anything with them -- just provide the narrative,
along with a comment like "Here's the narrative for Botswana." Even
if all you have is a sentence or two, that's better than nothing, and
it will save me the trouble of trying to write a sentence or two.
Yuck. Don't use that. Give me until the end of the summer and I'll write up a paragraph for each country I created a timeline for.

Also, I'm sure I made lots of mistakes and there are plenty of people familiar with the history of a particular country. Perhaps opening some comments on the individual pages would do well to correct some errors.
Last edited by Matt1989; 04-22-2008 at 12:15 AM.







Post#2724 at 04-22-2008 07:35 PM by Zarathustra [at Where the Northwest meets the Southwest joined Mar 2003 #posts 9,198]
---
04-22-2008, 07:35 PM #2724
Join Date
Mar 2003
Location
Where the Northwest meets the Southwest
Posts
9,198

Quote Originally Posted by catfishncod View Post
This is still ridiculous.
Xenakis' "Generational Dynamics", if applied without his whimsical exceptions, states the Napoleonic Wars predicted that Britain and France would have a "genocidal" conflict 50-100 years later.

But one must add a few Ptolemaic epicycles to postpone that conflict to the 21st century. It makes total sense.

Is he still advertising 100% certainty these days? I haven't paid attention in a while. I am certain he will take credit for accurately predicting the current eco-financial implosion -- the same one that was going to happen very shortly after 2001, then 2002, then 2003, then 2004, then 2005, then 2006 . . .
Americans have had enough of glitz and roar . . Foreboding has deepened, and spiritual currents have darkened . . .
THE FOURTH TURNING IS AT HAND.
See T4T, p. 253.







Post#2725 at 04-23-2008 10:30 AM by John J. Xenakis [at Cambridge, MA joined May 2003 #posts 4,010]
---
04-23-2008, 10:30 AM #2725
Join Date
May 2003
Location
Cambridge, MA
Posts
4,010

Dear Matt,

Quote Originally Posted by MichaelEaston View Post
> Also, I'm sure I made lots of mistakes and there are plenty of
> people familiar with the history of a particular country. Perhaps
> opening some comments on the individual pages would do well to
> correct some errors.
I've debated posting comments on my web site, but the problem with
that is you have to deal with abusers, haters, viagra salesmen, porn
merchants, trolls, spammers, and other undesirables. So I encourage
people to send me comments via e-mail or to post them in this forum
thread instead. However, I'll add some text encouraging people to let
me know if there are any errors.

Sincerely,

John

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