Generational Dynamics World View News

[John]

** 31-Dec-2019 World View: GoFundMe

> I set up a GoFundMe page to help John with his financial
> difficulties. Feel free to donate and share with your friends and
> family!

> https://www.gofundme.com/f/john-xenakis-needs-your-help

Wow!!!!!!!

If this works, then you will certainly have earned the title
Miracle Worker of the 21st Century!

[Tom Mazanec]

http://endoftheamericandream.com/archiv ... r-to-begin
http://theeconomiccollapseblog.com/arch ... mmy-carter

[mps92]

Happy New Year, John!

I wanted to let you know that I'm still reading the forum. Keep up the great work! I've been very busy. I'm taking the MCAT this year and hoping to get a top score. If I want to go to a great med school, I need to score at least 95th percentile. But since I'm Asian, I suspect I'll have to do a bit better than that.

I'm very excited for Trump to be reelected! Everyone at the university will go absolutely nuts. As I said before, I hope you stick around long enough to see such a glorious event unfold!

I actually wanted to ask you about your thoughts on Iran's current situation. To me, Iran is in big trouble economically, and nobody in America truly understands how bad it is. Iran's economy has stagnated and there aren't enough jobs for young people. A huge majority of students at top Iranian universities are women, and this massive disparity is a problem - it indicates that there are very few ambitious men left.

They are also facing environmental problems. Persia has always been a dry place, just barely fertile enough to support agriculture. If you look at a world map of areas most at risk to desertification, the entire country of Iran is under the most severe classification of risk. Just a slight desertification trend caused by a slight warming trend will cripple Iran's ability to grow food. There is some evidence that this is already happening.

They're also running low on water. Iran is completely reliant on vast underground reservoirs for fresh water, but these reservoirs have been severely depleted. In some areas outside of Tehran, the ground has sunk a foot due to reservoir depletion! Iran has no alternatives; they are not rich enough to afford the large-scale desalination done by the Saudis and Emiratis.


So these are the things that I've discovered about Iran for the past few years. I believe that Iran's leaders are desperate. They have nothing to fall back on. They need expansion, imperialism, and military success tomaintain their mandate. I believe it was this site that has explained the concept of the "Shia crescent, " which is Iran's dream - to establish Shia satellites in Iraq, Syria, and Lebanon, while exterminating Israel's populace and replacing it with Shia.

Using military success to galvanize your populace and distract them from other difficulties is a common strategy used by countries throughout history, and I believe this is one reason for Iran's persistent sabre-rattling. However, I believe they have other motives as well. I suspect that Iran's idea of expansion is similar to Hitler's Lebensraum. Just as Hitler wanted Poland to supply Germany with food, Iran wants other countries to do supply food and water, thus mitigating Iran's economic and environmental woes.

Any thoughts?

[Guest]

Ride to the sound of the guns
No matter how much you love your country, it won't love you back. No matter how much you believe in the military, it doesn't believe in you. Your duty is required and your loyalty is expected. If you scorn these traditions, you'll be branded as dishonorable. It is a difficult and thankless, and sometimes perilous, commitment fitted only for a few hard and dangerous men. Any who answer the urgent call of drums, and march toward the sound of distant guns, must be willing to die unsung, unmourned, and unknown.

[John]

** 01-Jan-2020 World View: America's Manifest Destiny

> From the post above this one...

> ** 31-Dec-19 World View -- American airstrikes on Iraq's Kataib
> Hezbollah provoke international fury

> Uh, sounds like some sort of Shiite payback to me. Btw, I think
> the 1979 hostage situation was due to the US./UK coup in 1953.
> The US should just fucking leave the Mideast. We've trashed the
> place enough already and I'd reckon lots of folks there just
> totally hate us.

As I described in my book on Iran, Iran's 1979 civil war was triggered
generationally by the 1890 Tobacco Revolt, the 1905-09 Constitutional
Revolution, and the 1963 White Revolution in which Ayatollah Ruhollah
Khomeini was exiled. During all this time, the UK, Russia and later
America were bogeymen that various Iranian politicians blamed for
their own failures. If the 1953 CIA coup played any part in that, it
was a small part of a large tableau.

It's laughable that you blame the US for trashing the Mideast. As I
showed in my book on Iran, the Mideast has been trashing itself, over
and over and over, for millennia.

One thing I've discovered in 15+ years of developing Generational
Dynamics is that there are very few people in the world who hate us --
maybe some Palestinian groups, maybe some African black liberation
groups, maybe some anti-American hate politicians within the
Democratic party, maybe a couple of other groups -- despite the "ugly
American" stuff you read in American media. Most people in the world
admire America and Americans, and many would love to come to America
and become Americans themselves. Most of the vitriolic criticism of
America, and lately of Trump, is from politicians who are using it for
their own domestic political goals. It's always easy to blame America
for any problem in the world, when a politician doesn't want to admit
his own stupidity.

As for withdrawing from the Mideast, or from the world, I do get
asked this question reasonably frequently, and in fact was just
asked a similar question in the Generational Dynamics forum.

There are practical reasons why this is impossible. One is that
Israel is an important ally. So is Egypt. And we're committed to
providing security to Saudi Arabia so that the Saudis can provide the
world with oil. Those commitments cannot simply be abandoned.

And the news today is that Trump is sending 700 more troops into Iraq
to protect the American embassy. So withdrawing from the Mideast is
little more than a fantasy.

But it's more than that. As I've written in the past, there are a lot
of people, in America and in the world, who believe in American
Exceptionalism, and who truly believe that America has a moral
obligation, or even a Christian obligation, or even an obligation
dictated by God, to fulfill American's Manifest Destiny, and to do the
right thing, and they would not consider withdrawing from the Mideast
or the world as the way to do the right thing.

In fact, you can see this dynamic in the Mideast today. Trump said he
wants to withdraw troops from the Mideast and he's gotten howls of
outrage and criticism from pretty much everyone -- Democrats,
Republicans, liberals, conservatives. He's still being criticized
constantly for reducing the number of troops in Syria after ISIS was
defeated. There are many people, like yourself, who would like to see
America withdraw from the Mideast and just let them "trash" each other
without American involvement, but withdrawing from the Mideast is just
impossible, as it would be inconsistent with America's Manifest Destiny.

[John]

** 01-Jan-2020 World View: Iran's Proxy Wars

> Happy New Year, John! I wanted to let you know that I'm still
> reading the forum. Keep up the great work! I've been very
> busy. I'm taking the MCAT this year and hoping to get a top
> score. If I want to go to a great med school, I need to score at
> least 95th percentile. But since I'm Asian, I suspect I'll have to
> do a bit better than that.

> I'm very excited for Trump to be reelected! Everyone at the
> university will go absolutely nuts. As I said before, I hope you
> stick around long enough to see such a glorious event unfold!

> I actually wanted to ask you about your thoughts on Iran's current
> situation. To me, Iran is in big trouble economically, and nobody
> in America truly understands how bad it is. Iran's economy has
> stagnated and there aren't enough jobs for young people. A huge
> majority of students at top Iranian universities are women, and
> this massive disparity is a problem - it indicates that there are
> very few ambitious men left.

> They are also facing environmental problems. Persia has always
> been a dry place, just barely fertile enough to support
> agriculture. If you look at a world map of areas most at risk to
> desertification, the entire country of Iran is under the most
> severe classification of risk. Just a slight desertification trend
> caused by a slight warming trend will cripple Iran's ability to
> grow food. There is some evidence that this is already happening.

> They're also running low on water. Iran is completely reliant on
> vast underground reservoirs for fresh water, but these reservoirs
> have been severely depleted. In some areas outside of Tehran, the
> ground has sunk a foot due to reservoir depletion! Iran has no
> alternatives; they are not rich enough to afford the large-scale
> desalination done by the Saudis and Emiratis.

> So these are the things that I've discovered about Iran for the
> past few years. I believe that Iran's leaders are desperate. They
> have nothing to fall back on. They need expansion, imperialism,
> and military success tomaintain their mandate. I believe it was
> this site that has explained the concept of the "Shia crescent, "
> which is Iran's dream - to establish Shia satellites in Iraq,
> Syria, and Lebanon, while exterminating Israel's populace and
> replacing it with Shia.

> Using military success to galvanize your populace and distract
> them from other difficulties is a common strategy used by
> countries throughout history, and I believe this is one reason for
> Iran's persistent sabre-rattling. However, I believe they have
> other motives as well. I suspect that Iran's idea of expansion is
> similar to Hitler's Lebensraum. Just as Hitler wanted Poland to
> supply Germany with food, Iran wants other countries to do supply
> food and water, thus mitigating Iran's economic and environmental
> woes.

> Any thoughts?

Well, they say that Asians have higher IQs than us ordinary European
descendants, so you should do ok on the MCAT.

As I described in my book on Iran, Iran suffered major humiliating
defeats in nationalistic border wars during the 1800s. As a result,
Iran takes pride in saying that it no longer invades anyone, and
points to the Iran/Iraq war as a case where it was invaded.

So under the insanity of the Islamic republic, Iran now serves its
nationalistic drives not by invading anyone, but by funding other
groups to conduct proxy wars. And lately the Iran Revolutionary Guard
Corps (IRGC) has been conducting limited operations in Iraq and Syria.

The problem is that, just as the 1800s border wars failed
spectacularly, the new proxy war strategy is also failing
spectacularly. Instead of getting soldiers killed in foreign wars,
Iran is spending huge amounts of money to pay other groups to get
their soldiers killed in proxy wars.

As you point out, this has caused enormous economic problems in Iran,
and a lot of people are furious at wasting money on the foreign proxy
wars. But Iran's main problem is that the older generations have a
hate-America foreign policy, while the younger generations love the
West and America, and the size of the younger generations is growing
every day.

Iran's last generational crisis war was the 1979 Islamic Revolution
civil war, combined with the 1980s Iran/Iraq war, and now the hardline
geezers are paying the price for their democide policies following
both those wars. Both Iran and Iraq are close to Awakening era climax
events, and looks like the most likely result will be for Iraq to
eject Iran, and for Iran to eject the hardline geezers. But this is
speculation, and it remains to be seen.

[John]

** 01-Jan-2020 World View: Earthquakes and Wars

> Ride to the sound of the guns

> No matter how much you love your country, it won't love you
> back. No matter how much you believe in the military, it
> doesn't believe in you. Your duty is required and your loyalty
> is expected. If you scorn these traditions, you'll be branded as
> dishonorable. It is a difficult and thankless, and sometimes
> perilous, commitment fitted only for a few hard and dangerous
> men. Any who answer the urgent call of drums, and march toward the
> sound of distant guns, must be willing to die unsung,
> unmourned, and unknown.

Well, I certainly understand where you're coming from. After 15+
years of developing Generational Dynamics, I've developed definite
opinions on the futility of war.

Wars are like earthquakes.

You can't prevent an earthquake. The internal forces on Earth's
plates is too great.

You can't prevent a war. The generational and societal forces are too
great.

What does an earthquake accomplish? Well, it can change a few
national boundaries. But mostly creates devastation.

What does a war accomplish? Well, it can change a few national
boundaries. But mostly the purpose of war is to kill enough people so
that the remaining people have enough to eat.

On a personal level, it's not like you can live forever. You have to
die somehow. So it might as well be in war, where you'll kill someone
else and someone else will kill you so that the rest of the people
have enough to eat. And who knows? If you march to the sound of
distant drums, maybe you'll be clever enough to figure out how to die
a hero, and then your wife will get a nice thank you. Do it for your
family.

[Trevor]

I wouldn't say the world loves us, exactly, but they're stuck with us. They may not like us as a superpower, but consider the possible alternatives. Europe's too fragmented to be a military superpower again, even if they did have any interest in it. And how many would seriously want China dominating the world, given what they've done so far? Russia's trying to expand its borders, but they're still a ruin of their former selves.

When it comes to Europe, I'd agree that most of the griping is political. How they feel about us goes up and down, depending on whether we have a democrat or a republican in the Oval Office.

I've heard plenty of talk about the Middle East despising us because of the Crusades, but until recently, they were considered a minor problem and held far more significance in Europe. The Islamic Empires at the time had bigger problems, chiefly one another and later, the Mongols. It was only in the late 19th and 20th centuries that it became a rallying point.

[Guest]

I wouldn't say the world loves us, exactly, but they're stuck with us. They may not like us as a superpower, but consider the possible alternatives. Europe's too fragmented to be a military superpower again, even if they did have any interest in it. And how many would seriously want China dominating the world, given what they've done so far? Russia's trying to expand its borders, but they're still a ruin of their former selves.

When it comes to Europe, I'd agree that most of the griping is political. How they feel about us goes up and down, depending on whether we have a democrat or a republican in the Oval Office.

I've heard plenty of talk about the Middle East despising us because of the Crusades, but until recently, they were considered a minor problem and held far more significance in Europe. The Islamic Empires at the time had bigger problems, chiefly one another and later, the Mongols. It was only in the late 19th and 20th centuries that it became a rallying point.

“Why do those people hate us?”
“We destroyed their country.”
“We should leave the Middle East then.”
“We can’t”
“Why not?”
“Israel.”
“What about it?”
“Those other countries hate it.”
“Why?”
“It destroyed the country it was built on top of.”
“Well maybe we and Israel should leave, then?”
“Nazi.”

[Tom Mazanec]

"On the Edge of a Precipice"​ - A Challenging Decade is Upon Us
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/edge-pre ... s-tavares/