17-Feb-15 World View -- Egypt faces two-front war with airstrikes in Libya / Greece bailout talks collapse in acrimony

[John]

17-Feb-15 World View -- Egypt faces two-front war with airstrikes in Libya

Greece bailout talks collapse in acrimony

** 17-Feb-15 World View -- Egypt faces two-front war with airstrikes in Libya
** http://www.generationaldynamics.com/pg/ ... tm#e150217



Contents:
Greece bailout talks collapse in acrimony
Egypt faces two-front war with airstrikes in Libya
Muslim versus Muslim wars in the Mideast continue to grow
Iraq army preparing to recapture Mosul from ISIS


Keys:
Generational Dynamics, Greece, Yanis Varoufakis, Eurogroup,
Egypt, Israel, Gaza, Abdel al-Fattah al-Sisi,
Islamic State / of Iraq and Syria/Sham/the Levant, IS, ISIS, ISIL, Daesh,
Ansar Jerusalem, Ansar Bayt al Maqdis, ABM, Champions of Jerusalem,
Libya, Sirte, Coptic Christians, Ansar al-Sharia,
Khilafah in Wilayat Tarabulus, Caliphate State Tripolitania,
Abu Omar al-Baghdad, Ottoman Empire, Tunisia,
Jordan, United Arab Emirates, UAE,
Iraq, Haider al-Abadi, Mosul

[sound awake]

so the 21 Christians murdered on the beach and their blood in the water under the banner "a message signed with blood to the nation of the cross" is just a sideline, a diversion, "collateral damage", something they do in their spare time when theyre not killing each other?

what about charlie hebdo, the attacks in canada, australia, africa, spain, u.k., the u.s.?

i dont care what you say...they have declared war on us, they are attacking us, it doesnt matter if the numbers do or dont match some magical figure that you insist upon

when you say there is no war against the west by islam that puts you on the same ideological footing as barack "i love me some muslim brotherhood" obama,
who is either the dumbest and dangerous man ever elected president, or is purposefully allowing and hastening the demise of the u.s.

[gerald]

John, -- your comment regarding the Ottoman empire and the rise of Hitler is interesting. I am sure you are aware that Franz Ferdinand was assassinated while traveling " to Sarajevo in June 1914 to inspect the imperial armed forces ( of the Austro-Hungarian Empire ) in Bosnia and Herzegovina, former Ottoman territories in the turbulent Balkan region that were annexed by Austria-Hungary in 1908 to the indignation of Serbian nationalists, who believed they should become part of the newly independent and ambitious Serbian nation."
http://www.history.com/this-day-in-hist ... sassinated


However, are you aware of a possible facet of why Hitler came to power? --- Hitler offered social stability and pride in Germany. Why was this important? because of a social collapse?

The following are some "highlights" or should I say "lowlights" from a book compiled by Mel Gordon ( professor of theater at the University of California, Berkeley,) while doing research for a 1994 theater piece of the Weimar period. Since he found little information in libraries he went looking for material in used book stores. The result -- "Voluptuous Panic, the Erotic World of Weimar Berlin" published 2000. About half of the book is composed of photos and drawings of that period http://www.amazon.com/Voluptuous-Panic- ... mel+gordon


Introduction - Germany -- during the first world war the short war became long, trust in the authorities deteriorated body counts were hidden from the people, shortages of goods became scarce especially food, the middle class began selling their possessions to survive and when they had no more possessions to sell they sold their bodies - prostitution. page 15

After the armistice and imposition of war reparations conditions only worsened.

A short list of some "highlights" of Berlin

A list of prostitute types -- indoors and outdoors -- "A city of Whores" -- pages 28 - 32

9,000 "legal whores" who were inspected so as they could say they were free of disease by the government "Pussy- Pressers"- page 38

"Hall-Silks" - a class of prostitute - who were secretaries, minor government workers, department store employees and salesgirls by day and became armature hookers by the tens of thousands in the evening - page 40

a prostitute ring of ten year olds who worked the train station -- how to solve the problem -- open child brothels - page 44

the prostitution of children by their parents -- page 25

over 150,000 Berliners made their living on the erotic trade -- page 49

magazines and books for the various available activities, guide books for prostitute specialization
or other activities like nudism -- one issue has a picture of seven naked prepubescent girls on the cover - page 142

various forms of sadism, masochism, transvestites, homosexuals, lesbians, etc, etc.

it became difficult to determine what a person was, male, female, third sex, or what? In fact for the May 1932 issue, Vogue wanted to photograph the perfect woman and did,-- "she " was a non-biological femme at the Eldorado club, just before it was shut down.

and of course the institute of Sexology with its research, publications and books.- page 164

etc, etc, etc.. a 20th century Sodom and Gomorrah --" a new hell on Earth" -- page 8

Most of this came to an end between 1932 -33 and what happened then? 1933 Adolf Hitler was appointed Chancellor of Germany.

Was one of the facets of his rise to power the desire for some "sanity, stability and pride?

And the above part of his justification for book burning?

hmmm

[John]

> so the 21 Christians murdered on the beach and their blood in the
> water under the banner "a message signed with blood to the nation
> of the cross" is just a sideline, a diversion, "collateral
> damage", something they do in their spare time when theyre not
> killing each other?

> what about charlie hebdo, the attacks in canada, australia,
> africa, spain, u.k., the u.s.?

> i dont care what you say...they have declared war on us, they are
> attacking us, it doesnt matter if the numbers do or dont match
> some magical figure that you insist upon

> when you say there is no war against the west by islam that puts
> you on the same ideological footing as barack "i love me some
> muslim brotherhood" obama, who is either the dumbest and dangerous
> man ever elected president, or is purposefully allowing and
> hastening the demise of the u.s.

When you start talking about blood you're getting very emotional.
There was a lot of blood when the IRA bombed Protestants, but
it wasn't called a "Catholic War Against the West."

This is a very emotional definition of a war. You're referring to
terrorist attacks by different people and groups. 9/11/2011 was by
al-Qaeda, which is struggling to survive. Charlie Hebdo was lone wolf
inspired by ISIS. Fort Hood was a lone wolf inspired by al Qaeda.
Boston Marathon was disaffect Chechens inspired by al-Qaeda. Last
weekend's attack was by Ansar al-Sharia, which has conducted other
attacks in Libya, including the murder of the US ambassador. This is
not a war in any meaningful sense. It's a collection of vaguely
related terrorist attacks.

Here's another "magical figure": From 2006 to 2012, more than 60,000
people were killed by Mexican drug cartels, and the dead are almost
all Catholic, and there's blood all over the place, on the streets, on
the beach, in the water, etc., which is over ten times as many
Christians killed by Mexican Catholics than by Muslim jihadists. By
your reasoning, it's Catholicism, not Islam, that's at war with the
West.

The problem with calling something a war when it isn't is that you
waste resources fighting the wrong the thing. If we take what you're
saying literally, then we would already be fully embroiled fighting
the current Mideast war. We're going to be involved at some point,
and it will be very unpleasant, but not yet. In the meantime, we're
spending a lot of resources to prevent new terrorist attacks. That's
the right thing to do at this point. I've been as critical of Obama's
policies as anyone, but to characterize this as "purposefully allowing
and hastening the demise of the u.s." is silly.

[John]

> However, are you aware of a possible facet of why Hitler came to
> power? --- Hitler offered social stability and pride in
> Germany. Why was this important? because of a social collapse?

> The following are some "highlights" or should I say "lowlights"
> from a book compiled by Mel Gordon ( professor of theater at the
> University of California, Berkeley,) while doing research for a
> 1994 theater piece of the Weimar period. Since he found little
> information in libraries he went looking for material in used book
> stores. The result -- "Voluptuous Panic, the Erotic World of
> Weimar Berlin" published 2000. About half of the book is composed
> of photos and drawings of that period
> http://www.amazon.com/Voluptuous-Panic- ... mel+gordon

I'm familiar with a lot of this because it appears in detail in Hannah
Arendt's Origins of Totalitarianism. I particularly liked her
characterization of the period that gangsters were respectable
businessmen, and respectable businessmen were gangsters, which is
similar to what's happening today in Washington and on Wall Street.
Here's an excerpt:

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

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

[NoOneImportant]

First things first.

Gerald, I hate to follow a post like yours; what on earth could I, or anyone else say, for that matter, to garner any interest at all following your post.

Having said that, in a more serious vein, to corroborate your comment, William L. Shirer in his, Rise and Fall of the Third Reich offers a considerable amount of space (almost the entire first 1/3 of the book is dedicated to the social/economic trauma of post WW-I Wiemar Germany), time, and effort to the social, political, and economic instability that became commonplace in post WW-I Germany. The trauma and instability, by the early 1930s, had developed into an acute German yearning for a return to some semblance of stability, and normalcy. This feeling of hopelessness, held by the average German, was one of a world gone mad. It was this feeling of: "... how could the Nazis make it any worse...", that contributed to the rise of the Nazi party in the German electorate. From where we sit, it is difficult to understand the hopelessness prevalent in Germany in the early 1930s. As you note Gerald, in more accutly human terms, it was this desire to eliminate the hopelessness that was, in a large part, the allure that the Nazis inspired in the average German; especially in those times of what appeared to be a ceaseless stream of apparently never-ending political, social, and economic crisis, traumas and distresses. The essence of this hopelessness was captured in the somewhat mundane catchphrase of the time: "... at least the Nazis make the trains run on time..." The implication captured in the phrase was: before the Nazis the world was in such distress that even the mundane had become "impossible" to achieve -- at least the Nazis could successfully achieve the mundane.

Secondly, and the actual reason for this post. Interesting demographic article from Stratfor relative to future productivity, with some interesting graphics (about a 10 minute read): https://www.stratfor.com/weekly/populat ... 72cd811031

[gerald]

to - NoOneImportant --

The unwillingness to look into unpleasant places can give one a false sense of reality, which can lead to wrong conclusions. Reality is. What ever it is.

Also, insights to the "truth" can sometimes be found in the strangest of places.


Your link is very interesting and touches on many issues, which could be the basis of a book.

cheers

[shoshin]

a very long, and insightful analysis of ISIS from The Atlantic....short version: they will destroy themselves.

http://www.theatlantic.com/features/arc ... ts/384980/


and a very short, and, as usual, amusing (and insightful!) take on ISIS from Zizek...summary: They are a disgrace to fundamentalism...

http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/au ... izek/?_r=0

[psCargile]

I read that article from the Atlantic yesterday and thought about posting a link, glad to see linked. Interesting how if you take away the territory, you eliminate the very idea and foundation of the caliphate.