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Generational Dynamics Web Log for 1-Jan-2011
1-Jan-11 News -- Andrew Breitbart: Even Muslims are afraid to stand up to Islamists

Web Log - January, 2011

1-Jan-11 News -- Andrew Breitbart: Even Muslims are afraid to stand up to Islamists

Updating the home page Conflict Risk Graphic

Today we have a couple of reports that will set the stage for the new year. Happy New Year everyone!

Updating the Conflict Risk Graphic

Conflict risk level for next 6-12 months as of: 11-Aug-2008

W. Europe 1 Arab Israeli 3

Russia Caucasus 3 Kashmir 3

China 2 North Korea 2

Financial 3 Swine/Bird flu 3

Key: 1=green 1=Low risk 2=yellow 2=Med 3=red 3=High 4=black 4=Active

On the right you see my little Conflict Risk graphic that appears on the home page of this web site. The last time that I updated it was in August, 2008, and today it's sadly out of date. It's time to update it.

For each of the six regions named in the graphic, the risk level is supposed to reflect the level of risk that a war will occur in that region in the next six to twelve months. The six regions were chosen because, unlike other regions of the world, any local war in one of the six regions is likely to escalate into a world war a few months later. (See "Six most dangerous regions in world.")

The Conflict Risk Level is not a Generational Dynamics prediction. It summarizes my personal views of the chances of war in each of the regions specified.

In 2008, it seemed that full scale war could break out at any time in the Mideast, in the Caucasus and in Kashmir (between India and Pakistan). That's why, in all of these cases, I assigned a risk level of 3, the highest level.

Today I have a slightly different view of those three regions. I've reduced the risk level to 2, but not because the underlying problems are any closer to resolution in any of the three regions. To the contrary, the underlying problems are much worse today, and when war finally comes, it will be worse than it would have been if it had started in 2008.

What HAS happened is that I've become very impressed with the ability of world institutions to rush to any crisis and paper over the problems. Thus, crises in Kashmir, the Mideast and the Caucasus have all been quieted by means of such things as money or appeasement. There was a brief war in Gaza in early 2009, but it was kept carefully contained by world institutions.

Thus, I have to conclude that there is not a high risk of war in the three regions in the next 6-12 months. I have to conclude that the chances are that any crisis that might occur will be papered over again.

Or course, "medium risk" is not a trivial matter. Each of those regions is susceptible to a full-scale war that cannot be stopped by international institutions. But, in my opinion, the likelihood is medium, not high.

Korea is a different matter. The North Koreans have made clear their intentions to provoke a full-scale war with the South.

You can see the international institutions rushing to try to prevent such a war. The North Koreans seem to attack the South at will, and the response from the U.N., the U.S., Russia and China is to tell the South Koreans to sit still and not overreact. The Chinese even refuse to blame the North Koreans for their military attacks.

Nonetheless, in my opinion, the North Koreans appear to be determined to thwart all of these international institutions. Therefore, the Conflict Risk Level for Korea is 3 (high).

With regard to the global financial system, the ability for international institutions to paper over problems using quantitative easing, bailouts, and other measures, has been mind-boggling. These steps have held off financial panic so far, but they've created enormous new bubbles and distortions, so that when full-scale panic comes, it will be much worse than it would have been if it had happened in 2007 or 2008.

However, financial crises in Europe and Asia are worsening, and Generational Dynamics predicts that a full-scale panic must occur. Thus, the risk for a major financial crisis is High, level 3.

Finally, in 2008, World Health Organization (WHO) were warning of a coming H1N1 swine flu pandemic that winter. The worst didn't happen, but the risk level remains at Medium, level 2, since a severe pandemic could occur during this winter season.

Here is the revised Conflict Risk graphic:

Conflict risk level for next 6-12 months as of: 1-Jan-2011

W. Europe 1 Arab Israeli 2

Russia Caucasus 2 Kashmir 2

China 2 North Korea 3

Financial 3 Swine/Bird flu 2

Key: 1=green 1=Low risk 2=yellow 2=Med 3=red 3=High 4=black 4=Active

In my opinion, the only high level dangers during the next 6-12 months are in Korea and in the global financial system.

However, there are numerous medium level dangers. And if any one of these turns into a major crisis, then all of the others will immediately turn to risk level High - level 3.

Introduction to article on Andrew Breitbart and Islamists

As readers know, I've been cross-posting many of my articles on the site BigPeace.com , run by Andrew Breitbart, who is generally described by the press as a "right-winger." I requested an interview with Breitbart, and ended up with a very interesting discussion of his view of how the mainstream press is handling the problem of Islamist terrorism.

My article has already appeared on BigPeace, and it drew a number of comments. The general tenor of these comments is that unless we expel all the Muslims, then the Muslims are going to replace American law with Sharia law. As I discussed in "American xenophobia on the Left and on the Right," I have no idea what these people are talking about, or how they think this change is going to occur. On the other hand, the comments are probably no crazier than what we see and hear every day in Washington and on Wall Street.

Once again, I have to quote Friedrich Nietzsche: "Insanity in individuals is something rare - but in groups, parties, nations and epochs, it is the rule."

Here is the article that I posted on BigPeace:

Andrew Breitbart: Even Muslims are afraid to stand up to Islamists

According to Andrew Breitbart, two of the bravest people in the world are Irshad Manji and M. Zuhdi Jasser, because they're outspoken Muslims who are standing up to the standard pro-Islamist narrative adopted by much of the mainstream media. Breitbart says that he started the BigPeace.com site because he wanted to provide a platform for other important narratives.

Andrew Breitbart

Andrew Breitbart

He contrasts Manji and Jasser to Ibrahim Hooper, the National Communications Director for the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR):

"Ibrahim Hooper has the ability to wield cultural Marxism, to cow reporters and newsrooms. He understands America's susceptibility to this brand of Orwellian newsthink - and uses alleged rights and illegitimate demands for "tolerance" in order to shut people up. These are rights that Muslim countries don't grant their own citizens. Their collective attacks use the American systems as a weapon against our own country, when they don't stand up to their own people's rights.
This is a war in the broad sense of the term. Our way of life has been effectively challenged by a pervasive radical Islamist mindset that's going unopposed by Western societies. That war is being fought in a sophisticated way using media and technology and civil rights in the United States, and it's being used in the United Nations. We're at war in Afghanistan, and to a lesser extent now in Iraq, because of this greater often unspoken philosophical battle. It's a war against modernity that's being waged in countless ways. People claim plausible deniability that this war is not happening, and I refuse to accept that premise."

Breitbart says that many Westerners are afraid to challenge this Islamist mindset. Not all Muslims are terrorists, he says, but just saying that some Muslims support terrorism is enough for the mainstream media to label you as a hater and intolerant.

"You can't be on a college campus and challenge the Islamist mindset without being shouted down. We're in a world that's in a constant state of something akin to permanent warfare. We're in multiple cold wars right now. And the mainstream press is self-editing itself to conform to the peace and love gobbledy-gook of the 60s and 70s that I disagree with.
Do I believe that every Muslim is a terrorist? Of course not. I have Muslim friends. But they are afraid to stand on a soapbox and criticize their own religion for fear of their own lives. It's taken immense courage for Muslims like Irshad Manji and Zuhdi Jasser to criticize the radical mindset."

Irshad Manji is a Muslim feminist and author of a PBS documentary called "Faith Without Fear." She criticizes the culture of Islam that condones death threats against any Muslim who exhibits independent thinking, thus stripping Muslims of their God-given right to free expression. Manji herself has received death threats as a result of her work.

M. Zuhdi Jasser is a devout Muslim, and President and Founder of the American Islamic Forum for Democracy (AIFD). He founded AIFD in the wake of the 9/11 attacks on the United States as an effort to provide an American Muslim voice advocating for the preservation of the founding principles of the United States Consitution, liberty and freedom, and the separation of mosque and state. He was a Lieutenant Commander in the United States Navy, and received the Meritorious Service Medal.

Breitbart says that he created BigPeace.com, to provide a platform for other narratives avoided by the mainstream press, and he contrasts it to his other web sites, BigHollywood, BigJournalism.com, and BigGovernment.com.

"BigPeace is the one web site that I knew that I would have the least hands on involvement. So that's why I teamed up with three entities -- Frank Gaffney of the Center for Security Policy, the military bloggers at BlackFive, and Peter Schweizer, a research fellow at the Hoover Insitution.
The contributors to BigPeace are people you can trust because they have a "peace through strength" attitude. It's certainly not a site for doves.
I'm a media guy, a cultural guy, a media analyst. I complain about a country where there's a 2 to 1 ratio of conservatives to liberals, and the majority is treated like a marginal minority. Only in the state of Israel is the situation worse - which constantly puts Israel on the defensive - they're held to a much higher standard than their adversaries.
I created BigPeace because the press, especially during the Bush administration, put national security by the wayside. So there was a lot of stuff that needed to be corrected, and there needed to be more streams of information coming in.
I certainly see the pervasive matrix of political correctness, making it impossible for certain narratives to come out, because of the multicultural Marxist attitudes that create a chilling effect in America's newsrooms. They're able to dictate what we can report, and dictate through pop media what our policies are."

Breitbart referred to a 2003 controversy where CNN News exec Eason Jordan admitted that CNN had withheld news stories of Saddam Hussein's brutality. CNN says that it had been protecting individual sources. But Breitbart sees it as part of the larger picture of distortions by the mainstream media.

"Saddam Hussein benefited greatly through intimidation of his own people, and he was able to even bribe CNN. Eason Jordan admitted that he wanted to keep the status of having CNN as the sole Bagdhad bureau, so he did Saddam's bidding. CNN treated Saddam with more respect and dignity than they did the President of the United States, and also [Israeli prime minister] Benjamin Netanyahu."

My conversation with Andrew became most spirited when I suggested that the media have much less policy making power than he presumes. This is the Generational Dynamics view that major policies are driven by massive generational changes in attitude, and that journalists and politicians are followers, not leaders. However, Breitbart insists that this isn't true, and that the internet is a major world-changing phenomenon:

"So my big problem is the structure of the media, and how they're easily cowed. They have a much stronger position in fashioning policy than politicians do. The politicians react to the narrative. I'm less worried about politicians than I am about anchors and news reporters. And the more you realize how the sausage is made in the media, you realize that the media is the problem. I want them to get out there and start telling the truth - tell stories that the corrupt old media don't want to tell.
The internet allows bloggers and citizen reporters to tell the truth. It has been an exceptional boon to the spread of democracy around the world. And the press, which should be at the forefront of celerating these advances, are opposed, because it encroaches on their monopoly."

In explaining why he created BigPeace.com, Breitbart vividly describes hidebound, traditional mainstream journalists unable to escape the old ideas that they formulated in their childhoods in the 1960s and 1970s. They're now doubling down on these outdated ideas because they're no longer working.

From the point of view of Generational Dynamics, these outdated ideas, and the political conflicts that result, are going to continue until a "regeneracy event" occurs, an event that regenerates civic unity for the first time since the end of World War II. (See "Basics of Generational Dynamics.")

Whatever this regeneracy event may turn out to be -- perhaps a new massive terrorist attack on American soil, or perhaps a disastrous military defeat overseas -- it will immediately terminate the political bickering and unite all Americans for the preservation of the United States and its way of life.

And on that note, Happy New Year!

(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion, see the 1-Jan-11 News -- Andrew Breitbart: Even Muslims are afraid to stand up to Islamists thread of the Generational Dynamics forum. Comments may be posted anonymously.) (1-Jan-2011) Permanent Link
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Generational Dynamics Web Log for 1-Jan-2011 1-Jan-11 News -- Andrew Breitbart: Even Muslims are afraid to stand up to Islamists

Updating the Conflict Risk Graphic

Introduction to article on Andrew Breitbart and Islamists

Andrew Breitbart: Even Muslims are afraid to stand up to Islamists

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Generational Dynamics Web Log for 1-Jan-2011
1-Jan-11 News -- Andrew Breitbart: Even Muslims are afraid to stand up to Islamists