Elonka wrote:
] Decius wrote:
] ] The voice of moderation is gone. The baby boomers now
] ] completely control the country. Hold on to your hats.
]
] Um, just exactly what entire age range are you
] tar-and-feathering now?

Wish you hadn't asked that privately. I'm going to post this publically. I hope you don't mind.

"Tar-and-feathering" is open to interpretation.

I have tremendous respect for Mr. Powell. I know that you have as well. I think he has done tremendous things for this country. More then I could ever hope to achieve. I hope you won't argue that he wasn't a voice of moderation in this administration. I would further add that in doing so he represented the present elder Generation, who were too young to fight in WWII. That generation has played a pivitol role in our history. His resignation symbolizes the loss of their voice in our affairs as they grow old and retire. It is a loss that I lement, because it is their temperance that has on many occasions given us peace.

As they fade away, the nature of our country's character is changing. The future will be bold and hard, and so I said "hold on to your hats."

I'm a fan of a series of books by authors Neil Howe and Bill Strauss, who have argued that there is a pattern in American history that relates to generations. Generations fit into archtypes, and there is a repeating cycle of 4. Particular generations grow up in certain circumstances, and it gives them a particular character. That character impacts how they treat the world, and also how they raise their children, repeating the cycle. Furthermore, when certain kinds of generations are in certain places within their lives history tends to have certain characteristics.

Wikipedia has a short summary of the idea here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neil_Howe

Whats key is that Baby Boomers fit their "Prophet" archtype spiritually driven, moralistic, focused on self, and willing to fight to the death for what they believe in.

Gen Xers fit their "Nomad" archtype, ratty, tough, unwanted, diverse, adventurous and extremely cynical.

Times in our history when a Prophet generation was in it's elder years and a Nomad generation was middle aged tended to be typified by a serious crisis, such as the Great Depression/WWII, or the American Revolution.

Quoting them from the USA-Today in 2001:

"The generations alive today have much in common with the generations alive in the USA around 1929. Elder veterans of the last total war -- the Civil War, that is -- were passing away. A moralistic generation born after the Civil War was deep in middle age. The free-agent barnstormers of the Lost Generation were wearing out, their Gen X-like pragmatism now a tired subject. A new generation of protected, special, scoutlike children was filling high schools and colleges.

That is why the 1990s bore so many similarities to the 1920s. What we are experiencing now, post-Sept. 11, resembles no year as much as 1930, whose mood shift historian Frederick Lewis Allen described as "bewilderingly rapid," as "an old order was giving place to the new," reflecting an "aching disillusionment of the hard-boiled era, its oily scandals, its spiritual paralysis, the harshness of its gaiety."

...

In 1770, did colonists expect a revolution? No.

In 1855, did Americans, North and South, expect a bloody civil war? No.

In 1925, did a roaring nation expect a stock collapse, depression and global war? No."

-=-=-=-

What do you expect?

Heres a bunch of fun reading if you have a lot of free time! US Military field manuals. They recently published this one:

] FMI 3-07.22. Counterinsurgency Operations 1 October 2004
] (3 MB PDF file)

This book covers new tactics being employed in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Other interesting books include:

] # FM 24-18. Tactical Single-Channel Radio Communications
] Techniques. 30 September 1987.
] # FM 24-33. Communications Techniques: Electronic
] Counter-Countermeasures. 17 July 1990.
] # (C)FM 32-20 Electronic Warfare (EW) (U)
] # (C)FM 32-30 Electronic Warfare, Tactics of Defense
] # FM 33-1 Psychological Operations August 1979
] # FM 34-1, Intelligence and Electronic Warfare Operations
] 27 September 1994. [superseded by FM 2-0]

Army Intelligence and Security Doctrine

] The paper is organized into five sections and two
] appendixes. Section 1 is the introduction. Section 2
] reviews basic x86 concepts, including registers,
] assembly, runtime data structures, and the stack. Section
] 3 gives a brief introduction to viruses, their history,
] and their types. Section 4 delves into the Beagle virus
] disassembly, including describing the techniques and
] resources used in this process as well as presenting a
] high level functional flow of the virus. Section 5
] presents the conclusions of this research.

The answer is yes.

Slashdot | Can Reverse Engineering Help In Stopping Worms?

] Secretary of State Colin Powell, who enjoyed enormous
] respect around the world, has resigned but will stay on
] until his replacement is named as Washington makes a new
] push for Middle East peace, officials said on Monday.

The voice of moderation is gone. The baby boomers now completely control the country. Hold on to your hats.

Powell Resigns!!

] If we lived in a primitive age, the ground at Langley
] would be laid waste and salted, and there would be heads
] on spikes. As it is, the answer to the C.I.A.
] insubordination is not just to move a few boxes on the
] office flow chart.

So, the "tabloid" version of the story is that Bush is clearing people out of the CIA who disagree with him. I have a hard time believing its true, but it really seems to be the case, at least on some level.

The New York Times - Op-Ed Columnist: The C.I.A. Versus Bush

Via Drudge Report. An impressive collection of battle shots.

Btw, does anyone know any details about the visual head gear the troops are wearing these days?

Raw Video Captures of The Battle of Fallujah

] Beginning Monday, November 15, 2004 until March 2005,
] C-SPAN will broadcast live a series of discussions hosted
] by the Library of Congress' John W. Kluge Center. The
] series will examine how the digital age is changing the
] most basic ways information is organized and classified.
] The goal is to educate the public on the what the digital
] age means to their lives. The events will include a
] featured speaker, followed by a panel discussion, and a
] question and answer session with the audience at the
] venue, and C-SPAN television viewers.

C-SPAN: DIGITAL FUTURE

] As a squad from India Company passes by a way with a
] spray painted rocket propelled grenade launcher -- a real
] RPG round explodes against it. One Marines' face is
] burned by the powder and hot gas -- another has caught
] shrapnel in the leg, a third has been shot in the finger
] by the small arms fire that followed. The Marines are
] outraged. They turn their M-16's on the building to the
] west where they believe the shooter is hiding. But that's
] just an appetizer.

Kevin Sites Blog: Fallujah Street by Street

] Osama bin Laden now has religious approval to use a
] nuclear device against Americans, says the former head of
] the CIA unit charged with tracking down the Saudi
] terrorist.
]
] The former agent, Michael Scheuer, speaks to Steve Kroft
] in his first television interview without disguise to be
] broadcast on 60 Minutes, Sunday, Nov. 14, at 7 p.m.
] ET/PT.
]
] Scheuer was until recently known as the "anonymous"
] author of two books critical of the west's response to
] bin Laden and al Qaeda, the most recent of which is
] titled "Imperial Hubris: Why the West is Losing the War
] on Terror."

An interview is here:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/5279743/

Of course, I hope that this guy is wrong. I also hope that Strauss and Howe are wrong.

I think that that all three are right. I think that this point of view is apt to be extremely unpopular, simply because the American people aren't ready for it yet. I think that we will be. I think this is prophetic. I really really hope its not.

CBS News | CIA Agent Details Terror Threat | November 12, 2004

] In radicalizing your apathetic sympathizers, you have no
] better ally than the violent extremists on the other side.
] Only they can convince your people that compromise is
] impossible. Only they can raise your countrymen's level
] of fear and despair to the point that large numbers are
] willing to take up arms and follow your lead. A few blown
] up apartment buildings and dead schoolchildren will get
] you more recruits than the best revolutionary tracts ever
] written.

Occasionally something smart pops out of the Kos. I think this is a reasonable view of the situation. Its worth a read, even if some of it is review.

The only thing I really didn't like about this essay was his answer to question 9. Three reasons:

1. His answer contradicts question 8. I don't agree with 8 either, but I'm willing to allow the possibility that he's right. Either way, if BL didn't need a terrorist attack in September he doesn't need one in January, if he couldn't get one in September he won't be able to get one in Jan.

2. I don't see how BL can act to widen the war through an attack on U.S. soil. We know BL is in Pakistan. We're already going there. An attack here would not make that happen any faster. He has to create foreign conflicts and draw us into them. Thats actually not terribly easy.

3. The "lets pick a likely target" exercise was slightly offensive. No, you don't know. Yes, you picked one of your political enemies. Yes, that does detract from your overall credibility.

Daily Kos :: The cycle of violence