They are making steady progress of drawing a figurative line and crossing it and then consolidating and drawing another line. Despite that, they have a long ways to go before they can equal the neo liberal think tanks and interests that have an extensive network and have successfully gained major control over the western acculturation processes.
For most people, range is not an issue. It can be for those in a cold rural climate. Despite that issue, we have solar and that will make the fuel free when we do buy an EV. If people think that the fuel isn't free because you have to pay for the solar. That's not true. You can get a loan from Mosaic https://joinmosaic.com/ and they make the loan payments the same as your monthly electric bill. In about 10 years, it's free electricity and car fuel.
Also, It seems like many successful revolts or revolutions start more slowly with people based groups recruited into a struggle with important government institutions eventually joining the revolt. Police and army units would be important along with any people based loyalties. Wondering if you think the J Curve helps recruit private and public groups.
We have solar panels and will soon trade for an electric car. With net metering in our state, Maine, the monthly payments for solar installation are about equal to our previous electric bills. After a few years, it's all free. An electric car will make this whole change a significant net financial gain. It's not a bad retirement investment.
Yes. In addition to the strength, etc of this storm, that weird u-turn is because the jet stream dropped down and will push it back towards the South. Isn't the deep jet stream drop a result of climate change? Anything goes.....
He directs his campaign at the reality show viewers and at those who have lost status in the financialized economy. Unless he expects to make his additional fortune with a lower tier TV show, his campaign does not target the high end real estate market.
This is valuable information and a valuable perspective from an experienced scholar with many years in Afghanistan. I would bet that the continually shifting alliances also applies to the government side as well. Making a peace agreement must be difficult under these conditions. I wonder what kind of realistic goals the West can pursue? Is it correct to say that the side that maintain the most unity will win?
Well, we are talking about control of people and secondarily control of territory. Most often, the winner is the side that organizes better than their enemy. Built in to all of this is a perception that whoever is in charge will do what they can to enrich themselves without any regard for the people they are able to control. Thus, patronage and kinship networks provide quid pro quo arrangements that bind communities and connections to strongmen and resources outside the immediate community. These arrangements are basic political development functions of penetration, recruitment, coalition building and rule administration. It'a all personal. Americans are all institutional. Families will find ways to protect themselves and survive through their personal arrangements. Thus, the organization that penetrates these communities and maintains unity and a common direction will prevail. When insurgents do that, the only way that bombs can win is to kill everybody. No matter what individual you kill, the networks remain.
Torture is a symptom of a failed comprehensive strategy. The movie, "Battle of Algiers" is a realistic example of using torture to obtain a short term gain but it was a part of an approach of contempt and repelling the very people they needed to recruit into the French side of the conflict. They obtained the information but lost the war.
In most circumstances, western countries need to find ways to bring networks and social groups and tribes to a point of mutual agreement. That approach almost always makes the terrorist sponsors very uneasy and unwilling to make the bold moves necessary to win a war. With the attitude of torture, we just hand over a base of support to the terrorist sponsors.
At close examination, too many westerners are too culturally obtuse to ever penetrate and find mutual arrangements within the networks and groups that can uncut terrorist groups.
Amazingly, I, at least, cannot find much information about what ISIS does to build an organization in the areas that they have captured. Other than coercion and fear, how do they build their “caliphate”? Do they recruit key network leaders? Do they supply essentials of water and food?
From the small pieces of information I have found, I get the sense that they are similar to warlords taking an area by force and then doing the minimum to maintain life in those areas. They make alliances with other “strong men” and I assume make trade-offs of whatever either side has to offer.
All of this is a top-down organization of networks and intimidation. So, how does bombing fit into that context? I think of it as a kaleidoscope. If a bomb opens one small spot, the rest of the pieces quickly fall into the vacant spot. Or, another way to look at it could very well be to think of inner city gangs in any of our cities. If the leaders of one gang get arrested, that only serves the interests of their rival gangs to fill the vacuum. ---Similar network rivalries no doubt are part of ISIS.
Much of this is has been an issue since 9/11. But, it gives me a thought. I have been wondering about why so many radical movements appear to depend upon monolithic simplistic thought as contained in symbols, slogans or single prescriptions for every condition of life. If thinking becomes complex, people inevitably think more and find alternative answers.
Now, I read this and wonder why we do the same thing.
Why do Americans continue to think that the rest of the world is somehow clean and simple and straight forward? Peasant societies and societies transitioning out of tribal organizations are complex and alliances are continually shifting. That world is a big market place where everyone is always looking for the next best deal. Consequently, people in those worlds are obviously too complex for the more simple minded Americans. It happens over and over and it's very frustrating.
The modern day power holders have many advantages, but one advantage could be critical. The public perceives that college graduates, factory workers and others have lost opportunities. They do not perceive that the centralized powers have stolen anything from them. If the public ever perceives that a defined entity is stealing directly from them, they will rise-up and fight back in some manner.
In developing countries, the antidote to centralized war-lord style concentrated power is expansion. War lords often just seize new enterprises or sources of wealth and the peasants are powerless to fight back. They cannot fight back unless they make alliances with a different war-lord and they join that competing faction’s patronage system.
In the western world, most attempts at creating expansion of wealth and power have shown to be too weak so far. We do not have a tradition of, say, the localists or worker cooperatives building alliances with outside sources of power. So far, the so-called “new economy” people are not a threat and have not built anything that the central power holders would want to seize. But when the Wisconsin Governor took away the public workers’ union, the union members could perceive a clear issue of someone stealing from them and they fought back.
At this point, we have almost no base of power that could be subject to attack and thus define the issue that would generate a meaningful effort to take back power.
I have a thought or question. Have you found any research about what happens if or when the world wide recession starts to end and oil demand increases? Just from my own observations, I am guessing that the economy has a built-in restraint from the price of oil. If demand picks up, the price of oil will go up and the economy will no longer grow and dip back into recession. With an increased demand, oil companies will not be able to meet the demand without increasingly expensive methods for extraction. The oil companies can either charge more or operate at a loss. Thus, the amount of oil will meet a supply limit and the world economy will not grow.
They are making steady progress of drawing a figurative line and crossing it and then consolidating and drawing another line. Despite that, they have a long ways to go before they can equal the neo liberal think tanks and interests that have an extensive network and have successfully gained major control over the western acculturation processes.
For most people, range is not an issue. It can be for those in a cold rural climate. Despite that issue, we have solar and that will make the fuel free when we do buy an EV. If people think that the fuel isn't free because you have to pay for the solar. That's not true. You can get a loan from Mosaic https://joinmosaic.com/ and they make the loan payments the same as your monthly electric bill. In about 10 years, it's free electricity and car fuel.
Did You see this also from Clean Technica?
https://cleantechnica.com/2018/01/24/solar-tariffs-offset-ultra-low-cost-solar-plans/
Interesting article. Here is a synopsis of the Davies J Curve theory: http://www.popularsocialscience.com/2013/04/17/james-c-davies-j-curve-theory-of-revolutions/
Also, It seems like many successful revolts or revolutions start more slowly with people based groups recruited into a struggle with important government institutions eventually joining the revolt. Police and army units would be important along with any people based loyalties. Wondering if you think the J Curve helps recruit private and public groups.
We have solar panels and will soon trade for an electric car. With net metering in our state, Maine, the monthly payments for solar installation are about equal to our previous electric bills. After a few years, it's all free. An electric car will make this whole change a significant net financial gain. It's not a bad retirement investment.
Hummm--If all of this works, we may avoid WWIII at least this one time. That, along with sparing a lot of innocent people.
Yes. In addition to the strength, etc of this storm, that weird u-turn is because the jet stream dropped down and will push it back towards the South. Isn't the deep jet stream drop a result of climate change? Anything goes.....
He directs his campaign at the reality show viewers and at those who have lost status in the financialized economy. Unless he expects to make his additional fortune with a lower tier TV show, his campaign does not target the high end real estate market.
This is valuable information and a valuable perspective from an experienced scholar with many years in Afghanistan. I would bet that the continually shifting alliances also applies to the government side as well. Making a peace agreement must be difficult under these conditions. I wonder what kind of realistic goals the West can pursue? Is it correct to say that the side that maintain the most unity will win?
Well, we are talking about control of people and secondarily control of territory. Most often, the winner is the side that organizes better than their enemy. Built in to all of this is a perception that whoever is in charge will do what they can to enrich themselves without any regard for the people they are able to control. Thus, patronage and kinship networks provide quid pro quo arrangements that bind communities and connections to strongmen and resources outside the immediate community. These arrangements are basic political development functions of penetration, recruitment, coalition building and rule administration. It'a all personal. Americans are all institutional. Families will find ways to protect themselves and survive through their personal arrangements. Thus, the organization that penetrates these communities and maintains unity and a common direction will prevail. When insurgents do that, the only way that bombs can win is to kill everybody. No matter what individual you kill, the networks remain.
Torture is a symptom of a failed comprehensive strategy. The movie, "Battle of Algiers" is a realistic example of using torture to obtain a short term gain but it was a part of an approach of contempt and repelling the very people they needed to recruit into the French side of the conflict. They obtained the information but lost the war.
In most circumstances, western countries need to find ways to bring networks and social groups and tribes to a point of mutual agreement. That approach almost always makes the terrorist sponsors very uneasy and unwilling to make the bold moves necessary to win a war. With the attitude of torture, we just hand over a base of support to the terrorist sponsors.
At close examination, too many westerners are too culturally obtuse to ever penetrate and find mutual arrangements within the networks and groups that can uncut terrorist groups.
Amazingly, I, at least, cannot find much information about what ISIS does to build an organization in the areas that they have captured. Other than coercion and fear, how do they build their “caliphate”? Do they recruit key network leaders? Do they supply essentials of water and food?
From the small pieces of information I have found, I get the sense that they are similar to warlords taking an area by force and then doing the minimum to maintain life in those areas. They make alliances with other “strong men” and I assume make trade-offs of whatever either side has to offer.
All of this is a top-down organization of networks and intimidation. So, how does bombing fit into that context? I think of it as a kaleidoscope. If a bomb opens one small spot, the rest of the pieces quickly fall into the vacant spot. Or, another way to look at it could very well be to think of inner city gangs in any of our cities. If the leaders of one gang get arrested, that only serves the interests of their rival gangs to fill the vacuum. ---Similar network rivalries no doubt are part of ISIS.
Much of this is has been an issue since 9/11. But, it gives me a thought. I have been wondering about why so many radical movements appear to depend upon monolithic simplistic thought as contained in symbols, slogans or single prescriptions for every condition of life. If thinking becomes complex, people inevitably think more and find alternative answers.
Now, I read this and wonder why we do the same thing.
Zing...
http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/10/13/oil-saudi-policy-idUSL2N0S80L020141013
Why do Americans continue to think that the rest of the world is somehow clean and simple and straight forward? Peasant societies and societies transitioning out of tribal organizations are complex and alliances are continually shifting. That world is a big market place where everyone is always looking for the next best deal. Consequently, people in those worlds are obviously too complex for the more simple minded Americans. It happens over and over and it's very frustrating.
The modern day power holders have many advantages, but one advantage could be critical. The public perceives that college graduates, factory workers and others have lost opportunities. They do not perceive that the centralized powers have stolen anything from them. If the public ever perceives that a defined entity is stealing directly from them, they will rise-up and fight back in some manner.
In developing countries, the antidote to centralized war-lord style concentrated power is expansion. War lords often just seize new enterprises or sources of wealth and the peasants are powerless to fight back. They cannot fight back unless they make alliances with a different war-lord and they join that competing faction’s patronage system.
In the western world, most attempts at creating expansion of wealth and power have shown to be too weak so far. We do not have a tradition of, say, the localists or worker cooperatives building alliances with outside sources of power. So far, the so-called “new economy” people are not a threat and have not built anything that the central power holders would want to seize. But when the Wisconsin Governor took away the public workers’ union, the union members could perceive a clear issue of someone stealing from them and they fought back.
At this point, we have almost no base of power that could be subject to attack and thus define the issue that would generate a meaningful effort to take back power.
I have a thought or question. Have you found any research about what happens if or when the world wide recession starts to end and oil demand increases? Just from my own observations, I am guessing that the economy has a built-in restraint from the price of oil. If demand picks up, the price of oil will go up and the economy will no longer grow and dip back into recession. With an increased demand, oil companies will not be able to meet the demand without increasingly expensive methods for extraction. The oil companies can either charge more or operate at a loss. Thus, the amount of oil will meet a supply limit and the world economy will not grow.
Are we at a dead-end?