World View: Elections in Greece, Egypt and France Bring Major Changes

This morning’s key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com.

  • Greece’s conservative party wins election inconclusively
  • Military takes power in Egypt, as voters boycott election
  • Egypt’s Bedouin tribesmen break with Muslim Brotherhood
  • France’s Socialist President Hollande’s party wins big legislative victory
  • United Nations suspends Kofi Annan ‘Peace Plan’ observer mission
  • Stephen K. Bannon interviews John J. Xenakis
  • Warren E. Pollock interviews John J. Xenakis

Greece’s conservative party wins election inconclusively

Europeans breathed a sigh of relief on Sunday. Greece’s voters, were  as anxious and divided as ever, on Sunday, as they gave a plurality of votes to the right of center New Democracy party, led by Antonis Samaras, with about 30% of the vote. However, trailing very close behind was the Coalition of the Radical Left (Syriza), led by Alexis Tsipras, with 27% of the vote. Samaras’s party will not have a majority in the legislature, so he’ll have to form a governing coalition, which will be a problem. But just as significant is the fact that Samaras himself promised to renegotiate the austerity terms of the Greek bailout, though not as forcefully as Tsipras, but German Chancellor Angela Merkel has stated clearly that no renogotiation is possible. And as we’ve pointed out repeatedly, even in the best of circumstances, Greece will need another bailout within a couple of months or so. Kathimerini

Military takes power in Egypt, as voters boycott election

Estimates are that turnout was only 15% of eligible voters in Sunday’s presidential elections in Egypt, as voters showed their outrage at the choice of candidates — Ahmed Shafiq, a military figure appointed by deposed dictator Hosni Mubarak, and Mohamed Morsi, the candidate of the Muslim Brotherhood. Official results will be announced in a few days, but it’s not clear that it will make any difference. On Sunday, the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF) issued a statement that they are taking control of the legistation and the budget, and that they will appoint the people who will draft a new constitution. There’s a lot of despair in Egypt that goes well beyond their economic problems — Mubarak’s military dictatorship enforcers are back in charge, as if the “Arab Spring” had never happened. Al-Ahram (Cairo)

Egypt’s Bedouin tribesmen break with Muslim Brotherhood

The Islamist parties — the Muslim Brotherhood and the Salafist al-Nour party — together claimed 75% of the seats in January’s parliamentary elections in Egypt. This made the Bedouins, who live in the tribal lands of western Egypt, wearing long dresses, turbans, and sunburned complexions, very happy, because the Brotherhood politicians had promised to respect the Bedouins, unlike Mubarak. But in the five months that have passed until last week, when Egypt’s Supreme Constitution Court dissolved the Parliament, Bedouins have become disillusioned with the Brotherhood who, they say, performed “shamefully” as parliamentarians:

The Muslim Brotherhood wants to impose their ideology on tribal customs and traditions that ruled this part of the world for hundreds of years. They want to invade this community and erase our tribal character.

Thus, many Bedouins have switch allegiance, and supported Mubarak’s crony, Ahmed Shafiq, in Sunday’s presidential elections. McClatchy

France’s Socialist President Hollande’s party wins big legislative victory

France’s parliamentary elections on Sunday gave Socialist Party president François Hollande a big victory. In combination with his ally, the communist Left Front party, Hollande has a free hand to implement his socialist agenda, which he claims will bring economic growth to France. Hollande has already lowered the retirement age from 62 to 60, and he’s promised to increase public spending, with additional expenditures for the state school system, and fund the expenditures by raising taxes on France’s highest earners. France 24

United Nations suspends Kofi Annan ‘Peace Plan’ observer mission

The United Nations is suspending the observer mission in Syria, which was part of the Kofi Annan “Peace Plan.” The peace plan was a failure from the moment it was announced, and only provided a useful cover for Syria, Iran and Russia to cooperate in killing innocent Sunni Arab protesters in Syria. None of the observers has yet been killed or badly wounded, but that could change at any time because of the continuing violence. VOA

Stephen K. Bannon interviews John J. Xenakis

In this eight minute interview, we discussed last weekend’s bailout of Spain, and how public debt is increasing worldwide.

The Victory Sessions/Stephen K. Bannon and MP3 Podcast

Warren E. Pollock interviews John J. Xenakis

Here’s Warren E. Pollock’s description of our 35 minute interview:

Back to pragmatic analysis, John Xenakis and I compare and contrast conclusions based on Generational Theory against my findings using my methodology of trajectories. We talk about the generational aspects around the globe including the United States, Western Europe, Russia, Georgia, Turkey, Syria, Israel, and China. Major flash-points and trends are identified.
Generational Dynamics is very important at this time in America’s history because we’ve entered a new “crisis period.” Ten years ago, all the nation’s senior government, business and educational leaders and managers were from the generation that grew up during World War II, and experienced the trauma of seeing homelessness, starvation and death all around them, while they lived in fear of German and Japanese bombers. That risk-aversive generation dealt with problems using compromise and containment.
Today, those risk-aversive leaders are gone, retired or dead. Today’s leaders are from the “Baby Boomer generation,” born after World War II with no personal memory of that war. The people in this generation are not risk-aversive. The people in this generation are more likely to be risk-seeking, arrogant, hubristic, narcissistic, and self-assured. That’s why America’s attitudes have changed so much in the last ten years.
Once you understand Generational Dynamics, then you’ll understand a very great deal about how the world works, and about America’s future for the next thirty years.

YouTube/Warren E. Pollock

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