Category Archives: American Domestic Affairs

FTAC: Syria: Brief Observation on the Triumph of Criminals

23 Sunday Dec 2018

Posted by in 21st Century Feudal, American Domestic Affairs, Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, FTAC - From The Awesome Conversation, Middle East, Political Psychology, Regions, Syria

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No. They would have been left to starve through Syria’s drought. No need to go on to global warming: the protests were motivated by economic suffering as much as or more than democratic sentiments.

https://conflict-backchannels.com/2017/12/29/syria-the-horror-2011/

Assad the Tyrant, using snipers to make his statement — and arresting school children to make it clear — turned a modest popular protest into possibly the most sadistic “civil war” on earth and in history. Unrivaled in its abuses of noncombatant Syrians, he managed to destroy his state, for all intents, and have it serve as a platform for Hezbollah, the Russian Army, and sundry attempts (impeded by Israel) at the manufacturing and delivery of advanced missiles for launching in southern Lebanon.

The Soviet Union collapsed in bankruptcy 26 years ago this December 25.

It turns out that Soviet / Post-Soviet Russia has become truly the “Mafia State” — Luke Harding’s term — and not the least reformed as an aggressive and barbarous monstrosity.

Prompt: the claim that had the west stayed out of Syria, Syrians would be happily alive and domiciled.

Bunk.

UA-Syria-181223-1029

Screen capture, LiveUAMap, December 23, 2018 at 10:30 a.m. EST.

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FTAC: Who Is to Educate Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez?

26 Monday Nov 2018

Posted by in American Domestic Affairs, FTAC - From The Awesome Conversation, Political Psychology

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While the now Honorable Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez appears on the American scene as a “democratic socialist”, one may hope that the nation  indeed produces grassroots politicians, the kind that like Lyndon B. Johnson got mud on their boots and knocked on doors.  Times have changed, and a Go-Fund-Me account seems to work, but the politician has still to knock on doors, something the Congressional freshman has apparently mastered.

The complaints may be guessed from the comment: socialist; knows nothing, and who would educate her — Bernie?

Response:

Why not you? Us? Moderates (if there are any left)? She has to listen to her district and seek reelection like any other representative; she has also to know how Washington works; and she is going to have to revisit or visit anew the basics tenets of our democracy. In the meantime, she has seen a lot of misery on her streets.  Ours is a modern Judeo-Christian Greco-Roman democracy. We address our issues. Always have. And we try to find what works in the best ways. She has a right to her voice (and her voice will change with time); her district has a right to its voice, and one should hope that it will do better with time and with better public policy.

Back in the 1960s, which formed our impressions, the Soviet Union put money behind Angela Davis and the Communist Party here in the United States. We know how that worked out. It’s better by far having a grassroots and young politician representing her part of our nation.

I don’t endorse those she admires, but if a bigot like Farrakhan is popular where she lives, that may tell about the failure of America to bring those people closer to our Revolutionary and Constitutional ideals, laws, values, and principles. Our democracy has been designed to make course corrections and, very early in that writing, with interest in domestic tranquility.

As this blog frequently references “Soviet / post-Soviet” politics, one may recall the suite of dictatorships from Cuba to Venezuela and all over the middle east that were within or close to the Soviet sphere of influence.  Most were awful in relation to greater internal economic development in their heyday and most have failed. 

Comment:

Socialism as known has been the premier sales pitch of dictatorship.

The social political element in modern democracies more effectively produces basic systems supporting common business interests that then through revenue and expansion feed back into working economies. They allow people in freedom to invent new ideas and produce wonderful things, essentially heightening domestic and foreign exchange. All good things. Where there are abuses, only the democracies prove responsive to needed adjustments and amelioration.

Related on BackChannels

https://conflict-backchannels.com/2017/02/02/united-states-of-america-basic-training/

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Listening, Reading, Waking: Sunday, November 18, 2018

18 Sunday Nov 2018

Posted by in 21st Century Feudal, Also in Media, American Domestic Affairs, BCND - BackChannels News Day, Politics, Syria, United States of America

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“The barbaric and feudal politics of the world’s civilizational past would seem to be getting its claws into the world’s future and dragging it backward.”

https://www.unian.info/world/10340964-russian-official-may-become-interpol-s-next-president.html

One of the two candidates in the upcoming vote by Interpol’s 192 member states, is from Russia despite allegations that Moscow has used Interpol’s procedures to pursue political enemies.

Related

Peel, Michael.  “Interpol chief urges China to reveal more on corruption case.”  Financial Times, November 16, 2018.

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2018/nov/17/arron-banks-emails-steve-bannon-brexit-campaign-funds.

Banks, as founder of Leave.EU, wanted Bannon’s data firm Cambridge Analytica to devise a plan in late 2015 for raising funds in the US that would support the unofficial Brexit campaign, according to the correspondence.

The emails are likely to be scrutinised in the US where Robert Mueller, the special counsel investigating possible collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia, has interviewed Bannon a number of times.

Observation

It would seem all paths back toward the renewal of feudal political absolutism in the authentically democratic free world lead back to Moscow (and now perhaps Beijing as well). 

Without Putin’s permit, Assad’s Sadnaya Prison would not exist.  The memory of that obscenity will burn in history long after the “eye doctor” has succeeded in more fully destroying his own estate.

The Interpol stories involving Russia and China: which despot would wish himself to be policed?

Which despotic elite should be entrusted with the coordination policy of the world’s basic global policing element?

And how well will the west stand when it has itself been riven by the renewal of feudal governance?

https://www.unian.info/world/10341087-eu-may-impose-sanctions-against-hungary-mp-ariev.html.

The EU may impose sanctions on Hungary for adopting laws against the development of civic society, that’s according to MP Volodymyr Ariev, who is also vice-president of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, chairman of the PACE Committee on Culture, Education, Science and Media.”In Hungary there are very serious problems with the European Union, with Brussels. They stem from those very anti-democratic laws that were passed by the Hungarian authorities, in particular against civic society, against the Soros University, public organizations, and not only that. Now the EU is on the path toward imposing sanctions on Hungary,” Ariev told Pryamiy TV channel.

Observation

EU / NATO has effectively lost Turkey as a partner for democracy, and it has seen democracy seriously degraded in Hungary as well.  While BackChannels has thought it politic to lay off the United States in similar regard, the “Fake News!” President has made that tack similarly difficult.  He has degraded the media (for many, America’s “Fourth Estate”); taken a hard run at the Department of Justice (Comey firing; effort to degrade or derail the Mueller Investigation; the out-of-order appointment of Matthew Whittaker as Acting Attorney General); and packed the court with the appointment of an at best marginally acceptable (Senate confirmation vote: 50 to 48) “old boy” of a lawyer.

Politics Medieval v Politics Modern and Democratic?

The barbaric and feudal politics of the world’s civilizational past would seem to be getting its claws into the world’s future and dragging it backward.

Steve Bannon, former political strategist for Donald Trump, said he plans to work closely with the Hungarian prime minister Viktor Orban in the run-up to next year’s European Parliament elections.
Mr Bannon revealed that he had visited Budapest to speak to the far-right leader and his aides in meetings not previously made public.

The political operative also suggested Hungary would make an ideal home for “The Movement” – his new campaign group aimed at electing right-wing nationalists in Europe.

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/steve-bannon-viktor-orban-hungary-budapest-european-parliament-elections-a8638591.html. (11/17/2018)

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Shameless Promotion –> Radical Acts of Love

05 Monday Nov 2018

Posted by in A Little Wisdom, American Domestic Affairs, Anti-Semitism, Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, Fast News Share

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mlk-promo-01

mlk-promo-02

https://secure.civilrights.org/page/s/unite-against-hate

Signatories

Muslim-Jewish Advisory Council
NAACP
National Action Network
National Alliance for Partnerships in Equity (NAPE)
National Association of Human Rights Workers
National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials (NALEO) Educational Fund
National Association of Social Workers
National Center for Learning Disabilities
National Center for Transgender Equality
National Council of Jewish Women
National Council of Jewish Women, Pittsburgh
National Council of Teachers of English
National Disability Rights Network
National Down Syndrome Congress
National Employment Law Project
National Employment Lawyers Association
NATIONAL FAIR HOUSING ALLIANCE
National Immigration Law Center
National Legal Aid and Defender Association
National LGBTQ Task Force
National Organization for Women
National Partnership for Women & Families
National Urban League
National Women’s Law Center
New York City Anti-Violence Project
OCA – Asian Pacific American Advocates
People For the American Way
PFLAG National
PolicyLink
SEIU
Sikh American Legal Defense and Education Fund (SALDEF)
South Asian Americans Leading Together (SAALT)
Southern Poverty Law Center
The Campaign to TAKE ON HATE
The Sargent Shriver National Center on Poverty Law
The Sikh Coalition
The United Methodist Church-General Board of Church & Society
UnidosUS
Union for Reform Judaism
YWCA USA

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Migration: A Comment on the “Third Migrants’ Caravan”

25 Thursday Oct 2018

Posted by in American Domestic Affairs, Central America, Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, El Salvador, FTAC - From The Awesome Conversation, Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico, Regions

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Inspiration: “Build the Wall!”

“The Guatemala government said it was adopting measures to stop the entry of more migrants from Honduras and El Salvador into its territory, although attempts by both Guatemala and Mexico to halt the flow have failed.”

Mexico News Daily.  “Third migrants’ caravan scheduled to leave El Salvador within the next week:
The number of migrants traveling through Mexico could soon reach 10,000.”  October 24, 2018.

Law is all fine and dandy, but the kind of migration witnessed before this point — I have never before read of a “caravan” in the western hemisphere — has been driven by the dissolving of the state’s power in place and its replacement by barbarism and desperation, i.e., the development of a beneath bottom state in financial and physical insecurity. The threats of depredation alone should have stalled the tide (here’s a related story:

https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2014/jan/13/zimbabwe-migration-south-africa-exploitation

South Africa was to work out an MOU with Zimbabwe for the permitting of labor spilling away from Mugabe’s disaster, but I’m sure the mechanics are the same universally).

Who wishes to be the first to shoot migrants en masse at the breach of a border?

That may be one reason they’re getting through each state.

Perhaps the UN should step in as it has elsewhere and start building refugee camps in Central and South America until one state or another develops the will to actually bend the government to service on behalf of the people and the more firm development of both basic-modest lifestyle and security needs.

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FTAC: A Note on the “Unfake” Real Press

20 Saturday Oct 2018

Posted by in 21st Century Feudal, Also in Media, American Domestic Affairs, Asides, Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, Epistemology, FTAC - From The Awesome Conversation, Journalism, Philology

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I had thought The Washington Post article interested in depth and nuance (I hope this is the one: https://www.washingtonpost.com/powerpost/conservatives-mount-a-whisper-campaign-smearing-khashoggi-in-defense-of-trump/2018/10/18/feb92bd0-d306-11e8-b2d2-f397227b43f0_story.html ).

Not all information is or needs to be stridently partisan or political. Even where “objectivity” may be impossible to achieve, having multiple sources represent multiple angles of a story lets all of us as readers compare reports, sift, and deduce what fits best together, impartially so, into a coherent whole. That is the soul of empiricism.

https://nypost.com/2018/10/19/saudis-confirm-killing-of-jamal-khashoggi-several-nationalists-detained/

The New York Post has been turning out pretty good for being “on it” as regards some of these international stories.

“The assessment by the Saudi attorney general was broadcast on state television.

The broadcast also reported that five top officials have been fired and 18 Saudi nationals detained as suspects in the death.”

The west, Left and Right, hippie liberal and knotted tie conservative, seem to have become more interesting in “framing” observation their own way than in cool-headed and, frankly, human-oriented analysis. That’s a bad habit to get into for any democratic and modern soul trying to temper medieval enthusiasms for absolute, capricious, and tyrannous power.

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Biden for McGrath, Owingsville, Kentucky, October 12, 2018

13 Saturday Oct 2018

Posted by in 21st Century Feudal, American Domestic Affairs, Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, Politics

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Biden: “The question is not who Donald Trump.  We know who Donald Trump is.  The question is who are we?”

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amy_McGrath

Phillips, Kristine. “‘Our values are being shredded’: Joe Biden denounces Trump at Kentucky rally.” The Washington Post, October 13, 2018.

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FTAC: Judge Kavanaugh and Red-Blue Self-Righteous Loyalty

08 Monday Oct 2018

Posted by in 21st Century Feudal, American Domestic Affairs, Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, FTAC - From The Awesome Conversation, Political Psychology, Psychology, United States of America

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The article touted in “conservative” circles: http://thefederalist.com/2018/10/04/left-will-never-apologize-brutalizing-brett-kavanaugh-family/  In Federalist writer Nathaniel Blake’s own words:

This ugly truth about us explains what has happened to Brett Kavanaugh. Initially he was hated for being a Republican nominee for the Supreme Court, but it is still not universally acceptable to abominate someone only for being an originalist judge.

“Originalist judge” may not well explain what the nation saw transpire last week.

Here is this blog’s editor’s take on that.

BackChannels believed Ford, and that he (Kavanaugh) lied because he had the power to deny everything negative about himself. As much may be part of an “ambitious” or malign narcissism, and as much fits with the personality and associates of the man who nominated him.

With Red or Blue Right / Left Flag navigation, political identity may force arguments rather than reason, and that emotion drives the demonizing of the other camp as well as the concept familiar to conflicts worldwide: “accusation in a mirror”. “Witch hunt!

The Left has no need to apologize for defending Blase Ford.

The Right has no need to wonder why professional advisement — all those lawyers! — against the confirmation were ignored and the process will be remembers as forced by the Republicans or blocked by the Democrats: for an answer, the power of identity and loyalty will do.

Related on BackChannels

https://conflict-backchannels.com/coins-and-other-terms/anthropolitical-psychology/

Related on the Web

https://www.hrw.org/reports/1999/rwanda/Geno1-3-10.htm (cited here for “Accusation in a Mirror”, a political science concept well known to scholars — and here in association with genocide — but also fit with what may be observed in relation to “malignant narcissism”: the malignant narcissist is never wrong.  BackChannels offers this post from 2013 as an example of the type: https://conflict-backchannels.com/2013/06/11/remember-its-never-the-narcissist-erdogan-blames-woes-on-vandals-and-terrorist-elements/).

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