Category Archives: American Domestic Affairs

FTAC Verbatim: After Trump, A ‘Radical Middle’, Modern and Moderate, Against the Ends

03 Wednesday Mar 2021

Posted by in 21st Century Feudal, 21st Century Modern, American Domestic Affairs, Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, FTAC - From The Awesome Conversation, Political Psychology, Politics

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In the excerpt from life online at Facebook, “HE” is who you think “HE” is, and HE is not God, whatever else HE may think about HIMSELF.

From the Awesome Conversation

The Dems were Dixie once, and, yes, HE was good for the Jews.

HE as been this too: https://www.northjersey.com/story/news/columnists/mike-kelly/2020/01/24/donald-trump-still-owes-money-to-contractors-who-built-taj-mahal-atlantic-city/4547037002/ | https://www.amazon.com/MAFIA-Don-Donald-Trumps-years/dp/1537454692 | https://www.amazon.com/House-Trump-Putin-Untold-Russian-ebook/dp/B07F5XV3ZZ/ | https://www.businessinsider.com/paul-manafort-russia-ties-2017-10 (Manafort was HIS first choice for campaign manager).

Republicans, no less committed to Israel as well as liberalism of the west, have been left to either join or repudiate an authoritarian assault or solution to American governance. Again, enough switched sides to get Biden elected. That doesn’t make Biden great; it just means the electorate refused to go further down the line with the then incumbent President Trump.

Regarding today’s latest in Democratic fashion: https://conflict-backchannels.com/2021/02/15/one-uniquely-modern-american-united-states-senator-kyrsten-lea-sinema/

At least for Arizona, Goldwater’s long gone, or so it seems, and this most modern woman has been making her mark.

I don’t have a crystal ball, but if I did, I would see the Republican Party distilling down and out both its most reactionary representatives and anti-state extremists.

For the Democrats, the Far Out Left presents other issues, mostly holdovers from the ferment of the 1960s and the flow-down from Russia’s “Active Measures” — investment: $1B during the Vietnam War Era — some of which comes through in our environmental policies and some, alas, freighted with the Palestinian Solidarity Hoax. For the Dems too, the “Modern and Moderate” had best get to work against a fringe that seems to have gathered power but has nowhere to go with it. It too proves itself archaic.

Character ‘done in’ Trump’s chances for a second term.

On YouTube, “Republicans Voting Against Trump (RVAT)” and the same but titled “Republican Accountability Project (RAP)” provide plenty of material for again regarding Republicans as plain old good solid Americans, much relieving more faddish and unthinking Americans of their preference for demonizing one another over taking more sensible courses in facing challenges together and defining and resolving issues.

Stanislav Lunev’s claim that the KGB invested $1 billion in America’s own Vietnam Era Anti-War movement stands (as it has with Congress), and while we may appreciate grounded environmental policies, we may from this perspective question the fallout from that meddling in political culture. Putin, by the way, has continued the KGB/FSB tradition of meddling so well that both the Obama and Trump Administrations took action to expel the “known spies”, i.e., the crowd working under diplomatic cover in Maryland and San Francisco, California. BackChannels has commented on one aspect of that lesser and little known world in “Diplomatic Harassment–Short Compilation” (Dec. 29, 2016).

The term “Dixiecrat” may be easily summoned online. My fave for reference after the encyclopedia observations: https://www.history.com/news/how-the-party-of-lincoln-won-over-the-once-democratic-south

Posted to YouTube by David Hoffman, February 17, 2021.

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FTAC Verbatim: American Laziness & Intellectual Poisoning

26 Friday Feb 2021

Posted by in 21st Century Feudal, 21st Century Modern, American Domestic Affairs, Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, FTAC - From The Awesome Conversation, Syndicate Red Brown Green

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From the Awesome Conversation

https://conflict-backchannels.com/2020/07/01/fbi-antifa-and-swamp-gas/
That something may be believed doesn’t mean it exists, at least not in a format known to investigators.
Re. BLM: of the three founders, Patrisse Cullors has — or has had — issues related to the Far Out Left’s group-think with the Palestinians and related BDS. BDS has been well debunked by representatives of the Far Left, i.e., i.e., at least Finkelstein and Chomsky — https://conflict-backchannels.com/2016/03/08/bds-cult-modules/ (as much has been shared with Ms. Cullors, but where her hinge is in relation to the demystification of Palestinian myth, I don’t know). The Israel Action Network has an in-depth PDF on BLM: https://www.jcouncil.org/sites/default/files/documents/BLM%20and%20M4BL%20%28002%29%206.30%20.pdf For the most part, Blacks and Jews share minority status in the United States and may be regarded as equally worth lynching (more or less) by the White Supremacist faction of more the general Far White Right politics that drifted into the Republican quarter with the development of the Civil Rights and Great Society movements and programs of the mid-early 1960s.
The Far Out Left flows down from Russia’s Soviet Communist Era and remains likely to ignorantly fly and sport the image of “Che” — or Red-Green art. Look up Danish illustrator Rune Agerhus who may be in Yemen with the Houthis these days.
Where the center — moderate and reasoning — has not held in American politics, the drift toward OLD extremism has been distinct and polarizing.
Rx for the confused (or prepared to be bigoted): dive into real intellectual and political history.
Useful reference regarding our long-lived enmity with Stalinesque political psychology:
https://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4874089,00.html
https://conflict-backchannels.com/2020/07/22/russian-active-measures-donald-trump-and-either-evil-or-gullible-americans-or-both/
Moscow’s “Active Measures” programs and other assaults — critical western cybersystems hacking — remain quite active.

Related Online

“The Party of Lincoln” Swapped Roles with the Invasion of the Dixiecrats

https://www.britannica.com/topic/Dixiecrat | https://www.history.com/news/how-the-party-of-lincoln-won-over-the-once-democratic-south

Accusation in a Mirror

Kenneth L. Marcus, Accusation in a Mirror, 43 Loy. U. Chi. L. J. 357 (2012).
Available at: https://lawecommons.luc.edu/luclj/vol43/iss2/5 (a good reminder of the adage, “He who points the finger has three pointing back at himself”).

Active Measures

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Active_measures | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Active_Measures_Working_Group | https://conflict-backchannels.com/2016/11/28/a-short-page-referencing-works-by-or-associated-with-ion-mihai-pacepa/

While the Communist Party Soviet Union (CPSU) dissolved into history, more or less, on December 25, 1991, what emerged in the character of the Russian Federation could not be called “democratic” in any modern sense. The renewal of the Russian State under Vladimir Putin’s aegis has been regarded — by those who have looked! — as feudal as mafia and heartbreaking for Russians in the breadth and depth of related state-bound corruption. Putin challenger Navalny’s nationalism now lends itself to national pride but with the hurdle of overcoming Russia’s complex networks of undeniably criminal relationships.

Here is another form of “Active Measures” – whether or not by intention, a true “Manchurian Candidate” and President: https://conflict-backchannels.com/2020/07/22/russian-active-measures-donald-trump-and-either-evil-or-gullible-americans-or-both/

Related on BackChannels

https://conflict-backchannels.com/2018/02/06/set-palestinian-kgb-and-other-backchannels-observations-related-to-the-middle-east-conflict/

In which political realm do you wish to live — medieval with ignorance (and ignorant mobs) serving political absolutism? Or modern with democracy propelled by higher integrity and empirically reasoning souls?

Your choice.

Americans now floundering in the vicinity of the Far White Right have got to be some kind of anti-intellectual dumb and lazy to avoid substantial — and substantiated — tracts online related to broad cultural, intellectual, and political history. Exactly that, however, appears to have happened — and to be happening — with the continued defense of Trump’s largely miserably (politically) arrested and fixated “conservative” (in Self-Labeling Only [SLO]) and now self-distilling medieval base (for support of that assertion, watch the volunteered testimonials still arriving at the old “Republicans Voting Against Trump” cum “Republican Accountability Project” on YouTube).

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FTAC: Dumb Americans and Racial Herding

24 Wednesday Feb 2021

Posted by in 21st Century Feudal, 21st Century Modern, American Domestic Affairs, Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, Epistemology, Extreme Brown vs Red-Green, FTAC - From The Awesome Conversation, Political Psychology

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Appearing earlier on this blog: “FTAC: The American Quilt, the Confederate Flag and Southern Pride, and The Soviet-Style Erasing of History” (June 13, 2020).

Inspiration for this relay: I had said, “We were doing just fine with North-South peace and firecracker sales and southern rock” when the meaning of the Confederate flag was revived as a symbol of southern bigotry and secession (and slavery). My conversational partner said, “That works if you’re a privileged WHITE MALE! If you’re a Black Male it’s FUCKED!”

From the Awesome Conversation

That’s only if the Black Male thinks he’s Fucked.

Let me show you something about North and South —

Black and White?

Posted to YouTube by US National Archives, September 6, 2013 and narrated by Carl T. Rowen who was in 1963 Director of the U.S. Information Agency.

History walks slowly, and while slavery may have been done after Lincoln’s handling of the matter and segregation finished by the Great Society and LBJ, it’s understood that some evil currents and ruthless bigots hold out a long time even while time grinds them down.

With black and white bigots still at play in OUR country and some foreign agent provocateur interested in watching the United States of America come apart — and possibly just some dumb people, political simpletons, really, swallowing intellectual poison, the Confederate Flag laid to rest for war — it was created to clarify who was who in General Lee’s engagements — and made into a generalized American symbol of a rebellious spirit — has been re-contextualized BACKWARD as a living symbol of hate.

What the hell are we doing back with the mentalities of the 1930s and the 1950s?

A little more that might be associated with the now thankfully passed “Trumpian Detour”:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/America_First_Party_(1943)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gerald_L._K._Smith

This guy was a bigot — and it turns out a lonely one too:

I think we’re being moved around by forces that would like to herd us back into malleable medieval mobs and somehow inclined to Think Black! Think White!

Yeah, well, Think Integrated, Multicultural, Rainbow — that’s far more our Real Cultural Politic.

Just say no to historical revisionism from Far Out Left spoilers and Far White Right idiots.

Related and Live at Posting

Russia’s Active Measures programming has turned out a serious matter as has disinformation driven by domestic financial and political interests in the United States — just have another look at Donald Trump and check out the company his company has kept over many years (some Craig Unger and H. B. Glushakow might be helpful for that).

Live at posting, February 24, 2021.

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From Russia with Contempt? Of Hacks and Windmills and Possibilities

18 Thursday Feb 2021

Posted by in 21st Century Feudal, 21st Century Modern, American Domestic Affairs, Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, North America, Russia, United States of America

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I’m not inclined to leap far into conspiracy-think. However, wind turbine technology appears engineered and manufactured by transnational corporations and firms well aware of freezing weather, so this nonsense about renewable energy failing in Texas (why not on the North Sea? Why not in Germany?) just doesn’t hold ice water.

Super conservative angst, disinformation (received or sent), and viciousness get in the way of the public’s more cool-headed gathering and perception of variables contributing to disasters. That discomforting aspect of our collective national psyche notwithstanding, I would ask news (and weather) editors and readers to simply consider the full suite of possibilities in the unfolding of dramatic stories. In this one, finger pointing at wind-generated energy overlooked frozen instruments (!) in other energy systems. Well Whisky Tango & Foxtrot, where is Homeland Security on the Big Dallas Freeze? And may the investigative journalists be all over the possibility, just that (!), of external meddling involving massive critical — and technologically delicate or vulnerable — systems.

Of course, there are other possibilities, much including the architecture and engineering in a region better known for heat than cold and successive building generations in a political environment resistant “global warming” the potential for coming extremes in the known environment.

Still, has the drama been only about old engineering and new weather?

I may be tilting at windmills.

Maybe not.

While some wind turbines did freeze, failures in natural gas, coal and nuclear energy systems were responsible for nearly twice as many outages as renewables, the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (Ercot), which operates the state’s power grid, said in a press conference on Tuesday.

Frozen instruments at gas, coal and even nuclear power stations were among the main problems, Ercot director Dan Woodfin said, according to Bloomberg.

Farrer, Martin and agencies. “US conservatives falsely blame renewables for Texas storm outages.” The Guardian, February 17, 2021.

Douglas, Erin and Ross Ramsey. “No, frozen wind turbines aren’t the main culprit for Texas’ power outages.” The Texas Tribune, February 16-17, 2021.

Farrer, Martin and agencies. “US conservatives falsely blame renewables for Texas storm outages.” The Guardian, February 17, 2021.

Patel, Nilay. “Hard Lessons of the Solarwinds Hack.” The Verge, January 26, 2021.

Texas Standard. “How Software From Austin-Based SolarWinds Became the Vehicle for a Massive Government Computer Hack.” December 17, 2020.

Solar Winds – Fast Reference

CBS News. “Former top cybersecurity official on why U.S. intelligence missed Russia’s SolarWinds hack.” February 15, 2021.

Halpern, Sue. “After the Solarwinds Hack, We Have No Idea What Cyber Dangers We Face.” The New Yorker, January 25, 2021.

Jibilian, Isabella. “Here’s a simple explanation of how the massive SolarWind hack happened and why it’s such a big deal.” Business Insider, December 24, 2020.

Last March—if not before, as a report by the threat-intelligence firm ReversingLabs suggests—a hacking team, believed to be affiliated with Russian intelligence, planted malware in a routine software upgrade from a Texas-based I.T. company called SolarWinds, which provides network-management systems to more than three hundred thousand clients. An estimated eighteen thousand of them downloaded the malware-ridden updates, which were embedded in a SolarWinds product called Orion. Once they did, the hackers were able to roam about customers’ networks, undetected, for at least nine months.

Halpern, Sue. “After the Solarwinds Hack, We Have No Idea What Cyber Dangers We Face.” The New Yorker, January 25, 2021.
Posted to YouTube by CNBC, January 22, 2021.

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Books: Reading Highly Recommended: What Americans Defend When Defending America

17 Wednesday Feb 2021

Posted by in 21st Century Feudal, 21st Century Modern, American Domestic Affairs, Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, International Development, Politics, United States of America

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For the American President’s navigation: the rise of Hitler and fascism in Germany, Italy, and Spain; the development of an expansionist imperial Japan; polarization in the United States between the forces of self-serving fascist sentiment related to business and popular interest in the Far Left answers to abuses generated in Far Right circles.

Add the global Great Depression.

I have not yet reached the middle of this eye-opening and insightful history, but the story of Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s “working the issues” rings clear and sound for this day.

I have made much and will continue to make much of the tensions between politically medieval and modern worlds, and my own energies and hopes are with the modern world, its potential great breadth in personal freedoms, and its obligations as steward of the earth and humanity.

Whoever you may be and wherever you are in the world — and whether you enjoy or have to make yourself do this kind of reading (smile) — this volume will set the benchmark for understanding the United States and the western civilizational project in the appreciation and defense of humanity.

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One Uniquely Modern American – United States Senator Kyrsten Lea Sinema

15 Monday Feb 2021

Posted by in 21st Century Modern, American Domestic Affairs, Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, North America, Politics, United States of America

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Sinema is considered a moderate or conservative Democrat and a proponent of bipartisanship.[4][5] During the 116th Congress, she voted with President Donald Trump‘s position roughly 25% of the time, the third-most of any Democratic senator, behind Joe Manchin and Mark Kelly.[note 1][6]

Wikipedia. “Kyrsten Sinema”.

NO to the inclusion of a $15 minimum wage in the latest COVID relief plan; YES to the Navajo Nation’s COVID related ‘Major Disaster Declaration’ — Arizona’s one-year-old Senator has chosen for navigation between deeply polarized camps a middle mixture of open bisexuality, conservative thought, and freedom-loving liberal ends.

Related Online

About the Conservacrat Senator from Arizona

BallotPedia. “Kyrsten Sinema”.

Everett, Burgess. “The most influential Democrat you never hear from.” Politico, February 12, 2021.

Fitsimons, Tim. “Kyrsten Sinema makes history as first bisexual member of U.S. Senate.” ABC News, November 13, 2018.

GovTrack. “Sen. Kyrsten Sinema”.

Kyrsten Sinema, U.S. Senator for Arizona

Nwanevu, Osita. “Arizona’s Democratic Senators are Already Angering the Left.” Soapbox, The New Republic, February 15, 2021.

Scott, Eugene. “Kyrsten Sinema broke a slew of barriers with her Senate win. So how was identity a nonissue in her race?” The Washington Post, November 20, 2018.

The Lily. “Kyrsten Sinema is bisexual and claims no religion. But identity was a nonissue in her winning Senate race.” November 24, 2018.

Wikipedia. “Kyrsten Sinema”.

About Kyrsten Sinema and Sgt. Daniel Somers

Dolsten, Josefin. “6 years on, parents of Jewish Army vet who took own life still fight for change.” The Times of Israel, August 5, 2019:

“To force me to do these things and then participate in the ensuing coverup is more than any government has the right to demand,” he wrote. “Then, the same government has turned around and abandoned me. They offer no help, and actively block the pursuit of gaining outside help via their corrupt agents at the DEA [the VA’s Survivors’ and Dependents’ Educational Assistance]. Any blame rests with them.”

Dolsten, Josefin. “6 years on, parents of Jewish Army vet who took own life still fight for change.” The Times of Israel, August 5, 2019.

Sinema, Kyrsten. “Sinema Introduces Daniel Somers Network of Support Act.” Senator’s Senate Web Page, May 14, 2019:

Sgt. Somers served two tours in Iraq and was diagnosed with traumatic brain injuries and PTSD upon returning home. He lost his life to suicide in 2013. After Sinema learned of Sgt. Somers’ story, she worked with his parents, Howard and Jean Somers, to introduce and successfully pass the Daniel Somers Access to Care Act, which ensures veterans who worked in classified jobs can receive behavioral health services in an appropriate care setting. Now, Sinema is working with the Somers to expand their network of support concept.

Sinema, Kyrsten. “Sinema Introduces Daniel Somers Network of Support Act.” Senator’s Senate Web Page, May 14, 2019.

Sworn in on the Constitution

Rep. Kyrsten Sinema (D) will be Arizona’s first female senator. The lawmaker is not new to making history, especially when considering the very conservative state that launched her political career, but identity was not a dominant narrative of her historic campaign.

The former Mormon was the first person sent to Congress to claim no religion. After winning her congressional seat in 2012, she was sworn in on the Constitution, forgoing the Bible chosen by Christians — the dominant religion for members of Congress, especially those from Arizona.

Scott, Eugene. “Kyrsten Sinema broke a slew of barriers with her Senate win. So how was identity a nonissue in her race?” The Washington Post, November 20, 2018.
Posted to YouTube by CBS News, January 4, 2019.

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FTAC: Craziest American Times?

05 Friday Feb 2021

Posted by in 21st Century Feudal, 21st Century Modern, American Domestic Affairs, Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, FTAC - From The Awesome Conversation, North America, Political Psychology, Political Spychology, Politics, South America

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Q: Do you think this is the craziest time we have ever known?

From the Awesome Conversation

I’d suggest the Vietnam Era worse.

Keep in mind that the Soviet Union spent $1 billion seeding our Anti-War and Environmental movementsAndr and channeled its efforts toward our bipolar radicalism — about the same as today with its “Active Measures” held over from Yuri Andropov’s day.

With a one-term Trump Presidency, we have dodged a powerful bullet, and we should keep in mind that it took crossover Republicans to do it.

Biden’s now relying on outdated postures and needs to be shaken out of the still near past with Obama.

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I’ll go a little further here with the note that our own decadence drives large foreign affairs, financial, and social issues. We’ve overdone it with the coke, dope, and sex (for starters), and the same have launched mass migrations toward us as well as funded our enemies through their control of Transnational Crime Organizations (TCOs). As “Children of the ’60s”, we should own up to some of the less immediately visible consequences of our own appetites.

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

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-mexico-guns/iron-river-of-guns-flows-from-u-s-to-mexico-idUSN1223853620070713 (2007) | https://www.insightcrime.org/news/analysis/us-mexico-border-hemorrhaging-weapons/ (2020) |

In the western hemisphere, insecurity related to black market operations — cartels, gangs — literally drives people out of their homes; the same, of course, sends the “entrepreneurs” toward The North for business — or deliveries.

Posted to YouTube by Sheriff Reynolds, June 18, 2013.

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FTAC: Onward – Addressing a Reactionary Politics

20 Wednesday Jan 2021

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

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I don’t know why I should have the spread of friends that I do on Facebook, so many have turned out reactionary conservatives muttering about a communist front that just hasn’t been shaping up as such. Have a look at the Communist Party USA’s membership number. Read Jacobin if you want to — I rather appreciate the alternative views but seem to be missing out on the sound of the earth-shaking thundering herd raging behind it. Inspiration for the following: the boast that former President Trump fought Chinese Communism (China’s elite society and growing class of billionaires left that blue serge lifestyle behind some time ago) and rightly put “America First!” The slogan was old before it came out of his mouth and the go-it-alone of the paranoid narcissistic personality may have only abetted Putin’s 19th Century ideas for destroying the political cohesion of a truly democratic and modern EU/NATO.

November’s election and today’s inauguration brought back to the United States of America the most fundamental of American principles and values riding right beside our glorious Constitution: a government by and for — i.e., responsible and responsive to — The People of the Nation in all our varied colors, cultures, and creeds.

We are Americans — no adjectives required unless appreciated and enjoyed — once again.

From the Awesome Conversation

“America First” also references the earlier “America First Party” — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/America_First_Party_(1943)

Beneath the banner of Communism, Beijing’s financial, ideological, and political realities differ quite from what imagination may supply in minds restricted by tired old presumptions. The state has been fairly minting billionaires and producing an elite within lines of authoritarian control in some ways mirroring what Moscow has going in the way of a deeply autocratic and politically repressive state.

For all intents in the United States, the Communist Party USA (CPUSA) may at best boast a membership around or beneath 10,000.

Excessive autocratic control — totalitarian in China these days — backed by military and paramilitary force have marked Beijing and Moscow’s respective narratives. In EU/NATO, the post-9/11 “New Nationalism” has similarly scarred “The West” in Hungary, Italy, Poland, and Turkey. However, as bad ideas reach their nadir, one may expect the reactionary drift (also in the United States) to reverse and more return to practical democratic approaches to a spread of tough and real — rather than imaginary — issues involving how we live together and how we (Americans) work together as a political society.

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