But if the grass ever did look greener, which political party do you think you’d be more comfortable with? Well, if I ever ran for office, I’d do better as a Democrat than as a Republican–and that’s not because I’d be more liberal, because I’m conservative. But the working guy would elect me. He likes me. When I walk down the street, those cabbies start yelling out their windows.
It was too good a quotation not to share on this blog.
There are others nuggets as regards the Trump show, the promotion of extraordinary egotism (on this blog, the same may be interpreted and developed as a malign or reparative narcissism), admiration for the Chinese government’s show of strength at Tienanmen Square, and obsession with nuclear war:
I’ve always thought about the issue of nuclear war; it’s a very important element in my thought process. It’s the ultimate, the ultimate catastrophe, the biggest problem this world has, and nobody’s focusing on the nuts and bolts of it. It’s a little like sickness. People don’t believe they’re going to get sick until they do. Nobody wants to talk about it. I believe the greatest of all stupidities is people’s believing it will never happen, because everybody knows how destructive it will be, so nobody uses weapons. What bullshit.
“As I have repeatedly said, it is not our fault that Russian – American relations are in that poor condition.”
If you’re a BackChannels regular or an enthusiast in political psychology, you know that the “malignant narcissist” — autocrat, bully, or dictator — is never wrong.
“The struggle of man against power is the struggle of memory against forgetting”
Lest any forget, there’s plenty of reading at hand (these days: Amazon One-Click shopping may be the next best thing) for guarding against forgetting.
Posted by The Guardian, November 9, 2016.
BackChannels has framed contemporary conflict in terms of time, i.e., whether confronting Assad or, for a domestic example, the Ku Klux Klan, the modern person is actually rejecting the reappearance of the past in his own path.
For the most part, whether involving the aggressive Muslim Brotherhood aspect in contemporary Islam, the barbarism on display in Syria — and do “thank” Assad, Putin, and Khamenei for choosing that evil path — or the Russian invasion of Crimea, one is actually aiming the finger back at the world of Medieval Political Absolute Power, i.e., AKA the divine right of rule, rule by a presumptuously superior nature, rule by thuggery, and, most certainly, unquestionable authority, or authority beyond criticism and beyond law.
Putin : Medieval Political Absolutism
vs
Trump: Modern Democratic and Checked Distribution of Political Power
Choose.
Posted by VICE News, March 3, 2014.
While “western” political success and related productivity and affluence provide for western humanism and other aspects of idealism, “eastern” barbarism and suffering have left behind a world in which fear and insecurity appear to threaten those who should be in the most confident and secure of internal psychological states. Leadership in tribal cultures and states tend toward a winner-take-all — and loser-lose-all — position in their politics, and it may be that we mistake for a better politics and ennoble with the term “realpolitik”.
Our world pays a high price in general suffering — suffering associated horrors beyond imagining — for the emotional care and feeding of its “malignant narcissists” — its most damaged bad boys, the same that make themselves known as political and war criminals.
So:
Bashar al-Assad: war criminal?
Vladimir Putin: war criminal?
Ali Khamenei: political criminal?
As a class, dictators “exceed limits” — just as Muhammad warned 🙂 — and in doing so free themselves from other normative restraints while at the same time condemning themselves to remaining in political power at any cost (always to others).
In effect, the worlds of despots become worlds of political absolutes, and if for no other reason than the near impossibility of the retreat of their authors.
If over the past five years you had been a Syrian noncombatant, would you wish to see Bashar al-Assad a) remain in power, b) exiled, or c) hung in public?
If you had been swept off the streets of Tehran and dumped in Evin Prison (say for wearing that hijab a little to far to the back — or for being Baha’i or gay or western in outlook) , or if you had had family murdered by the Iranian regime, would you care to see Ali Khamenei’s term in power a) modified, b) truncated, c) “terminated with extreme prejudice”?
Has Putin a graceful retreat today — Syria was al-Assad’s war and armies, flyers especially, make mistakes; and Ukrainian autonomy was Khrushchev’s mistake, which was made with the confidence that Kiev would remain forever bent to Moscow?
Putin may have that.
And Trump may be wise to see that Putin, the Russian State, and the Russian People (of Russia proper) have that “out” — but to horse trade Ukraine, the European Union, the United Nations, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization?
“Nyet” to all that!
(Liberal politics have come to mire judgment, unfortunately. Biography.com maintains a page titled “Political Criminals” but begs credulity by placing side-by-side J. Edgar Hoover and Richard Nixon, both of whom may have exceeded some boundaries in power, with Adolph Hitler, Joseph Stalin, Benito Mussolini, Fidel Castro, and Idi Amin all of whom plainly represent the most reckless of minds and murderous of despots).
Historian John Bew suggests that much of what stands for modern realpolitik today deviates from the original meaning of the term. Realpolitik emerged in mid-19th century Europe from the collision of the enlightenment with state formation and power politics. The concept, Bew argues, was an early attempt at answering the conundrum of how to achieve liberal enlightened goals in a world that does not follow liberal enlightened rules.
If, as the poet says, America is not the world, then the world is surely owed an apology for the lack of attention paid to what ought to have been, and are, a series of alarming developments throughout Europe and the Middle East. Perhaps appropriately, all have involved or implicated a revanchist authoritarian power for which the incoming commander in chief has repeatedly professed his admiration and which, after having done all it could to facilitate an upset American electoral outcome—“maybe we helped a bit with WikiLeaks,” as pro-Kremlin political analyst Sergei Markov put it Wednesday morning—offers its hearty congratulations on his victory. Meanwhile, Russia’s alleged “wet work” and maneuvering outside the United States in the last two weeks has been even more impressive.
BackChannels is curious as to how swiftly the link rot may set in — but for this evening, media and protester self-importance promises a rich lode of I-was-there digital memories.
Posted by Bloggers4Bernie, 11/9/2016.
Posted by Zero Boy, 11/9/2016.
Posted by Clip hot mỗi ngày, 11/9/2016.
Signage? Megaphones? A suite of chants — and the same between cities?
Spontaneous?
Posted by M&G Graphic Design, 11/9/2016.
Cities involved — change that: cities from which “vids” have been posted to YouTube — this mid evening, Eastern Standard Time: Chicago, New York City, Philadelphia.
Two cities one might think would be explosive but less present or not digging the past and calling it the future tonight: Baltimore and Los Angeles.
Update — LA Just Waited for After Supper – About 7 p.m. Way Out There
Tell Me What Democracy Looks Like — This Is What Democracy Looks Like!
Not My President!
Whose Streets? Our Streets!
Save Our Planet!
The People United Will Never Be Defeated!
No Trump, No KKK, No Fascist USA!
Anything They Can Do We Can Do Better!
D.C. – Shut It Down!
New York Hates You!
She Got More Votes!
We Reject the President Elect!
Fuck Your Towers, Fuck Your Wall!
Trump – You’re Fired!
My Body My Choice – Her Body Her Choice!
He’s Racist, He’s Sexist, He Doesn’t Represent Us!
Out of Your House and Into the Streets!
Hey Hey, Ho Ho, Misogyny Has Got to Go!
(Bleep) Donald Trump!
*
(Posted live “11/9”)
Note: According to Wikipedia, Ruptly “is a video news agency financed by the Russian government,[1] specializing in video on demand belonging to the Russian-based RT televised news network based in Berlin, Germany.”
According to Stanislav Lunev, GRU alone spent more than $1 billion for the peace movements against Vietnam War, which was a “hugely successful campaign and well worth the cost”.[3] Lunev claimed that “the GRU and the KGB helped to fund just about every antiwar movement and organization in America and abroad”.[3]
The World Peace Council was established on the orders of the Communist Party of the USSR in the late 1940s and for over forty years carried out campaigns against western, mainly American, military action. Many organisations controlled or influenced by Communists affiliated to it. According to Oleg Kalugin,
… the Soviet intelligence [was] really unparalleled. … The [KGB] programs — which would run all sorts of congresses, peace congresses, youth congresses, festivals, women’s movements, trade union movements, campaigns against U.S. missiles in Europe, campaigns against neutron weapons, allegations that AIDS … was invented by the CIA … all sorts of forgeries and faked material — [were] targeted at politicians, the academic community, at [the] public at large. … [2]
It looks spontaneous, but the camera crew was right there at or near the start.
It looks organic, but the chants seem to be the same in Chicago and Philadelphia.
It looks so now, and yet it resembles something so yesterday.
Nonetheless, God bless American for supporting the broadest freedom of speech concept, law, and principle in the world.
Has the New Old Now Old Far Out and Lost Left positioned for a Next New Old Now Old Far Out and Wandering Left?
Hear their voices.
From that “Socialist Alternative” —
The victory of Donald Trump is being met with shock, fear, and anger. Especially for immigrants, muslims, people of color, women, and other oppressed people who Trump has singled out for attack, the question of how to defend themselves against the coming attacks is sharply posed.
U.S. Hands Off Syria An Urgent Message for Peace on the Eve of Wider War
We raise our voices against the violence of war and the enormous pressure of war propaganda, lies and hidden agendas that are used to justify this war and every past U.S. war.
Kolot Chayeinu/Voices of Our Lives is a Jewish congregation in Brooklyn, where doubt can be an act of faith and all hands are needed to build our community. We are creative, serious seekers who pray joyfully, wrestle with tradition,
pursue justice and refuse to be satisfied with the world as it is. As individuals of varying sexual orientations, gender identities, races, family arrangements, and Jewish identities and backgrounds, we share a commitment to the search for meaningful expressions of our Judaism in today’s uncertain world.
Far be it from BackChannels to argue with so many principles in sentiment for which it advocates (have a look near the top of the sidebar to the left).
(Live near posting, November 9, 2016)
So who and when got this protests started before it started?
This could be the coming-of-age event for a generation — but at whose hands?
BackChannels, ever mindful of Soviet Era “Active Measures” and their persistence, appears to have time more convenient for asking questions than “looking up the answers” — when the only answers are out there on the streets this evening.
Were we at war with Russia through the years that “Uranium One” was in development? What was the tone of the American-Russian relationship at that time?
Perhaps December, 26, 1991 — the day the Russian tricolor was once again flown above the Kremlin — was both too good to be true and too good to last.
As regards “tribute” and so many other forms of corruption now associated with governance (and perhaps business) in the United States, I, you, and we are no longer happy campers.
Are the worlds of international business and international affairs so inherently criminal that our executives and politicians have had to “play ball” themselves to get things done?
Perhaps so, and our acclimatizing to the World Wide Web where so much may be finally seen is part of a great national and global “coming of age”.
We’re not through the elections yet, but when we are, we’ll have been treated to possibly the slimiest mud fest in American election history. As much cannot be what our Founding Fathers had in mind when they set out the lofty ideals on which we have thrived. With that said, a look back at the Civil War, which reminders are all around my neighborhood, tells that we’re a rough people and we make deals behind closed doors — or perhaps over drinks — for both private and public purpose.
In retrospect, how should one feel about the Soviet Invasion of Afghanistan and the “black budgeted” “Charlie Wilson’s War” developed to enable the indigenous of the region to halt and eject Russia’s military advance?
Mission accomplished.
Rather than take a strong partisan position — especially with this election! — I’ve chosen observation from the sidelines. Clearly, Moscow has renewed Russia’s identification as a “mafia state” or centralized “security state” — a state run by secret police. And then one looks at Moscow’s shaping of the Syrian Conflict and what it has done to that state and, possibly, how it has used terrorism to create unstable conditions in our own politics (Brown vs Red-Green x large portions of the Republican and Democratic Parties’ makeup respectively).
Is today’s Moscow the same as that with which we encouraged cooperation 25 years ago?
I don’t think it is.
The more recent “Trump-Manafort-Yanukovych-Putin” arc in relationship has bothered me more than the much earlier “Uranium One” deal, but with both, too much in the way of mixed personal and business and political behaviors seems indeed disheartening.
My fellow Americans — and those just visiting from elsewhere — the system may be broken and corrupt, and we can’t fix it right away. However, we know the difference between bunkum and plain good responsible and responsive government — so God help us should we ever have another election season like the one that will be over (and God willing on that too) in two days.
. . . questions are mounting over whether Mr Millian was one of a number of people who could have acted as intermediaries to build ties between Moscow and Mr Trump. This comes after Paul Manafort resigned earlier this year as Mr Trump’s campaign chief after controversy over his years of consulting work for Viktor Yanukovich, the pro-Moscow former president of Ukraine.
Ghassan Elashi, a co-founder of Texas CAIR, was convicted in 2005 of terrorism-related offenses and sentenced to almost seven years imprisonment. CAIR civil rights director Randall Todd Royer was given 20 years for federal weapons and explosives convictions in 2004. Bassem Khafagi, a community affairs director at CAIR, was convicted in 2003 on bank and visa fraud charges and shipped back to Egypt. Rabih Haddad, a fundraiser for CAIR’s chapter in Ann Arbor, Mich., was detained in 2001 for overstaying his visa. Authorities found a firearm and considerable ammunition in his home. He served 19 months in prison and was then deported to Lebanon in 2003. CAIR board member Abdurahman Alamoudi was sentenced to 23 years imprisonment for directing at least $1 million to al-Qaeda. (See Foundation Watch, December 2015.)“
Contending that American Muslims are the victims of wholesale repression, CAIR has provided sensitivity training to police departments across the United States, instructing law officers in the art of dealing with Muslims respectfully,” according to DiscoverTheNetworks. The estate of 9/11 victim John O’Neill Sr., a senior FBI counter-terrorism agent, filed a lawsuit claiming that CAIR’s goal “is to create as much self-doubt, hesitation, fear of name-calling, and litigation within police department and intelligence agencies as possible so as to render such authorities ineffective in pursuing international and domestic terrorist entities.”
BackChannels 