My lonesome interpretation of the American position in time (regardless of who is head of state):

1. Clean up and tie off the Cold War, which neglect, perhaps, at the end made way for the same “Petersburg crowd”, so I have read that reference to those who accompanied Putin in his KGB schooling, to get control of the capital resources of the state.

1a. Putin’s Russia is a feudal estate pursuing imperial objectives.

1b. The Soviet encouraged the development of Baathist Pan Arabism and created the PLO — I think that message factual beyond dispute. Gone from those old days: Saddam Hussein and Muammar Qaddafi, both state sponsors of terrorism. Still around: Bashar al-Assad, and not over him (darn, lol) but Syria’s position as a client, Putin has stepped in to own the theater and maintain through it — and demonstrate with it — an arc of feudal absolute power, which really could care less about “the masses” (perhaps that’s why they’re called “the masses”).

2. We may have a Big Government issue along two axis: the education in critical thinking and ideals of American generations; the complexity of managing foreign affairs involving a host of states that are established, authoritarian, and deeply protective and private as regards the character and interests of their leadership.

2a. The foreign policy wonks — I might have become one, I don’t know — who subscribe to Foreign Affairs and Foreign Policy and hang out in any number of academic departments and think-tanks may close the gap in “Public Intelligence”, but I may be finding that the farther I go with this, the more difficult it is for less interested readers to follow me. In essence, one’s conversations, reading, and research starts to peel away from, say, radio station news. So it may go for others who have taken interest in similar areas of endeavor.

2b. Some in government, and some outside, do crossover into appearing and publishing in media broadly distributed, and I may do that — or Back-Channels hit rate may pick up — but we’re all challenged to distill to essence cultural and historical information or drifts in observations formed in the humanities and social sciences.

America’s Founding Fathers had standards involving legal interest (the possession of property) in participation in government, and I believe most had in themselves, but if we have to dance around Thomas Jefferson, that’s just fine, a healthy respect for classical education. I watched that respect decline in the 1980s much in favor of “practical” business, science, and technology development of the student.

Well, what might I say about that other than “Here we are”?

In the course of a few hours of chatyping, I’ve “covered” Trump’s popularity with a foray into family history as told by an opposition publication and clarified by Snopes, and then also tackled Hillary as regards the equal damning and blessing that come of being a “Washington insider”.  The problem with such a slew of fast moving hot topics is that the hot air in the social networks moves along in bursts — one may only say so much, and then still be left with ambivalence and ambiguity.

As regards the above “From the Awesome Conversation”, there is a point in arguing for the more vigorous education of the general public in the humanities early in the nation’s public education process.  For all I know, civics, economics, language, history, geography, may be going pretty good as is — or not.  However, what I know from each day’s encounters is that much of the noise made about Clinton and Trump have to them a simplicity that belies much deeper themes.

BackChannels may be considered moderate nonpartisan, formerly liberal but alienated by the old Bill Ayers connection to Obama and then the Democratic Party’s drift so far leftward as to have been forced to record a quintessentially anti-Semitic moment at the last convention.