Category Archives: Conflict – Culture – Language – Psychology

FNS (For Freedom): Cancel Culture, Dictatorship

25 Thursday Feb 2021

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I’ve no idea how many megabytes of e-junkmail I handle each morning, but in the sludge — and a separate folder for circulars associated with defense, diplomacy, and security — there are often gems. Some I share to the BackChannels “Reader” on Facebook, but this morning I thought to share a few here as well.

On Cancel Culture and The Bard by Phyllis Chesler for American Thinker, February 25, 2021 — “Cancelling Will S.”

Forwarded by Katrina Lantos Swett on behalf of the real life hero of “Hotel Rwanda”, Paul Rusesabagina — Birrell, Ian. “The dictator who fooled us.” UnHerd, February 23, 2021 | Barbaro, Michael. “A Battle for the Soul of Rwanda.” Podcast. The New York Times, February 18, 2021 | Kellner, Mark A. “Paul Rusesabagina, ‘Hotel Rwanda’ Hero Who Credited Adventist Upbringing, On Trial in Kigali.” Religion Unplugged, February 24, 2021. The Lantos Foundation accepts donations, and there is a petition for Paul Rusesabagina: “President Biden: Demand the Release of Paul Rusesabagina.”

Recent and related: Burke, Jason. “Hotel Rwanda dissident goes on trial accused of terrorism and murder.” The Guardian, February 17, 2021.

The trial is controversial. Kagame, who won a third term in power with 98% of the vote at elections in 2017, is credited with the development and stability Rwanda has experienced since the genocide in 1994, but is also accused of intolerance of any opposition, whether domestic or international. Critics of his rule are frequently detained and several high-profile political dissidents have been murdered abroad.

Burke, Jason. “Hotel Rwanda dissident goes on trial accused of terrorism and murder.” The Guardian, February 17, 2021.

Well, perhaps that’s enough before I get into listing what catches my attention (what doesn’t?) from the global defense and security shops and others moving related information worldwide.

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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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FTAC: A Quick Comment on Roosevelt’s Four Freedoms

21 Sunday Feb 2021

Posted by in Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology

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Roosevelt’s “Four Freedoms”:

  1. Freedom of speech
  2. Freedom of worship
  3. Freedom from want
  4. Freedom from fear

Each Roosevelt believed essential to the embrace and survival of democracy.

Inspiration for what follows: the claim, quite false, that Franklin Delano Roosevelt failed in the defense of Americans from want and fear.

From the Awesome Conversation

He left office with our United States of America the premier military and technological power in the world.
He left office certain that we would not again see our people starve on the streets for age and disability.
WE have been failing on “three and four”, and we are about to fail big time for mishandling COVID-19, destroying the base of our economy, and treating our fellow Americans across the aisle, in one direction or the other, like trash. We shall surely reap what we have sown in the course of the past five to seven years of increasingly polarized, insensate, and vicious political speech and action — or with our Senate, inaction.

Fair Reference for Roosevelt’s Impact on America and America’s Role in the World

Schmitz, David F. The Sailor: Franklin D. Roosevelt and the Transformation of American Foreign Policy. Lexington, Kentucky: University Press of Kentucky, 2021.

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Authoritarianism, Feudal ‘New Nationalism’, Criminal Interests – An Erosion of Press Freedom

19 Friday Feb 2021

Posted by in 21st Century Feudal, 21st Century Modern, Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, Free Speech, Journalism

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I’m not going to take on the complete review of western states and the state of freedom in each. Quite a few organizations now do that. However, given the interests of EU/NATO in responsible governance and the proper interests of mankind, I may offer this handful of related reports as bellwether to the west’s own degraded and eroding condition as a powerful network of open democracies.

What happened?

Reflexive Control.

Twenty years ago (almost) on “9/11”, al Qaeda brought a new “Muslim Question” to the fore of Western consciousness, paving the way for an appropriately defensive and primordial response that boosted cultural pride in every EU/NATO state while — with popular approval — bulking up and shaping for each their intelligence, military, and paramilitary forces to meet the challenges posed by lethal non-state actors. In some states, both the patriotic urge, sensible enough, and fear brought home and laced with xenophobia (add ten years later the start of the refugee-herding Syrian Tragedy), promoted a turn to what would become the latest craze in populism, i.e., the New Nationalism.

Well, are democracies family businesses to be managed as private businesses after all?

Have some terrorist struck and — add COVID-19 — stricken democracies become so weak as to fail to defend their own nobility in good citizens against an ignoble collection of, um, less good citizens?

Having drifted far toward a “Reactionary Right” with the support of wealthy interests, some states appear to have regressed from their own once liberating and democratically revolutionary ideals more or less in the direction of feudal power and anachronistic but familiar familial, racial, religious, or tribal conflict.

The Medieval World, so it seems, continues to stalk a few should-be Modern states in relation to either the decline in the civility of their political rhetoric or private-sided degrading of their realpolitik.

It takes a long time to build a nation’s confidence in freedom with a both a civil and extraordinary extraordinary bandwidth in cultural and personal expression and identity while maintaining internal cohesion, coherence, and security.

Some, apparently, have stumbled.

Hungary

On Feb. 15, Viktor Orbán’s government shut down Klubrádió, one of Hungary’s largest independent radio broadcasters. This comes after a Budapest court upheld a decision by the country’s media regulators to revoke the station’s license, forcing it to exist exclusively online.

Last September, the country’s Media Council, appointed by the Fidesz party, rejected the station’s broadcast permit renewal. Klubrádió allegedly breached laws by missing deadlines to file reports and playing too little Hungarian music. Therefore, the authorities refused to extend its license, which expired on Feb. 14.

Frassl, Amina. “Orban Further Restricts Press Freedom in Hungary.” IR Insider, February 18, 2021.

Italy

NEW YORK, NOVEMBER 2 – Marking the International Day to End Impunity in Crimes against Journalists, the Italian Mission to the UN recalled that over 1,000 journalists have been killed in the last decade. “We reaffirm our commitment to press freedom and safety and protection of journalists, as cornerstones in achieving the 16th Sustainable Development Goal calling for the promotion of just, peaceful and inclusive societies. 

Since the beginning of 2020, 32 media operators where killed on the line of duty, Reporters Without Borders announced today, calling for the establishment of a UN Special Representative to investigate all cases. “If we do not protect journalists, our ability to remain informed and make evidence-based decisions is severely hampered”, the UN Secretary general, Antonio Guterres, said today: “When journalists cannot do their jobs in safety, we lose an important defence against the pandemic of misinformation and disinformation that has spread online.”

OnuItalia. “Crimes against journalists: Italy reaffirms commitment to press freedom, safety.” February 1, 2020.

Poland

Poland has fallen to 62nd out of 180 countries in the World Press Freedom Index compiled annually by Reporters Without Borders (RSF), a leading Paris-based NGO that seeks to promote and defend independent journalism and access to information. It classifies Poland as among the counties that have “a noticeable problem” with press freedom.

This is the fifth year in a row that Poland has recorded a decline in the ranking, all of which have taken place under the current Law and Justice (PiS) government that came to power in late 2015. In that year, Poland had reached a record high of 18th in the index. Now, five years later, it finds itself below Armenia (61st), Niger (57th) and Papua New Guinea (46th).

Notes from Poland. “Poland falls to lowest ever position in World Press Freedom Index.” April 21, 2020.

Turkey

Posted by VOA News to YouTube January 27, 2021.

United States of America

The report also pointed a finger at President Trump who, it said, “exacerbates” press freedom problems with his repeated declarations that journalists are an “enemy of the American people,” his accusations of “fake news,” his calls to revoke broadcasting licenses and his efforts to block specific outlets from access to the White House.

“The president’s relentless attacks against the press has created an environment where verbal, physical and online threats and assault against journalists are becoming normalized,” RSF Interim Executive Director Sabine Dolan tells NPR.

Ingber, Sasha. “The U.S. Now Ranks As A ‘Problematic’ Place for Journalists.” NPR, April 18, 2019.

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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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Schmitz, David F. The Sailor: Franklin D. Roosevelt and the Transformation of American Foreign Policy. Lexington, Kentucky: University Press of Kentucky, 2021.

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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FTAC: For Conflicts, Middle East and Others, a Day for Denying Intractability and Embracing Optimism for a Much Better Global Tomorrow

15 Monday Feb 2021

Posted by in 21st Century Modern, A Little Wisdom, Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, FTAC - From The Awesome Conversation, International Development, Islamic Small Wars, Philosophy, Political Psychology, Politics, Psychology

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Inspiration

My conversational partner, an Israeli, said, “Some problems don’t have solutions. That’s a concept that’s especially difficult for Americans to understand.”

From the Awesome Conversation

There are no intractable political challenges for any authentically modern and progressing democratic society and state.

Rawabi has been brought into existence by Palestinian wealth and is in business with western Fortune 500 companies, including Mellanox.

Here’s another project launched — i.e., off the draftsman’s board and under construction today — in an unlikely place:

https://www.neom.com/index.html

The world is neither hopeless nor helpless in light of its collective issues and future. It may be crime ridden, fractious, and violent, but the measurable qualities of evil may be diminished with time. We have not, thank God, had our World War III but while living perpetually in a state of competition or conflict with China and Russia — those may be considered the Orwellian two other powers — we have developed sustained lower-intensity conflicts and the transnational crime organizations that fuel their fires. Well, if we can develop greater conscience in some, temper greed, and deal with practical pressures, we might be able to draw those down.

If the Devil’s winning, Mark, it’s our own fault (for not understanding how the Damned Thing works).

For corrupt Palestinian leaders, the real primary incentive appears to be relationships with elites yielding money and personal security. Some at the top of that heap should try purchasing a less self-centered and parochial conscience.

From whence comes the broader consideration of others in the world by those who by way of their own wealthy and powerful circumstance have the wherewithal to lead it?

In casual talk, I’ve suggested evolution.

Why not?

Nature grows our minds.

In more serious psychology, altruism, caring, conscience, love, and the related apprehension of duties, obligations, and responsibilities toward others seem altogether healthier characteristics than fearful and compensating tendencies toward the meanest and smallest minded expressions of the will to survive as a will determined to destroy or dominate others.

For those with seriously Up There — Plutocratic — Clout, which is the better direction and why grind against it?

Why not formulate ideas and programs better fit for both a challenging global and personal future by simply enjoying what has characterized the past in dogma and politics — there’s no need to dishonor the past for anyone — while moving on to “well, we are all here on just this one marble of an island in space and time — and our first priority should be keeping our own conditions — environmental and broadly social — better than survivable”?

There are those with the power to drive forward of their own circumstances and life experiences, the present is always the place in time (and there is no better) where some cultural rivers and their ideas (and associated behaviors) needs must dissolve in their own delta while others — more fit for future time and space — flow from new wellsprings.

Related Online

Neom

Rawabi

Wherever we are in time — this moment! — we’re not going to be in the same place tomorrow. It may look that way on the outside — same writer here, same desktop: differently informed and perpetually gathering, recombining, reformulating ideas, information, plans.

Posted to YouTube by April 5, 2063, January 30, 2019.

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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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