Category Archives: FTAC – From The Awesome Conversation

If — in my own head — I hit a universal note just about right in Facebook or other conversation, I may simply wrench it from context and publish it here in this category as a mix of observation and, I hope, a writer’s wisdom.

American House Speaker Mike Johnson & America Dumb & America Last

28 Wednesday Feb 2024

Posted by in 21st Century Feudal, 21st Century Modern, American Domestic Affairs, FTAC - From The Awesome Conversation, United States of America

≈ Leave a comment

–33–

Prove the Cheat, #LizHarrington.

03 Sunday Dec 2023

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

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, , , , , , , , ,

Donald Trump’s base claims to have been cheated out of winning the 2020 American election, and so there are a few cheerleaders on X apparently devoted to the surreal task of expressing outrage as an offensive measure. Trump hire Liz Harrington has been insistent about a lost election that Trump, in fact, has been trying to steal for himself.

Prove the cheat, #LizHarrington.

–https://www.usatoday.com/in-depth/news/politics/elections/2021/01/06/trumps-failed-efforts-overturn-election-numbers/4130307001/
–https://www.cisa.gov/topics/election-security/rumor-vs-reality
–https://apnews.com/article/fox-news-dominion-lawsuit-trial-trump-2020-0ac71f75acfacc52ea80b3e747fb0afe

Here are examples of attempts to invalidate 2020 election results by guile and by force.

–https://youtu.be/o3hrN0cP58Y (it was a perfect phone call).
–https://youtu.be/Iludfj6Pe7w

#FeloniousTrump #4FelonyCases91Counts

AmericanCharacterMatters #IntegrityMatters #ModernAmericansMatter

DJT-delusional, grandiose, messianic and without normal boundaries and limits. The psychology’s well known. Nothing was taken away from the #AmericanPeople in the course of the 2020 election.

Our is no medieval polity. It is no “mafia state”. It is a modern secular democratic republic, and not one elected official, including President, “rules” by cabal, divine right, fraudulent claims, force, or violence.

In fact, the role of an American President is not to rule the country but to act as its most powerful management executive in compliance with the Constitution of the United States and its Legislative and Judicial branches. Only recently, so it seems to me, has the Republican Party embarked on or endorsed a program of what appears an effort to install authoritarian, corrupt, and evidently criminal control of the state.

The Xpression has been well received, and here you may see it yourself.

###

Tsar Nobody Steals the Holocaust and Related Absurdities

22 Saturday Jul 2023

Posted by in 21st Century Feudal, 21st Century Modern, Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, FTAC - From The Awesome Conversation, Philology, Philosophy, Political Psychology, Russia

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, , , , , , , ,

Here’s the premise for the above title:

One step down, Retired European wrote, “Exactly, Russia is the new Nazis”, and to that I responded:

And the posts are still there for all who would be good to find courage.

***

The same theme invited a more congenial follow-up:

For my followers in many social media quarters, the concept of “Malignant Narcissism” as a political interpretation of Narcissistic Personality Disorder needs no introduction.

***

In the region of the Paranoid Delusional Narcissistic Reflection of Motivation, Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesperson Maria Zakharova wrote, “Terrorist methods have become routine for the #Kievregime and the most odious terrorists in world history would envy the scale of it.”

Hence my response:

hhttps://twitter.com/JS_Oppenheim/status/1682763932501508096?s=20ttps://twitter.com/JS_Oppenheim/status/1682763932501508096?s=20

***

Chelsea, Edward, and Julian

Twitter lends itself most of all to squawking and very little to I-Thou conversational exchange. Here, #SovietPostSovietRussia claims human rights violations for traitors with heart, courage, and narcissistic leanings who may have–I’m not certain–been able to address their core issues (in order of mention: America is being run like a prison camp; intrusion into private lives is possible, undeniable, and probable; and there should be no state secrets-everything should be online) via other channels and methods. In any case, adult, cognizant, and sophisticated Americans should understand that all states have secret lives and ours in America fewer than others (although that’s a box always a little bit compelling for unpacking).

and his crew have been the schoolyard bullies who want your lunch money and your lasting fidelity to their glory. So far, none but a pissed off Prigozhin, another former criminal, has dared question Putin’s military leadership. The idea of the Tsar right up there with God appears to remain fixed in the Russian psyche, which has also practical fear of so obviously criminal a power as Tsar Nobody knows all of their secrets, controls their careers and paychecks, has ways of assaulting (or murdering) any Russian, so far, anywhere in the world by means traditional–that would be defenestration, for example–and surreal, i.e., Polonium Tea.

In effect, Putin has all of Russia enslaved to and within his own delusional and malign narcissistic fantasia.

None dare leave who have “achieved” any stature within his realm.

–33–

A Brief Twitter Exchange on American Themes

23 Friday Jun 2023

Posted by in 21st Century Modern, American Domestic Affairs, FTAC - From The Awesome Conversation

≈ Leave a comment

I’ve been conversing via Twitter with fellow blogger Benjamin Chayes (History is Now; Pertinent Food), and I want to share it here in a more permanently placed showcase for expression for that reason plus basic cogency and, as always with BackChannels, distillation.

My country, the United States of America, finds itself politically divided, rancorous, and stressed today, and there are reasons for that, including Russia’s “Active Measures” and related “Destabilization and Reflexive Control Operations”–Moscow appears to mess with the U.S. first and foremost, but it does it sideways with cyberwarfare and disinformation. Much coverage falls to specialized OSINT (start with CISA.GOV–and then let curiosity and imagination run wild).

Setting The Bear aside, the quick-thought Twitter platform (and here not yet “Blue” and upgraded for lengthier speech) lends itself to the compression of language and a fast but unhurried parlay.

The replay has some fragmentation but I think the main points are together and unified by the exchange.

The America I both experience and imagine has been a Christian majority but secular enterprise, compassionate and inclusive in its cultural and geographic expanse, and it has been practical about balancing its defense and security obligations, foreign and domestic, with the necessity of building up trade and national revenues as well as the treasuries, corporate and public, that in turn define our national lifestyle.

We have in the way of all nations through time our national underbelly where the degradation goes so far down that whatever hasn’t sunk so low needs must look like some kind of “up”.

There has been more in the early conversation, but I will stop here for those whose patience may be similar to mine–that’s part of art as well, i.e., knowing when the painting’s done.

Oh, heck….

–33–

FTAC: Moscow Suffocates the Palestinians

22 Saturday Apr 2023

Posted by in 21st Century Feudal, 21st Century Modern, Anti-Semitism, Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, Extreme Brown vs Red-Green, FTAC - From The Awesome Conversation, Gaza, Israel, Middle East, Palestinia, Philosophy, Russia

≈ 4 Comments

Tags

, , ,

Remember who handles the Palestinians.

https://www.jpost.com/middle-east/article-698736 (“Close ties with Russia stop Palestinians from taking sides in Ukraine war” by Khaled Abu Toameh, The Jerusalem Post, February 26, 2022).

Under the guise of “liberation movements”, Russia’s “caretakers”, like Arafat and Abbas, plunder their own communities. The Palestinians remain both too vulnerable as weak parties before western power and its modern character and consequently too egotistical and proud themselves to believe it. In essence, they have imprisoned themselves in the dogma of “resistance”, and there they keep themselves ideologically, intellectually, financially, and, for the most part, physically trapped and suffocated.

“Bogdanov, Palestinians” serves as a useful starting search string on both the assertion, topic, and theme involving Russia’s power of persuasion in keeping the Palestinians hooked on a liberation theology that has no true foundation in anyone’s reality, not even that of the Palestinian leadership. All Russia has known through the 20th and 21st Centuries has been the horror that comes with the “leadership” of delusional thieves, Stalin to Putin with just a moment of post-Cold War sunlight between.

Related on BackChannels: https://conflict-backchannels.com/2021/07/26/ftac-palestinian-kgb-the-palestinians-abused-and-plundered-by-their-own/ | https://conflict-backchannels.com/2021/02/01/ftac-endemic-russian-anti-semitism-a-note/ | https://conflict-backchannels.com/2016/11/28/a-short-page-referencing-works-by-or-associated-with-ion-mihai-pacepa/ | https://conflict-backchannels.com/2017/12/29/ftac-middle-east-conflict-back-to-max-erwin-von-scheubner-richter-and-forward-to-the-plundering-of-palestinian-misery-by-palestinian-leadership-elites/ | https://conflict-backchannels.com/2022/07/19/detecting-post-soviet-russias-black-narrative-of-revenge-for-89-and-91/ .

For seriously curious, independent, and industrious Palestinians, there’s a lot to unpack, a lot of Muscovian agitprop (intellectual infection) to address, and then only repairs to be done in relation to community-wide financial arrangements, security, and transparency.

For political philosophy in relation to the bullshit Moscow has been selling for decades to dictators, extremists, and useful idiots all along, I would suggest there is no justice but rather a better and happier side to history, and that it is more the true history of the assertion of human dignity, freedom, liberation, inclusion, and security. For Palestinians, it would be better to cross over to the happier side of history–and the future–than remain mired in the darkest and deepest pools of confusion, hate, and resentment.

Related Online

Byman, Daniel L. “The 1967 War and the birth of International terrorism.” Brookings, May 30, 2017.

CNN. “Yasser Arafat: Palestinian Authority President.” Special Section: Struggle for Peace, 2000.

Oppenheim, James S. “FTACT: Middle East Conflict: All That Doesn’t Exist.” Conflict BackChannels, July 5, 2017.

Toameh, Khaled Abu. “Close ties with Russia stop Palestinians from taking sides in Ukraine war – analysis: PA President Mahmoud Abbas is still hoping that Russia would play a major role in any future peace process between the Palestinians and Israel.” The Jerusalem Post, February 26, 2022.

–33–

FTAC: A Note on Archaic Dimensions in Leadership

18 Saturday Mar 2023

Posted by in 21st Century Feudal, 21st Century Modern, FTAC - From The Awesome Conversation, Political Psychology

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, , , ,

Posted by Vote Common Good to YouTube, March 1, 2023.

We humans support about 4,300 religions and 7,000 living language cultures around the world, and representatives of most are here in the United States beneath the magnificent umbrella of a working secular democratic republic as designed by the Founding Fathers.

Americans true to that spirit have the freedom to worship as each sees fit.

Some like Lauren Boebert flat out lie or live in their own delusions with insufficient confrontation or insight.

Two terms I have found helpful with relation to observing fascistic religious extremism: “Civilizational Narcissism”, Mobarak Haider’s term related to his view of the Taliban in Taliban: Tip of a Holy Iceberg, and “Malignant Narcissism“, which may be regarded as the political interpretation of “Narcissistic Personality Disorder” much characterized by “messianic delusions of grandeur” and represented by autocratic personalities worldwide.

Around the web (Twitter, lol, sometimes here on FB), I’ve been using and to signal these archaic dimensions in leadership.

Christian Fanaticism, Christian Violence

The above mash-up, most appropriate for this day in the America (or ), has come off Alejandro Amenábar’s film Agora, as fine an exploration of the tension between faith and reason and between the lust for power and the imposing of a delusional, narcissistic, and sadist will on others possessed of more quiet, certain, and thoughtful virtues.

Related Online

AFP. “‘God Put You in Power’: Russian Orthodox Leader Tells Putin on 70th Birthday.” The Moscow Times, October 7, 2022.

Oppenheim, James S. “KGB FSB ROC M-O-N-E-Y”. BackChannels, January 18, 2023.

*

Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-Colo.), who faces a primary election Tuesday, says she is “tired” of the U.S. separation of church and state, a long-standing concept stemming from a “stinking letter” penned by one of the Founding Fathers.

Speaking at a religious service Sunday in Colorado, she told worshipers: “The church is supposed to direct the government. The government is not supposed to direct the church. That is not how our Founding Fathers intended it.”

Suliman, Adela and Timothy Bella. “GOP Rep. Boebert: ‘I’m tired of this separation of church and state junk’.” The Washington Post, June 28, 2022.

*

Paine, Thomas. Common Sense. 1776. Source as noted at URL.

Ryman, Hana M. and J. Mark Alcorn. “Establishment Clause (Separation of Church and State).” The First Amendment Encyclopedia. 2009.

United States of America. The Constitution of the United States: A Transcription. Original as inscribed by Jacob Shallus. National Archives.

–33–

Ukraine Defense: Courageous, Righteous, and Tough People

01 Wednesday Feb 2023

Posted by in 21st Century Feudal, 21st Century Modern, Europe, FTAC - From The Awesome Conversation, North America, Northern Europe, Philosophy, Political Psychology, Psychology, Russia, Ukraine

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, , , , , ,

War. Winter. Weariness.

Here, Anna From Ukraine in her daily broadcast lets the world know how war with Russia has been experienced and weathered in her nation.

My view: for those who believe in human dignity and freedom–especially freedom from autocrats, dictators, tyrants, perhaps as well deeply impersonal bureaucracies and systems, and one might also add for Moscow corrupt and criminal systems–courage, endurance, faith, and resilience matter. In the realpolitik between states, alliance, commitment, determination, and ferocity seen as well as off-stage matter too.

Related Online

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

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

Posted to YouTube with February 1, 2023.

–33–

FTAC: Why Putin Won’t Stop Until Stopped

20 Friday Jan 2023

Posted by in 21st Century Feudal, 21st Century Modern, FTAC - From The Awesome Conversation, Political Psychology, Russia, Ukraine

≈ 6 Comments

Tags

, , , , , ,

What follows is a comment left beneath a CNN interview with Bill Browder.

Putin’s “Malignant Narcissism” with its “messianic delusions of grandeur” has his coconut set to defend his projection of heroic courage, a cover for early deep humiliation. He neither defends nor represents the interests of a modern Russia but rather the medieval psychosis he shares with similar criminal former KGB and sordid mafia. That’s it. Challenge the thesis, but I believe he won’t stop until stopped. Cancer, internal rivalry, uncooperative FSB and other security might suffice, but for now–for the west and for the world–“containment” will have to do. Putin has got a world in his head that no longer exists in either any shared nor viable fashion. He has only plundered Russia and led her into the void.

Malignant Narcissism: Links & Terms of Art for Exploration

This blog features earlier related musings on a page with a title a little bit ahead of its times–Anthropolitical Psychology, so named at the time for its alphabetical first place on the preceding drop-down menu list. 🙂 My fave for a while (if I do say so myself): Paranoid Delusional Narcissistic Reflection of Motivation. Perhaps more to the point as regards Vladimir Putin, who has thrown Russia into a medieval war with modern weapons with the support of a host of lies, may be the process through which he became a monster: “Malignant Narcissistic Process Distilled”.

On the Psychology of Dictatorship and related matters (like destructiveness, fascism, sadism, more ordinary Narcissistic Personality Disorder) there is no end to either invention, observation, and reflection. I had embarked on this personal course in political science and psychology with comparatively light reading by the late Jerrold M. Post—Leaders and Their Followers in a Dangerous World: The Psychology of Political Behavior (Psychoanalysis and Social Theory), Jerrold M. Post and Alexander George, Cornell University Press, Ithaca, New York: 2004. My purchase had been made in 2012. Back then, “reading” for me still meant opening a book.

We’re not going to be stuck with “authoritarian” knuckleheads in office in the United States of American or anywhere else in the Atlantic Alliance or, for that matter, in the world, but the transition from the world of medieval belief, fear, and greed requires of both constituencies and governments a modern update related to comprehending retrograde politicians and political missions. In modern parlance, the holy (and secular) grail of characteristics desired may be “high-integrity, responsible, and responsive” governance with improving “Qualities of Living“–village x city x region–the worthy cause of power.

At the moment, the EU/NATO fold has within it disappointing reversions–examples: Recep Tayyip Erdogan; Viktor Orban; Donald John Trump–to feudal-medieval society in which the power of the leader becomes conflated with the existence of the state while related associates, family, and personally favored figures own and rule the businesses and industries hosted across the land–and the general population be damned. For such “leaders”, continuance in power and “unlimited narcissistic supply” are all that matter.

Related for Exploration: Narcissistic Mortification; Covering/Splitting; Gaslighting; Psychological Manipulation; Narcissistic Supply.

–33–