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.

FTAC: Brief Note Re. Poland and the Holocaust

21 Sunday Apr 2019

Posted by in 21st Century Feudal, Anti-Semitism, Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, Europe, FTAC - From The Awesome Conversation, Poland, Russia

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The topic is perennial: “The Poles did nothing to stop Hitler”; “The Poles murdered the Jews”; “The Poles were the worst of anti-Semites”; etc. So here is one fast response to all of that.

https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shtetl/ –> Marian Marzynski’s documentary on PBS “Frontline”.

The Holocaust may be unique in this overlooked way: it was an event so damning of the character of our species that it has been and may remain visited universally over time. The experience of it has given over to the memory of it. Each soul that visits The Holocaust, and there are many ways now, will experience and respond to it differently.

Compiled by the Polish American Librarians Association, a new list of recommended reading emphasizes books that effectively examine inflammatory questions that may never be fully answered or understood but continue to be asked: Did Poles collaborate with the Germans? Why did Poland have the largest Jewish population of any country in Europe? Why did the West disbelieve information about the death camps that was gathered by the Resistance? Why didn’t more Jews resist? Why was Poland the only country in which the death penalty was imposed for Christians harboring Jews? Why was the response of the Catholic Church so meek? Why, by far, are there more Polish names on the roll at Yad Vashem of Righteous Gentiles who saved Jews than any other nationality?

http://palalib.org/collection/poland/ (current)

Three million Poles were also taken by the Holocaust.

And there’s no denying the theft and inhabiting of Jewish property by the Poles.

Nonetheless, lose the black-and-white thinking.

For the energetic, two lesser known proper nouns might be worth a look-up in relation to The Holocaust: “Max Erwin von Scheubner-Richter”; “Michael Kellogg” (The Russian Roots of Nazism).

Kellogg’s book: https://academic.oup.com/ahr/article-abstract/111/5/1618/14004

I had left the nouns — Kellogg and Scheubner-Richter — without URLs to encourage readers of the thread to make a little bit of effort to know the true kernel of The Holocaust.

Additional basic reference online: http://www.holocaustchronicle.org/ | https://www.yadvashem.org/ | https://www.ushmm.org/

Recommended for viewing: “Image Before My Eyes: A History of Jewish Life in Poland before the Holocaust”.

Addendum in Response to Comment

The Polish experience of the Holocaust had been mixed and not in any small or trivial way. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nazi_crimes_against_the_Polish_nation tells a part of the story of horror for those in whom the Nazis found no value.

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For a Moment, All Were Jewish

19 Friday Apr 2019

Posted by in FTAC - From The Awesome Conversation, Philology, Philosophy, Political Psychology, Religion

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Source: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/4b/%C3%9Altima_Cena_-_Da_Vinci_5.jpg

From the (Still) Awesome Conversation:

I may note that the Jewish Liberation Story — the Exodus from Egypt — has stood signal as God’s affront to human power for almost 6,000 years. In that narrative, God commands Moses while having at the same time control of Pharaoh. While Jews treat Moses with reverence, none ever conflate or confuse Moses with God (he was lucky to have been rescued from among the reeds; spoke with a stutter or lisp (I think — he was most imperfect); and seemed to need a sidekick for courage. Moses was . . . merely human. He didn’t part the waters: God did.

Jesus, rabbi; the first Christians; was it really a Seder?

https://www.biblicalarchaeology.org/daily/people-cultures-in-the-bible/jesus-historical-jesus/was-jesus-last-supper-a-seder/

BackChannels will leave the gathering and weighing of history’s slim evidence to the curious, but as depicted by da Vinci, inspired by The Bible, and inscribed now in the intellectual awareness and evolution of mankind, The Last Supper changed the character of the world.

Here’s “the rest of the story” — at least about the painting.

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FTAC: “The Media Went Easy on Obama”

01 Monday Apr 2019

Posted by in Epistemology, FTAC - From The Awesome Conversation, Journalism

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Inspiration: the idea that “the media” has a coordinated conscience.

The title of this post has been drawn from the familiar accusation that the media — the “Mainstream Media”, “MSM”, “Lamestream Media” — has been giving President Trump a bum rap.

From the Awesome Conversation

After so many years following other politics, I might be a little less surprised [by anything coming up in the daily news feed]. However, one may pull (and check) factual data from articles extant.

BC sees two worlds in the Open Source: the public’s window and perception and the journalist’s or researcher’s image of the world.

Generally speaking, the public obtains a narrowed, parochial, and under-informed worldview bounded by the constraints of interest, prior education, and time plus, and if engaged as a voter, near-term focus on candidates and issues. Journalists and researchers by profession dig into the history — events, personalities, organizations — contributing to their subject areas and related states of affairs.

When BackChannels reads — that’s what this “reading page” has been about — it accesses current and prior research effort repeatedly in a not too wide band of interests: conflict, foreign affairs, now some U.S. domestic politics.

For the record, BC believes that “the media” — mainstream and popular journals — e.g., Politico, Foreign Affairs, Foreign Policy, The Diplomat, McClatchy, The Daily Caller, The Daily Beast, The Nation, The American Interest, etc. — don’t “go easy” on any politician of interest.

https://www.mcclatchydc.com/

The publishing industry engaged in U.S. domestic and international politics represents a competitive rather than consciously coordinated field, while the journalists also represent a similarly competitive and polyglot crowd but one generally possessed of integrity. It’s up to the reader, one at a time x millions, to evaluate the intents and veracity of articles, their authors, and their publications, as he reads through what is the mediated experience of the world.

The media could not have “gone easy on Obama”: it observed, reported, and opined with customary vigor in the familiar fashion. Obama’s parade through two terms simply gave up less daily fodder for humor and outrage than today’s incumbent.

Related on BackChannels

Fake News! Genuine Fake News! The Real Fake News! Get Your Fake News Here!

Related Online

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

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2019/03/richard-north-patterson-i-quit-novels-cover-trump/585901/ | Richard North Patterson. “I Used to Write Novels. Then Trump Rendered Fiction Redundant: The president is a fiction writer run amok, the hero of his own impermeable drama.” Mar 31, 2019.

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FTAC: Briefest Comment: Corbyn, Anti-Semitism, and the Soviet Era

31 Sunday Mar 2019

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

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Inspiration: Corbyn’s intellectual connection with the Soviet Era as mentioned by Ben Cohen in a notice and review (The Tower, October 2016) of David Rich’s The Left’s Jewish Problem. My conversational partner had asked about the origins of British anti-Semitism, and while I had a sense of where the answer might be, I hadn’t much validation for it. Now that little patch of curiosity and intuition may be on the cusp of becoming known.

From the Awesome Conversation on Facebook

Of course. I’ve been right about the “Phantoms of the Soviet”. I just purchased the earlier Kindle edition of David Rich’s The Left’s Jewish Problem and hope that will fill in some gaps.

The west has made broad strides in mopping up after the Cold War; however it has succumbed to the new “syndicate”, a melange of authoritarian governments bent on the renewal of feudalism above a darker background of global crime and corruption driven by trade in narcotics and abetted by money laundering.

For Russian power, today’s “anti- anti-Semitism” and anti-Semitism are just political tools for the defense of the terminal or singular representation of the power of the state in one person. What it long ago promoted beyond its borders has been pure intellectual poison.

Updated edition published September 18, 2018.

Related Online

Bloodworth, James. “Labour’s New Anti-Semitism Has Disturbingly Old Roots.” Foreign Policy, August 21, 2018.

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FTAC: After the Mueller Report, The Tarring Will Stick

25 Monday Mar 2019

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

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While the Democrats have some post-Soviet issues on the Far Left — and the Republicans seem to draw the White Far Right — I believe Americans are perceiving a deeply paranoid, aggressive, and vindictive Administration freighted with shady figures (like Manafort) on the ride in and packed with sycophants (like Stephan Moore, the latest nomination for the Fed), today.

Mafia “Don”? Laundering the Authoritarian President’s Image

It was just one book (by a liberal) and may be let go, but since its publication, there have been many others, each researched and defended by its author, most with impeccable credentials. Now even the Mueller Report is being redacted — whatever the “eyes only”, the public isn’t getting the whole story, so there has to be something of value in the volume worth keeping from the public.

Whatever this report says, here’s what I know: when I was at Cambridge Analytica, the company hired known Russian agents, had data researchers in St Petersburg, tested US voter opinion on Putin’s leadership, and hired hackers from Russia – all while Bannon was in charge.

Christopher Wylie in the below displayed tweet.
https://twitter.com/chrisinsilico/status/1109983298397310976

In the way of communists and fascists alike, Bannon, the “populist”, has decamped himself into an Italian monastery befitting his own self-concept.

It’s a nice place.

https://www.dw.com/en/italian-monastery-turns-into-hotbed-of-bannon-fueled-nationalism/a-47930804

Such impressions add up, albeit among those who follow the news and query the Internet. The image of the President and his helper has not been authentically “populist”.

With Donald Trump, his once-trusted lawyer, his once-esteemed campaign manager, his brag, “I just you all a lot richer”, his Miami real estate, one of the world’s dirtiest / most glamorous markets, the story’s just not going to wash away, not matter how loud he may be about vindication.

https://www.businessinsider.com/steve-bannon-ties-to-cambridge-analytica-facebook-data-run-deep-2018-3

Bannon has said he doesn’t remember buying the data . . . .

Also Related Online

https://newrepublic.com/article/143586/trumps-russian-laundromat-trump-tower-luxury-high-rises-dirty-money-international-crime-syndicate – 7/13/2017.

I own it, haven’t read it, but it’s the kind of thing that pops up on Amazon with the search string, “Trump, Collusion” — there are also Trump collusion dismissals, but in that category, Roger Stone places high — I’d rather read (and trust) Guardian veteran Luke Harding.

BackChannels cited a BackChannels post on Craig Unger’s book. Here’s the direct link to the book on Amazon:

https://www.amazon.com/House-Trump-Putin-Untold-Russian/dp/152474350X/ – 8/14/2018

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FTAC: Obama, State Secrets, Public Apprehension, and BREXIT

21 Thursday Mar 2019

Posted by in 21st Century Feudal, American Domestic Affairs, Europe, FTAC - From The Awesome Conversation, Great Britain and United Kingdom, Journalism, Middle East, Political Psychology, Political Spychology, Politics, Russia, Syndicate Red Brown Green, Syria, United States of America

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Inspiration: Josh Meyer’s “The secret backstory of how Obama let Hezbollah off the hook” (Politico, circa January 2018) and the idea that using the article as mud pie material for the Obama Administration may be invalidated by the lifespan and volume of state secrets migrating across Administrations. This was the question: “Reporting how Obama shut down a Major Hizbullah investigation is ‘slinging mud’?”

Because . . . state secrets span Administrations.

” . . . requires a public that can access, understand, and use the information . . . ” https://www.nfoic.org/transparency-obama-administration —

The problem is with “understand“.

In the way of professional journalism, much condensed and simplified, every editor and reporter must ask about his story: “Is it clear? Is it accurate? Is it complete?”

All authoritarian / autocratic / dictatorial governments diminish the power of the press because . . . they are keeping secrets and intend not to share the reality of their political space with their subjugated populations.

How honest, for example, can Maduro be with Venezuelans when he is operating a criminal state?

He can’t share anything having to do with his circles of criminal enterprise. Instead, he has to tell the people fairy tales in a loud voice.

However, and in defense of secrets keeping and to criticize popular democratic self-determination — or perhaps point out the limits of the same — the British governing class got a strong lesson when it allowed nationalist forces, induced by Moscow-backed Islamic Terrorism and Migration — I “read” Syria as a deliberate underhanded assault on Europe — to make an issue of integration with the European Union, which has been Great Britain’s nearest and greater market and trading partner. Some part of the voting public had had no idea about where its state really was. Instead, they were focused on the degrading of British life by jihadists and needy migrants coming out of the middle east. They chose to lower the portcullis in an attempt to insulate themselves from what they believed was happening in Europe and happening to them because of a unified Europe. They’re now on the cusp of paying for their misjudgment.

Related: Graff, Garrett M. “The Government Secrets Trump Is About to Discover.” Politico, January/February 2017.

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FTAC: Three Simple Questions About Freedom in the Age of Mass Observation and Measurement

19 Tuesday Mar 2019

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

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Inspiration: Ma, Alexandra. “Thousands of people in Sweden are embedding microchips under their skin to replace ID cards.” Business Insider, May 14, 2018 – and one question asked of the editor: “Are you celebrating technology or taking a peek at Big Brother?”

Both.

What is Conscience? What is Freedom? What is Moral Agency?

What’s possible may be what’s coming:

https://www.thenation.com/article/china-social-credit-system/ (January 2019)

Keywords: China, Technology, Social Credit System

“The Chinese government already knows everything about me. If I’m not committing a crime, I don’t give a shit”

@9:40 of below-posted video.
Wall Street Journal, January 18, 2018, YouTube.

While this post may be based on year-old data, it’s still cogent. Like “Socialism”, it would appear that “Technological Totalitarianism” will be a work in progress for some time to come, but perhaps not as much as most would like even if we don’t yet know it.

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FTAC: Turn Around – Globally ReStanced Time

25 Monday Feb 2019

Posted by in 21st Century Feudal, A Little Wisdom, Epistemology, FTAC - From The Awesome Conversation, Philosophy, Political Psychology, Religion

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Inspiration for this little bit of wisdom: another set-to about the God of Judaism and the God of Islam — or depictions, expressions, instructions, etc. seemingly attached to the construction or perception (in mind, of course) of each.

Basically: “Your God is not my God — and my rightness must be therefore more right than your rightness.”

And God must have put us here to prove how right we are about God.

Something like all of that plus the bloody historical baggage that has been dragged through time with that kind of thinking.

About Joseph Campbell

Home

Ethnolinguistic cultures on earth: about 7,000 (fewer, actually).
There are many ways of looking up at the stars and experiencing or interpreting the divine.

In the Torah, God hears Ishmael’s cries too.

The more true challenge of the present lies in handling the habits attending medieval politics and worldviews that better account for turning something we cannot know — God, as we think of God, is greater than our observational capabilities — into something we think we know.
Judaism represents the Tribal Way of the Hebrews, an old People with a calendar to prove it and a distinct trail through time planted on or in the earth in built space or artifacts. Rather than mosey on to other civilizational uptake, adaptation, and competition, it might prove healthier to visit the present, take a deep breath, and have both a broad and long view backward, the better perhaps for considering and taking the next step forward.

Having given up the burning of witches and largely ejected “contra-lateral amputation” as inhumane (although there are some barbaric, malignant, primitive, and sadistic holdouts), we might do better than eternally trying to erase one another.

Call it a plea for peacefulness momentarily enshrined in a blog post . . . also a plea to perhaps stand together for a broad and great gaze backward from this extraordinary plateau in human communicating and social interaction — and then: think fresh; think forward; think next.

Commence.

The “New Nationalists” — there’s a term that’s getting around — are old feudal reactionaries. Each — start with Erdogan in his White Palace — means to live as if in a castle socially surrounded by nobility and attended by peons and slaves.

BackChannels hopes they will one day find themselves left floating in their own blood-dimmed and greed-soaked clouds and the better world, broadly inclusive, culturally self-sustaining (we should be concerned with keeping and growing our 7,000 or so living language cultures), earth conscious, still in awe of the universe, and beautifully interwoven will look back on them with a shudder.

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