Category Archives: Philology

FTAC: A Note on the “Unfake” Real Press

20 Saturday Oct 2018

Posted by in 21st Century Feudal, Also in Media, American Domestic Affairs, Asides, Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, Epistemology, FTAC - From The Awesome Conversation, Journalism, Philology

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I had thought The Washington Post article interested in depth and nuance (I hope this is the one: https://www.washingtonpost.com/powerpost/conservatives-mount-a-whisper-campaign-smearing-khashoggi-in-defense-of-trump/2018/10/18/feb92bd0-d306-11e8-b2d2-f397227b43f0_story.html ).

Not all information is or needs to be stridently partisan or political. Even where “objectivity” may be impossible to achieve, having multiple sources represent multiple angles of a story lets all of us as readers compare reports, sift, and deduce what fits best together, impartially so, into a coherent whole. That is the soul of empiricism.

https://nypost.com/2018/10/19/saudis-confirm-killing-of-jamal-khashoggi-several-nationalists-detained/

The New York Post has been turning out pretty good for being “on it” as regards some of these international stories.

“The assessment by the Saudi attorney general was broadcast on state television.

The broadcast also reported that five top officials have been fired and 18 Saudi nationals detained as suspects in the death.”

The west, Left and Right, hippie liberal and knotted tie conservative, seem to have become more interesting in “framing” observation their own way than in cool-headed and, frankly, human-oriented analysis. That’s a bad habit to get into for any democratic and modern soul trying to temper medieval enthusiasms for absolute, capricious, and tyrannous power.

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FTAC: MEC: Palestinians: A People Waiting to be Born Again, Honestly

20 Saturday Oct 2018

Posted by in 21st Century Feudal, Anti-Semitism, Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, Epistemology, FTAC - From The Awesome Conversation, Gaza, Islamic Small Wars, Israel, Middle East, Palestinia, Philology, Political Psychology, Politics

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Prompt: “How can we constantly ask to be accepted and understood without giving the same???”

The problem is the false Palestinian narrative, and the more sympathetic the attention given to it, the more the Palestinians suffer — and most of all at the hands of their own leaders (plus their “handlers” in Moscow and Tehran).

The Middle East Conflict is part of the hangover from WWII, and the only way it’s going to lose energy is to be honest with the Palestinians about what really happened, i.e., about what was done to them by the Soviets and the Arab dictators who had thought the refugees better off stuffed into camps and intellectually weaponized with the biggest lie of all: “The Jews stole YOUR land.” That idea was not true then; it is not true today; and it will never be true.

One thing that may be true today is that the Arab Apartheid demonstrated in Lebanon, Jordan, Syria (have a look at Yarmouk for how the Arab and Muslim worlds have actually regarded Palestinians), and Egypt has after 70+ years of consistent separation and abuse actually formed a new people — but they need to get out of the womb in hell — or be brought out of that suffocated space — and turned right-side up, and that starts with recognizing exactly the evil that set them up for misery.

We should never be kind to the cruel.

We should never be sympathetic with the misguided but rather firm with the western insistence on great integrity in support of bedrock truth.

Related on BackChannels

https://conflict-backchannels.com/2016/10/03/palestinian-kgb/

https://conflict-backchannels.com/2018/02/06/set-palestinian-kgb-and-other-backchannels-observations-related-to-the-middle-east-conflict/

https://conflict-backchannels.com/2016/09/23/ftac-these-too-are-palestinians/

https://conflict-backchannels.com/2016/03/08/bds-cult-modules/

https://conflict-backchannels.com/2015/10/12/ftac-tip-to-the-kgbs-amplification-of-middle-eastern-anti-semitism/

https://conflict-backchannels.com/2017/07/29/ftac-antidote-to-what-poisoned-the-palestinians/

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/

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FTAC: Middle East Conflict: Harmonizing on One Page

02 Tuesday Oct 2018

Posted by in 21st Century Feudal, Anti-Semitism, Books, Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, FTAC - From The Awesome Conversation, Gaza, Islamic Small Wars, Israel, Middle East, Palestinia, Philology, Philosophy, Political Psychology, Politics

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The issue: the symmetrical treatment of history such that Israelis and Palestinians should teach both “The Holocaust” and “The Nakba”.

Rubbish.

Israelis and Palestinians would do well to research and teach history in the direction of nonpartisan and well substantiated truth.

The idea that “history is written by the victors” should be today an artifact of the medieval world, i.e., the world of “absolute power” and thuggish personalities.

In the modern world — and should it wish to be a good one — scholarly integrity should matter most of all (and Muhammad himself is reputed to have said, “One scholar is worth more against the devil than one thousands worshippers”).

The barbarism known to history — medieval rape and rapine, ethnic cleansing, genocide — need not be known to the future, but as much becomes the province of those alive today. If Muslim Fulani gangs and war parties wish to continue their program of razing Christian farming villages — and kidnapping, raping, and slaughtering the residents — that is really up to them, there being no sufficient power (yet) to stop them where they roam, plan, and execute foul deeds.

Integrity, rightness, and righteousness should have qualities that transcend small interests. As often as we may find that not true, we may hope that one day as much will be true.

https://yalebooks.yale.edu/book/9780300172348/palestine-betrayed

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FTAC: A Short Note on “Returning” Jerusalem to Muslims

12 Wednesday Sep 2018

Posted by in 21st Century Feudal, A Little Wisdom, Anti-Semitism, Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, FTAC - From The Awesome Conversation, Islamic Small Wars, Israel, Middle East, Philology, Political Psychology

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Jerusalem is not even Israel’s to “return” to anyone but the Hebrews who created her 5,778 years ago. It cannot be returned to the Canaanites who melded with the Hebrews; it cannot be returned to the Romans who burned and sacked it early in the Common Era; it cannot be returned to the Nazis or the Ottomans who no longer exist but in the fantasies of a few bigoted Germans and Turks; and it cannot be returned to an “Ummah” that did not even think to exist until the 7th Century and that today finds itself bullied, controlled, slaughtered by its own zealots.

In the medieval mode, the evil demands property . . . just because.

Jerusalem-GMap-180912-1014v1-900x

Screen capture – Jerusalem-GMap-180912-1014v1-900x.

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FTAC: A Brief Encouragement for Hindu and Islamic Civilizations

04 Tuesday Sep 2018

Posted by in 21st Century Feudal, A Little Wisdom, Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, FTAC - From The Awesome Conversation, Philology, Political Spychology

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. . . in 12th Century Hungary, laws designed by Christians to discriminate against Jews were upon activation applied equally to Muslims (ref.: Rafael Patai, _The Jews of Hungary_).

What may be important for this group is differentiating between feudal and medieval political modes, much including attitudes and beliefs about religion and about ourselves, and modern political and spiritual possibilities.

At this point — right now — Muslims have become themselves first in the path of Islamic extremists. That’s something to think about when both demonizing Islam, which in its strict inception would seem to go against the grain of humanity, and ennobling its victims. The medieval world — and the feudal politics of clans, families, and tribes through the ages — has been a bloody business. As much has been part of our humanity, and we’re stuck with it, but we can transform too and produce less anger, less grievance, less horror in the world.

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FTAC: Inspiration for Conscience: Netanyahu, et al.

02 Sunday Sep 2018

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

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Inspiration

Heller, Aron. “Duterte visit showcases Netanyahu’s roster of tough-guy pals.” The Republic, September 2, 2018.

Given Judaism’s natural promotion for ethical and moral arguing and the “speaking of truth to power”, why would an Israeli president court the favor of the world’s most emergent autocratic leaders?

Here’s one approach to an answer.

I would not blame Netanyahu for Putin’s development of centrality in the adjacent conflict zones. Neither Israel, the more general “west” nor the Palestinians (and now the Syrians) will ever escape the effects of Soviet meddling in the middle east on the heels of the cessation of WWII. While it may be to Putin’s credit (and Lavrov’s) that the Kremlin has shifted some policies concerning the Jews, it is certainly to the west’s discredit that so little interference (to none) has forestalled the depths of the agony experienced in Syria by Syrians of all backgrounds.

The above noted, I liked the article. For my purposes, it underscores the powerful drift backward in the world toward feudal absolute power. Modern liberal Israel may not itself have the power to express pique or impose sanctions with effect: it is the smallest of states as regards that kind of financial or military power. The best it may do — and appears to be doing — is to walk the MaligNarcs (“malignant narcissists”) through a little bit of history from the Jewish perspective and to encourage the autocratic to reconsider what each budding or established dictator  appears to be missing in conscience.

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Extraordinary Funeral Service: Praising John McCain

01 Saturday Sep 2018

Posted by in 21st Century Feudal, Also in Media, American Domestic Affairs, Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, Philology, Philosophy, Politics, United States of America

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“United States of America — Basic Training.” BackChannels, February 2, 2017.

BackChannels has been enjoying — appreciating, actually — the NBC News videos on YouTube featuring each of the notables speaking at Arizona Senator John McCain’s funeral service at the National Cathedral this day in Washington, D.C.  More remembrance, the service even at its most personal heights — see the previous post featuring Meghan McCain’s reflections on her father’s death — has been an extraordinary reflection on the American spirit and the principles and values that inform the nation.

After God Bless America, may God bless Town & Country for the transcriptions.

Hubbard, Lauren. “Read the Full Transcript of Barack Obama’s Speech at John McCain’s Funeral.” Town & Country, September 1, 2018.

From the above delivery by former President Barrack Obama:

In captivity John learned in ways that few of us ever will the meaning of those words, how each moment, each day, each choice is a test. And John McCain passed that test again and again and again. And that’s why when John spoke of virtues like service and valor they weren’t just words to him, it was a truth that he had lived and for which he was prepared to die. And it forced even the most cynical to consider what were we doing for our country? What might we risk everything for?

Related Videos

Scroll down.  The live links for the list have been placed at the bottom of this post.

George W. Bush

Joe Biden

Joseph I. Leiberman

Henry A. Kissinger

Meghan McCain

Recapped

Pogrund, Gabriel and Colby Itkowitz.”McCain memorial: ‘What better way to honor John McCain than follow his example’. The Washington Post, September 1, 2018.

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Watch Love: Meghan McCain’s Magnificent Eulogy for Her Father

01 Saturday Sep 2018

Posted by in 21st Century Feudal, American Domestic Affairs, Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, Philology, Philosophy

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Full Transcript: Hubbard, Lauren. “Read the Full Transcript of Meghan McCain’s Eulogy for Her Father John McCain.” Town & Country, September 1, 2018.

Awesome.

More important: all true!

Toward the end, Meghan McCain while honoring her father well recognizes their virtues of the country they have both loved.

The America of John McCain is generous and welcoming and bold. she’s resourceful, confident, secure. She meets her responsibilities. she speaks quietly because she’s strong. America does not boast because she has no need to. The America of John McCain has no need to be made great again because America was always great. That fervent faith, that proven devotion, that abiding love, that is what drove my father from the fiery skies above the Red River delta to the brink of the presidency itself.

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