Category Archives: Philology

FTAC: Strident Right and Defensive Argument

28 Tuesday Aug 2018

Posted by in 21st Century Feudal, American Domestic Affairs, Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, FTAC - From The Awesome Conversation, Philology, Political Psychology, Politics

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A portion of the newly strident right hustles to dismiss heretofore reliable sources of information: we have all heard of “Fake News!”  Where that blanket dismissal fails, the sophists then fall back on impugning the credibility of public intelligence sources.  Recent topic of interest: “Fancy Bear” — the fancy title for a Russian hacking team involved in the manipulating of an American election.  In the target zone: the consulting and security firm “Crowdstrike”, which, indeed may have fumbled with some claims about Russia’s MO in Ukraine — but not about the U.S. incident.  In the same business, Fireeye has also reported out on Fancy Bear.  For good measure, BackChannels took a glance at former British spy Christopher Steele’s reputation and found it holding up quite well.

When the most self-righteous on the Right dismiss high-integrity reportage out of hand with shouts of “Fake News!” and the launching of barbs against state officials and private sector consultants in the intelligence business (with Fancy Bear, cybersecurity), have another look at the targets of that ire.

They are all “Fake News!” creators:

https://www.fireeye.com/
https://www.crowdstrike.com/
https://orbisbi.com/

Arguing is so easy: discredit sources; dismiss facts (now that there are “alternative facts” as well); get it down to ad hominem mud pies — and one might feel . . . triumphant. Easy-peasy.

https://www.wired.com/story/fancy-bear-hotel-hack/

One might wonder who leaked that NSA tool — they might now be former NSA . . . .

https://www.forbes.com/sites/samarmarwan/2017/07/11/crowdstrike-helped-trace-the-dnc-hack-to-russia-now-business-is-booming/#31dcd8834434

Crowdstrike’s investigation of “Fancy Bear” in the U.S. domestic attack has not been impugned.

Even though “everyone knows” Christopher Steele just makes up stuff, well — https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/aug/21/author-of-trump-russia-dossier-wins-libel-case-in-us-court-christopher-steele

Note: the consultancy for Christopher Steele worked on what has become known as the “Steele Dossier” was Fusion GPS.

Also, for the record: the editor of BackChannels is an independent American voter and enjoys, alas — or “oh joy!” — no financial support from either Democratic or Republican interests.

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FTAC – A Note on Ethno-Cultural Philosophy and Islam

09 Monday Apr 2018

Posted by in 21st Century Feudal, A Little Wisdom, Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, Epistemology, FTAC - From The Awesome Conversation, Islamic Small Wars, Philology, Philosophy, Political Psychology, Religion

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Are the Abayudaya Jewish?

Are the Pashtun, who are Pashtun while referring to themselves as “B’ni Israel” both a little bit Jewish and Muslim?

There are ethnic elements in the invention, uptake, and adaptation of Islam that may not be separated from “Muslim” — not “Islamic” — self-concept and volunteered description. When for tribal business, independence, security, or survival one civilization accepts the overlay of another, it becomes difficult in time to pry apart that melding. At the same time, an ethos that drives against the grain of humanity, i.e., as that possessed by the “Islamists”, needs must be ejected at least in part.

There is an argument to be had about the character of Muhammad and that of Islam with some who would put all Muslims in the al-Qaeda (or similar) box even though Muslims appears the first victims (and warriors against) that efflorescent fascism that has no place among good people.

We are born with our identities: culture and its customs and laws, our parents, and our families, our names.  God (Nature and the Universe) provide us with no choice in those earliest matters.  However, as we are not fixed as characters in books and much less in place and time, we as adults may confirm our cultural self-concept or change it.  Over time, change is what we do because “back there” in time includes ideas and practices that become for each “new world” — a generational concept — maladapted.

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FTAC: Essential Truth and the Palestinians

12 Monday Mar 2018

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

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Prompt: the host had assigned a loose title about “ethnic cleansing” to historian Benny Morris.  “Thought leaders” on the web will either traffic in earnest speech (when earnest) or make themselves worthless with disingenuous and false claims.

Cultures engage in “magical thinking” in their fairy tales, legends, and myths. They are part of the spirit of the place. Engaging in the same in the context of study produces only “revisionism” favorable either to the narcissist in the mirror or the one in power. Differentiation between what is true — and what a joy it would be for Palestinians to know what is true! — and what seems (!) flattering and patronizing plays a major part in the installation and maintenance of the world’s dictatorships. Among the _malign_, the narcissist can never be wrong.

From other and prior portions of the same conversation:

_The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine_ was authored by Ilan Pappe — this represents his reputation today:

https://newrepublic.com/article/85344/ilan-pappe-sloppy-dishonest-historian

***

Benny Morris, by comparison, has been a tough “New Historian”. This is his page on Amazon (USA): https://www.amazon.com/Benny-Morris/e/B001IQX8V8/

I have been through _1948_, not the others, but even so it mentions the Jewish neighbors who begged Arabs to stay home while Arab forces encouraged flight before their own onslaught.

Efraim Karsh — _Palestine Betrayed_ — may be worth a mention as well.

Again, the Russo-Arabian “framing” of the conflict would seem after 70 years of insistent repetition on the way to being . . . found out.

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

In the same ballpark

” . . . to hate and resist occupation and occupiers . . .” would be to hate and resist Fatah and Hamas who insist on their own power while depriving Palestinians of their vote, their right to assemble in opposition to either, and of their right to speak freely, openly, without fear.

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Inter-Generational Recap: Curtis’s ‘HyperNormalisation’

23 Tuesday Jan 2018

Posted by in Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, Epistemology, Philology, Philosophy, Political Psychology, Politics

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A quick note while watching (halfway through with the feed paused as I type): the Curtis documentary is one helluva time capsule hitting all the keys for the ‘Boomers’ now in the process of passing the western torch to perhaps drug-addled or money-crazed (or both) next population of inhabitants of the democracies.  Of course, things are not going so well, at least depending on one’s perspective and the sources of experience and observation that produces it.  Modern?  Hypermodern?  Post-modern? Or not modern at all but a grinding mechanical Orwellian nightmare?  Who knows?  Who would know?  Anyone?

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Pravda — Real To the Marrow

27 Wednesday Dec 2017

Posted by in 21st Century Feudal, A Little Wisdom, American Domestic Affairs, Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, Epistemology, Free Speech, FTAC - From The Awesome Conversation, Journalism, Philology, Political Psychology, Politics, Psychology

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In the New Age of Active Measures, the countermeasure is the conveyance of truth — not “alternative truth” or multiple possibilities derived from promoted fantasia — supported by great curiosity and integrity as married to equally great journalism and scholarship.

A friend promoted the Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty project as focused against deceptive and disingenuous political cant designed to whip up extremist emotion and stupidity in Asia as well as in its older domains.

In regard to information and integrity in speech online, BackChannels has published a few related posts that may convey an image about Potemkinism in political speech: there are those who project through language the way they might wish their followers would see the world and themselves.

https://conflict-backchannels.com/2017/10/23/fake-news-genuine-fake-news-the-real-fake-news-get-your-fake-news-here/

https://conflict-backchannels.com/2016/12/09/syria-assad-isil-background/

https://conflict-backchannels.com/2017/03/11/reflexive-control-process-allahu-akbar-terrorism-new-nationalism-neo-feudalism/

https://conflict-backchannels.com/2016/11/23/moscows-rules-a-module/

BackChannels really hasn’t an issue with political presentation and “show business” in general but rather with a depth in totalitarianism in which accusation (especially “reflection in the mirror“) and conflict (and related barbarism) would seem to have no point but of the completely artificial conveyance of image.

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FTAC: Turn Off, Tune Out, Drop Back In

20 Wednesday Dec 2017

Posted by in Also in Media, Asides, Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, Epistemology, FTAC - From The Awesome Conversation, Philology, Political Psychology, Psychology

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Shared inspiration:

Response:

More than “eyeballs” are involved in the stimulation of our defenses and imagination: there are tens upon tens of thousands of jobs created to deal with threat as fielded by various industries, and there are governments for which the installation of fear produces political power. Putin, for example, ran a false-flag operation to gain election and then had Russian troops unofficially run amok in Chechnya to strengthen the rebel opposition. He knew how to produce and use war, and there’s great suffering for that today along the spine of Moscow’s favored relationships and colonial or chaos-inducing ambitions.  I suppose for the west, we now have a super counterterrorism industry, much needed, but one also begging the question, “How broad, how large, how institutionalized?”

That’s life.

Rob Dial offers an interesting view of the media-saturated mind.

Indeed, some of us used to do other and more pleasant things than share in the watching of the world’s great issues and tragedies for days, weeks, months, and years on end.

My own answer to that: try to get into retreat! 🙂

And narrow the scope of personal mission dimensions and project: “Tune Out; Turn Off: Drop Back In!”

That today is Counterculture!

In-Line Reference Added

Putin ran a false-flag operation to gain election and then had Russian troops unofficially run amok in Chechnya to strengthen the rebel opposition.

Back Story Reference on a Facet of the Real Counterculture of the 1960s: “Turn On, Tune In, and Drop Out.”

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turn_on,_tune_in,_drop_out

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turn_On,Tune_In,_Drop_Out(album).

Timothy Leary speaking the message (short documentary video).

Visual interpretation of Timothy Leary’s 1967 album, “Turn on, Tune in, Drop out”.

Leary, Timothy.  Turn On, Tune In, Drop Out.  Via Amazon, USA.

The 18- to 21-year-olds of 1967 would today be 68 to 71 in age, and, oh my, how the once “hippy” world of “recreational drugs” has morphed into the world’s most lucrative scourge — and it’s not the “high”(ness) that makes it so, but in relation the lives thrown into associated industrial control — from manufacture to shipping to sales, related industrial-scale warfare across every continent, and that’s on one side, for on the other comes the policing, and that too would seem a rough business —  and for the end-users, often enough wrecked lives — careers, jobs, homes, ordinary relationships — habituated and racked health, and, also and still, accidental death.

Related affected and infected states and larger regions have stories too in relation to their own “monkey” — there’s another phrase signaled by that metonym — and their own yards and backyards, but BackChannels will here reserve comment on that.

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FTAC: Palestinian Captivity: Thank Moscow for the PLO

19 Tuesday Dec 2017

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

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It’s Russia that has used its power to keep the Palestinian leaders in loot and the Palestinian main base bereft. If the phrase “free will and determination” of Palestinians is to have any meaning at all, then the same must displace the kind of power (and repressive political methods) represented by both the PLO and Hamas. Otherwise, the population hasn’t any free will — only camps and containers to keep them suspended and held powerless by their own interlocutors.

BackChannels has practically produced a constructive module on this topic:

https://conflict-backchannels.com/2016/10/03/palestinian-kgb/
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https://conflict-backchannels.com/2016/09/23/ftac-these-too-are-palestinians/
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https://conflict-backchannels.com/2016/03/08/bds-cult-modules/
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https://conflict-backchannels.com/2015/10/12/ftac-tip-to-the-kgbs-amplification-of-middle-eastern-anti-semitism/
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https://conflict-backchannels.com/2016/12/27/excerpt-1920s-the-spread-of-hate-russia-germany-laqueur/
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https://conflict-backchannels.com/2017/07/29/ftac-antidote-to-what-poisoned-the-palestinians/
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https://conflict-backchannels.com/category/anti-semitism/

 

It wold take multiple acts of willful ignorance to deny what the Soviet Union did in its day to contribute to the political abuse, channeling, and repression of what have become today’s Palestinians locked into camps, patronized (if part of what the Soviet picked up in relationships after the Nazis were defeated) or preserved to act as “human shields” in wars provoked by leaders who happily steal funds intended for their development and welfare.

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

23 Monday Oct 2017

Posted by in 21st Century Feudal, A Little Wisdom, Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, Journalism, Philology, Political Psychology

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https://www.cjr.org/
http://ethics.npr.org/
http://handbook.reuters.com/index.php?title=Integrity
https://www.poynter.org/
https://www.publicintegrity.org/
https://www.spj.org/ethicscode.asp
http://www.timewarner.com/company/corporate-responsibility/telling-the-worlds-stories/journalistic-integrity

https://www.britannica.com/topic/agitprop
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Active_measures

Fake News Psychology

Accusation in a Mirror

Paranoid Delusional Narcissistic Reflection of Motivation

About State Controlled Press

https://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.php?ModuleId=10007655
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-17840134

For referencing other web content so often and so much, BackChannels has practically stopped expressing its own logic and sensibility.  Therefore and herewith a few observations related to the now infamous and nationally degrading accusations aimed at the world’s — not only America’s — major high-integrity media (even the famed “Gray Lady” has been the target of somebody’s half-packed mud balls).

First, choose your own preferred mode in contemporary governance:

Feudal Political Absolutism

Modern Checked and Democratic Distribution of Power

That should be easy, but if you’re up to your chinny chin chin in loot, corporate or illicit (or both), and have been the object of generous favor by some singular power, then weighing the options (starting with making a little to a lot less money) may be more difficult.

Let’s move on.

Dictatorship should be oh so 20th Century by now.  If a citizen of the old EU / NATO experience, you have seen it, defeated it — Franco, Hitler, Mussolini, Stalin et al. — lived through it, or at least heard about it and thought as much gone with the Cold War and done, finished, and dead in the west.  If respectful of the American flag and those of others aligned with it in spirit, then perhaps you have been also respectful of the war dead whose sacrifice has enabled this very freedom to read and write with earnest and responsible intent.

In short, you may know and love freedom of speech — “Press Freedom” — as intended and practiced and appreciated.

And yet here I / you / we are confronted by an “information space” packed with the must vulgar of accusations: those institutions wholly devoted to reason and truth, so much has been inferred, have reverted to malicious invention.

It ain’t so, Joe.

Something has been sabotaged, gone wrong, thrown off course in relation to common confidence in America’s political discourse and news, but is that to be blamed on the many communities of best educated editors and writers and remarkably informed, sharp, and thoughtful readers?

An American homily may apply: “He who points the finger should point it back at himself.”

Additional Reference

Klein, Linda A.  “A free press is necessary for a strong democracy.”  ABA Journal, May 2017.

Pomerantsev, Peter.  Nothing is True and Everything is Possible: The Surreal Heart of the New Russia.  New York: Public Affairs, 2014.

Addendum – November 13, 2018

 

Posted to YouTube August 9, 2018.

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